Ivan Klíma - Judge On Trial

She joined them at the table. They invited her to help herself but then they chattered away as if she wasn’t there. They talked about a church that was apparently built by some ancestor of Matěj’s.

There was a time when people built churches, or at least chapels, and took part in processions on Corpus Christi, and had joy in what they did and enjoyed their work; nowadays they ran after tarts, and had to get drunk in order to enjoy themselves.

Hanuš looked overwhelmed. He said he had not had such a splendid day in three whole years. Or rather — he corrected himself, as he had indeed enjoyed many splendid days over there — a day so free of worry and nostalgia.

Matĕj asked him about what he had seen and done and Hanuš was only too pleased to walk for them along Oxford Street, sun himself by the sea in Sussex, and act as their guide at parties, dances and Beatles concerts; Adam sat smiling at the head of the table as if he was happy, as if nothing had happened and everything was all right. He didn’t even ask after the children, or why she had come. From time to time he would glance in her direction, but maybe he didn’t even see her. Then he stood up and fetched the plates and the sausages. As he walked by her carrying the pan of boiling water, he asked off-handedly: ‘The children are OK?’

‘You aren’t surprised to find me here?’

‘Oh, yes I am’. He turned his back on her and started fishing out the smoked sausages with a wooden spoon. ‘You don’t know if there’s some mustard here anywhere, do you?’

She rummaged out a jar of dried-up mustard from the back of the larder and handed it to him. He set a plate for her too and also poured her wine. It was blood red. Like the blood she had spilt.

Adam turned to Hanuš: ‘You were saying that they treat you as if you were a lunatic — I propose a toast to that! That you had the courage to act unreasonably, just as the spirit moved you.’

She swallowed a mouthful of wine with distaste. She had acted as the spirit moved her that time and look where it had got her. He praised his brother while castigating her for the same thing. That was him all over: he’d always find words to suit his purpose. Now he’d even discovered the spirit: ‘as the spirit moved’ — she’d never heard anything like that from him before: no doubt he’d caught it from her. She had persuaded him that if he climbed into bed with her he would be acting as the spirit moved him. And it was she who had taught him to drink wine; he hadn’t used to drink before. And he wouldn’t have dared eat smoked meat for supper for fear of a stomach upset.

He sat here listening to what Matěj and Hanuš had to say and was obviously enjoying himself. When he was at home and she or the children wanted to talk to him, he’d be in too much of a hurry and use his work as an excuse; he would even get up from the table before everyone had finished eating.

And on account of him she had let them take that life! To make it easier for him to forgive her. In the process she had almost bled to death and he didn’t even ask her anything, or even look at her.

Remorse gripped her. She was alone, forsaken by everyone. If she had had even an inkling that she would find them here, she would have stayed with the children. What if something had happened to them in the meantime?

They started singing. Matěj inflicted his Moravian drinking songs on everyone. She enjoyed singing, even with Matěj, and they would sing together when he visited them, but today she was unable to, even when Matěj begged her to join in.

She went off to the room where Robert and Sylva usually slept. She washed in cold water and climbed into a cold bed, closed her eyes and started to pray. O Lord, who mercifully gave me back the gift of faith, do not abandon me, stay with me in my loneliness. And grant me patience and love, as well as the strength to be humble, let me forgive those who have done me wrong, and forgive me the awful thing I did, that I, a sinner, should have regarded it as the fruit of sin, that poor little innocent creature. And in Your mercy take its soul, that unsprouted seed, to You. And grant it peace and love.

Loud laughter came from the next room; she could make out Adam’s voice. She could concentrate on her prayer no longer. Then there was the sound of chairs being pushed back and doors banging. She could hear steps coming along the passage. Then the stairs creaked. The other two had obviously gone off to bed.

What two people could ever declare with certainty that they suited each other? As if something like that was pre-ordained at the outset and did not require constant effort. Nothing was pre-ordained: neither intimacy, nor love, nor trust; people had to go on looking for them and pray for them humbly. But that was something he was incapable of: he was proud, he would find it humiliating to make the effort to make friends with her, to go some way towards understanding her. Instead he’d sooner say: we are not made for each other. And what was he planning to do? To break up the home, abandon the children, leave them for good?

The house gradually subsided into silence, apart from a crackling in the stove; she ought to get up and tend to it.

Wouldn’t he even be coming in to say good night, and ask her how she was, at last?

Most likely he was waiting for her to come to him. He was incapable of admitting that he had done her wrong too; but she didn’t want to blame him for it; there was no point in worrying about the past, they should both be thinking about the future and looking for what might reconcile them again.

She listened to the silence of the house. The fire in the stove was already dying and the wind howled in the chimney. The window panes rattled and the creaking of dry branches could be heard from outside. She thought she heard a sudden quiet moan from the next room. Then a window creaked — maybe Adam was feeling unwell. He wasn’t used to drinking or eating late at night, and he had tired himself out on the bike beforehand. What an idea to go for a bike ride in the winter; most likely he was trying to prove to her , or to himself, how young and virile he still was.

She got up. She found an old coat of Sylva’s in the wardrobe and put it on.

He was sitting by the half-open window: big and powerful. He sat motionless as if turned to stone and did not even turn round when she came in.

‘What are you doing? Why don’t you go to bed?’ she asked.

‘I’m looking at the sea.’

It occurred to her that he had gone mad or was totally drunk. Then she realised that the valley below them had filled with mist and in the light of the moon above really looked like the sea. ‘Are you feeling unwell?’

‘No, I’m perfectly all right.’

He did not get up or look at her, he towered in front of the darkened window like a lighthouse above those imaginary waters. All of a sudden she realised that those waters washed him from all sides, he was cut off by deep water; it spread between him and herself; there was no reaching him any more; she could no longer speak to him, let alone embrace him, unless she leaped into that sea and swam with all her might. And at that moment she was seized by a mortal panic: as if she was already swimming, as if she was in the open sea and sinking beneath the surface, knowing she would never reach there; neither there nor back, and there was not a soul anywhere, no helping hand, no one to hear her cries, and the light that blazed out from that tower was too distant — cold and useless, incapable of saving her.

What if they really had been strangers to each other all that time? What if they had become so estranged that they would never ever be reconciled? She ought to ask him: Are you never coming back? But she could not pluck up the courage. She merely asked him once more: ‘You’re sure you’re not feeling unwell?’