by Ivan Klíma
‘It’s not the business of death to be just, is it?’
‘And how about God?’
‘God is just, but his justice is not the same as human justice.’
‘Do you think there can be two sorts of justice?’
‘It’s not the question of a different sort, but of a different dimension.’
‘You believe in the fourth dimension?’
‘I mean the dimension in which God moves.’
‘When my sister died I felt it to be an injustice. Why her, of all people?’
‘Your sister died? You didn’t tell me.’
‘It’s ten years ago now. I don’t like speaking about it.’
‘She was the one who found you when you wanted to kill yourself?’
‘I only had one sister. Katka was so kind to me. The kindest of all next to Mum.’
‘What was she suffering from?’
‘Nothing. She got into a skid when she was driving her car. For five days she was conscious and they just thought she would never walk again. Then she lapsed into unconsciousness. They kept her for six more weeks on a life-support machine. When they switched it off, that was that. When does the soul leave the body? When they turn off the machine, or before?’
‘I couldn’t tell you.’
‘Do you think it’s fair that good young people should die?’
‘Good and bad people die. We all must die.’
‘Yes. Ever since then I’ve known that I can say cheerio in the morning to someone I love and I may never see them alive again. Or they me. It’s sad. It’s a sad arrangement, don’t you think so?’
‘And how would you like it to be? How would you have life arranged?’
‘I’d like to know I have a few days left. For living. For loving you.’
‘You’re sure to have.’
‘How can you tell?’
‘I’ll pray for it.’
‘You’ll pray for me not to die yet?’
He nods.
‘I prayed for my sister too, that time. But it didn’t help.’
‘Don’t think of death any more.’
‘You’re right. Don’t be cross with me. Here I am with you and I’m talking about death. It’s just the mood I’m in. Tell me, will you lie down with me, or are you in too much of a hurry?’ She gets up and finds the door to the bathroom without difficulty.
He hears water running. It is most likely rusty. It has been months since he ran any water here. He was unable to forget his first wife. Particularly during the first years after her death. Maybe that was the reason he was never able to be completely close to Hana. He was grateful to his second wife and he loved her. But he was incapable of loving her like his first wife. It seemed natural to him, in fact, that one could give oneself fully only to one person in a lifetime. What is it that he feels now? Real love? Or has he yielded to some comforting self-deception?
When Bára returns she is wrapped in a towel, in the same way his first wife used to wrap herself. ‘I took it,’ she says, referring to the towel. ‘It belonged to your mum, but she would have been sure to lend it if she knew I was here with you and I loved you.’ Then she asks him to turn off the light in the room, but to leave the one in the lobby burning as she is scared of the dark.
They make love on the old ottoman that he still remembers from his childhood. ‘My darling,’ Bára whispers, ‘I love it when you put your arms around me. You’re so attractive: I love your mouth, your teeth, your eyes. They’re a greyish blue like the Prague sky. If I didn’t have you, if you hadn’t come to meet me, maybe I wouldn’t be living now. I need love to live and without it I’d die. Without you I’d die.’
She groans in ecstasy and begs, ‘Save me. You will save me, won’t you?’
‘From what?’
‘From all evil. From cruelty. From the world. From me. From death. You can. You can do it. You can do anything.’
‘I don’t have that power, sweetheart. But I love you.’
‘There you are. You have the power of love.’
The light from the lobby falls on her face that seems pale. But her hair has a coppery sheen and her eyes are dark.
‘I’ve already told you I’m not God.’
‘One doesn’t need God for love, though. Love is in the human heart. In mine and in yours.’
What time can it be? How did he come to be here? Is it a sin? Is he betraying those he loves? Is he betraying himself? Or, on the contrary, would he be betraying himself if he weren’t here, if he had renounced this moment when the love he feels overwhelms everything?
She puts her arms around him. ‘Tell me you don’t mind I dragged you out at night.’
‘I’m glad.’
‘We’ve never been together at night before. And never the whole night. And we won’t be tonight either. But I’d love to wake up in the morning at your side. At least once.’
‘So would I.’
‘Would you go somewhere with me and spend a whole day and a night with me?’
He looks at her and into her honey-coloured eyes, and she says, ‘Yes, it’s me!’
‘I’d go with you for a night and a day and a night and a day and …’
‘No, you know yourself it will never happen. And besides, when you woke in the morning you’d notice I had wrinkles, you’d notice I’m old.’
‘But you’re not old.’
‘I’ll be forty-one next month. Do you realize how dreadful that is?’
‘No, that’s not dreadful.’ He sits up. The light from the street enters the room. What is dreadful is to live a lie, to deceive one’s next of kin – this is what occurs to him, but all he says is that she is still a little girl compared to him.
Bára stretches out her arms as if wanting to draw him to her, but she too sits up. ‘You want to go already? All right, I know, we have to.’ She embraces him again. ‘Don’t forsake me!’
‘I won’t.’
‘But you will. You will in the end. Just now you were thinking what a problem I am for you.’
‘No, what was actually going through my mind is that I am deceiving my wife and you’re deceiving your husband.’ He gets up and goes over to the window. The windmill below the window turns silently.
‘I know it bothers you. And already I feel a chill down my spine at the thought of what awaits me at home.’ She dresses rapidly. ‘Maybe he’ll kill me one of these days and you won’t even find out! And you’ll go on preaching how important it is for us all to love each other!’
2
Diary excerpts
I talk to Eva in a friendly way, I don’t reproach her with anything and I act as if everything was all right. But I can’t dispel the fear that I’ve neglected something, that I’ve messed something up. I always wanted to set a good example to my children, not to speak about truth and love, but to be truthful and live in love. But what if the way I behaved, the way I acted and the way I treated her, only tended to increase her sense of inferiority and inadequacy? Young people are prone either to excessive belief or excessive disbelief. It depends on their character and the people they model themselves on. As a child I scarcely knew my father. He was in prison. When at last he came home he was my hero, but his behaviour was so natural and earthy, and he tried so ‘sinfully’ to enjoy life, that I sometimes found him hard to take. Maybe it would be better for the children if I were to swear sometimes, or play cards, or at least get drunk from time to time. But what if they were to discover what I’m really doing?
It is well known how hard it is to be the child of famous parents. Clergy aren’t usually famous people, but their children don’t tend to have an easy time either. Exemplary behaviour is expected both from the parents and from the children. But should any of them fail, they are the butt of scorn and their disgrace is the subject of general satisfaction.
My thoughts are in a tangle, just as my life is. And I look for excuses for my actions.
I have definitely fallen far short of being a perfect example for my children. I have
simply tried to live in accordance with what I preached. And I have never exalted myself over anyone, and that includes my own children. I’ve never saddled them with any burden of responsibility. At most I’ve reminded them of the words of Ecclesiastes that always struck me as wise:
Come now, I will make a test of pleasure; enjoy yourself. But behold, this also was vanity…
I searched with my mind how to cheer my body with wine – my mind still guiding me with wisdom – and how to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was good for the sons of men to do under heaven during the few days of their life…
I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces; I got singers, both men and women, and many concubines, man’s delight.
And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them; I kept my heart from no pleasure…
Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had spent in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.
I’m not sure whether they were capable of understanding the text. And what about me? Am I still capable of accepting its wisdom? If I am, I’ll preach on it. No, if I still accept it, I’ll live by it.
I was invited to take part in a radio phone-in on what was supposed to be a topical issue: Why are people losing confidence in the church. Apart from me, there was a parish priest, Father M., a tolerant and big-hearted man, plus some sociologist and an editor. The listeners who phoned in mostly attacked the Catholics, accusing them of hankering after property, of wanting to take possession of the national cathedral, and of having used power to force their beliefs on people and burn the innocent at the stake. I kept on waiting for someone to raise some serious objection, such as calling into question Christ’s divinity or Mary’s virginity, saying that everything we preach is based on a faith that is an insult to the intelligence of people nowadays, but nobody voiced anything of the sort. I left at the end with the galling feeling that the human mind just flitters on the surface, fascinated with property, violence and old grievances. As Comenius writes in his own biography: ‘For I have observed that people do not speak at all, but only mouth things, i.e. they do not transfer a thing or the meaning of a thing from one mind to another, but instead they exchange among themselves words that are misunderstood, or understood insufficiently and wrongly. And this is done not merely by the populace, but also by the semi-learned crowd…’
From the last letter of Mrs Milada Horáková, written a few hours before her execution on 27 June 1950:
‘I’m completely calm and prepared. The minister has been here, and even though Dr Kera couldn’t come, I found it a great support – I begged him also to help you above all. Rely on all of those who can and want to support you. Live! Live!… There are so many of you – I’m alone and also have to cope.
‘I never doubted your strength, but you have surprised me. It will be painful for a while, but the pain will gradually diminish. Go out into the meadows and the woods, you’ll find a little bit of me there in the scent of the flowers. Go into the fields, look at all the beauty and everywhere we’ll be together. Look at the people around you and I’ll be reflected in each of them in some way. I’m not at my wit’s end or in despair – I’m not putting it on, I’m so peaceful inside because my conscience is clear.
‘… During these last moments everything has seemed so unreal to me, but in fact I have only minutes left to count. It’s not so bad – you’re the ones that matter now, not me any more. Be strong! I love you so much and a love like this can’t be lost or just evaporate, can it? Nothing in the world is ever lost, everything goes on growing somehow and is renewed again. Follow only the things that are close to life. Cling on to each other and support one another!
‘I repeat it once more: the new life that is now approaching has brought me incredible peace of mind. The play is over for me and the curtain’s coming down, but a new play is beginning… Maybe I played my part badly, but it was an honest attempt. You can take my word for it. I meekly submit to the will of God – he set me this test and I accept it with just one ambition: to obey God’s laws and preserve my good name as a human being.’
What would I write in such a situation? And to whom would I address my last letter?
Bára and I meet in Mother’s old flat. We don’t see each other more than twice a week and always briefly. We have no time. She talks to me about her work and her life. Several times she has brought a letter she wrote to me in the meantime. But she hasn’t wanted me to read it at once. ‘You’re not going to waste the time you could be with me!’ I find her letters almost spellbinding, although I know I must not accept the praise she heaps on me.
I told her that should her husband refuse to support her son’s university study, she could rely on me. She said that such a thing was out of the question, but it is important for her that I say it.
Apparently, for several days her husband treated her and even his stepson with more consideration. I asked her if he had apologized for throwing the ruler at her.
‘Apologize? To me? That’s something he’d never do. In his eyes I’m not a fully developed human. I’m just a woman, aren’t I?’
I also confided in her the news that I had found Dad’s name on the list of police informers.
She asked if it distressed me very much.
I told her I would like to know the truth.
‘But you’ll never discover the truth,’ she objected.
I said that if truth could not be discovered then there could be no justice on earth.
‘And there isn’t any,’ she said. ‘There truly isn’t any justice.’
It’s fascinating how Marika, the gypsy girl, takes for granted the accounts of Jesus’s miracles. For her, miracles are still part and parcel of life. Unclean spirits move amongst us and the seriously ill can be healed by the touch of a hand and a stormy sea can be calmed by a single command. Her grandmother knew how to exorcise evil spirits and her blind girlfriend was visited in a dream by her late father who prophesied that she would see.
‘And did she see?’
‘Yes, of course.’
In her world, the dead move about and still live together as they did in life. They are invisible to us, the living, but they can visit us in dreams. She believes it is possible to charm or to offend the sun, the moon and the wind. Am I to explain to her that this is all superstition and error, that only our Lord was able to perform miraculous deeds, because he was the Son of God? Or am I, on the contrary, to tell myself that the message of Scripture can only be accepted fully and unselfconsciously by people such as she?
Marek and Alois took her to visit the Pentecostals in Libe. They came back in high spirits as they had experienced something out of the ordinary – even speaking in tongues and, as Marek put it, ‘genuine piety’. Their enthusiasm did not please me. Something is happening to people: they are turning outwards instead of inwards. I remember watching a televised service of the Apostolic Church when I was visiting Rút in Oregon, although it looked less like a church service than a television show. The preacher dashed here and there on an enormous stage, yelling, crying and laughing, telling stories from the lives of basketball players and racing drivers, singing and invoking the Holy Spirit, which played some crucial role at the end of each of his stories. He had a pile of paper napkins to hand which he used to wipe the sweat from his brow and then threw them away all over the stage. I told the boys that speaking in tongues was not so much an expression of faith as an expression of confused minds, which leads them into a state of false ecstasy so that they believe they are speaking to our Lord. Wherever the conscious mind is absent, anything can gain a foothold, and mostly it is something bad, not something good.
Petr hasn’t shown up for several weeks now. I asked Marek and Alois if they had any news of him and where he was actually living. Alois hadn’t a clue, and Marek seemed to me to hesitate before replying – as if he knew something and was frightened to confide i
n me. I felt like shouting at him but I stopped myself. Distrust is worming its way into our family and I myself am not without blame in this regard.
I had a talk with Marek about love and the beauty of the female body. I told him that the really beautiful woman is the one that you love. And suddenly I realized that all the while I was thinking of Bára, and I thought to myself what right have I to preach to Marek?
Almost every night I wake up with an oppressive awareness of the lie I am living. I ought to give up preaching (not just to my children). How am I supposed to talk about morality, love and honour when the way I live denies them all?
Bára believes that white lies are merciful precisely to those whom we deceive. I won’t leave my husband who hurls rulers at me, she told me, and you won’t leave your wife, who looks after you, who brought up your daughter, bore you two more children and loves you. So everything will stay the way it is, I’m sure of it. So why cause them pain?
It’s a philosophy I can’t accept, but on the other hand I am unable – and too craven – to suggest anything else.
B. rang me this morning to say she’s ill. She was with her husband at their country place at the weekend and it looks as if she slipped a disc when she was digging the flower bed. She managed the homeward journey, but this morning she was unable to get out of bed. Fortunately, her husband stayed in the country, as he wanted to do some drawing in peace. She told the boys to go to their grandmother’s after school and now she’s lying at home like an invalid.
I told her it was a pain I was familiar with and had some tablets I could bring her.
She doesn’t want tablets, she hates tablets, but if I wanted to, if I were to find a moment and come over, I could find out where and how she lives.
I bought a bunch of roses and a small glass vase from Nový Bor.
‘You’re crazy,’ she said when she opened the door. ‘You mustn’t go wasting time rushing around the shops.’ She was wearing some faded sweater and tattered jeans. ‘I’m lying down,’ she announced. ‘You won’t mind that I first invited you to our house on the very day I’m unable to stand upright?’