Love and Garbage

by Ivan Klíma

  Perhaps there is within us still, above everything else, some ancient law, a law beyond logic, that forbids us to abandon those near and dear to us. We are dimly aware of it but we pretend not to know about it, that it has long ceased to be valid and that we may therefore disregard it. And we dismiss the voice within us as foolish and reactionary, preventing us from tasting something of the bliss of paradise while we are still in this life.

  We break the ancient laws which echo within us and we believe that we may do so with impunity. Surely man, on his road to greater freedom, on his road to his dreamed-of heaven, should be permitted everything. We are all, each for himself and all together, pursuing the notion of earthly bliss and, in doing so, are piling guilt upon ourselves, even though we refuse to admit it. But what bliss can a man attain with a soul weighed down by guilt? His only way out is to kill the soul within him, and join the crowd of those who roam the world in search of something to fill the void which yawns within them after their soul is dead. Man is no longer conscious of the connection between the way he lives his own life and the fate of the world, which he laments, of which he is afraid, because he suspects that together with the world he is entering the age of the Apocalypse.

  The mist from the valley below me is rising and has almost reached me. I know that I must change my way of life, which piles guilt upon me, but I’m not leading it on my own. I feel fettered from all sides, I’ve let myself be chained to the rockface without having brought fire to anyone.

  What was there left in my favour? What could I claim in my defence? What order, what honesty, what loyalty?

  Suddenly from the mists a familiar figure emerges. I stiffen. From the mists her heavenly eyes look on me: You could give me up?

  There is no reason that could stand up in her eyes. I might at best make some excuses, beg her to understand, beg for forgiveness or for punishment, but there’s no point in any of this, none of it will bring her relief.

  I phoned her as I’d promised. She said she’d join me for ten days, she was looking forward to it. She added: We’ll have a lovely farewell holiday. But I didn’t believe that she meant it.

  We found our companions in place – that is, in the tavern. The first to catch sight of us was the captain. He touched two fingers to his cap.

  I joined him and noticed that the beermat before him already bore four marks.

  ‘I’m celebrating!’ he explained.

  He didn’t look to me like a man celebrating, more like a man drowning his sorrows. Nevertheless I asked: ‘Has one of your inventions been accepted?’

  ‘Haven’t I told you? They’ve found the Titanic!’ He gave a short laugh and spat on the floor.

  ‘The Titanic?’

  ‘With everything she had on board. Only the people have gone.’

  ‘That a fact? So what happened to them?’ The youngster was no longer in pain and was therefore able to show interest in the pain or death of others.

  ‘Probably jumped overboard,’ the captain explained casually. ‘No one stays on a ship that’s going down. Everybody thinks he’ll save himself somehow.’

  The foreman, evidently still preoccupied with the morning visit, decided to find out how things really stood; he’d ring the office. For a while he searched in his pockets, then he borrowed two one-crown pieces from Mr Rada and with a demonstratively self-assured gait made for the telephone.

  ‘That really must have been terrible, finding yourself in the water like that,’ the youngster reflected, ‘and nothing solid anywhere.’

  ‘That’s life,’ said the captain. ‘One moment you’re sailing, everyone saying Sir to you, and in your head maybe a whole academy of science, and suddenly you’re in the water. You go down – finish!’

  The waiter brought more beer, and before the captain he also placed a tot of rum.

  The captain took a sip: ‘And all your ideas, windmills, encyclopedias, end of the ice age – everything goes down with you.’ He got up and unsteadily walked over to the battered billiard table. From the sleeve of his black leather jacket projected his even blacker metal hook. With this he adroitly picked up a cue and played a shot.

  I watched the ball moving precisely in the desired direction.

  ‘Do you know that I’ve written to her?’ he said to me when he got back to the table.

  ‘To whom?’

  ‘To Mary. Asking if she wanted to come back.’

  ‘And did you get a reply?’

  ‘Came back yesterday. Addressee unknown. So she’s unknown now!’

  ‘Probably moved away.’

  ‘Person’s here one moment, gone the next. All going to the bottom!’ The captain turned away from his glass; he muttered something to himself and softly uttered some figures. Perhaps some new and revolutionary invention, or the number of days he’d spent on his own. Or the number of tricks he’d scored in the round of cards he’d just finished. There was sadness in his features, maybe in his poetic mind some clear vision, perhaps his last one, was just then fading and disintegrating. Again I experienced a sense of shame at sitting there studying him. High time for me to get up and get away from all that street-sweeping. I looked around at the others, as if expecting that they’d read my thoughts, but they were all engrossed in their own troubles.

  From the billiard table they were calling the captain again. For a moment he pretended not to hear them, then he rose, firmly gripped his chair, then the back of my chair, then he held on to the table and, moving along the wall, made it to the billiards. He picked up a cue with his hook and concentrated for a moment before imparting the right speed to his ball. I watched the red ball move over the green baize, passing the other balls without coming anywhere near them.

  ‘You’d better not drink any more,’ I said to him when he got back.

  He turned his clouded eyes on me. ‘And why not?’ His question reminded me of my daughter’s classmate who’d put an end to his own life at the northern tip of Žofín island years ago.

  By then the foreman was returning from the telephone. His face purple, as if he were near a stroke, he sat down heavily, picked up his glass, raised it to his lips and put it down again. ‘Well folks, we’ve got a new dispatcher!’

  ‘Would it be you?’ Mrs Venus guessed.

  ‘Don’t try to be funny with me, Zoulová, I’m not in the mood!’ He fell silent to give us time to go on guessing, then he announced: ‘It’s that fucking bastard!’

  ‘Franta? But he’s an idiot,’ Mrs Venus expressed surprise.

  ‘That’s just why,’ Mr Rada explained while the captain began to laugh, laughing softly and contentedly, as if something about that piece of news gave him particular pleasure. Maybe at that moment he gained a clearer understanding of that radiation which turns us all into sheep.

  The foreman finally swallowed his first gulp of beer, then drained his glass, and finally announced: ‘If they think I’ll let that shit make out my work schedule for me they’ve got another think coming! This is the end of my work for his organisation!’

  ‘Don’t take on so,’ Mrs Venus tried to comfort him. ‘He isn’t going to stink up his office for long! He’ll grass on them too, and he’ll be kicked upstairs again!’

  They were calling the captain again from the billiards, but he had difficulty getting up, he turned towards the corner of the room, waved his hand and sat down again.

  ‘No,’ said the foreman, ‘I’ve had it!’

  ‘It’s getting cold now anyway,’ the youngster piped up. ‘I think that’s what was behind my funny turn.’ This was evidently his way of announcing that he too intended to leave. I ought to join them as well, but I was still too much of a stranger to think it appropriate to emphasise my departure. As I got up a moment later I merely said to the foreman; ‘All the best, I’m sure we’ll meet again.’ But he got to his feet, ceremoniously shook hands with me, addressed me by my name, and said: ‘Thank you for your work!’

  It was a long time since any superior of mine had thanked me for my work.


  Mr Rada joined me as usual. ‘You see, the things they’ll fight over!’

  He seemed dejected today. To cheer him up I enquired about his brother, whether he was about to go off to any foreign parts again.

  ‘Don’t talk to me about him,’ he said. ‘it’s all I can think about anyway. Just imagine, he’s joined the Party! So they can make him a chief surgeon. Would you believe it? A man who speaks twelve languages, and after all he’s seen in the world, after what he himself told me not so long ago!’

  I suggested that perhaps it was a good thing that just such men should be chief surgeons. It wasn’t his fault that the post required a Party card.

  ‘A man isn’t responsible for the situation into which he is born,’ he proclaimed, ‘but he is responsible for his decisions and actions. When my mother heard about it she nearly had a stroke. Have you any idea what she’s already been through in her life because of those people? And I . . . I used to be proud of him, I thought that the Lord had endowed him with special grace . . . even if he didn’t acknowledge it, even if he acted as if he didn’t acknowledge Him . . . I believed that one day he’d see the truth.’

  In his depression he began to reminisce about the years he’d spent in the forced labour camp. Among the prisoners there’d been so many unforgettable characters, who, even in those conditions, were aiming at higher things. Some of them had there, in the camp, received the sacrament of baptism, he himself had secretly baptised a few of them. Thinking back to those days it was clear to him that, in spite of all he’d been through, God’s love had not abandoned mankind. He believed, for just that reason, that he’d spent the best or at least the most meaningful years of his life there.

  We’d reached the little street where our unknown artist lived and exhibited. I looked up curiously to his window, but this time it contained no artefact; instead a live person, presumably the artist himself, was standing in the window-frame, clad only in a narrow strip of sack-cloth. On his head was a fool’s cap with little bells, on top of this cap he’d placed a laurel wreath, and in his right hand he held a large bell-shaped blossom, I’d say of deadly nightshade.

  Thus he stood, motionless, his forehead almost pressed to the glass, as if awaiting our arrival. I was surprised to find that he was still young, his hair, where it peeped out from beneath his fool’s cap, was dark and his skin was swarthy. We looked at him and he looked at us without giving any sign of seeing us, of taking any notice of us.

  ‘Well really!’ Mr Rada was outraged. ‘That’s a bit much!’

  But I was aware of sympathy for the unknown young man who offered himself up to our gaze, who had no hesitation in exhibiting his misery, longings and hope. Hope of what? Of fame, of being understood, or at least of getting somebody to stop, look, and see. Standing there with my orange fool’s vest – in what way did I differ from him? In my misery, my longings, or perhaps in my hope?

  So I waited for my lover at the small railway station in the foothills. All round me half-drunk gypsies were noisily conversing. A total stranger, smelling of dirt and liquor, invited me to have a drink with him.

  I escaped to the very end of the platform and stood waiting there for the train.

  Was I waiting for it with hope or with fear, out of longing or out of a sense of duty? What was there left for me to wait for, what to hope for?

  At the most for some conditional postponement that would briefly prolong our torment and our bliss.

  The train pulled in, I caught sight of her getting off the last carriage, a bulging rucksack on her back. She saw me, waved to me, and even at that distance I could see that she’d come in love.

  I was suddenly flooded with gratitude; undeservedly rewarded, I embraced her.

  It was getting dark. The station had emptied, and the lights of some train were approaching in the distance.

  I wished it would be a special train, a train just for the two of us. We’d board it, we’d draw the curtains across the windows, we’d lock the door, the train would move off, speed along through the day and the night, over bridges and through valleys, it would carry us beyond seven frontiers, away from our past lives, it would take us into the ancient garden where one might live without sin.

  Along the track clanked a tanker train, filling the air with the stench of crude oil. I picked up her pack and we walked out of the station.

  That evening I phoned my wife from the hotel where we’d taken a room. In her voice too I was aware of love and of her pleasure at hearing me. She told me she’d been invited to an ethological conference somewhere near where I was staying. No, not just yet, in a week’s time, but we might meet then, that would be nice, I must be feeling rather blue being on my own for so long, besides, we’d been to the place she was going to before, surely I remembered, on our honeymoon . . .

  I was in a panic. I wasn’t sure. How could I tell, a week from now. And she too seemed taken aback; of course, she said, if it didn’t suit me I needn’t come to see her. She just thought that I might like to, but she didn’t want to push me or make things difficult for me.

  I promised to phone her to let her know, and hung up.

  I was finally trapped. My mind, trained on those lines, was still concocting excuses, but I suspected that I wouldn’t escape this time, nor did I wish to.

  Why hadn’t she asked straight out? Why hadn’t she objected? The strange humility of her voice still rang in my ears. I was seized by a sense of sadness and regret, I also felt tenderness towards my wife who wanted to comfort me in my pretended solitude, who promised me from afar that we’d walk up among the rocks, where so long ago we’d felt happy, where we’d started our life together. If I were here on my own I’d go to her at once and tell her that, in spite of everything I’d done, I’d never stopped being fond of her and that I didn’t want to leave her. If I were here on my own I wouldn’t have had to put her off, I’d be glad to have her come.

  I couldn’t bear to stay indoors. The moon was shining on the flank of the mountain and a hostile wind blew down its slopes. Daria wanted to know what I was doing. But I felt ambushed by my own emotions – I felt unable to assure her that I longed to remain with her.

  She faced me on the narrow footpath: But you invited me here! I beg you, maybe this is the last time I’ll beg you for anything, that you should at least behave like . . . at least like a decent host!

  The wind was blowing her hair into her face. Now she really looked like a witch, like a sorceress who’d emerged from some depth of the mountains.

  But I’ll pack my things and leave this instant if that’s what you want!

  There was no need for her to leave immediately. We could stay here a whole week, just three days less than we’d intended.

  You want to bargain with me? Amidst the silent noctural landscape she screamed at me: I was a coward, a liar and a hypocrite. A trader in emotions. A dealer with no feelings. At least not for her. How could I be so cruel to her, so shameless?

  She was right.

  I took her by the hand and led her further along the path below the mountain. In the dusk we stumbled over projecting roots and stones. I tried to talk as if nothing had happened. We’re here together, after all those months we’re together at last.

  The following day we left for another place in the mountains.

  I felt humiliated by the knowledge that I was fleeing, fleeing belatedly, at a moment when I no longer wished to flee from anywhere or from anybody. Except from myself.

  Spring was exceptionally beautiful that year. The meadows turned purple with wild crocus and clumps of coltsfoot sprang up along the paths. But we climbed to higher altitudes, we were climbing side by side for the last time, we waded through drifts of hardened snow, clambered over great rocks, watched the flight of the eagle and the leaps of the chamois, and when we returned to the twilight of the mountain chalet we made love just as we’d been making love over the years whenever we met.

  Then she fell asleep, exhausted, while I lay motionless on the bed, listening
to the soft drip of water outside and gazing through the window at the mountain glistening in the moonlight, wondering what I’d do when I got back home, how I would live, even if I could live, but my thoughts stumbled at the first step over the huge boulder that lay in my path.

  Then I listened to her quiet breath, and remorse overcame me: What have I brought you to, my pet, where have you followed me, where have we set out together, we stride across snowy wastes, the night is deep and frosty, the silence of the universe is engulfing us. You wanted to save me, I wanted to be with you at all your difficult moments, I probably didn’t love you as I should have, I was unable, I was unwilling, to love you more. I am still very fond of you, you’ve grown painfully into me. If I were stronger, if I were wiser, wise enough to know everything essential about myself, I would have driven you away as soon as you’d come close to me because I would have known that I would not remain with you the way you wanted me to, how happy I would have been if I’d remained alone, because I wouldn’t then have met a woman I longed for so much. I didn’t decide to drive you away. I wasn’t wise enough, and I was moreover afraid of your pain and of my own, I was afraid of a life in which you weren’t present; I believed that with you my life would be full of hope, that I’d found another safety net to spread out between myself and nothingness.

  The mountain tops were beginning to emerge from the darkness and the sky above them was turning pale. The mountain rose straight up, it towered, virtually eternal, into a sky that was even more eternal, while we mortals , here only for a single winking of the divine eye, have, in our longing to fill our lives, in our longing for ecstasy, filled our brief moment with suffering.

  On the tenth day we returned home, each to our own home. We said goodbye, we kissed once more, and she hoped I’d be strong and not do anything against her.

  But I am not strong, at least not in the way she meant. I don’t wish to demonstrate my strength towards the woman who had for so many years shared both good and bad with me. I go back, in my mind I turn over some sentences attempting an explanation.