Ivan Klíma - Judge On Trial

As soon as the wine arrived she gulped it greedily. ‘I had an awful thirst. Aren’t you even going to have a second sip?’

He took the glass from her and sipped from it. At the next table sat a fellow in an immaculately tailored suit; the girl with him had something in common with Alexandra, or at least her blouse was just as bright. But she was a stranger and he recognised no one at any of the other tables either, and that made him feel easier in his mind.

‘You’re casing the place as if you’d been lured into an opium den. When were you last in a pub?’

He couldn’t recall.

‘Maybe you’ll start making up for it now. What do you do with your evenings? Work?’

‘Quite often.’

‘You enjoy sending people to gaol?’

‘Enjoy isn’t the right word.’

‘So what is the right word?’

‘Satisfaction, perhaps,’ he suggested.

‘It gives you satisfaction?’

‘Sometimes. When I feel we’ve made the right decision.’

‘You don’t strike me as very well suited to the job.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘You look too passionate.’ She stared at him as if to assure herself she wasn’t wrong.

‘That’s the first time anyone’s said that about me.’

‘Maybe you chose this dignified vocation so you could pretend to be disinterested. You were afraid of leaving yourself too open to temptation otherwise.’

‘I didn’t choose at all; it’s more that I just came out this way, against my wishes.’

‘You probably didn’t: make your wishes felt very much, then, did you?’

He shook his head doubtfully.

‘There’s no need to defend yourself, I like passionate people. My dad was the same way and he was ashamed of it too. That’s why he joined the police: so he could treat people coolly. When in fact he’d be seething inside. This is good wine. Sure you won’t have another drop?’

‘No, thanks. I’ve had enough.’

‘There you are — you’re even afraid to have a drink. You’re afraid of losing control, is that it? Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you. I promise. I’ll take you home in a taxi and hand you over unsullied to your wife.’

‘She’s not home.’

‘So I’ll tuck you in myself. You wouldn’t be the first.’ She had come to life, her eyes were gleaming. ‘I don’t mind people getting drunk when they haven’t the strength to stay sober. The type who are happy with their lot are far worse; they don’t even need to get drunk.’

‘Do you think I’m one of them?’

‘I’ve already told you you’re not. But the guys that I hate most of all are the ones that are totally cold inside. All they want is for the woman to warm them up. As if anyone could warm them. And when they get up in the morning they start to snivel. They say they think life is avoiding them; they never guess it’s only death they’re missing out on, death that’s scared to come too close.’

‘Death doesn’t avoid passionate people?’

‘I can’t say. How am I supposed to know? It spent months sitting around at our place when Dad was dying. It scared me. Now I meet it sometimes when I’m coming home in the early hours.’

‘What does it look like?’

‘Like a horrible, fat old man in a grey suit carrying a briefcase. And no eyes. So far we only pass each other by, but one day he’ll throttle me; I won’t have the time to squeal. You’ve never seen him?’

‘Yes, but he was dressed differently.’

‘In a uniform?’

‘That’s right, in a uniform.’ All of a sudden she seemed close. As if they’d just discovered they had a mutual friend.

‘I’m a dreadful chatterbox, aren’t I? It’s because you’re saying nothing, and just asking clever questions.’

‘You can ask questions too.’ Death didn’t have to be a bad omen, surely. There was no life without death, or death without life, for that matter. And if one was not prepared to die, one was not prepared to live either. The temptation was to remain in a state of immobility between life and death, as he himself did. How long had it been now, how much longer would it last?

‘I don’t enjoy asking questions. I like people who tell me things of their own accord. You haven’t even told me about your time in America.’

‘Oh, it’s a long time ago.’

‘It might well be a long time ago, and you might well have talked about it loads of times, but not to me you haven’t.’

So once more he landed at New York airport, once more he hiked along the Huron where no Indian riders had cantered in ages, looked out of the window over the cemetery wall where students were playing football among the graves, then smoked marijuana with them, while others made love behind a screen in the same drug-ridden room, crossed the Rio Grande in a punt and drove his Chevrolet along Route 385 through scenic wilderness. Perhaps he caught her imagination or even attracted her because she came and sat next to him, riding alongside into the frontier desert, following the track up the side of the Casa Grande, inhaling the spicy scent of sage, walking among the tall yucca and the sumac bushes, beneath the flowers of the agave trees right up to the level places beneath the summit, from where so many ranges of waterless, desolate mountains could be seen that she became dizzy. And increasingly he felt he was making contact with her, noticed that every moment they went on sitting here together he was drawing closer to her, they were drawing closer to each other, while her image began to fill him: silhouetted against the blue sky, her face with its back-combed hair, long straight nose and short upper lip became frozen into a sculptural stillness that he knew from somewhere:

Remote and trackless, over rough hillsides

Of ruined woods he reached the Gorgon’s land,

And everywhere in fields and by the road

He saw the shapes of men and beasts, all changed

To stone by glancing at Medusa’s face.

(Ovid: Metamorphoses)

It was just before midnight when he paid the bill. She got up and made her way stiffly between the tables. Outside she linked her arm in his. ‘I’m a bit tight. You’re not cross with me, are you? I’ve no sense of moderation in anything.’ She snuggled up to him and he could feel the warmth of her body through two layers of clothing. ‘Will you take me with you?’ She didn’t even ask where to. He could take her home to her place or to his own empty flat. They could make love in his temporarily empty flat.

He opened the car door and she climbed in. He leaned across and held her to him. Her breath was tinged with wine and sage and she was drawing air in hard as if they had just climbed to the very summit of the Casa Grande. ‘Aren’t we going?’ she asked, drawing back into her own seat.

He switched on the lights, and at that moment caught sight of him, trapped in the headlights: a yellow clown leaping up and down on the opposite pavement, his huge white mouth spread in a grin. He froze in mid-movement, doffed his clown’s hat, the colour of the flowering sage, gave a deep bow, his white-gloved hands held out on either side. Where had he sprung from and what message was he trying to deliver?

It was only a few minutes’ drive to her home. Before getting out, she leaned towards him and gave him a peck on the cheek. ‘Thanks for the wine. Call me again some time.’

5

Alena turned off the light. ‘Time to sleep now,’ she ordered.

‘What are you going to do, Mummy?’

‘What do you think? I’m going off to bed too.’

‘But it’s too early for you yet, Mummy,’ her son remarked.

‘I’ll have a little read.’

‘In the dark?’ asked her daughter suspiciously.

‘I’ll go and sit in Auntie Sylva’s room.’