by Ivan Klíma
She stood and took the glass and parting her lips slightly, drained its contents. She detested those final moments: a key on a heavy metal ring; leaving the bar with strangers’ eyes on her back. ‘Thank you,’ she said and smiled at the forester. ‘Maybe I’ll pay you back some time.’
Then she sat down again. So long as the bed doesn’t creak and the landlord doesn’t make any comments, and the boy doesn’t talk needlessly and it’s a bit nice at least. He came back from the counter and handed back her purse.
She opened it absentmindedly, and sorted through the change. Suddenly she realized: ‘Wasn’t there enough left for a room?’ It sounded almost triumphal.
‘I don’t know … I … I didn’t ask …’ Then she saw him blush and at that moment she too felt a pang of shame and pushed back her chair noisily.
They walked down the long street of darkened houses with dogs barking from the gardens as they passed. But there was a pure and comforting silence. God I’ve not done this before, it’s really crazy. Then there remained a path through the fields, the scent of acacia, and the only light came from the moon high above: unfamiliar and mysterious.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked. She stared at the rounded toes of her shoes and tried to make out how badly damaged they were. ‘Nowhere, I expect,’ she answered herself, ‘that’s the whole point …’
He probably didn’t notice the irony ‘Once when I was a boy I ran away from home,’ he began. ‘With a friend of mine. I didn’t know where I was going then either. We took sleeping bags and loads of tinned food …’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ she interrupted him impatiently. ‘You slept in the woods and the owls hooted but you weren’t scared. Then they caught you at the railway station at Český Krumlov. You didn’t even get a beating when you got home and so you fell in love. You were thirteen. She was a geography teacher. She dashed your hopes when you came upon her in the arms of the married PE teacher. So you wrote your first poem. Oh, God! If only you’d written a song, at least!’
‘What?’ he said, mystified.
‘A song,’ she repeated. ‘But no. All any of you wrote was poems.’
Perhaps she shouldn’t have said ‘any of you’; he would find that the most hurtful thing. Now he said no more and their journey was even more aimless. And the silence was oppressive.
At length he spoke up once more. ‘Why are you always like that? You never want to hear anything!’ And when she did not reply he asked her again, ‘What do you actually do?’
‘Stop it! Stop interrogating me!’ Then she said, ‘Film. In the archives if you must know.’
‘That must be interesting.’
‘Awfully!’
Before that she had worked in an accounts department and had never dreamed of anything like it: four films a day; Marlon Brando, Laurence Harvey, Alain Delon; all those kisses, those rendezvous on street corners, those ball gowns, those dinners, those bars and orchestras. The stars: Cybulski, Marilyn Monroe, May Britt. Unfinished stripteases and suggested rapes. War: all that horror and lucky encounters. Successful careers. Railwaymen, turners and miners looking for new relationships. Hooligans. Murder in a bathroom and murder on a deserted road. Many abandoned journeys. Twilight and dawn on deserted trails. Parks. Park benches. Children and pensioners and lovers in parks. Hide-and-seek in parks. Departing trains. Street lights at night. The world through a wet windowpane. The poetry of solitude. The poetry of rain. The poetry of great plains. The poetry of mountains. The poetry of discord. The poetry of war ruins. The poetry of sun between branches. The poetry of the first kiss that ends the film – or starts it. Everything. She knew everything.
The power of the sentence left unsaid. Of the gesture not made. The effectiveness of the hint. The provocativeness of undressing viewed from the rear and of brassieres discarded. Legs naked up to the thigh. Necks exposed. Down as far as the breasts. The provocativeness of concealed nakedness. Nakedness concealed by a blanket. Nakedness concealed by darkness. Concealed by a table. Nakedness behind a screen. Nakedness wrapped round by a towel. In an untied dressing gown.
She knew everything. She knew precisely why it was worth living. She knew precisely why it was not worth living.
‘I’m studying worms,’ he said, ‘and suchlike stupidities. I’m being examined on them tomorrow.’
They slowly climbed a long shallow incline. They didn’t stop until they reached the summit where there stood a low ramshackle chapel. A rugged limestone cliff fell away sharply below. In the valley was a river from which dark paths rose upward. The horizon was far away, several ranges of hills in the night.
‘Look!’ he pointed.
She was tired and her feet were hot and sore. I ought to take off my shoes, it occurred to her. Whatever possessed me to come here in my stilettos? Whatever possessed me to come at all, in order to stand here in the middle of the night on some unknown rock – she’d never believe it if someone else told her about it. ‘So what now?’ she said. ‘We can hardly stand here gawping for ever!’ He turned and gingerly grasped the church door’s rusty handle. A warm air drifted from within the chapel, full of the scent of flowers long wilted and burnt wax.
The corpse-like face of the Madonna stared at them from the altar and on the floor lay a threadbare rug.
‘What are we going to do here?’
‘Nothing,’ he said, ‘unless you fancy praying.’
She sat down wearily on the rug and leaned back against the low step beneath the altar. She drew her knees up beneath her chin and closed her eyes.
‘There’s a strange silence here,’ she whispered.
‘Well that suits you, doesn’t it?’
‘Yes.’ But the silence here was more ponderous than outside. This was a place of vast desolation.
‘Do you know how to pray?’ she whispered.
‘No.’
She didn’t know how to pray either. Back in the war her grandmother had taught her the Our Father and the Hail Mary and she herself had mumbled the words she’d learnt the moment the sirens started to wail and the flak to explode, but she had never prayed. She had been only three years old at the time and since then nobody had required her to pray, not even when she was ill or her parents’ marriage collapsed and her Dad left home. She had not asked for mercy or help or even revenge, nor had she asked for a blessing on her new father – by that time she was a big girl of ten. She had never prayed or asked for anything. Now it struck her that it must be an odd and marvellous feeling to have someone. Not to have someone to pray to as much as someone to turn to and confide in. It was a long time since she had had someone like that.
And what for anyway, she said to herself bitterly. It’s easy to fool yourself. Whether you believe in God or some guy or whatever, you always fool yourself in the end.
‘Say something!’ she said out loud. ‘Don’t just sit there like a mummy!’
‘I don’t feel like it!’ he snapped.
She felt the waxen face of the statue behind her, and the scent of the old flowers aroused her. He was standing somewhere behind her, or maybe beside her. All she could see was a bare wall and a tiny window that a strange dim light shone through. But she could hear his breathing. It irritated her. ‘Can you sing?’
‘A little.’
‘Sing something!’
‘I don’t know anything suitable.’
‘That doesn’t matter.’
‘I can hardly belt out hit songs here, can I?’
‘It makes no difference.’
‘You’re crazy,’ he said.
‘Well stop breathing, then!’
‘What?’
‘Go away!’ she yelled. ‘Or stop breathing!’
‘Okay,’ he replied.
And now she really couldn’t hear anything. As if he had suddenly disappeared or died and she was left alone here in this deserted spot, totally alone. She knew she lacked the strength to stand up and go out into the darkness, and even if she did stand up, and even if she did find the path, she would hav
e nowhere to go.
She felt a pang of anxiety. Come back and don’t be dead, she silently told him. Don’t die! Don’t go away! Don’t struggle! Stay with me! Take me away from here!
‘Sing something,’ she said quietly.
‘Okay.’
She still could not see him, but on the adjacent wall she could now make out his silhouette as he opened his mouth.
He sang very quietly. His voice was pleasant and the melody very simple: slightly soothing and slightly amusing. Soon she stopped being aware of it, even of the words, leaving only random pictures without any meaning: elephants with flags, damp roofs plaited out of football shirts, flocks of flying bears, palm birds, mouse-driven clocks; warm colours, pictures like flickering ink blots. She could still see the moving silhouette, but it was no longer leaning against the wall nearby but standing beneath a tall, white staircase: it belonged to her. She could stretch out her hand and say, Come to me, don’t go away, don’t struggle, stay with me – she could say it and knew he would understand it and stay with her.
So she said, Come with me! And they were running up an enormous staircase, with thousands of actors milling about, some waving flags, others just mournfully reciting, but they ignored them completely and climbed up and up.
‘Not so fast!’ they shouted after them. ‘The abyss looms before you! Don’t lose your heads, youngsters!’
‘Take no notice of any of them,’ she heard his voice. ‘Those old clowns, those fogies, those windbags, those car-driving TV heroes paid to recite anything at all.’
‘Let them witter away here,’ she said. ‘They’re quite amusing when they perform here.’
‘What can you see?’ he asked.
‘Everything,’ she said. ‘It’s a total blank but in it I can see everything I ever wanted to see.’
He had stopped singing. For a moment she was alarmed, but the silence was now cheerful and friendly and she was still standing on a thin strip of concrete beyond which lay everything and she could make out his dark silhouette in front of her. Don’t let him move, she wished, let everything stay the way it is, we’ll stay here together always. Let the morning never come, let this moment last for ever.
She was overcome with a drunken longing for laughter and held her breath; then she felt tears on her cheeks. I’m happy, she realized with amazement.
3
It was a silly song that they had made up during evenings at the student residence when they were feeling totally drained. It had thirty verses. I’ll sing her two of them, at most, just to show her how she wide of the mark she was about those poems and then I’ll kiss her. But he went on singing more and more verses, staring at her face: motionless and very beautiful. She was beautiful. He could lean down and kiss her, but at the same time she was too remote and indifferent, so he didn’t.
It’s because I know nothing about her, it struck him, and he didn’t take his eyes off her: he was accustomed to staring with concentration for hours on end, imprinting on his memory the shapes of beetles and plants, although he had never taken the trouble to memorize the appearance of a particular person – that tends to be obvious at first sight.
He had watched her from the first moment they were together. At the same time he had registered the journey, the houses, the night, the barking dogs and passing trains. He had also talked a great deal and thought about what he was doing and what he was going to do. But at this very moment he was not thinking about or even noticing anything else, just her and her stillness, and then beneath that stillness he saw with astonishment a slight tremor of hair and eyelashes and at last he saw tears well up and start to fall. And he felt compassion and sympathy; she must be experiencing something terribly painful. But he would do everything to make her happy! He touched her on the shoulder.
‘No!’ she blurted out. ‘Not here! Not now!’
‘Say something! Tell me something about yourself.’
‘Yes.’
‘You will?’
‘Yes,’ she said quietly, ‘but not now.’
He took her by the hand and they left the chapel. To the north-east the night was gradually receding.
They blundered down the stony path in silence. He helped her and waited. She was extremely tired. Her hair was mussed and there were shadows under her eyes. It would soon be morning and they had not even kissed yet. Just because she had to stay so stupidly silent all the time! Why? What was she waiting for? What was she still waiting for?
He turned to her. ‘I’m looking forward to hearing everything.’
She felt his impatience.
‘Shall we sit down here?’
‘Wait a bit.’
She was very tired and gripped by a peculiar feeling of regret. As if someone had woken her up abruptly from a vivid dream full of colour and powerful emotion. She could neither rouse herself nor go back.
The first cottages of some village emerged out of the darkness. Cocks were crowing like mad, the path grew lighter and the dust was slightly damp.
‘Well?’ he said.
‘Just wait a bit.’ Then she asked, ‘How will we get home?’
‘Do you have to go to work?’
She nodded.
‘There’ll be some long-distance drivers along soon,’ he said. ‘They’re bound to stop for you.’
But they were walking along a byroad and he knew that no long-distance drivers came this way. He was quite glad they didn’t. They had so little time left.
‘Come on, let’s sit down here!’
She shook her head. What shall I tell him? she thought wearily to herself. That time back then, when the first one took her by the hand … It was strange, it had been the very same gesture as his yesterday evening. It hadn’t been on a bench but in the empty natural-history study. She recalled the tall green cupboard full of stuffed birds, the toad in alcohol, the tarantulas, the very same gesture as his yesterday. It was strange how many important and involved experiences she had had since – rendezvous and car journeys, protestations, entreaties, threats, men’s tears, nights in parks and nights in strange flats, disappointments, hotel beds and separations – but this was something she recalled more clearly than all the rest, and she remembered that touch, how he had covered her hand with his, that lovely touch that was so tender and so long ago.
I’m awfully sentimental, she thought. It must be the lack of sleep.
She closed her eyes slightly and managed to clear her thoughts. Her entire life had collapsed. The feeling of that dream came back to her. She could see the dark outline of a forest below a sky that was turning blue – the charred wall of the city. She could see the faint reflections of the fire: now she was part of a column of marching soldiers that was once more approaching its destination.
Where are you leading me?
I’m leading you soldiers to the future. To a greater love. To a new and more valuable happiness!
No, she said, I don’t believe any more. I know I won’t be convinced. I’ll stay here.
In that case, said the one in front, you’ll be a little lost soldier. Little lost soldiers are worst off of all. They’re the ones that stumble around an empty field telling themselves they’ll conquer something on their own. You’ll suffer rain and loneliness and silence, you’ll get out of the habit of our regulations and excellent orders, and when the enemy finds you you’ll just gibber with fright and he’ll slaughter you and there’ll be no one there to close your eyes.
I’ll stay here with him, she said happily. I’m fond of him.
He suddenly stopped to listen. He was unable to conceal his annoyance. ‘Something’s coming!’
It was a heavy Tatra truck, with its load covered by a tarpaulin. The driver opened his swollen eyelids wide: ‘You’ve been out gallivanting late,’ he said. ‘I’ve never seen the like – four o’clock in the morning!’
He remained silent for a moment, looking first at her, then at him, then back at her.
‘Okay, climb aboard,’ he said eventually. ‘You’ll find a bit
of space somewhere among the barrels.’
He jumped on board. He could make out the brown oval barrels in the darkness. There was a smell of beer.
She had to take off her shoes and hand them to him. Then she tried to swing her leg over the high tail gate, but her skirt was too tight. He leaned over, gripped her under the armpits and hauled her up. For a moment he held her in his arms with her mouth very close to his.
A bundle of damp, grubby sacks lay by the side board. It was extremely cramped. They sat on the blankets, their elbows touching and their knees drawn up under their chins.
‘There you are, then,’ he said. ‘There you are.’
His face was right next to hers. She could see each of his features in the light that streamed through a hole in the tarpaulin. A boyish face. Quite smooth and unblemished.
He wants me to say I’m fond of him. And he wants to kiss me. I have to find some way of telling him I like him and for that reason don’t want to kiss him. Not now. Not now, at least. She knew she had to say something quickly so that he understood her. It was a matter of finding the words, ordinary words: I like you!
So you love me, he will say. Let’s go somewhere together, then. No! Some other way. She strained every muscle to find the words and they started to come to her, from a long way away: two lights on a deserted dawn road, a broad sheet of canvas, a quiet whisper from beneath the tarpaulin. It’s been an unforgettable evening. Even if we are to share nothing else together, it will have been worth getting to know one another. But we’ll never leave each other now!
‘You promised me …’ he said.
‘Just stop that!’ she snapped at him. How she hated all those clichés. They confined her. They merged with her. They were inside her. She was drenched in them. They were all she could come up with. She couldn’t manage anything else. All she could do was kiss him!
So you love me? Let’s go somewhere together, shall we?
Where?
To your place maybe.
She tried to stop the film but it was already running.
A little bedroom as dawn is breaking. An unmade bed. I’m afraid it’s a bit of a mess.