by Ivan Klíma
The only thing missing was a demand that the aforementioned be summarily imprisoned and put to death as quickly as possible.
At least a few of the names mentioned must have suggested to some readers that the charter was, in all likelihood, thoroughly different from the way it was being presented. Nevertheless, the party functionaries pulled out all the stops, and Rudé právo began printing indignant letters from working-class citizens who railed against the charter, ignorant of its contents.
A couple of days after this furious campaign began, a group of three coal men were delivering some coke to my apartment. I was standing at the entrance to the basement counting the buckets. One of them—he must have heard something about me—leaned over and asked if I happened to have a copy of “that charter.”
I brought them the text. Even today, I can see the three men with tubs on their backs (they had climbed up to the landing). They were carefully holding the onionskin paper in their hands as if it were an ancient parchment and reading the text with rapt and unfeigned interest. They returned it to me and asked if I could get them a copy; they wouldn’t reveal it to anyone, they assured me. I gave them one, and they apparently didn’t snitch.
*
Nanda’s teacher called us in again and delightedly informed us that they had changed their opinion and decided to recommend her for art school. I thanked her, even though it was obvious that the school had simply been given new instructions. I was astounded that the State Security had so quickly made it clear to me that they had taken into consideration the absence of my signature on Charter 77.
The charter was signed by Christians and atheists, opponents of communism, and those who had been expelled from the Communist Party but had remained adherents of socialism. The fact that I did not sign perhaps surprised some of my friends, but no one ever asked me why and no one ever considered me a traitor. Of course, everyone has the right to act according to his own convictions and resolve, and everyone knew I was reluctant to lend my signature to material I had not written myself or at least collaborated on.
Voice of America and Radio Free Europe were repeatedly broadcasting the text of Charter 77 and reporting on how it was being circulated and copied. Now it was up to the government to demonstrate that the petition was actually the work of only a few bankrupt usurpers and castaways. Whenever someone calls its legitimacy into doubt, every totalitarian and occupying power requires that the public conspicuously (it says: “by acclamation”) support it, in order that the greatest number of people abase and immerse themselves in collaborationist mire.
After the assassination of the Nazi Reich protector and mass murderer Reinhard Heydrich, the protectorate government summoned a gathering of more than a thousand citizens on Wenceslaus Square to swear allegiance to Hitler. They brought singers from the National Theater and forced them to sing the national anthem while everyone raised his right arm in the Nazi salute. (In their defense, any manifestation of resistance by those participating in this absurd performance would have resulted in execution.)
Thirty-five years later, during the Soviet occupation, the government, installed by the occupiers, called the foremost artists, primarily actors, to the National Theater. In this building, which from its inception has symbolized national pride, those summoned were supposed to sign a protest against Charter 77.
One of the most fanatical Communist actresses, Jiřina Švorcová, read a long, impassioned speech which, with the usual phrases, proclaimed her unity with the working people. She claimed that extraordinary works and achievements had been accomplished, which have enriched the spiritual life of our people and received much deserved recognition both at home and abroad. These achievements were realized in conjunction with the everyday work of our people whom our Communist Party led out of years of disruption. They emerged as a part of mutual efforts to achieve the rich, Socialist development of life in our country. They emerged in the favorable atmosphere of devotion, understanding, and optimal conditions that our society is creating for art and culture.
After all the usual curtsies to the progressive forces of the world, the actress came to the heart of her message:
That is why—in accord with the Final Act of the Helsinki Conference—we stretch our hand across the borders of countries and continents, fully aware that true art and true culture should help individual nations and all of humanity move forward; they should create understanding among people of diverse countries; they should win people over to the humanistic perspective concerning peace and mutual cooperation in the interests of joyful human life. That is why we hold in contempt those who, in the unbridled pride of their narcissistic arrogance, for selfish interests, or even for filthy lucre all over the world—even in our country, a small group of such backsliders and traitors can be found—divorce and isolate themselves from the nation, its life, and its genuine interests and, with inexorable logic, become instruments of the antihumanistic forces of imperialism and, in its service, the heralds of disruption and discord among nations.
This document of protest against Charter 77, which outlined the optimal conditions for artistic development in a country in which censorship watched over every publicly pronounced word, where hundreds of thousands of educated people were unable to work, and where hundreds of artists were banned from making their work public, was signed, to their shame (with a few exceptions), by those who were willing to accept the occupying regime and its violence against culture. Over the course of several days, Rudé právo printed more and more signatures, first of the most famous and then of entirely unknown actors, actresses, artists, musicians, and regional authors who perhaps believed that their signature would open their paths to fame. (It is difficult to find an excuse for such a deed.)
*
Apparently my deviation from this common enterprise interested the State Security agents. As far as I could judge, they considered me one of the more active opponents. Why had I suddenly pulled back? Was it a sign that I’d had some disagreement with the others, that I had become the so-called weakest link in the chain? They decided to look into it.
At the beginning of February 1977, an article appeared in Rudé právo about a German journalist named Walter Kratzer who was leaving Czechoslovakia on January 15. A letter was found on him with instructions concerning whom to turn to in Prague:
The best contact is the writer Ivan Klíma, Prague 4, Nad lesem 8, Tel. 46 12 64. Klíma signed the Charter 77, knows all the signatories, and is a close friend of authors of the “Prague Spring.” He will open doors for you. Should you be unable to reach Klíma, contact Klíma’s friend, the American actress Marlene Manchini, who lives in the Intercontinental Hotel.
The rest of the article mentioned that my German publisher was subsidized by the West German news service, and we were therefore reputed fighters for human rights, but in reality were a bunch of castaways and political adventurers.
The intent of this nonsense, especially the mention of an American actress whom I’d never laid eyes on, was apparent. The article was offering me an opportunity to publicly protest this mendacious information. The reference to the actress was simply intended to make this easier. I could get angry and say not only did I not know Marlene Manchini but I had not signed any pamphlet by a handful of castaways and political adventurers and then demand that the newspaper issue a retraction.
I did not allow myself to be tricked and refused to react to the article.
Around this time, I was invited to the Swedish premiere of a film adaptation of my novel A Summer Affair. Although I knew it would be futile, I decided to request my passport. I filled out a complicated form, listed all my relatives abroad (Aunt Ilonka in Canada), and proceeded to the People’s Committee for the first stamp. The unsuspecting official took the form and said she’d be right back. She did indeed come right back and with some embarrassment—in fact, she seemed downright frightened. They couldn’t give me the stamp, and I certainly knew why. I said I actually didn’t.
“You signed,” she sai
d in a whisper, “that pamphlet . . . that charter.”
I went home and, weighing every word, composed a letter of protest to the minister of the interior.
I do not understand why someone who signed Charter 77 cannot receive a passport and even less why someone who didn’t sign the Charter is refused a stamp on a request for a passport with the justification that he signed the charter.
I also wrote that I had been invited to the premiere of my film, as is quite common, and I would be ashamed to tell the studio I couldn’t attend because, despite all promises by the government about upholding basic human rights, our offices refuse to issue me a passport.
About two weeks later, I was called in for an interrogation. The official had in front of him my letter to the minister, with about half the lines underlined in red.
“You think,” he asked, offended, “we don’t know you didn’t sign the charter?”
I said I had no way of knowing what they knew, especially when Rudé právo, apparently on the basis of materials received from the powers that be, wrote not only that had I signed the charter, but that I was also the best contact because I knew all the signatories.
“So you read the article?” He was comforted. “Why didn’t you protest, since you knew it was false information?”
I said it would have been senseless.
He wanted to know why I thought this. I explained, “Because I know that what Rudé právo writes is the truth even if it is erroneous.”
He twitched his lips and quickly changed the subject.
This time he was almost collegial. Perhaps he was supposed to be playing the good cop, or at least they hadn’t ordered him to play the bad cop. He said it might be possible to consider a passport for me as long as I was willing to show a little goodwill.
I said that it was not appropriate for anyone to judge my goodwill if I was asking for something to which I had an obvious right. All at once, I was afraid they would issue my passport and let me out but not back in. Without further ado, I informed him that the premiere had already taken place, so my intention to travel to Sweden had lost its justification, and I had no plans to go elsewhere.
“So you actually don’t want your passport?” he asked, feigning surprise.
“I think I’ll wait,” I decided to say, “until all my friends receive theirs.”
“Fine,” he said, “but just don’t go complaining to some foreign radio how we’re suppressing your rights.”
So I didn’t get my passport. In addition, they disconnected my telephone and confiscated my car inspection certificate.
Marlene Manchini, if she actually existed and was even in Prague, had certainly departed by now.
Essay: (Secret Police), p. 522
19
Over the course of several weeks, Charter 77 issued a number of thoroughly elaborated documents (a number of outstanding lawyers were among the signatories). They drew attention to, among other things, the fact that many young people were limited in their right to an education and that the government persecuted religious devotees. Some of the documents dealt with illegal trials or labor law violations. (When my friends were preparing a text on the suppression of freedom of expression, especially literature, they asked me to help them.) Václav Havel, one of the three spokesmen, was arrested at the beginning of January. The authorities knew that in him the charter had a person of exceptional political abilities. On March 13, after a daylong interrogation, Professor Jan Patočka, the second spokesman of the charter, died.
The death of an outstanding philosopher, whom State Security had treated as a criminal, was not in the best interests of the leaders of our country, but they remained true to their resolve that anyone who tried to reveal their villainies would remain an outcast even after death.
Despite the malevolent campaign against the charter, thousands of people attended the funeral of its first martyr. A number of us recognized our investigators making their way through the crowd of mourners and noting those who dared to mourn publicly. The funeral was taking place in Břevnov, where there was a motorcycle track nearby, so State Security sent motorcyclists to ride around the track as fast and loudly as they could. Helicopters meanwhile hovered overhead to drown out the words uttered at the graveside.
As the funeral rites were being performed, the cops turned their backs to the grave and photographed those who came to pay their respects. These obstinate manifestations of disrespect revealed the pathetic nature of the country’s rulers more than any critical document ever could.
*
The fact that I hadn’t signed the charter and still seemed to be abstaining from all protest activity struck the State Security as extremely suspicious now. After Hrabal’s self-criticism, they hadn’t been able to persuade anyone else to abandon his erroneous ways—not to mention that Hrabal was nonpolitical and his self-criticism didn’t have the appropriate impact.
A few weeks after my last summons to Bartolomějská Street, the mail carrier delivered to me the familiar subpoena.
At the porter’s lodge, I was met by the same official who had investigated my complaint to the Ministry of the Interior. He feigned affability and asked after my health and whether I’d received any more invitations from abroad.
When he pressed the button in the elevator, I noticed that we were going to a higher floor than usual. I asked where he was leading me this time, and he said we were going two floors up. In every sense of the word.
I was led down a corridor that did indeed look less dreary. He knocked on one of the doors, and I unexpectedly found myself in a human environment. There were even pictures on the walls and a fairly decent rug covering the floor. Somewhat bewildered, I said hello to the secretary, and she replied in kind. Then she rose from her chair, opened a padded door, and said the colonel was expecting me.
In this room were bookcases overflowing with various collected works and a little gray-suited gentleman with the slightly puffy face of a civil servant.
He seemed pleased to see me. “Ah, Mr. Klíma,” he said. He rose from behind his desk, shook my hand, and introduced himself as Mr. Irovský. He pointed to a leather armchair and invited me to have a seat. Then, like a good host, he asked if he could offer me something to drink. I thanked him and said I wasn’t thirsty.
He informed me he’d invited me here because he wanted to speak about my future plans, as they say. He apologized for the official form of his invitation, but we definitely should not consider this an interrogation. He would have asked me to a café, where it would have been much more pleasant, but from everything he’d heard, in all likelihood I would have refused such an invitation.
Then followed a conversation that some instruction manual or textbook of State Security probably referred to as “cordial and friendly.”
The colonel assured me that, for him, our meeting was a rare opportunity. When would he ever have the chance to sit and chat with a world-famous author? He emphasized “world-famous” in order to flatter me or to let me know he was aware of the publication of my books and performances of my plays abroad, which could be considered an act hostile to the state, to socialism, and essentially to all progressive forces of the world in their battle for peace. Then, no matter how astoundingly incongruous it seemed, he started talking about literature. He mentioned Hemingway, whose book about the Spanish Civil War seemed to him quite progressive; and Howard Fast, who, on the other hand, had gone over to the enemies of socialism. “And what about your books?” he wanted to know. “I asked about them at the bookstore just around the corner in the building where you used to work, but they didn’t have anything.”
Had he yelled at me, had he interrogated me, it would have been very easy to keep quiet, to ignore the questions or say I wasn’t going to give evidence. But when a person is sitting across from you and says he’s surprised he can’t get a copy of one of your books, it seems stupid not to reply even though I knew this was some sort of ludicrous game. I knew he hadn’t asked anyone about my books because he wa
s well aware they were forbidden to appear in bookstores. It was entirely possible that he was the one who had issued the order to confiscate my books immediately if they appeared anywhere.
I said I was not allowed to publish here.
“That’s a shame,” he replied. “I’ll bet that’s really quite vexing. Or perhaps it’s all the same to you?”
I said there were plenty of other things more vexing.
He ignored my response. “But you must be working on something now. One of those little novels of yours? And plays as well. A colleague mentioned that something of yours was playing in Switzerland and Vienna. You apparently poked a little fun at our circumstances here. But that’s part of your trade,” he quickly added. “Did you go to the premiere?”
I said my passport and my wife’s had been confiscated.
“So why didn’t you submit a request for them?” he mused and immediately added, “But I’m not going to sit here and ask you questions. It might seem like an interrogation.”
Why else would I be sitting in this viper’s nest? It was more like an insane dream.
Then the colonel decided to change the subject of this amicable conversation and began discussing mushroom hunting. He’d heard it was my hobby (his agents had provided him with even this information), but the regular forests had already been picked clean. “Where could one find a decent mushroom?” he complained. At least a parasol or rosacea mushroom. He offered to take me out to the military zone where there were plenty, and I’d have a full basket in no time.
Then he returned to my writing and said he’d like to read something.