The Ultimate Intimacy

by Ivan Klíma

  If she permitted he would be happy to act as her guide, the man offers. It would be a pleasure to guide a beautiful woman from Prague and her son.

  Bára smiles at him and leaves his offer unanswered, while Saša scowls. He bolts his ice-cream, but the demon has already ordered Bára another glass of wine.

  Don Anselmo slowly eats his scampi while talking softly in an alluring voice. He talks about Picasso and Dalí, whom he loves and admires as a unique giant among artists and the most remarkable, albeit extreme, genius. He had spoken to him on several occasions, as he had once written a major study of him. He regrets that the lady from Prague does not have enough Spanish, but will gladly make her a gift of a copy. Art history is the demon’s field of study and Dalí is his speciality. If Bára is staying longer he will gladly drive her to Figueras and show her the master’s birthplace.

  ‘Bára dear,’ her son rebukes her, ‘we ought to go.’

  But Bára has no wish to. She is sipping heavy wine that has the scent of muscatel and Catalan sunshine, and watching the man opposite, no longer particularly aware of what he is saying, but being conscious only of the melody of his voice and the message of his gaze, which unlike his mouth professes admiration, requests an assignation, demands her embrace, and in fact slowly undresses her and fondles her breasts. And she realizes that she is free, totally free. No one is watching over her, she can do just what she likes; she can delight in the fact that she is attractive to a man she finds so alluring that merely looking at him gives her physical pleasure.

  Then she listens to a story about how Dalí kissed the teeth of a dying horse when he was small and then when he was five he hurled an even smaller boy from a bridge. She doesn’t know whether it actually happened, or whether they are only empty words to fill the time that must elapse between first acquaintance and making love.

  Saša once more presses her to leave with him, and she suggests that he should go on ahead to the hotel if he is tired, that she’ll join him shortly. But this her son refuses.

  She realizes that Saša has decided to keep an eye on her, but she does not feel it as a curb on her freedom; she is grateful to him, to her little boy, for not abandoning her and not leaving her to the mercy of the demon and her own urges.

  ‘Just one more glass,’ she tells her son and allows herself to be soothed once again by the sweetly insistent voice that now speaks of love, Dalí’s of course – for his Gala, who was matchless, loyal and inspirational.

  Bára’s speech is already becoming slurred and she is unable to find the English words, but she asks nevertheless whether it was the love that was matchless, loyal and inspirational, or Gala. Anselmo replies that it was both the love and that remarkable woman who, he now realizes, was Russian too.

  The words ‘Russian too’ cut Bára to the quick. The demon had been in Prague which lay in Russia. But it’s all right, at least she now has an excuse to accede to her son’s wishes and walk out of this place. So she says that she must take her leave. She feels a touch of regret that she will never see this man again. The time between first acquaintance and love-making has lapsed and there is no returning, and it’s all to the good, it has been a pleasantly exciting moment of freedom. She calls the waiter but the demon Anselmo will not hear of her paying. He thanks her for her pleasant company and a delightful evening which he hopes will not be the last. He will now drive Bára back to the hotel and tomorrow to the museum, and should she wish he will drive her and her son to Figueras or anywhere they fancy. He then presses his visiting card on Bára. Bára thanks him as warmly as she is able and allows him to kiss her hand. However, she refuses a lift back to the hotel, as she and her son want to walk a little more, but she gives Anselmo a hotel name, even though it is only the name of a hotel she happened to notice on the way to the Parque Güell. She invents a room number and the poor demon carefully notes it down. In the doorway, Bára stops once more and turns to wave to the enthusiastic admirer of Dalí.

  ‘Don’t be cross with me,’ she says to Saša, when they emerge into the warm Barcelona night. ‘Don’t blame your old mother for flirting on her first evening in Gaudí’s city.’

  It is half-past one in the morning when they reach the hotel.

  While Saša is having a wash, it crosses her mind that she could and should call Daniel. She’ll tell him she met with Gaudí’s ghost and a handsome, real live Catalan, who loves Dalí and would no doubt have loved her because he thinks she’s a Russian like Gala. But Dan, she will say, I love you, only you, even here so far from you, and wherever I’ll be, because you are the best person I have ever met. I’ve met so many people and there were many that I thought I loved, even though I didn’t know what love meant until I met you. And she lifts the receiver which emits the long mournful tone. She forgets which is the number she is supposed to dial to get an outside line, and she has also forgotten the code for calling home. She’ll have to ask Saša, he’s bound to know, because he’s young and only drinks orange juice last thing at night.

  When Saša emerges from the bathroom, his mother is already asleep, holding in her hand the telephone receiver which emits a long, mournful tone.

  5

  It was night when Daniel reached home. Marek and Magda were already asleep and Hana was watching television. The surface of life seemed unruffled here. Hana hugged him. ‘I’m glad you’re back.’

  ‘Where’s Eva?’

  ‘Upstairs in her room.’

  ‘Have you talked about what she’s going to do?’

  ‘Naturally, but it’ll be better if you talk to her yourself.’

  He went upstairs and knocked on his daughter’s bedroom door.

  She was seated at her desk over an open book. Now she quickly pushed back her chair and got up. ‘Hi, Dad. I didn’t think you’d be back till tomorrow.’

  ‘That was what I originally planned. But it didn’t work out.’

  ‘Are you cross with me?’

  ‘I’m cross with myself, more than anything, for having brought him into the house.’

  ‘But I love him.’

  She was standing facing him and suddenly he had the feeling it was his first wife standing there. She used to speak to him in the same tone of voice: I love you. That was how old she was then. But hadn’t he deserved her love? He had not been a blackguard. Not in those days, anyway.

  ‘Are you sure, Eva?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘That you’re expecting his baby?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And that you love him?’

  ‘I’m sure of that too.’

  ‘Why?’

  Silence.

  There’s no answer to that question. Whatever she said, it wouldn’t explain anything anyway. If only he had that blackguard here right now!

  ‘How did it happen?’

  ‘The way things like this happen.’

  ‘Thank you for your explanation. It isn’t what I expected. It’s not what I expected of you. How long is it now?’

  ‘Three months almost. I was afraid to tell you. Besides which I was hoping it... that it would go away.’

  ‘Even if you loved him, what made you do that?’

  ‘I was afraid he wouldn’t love me any more if I didn’t want to have anything to do with him.’

  ‘A fine sort of love if you have to fear for it like that.’

  ‘When you love someone you want to be with them totally.’

  ‘But he’ll be found guilty and sent to prison. You won’t be with him totally or even partly. You won’t be together at all!’

  ‘Maybe they won’t find him guilty.’

  ‘You know full well they will.’

  ‘Maybe something could be done …’

  ‘Eva…’

  ‘Yes, Daddy?’

  ‘I thought and I believed that you’d finish at the Conservatoire. That you would play, and play really well, seeing that your mum didn’t manage to.’

  ‘I know, Daddy.’

  ‘What do you want to do?’<
br />
  ‘About study?’

  ‘About study and life.’

  ‘I don’t intend to run away from my studies. They’ll let me interrupt the course. For the birth.’

  ‘And what about Petr?’

  ‘I’ll wait for him,’ she said, exactly as he expected. ‘If Petr wants to, we’ll get married. We can do that there, can’t we?’

  ‘If he wants to! I would have thought it was what you wanted that counts! You don’t have to marry him. You don’t have to marry him just because you’re expecting his baby.’

  ‘I want to marry him because I love him.’

  ‘You can stay here with us,’ he said, ignoring her answer, ‘with the child too. You don’t have to marry someone you know precious little about. Precious little good, at any rate.’

  ‘He is good. He’s just unfortunate, that’s all.’

  ‘Eva, you know very well how hard I try. I almost feel duty bound to believe that everyone is good and everyone can be reformed. But that man is so unfortunate, since you choose that expression, that he will bring misfortune to everyone around him.’

  ‘No, he just needs to know that someone loves him.’

  ‘But you loved him and look what happened.’

  ‘He needed to earn some money.’

  ‘He could have worked.’

  ‘But he did.’

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘He had a debt to pay and apart from that – he needed money to get hold of...’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You know, Dad. Speed.’

  ‘No, I didn’t know. You knew but you didn’t tell me. And in spite of that you wanted to have his baby and marry him?’

  ‘I didn’t want to have a baby. It just happened.’

  ‘You must have been doing something that made it likely.’

  ‘But I’m not trying to excuse myself.’

  ‘Don’t you realize the baby could be damaged?’

  ‘It won’t be, Dad. I don’t take anything any more. Not since the time I told you.’

  ‘But he was taking it. You say so yourself. And have you any idea at all what life with a drug addict would be like?’

  ‘No,’ she said stubbornly. ‘I’ve no idea what sort of life to expect. No one knows what to expect. Nor what is good or bad for them.’

  ‘This won’t be good anyway.’

  ‘And do you think someone else would be better? People do far worse things than injecting themselves now and then.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Stealing, lying, being cruel to each other.’

  ‘Not everyone is like that.’

  ‘Daddy, you know so very little about life.’

  ‘Petr told me the same.’

  ‘Not long ago a boy told me that they should exterminate everyone who is defective. And also old people who are unable to work any longer.’

  ‘Who was telling you that?’

  ‘It was at a disco.’

  ‘That’s just talk.’

  ‘It isn’t.’

  ‘There’s no point in our talking about people at discos. I’d prefer to talk about you and Petr.’

  ‘Well, he isn’t wicked and he loves me.’

  ‘Eva, now you’re not talking sensibly. You’re just being obstinate.’

  ‘Why do you think he was having shots? It was because he couldn’t stand all those things.’

  ‘That’s simply an excuse.’

  ‘It’s not. I found out for myself. When you give yourself a shot or just smoke marijuana, the world looks better. And you don’t even feel like coming back.’

  ‘Babies are born into the real world.’

  ‘I know, Dad. I know I’ve been a disappointment to you.’

  ‘That’s not the point. It’s not me that matters, but you and the baby that will be born. How will it live?’

  ‘I’ll take care of it!’

  ‘How do you think you’ll take care of it, when you can’t even take care of yourself? Seeing that you think the world is such a horrible place.’

  ‘It’s not that I think it – it is. But he’ll help me!’

  ‘Who? Petr?’

  Silence.

  ‘So God will, then,’ she said in the end.

  ‘Let’s hope so.’ Then he said, ‘We’ll help you too, but no one will be able to help you if you don’t know what to do about yourself.’

  She turned her back on him and he could see her shoulders start to quiver.

  He would like to have cried too, but he had forgotten how to, long ago.

  ‘Don’t condemn me, Daddy,’ she said in the midst of her tears. ‘I’ll cope, you’ll see.’

  He had no right to condemn her. She would have more right to condemn him if she knew everything about him.

  6

  Samuel

  Ever since Bára returned from Spain with her son, Samuel has refused to speak to her about anything but those things strictly connected with the running of the household. Instructions related to the office he gives her in writing. On the occasions when Bára tries to tell him something, Samuel either hears her out in silence or turns and walks away while she is still speaking. Bára gives him a hurt look and begs him to make it up with her, because she loves him, because he is her home and because it is impossible to live together all the time in silence. When he still remains silent, her eyes fill with tears and she goes off to find the children or to her own room and locks herself in. He can’t deny that she makes efforts to discharge all her obligations and tries not to do anything that might arouse his anger further. So perhaps she really is suffering, but what is her suffering compared to his?

  He has to live with a woman who constantly flouts order of every kind. She thereby destroys not only him but also the order on which life is built. For years he has tried to explain it to her but to no effect, or rather with the opposite effect. Bára is more recalcitrant than ever: right in the middle of March when the work load is greatest, she takes herself off with her son, who is only just managing to scrape through school. They go off on an excursion, but not to the Giant Mountains, for instance, but right to the other end of Europe instead. Why? Bára used Saša’s allergy as an excuse, but in reality her intention was quite simply to let him know how much she disdained everything that mattered to him, as well as all his wishes. She wanted to demonstrate to him that it was her sacred right to do just what she felt like. And obviously she didn’t give the slightest thought to the fact that her bit of fun cost a lot of money that should have been invested in developing the practice. Then she pretends to be surprised that he has lost all interest in work at the office. What reason could there be to continue with work which his wife so obviously holds in contempt, to build up something that she will destroy with a mere wave of the hand the moment he leaves the world?

  He barely goes in twice a week to check on the work and assign jobs, but he cannot summon up the least desire to design anything himself, let alone come up with ideas or create anything. One of his reasons for stopping work is to demonstrate to Bára how deeply she has wounded him in the very essence of his personality, and the suffering she is causing him.

  And he is suffering terribly. The days loom emptily ahead of him, and he just gazes at them impassively, wondering to himself which of them will be his last. In desperation he wonders how he might still change his life. What if he were to return to his second wife? It is years since he last spoke to her, but she has not found another partner as far as he knows. Maybe she’d take him back. He’d be better off with her; at least she wouldn’t try to destroy him. But if he were to do that he would deprive his only son of his father, as he had already done to his two daughters. Besides, everyone he possibly still cared about would consider his return to the old woman that he left fifteen years ago to be an acknowledgement of total failure. No one would ever believe he had done it of his own accord, that he had left a woman whom everyone regarded as beautiful, interesting and attractive, who treated every man apart from her own husband considerately or
even seductively, simply because life with her was no longer bearable. He could, of course, find a new wife entirely, one who was young and maybe interesting but definitely less extreme; or at least a mistress. But he didn’t have the stomach to go behind his own wife’s back, besides which he didn’t feel he had the strength any longer to start a new life for the fourth time.

  For a while he toyed with the idea of buying a dog, but in the end he realized that a dog was more likely to disturb him. It would require care, time and attention, and until it had learnt to understand the order demanded of it, it would actually worsen the muddle sown by Bára and her son – both her sons.

  In her monologues Bára asks him, begs him not to upset himself, but to see a doctor, a psychologist or a psychiatrist who would prescribe for him an anti-depressant or send him for psychotherapy, or at least advise him how to overcome his depression. So she says, but in fact she’s hatching a plan to get rid of him from the house, have him locked up among lunatics, have him declared insane and then take away his son, his property and eventually his life.

  His life is drawing to a close anyway. If Bára doesn’t manage to take it from him, or if he doesn’t take it himself, how many years might he have left? A life devoid of hope, meaning and peace of mind can’t have much staying power. Depression destroys the heart and encourages malignant tumours.

  For some time now he has found the thought of death attractive, though at the same time he is terrified by the void that yawns behind it. For years he has tended to give greater thought to his body. There was a time long ago when he would take plenty of exercise, but just recently he hasn’t done more than just keep it ticking over. Now it occurs to him that he should pay more attention to his soul. It is no accident, after all, that he has turned out this way. Could one state with certainty that someone whose plans had been used for the construction of at least a hundred buildings in this country would one day simply disappear into the void, that his consciousness would die and his spirit simply vanish? That the only things that would remain for some time would be those very buildings. The master of ceremonies or whatever devil would preside at his funeral would be right in declaring: And he will live on in his work – thereby elegantly implying that nothing else of him would survive.