Ivan Klíma - Judge On Trial

Matěj returned with a bottle and two glasses.

Now a rook had landed on the treetop, or was it a raven? He wasn’t very good at birds or wild flowers, not having made up for those five years when he had been kept out of the classroom and the woods. As far as flowers and birds were concerned he had never managed to make up the gap in his knowledge. And what about other areas? He had always thought that what he had failed to gain in knowledge he had made up for with his unique life experience. But what had that experience taught him? That it was possible to live even in degrading conditions, deprived of all rights; that one just had to go on living in order to survive the dismal present somehow, and see freedom in the end.

Matěj filled the glasses.

He drank his and said: ‘I think I’ve fallen in love.’

‘Does Alena know?’

‘I told her.’

‘Has she kicked you out?’

‘No. Nothing like that.’

‘Then why do you look so miserable?’

He shrugged.

‘When something like that happens, one ought to enjoy it at least.’

‘I’m enjoying it the best I know how.’

‘A real strong point of yours, that. Do you remember our first evening at Magdalena’s? We were singing away and the look on your face was as if you were giving us life sentences.’

He was incapable of enjoying himself. Nor was he capable of tenderness; concern was the most he could express. Alena longed for tenderness. Maybe that student, who was probably incapable of anything worthwhile, knew how to show tenderness. He felt a vague surge of remorse. He could see his wife in some half-forgotten green dress hanging out nappies in a country backyard, her back to him as he arrived; there was a little child toddling about her feet; and there was he, overawed at the miraculous truth that the child was his own daughter. Her fur coat turning white from the falling snow, snowflakes settling on the hair not covered by her hat. She leaning against a tree-trunk as he kissed her; her lips cold, her cheeks also — shivering all over. Your hands are so warm. You’re all warm, you’re my fire. You’re my sunshine. She standing on a footpath in the meadow, singing. I like the way you sing. I’m singing because I’m happy with you. I always wanted someone to be happy with me.

‘Is she pretty?’ Matěj asked with interest.

He nodded. ‘I’ve had something inside me since I was very small: the feeling that there are limits to what people are allowed. In that place I had to live, the ones in charge were allowed to do what they liked, but then they weren’t people as far as we were concerned.’

‘Surely that was a completely different situation.’

‘Maybe I was sure of it even earlier. My mother has always been morose; I can’t remember her ever showing any enjoyment, she’s always lived in a state of anxiety about what life might have lined up.’ He was starting to ramble but couldn’t stop himself. ‘In your caravan that time you talked about the inner voice that one should listen to. I’ve been making an effort to catch at least a few sensible words — but it’s no good. I don’t know whether I’ll ever manage. All I’ve managed so far is to find a mistress; if I hear anything in the silence, then it’s her voice.’

The crow at the top of the lonely tree had spread its wings ready to fly away. Beneath the tree there now sat a clown wearing a costume in the colours of the old Spanish kingdom, and he could tell that there was sorrow in the dark Jewish eyes. Outside the rain had stopped and the moon shone between scudding clouds. ‘It seems to me one should not desert another person,’ he said, ‘on top of everything else. But I don’t know whether it is my inner voice talking, or a voice from outside.’

‘I think so too,’ his friend agreed. ‘I’m just not sure at what moment one deserts the other person. But it could well be before the actual moment of moving out.’

‘Yes, I know. But she, she…’ An icy wave swept up through his body, from his toes to the tips of his hair, ‘she always seemed to me so childlike… so innocent…’ He put his glass down with such force that it tipped over, rolled to the edge of the desk and dropped softly on to the carpet. He had to get up to retrieve it. His head was swimming and his forehead was still glacial. It was high time he went.

The pavement was wet and there was a smell of smoke in the air. He set off downhill from Košíře. It was too late to look in on his parents. He had nowhere to go; all he could do was wander the streets. Like Karel Kozlík, he recalled, though happily I’ve not killed anyone so far. And the weather seemed rather more suitable; the wind was almost warm. He could feel its gusts clearing his head and the iciness draining from his body.

Why did one have to be heading somewhere all the time, rushing off somewhere or to see someone? It was a long time since he’d been all alone; what hopes did he have of hearing his own inner voice, even if it spoke to him?

He was too apt to indulge in hand-wringing — it was something else he had in common with his mother. She had spent her life wringing her hands instead of living. At least Father had enjoyed his work and at Sunday lunch would tell stories and laugh at them; so would his brother Hanuš. Hanuš liked drinking, skiiing, playing billiards, ping-pong and tennis; he also cared about his appearance, had loads of girlfriends and did not think about the war. Or had he only pretended not to? He definitely had a more cheerful nature; he used to have fun tinkering with his crystal sets, and all in all had gone around more freely and lived more lightheartedly, without feeling responsibility for the fate of mankind. There was a time when they had gone off together on bikes in search of odd jobs; he missed those trying times. Not because they’d been difficult, of course, but because of the freedom they had had. In fact it was amazing he had felt so free in the prevailing conditions of unfreedom. Nothing depended so much on one’s state of mind as that feeling of freedom.

He arrived at one side of the Kinský Gardens. The benches were full of courting couples. He was courting too. He could invite her here for a cuddle on a bench.

It was not a good idea to think about her; better to enjoy being here alone; he found a vacant bench with a view of the city. The distant lights twinkled before his eyes and merged into blotches in the dark. Or he could telephone his brother. Today it’s me who’s drunk, would you believe? What if now we dropped everything right now, everything and everyone, got on our bikes and set off, we’d find a job somewhere, though maybe not as easily as in those days: who’d have any use for us? Don’t worry, I don’t intend to blather on; on the contrary I’ll be very much to the point. I can see things quite clearly now, not just the heart-warming silhouette of our native city, on whose roofs the rain has only just stopped falling, so that they still shine slightly, but I can also see clearly the frontier before which you hesitate, though I am unable to define or demarcate it — I lack your mathematical ability and knowledge, though one thing I do remember — Father was always drumming it into my head — that every progression has only one limit. Don’t mock me for being so woefully ignorant, I’m sad today and there is nothing I can see to cheer me up, apart from the thought of us getting on our bikes and going off somewhere in the hope of finding a bonfire to sit down by and listen to the gypsies singing. There are moments — you can’t tell when they’ll arrive: your wife is unfaithful to you or leaves you altogether; you don’t have the courage to believe in God and the things you once believed in have let you down; things don’t seem to matter to you any more, and what do you have left?