Ivan Klíma - Judge On Trial

‘You never mentioned him.’

‘He’s abroad. When you-know-what happened, he cleared out.’

‘At the very moment you came back. What made you return? Did you have some girlfriend here?’

‘No.’

‘Or were you running away from one over there?’

‘Alena was over there with me, as you well know.’

‘Excuses, excuses. You’ve never told me anything about your girlfriends either.’

‘I don’t know what there is to tell.’

‘I’m sure you’d remember something if you tried.’

For her it was a matter of course. People make love and deceive each other, just like eating and drinking. Or maybe she was testing him.

She pushed away her plate. ‘That was very nice.’ She got up, picked up his plate as well and carried them over to the sink. ‘What does your brother do?’

‘He’s a mathematician.’

‘A pity. I was hoping he might at least be a rabbi.’

‘He’s nothing like me.’

‘Has he got a small nose?’

‘Yes.’

‘And blue eyes?’

‘Blue-grey.’

‘And is he daft?’

‘No — just a trifle easy-going.’

‘Then you must be the daft one,’ she concluded. ‘Sometimes, anyway.’ She wiped her hands, returned to the table and topped up her glass. ‘Like when you chose that Alena of yours. She strikes me as a real dumb cluck. But on the other hand, maybe it wasn’t so daft. Maybe it was just what you needed. No one else would have been able to put up with you.’

‘Do you think I’m as bad as all that?’

‘The way you look at people, it’s as if you were just wondering what you might accuse them of first. I doubt if I could put up with you for long.’

‘You enjoy saying nasty things to people.’

‘I say what comes into my head. Take the way you’re looking at me now. You’re thinking: she drinks too much. She’s not the woman for me. Or for one thing only. It makes no difference. But you’re just keeping quiet. You’re afraid you might rile me, and that would be a shame now that you’ve brought me here.’

He picked up the glass standing in front of her and carried it to the dresser. ‘Happy now?’

‘Yes, darling, that’s the way I like you. When I see you care about me. But you can bring me back that glass. I hate it when someone tries to clip my wings.’ She reached for it herself. ‘I won’t get drunk. This’ll be my last. And now, finally, tell me something about American girls.’

‘I met my first American woman in England,’ he recalled. ‘It was on a pleasure steamer, cruising along Loch Ness.’

‘What was she like?’

‘I couldn’t describe her any more. I thought she looked like my wife. She had fair hair, and when I first caught sight of her,’ he had recalled something after all, ‘she was wearing a nautical T-shirt and shorts. She had tanned legs like yours.’

‘Hair like your wife’s and legs like mine. She must have looked a proper mongrel.’

‘She was travelling round the world with her father, and she told me about it. She told me they once caught a mountain eagle somewhere in Afghanistan. They tied its legs together and were carrying it home in their jeep. But the eagle freed itself.’ He suddenly realised that the story, which at the time had sounded touching and had even moved him, was losing any point it had in the retelling. ‘Her father drove and she kept an eye on the eagle. The eagle freed itself but didn’t have enough space to flap its wings. Or it was afraid to call attention to itself. She claimed that it spread its wings and waited. And then all at once the wind carried it upwards.’

‘And did you make love to her?’ she asked with impatience.

‘I didn’t have time.’

‘I said you were daft. I bet you were afraid of being unfaithful to your wife.’

‘Does that strike you as so very daft?’

‘No. Sorry! On the contrary, it’s very nice to be faithful to one’s wife. Particularly when she’s as fantastic as yours. I expect she was always faithful to you too.’

He stood up.

‘There’s no need to take offence. You can tell me some more fairy stories. I love hearing about how people love each other and are true to each other till the day they die.’

He started to see red, but there was no sense in arguing. Or rather he had no comment to make and nothing to defend. He went into the bedroom and found clean bedding in the cupboard.

The sense of impropriety remained with him. Feelings of guilt, in fact. But maybe it was only his mind’s conditioned reaction to stimuli, no more than the product of auto-suggestion. Like when an invalid felt pain in a leg long amputated. Whom could he harm? His children? Or himself? How did one do the greatest harm to oneself? When one failed to live according to one’s spiritual needs, or failed to heed one’s inner voice. He had lost the habit of listening to himself so long ago that he would have difficulty recognising his own voice. What he needed now was quiet. The quiet of the desert he had once come to know. He longed to lie down all alone on a sun-scorched rock and stare up into a sky that was quiet, impassive and infinite.

He switched on the electric fire and sat down on the bed he had made, and listened to hear if there was any sound from the next room — but there was none. Only above his head — thump, thump.

Is there something up?

No. It’s just I’m still het up about what he did. I got a terrible fright. But there’s no need for you to upset yourself!

Only others’ voices still.

In a moment he’d bring her in here, press her to himself and start listening to her and yearning to hear her moan at last.

It was wrong to have brought her here. The place was haunted by too many other voices; all he wanted was for one of them to drown the rest — and he also wanted to hug someone and not to be alone. Was this love?

I’d like to experience that miracle and be close to someone, to be so close to you that the world around me falls silent, so close that we are enveloped by a stillness as deep as the Milky Way, a stillness that would pervade us so that we could hear one another without having to talk.

But I don’t know if I’ll be able to accept you, whether I’d still be able to accept anyone in such total intimacy even if I tried.

She was sitting at the table just as he had left her. There was just less liquid in the bottle and more tobacco smoke in the room.

‘Were you wanting to do a bunk?’ she said, turning her gaze to him. ‘To run home to your dear ones?’

‘I was making up the bed.’

‘You’re always finding excuses. It went through your mind. You thought very carefully about how you should behave in order to do the least harm. But you could easily have left me here.’

‘What would you do?’

‘Sleep. Just sleep. I’d make up for all those years that I’ve had to get up at six in the morning. And I might have done a bit of drawing. I caught sight of a drawing pad and pencils here somewhere.’

‘That’s Manda’s. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t do some drawing even though I haven’t left.’

‘What is there here for me to draw? Unless I drew you sitting at the table drinking. You’re so beautifully lop-sided. One shoulder up here and the other almost under the table.’

‘OK, I’ll sit for you.’

‘You didn’t take it seriously? But I don’t know whether I’m still up to it. It’s ages since I drew anyone.’

‘You can do a bad drawing of me. When I was a lad I painted too, and it never bothered me when it wasn’t good.’

She took the drawing pad from the shelf and sat down on the stool by the window. ‘It’s yellow paper, the sort I always hated. And the pencil’s a hard one.’

‘Am I to look at you?’