by Ivan Klíma
I haven’t started to pray yet. But I know that in every prayer one says: Don’t forsake me, Lord! I don’t pray, but every evening when I’m falling asleep I repeat in the quiet void: Don’t forsake me yet a while, my darling.
Love, Bara
P.S. Now that I’ve written a litany about myself and my woes I expect you think I don’t see anything else and that nothing else interests me. But actually the whole world and its future interests me. In fact, that’s one of the few things I can talk to Sam about without fear: how everything around us will collapse one day, leaving only ruins behind!
Dear Reverend,
I was sorry your visit did not prove as successful as you’d hoped. After you had gone I tried to check my memory, particularly regarding the members of the service your father might have been seeing. Some of them came to mind. Even though some of them have gone where I won’t meet them again, should I happen to see any of them I’ll mention your problem to them. Maybe they’ll have a better memory.
Seeing I wrote: I won’t meet them again, I’d like to trouble you with a few questions, Reverend. As you maybe know I was dismissed from the service during the screenings back in sixty-nine and did various jobs afterwards to earn a living. I don’t deny that in my youth I was a red-hot fighter for the socialist cause and against it’s enemies. In accordance with my training I regarded them as the enemies of everything progressive and therefore of the working people. For the same reason I regarded religion as opium to turn the working man away from the just struggle. For me God was something invented by people and particularly the priests.
But now I read lots of other things in the press and I even watch religious broadcasts on the television on the odd occasion. Not that I’ve entirely changed, though! But it occurs to me that if I could have been misled about the rest I could have been misled about this too. Apart from which I’ll be seventy-four this autumn and I have to admit that it’s not easy to come to terms with the thought that you’ve not long to go and that’s that.
So my question is this. Do you really believe people have souls and that the soul can live after death, and that it will even be rewarded or punished for what it did, that it will be sent somewhere? There’s supposed to be hell, purgatory and heaven. Could you explain to me where they are all supposed to be? On earth or in outer space? Also, you declare that the soul is not a material substance. But can something that’s not a material substance exist in the world? God is supposed to be something similar. I just can’t imagine it. And also souls are supposed to pass from the dead into the living. But who can testify to it? After all, every baby is born without intelligence.
Reverend, if I’d written you a letter like this twenty years ago you might have taken it as a provocation, but not now, surely?
Looking forward to your reply,
Alois Bubnik
Dear Bára,
From our first or maybe our second conversation, I was taken aback by your gratitude for every sign of interest and for every answer to a question. Then I realized that you were someone thirsting for love (since childhood?) and that was why you were so grateful and humbly thankful.
I can imagine the gratitude you heaped on your husband, particularly since he was a professional whom you respected, when he left his wife and daughter on your account (or so you thought, although he no doubt did it on his own account as well, because he wanted you).
Gratitude, humility and praise are the way to kindle love in a good heart, that is what you believed and you behaved accordingly, as you still do. But when gratitude and admiration are expressed constantly they can have the opposite effect. They become a kind of drug for the one who is on the receiving end, who then starts to demand admiration and gratitude at all costs, by means of violence, blackmail or threats.
In so doing you can cause the person on whom you shower gratitude and admiration to believe in his superiority and above all his superiority over you. In place of a companion from whom you expect love you create yourself a master who regards himself as a god, who gives orders, takes decisions and issues pardons and rewards where appropriate. But all those functions belong to another Lord altogether. The human reward for gratitude and recognition tends to be ingratitude. The person who has tried to obtain love by means of gratitude and service tends to receive the opposite. In the words of the apostle: love is the fulfilling of the law. Everything in life that is given apart from it is of less account. Therefore, he who gives thanks for love without accepting thanks for the love he himself gives, helps to enfeeble or even destroy it.
You heap gratitude on me but forget about yourself. You’re very special. And don’t thank me for every caress – after all, you do your share of caressing.
I’d like to caress you now, for a long time without stopping. I’d caress you like that until the world outside the window disappeared along with my ‘mission’, our obligations and commitments and we’d remain all alone in the world (for a moment, at least).
All alone – does that mean without God too? I expect so. He might be able to accept our love but not our deception.
I’m sorry for also mentioning the thing I fear, but perhaps it only shows how much I love you that I act the way I do.
Love, D.
P.S. Re. the future of the world and humanity. I think it all depends on whether we manage to feel another’s pain as our own.
Dear Rùt,
I’ve hesitated a long time, wondering whether I ought to write to you about something I’ve not talked to anyone else about, or whether I was able to. But even though you’re so far away, you are still the only really close relative I have and the only one who might possibly have some understanding for me.
I’ve committed something I never thought I’d be capable of doing. No, of course I’ve not killed anyone, or stolen the Sunday collection. Maybe you can guess. Yes, I’ve been unfaithful to Hana and still am and I’ve not had the courage to tell her yet.
I’m not able to explain my behaviour let alone excuse it. I still love Hana. But it’s sort of a calm and unexciting relationship. The other woman excites me. She is passionate by nature and she lures me the way one is lured to an abyss. I’ve made up my mind a hundred times to put an end to it but then she phones me or I catch sight of her and I realize that I haven’t the strength to break it off with her. Besides which, she begs me over and over again not to forsake her. I have the feeling she needs me in order to live. Maybe I’m deceiving myself as I have on so many occasions when I have trusted my conviction that people mean what they say. I know you can’t advise me and it’s not advice that I want, nor understanding for that matter. I simply needed someone to confide in and don’t really have anyone but you. What a pity you’re so far away.
Best wishes.
Love, Dan
Chapter Six
1
Old Mrs Houdková is on the point of death. She wants to stay home, she has no wish to die in hospital. Daniel therefore calls on her at least once a week, usually on a Thursday. He doesn’t even need to say anything or comfort her, just his presence reassures the old lady.
A bunch of asters is wilting slightly in a vase. Daniel makes the old lady some tea and puts the piece of tart that Hana has sent her on a plate, which the grandmother hardly touches. ‘How is it out?’ she wants to know.
Outside it is fine and unusually mild for the third week in October.
‘But the birds haven’t flown away yet,’ the old lady says, ‘and the roses are almost finished.’ Then she asks Daniel to say the Lord’s Prayer with her and she adds the Apostles’ Creed of her own accord. She believes that Christ will come to judge the living and the dead and also in the resurrection of the dead. ‘Verily, verily, I say unto you He that heareth my word, and believeth in him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.’
The old lady glances up and says without warning, ‘I’m anxious, Reverend.’
‘About what, Sister Houdková?’
‘About what’s to come.’
He ought to reassure her and tell her that she can expect bliss in the presence of the Lord, eternal love, in other words, but he remains silent, and suddenly feels as if he is on the edge of a dark pit into which every living thing falls, in which nothing lasts, neither hours, nor days, nor years, nor centuries, nor millennia. Nothing will escape it.
Make haste to answer me, O Lord!
My spirit fails!
Hide not thy face from me,
lest I be like those who go down to the Pit.
(Psalm 143)
He merely takes the old lady’s veiny, wizened hand in his and says what anyone might say: ‘Have no fear, Sister Houdková!’ That’s all. He doesn’t even add: The Lord is with you and will not forsake you. Not even what he had once said to his father: that his soul would not die but would live for ever. He just holds her hand in silence. Then he gets up, promises he will be back soon, and leaves her.
When he leaves the house he realizes he is still standing on the edge of a dark pit, with emptiness below him and before him, and he is overcome by dizziness.
It is just midday and suddenly he is at a loss what to do with his time. Hana is at work and the children aren’t back till the evening. He can go and sit in his office and wait in case someone comes requiring help, which he won’t give anyway. Also he could prepare his sermon but he has the feeling he will never again be able to mount the pulpit to say a single word. He could go to his workshop and do some carving, wrest from the formless wood all the shapes it contains. He could sit and play the piano. Or write a letter to Bára. Instead he stops in front of a telephone booth and hesitates for a moment. He knows Bára doesn’t like him calling her at home or at the office where her husband might be present, and even when he is not there, his and her colleagues are, and are always watching her.
Nevertheless, he dials the office number and an unfamiliar female voice announces it to be the design studio. He asks for Mrs Musilová, the architect.
A moment later Bára takes the phone. ‘How do you do,’ she says in a formal tone. ‘One moment, please,’ she says then, ‘I’ll take the call next door.’
He waits in the booth, aware of a strange agitation; another step and he’ll fall.
‘Dan, is something up?’ her voice says at last.
‘No, or rather yes. Something has come over me. It’s strange, on such a lovely day. I need to see you.’
‘Right now?’
‘If possible. The days are getting short.’
‘But I’m at work.’
‘Maybe they could spare you for once.’
‘But what would I say? Sam will be back and he’ll come looking for me.’
He waits for her a few blocks from her office.
‘For your information, I’m on my way to the land registry office,’ she announces on her arrival. ‘I can get held up there for once. Where do you want to go?’ He doesn’t want to go anywhere; he wants to be with her because he is frightened of being on his own. He is frightened of his own teeming thoughts, which threaten to engulf and drown him unless he manages to divert them from their present course.
‘I thought we might go for a drive somewhere, to a park, maybe,’ he says, because she always expects some suggestion.
‘Out of town? You’re crazy. But I’ve got to be at home this afternoon when the children come home from school.’
‘We’ll be in the country in ten minutes.’
‘There are no parks in this direction, apart from Šarka. Or Veltrusy. Now that’s a park I like, because it was my favourite when I was a child and also because it’s romantic. But it’s a long way out.’
Some destination at last. He drives across the narrow bridge over the dark pit and sets off for Veltrusy.
On the hillsides, he notices, the larches are yellowing while the guelder roses and dogwood are turning red; the fields have been ploughed and above the horizon there hangs the grey haze of the autumn mists. She is sitting next to him, he feels her closeness, her scent, her breath. That narrow bridge is love; when it ends the bridge will collapse noiselessly. But now it is here with him and he starts to feel ashamed for having succumbed to anxiety, that he who should console needed comfort, or more likely a companion to escape with. He asks her if she’s cross with him for dragging her away from work.
‘I’ve dragged you away more than once. Besides, the work I do is slave labour anyway.’ The architect, she explains, bringing him back down to earth, spends nine-tenths of his time on organization and the remainder on creative activity, at least that is how it works out with Musil. She doesn’t even get that tenth, and spends her entire time dealing with phone calls, running between official departments and keeping an eye on construction firms to make sure they’re not cheating too much. Formerly people stole from the State and thought there was nothing wrong with it. Now they steal from the State and have the feeling they are acting according to market principles. She leans over and kisses him: ‘You’re trying to escape my chatter and you’re driving like a lunatic.’
‘I thought you were in a hurry.’
‘We don’t have much time, darling, but if we get killed, we won’t have any. Not here on earth, at least. And up there, as you believe,’ she says, pointing to the roof and on the source of his anguish, ‘people don’t meet again, do they? And certainly not sinners like the two of us.’ Then she remembers something: ‘Saša liked you, he said you’re a man, which in his book means a real man.’
‘But he hardly knows me.’
‘Well, the most important things you don’t learn anyway, you have to sense them. I also sensed it about you the first time I met you.’
‘I liked him too.’
‘My little lad has a high forehead and a good heart. Takes after me. I expect he likes the fact you believe in God. I like it too. Maybe that’s why I love you so much, the fact you can believe in something that is mysterious and beyond us and that I still can’t bring myself to believe in.’
They drive through shabby villages. He is still aware of Bára’s closeness and realizes that something has radically changed in his life.
At a moment of anguish he had not run to the Lord, he had not battled for his faith, but had given up and run to this woman who did not belong to him, nor he to her. To the woman who likes the fact he believes. Or it excites her. And meanwhile his soul is filled with doubts. Formerly he would strive to act well according to his conscience, so that one day he could look back without shame, so that he should not do anyone any harm or lead others to sin by setting a bad example. And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to enter life maimed or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. (Matthew 18:8)
The pit terrifies him, whether it is full of fire or empty, but he is not only abandoning what he has believed his whole life – or has striven to believe in – he is also forsaking everything he has lived for so far: his family, his vocation, his future. A man without a future. That’s the title of a novel. No, the title is: A Man Without Qualities. Der Mann ohne Eigenshaften.
One such method, that admittedly kills the soul, but then preserves it, as it were, in little jars for general use, is to link it with reason, conviction and practical dealings, as has been practised with success by all moral codes, philosophies and religions.
‘Darling,’ Bára breaks the silence, ‘you’re sitting beside me but in fact you’re not here at all. You’re not taking the slightest bit of notice of me. What’s up?’ He blames all the bends in the road.
Half an hour later they pull up in Veltrusy Park. A chemical stench hangs in the air, mingling with the scent of mouldering leaves.
‘Do you know it here?’
‘No, I’ve never been here before.’
‘I haven’t been here for ages either. At least ten years. But when I was small, my parents used to bring us here. My grandad who died before the war used to be the superintendent h
ere, so in a way it was our park. There wasn’t a stinking chemical works here then, although the little bridge with the sphinx and all those crazy neo-classical pavilions and artificial ruins were here, of course. And a flaming horse’s head used to haunt the park not far from here, though I never saw it. I didn’t believe in ghosts. I didn’t believe in anything that wasn’t real. I couldn’t manage to even when I was small.’
She leads him to a spot from where it was possible to see an Egyptian chamber and tells him that water still flowed through it in those days. She shows him a rare, enormous tulip-tree, a gingko pine and a true chestnut tree.
They sit down on a bench opposite the Temple of the Friends of the Countryside and Gardens. She unbuttons her yellow and blue coat and rests her head on his chest, her face turned to the sun. ‘I once saw a gnome here,’ she says. ‘He had a big head, short crooked legs and red trousers, and he had a pannier on his back.’
‘How old were you?’
‘I don’t remember. Four or five maybe. I called to my dad to come quickly and see, but he was reading the paper, the stupid paper – there wasn’t any other kind then – and before he put it down the gnome had run off. What’s wrong with me today? First I waffle on about being cheated, now I’m going on about gnomes. Haven’t I managed to put you off me yet?’
‘No, you mean more to me than you can ever imagine.’
‘You don’t just want me for my body, do you?’
‘Whatever makes you ask?’
‘I just wanted to hear what you’d say. That you’re also interested in my soul.’
‘Love is a coming together, isn’t it? And most of all a coming together of souls.’
‘You think so too? And what form does it take?’
‘Words, for instance. Words are the seeds of the soul. Even a dog or a crocodile has seeds of the body.’