Milan Kundera: Farewell Waltz

Once, tempted by a free evening, he phoned a young woman he had not seen for two months. When she recognized his voice she cried out: "My God, it's you! I've been waiting and waiting for you to call! I really needed you to call me!" and she said this so insistently, so pathetically, that the familiar anxiety clutched Klima's heart, and he felt in his whole being that the dreaded moment had now arrived. And because he wanted to confront the truth as quickly as possible, he went on the attack: "Why are you saying that in such a tragic tone of voice?" "Mama died yesterday," the young woman replied, and he was relieved, though he knew that someday he would not escape the misfortune he dreaded.

"All right, what's this all about?" said the drummer, and Klima finally returned to his senses. He looked around at the musicians' worried faces and told them what had happened to him. They laid down their instruments and tried to help him with advice.

The first piece of advice was radical: it came from the eighteen-year-old guitarist, who declared that the kind of woman who had just phoned their leader and trumpeter has to be brushed off. "Tell her she can do whatever she wants. The brat isn't yours, it's got nothing to do with you. If she keeps insisting, a blood test will show who the father is."

Klima pointed out that blood tests mostly prove nothing, and therefore the woman's accusation prevails.

The guitarist replied that there wouldn't have to be any blood test. When you fend off a young woman, she's very careful to avoid taking useless steps, and when she realizes that the man she accused is no pushover, she gets rid of the kid at her own expense. "And even if she ends up having it, we'll all go, all of us in the band, and testify in court that we'd all been to bed with her. Let them try to find out which one of us is the father!"

But Klima responded: "I'm sure you'd do that for me. But by then I'd already have gone out of my mind with uncertainty and fear. In this kind of thing I'm the

biggest coward, and what I need most of all is certainty."

They all agreed with this. The guitarist's proposal was good in principle, but it was not for everyone. It was especially not advisable for a man with weak nerves. Nor was it recommended for a famous, rich man whom women considered worth the trouble of rushing into a very risky venture. So the band shifted to the opinion that, instead of brushing off the young woman, he should persuade her to have an abortion. But what arguments should he use? They considered three basic possibilities:

The first method was to appeal to the young woman's compassionate heart: Klima would talk to the nurse as to his closest friend; he would confide in her sincerely; he would tell her his wife was seriously ill and would die if she were to learn that her husband had a child by another woman; that both from the moral point of view and because of the state of his nerves, he would be unable to bear such a situation; and he would beg the nurse for mercy.

This method came up against an objection in principle. You could not base an entire strategy on something as dubious, as uncertain, as the nurse's kindliness. Unless she had a really good and compassionate heart, the maneuver would backfire. She would be all the more aggressive because of the insult of the elected father of her child showing such excessive regard for another woman.

A second method was to appeal to the young

woman's good sense: Klima would try to explain to her that he was not and never could be certain the child was really his. He had met the nurse only that one time and knew absolutely nothing about her. He had no idea what other men she was seeing. No, no, he didn't suspect her of deliberately deceiving him, but surely she couldn't insist she wasn't seeing other men! And if she were to insist on this, how could Klima be sure she was telling the truth? And would it make sense to bring into the world a child whose father would always be in doubt about its paternity? Could Klima leave his wife for a child he didn't even know was his? And did Ruzena want a child who would never be allowed to know its father?

This method also proved to be dubious: the bass player (the oldest man in the group) pointed out that it was even more naive to count on the young woman's good sense than to rely on her compassion. The logic of the argument would be wide of the mark, while the young woman's heart would be shattered by her beloved's refusal to believe her. This would incite her, with tearful determination, to persist still more obstinately in her assertions and her schemes.

There remained the third method: Klima could swear to the expectant mother that he had loved her once and loved her still. He should not make the slightest allusion to the chance that it was another man's child. On the contrary, Klima would bathe her in trust, tenderness, and love. He would promise her everything, including a divorce from his wife. He would

depict their marvelous future together. And in behalf of that future he would then urge her to terminate the pregnancy. He would explain that this was not yet the time to have a child, that its birth would deprive them of the first, most beautiful years of their love.

This line of argument lacked what the preceding ones had in abundance: logic. How could Klima be so smitten with the nurse if he had been avoiding her for two months? But the bass player maintained that lovers always behaved illogically and that there was nothing simpler than explaining this, one way or another, to the young woman. Eventually they all agreed that the third method was probably the most satisfactory, for it would appeal to the young woman's love for him, the only relative certainty in the situation.

They left the theater and scattered at the street corner, but the guitarist accompanied Klima to his door. He was the only one to disapprove of the proposed plan. This plan seemed to him unworthy of the bandleader he revered: "When you go to see a woman, arm yourself with a whip!" said he, quoting the one sentence he knew of Nietzsche's collected works.

"My boy," Klima lamented, "she's the one with the whip."

The guitarist offered to go with Klima to the spa, lure the young woman out onto the road, and run her over: "Nobody could prove she didn't throw herself under my wheels."

The guitarist, the youngest musician in the group, greatly loved Klima, who was touched by his words: "That's very kind of you," he said to him.

The guitarist set out his plan in detail and with burning cheeks.

"That's very kind, but it's not possible," said Klima.

"Why are you hesitating? She's a slut!"

"You're really very kind, but it's not possible," said Klima, taking leave of the guitarist.

When he found himself alone, he thought about the young man's proposal and the reasons that had led him to reject it. It was not that he was more virtuous than the guitarist, but that he was more fearful. The fear of being accused as an accessory to murder was not less than the fear of being declared a father. He saw Ruzena run over by the car, he saw Ruzena stretched out on the road in a pool of blood, and he

had a momentary feeling of relief that filled him with joy. But he knew it was useless to indulge in illusions. And he had a serious concern now. He thought of his wife. My God, tomorrow is her birthday!

It was a few minutes before six, and the shops would close at six exactly. He rushed into a florist's to buy a gigantic bouquet of roses. What a difficult celebration he expected! He would have to pretend to be near her in heart and mind, would have to give himself over to her, show tenderness to her, amuse her, laugh with her, and never for a moment stop thinking about a faraway belly. He would make an effort to utter affectionate words, but his mind would be far away, imprisoned in the dark cell of a stranger's womb.