by Ivan Klíma
Alena turned off the light. ‘Time to sleep now,’ she ordered.
‘What are you going to do, Mummy?’
‘What do you think? I’m going off to bed too.’
‘But it’s too early for you yet, Mummy,’ her son remarked.
‘I’ll have a little read.’
‘In the dark?’ asked her daughter suspiciously.
‘I’ll go and sit in Auntie Sylva’s room.’
‘You’re not going to see Honza?’
‘Get along with you!’ she said with a start. ‘Whatever for, at this time of night?’
‘You ought to go and see whether he needs something,’ her daughter suggested. ‘Seeing he’s got a bad leg.’
‘He’s bound to be asleep by now,’ she said wearily.
‘Oh, no. Honza doesn’t go to bed till after midnight. He only sleeps five hours.’
‘However do you know that?’
‘He said so. And sometimes he doesn’t go to bed at all. Mummy, what does “achieve” mean?’
‘In what sense?’
‘Like when someone wants to “achieve” something.’
‘When you want to achieve something, it means you want to do it. And now be quiet.’
‘Honza wants to achieve something,’ her son declared solemnly.
‘Hush!’
‘But he said so.’
At that moment a chair scraped on the floor upstairs. (The only room where she could put him up was directly over their heads.) The plaster cast came down heavily on the floor. Thump. Thump.
‘You see. He isn’t asleep,’ her son pointed out triumphantly.
She went over to the window. The stars were shining so brightly she was frightened. She had always been afraid of the stars: those radiant masses just hanging there in the void above her. What if one day they came loose and fell to earth, crushing her?
Upstairs the bed creaked, then silence. Martin rolled over in the bed, he had probably fallen asleep. She thought she heard a match strike over her head. She must have imagined it but could see him at that moment, his thin boyish face lit up by the match. Most likely he was waiting for her to come up. But what if Sylva heard her going up to his room at that time of the evening? It was bad enough her taking him in at all. She probably shouldn’t have, though there was nothing wrong in it, of course. She could hardly leave him in the tent with a sprained ankle. Admittedly she could have driven him to the station and stuffed a fifty-crown note into his pocket for a taxi, but she knew this would be to humiliate him. Besides, that crazy leap had been for her benefit, while he was showing off like a little boy. He had already suffered enough humiliation having to lie there helpless below the rock before she and the children had arrived to help him back to the cabin.
Moreover, she wanted him here. The trouble was she was incapable of deception; people always saw through her when she tried to keep anything a secret. This morning her sister-in-law had asked her: ‘How’s your pal?’ She had stressed the word ‘pal’. One was not allowed to treat a person like a human or everyone else drew just the one conclusion.
Upstairs the window creaked. He was quite capable of calling out to her, or whistling, or even plodding downstairs. Something white fluttered outside the window. She was so scared, she couldn’t catch her breath. But it was only a scrap of paper tied to a string. She reached out for it.
My dearest, only one,
I repeat YOUR name all the time and want to die
Come to me!
Come to me! COME TO ME! COME TO ME!!
She tore the note into little pieces and threw them down the toilet. Then she went into the kitchen. Sylva was sitting there playing Happy Families with Lucie. (How much longer would they hang around? It was long past Lucie’s bedtime. Did they intend to go on playing that stupid game till midnight?) She switched on the cooker and put some water on to boil. ‘Will you have some tea as well?’
They did not even look up; maybe they were too engrossed in their game to notice. ‘No, thanks. Tea wrecks my night,’ her sister-in-law replied.
She poured water through the tea leaves in the strainer, put the tea-cup and the kettle on a tray and went out into the passage.
Gingerly she made her way up the stairs, which creaked unbearably. Upstairs there was one single small bedroom in the middle of the loft. Adam had had it fixed up for unexpected visitors. It contained two iron bedsteads and a small table and chair. There was not even room for a wardrobe.
She tapped softly on the door (though he must have heard her coming). He stood there comically with welcoming arms spread wide, as if expecting her to slip into his embrace, tea-tray and all.
For a moment, the feeling overcame her that she was doing something unthinkable, unbecoming. She ought simply to say ‘good night’ and leave (noisily, so that the determined card-players below could hear that she had departed straight away).
‘Darling,’ he exclaimed, and bumped the tray with his chest, making the kettle rattle, ‘at last you’re here!’
She put the tray down on the bed. ‘Quiet! Every little noise can be heard downstairs!’
In a glass jar, in the middle of the table, he had the posy of wild pinks she had picked for him with the children. Otherwise the room was bare.
He put his arms round her. ‘I thought I’d go mad if you didn’t come.’ He bent across the bed and shifted the tray on to the chair, wincing as he did so.
‘Why aren’t you lying down?’
‘I had to wait for you.’
‘Does the leg hurt?’
‘Not now. Not now you’re here!’
‘Otherwise it hurts?’
He made an agonised face and shook his head.
She sat down by him and told him in a whisper where she had been with the children, what her son had said to her and what she had replied. As she ran her fingers through his hair she became aware of his fingers slowly and timidly seeking a path to her body and she found it charming rather than stimulating. ‘I have to go now.’
‘You want to go already!’
She realised almost ruefully that he had not said: ‘Don’t go!’ or even ‘I won’t let you!’ He left it up to her whether she stayed or left. Adam left most of the decisions to her too. She hadn’t been lucky enough to find a man to take the burden of decision-making from her shoulders. Menachem had been the only real man, but he hadn’t possessed enough patience or loyalty to wait for her.
He put his arms round her.
They lay side by side, he kissing her and saying the words she always longed to hear (for years now, her lovemaking with Adam had been wordless), she listening to those words and to the noises in the house. Downstairs they had no doubt finished playing ages ago but they might still be wandering about in the passage. Or Sylva might come to tell her something and enter their room. And what if Manda woke up and came looking for her here! ‘Is the door locked?’
He got up. The plaster cast thumped on the floor.
She closed her eyes. She had never managed to let her mind wander at will when she was happy; instead it tormented her with things she ought to have put aside.
‘I love you!’ he whispered above her. ‘Alena, I love you so much. It would be impossible to love you more.’
‘I love you too!’
He held her to him. ‘It’s the most beautiful thing in the world having you. I remember once when Dad wasn’t even talking to me and Mum was in a bad mood I thought of ending it all. I had my own rock in a quarry not far from Radotìn. A white rock with a path running under it. It looked like a canyon in a western. I’ll show it to you some day if you like.’
‘Of course you will,’ she said, pleased he had changed the subject and that they might just as easily be chatting at table.
‘I wanted to jump off that rock!’
‘How old were you?’
‘It’s so long ago. At least five years. But when I reached the top I could see a couple cuddling in the meadow. It’s banal, but I really did turn back because of that.
It struck me I might find someone like that.’ He gulped aloud and she thought he was crying. ‘And now I have. Now I know I did the right thing, that I had something to wait for. You’re my life. I could never be without you now.’
‘Ssh!’ Fear gripped her.
‘I’ve had all sorts of girls but I didn’t love any of them. I was waiting for you to appear. For you to come and take me away.’
She couldn’t see his face, but could hear that his voice was alternating between elation and tears. From the very first moment she saw him, what had attracted her (if anything had at that moment) was his touching hunger for understanding and love. In that respect he resembled her and she felt an affinity for him. She had decided to try to give him some part of what he had been denied till then. At first on that trip she had not even thought about making love, or at least had not considered it consciously (for he was ten years younger than her at least). But being there, so far from everything that made up her usual life and responsibilities, when every evening yet another couple had sloped off for a quiet cuddle in the hotel, she was pleased to discover his love for her.
However, his demand for love had not diminished since that first evening, whereas she knew he ought to disappear from the cottage before Adam arrived, before the children realised that something untoward had happened, and before some irreparable disaster occurred. All assuming, of course, that it had not already taken place.
‘Honza, sweetheart, I must go downstairs now.’
‘I won’t survive up here without you.’ He replaced his arms around her.
‘But you know it’s impossible,’ she objected feebly. ‘You only came to look in on me. And I’ve got my family here.’
‘I know. I really did intend it that way, but now I’ve come to see that I can’t live without you.’
‘Don’t talk such nonsense!’
‘Alena,’ he declared solemnly, ‘I’ve been thinking about it since this morning and don’t know whether I have the right to say it: I can’t think of life without you. I want you. I want to marry you.’
Silence. This could not be happening. After all, she had a husband and children.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll be able to provide for you all.’ He was probably about to talk about their future life together, but she put her hand over his mouth. ‘Not now. I have to go now.’ She slid cautiously off the bed.
‘Alena!
She was almost in the doorway.
‘Do you love me, at least?’
‘You know I do,’ she replied wearily. ‘Good night.’
‘I believe you. And I’m happy.’ He stretched his arms out towards her. ‘I’m happy that I’m here with you, that you came, that I have you and you love me.’
‘Good night,’ she said again. Cautiously she opened the door. Then she took the tray with the kettle and the tea cup and quietly closed it behind her. She crept through the attic – a lover who had now been granted everything: an amorous night, tenderness, declarations of love and even vows. As she reached the staircase she tripped on a loose floorboard. She managed to catch hold of the banister, but the kettle and the tea cup slid off the tray with a clatter that must have reached even the remotest corners of the cottage.
She stood motionless at the top of the stairs and waited. Tears, which she did not bother to wipe away, streamed from her eyes. She waited in case someone reacted, in case someone came up and found her out. But the house stayed silent. She picked up the pieces and carried them to the kitchen. She took out of a drawer the pad that she and Adam used for writing down jobs that needed doing or things they needed to bring there or take home, and tore a page out of it. She hesitated for a moment over how she should address him, but in the end wrote:
Dearest Honza,
You must find it odd that I should be writing you a letter when you are only upstairs and I see you several times a day. The trouble is that when I’m with you I find it impossible to say all the things I want to tell you. I’ll start with the offer you made to me just now. Even though it was sincere it was indiscreet and it didn’t only touch me, it horrified me as well. However can you even suggest something of the kind after we’ve known each other for just a few days? Didn’t you even think about the fact that I have two children and a husband? You’ve only just finished university and have everything, everything, in front of you. I know you’ll say you’ve thought it all out, but is it really possible to think everything out in advance? It’s not just a question of the material aspects. You’d have to step into something that is already functioning, with so many stereotypes, friends, relations. You’d have to accept the role of father of two children. Do you really think you’d be able to cope?
Maybe what I’m saying will surprise you and you’ll ask me how it was I didn’t know all this beforehand. Darling Honza, believe me that what I started, or what I permitted at least, wasn’t the flirtation whose upshot now worries me. What attracted me to you was your life-story, your personality. I realised that you were a really nice person but an unhappy one, and that what you lacked most of all was kindness and tenderness from those around you, and the ability on your part to relate to them in turn. I thought to myself that I would help you learn to communicate normally with other people and make friends with them, and that the only way I could do it was to establish such a friendship with you myself, and, as your friend, prove to you that you were as capable as anyone else of relating to others. I thought that as soon as you realised it yourself, you would be able to live and love like everyone else. But things went further than I’d anticipated. My fear now is that I have possibly freed you from your isolation but only in order to cause you even greater distress or at very least the sort of disappointment that will wound you, and leave you bitter. It would be lovely if you could continue to come and see me, continue to trust me and seek my help and comfort, or my advice as a close friend who loves you, but whose life cannot possibly take the same path as yours. Believe me that if I were to decide otherwise, I would only blight your journey through life – the only conceivable happiness you might have would be during the very first days of our togetherness.
And now I’m stroking your lovely thick hair.
Your A.
It was already two in the morning. But maybe for that very reason (they were all bound to be asleep by now) she dared to climb once more the creaky staircase. She slid the note under the door of his room. She had now said everything, everything was now coming to an end. From that moment on, all those disturbing and depressing indiscretions started to become things of the past. She returned to her room, reassured herself that her children were still sleeping peacefully, and immediately fell asleep herself.
‘Mummy, Mummy! Are you awake?’
She had no idea what the time was, but the room was already flooded with light. ‘Have you had breakfast yet?’ she asked her daughter.
‘Ages ago. Auntie Sylva made us fried eggs.’
‘That’s good.’
‘Mummy, Honza sent you a letter.’
‘Show me!’ She took the envelope from her daughter. There was nothing written on it. She still couldn’t pull herself together properly. Why ever was he sending her messages? Had he left, maybe? No, he couldn’t have, with his leg in plaster.
‘Uncle Robert came.’
‘Is he here?’
‘No, he went fishing this morning. Aren’t you going to read the letter?’
‘Later. I have to get washed first.’ She had a quick wash. After she had dressed, she realised that her daughter was watching her expectantly. With a sudden premonition of bad news she immediately tore open the envelope.
Alena,
My goddess, my love, MY HOPE,
my everything,
I feel as if my heart and head will burst. Maybe I’m going mad. Maybe I’ll die. I’m suffocating with the love I’ll never tell you now. I understand you, I UNDERSTAND YOU, and that’s why I’m dying! I’m leaving, my love, my love, MY LOVE! I’m holding the posy of pinks you gave me yesterday an
d crying. I reach out to you though I know I’ll never touch you now. LIGHT OF MY LIFE, MY SUNSHINE! But it can even be a consolation to die now I know who and what I’m dying for.
I’m YOURS for my now very short ever, my one and only, my dearest, my only love.
Your, your, your,
H.
She was unable to conceal her reaction. ‘Mummy, did Honza write something horrible?’ Manda asked.
‘No!’
‘Didn’t he write anything about those pills?’
‘No!’ and she realised that nothing had been consigned to the past. What was she going to do? What would she tell Adam? What would become of the children? ‘What pills?’
‘He had some pills to help him go to sleep. And now he’s eaten them. Martin saw him through the window. He said he took one pill, and then he had a drink of water, then he took another one and had another drink of water. Martin said he took fifty of them, but he doesn’t know how to count!’ she added scornfully. ‘And then he said . . .’ She listened no longer but dashed up the stairs. He was lying fully dressed on the bed. His face looked even paler than usual. The tube lay empty on the table:
Phenobarbital 10 tablets 200 mg.
1 tablet contains:
Phenobyrbitalum 200mg.
She had no idea what sort of tablets they were. She had a horror of all pills and she would probably have been just as alarmed by an empty tube of penicillin.
‘Honza!’
He opened his eyes. He tried to sit up but immediately fell back again.
‘What have you done?’
‘Sorry,’ he said in a fading voice. ‘Sorry!’
‘Get up immediately!’ she said with a brusqueness that concealed her anxiety. ‘Immediately!’
This time he really did raise himself. Thump, thump went the plaster cast.
Bob’s Renault was standing in front of the cottage, wet from the rain.
While her sister-in-law searched for the keys, she opened the car door and helped him on to the back seat.
‘Mummy, we want to go with you.’
‘You’ll stay here!’
‘You promised you’d take us this morning . . .’