Immortality

by Milan Kundera

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  Just A few hours ago Professor Avenarius was lecturing me on the importance of slashing tires following a strict sequence: first car, right front; second car, left front; third, right rear; fourth, all four wheels. But that was only a theory with which he hoped to impress the audience of ecologists or his too trusting friend. In reality, he proceeded without any system whatsoever. He ran down the street, and whenever he felt like it he pulled out his knife and stuck it in the nearest tire. In the restaurant, he explained to me that after each attack it was necessary to stick the knife back under one's jacket, to slip it into its sheath and then keep running with one's hands free. For one thing, it was easier to run that way, and then also there were reasons of safety: it isn't wise to risk somebody seeing you with a knife in your hand. The act of slashing must be short and sharp, never lasting more than a few

  seconds.

  Unfortunately, dogmatic as Avenarius was in his theories, in practice he behaved quite carelessly, without method, and was dangerously inclined to take the easy way out. He had just slashed two tires on a car in an empty street, then he straightened himself up and started to run, still holding the knife in his hand contrary to all his rules of safety. The next car he was aiming for was parked at the corner. He stretched out his arm while still four or five steps away (another rule broken: too soon!), and at that instant he heard a shout on his right. A woman was staring at him, petrified with horror. She must have turned the corner just as Avenarius's attention was concentrated on the intended target at the curb. They stood stock-still, facing each other, and because he, too, was frozen with fear, his arm remained rigidly raised. The woman

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  couldn't take her eyes off the outstretched knife and again cried out. Only then did Avenarius come to his senses and slip the knife under his jacket. To calm the woman, he smiled at her and asked, "What time is it?"

  As if that question terrified the woman even more than the knife, she uttered a third piercing cry.

  At that moment some late-night walkers were crossing the street, and Avenarius made a fatal mistake. If he had taken out his knife once again and begun to wave it furiously, the woman would have recovered from her paralysis and fled, inducing any accidental passersby to do the same. But he decided to act as if nothing had happened and repeated in a friendly voice, "Can you tell me the time?"

  When she saw that people were approaching and that Avenarius meant her no harm, she uttered a fourth terrible cry and complained in a loud voice to everyone within earshot, "He threatened me with a knife! He wanted to rape me!"

  With a gesture of complete innocence, Avenarius opened his arms wide: "All I wanted from her," he said, "was the right time."

  A short man in uniform, a policeman, stepped out from the small crowd that had formed around Avenarius. He asked what was going < >n. The woman repeated that Avenarius had wanted to rape her.

  The short policeman timidly approached Avenarius, who pulled himself up to his full majestic height, raised his arm, and said in a |x)werful voice, "I am Professor Avenarius !"

  Those words, and the dignified manner in which they were delivered, made a big impression upon the policeman; he seemed ready to ask the crowd to disperse and to let Avenarius go his way.

  But the woman, now that she had lost her fear, became aggressive: "You may be Professor Capillarius, for all I care!" she shouted. "You still threatened me with a knife!"

  A man emerged from the door of a house a few yards away. He walked in a peculiar manner, like a sleepwalker, and he stopped just as Avenarius was explaining in a firm voice, "I've done nothing except ask that woman for the time."

  The woman, sensing that Avenarius was gaining the sympathy of the

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  bystanders with his dignity, shouted at the policeman, "He has a knife under his jacket! He hid it under his jacket! An enormous knife! Search him and you'll see!"

  The policeman shrugged and said to Avenarius, in a manner that was almost apologetic, "Would you kindly open your jacket?"

  For a moment, Avenarius stood motionless. Then he realized that he had no choice but to obey. He slowly unbuttoned his jacket and then opened it wide, so that everyone could see the clever system of straps around his chest as well as the terrible kitchen knife that was attached to it.

  The circle of people gasped in amazement, while the sleepwalker stepped up to Avenarius and said to him, "I am a lawyer. If you need help, here is my card. I just want to tell you one thing. You are nor required to answer any questions. You can demand the presence of a lawyer right from the start."

  Avenarius accepted the card and put it in his pocket. The policeman took him by the arm and turned to the bystanders: "Go on! Move along!"

  Avenarius did not resist. He realized that he was under arrest. After everyone saw the huge kitchen knife hanging at his belly, he no longer found the slightest sympathy among the crowd. He turned toward the man who had introduced himself as a lawyer and given him his card. But that man was already leaving without looking back: he walked toward one of the parked cars and slipped the key into the door. Avenarius had time to glimpse the man stepping away from the car and then kneeling down by one of the wheels.

  At that moment the policeman grabbed his arm and led him away.

  The man by the parked car let out a great sigh—"Oh my God!"— and began to cry so hard that his body shook with tears.

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  Weeping, he ran upstairs to his apartment and immediately rushed to the phone. He tried to call for a taxi. He heard an unusually sweet voice saying into the receiver, "Paris Taxi. Please be patient, someone will be with you shortly..." Then he heard music, a chorus of female voices and heavy drumming; after a long interval the music was interrupted by the same sweet voice asking him to stay on the line. He felt like shouting that he had no patience because his wife was dying, but he knew there was no point in shouting, because the voice speaking to him was taped and nobody would hear his protest. Then the music came back, the chorus of voices, the shouting and drumming, and after a while he heard a female voice that was real, as he could tell from the fact that this voice was not sweet but unpleasant and impatient. When he said that he needed a taxi to take him a few hundred miles from Paris, the voice immediately cut him off, and when he continued to explain that he desperately needed the taxi, music once again sounded in his ear, drumming, the female chorus, and then after a long interval the taped voice asking him to be patient and stay on the line.

  He hung up and dialed the number of his assistant. But instead of the assistant, he heard at the other end the assistant's voice coming from an answering machine: a playful, teasing voice, distorted by a smile: "I am glad that you finally remembered me. You have no idea how sorry I am that I cannot speak to you, but if you leave your number I will gladly tall you as soon as I am able ..."

  "You idiot," he said, and hung up.

  Why on earth isn't Brigitte at home? She should have been home long ago, he told himself for the hundredth time, and went to look in

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  her room, even though it was out of the question that she could have come in without his hearing her.

  Who else could he turn to? Laura? She would certainly be happy to lend him her car, but she would insist on going along with him, and he couldn't possibly agree to that: Agnes had broken with her sister, and Paul didn't want to do anything against her wishes.

  Then he thought of Bernard. The reasons he had stopped seeing him suddenly seemed ridiculously petty. He dialed his number. Bernard was in. Paul asked him to get his car out; Agnes had crashed into a ditch; the hospital had just called him.

  "I'll be right over," Bernard said, and Paul felt a sudden surge of great love for his old friend. He longed to embrace him and to cry on his breast.

  Now he was glad that Brigitte was not at home. Suddenly everything vanished, his sister-in-law, his daught
er, the whole world, nothing remained but he and Agnes; he didn't want any third person to be with them. He was certain that Agnes was dying. If her condition were not critical, they wouldn't have called him in the middle of the night from a provincial hospital. Now he thought of nothing else except reaching her while she was still alive. To be able to kiss her one more time. He was possessed by the longing to kiss her. He was longing for a kiss, a last, final kiss with which he might catch her face, as in a skein, before it vanished and left him with merely a memory.

  Now he had no choice but to wait. He started to tidy his messy writing table and was startled to realize that at a moment like this he was able to devote himself to such meaningless activity. What did he care whether the table was messy or not? And why had he handed out his card just now to a complete stranger? But he was not able to stop himself: he pushed all the books to one side of the table, crumpled up envelopes from old letters and threw them in the wastepaper basket. He realized that this is just the way a person acts when disaster strikes: like a sleepwalker. The inertia of the everyday keeps him on the rails of life.

  He glanced at his watch. Because of the slashed tires he had already lost at least half an hour. Hurry, hurry, he was silently saying to

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  Hcrnard, don't let Brigitte find me here, let me go to Agnes alone and let me arrive in time.

  But luck was against him. Brigitte returned home shortly before Bernard arrived. The former friends embraced each other, Bernard went back home, and Paul and Brigitte got into Brigitte's car. He took the wheel and drove, as fast as he possibly could.

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  Agnes saw the upright figure of a girl in front of her, a figure sharply lit up by the car's headlights, her arms stretched out as if she were dancing, and it was as if a ballerina were pulling the curtain across at the end of a show, for after that there would be nothing and nothing would remain of the preceding performance, forgotten in an instant, nothing but that final image. Then there was only fatigue, a fatigue so deep that it resembled a deep well, so deep that the nurses and doctors thought she had lost consciousness, although she was still conscious and surprisingly aware that she was dying. She was even capable of a certain sense of surprise that she felt no sadness, no sorrow, no horror, none of those things she had until then connected with the idea of death.

  Then she saw the nurse bend over her and heard her whisper, "Your husband is on his way. He's coming to see you. Your husband."

  Agnes smiled. Why did she smile? Something occurred to her from the performance that she had forgotten: yes, she was married. And then the name emerged, too: Paul! Yes, Paul. Paul. Paul. It was the smile of a sudden encounter with a lost word. It was like being shown a teddy bear you haven't seen for fifty years and recognizing him.

  Paul, she told herself silently, and smiled. And that smile remained on her lips, even though she again forgot the cause of it. She was tired, and everything tired her. Above all, she didn't have the strength to bear any kind of glance. Her eyes were closed so that she wouldn't sec anyone or anything. Everything happening around her bothered and disturbed her, and she yearned for nothing to happen.

  Then she remembered once again: Paul. What was it the nurse had said to her? That he was coming? Her recollection of the forgotten

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  performance that had been her life suddenly became clearer. Paul. Paul was coming! At that moment she wished intensely and passionately that he would not see her anymore. She was tired, she didn't want anyone looking at her. She didn't want Paul looking at her. She didn't want him to see her dying. She had to hurry with her dying.

  For the last time the basic pattern of her life was repeated: she was running and someone was chasing her. Paul was chasing her. And she had nothing in her hands; neither brush, nor comb, nor ribbon. She was disarmed. She was naked, dressed only in some sort of white hospital gown. She found herself on the last lap, where nothing could help her anymore, where she could only rely on the speed with which she ran. Who would be faster? Paul or she? Her dying or his arrival? The fatigue grew deeper and she had the feeling that she was rapidly moving away, as if someone were pulling her bed backward. She opened her eyes and saw the nurse in a white coat. What was her face like? She couldn't make it out. And then the words came to her: "No, they don't have faces there."

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  When he and Brigitte approached the bed, Paul saw the body covered with a sheet from head to toe. A woman in a white coat told them, "She died fifteen minutes ago."

  The shortness of the time that separated him from the last moment that she had still been alive exacerbated his despair. He had missed her by fifteen minutes. By fifteen minutes he had missed fulfilling his life, which had now suddenly been interrupted, senselessly severed. It seemed to him that during all those years they had lived together, she had never really been his, he had never really possessed her; and that for the completion, the culmination of their love's story he lacked a final kiss; a final kiss to capture her still living in his mouth, to hold her in his mouth.

  The woman in the white coat pulled aside the sheet. He saw the intimately familiar face, pale, beautiful, and yet completely different: her lips, though as gentle as ever, formed a line he had never known. Her face had an expression he didn't understand. He was incapable of bending over her and kissing her.

  Next to him, Brigitte started crying, placed her head on his chest, and shook with tears.

  He looked once again at Agnes: that peculiar smile he had never seen on her face, that unknown smile in a face with closed eyelids wasn't meant for him, it was meant for someone he did not know, and it said something he did not understand.

  The woman in the white coat caught Paul firmly by the arm; he was on the verge of fainting.

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  PART SIX

  The dial

  I

  Soon after it's born, a baby starts to suck the mother's breast. After the mother weans it away from the breast, it sucks its thumb.

  Rubens once asked a woman, "Why are you letting your boy suck his thumb? He must be at least ten years old!" She became angry: "You want to forbid him from doing it? It prolongs his contact with the maternal breast! Do you want to traumatize him?"

  And so the child sucks his thumb until the age of thirteen, when he readily replaces it with a cigarette.

  Later on, when Rubens made love to the mother who had defended her offspring's right to thumbsucking, he put his own thumb on her lips during intercourse; she began to lick it, turning her head left and right. Her eyes were closed and she dreamed that two men were making love to her.

  That small incident was a significant moment for Rubens, for he had discovered a method for testing women: he put his thumb on their lips during intercourse and watched their reaction. Those who licked it were quite unmistakably drawn to collective pleasure. Those who remained indifferent to the thumb were hopelessly blind to perverse temptations.

  One of the women in whom the "thumb test" detected orgiastic tendencies was really fond of him. After lovemaking she took his thumb and clumsily kissed it, which meant: now I want your thumb to become a thumb again and I am happy that now, after all my fantasies, I am here with you, quite alone.

  Metamorphoses of the thumb. Or: the movement of hands across the dial of life.

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  The hands on the dial of a clock turn in a circle. The zodiac, as drawn by an astrologer, also resembles a dial. A horoscope is a dock Whether we believe in the predictions of astrology or not, a horoscope is a metaphor of life that conceals great wisdom.

  How does an astrologer draw your horoscope? He makes a circle, an image of the heavenly sphere, and divides it into twelve parts represent ing the individual signs: the ram, the bull, twins, and so on. Into this zodiac circle he then places symbols representing the sun, moon, and seven planets exactly where these stars stood at the moment of your birt
h. It is as if he took a clock dial regularly divided into twelve hours and added nine more numbers, irregularly distributed. Nine hands turn on the dial: they are the sun, moon, and planets as they move through the universe in the course of your life. Each planet-hand is constantly forming ever-new relationships with the planet-numbers, the fixed signs of your horoscope.

  The unrepeatable configuration of the stars at the moment of your birth forms the permanent theme of your life, its algebraic definition, the thumbprint of your personality; the stars immobilized on your horoscope form angles with respect to one another whose dimensions, expressed in degrees, have various meanings (negative, positive, neutral) : imagine that your amorous Venus is in conflict with your aggressive Mars; that the sun, representing your social personality, is strengthened by a conjunction with energetic, adventurous Uranus; that your sexuality symbolized by Luna is connected with dreamy Neptune; and so on. But in the course of their motion the hands of the moving stars will touch the fixed points of the horoscope and put into play (weaken, support, threaten) various elements of your life's theme.

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  And that's life: it does not resemble a picaresque novel in which from one chapter to the next the hero is continually being surprised by new events that have no common denominator. It resembles a composition that musicians call a theme with variations.

  Uranus strides across the sky relatively slowly. It takes seven years for it to traverse a single sign. Let's assume that today it is in a dramatic relation to the immovable sun of your horoscope (for example, at a ninety-degree angle): you are experiencing a difficult period; in twenty-one years this situation will repeat itself (Uranus will then make an angle of 180 degrees with your sun, which has an equally unfortunate significance), but the similarity will be deceptive, because by the tune your sun is attacked by Uranus, Saturn will be in such a harmonious relationship with your Venus that the storm will merely tiptoe past you. It is as if you had a new bout of the same disease, except that now you would find yourself in a fabulous hospital where instead of impatient nurses you would be cared for by angels.