Ivan Klíma - Judge On Trial

Only as the mists came nearer did she realise that they were endowed with an inner capacity of shape, and at the same time she felt a sudden, almost dizzy blissfulness and she knew that something celestial and undefiled was approaching. Then it came to rest in the space between herself and the branch and gazed at her.

‘Are you an angel?’ she asked.

‘I am myself.’ And she understood the reply though it was not spoken.

‘Have you come from Him?’

‘I come from Him who sent me.’

‘He heard me, though I did that awful thing?’

‘Did you feel remorse?’

‘I wanted to die!’

‘Whoever feels sorry for another shall not die. He is merciful to all whose hearts have not been hardened by pride.’

‘I seem to know your face.’

‘My face is of another essence.’

‘You have the face of a friend who died. Tell me, was He merciful to her?’

‘He is merciful to all whose hearts are not hardened by pride.’

‘She couldn’t have been proud, she was only a child.’

‘So she dwells in me.’

‘And what about it? What will happen to it?’

‘The unborn cannot know pride. They become angels straight away.’

‘What would its face be like?’

‘I cannot tell, its face is still of another essence.’

‘Tell me, can it forgive me?’

‘It can forgive everyone. It is in a state of grace.’

‘And what am I to do now? I am alone.’

‘But you are no longer alone. You will never again be alone.’

‘Will you stay with me?’

‘No, I cannot remain on this earth. I am of another essence. But what I bring you will stay with you.’

‘What have you brought me?’

‘I have brought you faith. Whoever believes cannot remain alone. You will become a companion of the angels.’

‘Will you tell me more?’

‘Be good. Go and sin no more!’

‘Don’t leave me yet!’

‘Be meek.’

‘Stay with me. It feels good to have you near.’

‘Only the meek may rise to love. You always longed for love but asked for something in exchange. The meek ask for nothing in exchange.’

‘Are you going already? Tell me who you are?’

‘Look at me!’

‘I am!’

‘I am the light of your soul. The rain of your aridity. I am the one who conquers nothingness.’

‘You smell sweet.’

‘No, I have only freed your breath.’

‘You shine.’

‘No, it is you who sees at last.’

And suddenly it shot upwards and lost its shape and brilliance. She felt a burning in her throat, but she breathed freely and she was so light she could not feel her body. She stood up and set off as in a stupor, up the dark, deserted street.

Before we drink from the waters of Lethe

1

A few days after Martin was born, I received the verdict of a secret tribunal that had dealt with my rebellion. First of all it instructed my party organisation to issue me a reprimand and a warning, and then, on its instructions (it was still the same old beast, the same tormentor of prisoners), my superiors informed me that I would have to leave the institute. However, they had no objections to my returning to legal practice whether as a judge or in some other function. No mention was made of my article. No one contested my views on the death penalty, no one reproved me for anything.

I felt slighted. Not one of my colleagues had taken my part. Oldřich alone consoled me and prophesied an imminent change in the status quo and my subsequent advancement.

My presence at the institute was no longer required — or desired. I could sit at home or in the library, and could study, think or write. But what would be the point of any of it if I was to end up being shunted off somewhere and silenced?

I was supposed to be looking for a job, but I was unable to make up my mind. Maybe subconsciously I was expecting salvation to arrive from elsewhere as so often in my life already, and I would be liberated from my bleak, hopeless fate.

At that time I was also visited at home by a youngster who introduced himself as Petr Fiktus and told me that he and most of his colleagues at our faculty, where he was in his first year as a lecturer, sympathised with me and commended both my attitude and my action, as well as the fact I had not recanted any of my opinions.

I was surprised to discover that they had even heard of my dispute.

We had a short, stilted chat about the death penalty (someone, after all, was ready to talk to me about that issue) and about the penal system. Then he talked to me enthusiastically about his colleagues who were determined to restore the dignity of jurisprudence, and the status of our profession in society. He also quizzed me on my views about the principle of elective judges and the possibility, in our society, of achieving the independence of the judiciary from the other organs of power.

I realised that he looked on me not so much as an academic as a moral authority. It gratified and even reassured me.

It struck me that there was a further dimension to our actions, one which I — as one brought up in the strictly utilitarian world of my father — had not so far perceived.

Then at last fate intervened, as I had earnestly hoped it would. The address on the envelope had been amended several times. The letter was from the President of Michigan University. He had apparently heard about my work from his friend Allan Nagel and learnt of my fate; he had also read some translations of some of my articles, particularly the study of capital punishment (after they had refused to print it I had actually sent that article, in a fit of defiance, to my learned colleague in Massachusetts) and he was both pleased and honoured, on behalf of the law school of his university, to offer me a visiting fellowship for the period of the next academic year. He was sure that my stay would be mutually beneficial and agreeable. The university would pay travelling expenses for myself and my family.

It took me several days before I decided to reply. I wrote that the invitation had come as a pleasant surprise and if I managed to obtain permission to travel — which would not be easy in view of my present situation — I would be happy to come with my family.

When I sent the letter that evening, I imagined myself standing somewhere on the shores of Lake Michigan. The mist was rising above that huge expanse of water and a light canoe manned by Indians was nearing the shore.

2

The town we were to live in was quiet and superficially resembled the world I had come from. Spread over a long range of hills either side of the River Huron (whose very name conjured up memories of my childhood reading), it even reminded me of my native city.

And indeed my life there was not too different from the life I had led while still employed in the institute. Three times a week, I would go into the university and attend lectures on American law (on the pavement of the bridge which I had to cross, someone had painted a huge hammer and sickle and the slogan: ALL POWER TO THE WORKERS) and spend some time in conversation with my colleagues. Occasionally I would visit the library. Most of the time I studied and wrote. What was different from my home was the atmosphere in which I was suddenly able to live and work. I didn’t have to worry whether the topic I was studying was acceptable, whether the literature I was reading was admissible as a source, or whether the ideas that came to me could be voiced directly, or only hinted at, or were taboo.

It was there that I realised for the first time that lack of freedom harms people not only by blocking their path to knowledge and curtailing what they can say and where they can go, but also by damaging the very core of their being and enslaving them by switching their attention to themselves alone. I realised how much energy I had been wasting trying to express in a complicated way and through allusions something which people there didn’t even bother to express as they took it for granted. And all the effort I had lavished on finding authoritative quotations to validate the simplest of ideas. I had been obliged to study banalities and regurgitate them, and had I failed to do so I would have aroused suspicion and been excommunicated before anyone even had a chance to hear me. And it had been precisely in that desperate striving to slink around obstacles and deliver in public at least one sentence of my own, even though the words gradually lost their meaning on the way (sometimes totally), that I had finally started to lose myself.