Ivan Klíma - Judge On Trial

If he had ever set eyes on the woman before, he could have gone and looked for her in Turnov. A few days ago now, that town had been mentioned in a quite different connection.

He had inherited his father’s good memory for figures and anything connected with them. He could remember totally worthless dates of battles as well as telephone numbers and addresses he had no need of.

I was born in Prague on 23rd February 1942 but my mother Marie Kotvová now domiciled in Turnov at No. 215/36 Pod kopcem didn’t want to keep me…

Clearly she had renounced her child long before he had committed any offence. Or had he committed murder because his mother had renounced him? But that was a question for the psychologists, not for him. He would never be calling this woman as a witness.

It was still only half past four. He could go into town anyway and buy something for the children. He’d have a look in the bookshop to see if they had a book about dogs for Manda and one about cars or suchlike for Martin.

He had to stop and ask directions several times before he finally caught sight of the house with the number he was looking for. The entranceway led straight into the pub. The glass on the notice-board with the names of the tenants had been broken and all the labels removed.

He went up a dark staircase to the single upper floor and walked along the landing that ran outside the house and was littered with all sorts of private junk, until he found himself before a door with the name Kotvová written on it in indelible pencil. He rang the bell. A door slammed; he was unable to tell whether it was in this flat or one of the others. Then the patter of small feet could be heard from inside.

‘Who is it?’ a child’s voice asked.

‘Is your mummy in?’

‘Who is it?’ The child’s voice behind the door obviously belonged to a little girl, though he couldn’t guess her age.

‘You won’t know me. I need to speak to your mummy. I just want to ask her something.’

‘I’m not allowed to open the door to anyone.’

‘That doesn’t matter; I don’t want to come in.’

‘Not even if you gave me a sweetie.’

‘I only need to know when your mummy will be home.’

‘Mummy’s at work.’

‘And where does Mummy work?’

‘In the factory.’

‘Yes, I understand. But what sort of factory is it?’

‘Don’t know.’

‘And what does Mummy do?’

‘She works.’

‘Couldn’t you just tell me when she’ll be home?’

‘She comes home at night.’

‘Hey, I think you’re telling me fibs!’

The latch-chain rattled, the door opened as far as the chain permitted and from inside there came the heavy, stuffy smell of dish-water and decaying food. Through the chink in the door he saw a pale face, half of it wrapped in a dirty cloth. Two dark eyes gazed out at him from under a forehead wet with perspiration. At that moment there was the sound of footsteps coming up the staircase. He turned round and saw a woman lugging two shopping bags. Although he had not yet seen the lad who was her son except in the botched — or perhaps deliberately sinister-looking — mugshot taken by the police, he recognised her instantly.

‘If you wouldn’t mind, Mrs Kotvová, I’m…’

‘I’m sorry, but I can’t hear you.’

‘Oh, yes. My apologies. Here’s my identity card.’

‘There’s no need to bother. I don’t understand those things anyway. There’s not much I can tell you if you’ve come about the boy. I never set eyes on him.’

‘Mrs Kotvová, I’m not from the police. I’ve not come to interrogate you.’

‘I can’t hear you. It’s always the same when I come back from that place. Those machines make such a din, I’m like a deaf woman when I get home. But I’ll be all right in a minute.’

‘Mrs Kotvová, I’m not here in an official capacity. I’d just like to ask you something.’

‘I don’t know anything about him. They must know that back where you come from. I told them already. They’ve sent you here on a fool’s errand. He took him straight from the maternity to that other one. The bastard who gave me him.’

‘And you never saw the child afterwards?’

‘I could have got him sent down, but I told them it was born premature. Just ’cos he promised he’d take him.’

‘Mrs Kotvová, you brought the little boy into the world: didn’t you care what would become of him?’

‘It wasn’t me who brought him into the world. It was him as took advantage of me being so young and silly. And they told me that if I signed the paper to say I renounce him in favour of her, then from that moment he wasn’t my son no more.’

‘Yes, that’s correct, legally speaking.’

‘You’re wasting your time. I won’t be able to tell you nothing. I have to get on with the supper.’

‘Of course. Don’t let me delay you.’

‘It’s all right, you can sit down again. You aren’t getting in my way. Well if he done it, it’s not me he takes after, and you can tell them that . I never did no one no harm. It was always me who got it in the neck from everyone you can mention. The last time it was from the father of that little whippersnapper. And I never got no help from no one!’

‘But what about your parents — they’re still alive, aren’t they?’

‘They are. And what about it? They never killed no one, if that’s what you’re on about.’

‘And didn’t even they give you a hand when the going was tough?’

‘You must be joking!’

‘Was your father a drinking man?’

‘What, do you think lads these days don’t drink? Just take a look in the pub downstairs.’

‘Yes, I know. Was your father ever ill?’

‘My dad? No fear. People didn’t have time to be ill in them days.’

‘I didn’t mean seriously ill, but whether he might have suffered from headaches, for instance.’

‘How should I know? Go and ask him yourself if you’re so keen to find out. But he never hurt no one. Apart from when he used to belt us kids.’

‘And this photo you have here — I’m sorry, I just wondered who it is on it?’

‘But that’s… They sent me it when he finished his schooling. I didn’t ask for it, but what was I supposed to do with it when they sent it? It’s him, of course. Or isn’t it? You mean you’ve never seen Karel?’

‘No, Mrs Kotvová. I’ve not yet had the occasion.’

‘Well there you are! And you was surprised I hadn’t neither.’

5

The children finally dropped off to sleep. Then Bob and Sylva got up to go. They made a point of leaving early so that she and Honza had time to themselves. And even though she didn’t find this unspoken complicity at all congenial, she was glad.

She had hesitated about whether to bring him back here at all, but she was afraid to send him home on his own. And she needed to explain to him how futile and senseless his action had been. ‘Do you fancy a drop more tea?’ She threw another log in the stove (the woodpile was dwindling; it was always Adam who chopped the wood) and moved the kettle of water into the middle of the hotplate.

‘Isn’t your husband coming?’

‘Not now. He doesn’t like night driving.’

‘Why do you live with him, as a matter of fact?’

‘With Adam?’ she asked aghast. ‘Because he’s my husband, of course!’

‘That’s no reason.’

‘It is for me.’

‘Do you love him?’

That was a subject she had no intention of talking to him about.

‘When I saw him he reminded me of my father. There’s something cold about him. Or maybe it’s disillusionment.’

‘I’ve never seen your father.’

‘They’re all disillusioned,’ he said, continuing his ready-prepared speech. ‘I know several of them and they all remind me of Father. They all maintain that they can’t believe in it any more, that they’ve already seen where they went wrong, that they don’t have anything to do with what’s going on now. But how can they claim such a thing, seeing it was they who caused it all?’