Ivan Klíma - Judge On Trial

‘What does he say?’

‘Go in peace! Go in peace! If I understand him rightly. A pity you can’t hear it.’

Hanuš was still pressing the keys of the calculator.

Meanwhile Adam climbed out on a beam and looked out of a small dormer window. He could see the roofs of the cottages and the tops of the bare trees above them, as well as ploughed fields, yellowing meadows and the glistening surface of the village pond which lay in a shallow depression.

As he moved back slightly from the window, he became aware of the shaft of light that cut sharply through the gloom of the loft area.

How long ago was it that he had yearned to climb up such a shaft of light and escape his fate? He was overcome with a forgotten exaltation: he caught the sound of an organ from the depths below him — someone had started to play the same old melody. With amazement he realised the coincidence, even though he had discovered long ago that one could not escape one’s fate, that there was no way of climbing out of one’s own life. However much one tried to convince oneself of the contrary, it was impossible to start afresh, or return to the point where one went astray. The most one could hope for was to stand on the summit — if one managed to reach it — and view the landscape one had passed through on one’s travels and try to descry within it what had so far eluded one’s gaze; one could also raise one’s eyes to the heavens which one had forgotten. And steel oneself for the deed one had postponed for years, or which one never believed could be achieved.

He also knew by now that one would never find freedom in this world — however perfect were the laws and however great one’s control over the world and people — unless one found it in oneself. And nobody could endow one with moral grandeur if it was not born in one’s soul, just as nobody could release one from one’s bonds if one did not cast off the shackles of one’s own making.

Perhaps he had managed to do just that: to cast off the shackles which he had grown so used to over the years that by now he regarded them as a need, as part of his own nature. Now, whatever the future might bring, he felt a sense of relief: for the first time in his life he was not requiring something better or different from the world or other people, he was requiring it of himself.

The sun went behind a cloud and the shaft of light disappeared. The organ fell silent too. The landscape outside sank into the shade and the forest on the horizon went dark.

He was making his way through that forest, his pack on his back, striding between the trunks of century-old beeches, oaks and pines, alone in a strange wood, neither followed nor pursued by anyone, clambering over the gentle slopes of sand dunes.

Night was falling, it was time to pitch a tent from his two blankets and cut himself a slice from his loaf of bread. He sat down under a tree and felt good. He was running away from no one, renouncing no one, not intending to abandon anyone or bind anyone to him, and least of all did he want to judge anyone.

All he knew was that he had to make it to this point: this seclusion, a place between life and emptiness, where his father had once found himself also. But his father had been driven here by a violence so unbridled that it took away his good sense and opened his mind to delusions, whereas he realised now that his own mind was just opening to life,

‘He couldn’t have built it on his own,’ Hanuš declared. ‘It wouldn’t be humanly possible in two years.’

‘Maybe the others helped him a bit,’ Matěj conceded.

‘But you said he built it himself.’

‘So it says in the records. But it could be that nobody noticed the others. All they could see was the individual who decided to build the church by himself.’

‘That didn’t occur to me,’ said Hanuš and put away his calculator.

5

In recent days, she had prayed every night: she prayed for herself, that she should at last find the strength to be humble and manage to be good; she prayed for Adam, that he should awake from his beguilement and at last find peace; she begged the Lord in His mercy to restore their understanding and love, and prayed for her children that they should obtain love and faith and mercy and that their lives should not end in emptiness. And she also prayed for her former lover that he should encounter understanding and human involvement, and for her long-lost friend Maruška that she should conquer her bitterness. She prayed too for the murderer whom she had never set eyes on.

But not even prayer earned her peaceful nights. Suddenly, after so many years, her dead friend Tonka had re-entered her dreams. She would arrive and ring the doorbell, or wait for her near the entrance to the bathing area, and she would find herself walking at her side with a feeling of relief and happiness; then they would swim together in the river until the moment she realised she was swimming alone. She would cry out in terror but already she could see the lifeguards carrying a lifeless body. She rushed over to them and recognised Adam’s face, blue and bloated, water running from his mouth.

Lord Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for our sins, let this cup of bitterness pass from me, grant me a little peace.

She was frightened of going to bed, fearing the anxious dreams and looking forward to Adam’s return. After all, he couldn’t stay there all alone indefinitely (if he really was alone), he had to return to work and come back to the children and her.

And when he did not come, the thought came to her each time that he did not have to return ever, that his departure had been merely a way of informing her — as painlessly as possible — that he was leaving her for the other woman. One day she would find in the letter-box a summons to attend court, and then the court would finally pronounce that the two of them no longer belonged together, even though they had lived ten years together and given life to two human beings. No, Adam could not leave her, he couldn’t do it, because after all they belonged together; they had promised each other that they would stay together in good times and in bad.

Maybe he had already returned to Prague and was living at his parents for the time being. But surely he would not be capable of being so near and not getting in touch.

She called in on her way home from work (she was able to choose a route that took her right past the house on the Old Town Square). She climbed the wooden staircase with beating heart and a dry throat (as if she had done something wrong and was coming to ask forgiveness), rang the doorbell, and quickly rehearsed a few naive excuses in her head to explain why she had stopped by so unwontedly and without letting them know in advance.

Fortunately there was no one in.

As she was coming out on to the square, she noticed in front of the house an old man whose face seemed familiar. He was wearing a hat of the sort worn by painters at the beginning of the century. He was holding a black umbrella and looking straight at her. ‘Excuse me,’ he said to her, raising his hat, ‘do you live here?’

‘No, my husband used to live here,’ she said, although it was no business of his.

‘I wonder if I might make so bold as to trouble you with a question: you wouldn’t happen to know anything about the history of this house, would you?’

She shook her head: ‘I’m afraid not. He might, as he was born here.’

‘The thing is, I’m trying to record the history of the entire square,’ he explained. ‘I have discovered that every stone here, if it were given the power of speech, would have a tale to tell. The patres chose this place well for a statue of a man who was as much a maker of the modern age as Columbus or Gutenberg.’ The old man leaned towards her and said to her in a half-whisper: ‘When I finish the history, it will make your blood run cold!’ He raised his broad-brimmed hat once more and moved away from her with short, crazy steps.