by Ivan Klíma
Best Wishes,
Dr Václav Kvěch
P.S. I also enclose some completed sentences that you might find of interest.
Sentence completion
Name: Kozlík Karel
Finish the following sentences as quickly as you can.
Always write the first thing that comes into your head.
Don’t try and resist your real feelings. If you find any of the sentences difficult to complete, draw a ring round it.
You can always return to it after completing the others.
1. I BELIEVE MYSELF TO BE a special person
2. ONE OF THE MAIN THINGS I WANT TO DO IS eliminate convention
3. WHEN I’M ALONE I feel good
4. IN OUR FAMILY I’m not happy
5. I’M BOTHERED BY social isolation
6. SECURITY IS steadfast unshakeable ideas
7. MONEY IS power
8. MY CHILDHOOD wasn’t worth much
9. I PARTICULARLY LOOK FORWARD TO rambling and fun
10. WHAT MOST DISTURBS ME WHEN I’M WORKING people in charge
11. I’D BET MY BOTTOM DOLLAR THAT my thoughts are basically noble
12. THE HAPPIEST TIME OF MY LIFE when I got to know Vlastimil P.
13. ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS IN MY LIFE the defect in my right eye
14. WHAT REALLY ANNOYS ME is when some thickhead thwarts my plans
15. WHAT GIVES ME REAL PLEASURE pleasing someone I like
16. THE MEANING OF LIFE IS death . . .
Forensic examination had found no trace of fingerprints on the gas-stove tap. The tap controlling the burner from which the gas escaped had apparently been wiped with a rag after the last time it was turned (i.e. in the ‘on’ position). The rag had probably been used previously for cleaning shoes, since traces of brown ‘Tagal’ shoe polish were found on the tap. They found the rag thrown into a corner of the kitchen, the shoe polish in the scullery. On the inner handle of the front door, which had been forced, they found a thumb-print with traces of the same shoe polish, and it was identical with the left thumb-print of Karel Kozlík. It could therefore be assumed that Karel Kozlík was the last person to leave Marie Obensdorfová’s flat on 3rd April. Were the opposite true, his thumb-print would necessarily have been wiped off, at least partially, by the hand of the person who followed him – unless they both left at the same time.
Had the door not been forced, but unlocked normally, the print would most likely have been wiped off by not just one hand but by the many hands of the people who went in and out of the flat that fatal night; because who, in a gas-filled flat, is immediately going to think of foul play and worry about something like fingerprints?
Forensic analysis had established that both the water in the saucepan on the stove and the spilt water under the burner had not reached boiling point ‘so it may be safely assumed that the flame was not extinguished by the water overflowing’.
He turned another page.
The pathologist’s report on the examination of the corpses of Marie Obensdorfová, born 19.10.1902, and Lucie Obensdorfová, born 23.4.1960 stated that no traces of violence had been discovered on either of the bodies of the deceased. ‘The colour of the posthumous stains is consistent with carbon monoxide poisoning. Death in both cases occurred around two a.m. on 4th April. Death was probably caused by coal gas escaping from an unlit burner beneath a saucepan half full of water . . .
‘The age of the householder . . .’
Someone knocked on the door, and it was only after he had called out twice for the person to enter that the door opened slightly and there appeared a swelling pregnant belly, and only then, as if anxiously tilted backwards, the rest of the trunk and the head; a florid face with expressionless eyes and a large blubbery mouth.
‘I hope I’m not disturbing you!’ Her voice was slightly hoarse and her intonation placed her somewhere between a waitress and a cleaner.
‘What do you want?’ he asked, motioning her to the free chair.
‘My name’s Körnerová.’ She sat down, breathing heavily, her ugly face covered in sweat. So it was her. ‘What do you want?’ he repeated.
She said nothing but sat there with her doleful gaze fixed on him. At last she replied: ‘They told me that maybe you, sir, sir . . . comrade . . .’ she corrected herself. For a moment he wondered if she was going to stick fast, and never surmount the problem of how to address him, ‘That you, comrade, will be judging Karel . . . Kozlík, for what happened in that flat.’
‘Who told you it would be me?’
She started and fell silent.
‘What do you want from me?’
‘I thought . . . They told me that if he’s expecting a baby they’re not allowed to . . .’
‘Such concessions don’t extend to an expectant father. Apart from that, anything you want to tell the court you can say during the trial. Your fiancé’s defence counsel can propose you as a witness.’
‘But I . . .’ she protested, ‘but you can see for yourself, I might not even be able to.’
‘If your testimony might throw light on some essential aspect of the case, the trial would be rescheduled. Counsel will explain all those points to you.’
‘Yes, I beg your pardon,’ she said, getting up. ‘Thank you.’
He noticed she had unusually fat, or more likely swollen, calves.
‘It’s not his fault.’ It was clear the sentence had been prepared in advance and she uttered it staring at the floor. ‘He didn’t mean to do anything wrong, everyone was always against him. He couldn’t take no more.’
‘Mrs Körnerová,’ he said, standing up, ‘your husband stands accused of a double murder. One of the victims was seventy years old, the other twelve.’
‘Everyone says they’ll hang him,’ she said, continuing her prepared statement, still staring at the floor. ‘But surely they can’t do it if we’re expecting a baby, when he’s the father . . . What would people call it afterwards?’
‘You’ll be able to tell all of that to the court at the trial.’
‘I just wanted to tell you that none of it is his fault. He just couldn’t stand it no more.’
‘There’s no point explaining anything now.’ As if there would be any point in anything she might explain later.
2
His wife had taken the children off on holiday (two days later than she originally intended, of course) so he didn’t need to rush off anywhere after work. Usually when he was left alone for a few days, he felt a thrill: as though a whole crowd of interesting prospects were suddenly opening up. This time he was also aware of a sense of relief. Recently he had started to find the ordinariness of family life tiresome. Maybe life had always been like that, but previously he hadn’t had time to notice the dreariness. He had channelled his interest, feelings and activity elsewhere, into developments he assumed were going to transform the world. It was from that quarter too that he had looked to see fulfilment coming. But with his unavoidable withdrawal from such involvement, he was shocked to find that he had nothing to fill the vacuum left behind. He found nowhere to turn his restless soul; nothing and no one to fix his expectations on.
At half past four, he left his office. The street was still burning hot and surprisingly deserted. He noticed three girls standing at the tram stop like three brightly coloured parrots. They were probably going off swimming somewhere. If he approached them and offered them a lift they might accept. He toyed with the idea for a while but three were too many – even as an idea. There would be two left over and they could easily become dangerous witnesses.
When would he be grown up enough not to let his imagination run away with him like that?
Imagining a course of action has the advantage of allowing one to escape its adverse consequences. Its disadvantage is that it denies one the possibility of changing anything oneself. But what hope has one of changing anything for the better? Only, a very slender one, to be sure, but he had nursed the hope throughout his life, even though he
had associated change more with the world than his own life.
He got into his car. There’ll probably be room on the tennis courts now in the summer. But he usually played tennis with his brother, and his brother was inaccessible. And he’d not even taken his racquet with him; he should have thought of it that morning. If he went home now, he wouldn’t bother to go anywhere else.
He’d also been promising Matěj for ages to go and see him at the caravan; at least he’d get a chance to talk to someone without having to mind what he said.
He had no problem finding the caravan – it stood alone in the middle of a meadow. He could also make out the massive figure of his friend trudging across the field in his gumboots. A short distance away stood a small drilling rig with several pipes running from it. The water fell into a wooden tub and then out of it again and ran away unseen in the grass. Apparently there was a brook meandering through the undergrowth somewhere nearby.
Two sets of bunks occupied a third of the caravan. Half-naked models and film-stars had been pinned up on the walls amidst a rich array of advertising stickers. ‘Those two beds are free,’ Matěj said. ‘You can take your pick. There are three of us here on and off. We’re supposed to be all here at the same time, but that would mean losing one of the job’s main advantages. This way I do my week and then have a fortnight’s break.’
Beside the carefully cleared table, on a kitchen chair that was almost picturesquely old and scruffy, there stood a typewriter.
‘Mr Putna stuck all that up,’ Matěj said, pointing at the pictures covering the wall. ‘He’s the third one of the gang. He’s a beer-label collector.’
Adam leaned over towards the wall. Cedar’s Beyrouth bore the telephone number 221414 and the Tanganyika Tusker label was a red elephant within a green leaf.
‘Tomorrow morning, if you’re intending to stay the night, I’ll show you our storks. They’ve got a nest in a larch not far from here. It’s great to hear them clapping their bills. When they get going, we call it a cabinet meeting.’
‘Aren’t you fed up, having to be here on your own all the time?’
‘Now and then. Otherwise I quite enjoy it.’
‘But you won’t go on working here much longer.’
‘You reckon?’
‘It’s just too absurd.’
Matěj laughed. ‘Absurdity hasn’t been in short supply recently.’ He took a small pail down from the shelf and set off for the nearest spring. Adam walked behind him along a track worn through the long grass – mosquitoes buzzing around his head. They halted by a pipe sticking out of the ground. Matěj placed the pail under it and then timed how long it took to fill. ‘It never varies – at least water continues to have a sense of order. I fantasise that deep down out of reach of our drills there’s a whole enormous lake. The last of the unpolluted lakes.’
They continued along the path through the grass and a bat fluttered over their heads. ‘I can’t say how long I’ll go on doing this job. There’s always someone coming to see me with surefire news that everything’s about to change and we’ll get another reprieve from our lords and masters. They all feel an obligation to bring some good tidings, especially when they see me in my wellies holding a bucket. But would you believe it, the more I come back and forth to this place the more irrelevant everything I’ve done so far in my life seems to me. If a change really does come, I doubt it’ll even affect me any more . . .’
This was something he could not understand. If it had been himself in this kind of limbo he would be hankering after release like the poor ferryman in the fairy story.
They returned to the caravan and Matěj put a saucepan on the stove. The air was filled with the scent of mushrooms cooking. ‘The meadows around are full of mushrooms,’ he said, ‘and in the woods there are blushers and those deadly agarics. Do you know what,’ he mused, stirring, ‘during the war I had this plan that I’d get into the Führer’s camp in disguise and sell Hitler’s chef a bag of dried toadstools: Das sind die echte Steinpilze. Or I’d sneak by and tip them into the cooking pot. I was sure they must cook for Hitler in a cauldron in front of his tent.’ He poured some soup into a bowl and handed it to Adam. ‘How old were we when we first met?’
Adam reflected for a moment. ‘I think I was twenty-six.’
‘There you go. And you were passing judgement on people and I was telling them how they ought to behave.’
‘It was the way things were then.’
‘It was the way we were. And we wanted to remake the world to boot. You wouldn’t find me doing anything like that any more, even if I got the chance.’
‘What are you waiting for, then? You’re surely not going to spend the rest of your days in a circus caravan.’
‘I sincerely hope not. It’s only bravado when I pretend I don’t care. But at least here I can be sure that I won’t be required to do anything I can’t square with my conscience. Here I can almost feel free.’ He took Adam’s bowl and washed it in the sink. ‘In actual fact I’m waiting for some inner voice to make itself heard. I have the peace and calm for it here.’ He put the crockery back on the shelf, and gave no hint of further explanation. ‘What shall we do now? There are some archaeologists in a caravan not far off. They’re excavating a Celtic settlement. We’re cultivating neighbourly relations. One can learn all sorts of reassuring things from them.’
‘Later maybe.’
‘We could sit outside and see what we can see.’
The moon hadn’t risen yet and the darkness seemed total. Frogs croaked from the water and a warm breeze blew off the meadow.
What inner voices did his friend hope to hear? Had the quiet here unhinged his senses or, on the contrary, sharpened his hearing? What voices do I heed? I listen to all sorts of voices around me every day. They are so numerous that one drowns out the next, and when I go to bed my ears are full of hubbub as if torrents were flowing through my head. ‘I’ve just been given such a case,’ he said. ‘There’s this fellow on a double murder rap. He killed an old woman and a twelve-year-old girl. He turned on the gas in their room and left them.’
‘Is it a murder at all?’
‘What else could it be?’
‘I always used to think that a fellow had to strangle somebody or stab them to death. There’s no reason why they shouldn’t have woken up and turned the gas off. It might not even occur to them that someone had turned it on. What sort of penalty does it carry?’
‘Two people are dead – and one’s a child. And the culprit is a recidivist. There’s only one sentence: the noose. Otherwise the public – or what purports to be the public – will be outraged.’
‘And it doesn’t outrage you?’
‘Of course it does,’ he said. ‘And so do a lot of other things. But it doesn’t mean I want to see people hang for them.’
‘I know, you explained it to me a long time ago. Even so, I can’t help thinking that there are crimes which are unpunishable. Here on earth, at any rate. Surely that’s why we invented hell. The worst horror is perpetuity – and I should think that goes for punishment too, doesn’t it?’
He nodded. And how about happiness? Or relief, or hope, or love for that matter? He sensed the silence penetrate him, traversing him like a soft, cleansing breeze. Usually he feared silence as much as he did solitude or inactivity. He was convinced that at such moments his life was just slipping away to no purpose. But what purpose had his life served so far?
‘I’ll have to do my rounds again,’ Matěj announced. ‘But you’d better stay here this time – the grass is wet now.’
So he returned alone to the caravan. On the bed lay a pillow and several neatly folded blankets. But it was warm and he wouldn’t need more than one blanket.
Suddenly he recalled how, when still a student, he had been moved and also disconcerted by the fate of Ovid – the greatest poet of all time. (Which is how his Latin professor described him, at least.) This greatest of all poets was sent into exile, cut off from his wife and friends, banish
ed from his home, his comfort, his homeland and his public and left to eke out a living, in lamentation and despair, and finally to die among foreigners in a barbarian land. He even recalled a wistful couplet:
Hic ego qui iaceo tenerorum lusor amorum
ingenii perii Naso poeta meo . . .
He had never thought to ask whether one could be a great man – or maybe a poet, either – if one was incapable of accepting fate. It had never occurred to him because he had always believed that what constituted human greatness was the capacity to protest, change the world and prepare for revolution.
Matěj returned. He took a thick book out of the desk and entered some figures. Then he wound his alarm clock.
‘Do you have to get up at night?’
‘We’re supposed to make measurements every other hour.’
‘But you said that the water flow was regular.’
‘And mostly I don’t measure it at night,’ he admitted. ‘But at least I get up and enter the figures.’
‘You could just as easily do it in the morning.’
‘I don’t want to make things too easy for myself. Besides, in theory at least, we could be checked on at night.’
Later, as he lay on his bunk staring into the darkness, Adam said: ‘I remember reading a book one time; it was the diary of a psychologist they sent to Nuremberg during the main trial. I would keep on going back to the last few pages where he recorded the verdicts and the behaviour of the defendants immediately after hearing their sentence. I felt pleased that they were sent to the gallows.’
‘That’s understandable.’
‘And when I read the memoirs of Hoesse of Auschwitz, I remember I spent several evenings imagining how I’d shut his wife and children in the gas chamber before I executed him, and make him watch them die.’
‘What language did you get it in?’
‘Polish. It was the most shocking book I’ve ever read. I’d never do it, of course.’
‘Wouldn’t you? Not even if you had the power to?’
‘No.’
‘Wouldn’t you even send him in?’