Ivan Klíma - Judge On Trial

‘Not much, no. Particularly if Oldřich is at home.’

‘I expect he will be. Why, aren’t you friends any more?’

‘We could take a trip together somewhere,’ he said, ignoring her impudence. ‘How about spending the weekend with me somewhere?’

‘Oh, I’d have to discuss it with Ruml,’ she said. ‘Or leave Lida with a friend. Where would we go, anyway?’

‘I don’t know yet. Does it really matter where?’

‘Not really,’ she admitted. ‘OK. I’ll try and fix it somehow.’

He still had to call his wife at the library.

‘Adam, I’m so glad it’s you. I tried calling you a moment ago, but your line was engaged.’

‘Did you want something?’

‘I was really miserable. I feel so lonely here. You didn’t give me a chance to explain it all to you. And you didn’t explain anything to me either.’

‘I will explain it to you some time when you are not so tired.’

‘I can’t stop thinking about it. What time will you be finished today?’

‘Very late.’

‘I’ll wait for you. Will you call for me?’

‘I doubt it. I think I’d sooner be alone.’

‘So you won’t be coming home at all?’

‘I don’t know. I expect I will. Some time during the night.’

‘But I wanted to talk to you!’

‘Some other time. We’ll explain everything to each other all in good time.’

‘I also wanted to hear everything about… her. If you and she… Adam, can you hear me?’

‘Of course I can; why?’

‘You’re reacting as if you couldn’t.’

‘I’m not reacting at all.’

‘That’s precisely the trouble. How can you not react when I’m talking to you about this? And last night you joked about it.’

‘I’m not joking any more.’

‘Come home early, Adam. I want to talk to you. I need you.’

‘You’ll tell me some other time.’

‘I love you, Adam. If you don’t come home you will hurt me.’

3

At four o’clock, Alice came in with an obvious need to get her day’s cases off her chest. So she regaled him with stories of marital infidelities, deceptions and dirty tricks. He was surprised to find himself listening to what she was telling him, and actually feeling a sense of relief; as if the sufferings and peccadilloes of these strangers, however banal, revealed him to himself as merely one among many, and helped distance him from his own sufferings and peccadilloes. Half an hour later, Alice left and he was alone once more.

The children were probably home already, and Alena too.

From time to time when they quarrelled he would sulk: deliberately staying longer at work and not telephoning home. The thought of them waiting for him, the children asking where he was and when he was coming, Alena quickly regretting how unfair she had been, used to give him a sense of satisfaction. But it had only been a game: it was playing at quarrelling, playing at sulking. He had had his own home, where he belonged. Where they used to wait for him. The realisation that this was no longer so, and never would be again, more likely than not, filled him with dismay.

It was drizzling outside. He wasn’t dressed for rain — even the weather had taken him by surprise. He could go to the cinema or visit his parents — he’d not been to see them in a long time. He could also go home. Back to his flat, he corrected himself. He could talk to the children. That is if he could manage to talk to the children on this particular evening.

He loved the children. He took care of them, played with them, took them on long walks sharing the little he knew about trees, flowers and birds, or continuing his ever extendable story about the hedgehog that travelled to see the world. He undoubtedly spent more time on them than his father had on him and he was pleased that they had a better childhood than he had had.

He stopped in front of a pub. It was one he passed almost every day, but he had never set foot inside. People who rushed to drown their senses at moments of affliction struck him as weak-willed. But he would have to shelter somewhere from the rain.

Inside it was crowded and the clientele had an unfriendly look so he remained in the tap-room. He ordered a small glass of beer, though he did not particularly like beer. He knew nobody here and nobody knew him. If he could summon up the courage to get drunk he would be able to unbosom himself by telling his story to a random listener. The trouble was, knowing himself, he would not get sufficiently drunk and would then end up having to listen to the stranger’s troubles instead. He ordered a cognac and settled up.

The telephone box at the street corner was empty and the telephone was working, amazingly enough.

‘Ruml here.’ Adam held the receiver, which was demanding to be told who was calling, at arm’s length. Only when the other hung up did he bring the receiver close to his mouth once more and say into it: ‘Dr Ruml, one of your friends is seeing your wife. Would you like me to describe him?’ He started and looked round quickly, but there was no one standing outside the box.

He went back into the pub, drank another cognac in the taproom and drove off to visit Matĕj, who was having one of his illicit breaks from water measuring.

His friend turned off the television. ‘An occupational disease,’ he said apologetically. ‘I stare at the thing and listen to the enormities they come up with, and then I go over them all again in the newspapers. It fascinates me how they do it.’

The room contained nothing but books and pictures, a writing desk with a chair, and an armchair under the window. He sat down on it and watched the sky darken behind the wet roof of the block of flats opposite.

‘Actually, I’m making excuses for myself too,’ Matĕj admitted. ‘I always imagined all the things I’d write if I had a bit of free time. Now I come back from the caravan and have plenty of free time but I don’t feel like writing — there’s no one to write for. Or maybe I’m making excuses again, to avoid admitting I’ve got nothing to write about. I would never have realised that in the past. Life was too hectic for me to notice there was nothing in my head. But now I have plenty of time in which to work out what would be important to tell people. I’m hardly going to go and add more redundant words to the enormous heap that’s engulfing us.’

The last time he had sat here had been with Alena. She was fond of Matěj, or at least she had always said so. But then she had said the same thing to him. Only in Matěj’s case there would have been no reason for her to lie; lying would have gained her no advantage.

‘I could, of course, console myself with the thought that I wouldn’t be poisoning people’s minds like them, but I think I’ve tried that one a bit too often. Telling myself I’m not the worst of the bunch, I mean. Two days ago, would you believe it, a German came out to the caravan to see me. A really nice guy. He expressed his sympathy and told me he wanted to record an interview about the situation I was in and the state of the world. He just couldn’t grasp that I had no great thoughts to share with him, and I don’t feel like just griping about things. Besides, what right have I to gripe, seeing that I was in on it back at the start…’ He stopped, puzzled. ‘Is there something wrong, Adam? Problems at work?’

‘No, none there so far.’

‘I see. Wait a second.’

He was alone. One of the pictures on the wall seemed new. He tried to concentrate on it. Children’s voices could be heard through the open door, then the sound of a violin. He was able to make out a broad field, the brown of which was as mournfully autumnal as the grey of the sky above it. In the middle of the field stood a solitary, bare tree. From one of the branches hung a length of rope.