Ivan Klíma - Judge On Trial

‘I shouldn’t think she’d be too pleased.’

‘Oh, but she would, Alena. I’m always telling her about you. I told her you’re the most wonderful woman I’ve ever known. I told her I loved you. And she wants to meet you. Alena, are you cross with me?’

‘There’s no earthly reason why I should be cross with you.’

‘You look at me as if you hated me. Alena, I thought you would be pleased. I really thought you would. You always told me you’d be happy if I found myself a girl.’

‘I am pleased you’ve found a girl. But I have other things on my mind.’

‘If only, Alena, if only… if only you could still love me…’

‘I don’t want to hear anything of that sort!’

‘Anyway if it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t be capable of loving her. You taught me to, Alena. Are you angry with me? Do you think we could now be friends?’

‘Maybe. At this moment I have so many things on my mind that I’m not able to think about what will happen next.’

‘Have you got trouble with your husband? Isn’t there anything I could do to help?’

‘There’s no way you could help.’

‘I really am sorry, Alena, I really would like to help you if someone was making you suffer.’

‘All right, Honza. But here’s my tram coming. Thank you for seeing me to the tram stop. I hope you’ll be happy.’

‘Thanks, Alena. I hope you’ll be very happy too. You’re bound to be…’

The doctor let her in himself. ‘You haven’t had second thoughts, my dear?’

‘No, Doctor!’

They stood facing each other for a moment, and then he told her to come with him in that case, and she followed him to his cubicle. While he was drawing the curtains, she placed an envelope with the money on the table.

‘You could have left that till afterwards,’ he said. But he retained the money and went to wash his hands.

‘Should I undress?’

‘Yes, that will be necessary, my dear. I’m afraid I can’t give you an anaesthetic like in hospital. I hope you’re not going to yell too much.’

‘No, I won’t, Doctor.’

The white armchair had been spread open like a couch and covered in a white sheet. A towel had also been placed on the sheet.

‘Did you come alone?’ he asked.

‘Yes, Doctor.’

‘And nobody will be coming to meet you afterwards, either?’

‘No, Doctor. Do you think I won’t make it home on my own?’

‘I’m sure you will. Or I’ll call you a taxi.’

Then she lay naked on the couch. The doctor brought from somewhere a basin with sterilised instruments and a small portable tape-recorder. He switched on a tape, filling the room with soulless music. ‘That’s on account of the neighbours,’ he commented. ‘It’s an old house but there are new tenants.’

She could hardly hear him through the barrage of noise.

She closed her eyes. The music assailed her from all sides, and then she heard the clink of something metallic. ‘Now you’ll have to be a bit brave,’ he told her, ‘and grit your teeth. And not cry out. You know what people are like, don’t you?’

Yes, I do. And he actually had to come to me and tell me how he’d fallen in love. He would have killed me, poisoned me like a mouse, and then he comes a few days later and tells me how happy he is. The bastard.

At that moment a pain went through her, a far worse pain than she had imagined. As if they were burning her insides with a red-hot poker. It occurred to her that he had forgotten to cool his instruments; he hadn’t noticed they were still red hot, and she cried out, maybe to let him know the instruments were red hot, or just to let him know it hurt, just for relief. And she went on screaming louder apd louder as he went on cutting, slicing away her body, and all the while her own blood gushed hot down her thighs.

She opened her eyes slightly and glimpsed a sweat-soaked brow and strong bare hands that were spattered with blood. Then suddenly her breath gave out, everything went stiff, even the face in front of her froze and the hands went rigid and she realised she was dying.

Oh Lord have pity on me, receive my soul and that soul, if it already had a soul, forgive me my trespasses, all my trespasses, I know I was proud.

It was not the best moment for prayer, and God, if He existed, and even if He existed and was merciful, would surely turn away from her in disgust.

She could feel her forehead going clammy. She was not breathing.

‘All right then, my dear,’ the doctor broke in, ‘it’s all over. I think we’ve made a good job of it.’

She tried to move her head, at least, but was unable to.

‘There’s no rush,’ he admonished her. ‘It might need a bit of Eucoran.’ He turned off the tape-recorder and washed his hands once more. Then he came back to her. ‘We’ve got our colour back again, I see,’ he announced. ‘The main thing is it’s behind us now.’

She moved her lips. ‘Thank you, Doctor.’

‘It’s hot in here,’ the doctor said. ‘It could do with some ventilation.’

At last she sat up and he handed her a package of cotton-wool, saying in his off-putting, non-committal, matter-of-fact way: ‘The bleeding will continue normally, but apart from that everything as for a confinement. Refrain from intercourse, naturally.’ He placed next to her two small packets of tablets and ordered her to take one very six hours.

‘Thank you, Doctor.’

‘How do you feel, my dear?’

‘Thank you, Doctor.’

‘Do you think you’ll manage to walk?’

‘Yes. Thank you, Doctor.’

‘Or should I call you a taxi?’

‘No, there’s no need, Doctor, thank you.’

‘I don’t like calling them from the flat, but there is a public phone box at the corner of the street. Do you have a coin for the phone?’

‘Yes, Doctor.’

‘Take this tablet before you go.’ He handed her a pill and a glass of water. ‘Swallow it straight away. No bath when you get home, just a shower. At least two days’ rest. Stay in bed tomorrow. No cleaning or cooking.’

‘No, Doctor.’

‘Come and see me at the surgery next week. If you have any pains or a temperature come and see me straight away.’

‘Yes, thank you, Doctor. Thank you very much.’

Outside she was surprised to find total darkness. A moist spring-like breeze was blowing; dried leaves rustled as they blew about in the small park on the other side of the street. The clouds scudded across the sky and between them the moist and almost complete disc of the moon appeared and disappeared again.

Her legs were so weak that she was obliged to hold on to the wall for support. An elderly woman with a dog was approaching her from the opposite direction. As they passed, the woman said to the dog: ‘The shameless creatures you see nowadays. Almost too drunk to walk.’

She freed herself from the wall and crossed the street. The ground beneath her feet shook so much she could scarcely keep her balance. There was a bench just at the edge of the park, so she could sit down for a moment. She rested her head on the back of the seat and stared straight upwards. Immediately above her head a mighty, five-fingered branch stretched out, with several large dry leaves rustling at the end of it. The moon lit up the branch with a greyish light. For a moment she had the impression that the branch had come to life and was reaching out for her with its gouty claws. Then she noticed that the edge of the cloud then approaching the moon had become iridescent and swelled into a kind of crater from whose depths a glow emerged.

It was a golden, almost unreal light, which amazingly went on becoming brighter until its flames started to lap over the edge of the crater and out of the flames she could see a misty vapour rise up full of coloured reflections, peel away from the flames and descend towards her.