Ivan Klíma - Judge On Trial

One winter’s day, the three of us went for a walk in the direction of Košíře. At that time, rows of low tenements were still standing there, their gable-ends, which before the war were painted with enormous advertisements for Ba a shoes or Neher clothes, now blank. And in between the blackened fences of yards, small factories and workshops there were some single-storey rural buildings left behind from a bygone age, with gardens, toolsheds, hen-houses and rabbit-hutches. Plach stopped in front of one of those houses and asked us if we would like to meet his master mason. We went into the yard and Plach made straight for a high shed from which the sound of hammer blows could be heard.

A little fellow with thinning hair, wearing a shabby, faded coat, was standing with his back to us as we came in. He turned round and gazed at us for a few moments as if he did not recognise any of us. He was already an old man with faded blue-grey eyes. Then he recognised Plach. They greeted each other and chatted while I rather absently-mindedly scanned the shelves on which there lay various tools, alongside doves carved from white stone, sandstone angels and stone crosses, and through the slightly open door of a large cupboard I caught sight of a bust of the first president.

Plach’s old mason took down a bottle from a shelf screened by a curtain, and poured us all a drink. I wasn’t accustomed to alcohol and was soon overcome with a drunken magnanimity that led me to declare that I found some of those sculptures really beautiful, though I had no love of angels. The old man replied that it wasn’t so important that we loved the angels, but that the angels loved us. I pointed out that I didn’t believe in angels and the old man said that belief in angels was a favour not granted to everyone. All of a sudden Nimmrichter joined in. His head, on its short neck, was thrust forward at the old man. Seeing the old man believed in angels, did he believe in the immaculate conception too, he wanted to know. And did he believe in the one who gave the order to shoot the workers, he asked, pointing through the gap in the cupboard door at the bust of old President Masaryk.

The old fellow said he believed in the things he had believed in all his life. My colleague’s voice now soared to such a pitch that it became totally effeminate, and he demanded to know if the old man believed in raping little girls and killing children too. The mason might have said something in reply or remained silent. But I remember precisely what followed. I can see Nimmrichter approaching the cupboard and raising one of the busts above his head. There was the sharp report of stone hitting stone and he was already reaching out for another. Statues spilt on to the ground: broken wings, shattered skulls, stone laurels in detached hands, fists without arms, headless angels — and above it all the victorious yelp of Nimmrichter’s voice. Everything happened so quickly that I was unable to overcome my amazement or the sudden fear that gripped me. I looked round at Plach, who had brought us here and, to a certain extent, was responsible for our conduct. He stood leaning against one of the shelves, his arms folded and a smirk on his face.

2

That autumn saw the start of the political trials. The State Prosecutor charged recent government ministers, journalists and leading Party officials with crimes against the state. The men on trial were only known to me from the viewing stands where they stood waving to me once a year from behind a wall of power and glory. They were people of a different generation. I could have no personal feelings towards them. Having never felt any affection for them, I was not greatly shaken by what happened now.

A special meeting was convened at the faculty where the speaker yelled about filthy traitors and the dregs of human society, urging us on to still greater vigilance and loyalty to the Party and its remaining leaders. It seemed odd to me that those selfsame people he was now denouncing had been glorified by us not so long ago. But the main conclusion I drew was that one ought not to pay unreserved homage to anyone, rather than that the whole trial was simply a terrifying play in whose last act the reluctant actors were hung on a real gallows by a real executioner.

Eva, the leader of our student group, was waiting for me after the meeting. She put her arm through mine (she always did it when speaking to people, but I found it embarrassing), as if we were just planning a date, and told me that various organisations from factories and offices had requested our faculty to send them some comrades to explain at meetings how it was that such enemies had managed to get promoted even to the highest posts of authority, and in general to explain the meaning of the trials . And she thought that I too might be sent to just such a meeting.

My probationary period was just coming to an end. If I refused, they might not have accepted me as a full member of the Party. But I had no intention of refusing. I was brimming over with a need to do something. But so far I had never had a chance to voice publicly even one of my ideas about the new society and the modern world. Now they were offering me the chance, and I took it.

I was assigned to a large shoe-mending workshop in the Vršovice district of Prague and given several pamphlets to help me with my task.

I returned home with a sense of major responsibility and set about writing my speech without ado. I emulated something of Father’s scientific thoroughness and was reluctant to restrict myself to a handful of pamphlets. In the library I found some books about similar trials that had taken place in the past in Moscow. I had no idea that the censors had carefully removed any books that might have clashed with the only valid interpretation of what had happened, so my efforts to delve as deeply as possible into the question had been frustrated before I started. I read those books and discovered not merely stunning similarities but also a clear key to everything that had happened.

The enemy’s sights were always set as high as possible because he underestimated the people and overestimated the influence of personalities. He believed that if he could win over the leaders, he would have no difficulty winning control of the whole movement and entire nations. But that was where he went wrong time and again. For those who abandoned them for personal advantage or betrayed them, the people would always find replacements. I discovered a simple logic within that theatre of blood: the logic of history as I knew it from the theories we studied.

I recall the dim and dirty canteen I was taken to. On a battered, grease-stained canteen table at one end of the room there stood a rough glass of water and behind me there hung an enormous red flag above the usual portraits of the leaders. Several dozen girls crouched at the other end of the hall as far away from me as possible. I knew nothing about them, I had only caught sight of the girls on the other shift standing by tall, noisy shoe-mending machines as I made my way to the canteen down long corridors. I knew nothing of their interests, naturally, nor of what filled their minds. I was merely intent on winning them over.

I can’t remember anything of what I said there, only the fact that, in my pursuit of maximum effect, I recited a poem I had copied out of the newspaper because its final perverted tercet had etched itself on my memory:

And the mountebanks have ended

Their dance

On a rope

No doubt I repeated all the other lies they used in those days to dull people’s minds, as well as all the terms of abuse that littered public speeches and formed an amazing spectrum from criminals, gangsters and hyenas to hideous spiders and vile, shameless Judases. At the end of my half-hour address, I told my audience that I was prepared to answer any questions they might have. I gazed into the gloomy hall and waited expectantly for some sign of agreement or interest, but I waited in vain.