Ivan Klíma - Judge On Trial

Even though he recounted these stories as if they were from his own experience, I realised later that he had actually gleaned them from newspaper reports or from the radio broadcasts on which he worked. They might well have been truthful as far individual events were concerned, but they were lies in so far as they purported to say something about the actual state of affairs and the people’s state of mind during that dreadful war.

Many years later (he always occupied some high post and lived in a very non-proletarian flat in a modern house on Letná Plain) my uncle called me to ask if I might like to come and pick anything I fancied from some books he was throwing out. The parcel that I came away with included a Russian translation of Spinoza’s Tractatus Politicus. When I opened the book back home, I discovered that the ninety-eight pages of preface had been cut out and that someone had taken a knife to the title-page, the contents and even the publishing details, carefully excising the name of the man who wrote the preface and edited the translation. Only then did I understand that when my uncle had been regaling me with his elegant stories about courage, consciousness and patriotism, couched in his meticulously turned phrases, he had also been aware of the reverse side of the reality: cars that drew up at dawn in front of people’s houses; names scratched from the covers of books and from people’s memories, the suffering of those taken away and the grief of those left abandoned; and his own fear. He had known it all, but his grave expression and perfect self-control hid everything. He betrayed nothing of that other reality in those frequent conversations when he entertained me with brightly coloured pictures of life, and gave me jovial advice to get well quickly because every communist would be needed as soon as possible. So he worked on my mind, they all did: my uncles and father alike and the comrades who visited us.

They constituted a singular brotherhood, each member of which could finish the sentence another had started. A choir in perfect unison, a colossal creature formed of countless bodies but having one head and one will alone. I craved to be like them, but I was too self-preoccupied to have been capable — even in spirit — of merging myself entirely with that unique creature.

4

I must have been a lot better already because I was not even lying in bed when the doorbell rang and an unfamiliar voice resounded in the front hall. My mother opened the door to my room and told me with some agitation in her voice and almost formally that I had callers. And then two unknown men stepped straight in. The second of them, a spindly fellow with white, pimply skin and thick spectacles, was really still a boy, scarcely older than myself.

Addressing me as ‘Brother Adam’, the older man told me he had heard about my illness and so, as minister of the congregation to which I belonged, had come to see me with Brother Filip Augusta. They wanted to know how they could help me. I was covered in confusion. I had never crossed the threshold of a church since the day of my christening. My brother and I were the only ones in our irreligious family to have been christened at all, and the two of us only because my parents had deluded themselves at the outbreak of war that it would strengthen our chances. Since, three hundred years earlier, Mother’s ancestors had been Protestants who converted to Judaism after the Catholic victory at White Mountain, deluding themselves that this would improve their chances, I was baptised forthwith by a Protestant minister: thus I became a sheep returned to Christ’s fold.

They spoke to me at length. Both the minister and his young assistant, who was an officer of the youth fellowship, asked me searching questions about my illness, after which the minister declared with conviction that I would soon be well. He knew one brother who had suffered from the same complaint and he had recovered without any after-effects. But physical health, even though it was gratifying and joyous to have a healthy body, was not the only, nor even the most important health, and he asked me whether I read the Scriptures. I confessed, with sudden shame, that we had no Bible at home. At this, without any sign of annoyance, the minister took a black-bound book out of his briefcase and handed it to me. The young man at his side announced that he was looking forward to welcoming me among them as soon as I was well and confirmed. And compared with the minister, he said it severely.

After they had gone I got down to reading, and being a conscientious reader, I read the whole book from ‘In the beginning’ to ‘The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.’ I didn’t even skip the distribution of the promised land among the tribes of Israel, or the enumeration of the house of Judah, or even the list of thirty-one kings who were trounced by Joshua. I read the Scriptures in the same way I read The Three Musketeers or The Pickwick Papers . I had not the slightest inkling of any hidden meanings, I read it chiefly as a self-assured, though often tragic, account of the journey of the chosen people and its God (whom I perceived as a fairy-tale figure because of His miracles, or as another among the many gods of legend) to power and government over a colourful tract of land. (The land was depicted on cards stuck in the back of the book). And since there are few books written with such a passion for a particular truth, such an unquestioning belief in being chosen, and such ill-will towards all enemies, I could not help falling for it. I felt hatred along with the prophets and rejoiced along with the victors when the vanquished kings were impaled on spikes and captives put to the sword regardless of age or sex, I felt the satisfaction of the righteous when the pitiful thief or the plunderer of war booty was stoned to death with his entire family, and with the wretched people I waited for the Messiah. And because I was also at the age when one not only reads stories but also lives them, I became warrior-king, preacher and prophet speaking those lofty words to the misguided people: thy adultery, thy mockery, thy vile fornication in the hills and in the fields. I have seen thy abomination. Woe betide thee, Jerusalem!

I was saturated with the stories and longed to display my knowledge to someone, but the minister did not come. It was some while later that pimply Brother Augusta turned up again. He was even lankier than on his last visit — or that was my impression. He clearly felt more important at being able to represent the Church to me all on his own. He settled himself in the armchair and talked at length about the depravity loosed upon the world when the spirit was neglected in favour of carnal desires. We spent an afternoon examining and condemning every vice from jazz and the dances people did to it (I had never danced in my life), to the vile and disgusting films that starred the naked Rita Hayworth (whom I had never seen either in the flesh or on screen). I sensed that by displaying a responsible moral attitude I would rise in my own esteem and in the esteem of my companion.

I never dreamed that the condemnation of vice was one way of dwelling on its attractions, and was the path chosen by weak-willed, sick, invalid or timid individuals.

I asked my companion what, in his view, was the proper way to live. In fear of the Lord, he replied. I wanted to hear something more specific. He told me that he intended to deny himself all amusements until at least the age of twenty-five. He was going to study and learn languages, particularly Hebrew (he wanted to read the Old Testament in the original), Greek and Latin. He was going to travel, and chiefly to those countries still awaiting missionary activity.

I wanted to know what he would do if, before that age, he met a woman and made love to her. He shook his head to say that such a thing was out of the question and asked me whether I thought anything of the sort might happen to me.