Ivan Klíma - Judge On Trial

‘Would you like a coffee?’

‘No thanks, I don’t drink coffee.’

‘Oh, I remember now. You didn’t drink coffee, vodka or wine. But maybe you drink wine by now?’

‘I’m happy as I am.’

‘Lucky man. You don’t have any vices at all?’

‘I play tennis.’

‘That’s not a vice. Haven’t you even given your Alena the slip on the odd occasion?’

He shrugged.

‘Don’t you find it boring, living that way?’

‘I expect it is, but I’ve never learned to live any other way.’

‘I’d teach you, but it’s your affair.’ She brought a bottle and some glasses. She poured him some soda water, herself a glass of wine. ‘I like a drink, if only to cheer me up a bit — even in this graveyard. The last time we met, things were rather more cheerful. You were just off to America or somewhere. You didn’t even send me a card.’

‘I’m a dreadful correspondent.’ He couldn’t see why he should have sent her a postcard, seeing that he hardly knew her.

‘That, I’d really enjoy, travelling round the world. But I expect you just shut yourself up in a library somewhere and sat there reading and drinking weak tea with no sugar.’

‘I drove all over from north to south. Right down to Texas.’

‘Texas? That sounds so grey-green. I bet they have a sea coast.’

‘There is a gulf, but I never got that far.’

‘I’ve never been to the sea at all. I just might have made it once if Ruml hadn’t gone and given me a baby. I had to sit at home instead. That’s why I never got to university either.’

‘You wanted to study?’

‘Why not? Everyone thought I’d go on to college.’

‘And what are you doing these days?’

‘Don’t even ask!’ She went into the room next door and he heard the sound of drawers being pulled out. She returned with a long strip of film. He took it from her and held it up to the light. A brown puppy with drooping ears looking out of a yellow kennel next to a speckled hen scratching by a purple fence.

She studied him, then came and stood behind him as if she wanted to have a look herself. He felt the soft touch of her hand on his right shoulder.

‘That’s what I do. Colour in the frames.’ She leaned over him for a moment longer, then stepped away and took the strip back. ‘I’ve already squandered three years of my life on it. At first I thought I’d learn something in the process. But it’s just a bore.’ She moved her chair a bit closer to him. They were so close, their knees almost touched. ‘When I come in at night my eyes are sore from it.’ She raised her eyes to him as if to let him see just how sore they were. They were a light blue like his daughter’s.

What expectations did she have of him? None, most likely. It was a summer evening and she was bored. And what expectations did he have of himself? Wasn’t he bored too? No, surely not. But he was so strait-laced and unbending: as dry as the Negev Desert.

‘Does Alena still work in the library?’

He nodded.

‘It’s a daft world where women have to work. Having to look after their children, their husband, their furniture and go out to work on top of it all. I can’t even read in the evening, or paint, my eyes are so tired. Would you like me to put on a record?’

‘If you like. And you did painting before?’

‘When I was still at school. I used to paint there every day. Since then I only paint on the odd occasion.’ She got up and put a record on the gramophone.

From the corner of the room there came the sound of a husky jazz singer. ‘What sense would there be in dusting the furniture, ironing shirts, frying schnitzels and tossing off the odd still life?’

She continued to stare at him. He was incapable of concentrating on her words. It would be better if he got up and left. Instead he asked: ‘Would you show me your paintings some time?’

‘You want to see my paintings? Why should you look at them? There are plenty of pictures around by people who are better at it than me and you won’t even have the time to see half of them. There’s so little time, don’t you think? Sometimes when I get up in the morning it really hits me and I panic. I’d really love to escape.’

‘Escape where?’

‘Somewhere I’d know I was alive. Do you fancy running away with me?’

He shrugged.

‘I’m rattling on, aren’t I? And I’m letting you sit here with just a soda water when I bet you’re hungry. Wait a sec and I’ll make you some soup.’

‘Please don’t go to any trouble.’

‘I’ll enjoy it!’ She went out.

His throat was dry. He drank the rest of his soda water but it did nothing to slake his thirst. Moreover he felt hemmed in here, it was a space quite different from the one he was used to moving around in. A few steps more and he’d find himself on a very slippery slope. If he didn’t escape now the walls would close in, whirling about an invisible axis, and he would find himself trapped. He peeped into the kitchen. Alexandra was just pouring ketchup into a saucepan. The crimson liquid reminded him of blood.

‘I don’t think I should detain you, seeing that Oldřich doesn’t look as if he’s coming.’

‘I should think he’ll come: he promised you, after all.’ She shrugged. ‘You won’t even wait for a drop of tomato soup?’

‘I’d better not, if you don’t mind.’

‘I don’t mind. It’s your bad luck — I make a good tomato soup, with ham and double cream.’ She turned down the gas, distant now and indifferent. She saw him to the gate: ‘Don’t feel you have to wait five years before you call again.’

The gate slammed behind him. He was suddenly overcome with regret: it welled up from somewhere deep inside him. To escape somewhere, to where you’d know you were alive. But where was that place, and in whose company?

4

It was almost eight o’clock — but he didn’t feel like going home to an empty flat. He was right to have left her. He was pleased he had got away in time, but the regret did not leave him. He ought to do something to take his mind off it.

Why had she stared at him so hard? What could she find fascinating about him? He had never thought of himself, even as a young man, as someone attractive to women. He was unsure of his appearance. If he was suddenly summoned to an interrogation and asked to describe himself, he probably wouldn’t be able to. He would have difficulty in stating for certain whether his lips were full or thin, he didn’t know where his birth marks were without having to think, or what shape his ears were, and if he was given some paints and told to mix from memory the same shade of brown as his eyes, he would certainly fail. On one occasion when he entered a tailor’s cutting-room where several mirrors were installed, he happened to catch sight of his reflection in profile and it took a moment or two before he realised that the stocky fellow with the prominent nose was himself.

So the only thing he knew about himself was that he was rather ponderous, unrhythmical, unmusical (he had never learned to dance or to sing the simplest of melodies, and when he was doing his military service he had even had difficulty keeping in step with the rest) and he was clumsy with his hands.

Magdalena used to maintain he had an interesting or even beautiful nose but he hadn’t used to take comments like that seriously. In his younger days, he had been such an impassioned speaker and debater that people found his energy attractive. But he had talked less and less lately. He had developed an aversion to repeating other people’s ideas and experiences, or his own: to repeating anything, in fact. And since most conversations consisted entirely of repetition — phrases, events, ideas, opinions — he usually kept quiet. And if he did start to speak he would dry up after a few sentences. As a rule he didn’t confide in anyone else, but didn’t discourage others from confiding in him.