Ivan Klíma - Judge On Trial

He was here to make love. To lie at one side of the woman he desired, while on the other side lay her husband and someone else, a whole host lit up by the reflections of the setting sun. He was here so that in the meantime his wife could wander about at night with a mendicant student who carried gas bombs in his pocket and flung them under the beds of rabbis and false judges. Children stood waving on the porch, then the bomb exploded and struck the wrong ones as usual, the splinter struck from behind, not killing but burrowing into the flesh, so the child’s hand no longer waved but hung limply. That was a free life without nobility of spirit, one possible life option.

The bucket was full. He cupped his hands and scooped up some water to clear the lump in his throat. But it didn’t help; it was something else choking him, not something he could wash down.

‘Did you have to go far for the water, darling?’ she asked on his return.

‘No, the well is just behind the cottage.’

‘You were away a long time. Did you want to run away from me?’

He didn’t reply.

‘Are you tired of me already? I expect my conversation isn’t clever enough for you.’

‘That’s nothing to do with it.’

‘Why then?’

‘I don’t know who’s doing the running away.’

‘What do you mean?’ She sat up. ‘You know very well you were wanting to give me the slip!’

He could still put his arms round her, come and lie next to her on his side and couple with her. When they made love, when they were together, neither tried to run away from the other. ‘But after all, when you’re not with me you’re with someone else, aren’t you?’

‘Are you asking me?’ She covered her breasts with the cover, pulling it right up to her chin.

‘I’d like to know.’

‘Any other questions while you’re at it?’

‘I would have thought that that one was fairly important.’

‘Well I wouldn’t. I think it’s vile of you. Just you remember I do what I like. Whether I’m with you or not.’

‘You go with anyone you like?’

‘I’ve always gone with anyone I like, and it’s none of your bloody business.’ She reached for her underwear.

‘You mean to say it’s mutually immaterial how we live and who with?’

‘Would you kindly turn away?’

‘Would you kindly answer?’

‘How dare you shout at me? Who do you think you are?’

‘In that case, the best thing would be to call it all off.’

‘Call all what off? What crap are you talking? Since when did either of us have anything to call off?’

‘I understood we had.’

‘ You understood something?’ She dressed quickly. ‘The only time you understand anything is when they send you a memorandum about something. You’re pigheaded and thoughtless. And boring. You think you’re being terribly passionate and amorous but you’re actually boring. You’ve always been boring and tedious ever since I first saw you. It was impossible to talk to you about anything. You don’t even go to the cinema. And if you do, it’s only to look at some fucking cartoon elephant.’

‘You needn’t have bothered if you found it so boring.’

‘I had to when Ruml invited you to our place. I don’t know what he saw in you. I asked him at the time and he spoke up for you. You seemed so decent and honourable to him. He didn’t realise you were only sucking up to him so you could screw his wife.’

‘But I wasn’t going out with you then!’

‘You got on my nerves then and you still do. You were insufferable. I only needed you because of him. By that time he couldn’t give a damn about me going out with fellows any more, but I was sure he’d have minded about you. He’ll go blind with rage when I tell him!’

‘Oh, shut up! You’re raving!’

‘Don’t worry, I know very well what I’m saying. You’re the one who doesn’t. And tomorrow you’ll be sorry. Tomorrow you’ll come creeping after me begging me to forget how vile you were.’

He realised that the tears were running down her face.

‘You’re just like the rest of them.’

Maybe he really would regret it tomorrow: when he’d stand under that window where the light would never again go on for him, when he’d unpack his two blankets: one to lie on, the other as an awning, with nothing to cover himself with or comfort him.

‘You’re all the same, the lot of you. It’s so bloody boring.’ She went up to the mirror, wiped her face with a handkerchief and then rummaged for a moment in her handbag. ‘Well, what are you waiting for? You wanted to sling your hook — so what are you waiting for?’

‘We always find confirmation of what we’re looking for,’ he said, as if there was any sense in explaining anything or defending himself.

She stared at him in surprise. ‘I don’t understand, but I bet you’re only looking for an excuse.’

‘I expect I’m just like everybody else. It’s a long time since I thought I was any better.’

‘Oh, buzz off. I can’t stand listening to you any more! I’ll get home from here somehow. Or are you afraid I’ll take something of yours with me?’

‘I’m hardly going to leave here without you.’

She sat down at the table. ‘Make me some tea, at least!’ The tears carved a channel through the fresh layer of powder.

Three matches snapped before he managed to light the gas.

To say to her: I love you. I’d like to stay with you. To be with you night and day. To hear the hissing of the drying reeds on the border between silence and the roaring of blood.

And then: to leave with you in search of a land where we’d know we were alive.

Where would we go?

No such land exists on earth. It’s not outside us, we have both lost it within us, you and I; we’d just wander fruitlessly from door to door.

He placed the mug of tea in front of her.

She pushed it away without drinking, then wiped her face and stood up. ‘It’s OK now. Let’s go if you think you can’t leave without me.’

2

The telephone rang. He snatched up the receiver in the vague hope of some good news, though he could not say what.

It was his wife. ‘Adam, it’s a long time since we’ve had lunch together!’

‘I can see no reason for us to lunch together.’

‘Haven’t you noticed what day it is today?’ she asked dejectedly.

He glanced at the calendar and then remembered that their wedding anniversary fell some time at the end of October. Their tenth. Or was it the eleventh already? They had no reason to celebrate it; she knew that as well as he did. That was if she was prepared to admit it. She was still trying to get him to talk everything over, so that they could agree on what to do. As if it were possible for people to agree that from a given date they would stop loving each other — or start to. But he would have to talk to her in the end.

He took her to the Brussels Expo restaurant. They found some space at a table with a view of the city. They sat opposite each other, and when he looked at her it struck him that he had not seen her in a long time. Her face — slightly pale with the smooth high forehead — seemed almost unfamiliar to him. Wrinkles were already forming under her eyes.

The waiter arrived with the hors d’oeuvres trolley.

‘Are you having something?’ she asked.

‘No.’

‘Do you mind if I do?’ She chose filled ham slices.

There must have been a time when he loved her. After all he had looked forward eagerly to their first dates, and even after their marriage he had looked forward to going home each evening and seeing her again.

Something had happened between that day ten years ago and today, something that had made them strangers to each other. In fact, during the first years he had pondered on it, running through the various actions, words, misunderstandings and quarrels which drove them apart. He had attempted to talk to her about them, but he recalled that usually she would go red and start to scream and hurl back her own grievances at him, or otherwise would pretend not to hear him and change the subject. And then he would conduct all his arguments with her, his indictments and pleas, entirely to himself. In the end he had stopped conducting them at all. There was no point in them, after all, if there was no one to sit in judgement.