Ivan Klíma - Judge On Trial

I became aware of someone whispering at the other end of the table; someone else failed to suppress a giggle — of course it couldn’t possibly have anything to do with me. But she was listening, her heavenly gaze fixed on me as she sat there motionless, following my words. Meanwhile I toiled through the thicket of theological texts, and as I came nearer to Constance, I gradually raised my voice. The drama of the fateful moment had apparently affected them at last. Even the whisperer now desisted. I could feel the blood rush to my head. I looked at her and at that moment she smiled at me, really smiled; I noticed you smile at me; you have no idea what it meant to me — you see I might become a preacher. And I raised my voice still further. I was just reading an extract from the testimony of Peter Mladenitz. It was truly effective, sadly and terrifyingly effective; it was the crowning glory of my talk: ‘Then they made to attach his neck by some sooty chain; gazing upon it and smiling, he saith to his myrmidons…’ Now absolute silence reigned and suddenly I noticed that she was looking at her watch and in that absolute silence she carefully pushed back her chair and tiptoed to the door. ‘But before they set light to the pyre, Reichsmarschal Hoppe von Pappenheim approached him…’ and I thought I would never manage the few remaining paragraphs. But I must go after her! My throat was burning. I started to stutter, skipped several sentences and read the very last one.

It was the end. I sat down. Someone congratulated me and it occurred to me she must be at home, quite simply she had had to go home; I had overshot the usual finishing time for our meetings. I would ring the doorbell at the villa and say I needed to speak to her. But about what? My carefully thought-out sentences subsided, leaving behind a yawning void.

Dusk was only just falling as I stood once more in that ignominious spot in the honeysuckle patch and this time I saw her immediately. One of the doors on to the passage had been left open; the one to the bathroom. She was standing in front of the mirror arranging her hair. Then she made a couple of circular movements around her mouth: she must have been painting her lips. The light went off and a moment later I spied her going out of the front gate. I still had a chance of running and stopping her. I could do anything; but at the same time I sensed that the most I could do would be to follow her at a distance, like a detached shadow, lost and forgotten.

At about the fourth street corner, someone was waiting for her, leaning on an acacia trunk. He came over to her and I instantly recognised the slightly rusty hue of an American army uniform. I don’t know why, but it struck me as preposterous, impossible that anyone should have beaten me to it. Maybe I was wrong, maybe they had bumped into each other by chance. They walked along side by side, he with a rocking gait, she with tiny steps. Then he suddenly slipped his arm round her waist (she didn’t flinch or protest); now all doubts were dispelled, now I could turn and run off home. But instead I trailed behind them as they slowly zig-zagged across the park and ended up on a deserted bench where he coiled his vile lecherous arm round her shoulders.

I felt betrayed: alone and abandoned on that footpath in the park, just a few steps away from her. A wild desire for revenge flared up within me. I’d go to her home. I’d drag Brother Filip and his father here to see this loathsome hussy who let herself be dragged off by the first fellow who asked her. At the next meeting I would call her out in front of the minister and ask her where she was this evening, what she had been up to when everyone else was pondering the death of the martyred Master, and then, because she would be bound to lie and deny it, I would reveal the truth to them. Because it was my duty, my holy duty, to speak the truth, love the truth, defend the truth. I stayed long enough to see him clasp her to him, and his fingers touch those wonderful, gorgeous breasts, now lost to me for ever, and then I turned and fled. Before I reached home I decided that I never again wanted to enter that hall where she would be also sitting and where she would actually smile that friendly smile at me, feigning innocence and purity; where she would insincerely declare her devotion to God, where they all lied about their dedication to God, while their thoughts were turned entirely to their lascivious bodies.

The following day I wrote the minister a letter informing him that, due to unforeseen circumstances, I wished to resign my post and regretting that I would not be attending our fellowship meetings for some while.

Since then, I have been in various churches from time to time but never our own, and whenever I bumped into any of my former brothers and sisters, my hostile expression would preclude any more than a simple greeting. But Sister Augustová I never met again; apparently she fled the country with her parents shortly afterwards.

1

MAGDALENA WAS WAITING at the tram stop by the Chotek Gardens. Her hair-do was meticulous, and she must have had it dyed as well. A rinse in her own shade to hide the coming grey. Shoes with thick heels — it could well be the fashion now, but to his eyes they made her look gawky.

Oldřich bowed and kissed her hand. ‘I think I have some good news for you, dear lady. Admittedly I am not yet apprised of the details of the case, but in principle the necessary intervention could be obtained, so long as your husband’s case does not fall outside local, or at the very most regional jurisdiction.’

Magdalena blushed.

‘I’m sorry to say thai: the comrades’ moral standards are in serious decline,’ Oldřich continued. Meanwhile they had crossed the tram tracks and turned into a broad avenue where cars whizzed past in an unbroken stream beneath mighty chestnut trees. ‘There was a time when they were motivated by ideals such as class justice, revolutionary principle or human betterment; nowadays their motives are entirely materialistic.’

She remained silent. Apparently she had not understood what Adam’s friend had in mind.

‘What Oldřich is trying to say,’ said Adam with distaste, ‘is that getting help might cost something.’

‘But I don’t have any money with me,’ she said, taken aback.

‘That doesn’t matter, dear lady. So far, we’re only at the discussion stage. Maybe it won’t even be to your advantage to accept help.’

‘And how much will they want?’ she asked.

‘That’s one of the things we’re here to discuss.’ They halted in front of a large three-storey art nouveau villa.

‘It might assist matters,’ Oldřich suggested, ‘if the lady conducts the negotiations on her own. The point is that from their side only madam comrade will be present. Let me put you in the picture: madam herself holds no official post, but her husband works in the education department.’

Adam noticed that a curtain at one of the first-storey windows had moved to one side very slightly but he could make out no face. He had never done anything illegal before, or more accurately nothing dishonourable. Even what he was doing now was not for his own benefit. That would hardly constitute a mitigating circumstance in law, though.

The door was opened by a fat, red-faced woman wearing an apron. He was not yet sure whether she was the one they had come to negotiate with, or only the maid. From the kitchen there came a smell of freshly baked buns and burnt oil that made him feel queasy. ‘I’ve been expecting you,’ the woman said. ‘My hubby is sorry he can’t be here. You know what it’s like during the holidays. He’s having to do the work of three.’ She attempted a smile; her top teeth were entirely gold.