Ivan Klíma - Judge On Trial

‘But he knew everything anyway. Because then he asked me if I was aware that bribery was a punishable offence and that Jaroslav could be dismissed and the rest of us indicted.’

‘And what did you say to that?’

‘That we didn’t bribe anyone. I was so ashamed, Adam. I’m not used to lying. And on top of that he smiled and said we could talk about it next time. Only he was afraid that the next interview wouldn’t necessarily be as friendly as the one that day. I thought he was going to let me go, but instead he started talking about what would happen if they were to prove attempted bribery. On the part of Jaroslav and myself. Then something awful happened.’

‘Did he know where you had taken the money?’

‘No, he didn’t say anything about it. He said he knew I was a conscientious and principled person and that I might be able to help them in uncovering dishonesty in certain cases. He said that if I acted honestly nothing would happen to any of us. It was awful how he kept on talking about conscientiousness and principles and the fight against dishonesty.’

She tried to light a cigarette but her fingers were shaking.

‘Calm down. They can’t force you to do anything of the sort.’

‘I’m beyond caring now, Adam. I haven’t been able to sleep for the last few nights because of it. What can they want from me? Some tittle-tattle from our common room. It’s nonsense. Our lot are all in the Party. All except me — and Jaroslav. I expect they’ll all be asked for a report on me. But none of them will be able to tell them anything.’

‘Or each of them will tell everything. And one thing is certain: they’ll all be terrified of each other.’

‘They’re all afraid anyway. No one dares to say what he or she really thinks in front of the others. And there’s no escape. So what am I to do? Am I to look on while Jaroslav worries himself to death and my children are prevented from studying so they’ll end up forced to go and slog in some godforsaken Hole? Why are you looking at me like that?’

‘I just remembered something… Sorry, I am listening to what you’re telling me.’

‘There’s no more to tell anyway.’

‘Remember the time the two of us were on holiday in Moravia, and the evening you sang with the fellows in the pub.’

‘Yes. I got drunk and you were cross with me.’

‘I wasn’t cross. I was more confused than anything else. I’m incapable of enjoying myself like other people. Afterwards we went upstairs to our room and you took out a whistle, or rather it was a flute, a sort of black flute, if you remember, and you played on it.’

‘I don’t recall that.’

‘All of a sudden it seemed to me that you were radiating light. It was really strange: as if you’d been transformed; you seemed so superior and stupidly I became frightened. I was afraid I’d become subordinated to you. I was afraid not just for myself but for my whole world. You did kindle something in me anyway, without my realising it.’

‘You’re kind to me. I didn’t know I had anything like that in me.’

‘There was life in you. I used to talk about the future. I wanted to do something against war and violence, in the name of those who hadn’t survived, but: there was no life in me. I used to go on about a juster society and about freedom, but I didn’t know what I was talking about. And meanwhile I took away others’ freedom and repressed it within myself. You sensed it all, you didn’t even need to know it, let alone think about it. And all the while, you wanted to leave here and go anywhere where one could live in freedom.’

‘I wanted to go somewhere by the sea.’

‘You longed for the sea, because the sea meant freedom and huge expanses and movement. You were the freest person I ever met in those days.’

‘I don’t know what to say to that.’

He had left her nonplussed. She stood up and crossed the room, stopping in front of the dark window. ‘We used to have an elm in front of the window too, but it died.’ She turned back towards him. ‘It’s a long time ago. I expect I’ve changed since. It’s such a long time.’ She returned to the table and finished her drink. ‘I ought to be going, it’s late.’

‘You don’t have to go if you’re in no hurry.’

She hesitated.

‘I’ll go and get the room ready for you.’ He took a pile of firewood with him, with the newspaper on top.

First he made the bed. Last time he had slept here with his mistress. He could also make her up the bed his wife’s lover had slept on last. We think we’re lacking rights and freedom, but what we lack most of all is moral grandeur. Anyone who had accepted the morals of the mob invoked rights in vain — they wouldn’t help him anyway. Without moral grandeur there was no freedom. He had failed to realise that then. And there was something else he had not realised: that in order to distinguish what was being done in the name of life and what in the name of death, one had to know how to live. She had tried to tell him, to hint it to him somehow, but he had been closed-minded. They had not met at the right moment.

He still had to light the stove. He started to tear the newspaper. As he picked up the last sheet, his eyes fell on a smallish headline:

DOUBLE MURDERER SENTENCED TO DEATH

He read through the nine-line news item which concluded with the information that the convicted Karel K. had appealed against the verdict.

They’d tricked him — the bastards! How had they even managed it in the time? He was seized by a compelling desire to do something. To get in his car and drive to Prague. Only what could he do there now, at this time of night? And what would he be able to do the next morning? Nothing by now. Not a thing!

He struck a match and watched the paper go up in flames, and then left the room.

She was standing outside the door, her hair loose, carrying most of her clothes in her hand. She had just slipped her dress over her naked body. Maybe it was because that was how she must have looked almost every day at this hour of the evening, at the time when they were seeing each other almost daily, or maybe it was the twilight, but he felt an intimacy, as if he had gone back those fifteen years.

‘Thanks, Adam,’ she said, ‘I’ll try and find the strength.’

3

The next morning he arrived so early at the courthouse that the corridors still loomed emptily. His boss had not yet arrived. But in the office which he still called his own, he managed to catch Alice.

‘We were trying to get hold of you, Adam!’ she said as he came in. She threw him a sympathetic look.

‘You didn’t go too far out of your way. Do you know anything about that dirty trick?’

‘I phoned you off my own bat. So you’d know at least. The trouble was I only heard about it at the last minute too. He took the file straight back — the moment you left. He took it into his own hands.’

‘Who tried the case?’ he asked. ‘He himself?’

‘Of course! Who else? He notified the witnesses while you were still in Prague. But I knew nothing about it.’

‘It was on his advice that I returned the case. The double-crosser. Why did he give me the case, then, if he didn’t want me to try Kozlík?’

‘But he did — so long as he thought you’d play ball. But then he got cold feet. He’d be blamed for not keeping you under his thumb. What are you going to do now? Aren’t you going to complain?’

‘Who to?’ he asked. ‘And what about, exactly?’

This time his boss could act naturally. There was no pretence of a smile. It struck Adam that the necrophiliac eyes had a satisfied look in them. He had managed to pull off yet another dirty trick. And to cap it all he would soon have the pleasure of viewing his strangled victim.