Ivan Klíma - Judge On Trial

She wasn’t asking me to do anything dishonourable. On the contrary, she was sure that we youngsters would be eminently just towards each other and would manage to rise above friendships or enmities. It was an enormous responsibility, but if we acquitted it honourably, we would help to ensure that in future posts of responsibility would be occupied by the best people. After all, it was going to be our world and how it would be was up to us.

I nodded once more. Everything was clear to me. I understood, and was convinced that I would manage to perform all that was required of me in a totally fair and unbiased manner. After all, my entire life so far, my experiences and my convictions fitted me for just such a role.

And since I had my own notions of justice, and because I had no reservations about the rightness of what I was to do (and maybe also because I delighted in my extremely scrupulous powers of judgement), I had no wish to hide my intended activities under a bushel. I proposed that our committee should draft its reports on individual pupils and hold a discussion about them in class. In that way, we would obtain the fullest possible picture of each of us, and therefore it would also be the fairest possible. I don’t think the headmistress was too taken by my idea. She hesitated, possibly reflecting on some instruction I had no inkling of. Then she said that what I was suggesting would be even more demanding than what she had asked, but if we thought we were capable of defending and asserting the correct opinion, she had no objections and we had her full confidence. (In the end, however, she turned out not to have too much confidence in us, as she assigned our new art teacher to assist us in drafting the reports.)

We held a meeting in the classroom after school: our committee comprised Josef Švehla, two girl pupils and myself. That day — it was a sunny afternoon — I looked out of the window at my colleagues as they trooped out of the school gate and tore off along the sunlit path to the small park behind the school, where they dumped their coats and bags on a bench and started circling round a group of girls before disappearing with them into some flowering laburnum bushes. I imagined the blissful embraces they would now sink into, while I would be stuck in this classroom with its permanent smell of sweaty bodies, in the company of poker-faced Švehla and two girls I didn’t care about. I felt it as an affront that while they were having the time of their lives, larking around irresponsibly or even kissing in the bushes, I would be toiling away, trying to squeeze into a few sentences their attitude to the society which I was protecting for their benefit.

I hadn’t the faintest idea what repercussions each of my sentences and each of my judgements might have. I knew nothing of the existence of the political screeners who were eagerly awaiting our words, which they would use as a basis for their merciless decisions. It never even occurred to me that my activities were based on a fundamental act of tyranny in that I was given the right to pass judgement on the lives of my fellows, while the same right was denied them.

The result of the mock election still stuck in my memory. It was a warning to me that I was hemmed in by opponents, among whom was hidden one friend. Who was it? And who were all the others?

Gone were the days when my fellow-pupils would argue with me or act normally in my presence. I had nothing on which to base my judgements. I could have taken that lack of evidence as a chance offered me by fate to avoid passing judgement. But I wanted to judge. Even at that time, or rather, only at that time, I yearned to sit in judgement. My own irrepressible certainty allowed me to classify people like beetles into useful, harmless and dangerous.

Mine was not to forgive or overlook. I’m sure I would have done both if I’d been acting on my own behalf: but I wasn’t. I was commissioned. I was acting in the name of society which had honoured me with its trust; my sense of duty blinded me.

I was certain that my opinion would be shared by the other members of our strange tribunal, and I was amazed to discover that the two girls in particular, together with the art teacher (but what could she possibly know about us after teaching us for only a few months), were opposing me ever more adamantly in cases which I considered to be open-and-shut. At first I argued, but then took umbrage and remained silent. Let them decide! Let them shoulder the whole blame on the day the false prophets and judges they let through exacted their bloody revenge!

I looked on in resentment while those who were supposed to be eager fishermen like me wreaked such havoc with my net that scarcely three little fishes were caught in it.

4

Two days after our committee’s preparatory meeting, visitors arrived in our classroom. Apart from the headmistress, they included a very portly man, who spent almost the whole time hiccuping under his breath (I never did find out who he was and he uttered not a single word), and the teachers of the other classes in our year, who were apparently there to learn how it was done.

I was sitting in my place in the last but one desk in the middle row, a sheaf of papers in front of me. In the room an apprehensive (now I would say: resentful) silence reigned. I read the first name in the alphabet. It happened to be one of the three I mentioned. I can no longer judge whether that girl really differed from the rest in her opinions and attitudes, but it is unlikely. She was just older than we were, because she had spent a long time in a sanatorium with a disease of the spine. The teachers treated her with the indulgence they had once reserved for me, and in my view she took advantage of it. She was the only one to make frivolous comments during civics classes (and they were always greeted with approving laughter, to my annoyance). What I resented most of all was her total indifference towards socially beneficial activity. She used her medical certificate as an alibi for never once turning up at the salvage collection point (where every Friday I would stand, notepad in hand, carefully recording the kilos of stinking refuse, which my classmates reluctantly dragged there). She had never been among those volunteering for hop-picking or emergency work on the harvest when it snowed. I was sure she was using her illness as an excuse. Had I myself not got over a serious illness? I, too, could easily obtain a medical certificate, but unlike her, I had not done so. Now she got to her feet and her pale sickly face became even paler.

She stood up, which rather threw me into confusion. I stood up too and read the few sentences I had managed to push through that we had all agreed on. The last of my sentences, the only one I am able to recall, read: Zora Beránková’s attitude to our people’s democratic order is largely hostile.

I can still recall the consternation and the deathly hush that followed my words. I turned to her and asked her if she had any objections to the statement. She smiled at me — it really was an attempt at a smile, a courageous smile in the face of intimidation. She said she was grateful for the pains we had clearly taken in drawing up our report, and in total silence, she sat down.

I remained on my feet however, and when the silence around me continued, my self-assurance started to wane. But I represented higher interests, and must not allow myself to fall prey to doubt. I therefore picked up another sheet of paper from my desk-top. Slowly — and now I was grateful to the other members of the committee for imposing moderation on me — I started to deal with the next case. His name was Viastimil Polák. I personally knew very little about him (our interests were quite different), but Josef Švehla suspected him of having been a member of the Socialist Youth several years before. It struck me that membership of such an organisation (even though it had been an entirely legal association) was a very grave charge. Why? That was a question I would not have been able to answer, but nobody asked such questions any more; the only questions asked now were concerned with determining guilt, not ascertaining the truth, and so I too asked them. Why had he joined that organisation? I asked the question in the tones of an incensed state prosecutor, because colleague Švehla had not been entirely sure whether his suspicion was well founded or not, and believed that if we posed the question with sufficient emphasis and confidence (a proven trick of all interrogators when they are on unsure ground), the subject would spill the beans himself.