by Ivan Klíma
‘That’s nothing to do with it.’
‘Why then?’
‘I don’t know who’s doing the running away.’
‘What do you mean?’ She sat up. ‘You know very well you were wanting to give me the slip!’
He could still put his arms round her, come and lie next to her on his side and couple with her. When they made love, when they were together, neither tried to run away from the other. ‘But after all, when you’re not with me you’re with someone else, aren’t you?’
‘Are you asking me?’ She covered her breasts with the cover, pulling it right up to her chin.
‘I’d like to know.’
‘Any other questions while you’re at it?’
‘I would have thought that that one was fairly important.’
‘Well I wouldn’t. I think it’s vile of you. Just you remember I do what I like. Whether I’m with you or not.’
‘You go with anyone you like?’
‘I’ve always gone with anyone I like, and it’s none of your bloody business.’ She reached for her underwear.
‘You mean to say it’s mutually immaterial how we live and who with?’
‘Would you kindly turn away?’
‘Would you kindly answer?’
‘How dare you shout at me? Who do you think you are?’
‘In that case, the best thing would be to call it all off.’
‘Call all what off? What crap are you talking? Since when did either of us have anything to call off?’
‘I understood we had.’
‘You understood something?’ She dressed quickly. ‘The only time you understand anything is when they send you a memorandum about something. You’re pigheaded and thoughtless. And boring. You think you’re being terribly passionate and amorous but you’re actually boring. You’ve always been boring and tedious ever since I first saw you. It was impossible to talk to you about anything. You don’t even go to the cinema. And if you do, it’s only to look at some fucking cartoon elephant.’
‘You needn’t have bothered if you found it so boring.’
‘I had to when Ruml invited you to our place. I don’t know what he saw in you. I asked him at the time and he spoke up for you. You seemed so decent and honourable to him. He didn’t realise you were only sucking up to him so you could screw his wife.’
‘But I wasn’t going out with you then!’
‘You got on my nerves then and you still do. You were insufferable. I only needed you because of him. By that time he couldn’t give a damn about me going out with fellows any more, but I was sure he’d have minded about you. He’ll go blind with rage when I tell him!’
‘Oh, shut up! You’re raving!’
‘Don’t worry, I know very well what I’m saying. You’re the one who doesn’t. And tomorrow you’ll be sorry. Tomorrow you’ll come creeping after me begging me to forget how vile you were.’
He realised that the tears were running down her face.
‘You’re just like the rest of them.’
Maybe he really would regret it tomorrow: when he’d stand under that window where the light would never again go on for him, when he’d unpack his two blankets: one to lie on, the other as an awning, with nothing to cover himself with or comfort him.
‘You’re all the same, the lot of you. It’s so bloody boring.’ She went up to the mirror, wiped her face with a handkerchief and then rummaged for a moment in her handbag. ‘Well, what are you waiting for? You wanted to sling your hook – so what are you waiting for?’
‘We always find confirmation of what we’re looking for,’ he said, as if there was any sense in explaining anything or defending himself.
She stared at him in surprise. ‘I don’t understand, but I bet you’re only looking for an excuse.’
‘I expect I’m just like everybody else. It’s a long time since I thought I was any better.’
‘Oh, buzz off. I can’t stand listening to you any more! I’ll get home from here somehow. Or are you afraid I’ll take something of yours with me?’
‘I’m hardly going to leave here without you.’
She sat down at the table. ‘Make me some tea, at least!’ The tears carved a channel through the fresh layer of powder.
Three matches snapped before he managed to light the gas.
To say to her: I love you. I’d like to stay with you. To be with you night and day. To hear the hissing of the drying reeds on the border between silence and the roaring of blood.
And then: to leave with you in search of a land where we’d know we were alive.
Where would we go?
No such land exists on earth. It’s not outside us, we have both lost it within us, you and I; we’d just wander fruitlessly from door to door.
He placed the mug of tea in front of her.
She pushed it away without drinking, then wiped her face and stood up. ‘It’s OK now. Let’s go if you think you can’t leave without me.’
2
The telephone rang. He snatched up the receiver in the vague hope of some good news, though he could not say what.
It was his wife. ‘Adam, it’s a long time since we’ve had lunch together!’
‘I can see no reason for us to lunch together.’
‘Haven’t you noticed what day it is today?’ she asked dejectedly.
He glanced at the calendar and then remembered that their wedding anniversary fell some time at the end of October. Their tenth. Or was it the eleventh already? They had no reason to celebrate it; she knew that as well as he did. That was if she was prepared to admit it. She was still trying to get him to talk everything over, so that they could agree on what to do. As if it were possible for people to agree that from a given date they would stop loving each other – or start to. But he would have to talk to her in the end.
He took her to the Brussels Expo restaurant. They found some space at a table with a view of the city. They sat opposite each other, and when he looked at her it struck him that he had not seen her in a long time. Her face – slightly pale with the smooth high forehead – seemed almost unfamiliar to him. Wrinkles were already forming under her eyes.
The waiter arrived with the hors d’oeuvres trolley.
‘Are you having something?’ she asked.
‘No.’
‘Do you mind if I do?’ She chose filled ham slices.
There must have been a time when he loved her. After all he had looked forward eagerly to their first dates, and even after their marriage he had looked forward to going home each evening and seeing her again.
Something had happened between that day ten years ago and today, something that had made them strangers to each other. In fact, during the first years he had pondered on it, running through the various actions, words, misunderstandings and quarrels which drove them apart. He had attempted to talk to her about them, but he recalled that usually she would go red and start to scream and hurl back her own grievances at him, or otherwise would pretend not to hear him and change the subject. And then he would conduct all his arguments with her, his indictments and pleas, entirely to himself. In the end he had stopped conducting them at all. There was no point in them, after all, if there was no one to sit in judgement.
But theirs had never been a passionate love. She moved along between the crash-barriers and had never dared to climb over them or duck them. She was certainly more high-minded than him. But high-mindedness without freedom became barren.
And what about him? He not only lacked high-mindedness, he had never learnt to act freely either. He could hardly demand from another what he lacked himself.
‘Do you often bring her to places like this?’
‘Why do you have to talk about it today of all days?’
‘I’ve been wanting to talk about her for a long time. You’re the one who hasn’t wanted to. You haven’t even told me her name.’
‘It’s hardly relevant, is it?’
‘What’s relevant is that you conceal it from me. That I’m not even worthy to
be told her name.’
‘It’s not the person that’s important, but the fact that it happened at all.’
‘So why did it happen? Why did you have to find someone else?’
‘How did it come about that you loved someone else and so did I?’
‘I’ve broken off with him.’
‘I’m talking about the past.’
‘What past?’
‘You were going out with that student, weren’t you?’
‘But I’ve already explained that I regret it terribly. I didn’t mean to hurt you.’
‘You can’t just dismiss it like that. There must have been some reason for everything that happened.’
‘You always have to look for reasons. Who’s guilty. Who’s the culprit.’
‘You’re right. I’m sorry. I said there was no sense in talking about it. You wanted to.’
‘There’s no sense in talking about what happened. I want to talk to you about now and the future.’
‘But they can’t be separated.’
‘I don’t want to separate anything . . . I want to talk to you about the future. Oh, for heaven’s sake, it’s so difficult to talk to you. You’re always so evasive.’
‘All right then, we won’t talk about the past. What do you want to talk about then?’
‘About the two of us and the children. After all, the two of us have children, Adam, and their future . . .’
‘I’m not renouncing the children.’
‘But you’ve renounced me. You’ve been walking around me as if I were a stranger.’
‘Maybe you’ve seemed a stranger to me.’
‘After all we’ve been through together?’
‘I’ve come to realise that you’re not the person I thought you were.’
‘But that’s hardly my fault.’
‘And I’m not accusing you of anything.’
‘So why did you find yourself that . . . woman?’
‘I thought we weren’t going to talk about the past.’
‘I don’t see why I shouldn’t ask you that.’
‘I expect we didn’t love each other enough, you and I.’
‘I didn’t love you enough, Adam? Haven’t I given you everything I could?’ Her voice shook and she was unable to suppress her tears.
Yet more tears. All those years ago, when they lay together in that dirty dormitory with six bunks, and the stench of musty straw, water and fallen leaves wafted in from below, along with the singing of drunks and the quick breath of the night: did we love each other then?
He was overcome with nostalgia for the time when nothing had yet marred his image of her and life with her, when he lived in the happy illusion that he knew her mind and satisfied her unspoken wishes, the time when he did not hear her cry. He touched her hand to comfort her.
‘Adam, when I first met you . . . I’d never loved anyone before you. No one the way I loved you. But you were always like a stranger. You never wanted to confide in me. You wanted to keep yourself to yourself and keep your distance.’
‘I wanted nothing of the kind. But we never managed to become close to each other. We were probably mismatched.’
‘How can you say something so awful? You’ll never come close to anyone. You’ll never commit yourself to another. You’re too frightened.’
‘What am I supposed to be frightened of?’
‘Of disappointment.’
‘I had every reason to be, as you see.’
‘I wouldn’t have done it if you’d been devoted to me.’
‘You’re just saying that. You’re just finding excuses for yourself.’
‘It’s impossible to live with someone who’s such a stranger.’
‘Did you feel I didn’t take enough care of you?’
‘No, but you never stopped being a stranger.’
‘What was I supposed to do? What did you expect me to do?’
‘To commit yourself to me sometimes. To be with me totally and let me know you were happy with me. But you would have sooner reduced everything to a written statement or figures. You take after your father. You have to draw a line under everything and add it all up. What can’t be added up doesn’t interest you.’
‘I wish you’d tell me what I could have added up in your case. I’d dearly like to know what form your love took.’
‘Exactly what I told you. I wanted to give myself to you. I wanted you to give yourself to me. To feel me close to you. To open up to me.’
‘And what did you do to help me open up to you?’
‘I was constantly waiting for it. The whole time. I know you’ve been kind sometimes. But you never did anything because you just couldn’t help it. From an inner compulsion.’
‘And did you ever do anything of the sort?’
‘How could I when you were such a stranger?’
‘You see, I told you it was pointless. All we do is argue. We’ll sort nothing out by talking.’
‘So how did you think it would be? That you would go on seeing her and I would say nothing?’
‘But I’m not seeing her any more.’
‘But you were.’
‘Why do you criticise me? You were going out with that student too.’
‘Stop calling him a student all the time.’
‘It’s irrelevant what I call him. But I don’t criticise you over him.’
‘There you are. That’s you all over. You’re acting like a stranger. You started to laugh when you first heard about it.’
‘I was laughing at myself.’
‘But you did laugh! How could you laugh at such a moment?’
‘What makes you speak about that moment as if it was so important?’
‘Adam, I’ve been pondering on you for all of the past ten years. Sometimes when I felt I couldn’t stand it any longer – your remoteness from me and from us – I’ve told myself that you probably can’t help it. That they damaged you during the war and stole something from you that you can never get back.’
‘What do you think they stole from me?’
‘Everything, apart from your reason. You’re sometimes tender – because you know you ought to be – but not because there is any tenderness in you.’
‘I expect I’m not what you need. I told you we were badly matched.’
‘How can you say something so awful?’
‘It would be more awful if we failed to discover it.’
‘No, the only awful things are those you can’t do anything about.’
‘At least we can accept them.’
‘But we have to do something. Something so we change.’
‘What do you want to change?’
‘What you said. That we don’t suit each other. But we do belong together, though. We have children together.’
‘Do you think there’s anything we can do?’
‘Yes. Love each other again, Adam. I love you. I feel that you’re mine. That you’re the only person I have in the world. And if I’ve hurt you, I’m sorry.’
‘I’m also sorry if I’ve hurt you. But one can’t force oneself to love someone.’
‘Are you saying you don’t love me at all any more?’
No, he wouldn’t say that, but something had happened and they could not just decide that it hadn’t. Perhaps he had not used the right expression when he said they were ill-matched. They had just failed to connect, to listen to each other, have understanding for each other.
But what had they been capable of understanding at all? What had he ever managed to understand? What had he managed to truly feel and experience? So what good would it do to promise her now that he would remain at her side, to remain with her the way he was?
‘Ten years ago, we made that trip to Slovakia and slept in that dismal hostel-type place. Do you remember?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Did you think at that time that we weren’t a good match?’
But that wasn’t the point, the problem was elsewhere – if only she were to ask. For a moment he
hoped she would: where are you now and where do you want to go from here? Have you still any capacity at all to live and act as a free individual? And if you have, will you still want to come back to me?
‘Are you not going to say anything?’ And then, as if all her determination had gone, and all her strength, she froze and the tears just streamed from her eyes, soaking the tablecloth.
He felt torn with remorse. He was now walking alone with just a pack containing his two blankets, a loaf of bread and a sooty mess-tin – where was he bound? Perhaps we’ll encounter each other again in some distant place that you’ll set off for too with your own knapsack. We’ll catch sight of each other between the sand dunes in the coastal forest and run to each other, or on the contrary – we won’t know until then – we’ll pass each other by considerately.
‘Don’t cry,’ he said. ‘They were happy times for me.’
3
Dear younger brother, perhaps you’re still waiting for me to come up with some advice for you after all, and instead you’ve not heard a thing. As I’ve already explained, I can’t give you any advice or decide for you, the best I can do is to tell you something about myself. What am I actually doing at this moment? I am in the park on my way from the courthouse to the hospital. It’s five in the afternoon and it’s getting dark. It’s a real English day: damp and dreary. There’s no one sitting on the benches. I dealt with three cases today, the last one a twenty-year-old nurse caught stealing drugs. Opiates, of course. I think she was pretty, but she cried the whole time so her face was all puffy. People try to steal bliss and end up weeping. Just recently I’ve had people weeping all round me. I’m used to it in court, but not elsewhere. I always wanted the people round me to be happy. I did my best to make them happy, or at least I persuaded myself I was doing my best. People persuade themselves of all sorts of things and in the rush of everyday life they don’t realise they’re merely nursing illusions.
Now I’m out of the park and could take a tram to where I used to tell myself I had a nice home. But instead I’ll walk down to the Botanical Gardens, where, you might recall, there’s another stop. I am just looking at a house where, for the past weeks, I have been meeting with the wife of a man who seems to have persuaded himself that I am his friend. I think I loved her. I daren’t say it for sure – but I did feel real pangs when, one evening recently, I glimpsed a light high up under the roof, a light that was not shining on my account. Maybe it’s shining again; I’d have to go through to the courtyard to find out, but there is no reason why I should. I don’t enjoy seeking out evidence these days or sitting in judgement on others. I don’t think I ever did enjoy it very much; I used to judge others mostly to avoid judging myself. Nothing boosts one’s confidence more than judging someone else. You start to persuade yourself that their weaknesses and faults are beneath you. Admittedly reality never fails to put you right on that score, but most of the time it’s easy enough to ignore its evidence. And when the worst comes to the worst you can always run away from it. Escaping doesn’t solve anything though and always leaves cruel traces. That’s something I do know and I expect it’s the reason why I am here in a place that so many people run away from. Don’t think I’m condemning anyone; I’ve run away enough times in my life. Every time some verdict was hanging over me. Instead of starting to think about myself, I have always started to think about a reprieve and a possible escape. It was during the war that I first learnt to hope for liberation and believe in a lucky escape. And I escaped from The Hole to evade my responsibility as a judge and get away from Magdalena, if you still remember her. I escaped to America when I got into deep water. I found a wife, but I used to find escape at work rather than face up to the possibility we were estranged from one another. When I discovered that my work, like my marriage, was going nowhere, I escaped to another woman – actually persuading myself that I was at last challenging my fate. Of all forms of escape, love itself conceals escape best of all. But what sort of existence is escapism? You start to act like a criminal: constantly looking over your shoulder and feeling pleased that no one has cottoned on to you yet. You regard your escape as freedom and don’t realise you’re a fugitive. You’ll never challenge anything again: you weigh up the circumstances instead of yourself. You look to others for help and protection, instead of looking to yourself. In fact, even when you offer help and protection to someone else, you don’t know whether you’ll be really capable of it, because you yourself are on the run and your help could easily be transformed into its opposite. So you increasingly keep your thoughts to yourself and just nod. Before sitting down anywhere you take a good look round for an escape route should the need arise, and only then do you start to listen, but in a different way than if you weren’t on the run. You listen circumspectly, eager not to miss any possible warning or hint; you try to ingratiate yourself with those who have given you refuge. You’re not living your own life any more, you’re living by the grace of others: those whose silence covers up for you, those who turn a blind eye or couldn’t care less; by the grace of your fate.