by Ivan Klíma
At least he had persuaded Dr Wagner to undertake Petr’s defence. He based his case on the fact that Petr was not a normal dealer who sells for personal gain but was a dreamer who was incapable of distinguishing between reality and his own fantasy. He assured Daniel that he would manage to get Petr a ‘first paragraph’, in other words, a fairly short sentence, although probation would be out of the question because of the previous offence.
Petr’s examination began. Petr admitted that he felt guilty about selling drugs on several occasions to random customers, but he had never sold them to ‘beginners’.
How could he tell, maintaining as he did that he did not know the people who bought from him?
‘You can just tell, can’t you?’
‘So you have plenty of experience in this field!’
‘Even if I have, I didn’t get it through dealing.’
‘So how did you get it?’
‘On my own or from friends.’
‘Have you been using drugs for a long time?’
Dr Wagner objected that drugs use wasn’t part of the charge.
The judge considered that it helped none the less to give a fuller picture of the defendant’s character.
Petr declared that he could not remember. He just knew that when he was in a bad way, drugs helped him to survive.
‘Why were you in a bad way?’
‘I didn’t have a dad and my stepfather hated my guts. He used to beat me and Mum. So I ran away and lived as best I could.’
‘In a gang?’
‘I had pals who would let me sleep in their pads.’
‘What did you live on?’
Petr could not recall. Then he said: ‘But I never stole.’
‘Or you didn’t happen to get caught,’ the judge commented. ‘Did you know how to make the drug yourself?’
‘Manufacture it, you mean?’
Dr Wagner objected once more.
‘I never tried,’ Petr said.
‘How old were you at the time?’
‘It depends. When I first ran away I was thirteen.’
‘Did you first use a drug at that time?’
Petr could not remember.
‘Surely you can recall something as important as that in your life?’
‘I don’t know whether it was then, but it was fairly early on. Everyone was popping it then.’
‘Who was everyone?’
‘My pals.’
‘The members of your gang! Do you still mix with them?’
‘No.’
‘So who were you mixing with when they arrested you?’
‘I’d found new friends and acquaintances.’
‘Where?’
‘At the place I was working, and in the church.’
‘I assume that they didn’t incite you to crime.’
‘No, on the contrary.’
‘Did they know about it?’
‘No, definitely not!’
‘And what would they say about it?’
Petr said they would definitely try to talk him out of it.
‘So you deny selling drugs to minors?’
Petr said he had never sold anything to beginners.
‘We’ll see what the witnesses have to say. You have testified that you did not know the person who supplied you with the drug, is that not so?’
Petr repeated that he did not know the person.
‘Doesn’t that strike you as rather implausible?’
‘In that trade it’s best not to know anyone by name,’ Petr explained.
‘You weren’t interested where he got it from or when you were to come for a new supply?’
‘We’d reach an agreement.’
‘What did you call him?’
‘We didn’t use names.’
‘Did he know yours?’
‘No.’
‘And you’d never met him before – on some trip, I mean?’
‘No.’
‘Did you know any other dealers who got supplies from him?’
‘No.’
‘When you were interviewed,’ the judge said, ‘you stated that you wanted to get money to publish a magazine. What kind of magazine was it supposed to be?’
‘I wanted people to understand the importance of the Holy Spirit for their lives.’
The judge was taken aback by the answer and said nothing for some moments. Daniel was gripped by an almost suffocating sense of shame. That lad was misusing terms that would be better left unsaid. People should avoid words whose meaning was still a mystery to them. But who respected that principle? We live in a world of empty words. He glanced at Eva once more. She had reacted differently to Petr’s statement: there were tears in her eyes.
Then the judge dictated Petr’s reply word for word. The sound of the clattering of a typewriter and Eva’s sobbing.
At last the judge asked: ‘And didn’t it seem odd to you to obtain money for that purpose by means that were diametrically opposed to your objectives?’
‘I didn’t know of any other way.’
‘But you had a job of work, hadn’t you? Except that you left it.’
‘Because you can’t make money by working.’
‘That’s rather a bold statement.’
‘I couldn’t have saved a single crown from my pay.’
‘And didn’t it occur to you that there were other ways of obtaining money?’
‘What other ways, your Honour?’
‘Some church or other might have given you a contribution for such a purpose.’
‘No, your Honour. They wouldn’t have given it to me.’
‘Did you publish at least one issue of the magazine?’
‘No.’
‘In other words, the magazine existed only in your imagination.’
‘I really wanted to do it. I wanted people to lead better lives. I wanted them to know that only through the Holy Spirit, not through any of our deeds, can we be saved.’
The judge said that Petr wasn’t here on account of his magazine, and never would be. He was here for quite a different offence. If he had genuinely wanted to obtain funds for a useful purpose, then in his view it was most regrettable as he had only harmed the thing he sought to benefit. Finally, he asked if he was sorry for his actions.
Petr said he was sorry he had been unable to start doing what he had wanted to do.
‘I am asking you,’ the judge said, ‘whether you are sorry for the crime you have committed?’
Petr said nothing. Then he glanced quickly at the place where Eva was sitting.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m sorry most of all that I deceived the people who believed in me.’
8
Letters
Dear Reverend Vedra,
I ought to have written to you ages ago, but I was shy and I didn’t want to take up your time either. Most of all I want to thank you for Barcelona. I think it has to be the most wonderful experience of my life, not just because we saw so many wonderful things such as paintings, houses, parks and even that old Roman fort, for instance, but most of all because I was there with Mum. We’d never been on our own like that before, except for when I was in first class at the primary school. And thanks to you my allergy has disappeared. The sunshine and the sea air sent it packing.
I thought to myself that you really must be very fond of Mum to have done something for her and for me that neither my Dad nor my stepfather would do. I’d like to repay you in some way but I don’t know how or what I could do for you. Some time in the future perhaps. One possibility is that I enjoy fiddling around with tape recorders and suchlike machines. If anything went wrong with something of yours, even the computer, I could have a go at repairing it (no guarantee though).
There was something else I wanted to tell you. Ever since Mum first met you she’s been totally different. She doesn’t get the blues any more and she is actually glad to be alive. So I’d like to thank you for that too and hope that you are happier, because Mum is the best thing ali
ve. I know it sounds daft coming from her son, but it’s a fact.
Best wishes and thanks again,
Saša
Dear Bára,
I hoped we’d see each other as soon as you got back, but something happened that has taken maybe not all my time but certainly all my energy. Or rather, it rudely awoke me from the state of rapture I had been in. I told myself I wasn’t going to burden you with my troubles, you have enough of your own. But I can’t keep to myself something that has deeply affected my life. So: Eva’s expecting a baby. And what’s more, with Petr, one of those two lads I’d promised to take care of when they were still in prison. Petr is back inside again (he’s just been given another two years) for drug dealing.
I always regarded myself as liberal-minded. Far more so than my vocation permitted, in fact. I understand young people making love before they get married, but her choice frightens me because it will probably burden her for the rest of her life, and I feel guilty for having influenced that choice, by my exaggerated belief in people’s capacity to reform themselves and by the sympathy I’ve shown, both of which have influenced Eva. I also feel guilty about neglecting her over these recent years. First of all because I became so enthused about the freedom I now had to pursue my vocation. I gave generously of my time and energy wherever I went, but left almost nothing for my home. And then, as you know yourself, my life became centred on my love for you and I let Eva out of my thoughts just at the moment when she needed me, just when I could and should have been at hand. And she had no one else but me.
I don’t know whether it is still possible for me to make amends in some way. I feel as if I have betrayed everything and everyone, that I have hurt the people I loved and still love. You too, in other words. No harm was intended, it was more a matter of weakness. The trouble is it is deeds not intentions that count in life. The same applies to love which I’ve preached about so often and which I declared to you.
Love Dan
My dearest, my one and only love,
It’s ages since you last got in touch with me. I called you twice, but your wife always picked up the phone. Yesterday I wanted to run to you, to find you and place myself under the protection of your love and your strength. It wasn’t from some whim but from desperation. Sam has gone mad and I mean that seriously: he has gone mad and wanted to kill me, to shoot me like quail, like a little Bosnian girl caught in a sniper’s sights. I don’t know why he didn’t in the end, the pistol was loaded. He has gone mad and he is crazy enough to do anything.
My darling, you of all people know that even though I found you and love you, I haven’t abandoned him. I’ve taken care of him a thousand times more than I have you, I’ve respected his sense of order. I wanted to preserve the home on account of Ales, but for Sam too, because I once loved him. I was sorry for him when I saw how his powers were declining and his manliness was going. Yes, I was sorry for him and not for myself and I tried hard to satisfy his whims, all his selfish requests, anything to stop him lapsing into those depressions of his.
But now he’s gone completely round the bend. He thinks I’m the reincarnation of some murderess that murdered her husbands and children in England about a hundred and fifty years ago. It looks as if he really believes that I want to poison him too – he can think that about me, who has sat by his bedside when he was ill and held his hand so he shouldn’t feel alone in his illness.
Darling, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, what I’m to do with him and with myself, what I’m to do with his life and mine. If I didn’t have you, I wouldn’t want to live any more, I might even have begged him to pull the trigger when he had me in his sights. You are my salvation, the only person I have left, not counting my mother who is already old and my children who are in no position to help, apart from giving me another reason to live.
Can it be possible that I really am so terrible and that my husband is so desperate on account of me that it has unhinged his mind? Tell me truthfully, do you really think I’m impossible to live with?
I feel sad because I miss you. I feel sad because of me, and life and my husband who sits locked in his room and is probably even more desolate than me, because he doesn’t have you, he just has his ailments and a pistol, that he can use to shoot himself or me, depending on his mood.
I know that everything has to end one day, but don’t forsake me yet, don’t forsake me now, my darling.
Your sad and loving Bára
Prague, 20 March 1995
Dear Brother Vedra,
The board of Diakonia has discussed your proposal for setting up a centre connected to your congregation.
The Diakonia organization is a great gift from Our Lord and gives us an opportunity to make our church, our principles and our work more visible.
Even though the work of the Diakonia receives a partial subsidy from the state we are always fighting to make ends meet, among other reasons because the wealthier churches in the democratic countries which generously supported our activity after the revolution have now found recipients in other parts of the world, those who have greater need of their gifts than we do. The board therefore particularly values your commitment to finance part of the costs of converting rooms for diaconal activity and for the purchase of necessary equipment from your own private funds. This is a further reason why we chiefly leave it up to you whom you wish to employ in the centre and what area of handicap you wish to focus on. For your information, however, we would like to tell you that the greatest need at the moment is for the care of young paraplegics and people with a hearing disability.
We all have a high regard for your work and regard your decision as further evidence of the goodness of your heart and the intensity of your faith, that you so readily confirm in your actions.
May the Lord assist you in your work.
On behalf of the Board.
Bárta
Dear Daddy,
I’ve decided to write to you, because when I speak, the right words never come to me quickly enough and I am no match for your eloquence.
I know you wanted me to become a pianist and perform for people because you consider music to be the first step towards a better and more spiritual life. And apart from that you hoped I’d continue what Mum scarcely had time to begin.
Dad, there have been times when I also wished very much for all that on account of you, on account of Mum’s memory, and also on account of myself. The trouble is that I, unlike you, lack the will. I’m unable to do the real groundwork in order to achieve what I want. Or I only manage it sometimes. Then there are other moments when everything seems pointless to me. I just feel like lying about, looking up at the sky, or not looking anywhere at all. But I did show a bit of willpower though: when I gave up speed in time. You won’t want to believe this, but it was Petr who helped me with that most of all. He explained to me the horrible situation I would be rushing into. He also helped me with his love. Or rather it was not so much his love as my love for him. And that’s something you taught me, after all, that love is the most important thing in life. That to believe in Jesus means taking the path of love, compassion and sacrifice. That’s the way you have lived, after all, and so has Mum – by whom I mean Hana.
I know you’re cross with me, as if I’ve betrayed something, and you refuse to accept that Petr and I could live in love. But I can’t abandon him just because he’s slipped up.
I thought you might have understanding for me in this, or that at least you wouldn’t condemn me.
Something else I wanted to write to you about is the feeling I have that things have changed at home somehow. It started some time ago when we had so little time for each other, but now it’s as if we’re almost strangers. Since when? Could it be since the time you sold that house? We live differently. You’d say we think less about the spirit and more about material things.
But maybe it’s not to do with that house, or any of you. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe the fact I’m dissatisfied with myself gets projected on to you.<
br />
Daddy, the only thing I feel I could be a little bit pleased with myself over is precisely the fact that I didn’t abandon Petr when he needed me. And after all I haven’t abandoned the piano either. As soon as the baby is born and gets a bit bigger, I’ll go back to playing again, God willing.
Please understand me and don’t condemn me. I believe that Our Lord won’t condemn me for the decision I’ve taken.
Forgive me for this letter too.
Love, Eva
Dear Dan,
I’ve received your letter about Eva. I can understand you’re unhappy about what has happened, but now that something like that has happened, perhaps some good can come of it. That would be my view, anyway, because you can’t see inside other people and what looks like a misfortune to one person can look like good fortune to another. Don’t think these are just empty words, in my own experience that’s the way things are generally.
I also read into your letter that you blame yourself for neglecting your daughter because of me as well, and that you’re wondering whether you oughtn’t to expel me from your life as soon as possible.
My darling, I can assure you that I will never be a burden for you. You’re important to me only as a loving person not as a self-constraining one.
If you feel that our love is in some way an obstacle in your life and prevents you from fulfilling what you see as your duties, you just need to say: go away! And I’ll disappear from your life and you won’t hear of me again.
Your loving and understanding Bára
Dear Dan,
Marie and I have discussed what we spoke about in Zlin. If you really need someone to stand in for you, and providing you obtain the agreement of the Elders, Marie could take it on. (Our children are already big enough to do without her fussing over them.) So come to some agreement with Marie about how long you’d need her assistance, and whether it’s only to be assistance or if you want to divest yourself of all responsibilities. I think that Marie would prefer the former. After all, it’s ten years since she worked with a congregation and she is afraid that by now she might not cope with it all.
