Ivan Klíma - Judge On Trial

Why had she confided in him? Was it because he was already old and inspired people’s confidence?

He stopped at the corner of the Old Town Square. He ran up to the first floor, and was scarcely through the door when his mother appeared in the front hall. ‘Close the door quickly,’ she told him, ‘or we’ll have the place full of flies. And take off your shoes!’ She had an obsessive dread of filth, and of flies in particular. Throughout the period from spring to autumn when a fly might conceivably make an appearance in the square, all the main windows in the flat had to be kept shut. The maximum his father was allowed during those months was a frame of fine wire-mesh in place of the ventlights.

‘Go and wash your hands in the kitchen, your father’s in the bath!’

He went to the kitchen and she brought him a towel. ‘He wants to fly to Brno early in the morning,’ his mother grumbled. ‘One of their motors has broken down. They called him this afternoon. He’d be flying this evening if he could. He’s always at it. You ought to tell him to stop rushing around like this. While he still has the chance — before he wears himself out.’

He smiled. His mother had voiced the same anxiety for twenty years at least. Though one day her constant fears could be sadly justified.

‘You’re hungry, I’m sure. And just when I have nothing in the house.’ Always now that Hanuš was abroad (albeit still legally) and inaccessible, she livened up whenever he arrived and fell over herself to do things for him.

‘I’m not hungry. It’s too hot to have an appetite.’

‘So what’s the reason you’ve dropped in out of the blue?’ she asked suspiciously.

‘I happened to be passing.’

‘We had a letter from Hanuš. He’s found himself a new flat. One whole floor of a house, with a view of the garden from his study. It’s quite a big garden and there’s a bed of peonies right opposite his window, and they’re in flower.’ His mother described the view as if she’d just got back from a visit to Hanuš’s new flat. ‘But I don’t like the way he’s settling in. He’s acting as if he meant to stay for good.’

She refused to countenance the thought of Hanuš staying overseas and never returning to the country where he was born, where she was born, the country for whose freedom, as she believed, her two brothers had died, and where her ancestors had been born and buried. His mother was deeply attached to her home town and its speech, and in that she differed from his father, who was only attached to his machines — which knew no homeland. All she had known so far — two wars and imprisonment — weighed on her and made her grumble, although she never associated her afflictions with her country itself. Foreigners had brought them every time, after all. Whereas his father constantly analysed the reasons for what happened in order to forecast the future, his mother let the future alone, and accepted it all fatalistically. His father, perpetually prepared for the worst, was undoubtedly relieved that his younger son at least had managed to remove himself beyond the borders of this least secure of areas. To his mother it seemed that she already had the worst behind her and subconsciously she expected fate to bring her some relief. There was an anxiety deep within her soul, but she refused to pay it any greater tribute than her yearning to have her sons close by her.

‘You ought to write to him. When was the last time you sent him a letter?’

He couldn’t remember, but said: ‘Just recently.’

‘You should write, you should tell him to start thinking about coming home. The longer he leaves it, the harder it’ll be for him to get used to it here again.’

‘But he’s a grown man.’

And what expectations did he have of the future? He had inherited his father’s capacity for logical thought, but also his mother’s dislike of treating her life’s experience with logic. Moreover he had the foolish habit of forgetting the past, so how was he supposed to draw conclusions from it? It could well be that the day was not far off when the doorbell would ring and messengers in some new guise would finally hand him the long, narrow strip with name, date, number and irrevocable verdict; but should he let the fear of it poison his days beforehand? That must surely have been the attitude of most of those during the war who were destined for the final solution and then fared worse than he. And most likely it was the attitude of those destined for the final solution after the February coup of ’48 — and where had they ended up? Had he graduated from law school just a few years earlier he might well have pronounced sentence on them. An awful thought.

‘But he listens to you,’ his mother continued. ‘He respects you. He knows you understand this sort of thing.’

‘All right, I’ll write to him.’ Perhaps he was foolhardy because he had always got off scot-free so far. Or more likely because he plain refused to accept escape as the only way out of danger. What would become of the human race if we all opted for escape?

‘And what are the children up to?’ his mother asked, changing the subject.

‘They’ve already gone,’ he replied, aware that this news would not be warmly received. ‘I drove them all to the country on Saturday.’

‘And they didn’t even bother to come and say goodbye.’

He had begged Alena to take the children over, but she hadn’t found the time, even though she postponed the departure twice. Like most women, she was not enamoured of her mother-in-law and did what she could to avoid her. He was obliged to take the children to see his parents on his own. He suddenly felt a pang of resentment towards his wife for not having done him that little favour. Goodness knows where she’d been gadding about those two days. The last evening, she had only come home just before midnight. Then she had fallen asleep as her head touched the pillow, though she knew very well they wouldn’t see each other for at least a week. ‘I’ve had a lot of work on my plate,’ he explained, ‘and I just didn’t have time to bring them over.’

He didn’t like complaining but now he felt a need to talk about himself. In the old days, when he was still a boy, he would go to his mother every so often and launch into a lengthy narration of everything that had befallen him recently. She would listen and he would find relief. But what was he to tell her now? That they were piling cases on to him and making attend endless meetings and pep talks where he was forced to listen to things he found repugnant? That he was sleeping badly and waking up in the small hours worrying about what he would do when they kicked him out of his job? That for a long time his wife had not felt amorous towards him? That he now hated getting up in the morning as there was nothing to look forward to, nothing hopeful? That, on top of it all, for the last week he had also had the household to look after, with all the shopping, the children’s meals to cook and even the laundry? That this afternoon he had been to see a friend, but only found his friend’s wife at home, and she had said things to him which, however meaningless, still rang in his ears?

‘You mustn’t overdo it,’ his mother said. ‘You’ve got bags under your eyes.’

‘They’re not from overdoing it.’

‘What are they from then? Adam,’ she asked anxiously, ‘you’re not doing anything foolish again, are you?’

‘What do you mean “again”?’

‘You know very well what I mean. Getting up to something with those friends of yours who were given the boot.’

‘You’ve no need to worry.’

‘I hope you learnt a lesson from what happened to you that time over your article.’

He knew that his mother would go on to remind him of his father’s time in prison. Of all the things that had ever happened to her she only ever recalled the worst. The lesson she had learned from everything was that resistance was undesirable, that one should not have different aspirations from other people, that one should only aspire after what was permitted. ‘You’ve no need to worry,’ he repeated.