Milan Kundera - The Unbearable Lightness of Being

When at last he turned to her, Tereza read her own new-felt horror in his eyes.

I'll go with you, she said.

He shook his head. I'm the one they want to see.

No, I'm going with you, she repeated.

They took Tomas's pickup. They were at the airfield in no time. It was foggy. They could make out only the vaguest outlines of the few airplanes on the field. They went from one to the next, but the doors were all closed. No admittance. At last they found one that was open, with a set of movable stairs leading up to it. They climbed the stairs and were greeted by a steward at the door. It was a small airplane-one that sat barely thirty passengers-and completely empty. They walked down the aisle between the seats, holding on to each other and not paying much attention to their surroundings. They took two adjoining seats, and Tereza laid her head on Tomas's shoulder. The first wave of horror had passed and been replaced by sadness.

Horror is a shock, a time of utter blindness. Horror lacks every hint of beauty. All we can see is the piercing light of an unknown event awaiting us. Sadness, on the other hand, assumes we are in the know. Tomas and Tereza knew what was awaiting them. The light of horror thus lost its harshness, and the world was bathed in a gentle, bluish light that actually beautified it.

While reading the letter, Tereza did not feel any love for Tomas; she simply realized that she could not now leave him for an instant: the feeling of horror overwhelmed all other emotions and instincts. Now that she was leaning against him (as the plane sailed through the storm clouds), her fear subsided and she became aware of her love, a love that she knew had no limit or bounds.

At last the airplane landed. They stood up and went to the door, which the steward opened for them. Still holding each other around the waist, they stood at the top of the stairs. Down below they saw three men with hoods over their heads and rifles in their hands. There was no point in stalling, because there was no escape. They descended slowly, and when their feet reached the ground of the airfield, one of the men raised his rifle and aimed it at them. Although no shot rang out, Tereza felt Tomas-who a second before had been leaning against her, his arm around her waist-crumple to the ground.

She tried pressing him to her but could not hold him up, and he fell against the cement runway. She leaned over him, about to fling herself on him, cover him with her body, when suddenly she noticed something strange: his body was quickly shrinking before her eyes. She was so shocked that she froze and stood stock still. The more Tomas's body shrank, the less it resembled him, until it turned into a tiny little object that started moving, running, dashing across the airfield.

The man who had shot him took off his mask and gave Tereza a pleasant smile. Then he turned and set off after the little object, which was darting here and there as if trying desperately to dodge someone and find shelter. The chase went on for a while, until suddenly the man hurled himself to the ground. The chase was over.

The man stood up and went back to Tereza, carrying the object in his hand. It was quaking with fear. It was a rabbit. He handed it to Tereza. At that instant her fear and sadness subsided and she was happy to be holding an animal in her arms, happy that the animal was hers and she could press it to her body. She burst into tears of joy. She wept, wept until blinded by her tears, and took the rabbit home with the feeling that she was nearly at her goal, the place where she wanted to be and would never forsake.

Wandering the streets of Prague, she had no trouble finding her house, the house where she had lived with Mama and Papa as a small girl. But Mama and Papa were gone. She was greeted by two old people she had never seen before, but whom she knew to be her great-grandfather and great-grandmother. They both had faces as wrinkled as the bark of a tree, and Tereza was happy she would be living with them. But for now, she wanted to be alone with her animal. She immediately found the room she had been given at the age of five, when her parents decided she deserved her own living space.

It had a bed, a table, and a chair. The table had a lamp on it, a lamp that had never stopped burning in anticipation of her return, and on the lamp perched a butterfly with two large eyes painted on its widespread wings. Tereza knew she was at her goal. She lay down on the bed and pressed the rabbit to her face.

He was sitting at the desk where he usually read his books, an open envelope with a letter in it lying in front of him. From time to time I get letters I haven't told you about, he said to Tereza. They're from my son. I've tried to keep his life and mine completely separate, and look how fate is getting even with me. A few years ago he was expelled from the university. Now he drives a tractor in a village. Our lives may be separate, but they run in the same direction, like parallel lines.

Why didn't you ever tell me about the letters? Tereza asked, with a feeling of great relief.

I don't know. It was too unpleasant, I suppose. Does he write often? Now and then. What about? Himself. And is it interesting?

Yes, it is. You remember that his mother was an ardent Communist. Well, he broke with her long ago. Then he took up with people who had trouble like ours, and got involved in political activities with them. Some of them are in prison now. But he's broken with them, too. In his letters he calls them 'eternal revolutionaries.'

Does that mean he's made his peace with the regime? No, not in the least. He believes in God and thinks that that's the key. He says we should all live our daily lives according to the dictates of religion and pay no heed to the regime, completely ignore it. If we believe in God, he claims, we can take any situation and, by means of our own behavior, transform it into what he calls 'the kingdom of God on earth.' He tells me that the Church is the only voluntary association in ourcountry which eludes the control of the state. I wonder whether he's joined the Church because it helps him to oppose the regime or because he really believes in God. Why don't you ask him?

I used to admire believers, Tomas continued. I thought they had an odd transcendental way of perceiving things which was closed to me. Like clairvoyants, you might say. But my son's experience proves that faith is actually quite a simple matter. He was down and out, the Catholics took him in, and before he knew it, he had faith. So it was gratitude that decided the issue, most likely. Human decisions are terribly simple. Haven't you ever answered his letters? He never gives a return address, he said, though the postmark indicates the name of the district. I could just send a letter to the local collective farm.

Tereza was ashamed of having been suspicious of Tomas, and hoped to expiate her guilt with a rush of benevolence towards his son. Then why not drop him a line, invite him to come and see us?

He looks like me, said Tomas. When he talks, his upper lip curls just like mine. The thought of watching my own lips go on about the kingdom of God-it seems too strange. Tereza burst out laughing. Tomas laughed with her.

Don't be such a child, Tomas! said Tereza. It's ancient history, after all, you and your first wife. What's it to him? What's he got to do with it? Why hurt the boy just because you had bad taste when you were young?

Frankly, I have stage fright at the thought of meeting him. That's the main reason I haven't done anything about it. I don't know what's made me so headstrong and kept me from seeing him. Sometimes you make up your mind about something without knowing why, and your decision persists by the power of inertia. Every year it gets harder to change.