by Ivan Klíma
He felt like shouting at him to hold his tongue, and stop yelling about his great plans, that they were simply a means of trying to cover up his contemptible behaviour. But he wasn’t here to accuse Petr. He had lost the need to reproach him for letting him down, and could not find in himself sufficient conviction to trust him again, or convince him of anything.
When they were saying goodbye, Petr asked him to take his best wishes to Eva, but he pretended not to hear the request. Anyway, there was nothing to stop him writing her letters should he wish.
He left the prison. Large snowflakes were flying through the air. It seemed to him that they were a dirty grey colour even before they reached the ground. Maybe they only looked that way to him. It occurred to him that his decision, after the revolution, to visit the prisons and try to save prisoners’ souls, was maybe just a sign of overweening pride.
8
Letters
Dearest Dan,
I am so filled with you, and so desperate to talk to you (and when we’re together there’s never time for anything – why must one eat and sleep?) that I will pour my heart out to you through the computer at least. But fear not, there’ll be no blood on the paper, just ink (my printer runs on ink).
It’s odd how in spite of having death so near to me I am unable to perceive it as something real. I perceive it with my intellect, but not with my entire being. As if I was most aware of death at moments that seem unconnected with it. Such as when love or enthusiasm die, or if I say to myself: that’s nothing new. Maybe it’s because I was in a kind of shock and didn’t have time to take in what had happened as something real. Now that I’m gradually getting over it, I feel an intense sorrow. I can’t help thinking that life is so fragile, and the boundary between when someone is alive and when they turn into a corpse destined for nothing but decay is such a fine line and so hard to be aware of, that we can cross it at any moment, without warning and without a farewell.
We will all die. We are no more than flowers that wilt, for instance, or animals that die.
Perhaps I’m sad because people are being nice to me, while the man that I devoted most of my care, my time, my energy and my life to wants to hurt me, wants to bring me to my knees even if he has to die in the attempt. Now I’ve realized how cunningly he dreamed up his revenge (for what, dear God, for what?). Either he’d survive – which he definitely hoped he would – and I’d have to live with the permanent threat that he would do it again, or he wouldn’t survive and he would burden me for ever with guilt by making a murderess of me. It was his intention to bring me to my knees, not to kill himself. If he had really wanted to kill himself, he has a revolver at home. All he had to do was take it out, place it to his head and press the trigger. Except that that would … I won’t talk about it any more.
Darling, I’m so miserable that when I wake up in the morning I wonder whether I ought to get up at all, whether there is any sense in living. But then I remember the children, my mother and you, and think to myself that you might be sorry if I wasn’t around, so I get up and keep going.
I thought about you today, how I woke up yesterday to find you there. I ask myself whether I really deserve you and persuade myself that I do, but the very next moment I am unable to figure out why you love me. I think about the worth of a person and what is important in life. I think about the fact that no one has ever been so kind to me as you. I’ll never get used to it, I’ll never take it for granted. It will always remain a miracle and an honour, a favour, a whim of fate, maybe an accident, but in that case the accident is God or his mercy (see how you’ve already trapped me in your web?), in other words, something I didn’t dare believe in, but must have been heading towards, after all. He made me a gift of you even though it went against his own Commandments, and his gift will last as long as I deserve it. I don’t mean as a reward for anything specific, I mean a reward that won’t ever be assessed, let alone enumerated or named. Maybe it will be for as long as I remain pure, hopeful, undemanding, unselfish, and believing that only pure love gives life meaning. Our love cannot be impure, even though, in the eyes of the holy joes and all the rest who aren’t capable of it, all love-making is impure. You’re incomparable and I thank the Lord God that he led me to you. If ever again I had the right to choose the man I’d like to live with, you would be the one.
Love, Bára
Dear Bára,
Last night, the moon was shining a day after full moon, and it was strangely veiled as if behind a luminous, translucent curtain. (The Manicheans apparently believed that the sun and moon go dark because they use a special veil in order not to see the cosmic battle.) Yesterday Magda said to me: It’s amazing how fast the moon moves. It’s moved a whole chunk in just a little while. I said: But it has to circle the earth in a single day. And her comment was: It moves terribly slowly then. I said: It’s because it’s a long way away. Things that are a long way away appear to move slowly even when they are flying at the speed of light.
You’re a long way away. To be in the same town and yet so far from each other. When you’re close, when we are together, time flies at the speed of light, because the distance is in fact still there and the imminence of parting weighs on the short moment of togetherness. When I can’t see you, time drags by like a night on the rack. I wanted to tell you not to become downhearted. I can understand that you have death on your mind, but death is part of life. ‘Though I walk through the valley of death I will fear no evil,’ for He is with me. I share your suffering and think of you constantly.
You write that sometimes you wake up in the morning and wonder whether there is any sense in living and that it helps you to think of those who would be sad at losing you. It is undoubtedly important to know that there are people who love you so much that it would be extremely hard for them to live without you, but all the same, you ought to live because you yourself need to live, because you rejoice in the gift of life. And a woman like you certainly has no need to justify her existence in terms of how many people would miss her.
I’m not sure whether our love can be completely pure, but I do know that I love you.
Love, D.
P.S. You write that I am incomparable. I’m not. But you are! You’re amazing. I’ve never known and couldn’t even imagine a woman like you. It’s as if you were a distillation of all creatures, as if you were a composition by Bach and Beethoven together.
Dearest love,
I’m sad again today. Why? Because I don’t lead a virtuous life? Because you don’t think I have a pure heart? Because there is always some new source of worry? After all, I could just as easily shout from the rooftops that I am happy because I’ve found you.
Or can I be happily sad?
I was with Sam today, as I am every day. At least they have managed to dispel some of his low spirits and he is in his usual form again, so that he is able – and eager – to domineer me. And in two days’ time he’ll be back home already, and that means he can domineer over me day and night. I drove home from the hospital in the dark with a whole line of cars coming in the opposite direction. It was Sunday evening and I said to myself the main thing is to get there and not think about what is going to happen.
I heard again for the umpteenth time that I am the cause of everything bad in his life. What he did was on account of me; apparently he was toying with the idea for at least a year. Twelve months ago I hadn’t even met you, twelve months ago I was running around after him and trying to get at least a smile out of him, seeing that he no longer wanted the slightest physical contact with me. By then I simply served as a lightning conductor for him, always to hand, a dustbin to take all the refuse, a sewer for all the slops.
That’s what it had been like for all the previous years, as a WOMAN, that was all I was good for and nothing else.
The trouble was that I started to find it too little, I emancipated myself, and that hadn’t been agreed on. I liberated myself and there was nothing about it in the marriage contract. I’m a different person
from the one he first knew, and that’s not on, really. So either I have to be the way he wants me to be or it is necessary for one of us to disappear from the other’s life. He wanted to leave for good but I stopped him. So today he offered me a divorce. Or was it separation? Since I already know something about the scenes from my own married life, and therefore know that I am required to serve as the one on whom all the depression, the anxiety and fear are poured out, I don’t take it seriously. Were I to take it seriously, he really would try to take his own life. At the same time I’m happy to be of service if it lets him get it off his chest, but sometimes I give into the feeling that I’m human too. That I too have anxieties, I too would like to be weak and not have to play the strong man. I know that’s how I can be when I’m with you. But you’re a long way away. No, I’m not complaining. I even believe that your loving ubiquity will last precisely because I’m actually of no use to you, because I am not at home with you – by which I mean we don’t have a home together. At home I was always there to be used, always ready and waiting, arranging everything and doing the necessary. I was as useful as the sewer that takes in everything.
There used to be a saying that a woman’s skirts hide all sins. Except that instead of a skirt I am strapped into a bottomless dustbin. But the rubbish and the muck doesn’t come out, it sticks to my body. Can’t you smell it when I’m in your arms? Are you willing to hug me in spite of it?
I don’t even know how many of the tablets he took. In fact, he could have put those bottles on the table empty. And the farewell note could have been part of the game, part of the blackmail he thought up in order to drag me to him and bind me hand and foot, because that’s what he was after, not to give me my freedom.
I’m gradually coming to the realization that it was all dreamed up to ensnare me. Now I’ll be systematically blackmailable, which means he’ll blackmail me. I know I don’t accept it, but I also know that I mustn’t upset him, I mustn’t say what I think or feel, seeing that I’m almost a murderer, even though I spent fifteen years believing that my life’s number one task was to care for him at home and ensure a sense of security, sharing and happiness. I don’t understand why I let myself be manipulated, blackmailed and driven to tears. After all, I know I can take care of myself, that I don’t have to ask anyone for anything. Inside me there are some toxins from my past that I can’t remove. I used to be bewitched, spellbound. I wanted to serve body and soul, soul and body. I knew I was demeaning myself, trampling on my own dignity, so why has it lasted? I know that Sam is dependent on my love and care, and for my part I’m dependent on his whip.
So there I was driving along in the car and suddenly I felt like stepping on the accelerator and driving straight into a wall or a street lamp and putting an end to it all, but then I remembered you. You’ve told me so many times that you love me and have provided practical proof of it. That means that I am possibly a lovable person. And so I drove on with the thought that I must go on living. I would simply like to know: Why is it men are so weak? You aren’t. Maybe it’s because you have your faith, or quite simply you were born that way. So I can rely on you for a little while. Or on myself perhaps. Or on God, who you’re persuading me exists and never forsakes one. Or maybe on some vital force that I can feel within me, which does not allow me to perish, but enables me to love. I’d also like to love the one who destroys me, who brings me down, takes my self-esteem and does not value me. I love him as a human being who is suffering, who will die and won’t be here any more. But how am I to love him as a man, when he is so weak and dependent that he uses it to blackmail me, when he is so grudging and unloving? But loving someone as a human being is not the same as loving someone as a man. And I’m nothing when I don’t have a man to love. When I love a man I know I’m alive. I love you and I’m not sure if I’ll be good enough for you: not now when I’m getting over the shock, but in general. Sometimes I feel that I’m worn out and no one could want me any more and I don’t deserve anyone. My darling, don’t be cross with me for pouring out my sad heart to you and writing to you at sixes and sevens. Before I finish I want to tell you how I’ve taken you into my life as someone who is mine – who belongs to me more than one could expect after just six months. You are mine because I feel that you love me. Like my mother. For myself alone. I’m cuddling you, missing you, crying over you, loving you, believing you. You’re the best man of my life. Really.
Love, Bára
P.S. Monday a.m. Last night I wailed about myself, but I don’t like feeble self-pity. I want to tell you that I am happy on account of my love for you.
Now the sun has come out again, a spider has crocheted me a lovely web in the lounge that is a real architectural achievement. (What will the poor thing eat now there are no more flies around?) The day is beautiful. And so is life.
Don’t cry, little girl, don’t cry,
And don’t despair. Your husband is more despairing because he feels that the order he was accustomed to is crumbling (it is something that is happening to all of us but we have to find the strength to endure it) and in addition, he has heard death knocking on the front door. He felt lonely and still does. And he blames that loneliness on you. It would require great wisdom for him not to try using force to extort what he wants. You say yourself that men tend to be weaker and neither weakness nor despair are conducive to wisdom. A person in despair makes fatal mistakes and acts foolishly and self-destructively. Don’t ascribe evil intentions when someone is shaking with despair. Despair has no logic or rational cause, in this it is akin to love or hate or any other emotion.
You haven’t told me much about your life but one thing I’ve understood is that you wanted an outstanding man at your side. What you failed to realize is that men who have achieved something tend to be engrossed with themselves; they follow their own goal and don’t look around themselves much. They want to be cosseted and praised, they require obedience and service. I expect that was and is your experience, which is why you praise me so much and apologize for not being of service to me. Why ever should you be? One can’t serve another’s interest and will and live and create at the same time. If two people want to live together they must give up at least some of their selfishness, in fact it is a major opportunity for people to prove their ability to love selflessly. If they’re not capable of it, or if one of them isn’t, it is generally bad for both. Those that felt themselves the centre of the universe suddenly discover that they have been left all on their own, but they rarely admit their fault. Instead they start to lament or blame their companions. But there’s no reason for you to be depressed. You’re not alone, it’s just that your cross sometimes weighs you down. Nobody’s going to forsake you. Even your husband got into such a panic at the thought of losing you that he made up his mind to do what he did.
It’s late now. Outside it’s a starry night even here in Prague and I’m still affected by your letter. I’m thinking of you and am beginning to understand that the praise that you heap on me so often and which seems to me unmerited I am actually hearing on behalf of someone else. It is someone else that you’re constantly apologizing to, someone else you’re trying to explain to that he is marvellous, whereas you are no rose of Sharon, no lily of the valley, no turtle dove in the cleft of the rock, but nothing, the dust of the earth to be walked on. You do it in the hope of receiving mercy at last. Dearest, you are the cause of your own suffering, you give rise to a situation in which the one who should be thanking you is angry instead, and the one who does the giving also does the thanking. And I have the feeling that the scar on your wrist is not your only one, nor the most important one for that matter: the main one is inside, in your heart, in your mind, in your soul. Somewhere in that scar, in that wound, is the root of why so often you feel you would like to end your existence, end your life, to escape. Those who are denied the right to an equal share of love (as they see it) are affected in the very ground of their being.
For me you remain a rare treasure, a rose of Sharon, a lily of
the valley, a dove in a cleft of the rock, where I would always come to find you and hold you in the palm of my hand, so that you should know you are worthy of love.
Love, D.
Dear Reverend,
I am sending you these two roses which have miraculously flowered with many thanks for the words you said at my dear Betty’s grave. If she could have heard them and still been able to understand them, she would have wept with emotion the way I did. Even though I’m a pagan, Reverend, and the only thing I believe is that we are dust and to dust we will return, I’m grateful to you that you bring some dignity to that departure from this world. There is nothing worse than an assembly line ceremony and I am sure that you would render me the same service.
When I entered the greenhouse this morning for the first time since the day she died, I came and gave the sad news to all the flowers. You might not even be aware that my late wife had a very special relationship with them and she was endowed with a great power. Whenever the roses started to wilt or when they didn’t come into flower, she would come and talk to them or sing them a song and the roses would perk up and a few days later would blossom abundantly, and the same applied to other flowers too.
Now we’ve been left on our own, motherless orphans, but I can look after myself. In the final months I had to take care of Betty too when she was unable to look after herself any longer.
When she was still alive, you mentioned that you were looking for a room for that lad who’s staying with you. I’ve got plenty of room here and he wouldn’t even have to pay anything. What need have I for money? I only hope there won’t be any problems with him like with that Petr Koubek, although even he parted company with us peacefully. On the other hand, at least I wouldn’t be alone in the flat and I don’t want to think about a woman in place of my Betty. I’m too old to change my ways now.