Milan Kundera - Farewell Waltz

He realized that it would be too much for him to spend this birthday at home, and he decided no longer to delay going to see Ruzena.

But this was not an agreeable prospect either. The mountain spa seemed like a desert to him. He knew no one there. Except perhaps for that American taking the waters, who, behaving like a rich bourgeois of the old days, had invited the whole group to his hotel suite after the concert. He had plied them with excellent drink and with women chosen from among the resort's staff, so that he was indirectly responsible for what happened afterward between Ruzena and Klima. Ah, if only that man, who had shown him such unreserved warmth, were still at the spa! Klima clung to his image as if to a last hope, for in moments such as those he was about to experience a man needs nothing

more than the friendly understanding of another man.

He returned to the theater and stopped at the doorkeeper's cubicle. He picked up the phone and asked for long distance. Soon he heard Ruzena's voice. He told her he would be coming to see her tomorrow. He made no reference to the news she had announced some hours before. He spoke to her as if they were carefree lovers.

In passing he asked: "Is the American still there?"

"Yes!" said Ruzena.

Feeling relieved, he repeated with somewhat more ease than before that he was greatly looking forward to seeing her. "What are you wearing?" he asked then.

"Why?"

This was a trick he had used successfully for years in telephone banter: "I want to know how you're dressed right now. I want to be able to imagine you."

"I'm wearing a red dress."

"Red must suit you very well."

"Could be," she said.

"And under your dress?"

She laughed.

Yes, they all laughed when they were asked this.

"What color are your underpants?"

"Also red."

"I'm looking forward to seeing you in them," he said, hanging up. He thought he had used the right tone. For a moment he felt better. But only for a moment. He quickly realized that he was actually incapable of thinking about anything but Ruzena, and that he would have to keep conversation with his wife this

evening to the barest minimum. He stopped at the box office of a movie theater showing an American Western and bought two tickets.

Although she was much more beautiful than she was unhealthy, Kamila Klima was nonetheless unhealthy. Because of her fragile health she had been forced, some years before, to give up the singing career that had led her into the arms of the man who was now her husband.

The beautiful young woman who had been accustomed to admiration suddenly had a head filled with the smell of hospital disinfectant. It seemed to her that between her husbands world and her own a mountain range had sprung up.

At that time, when Klima saw her sad face, he felt his heart break and (across that imaginary mountain range) he held loving hands out to her. Kamila realized that in her sadness there was a hitherto unsuspected force that attracted Klima, softened him, brought tears to his eyes. It was no surprise that she began to make use (perhaps unconsciously, but all the more often) of this unexpectedly discovered tool. For it was only when he was gazing at her sorrowful face that she could be

more or less certain no other woman was competing with her in Klima's mind.

This very beautiful woman was actually afraid of women and saw them everywhere. Nowhere could they escape her. She knew how to find them in Klima's intonation when he greeted her upon arriving home. She knew how to detect them from the smell of his clothes. Recently she had found a scrap of newspaper; a date was written on it in Klima's handwriting. Of course it could have referred to any one of a variety of events- a concert rehearsal, a meeting with an impresario-but for a whole month she did nothing but wonder which woman Klima was going to meet that day, and for a whole month she slept badly.

If the treacherous world of women frightened her so, could she not find solace in the world of men?

Hardly. Jealousy has the amazing power to illuminate a single person in an intense beam of light, keeping the multitude of others in total darkness. Mrs. Klima's thoughts could go only in the direction of that painful beam, and her husband became the only man in the world.

Now she heard the key in the lock, and then she saw the trumpeter with a bouquet of roses.

At first she felt pleased, but doubts immediately arose: Why was he bringing her flowers this evening, when her birthday was not until tomorrow? What could this mean?

And she greeted him by saying: "Won't you be here tomorrow?"

Bringing her roses this evening did not necessarily imply he was going to be away tomorrow. But her distrustful antennae, eternally vigilant, eternally jealous, could pick up her husband's slightest secret intention well in advance. Whenever Klima noticed those terrible antennae spying on him, unmasking him, stripping him naked, he was overcome by a hopeless sensation of fatigue. He hated those antennae, and he was sure that if his marriage was under threat, it was from them. He had always been convinced (and on this point with a belligerently clear conscience) that he deceived his wife only because he wanted to spare her, to shelter her from any anxiety, and that her own suspicions were what made her suffer.

He gazed at her face, reading on it suspicion, sadness, and a bad mood. He felt like throwing the bouquet of roses on the floor, but he controlled himself. He knew that in the next few days he would have to con-trol himself in much more difficult situations.

"Does it bother you that I brought you flowers this evening?" he said. Sensing the irritation in his voice, his wife thanked him and went to fill a vase with water.

"That damned socialism!" Klima said next.

"What now?"

"Listen! They're always making us play for nothing. One time it's for the struggle against imperialism, another time it's to commemorate the revolution, still

another time it's for some big shot's birthday, and if I want to keep the band going, I have to agree to everything. You can't imagine how they got to me today."

"What was it?" she asked indifferently.

"The president of the Municipal Council turned up at rehearsal and she started telling us what we should play and what we shouldn't play and finally forced us to schedule a free concert for the Youth League. But the worst part is I'll have to spend all day tomorrow at a ridiculous conference where they're going to talk to us about the role of music in building socialism. One more day wasted, totally wasted! And right on your birthday!"

"They won't really keep you there all evening!"

"Probably not. But you can see what a state I'll be in when I come home! So I thought we could spend some quiet time together this evening," he said, taking hold of his wife's hands.

"That's nice of you," said Mrs. Klima, and Klima realized from her tone of voice that she didn't believe a word of what he had said about tomorrow's conference. Of course she didn't dare show him she didn't believe him. She knew her distrust would infuriate him. But Klima had long ago stopped believing in his wife's credulity. Whether he told the truth or lied, he always suspected her of suspecting him. Yet the die was cast; he had to keep on pretending to believe she believed him, and she (with a sad, strange face) asked questions about tomorrow's conference to show him she had no doubt of its reality.

Then she went to the kitchen to prepare dinner. She used too much salt. She liked to cook and was very good at it (life had not spoiled her, she had not lost the habit of housekeeping), and Klima knew that the cause of the evenings unsuccessful meal could only have been her distress. He saw her in his mind's eye making the pained, violent movement of pouring an excessive amount of salt into the food, and it wrung his heart. It seemed to him that with every oversalted mouthful he was tasting Kamila's tears, and it was his own guilt that he was swallowing. He knew Kamila was tormented by jealousy, he knew she would spend still another sleepless night, and he wanted to caress her, embrace her, soothe her, but he instantly realized it would be useless, because in this tenderness his wife's antennae would only pick up proof of his bad conscience.