The Ultimate Intimacy

by Ivan Klíma

  ‘I’ll ask my husband,’ Hana promises. ‘Perhaps we could give you something towards it.’

  ‘I couldn’t possibly ask you to do such a thing.’

  ‘Why not? People should help each other.’

  ‘You’re an angel, Matron.’

  Hana waves her hand as if to ward off his words.

  ‘No,’ Matouš says, ‘you’re completely different from other women.’

  ‘Different?’

  ‘Better.’

  Hana blushes, then says it is time she was going. So Matouš pays the bill and then before they part he repeats his invitation. Hana should come and see his collections. She says she’s not sure that her husband will have the time, but Matouš may visit them whenever he likes. She will be pleased to see him and looks forward to the poems. The manse is there for people to come to whenever they feel low in spirits.

  When Matouš gets home, he realizes that his stomach pain has gone. He makes himself another pot of tea and lies down fully dressed on the unmade bed. He makes up his mind to get rid of Klára once and for all, and when the pastor dies, he’ll marry his widow.

  5

  Daniel was to write an article on the theme of Advent. The Bethlehem story had excited him ever since his youth: the Son of God appearing as a needy, even persecuted, human being; God arriving from somewhere other than people expected and not arriving as a bolt of thunder, not descending from the heavens, but being born of a woman – helpless and defenceless, just as we all arrive in the world. By accepting our fate from beginning to end, God made known that He accepted us and loved us, receiving us exactly as He made us, i.e. as His children whose death would grieve him.

  Now Daniel sits at his computer and is incapable of finding within himself the requisite certainty of faith in God’s birth.

  Years ago, he had known a country doctor who had converted from Judaism to Catholicism. He was an outstanding doctor, a man who made a genuine effort to believe. The greatest problem for him was accepting the virgin birth. Perhaps his medical training proved an obstacle. One day he had come running to Daniel with an epic piece of news. He had just read in a specialized American journal that something of the sort was possible, that in one in a trillion cases self-induced conception could occur and a sort of human clone was produced. That would explain Mary’s immaculate conception. Except that, as he himself pointed out, it would entirely eliminate Jesus’s divine origin and His identity as the Son of God would only be symbolic, as would His resurrection from the dead in that case. ‘Or am I mistaken, Reverend?’

  At the time, Daniel had told him that God’s actions were one single mystery and it made no sense to try to explain them by some scientific hypothesis or other. That was what he himself believed or strove to believe then. For him, faith had represented a path that led from inhuman conditions towards humanity: Jesus embodied the spirit at a time when matter was invoked on every hand and science was proclaimed as the all-powerful conqueror of truth. Jesus represented love that had to be defended, when hatred was proclaimed as the driving force of history. The language of Scripture had sounded like music amidst the cacophonous caterwauling of the political leaders’ speeches from every radio and television set. The hatred showered on Jesus’s teaching by those who embodied violence, hypocrisy and treason, and who despised the free or independent spirit, had seemed to confirm the truth of those who then stood by Him – persecuted and mocked as in the early days of Christianity. The world seemed divided between good and evil by a clear and straight boundary.

  The boundaries were now crumbling, both within people and outside them. The doubts that Daniel had thrust deep into his subconscious suddenly surfaced. The words that until recently he had solemnly proclaimed – aware of the greatness of the message they carried – now stuck in his throat.

  The event at Bethlehem had probably occurred quite differently from the way he had so far expounded it, and therefore its significance was also different. It was mankind who, in their age-old longing to escape the inevitability with which life always ended in death, and in the spirit of the ancient myths and archetypes, had thought up both a royal and a divine origin for the crucified Christ, and devised His birth and hence His divine nature which they then proceeded to debate in subsequent centuries.

  In the area in which Jesus lived, worked and was crucified, people had been sacrificing their king for thousands of years in the conviction that he would be resurrected. Before killing him, they used to hang him between heaven and earth. They then ate his body and drank his blood in order to achieve their own rebirth through his resurrection.

  Jesus, above whose cross was said to have been fixed the mocking label ‘King of the Jews’, died hanging between heaven and earth. His death was to open the gates to the Kingdom of Heaven, which he entered, reborn – or as we say, resurrected. To this very day we symbolically consume his body and blood in order to share in his resurrection.

  But anyone who lets such comparisons enter his thoughts risks being accused of one of the age-old or more recent heresies.

  How could God create the universe and time and transform Himself into a baby who then grew up and aged until one day, in totally human time, He allowed Himself to be executed by some imperial bureaucrat?

  On that occasion, he had not replied to Bára that God is capable of everything. Had he declined to give her that answer because he himself was in doubt, or because it was an answer that could be used to dispose of any question? Or was it perhaps because the order which had governed his life was beginning to crumble?

  As usual in the past weeks, his mind somehow strayed to that other woman, the woman who had appeared because the order in his life was beginning to crumble. Or had it started to crumble because she had appeared in his life?

  He got up and switched off the computer. He couldn’t concentrate anyway. From inside the flat came the strains of the piano. Eva was playing Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in G major.

  The idea that God who created the universe and time probably did not take upon Himself the form of a Jewish infant was an idea, Bára, defended from the very beginning of the church by the proponents of poor Christology. For them, Christ was simply a prophet, a mere human. And some of the first bishops were excommunicated from the church for those very same doubts about Jesus’as divinity. They were outvoted at the councils and thereby became eternal heretics. There were countless heretics: some did not accept Jesus ’s divinity, others did not recognize the Holy Spirit, the immaculate conception or the assumption of the mother of Jesus. Later there were those who rejected the sale of indulgences and demanded communion of both kinds at the Lord ’s Supper. At first, the church used to excommunicate them, later it tortured them and turned them over to the secular authorities to be burned alive.

  Perhaps it would have taken very little for the dogmas to be completely different, or for the Gospels to be different, for that matter. But the person who defended the present version happened to be more eloquent or had more supporters, and everything turned out the way it is accepted today. Even such transcendental issues as the essence of God or the resurrection were decided by vote.

  I have never voiced this opinion to anyone before, Bára. It would be difficult to hold it and go on working as a preacher. And it’s going to be difficult if I go on thinking the way I do and living the way I am now.

  So I don’t know how I’m going to live. No, I’m not thinking about supporting the family; in fact, I wouldn’t have to work at all any more, I could simply live from what I made on the sale of the house. It’s the meaning of my life that concerns me. What meaning will I give to my last few years on earth? Will I bring some work or project to completion or, on the contrary, abandon everything, cancel it, and stand in no man’s land; in other words, at the end of my days will I find myself back at the beginning? And with whom, my love? With you? With my family? Alone? At the end you always stand alone.

  That’s what Dad always used to say to me: Dan, in death You’re always left on your ow
n, whether you believe or not. And he saw lots of people die: during the war in that concentration camp and after the war in prison, and in fact for the entire remainder of his life – being present at death is part of a doctor’s job.

  Daniel flinched at the memory of his father. He had not finished the job of clearing his name. He had not found out anything; in fact he had stopped searching.

  He entered the room without Eva noticing him. He observed her mutely for a moment. His daughter, Jitka’s only child. She played faultlessly, her head slightly inclined, her thoughts in heaven.

  She called Hana ‘Mummy’, but she knew from her childhood that her real mother was not on earth but in heaven. When she started to learn the piano, she asked him if Mummy could hear her up there. ‘Of course she can hear you,’ he had assured her. Since then she had played to her. Once she said to him, ‘Mummy told me I played well.’ He had thought she was referring to Hana, but when he asked Hana she told him she hadn’t praised her. The praise had come from her mother in heaven.

  ‘How about us playing a duet?’ he now suggested.

  Eva gave a start. ‘That would be lovely. It’s ages since we played together.’

  He brought another stool and Eva made room for him.

  Music had always brought him relief. The awareness that whatever happened in life, there existed something that was so elevated and elevating above the mundane filled him with calm and gave him hope.

  He had still not been to a concert with Bára nor had the opportunity to play anything to her; he had only heard her sing, and could only sing with her during the service.

  ‘Did you know they called Bach the fifth evangelist?’

  ‘You told me that before, some time!’

  ‘Really? I’m starting to get old and repeat myself.’

  ‘Maybe you’re just absent-minded. you’ve got too many worries.’

  ‘What do you think I’m worried about?’

  ‘Me, for instance,’ said Eva. ‘But my piano teacher complimented me yesterday,’ she added quickly, ‘on my technique.’

  ‘I’m glad she complimented you.’ He suspected that he worried more about the fate of his eldest child than about the fate of her brother and sister. As if he felt accountable for her to her late mother. Or maybe he wanted Eva to achieve what her mother had not had time to achieve.

  ‘She wants me to practise at least three hours each day,’ Eva went on to inform him. ‘At least. Four hours would be better and five hours best of all. That’s pretty tough, don’t you think?’

  ‘It requires effort to learn anything. And to learn anything well requires even more effort. It’s just that in some fields it’s possible to cheat a bit. That’s not possible in music because it’s immediately noticeable.’

  When they finished playing he went downstairs to his workshop. He had a new carving half-completed there. He ought to finish it. And prepare that exhibition the gallery owner had asked him for.

  The wood was fragrant in spite of being dried out, just as it was in his grandfather’s long-defunct workshop. From the dead material familiar features emerged. Instead of a violin shape a woman’s face.

  Most of the time he managed to concentrate on this work, but otherwise he really was absent-minded and worried. About himself.

  In the corner of the room, there still lay the boxes of correspondence, just as he had brought them from his mother’s flat. He ought at least to take a look at them, sort out what he would keep and take the rest to the recycling depot. Maybe he would find among the correspondence some clue as to whether his father had really committed something dishonourable. He had probably not looked in the boxes out of a subconscious fear of what he might find there.

  He hesitated a moment and then brought out a box of his father’s letters. It was stuffed with large envelopes on each of which his mother had written a description: Pre-wedding. Letters from prison. From the camp. From the tart. He stared in amazement at the last inscription. He took the envelope and opened it. There were only a few sheets of paper inside and a card on which his mother had written: I found these letters in Richards desk at the hospital after his death.

  On the first sheet, written in large, neat – apparently female – handwriting, he read:

  Dear Ritchie,

  I couldn’t phone you my love so this is just a note to say that I’ll be all on my own for the next three days. Do you think you’ll be able to find some way of slipping away from your Mumsie? I know you can do it. You can do anything. At least for me who loves you the most. Looking forward to you, my little doenut. A lot…

  He skipped the remaining few lines; he oughtn’t even to have read the previous ones. You shouldn’t read what isn’t intended for you. Or rummage in letters full of bygone feelings, spelling mistakes and betrayals that we leave behind.

  He recalled his father’s funeral. Hundreds of people came to it; the room at the crematorium had been full. Most of them were women, some of whom were weeping. His father had been a gynaecologist and had no doubt saved the lives of many of them or restored them to health. Maybe they included his mistresses too. By now they would probably be old ladies, if they were still alive. Sixteen years had passed since that day.

  Even the serious crimes and real betrayals of the living were no longer prosecuted after that length of time.

  Even the lists had almost been forgotten now, although it was only three years since they had been published. Everything slipped into the past. More quickly nowadays than before, because the times were fast-moving and forgetting was one of the ways to escape going mad.

  My children don’t remember Dad any more, they know their grandad only from stories and nobody is likely to tell their children about him.

  So what is the point of investigating and trying to seek some sort of judgement?

  Judgement, he had always believed, was the Lord’s when He came again in glory – the Lord who taught love and forgiveness.

  But it was unlikely there would ever be any Last Judgement. It was just a fiction, just a longing for a higher justice which would redress all the wrongs and injustices committed on this earth; a fiction from the days of the first church when they were still awaiting Christ’s return in their lifetime. Christ had not returned; how many wrongs would have to be judged since those days?

  There was nothing more to be done with his father’s life. On the other hand, he ought to do something with his own.

  6

  Hana

  The hospital director summons all the senior nursing staff and announces to them that he already owes three months’ laundry payments. In all, it come to three-quarters of a million. Unless he is able to obtain credit from somewhere or to persuade the laundry to wait another month, they will be obliged to close down the hospital or do the laundry themselves. For the time being, he asks them to go easy on the linen and try to wash any slightly soiled items on site. He realizes this will mean extra work but he won’t be able to pay them for it; he’ll be happy if he can find the money to pay their salaries at the end of the month. ‘The insurance companies owe me over a million crowns,’ he says finally. Then he dismisses them and Hana returns to her ward where she reluctantly conveys the director’s request. Recently the worries at work have grown while her sense of satisfaction has waned.

  She makes herself a coffee, sits down at her small desk and tries to think of something pleasant.

  A few days ago she got a call from that journalist who had showered her with kind words. He complained a bit about his health; he had run out of tablets and he didn’t feel like going to the doctor for more. He didn’t feel like going out at all, in fact. He didn’t feel up to it even though at home his only companions were gawping Buddhas and a stuffed canary. Then he renewed his invitation to her to come and see his collection. She told him that it would not be proper for her to visit him – unless she were to bring him his medication, it occurred to her.

  Then she did pay him a visit. She was unsure why she decided to, and persuaded herself
that she was only doing it in order to deliver his medicine to him.

  And of course when he opened the door she told him that she wouldn’t be coming in, but then let herself be persuaded to sit down for a few moments.

  He made her tea – a truly fragrant and interesting tea. They drank it from almost translucent little cups and he talked non-stop the whole time. Hana realized, incredulously, that this fellow, who must have travelled the whole world over and had no doubt met distinguished personalities on many occasions, felt even shyer than she did just then.

  They drank tea and she was thinking that she ought to get up and go. At one moment, when he was showing her some Japanese engraving and moved up close to her, she was scared. What would she do if he tried to cuddle her, for instance?

  But he didn’t.

  He read her a few poems which didn’t mean a great deal to her. She merely sensed in them a sadness and a yearning to escape the daily routine into a better, unreal world, where love, purity of heart, friendship, calm and order reigned. But he didn’t lend her the book he had told her about. He had to read the poems through once more himself, he explained, before daring to lend them to her.

  Anyway, she stayed there longer than she ought to have done. But what was the harm in it? Daniel was often away from home until late at night. And she told him about her visit that very evening. Only she did not divulge to him that when the journalist looked at her she had felt an odd excitement, or more accurately a kind of satisfaction that the man felt disconcerted by her presence. Nor did she mention that he had asked her to address him informally, and she had not refused. She was used to informality with the members of the congregation. When at last she was leaving, she shook hands with him. His handshake was, as she had expected, soft and boyishly reticent. He asked her if she would come again some time and she replied: ‘Should you ever need tablets and were unable to come for them …’