Ivan Klíma - Judge On Trial

‘I’ll fix you something to eat,’ she suggested. ‘You must be hungry.’

‘No, don’t. It’s time we went.’

‘You want to go already? You won’t even stop for a drink?’

He put his arms round her. His whole life he had done things because someone else wanted him to and in order to oblige them. No good had come of it.

‘Suit yourself. As I said, I’m not stopping you.’

‘Are you staying here?’

‘There’s no need to bother about me.’

‘I love you.’

‘That’s why you’re rushing off!’

‘It’s for the best.’

‘You’re barmy. They put on a song and dance for you and because of that you leave me in the lurch.’

He tried to kiss her but she turned her head aside.

Downstairs, he mistook the door and rushed out into the backyard instead of the street. He let himself look upwards and made out that strange purplish glow in one of the two attic windows. It couldn’t be enough to live merely on the off-chance of meeting someone. What you needed rather was for someone to want to meet you. Or to live your life in such a way that you would enjoy meeting yourself. Like when a window reflected the rays of the setting sun. Or rising sun? It was odd how he automatically thought of a sun that was about to go down. He spent a few moments looking up at the lighted window and suddenly he wasn’t sure whether he shouldn’t have stayed after all.

5

There was still half an hour before her finishing time. She had found it difficult to concentrate on her work in recent days. She would read but the link between her eyes and her brain was broken. And from time to time the hiss of escaping gas would fill her ears. She felt wretched and everything made her cry. Before changing his shoes, Martin had managed to leave piles of mud all over the front hall, Manda was refusing to eat vegetables, and she herself had managed to break the handle off one of the cups she had received as an heirloom. Tears would stream from her eyes without her sobbing. And that morning, from the moment she opened her eyes and saw outside the first, rather premature snowflakes, the tears had started to flow.

She did not cry in front of Adam. Whenever he arrived home, she seemed to go tense all over, either from expectation or anxiety, though she was unable to distinguish between her emotions. Maybe he would say something at last and undo the spell he had cast on her with his infidelity and betrayal, or at least tell her the name of the other woman and reduce somewhat her demonic immunity, her vampiric powers. But he had done nothing of the sort and instead moved about the flat like a shadow detached from an absent body; he would enter the kitchen when she wasn’t there, evidently to eat something, but without leaving any of the usual traces behind him. The cup would be washed and the crumbs swept up.

He would sleep in his own room on the small couch, although it was narrow and uncomfortable. He would get up before her in the morning and prepare the children’s breakfast. He would chat to the children, particularly Manda. He had always been more attached to his daughter than to his son, and more than to her.

He had also returned her the letters which that bizarre clergyman had sent him a while ago. Maybe he realised that he ought to make some comment; he suddenly started to talk to her about the case which he was due to hear in a few days. He explained that they were putting pressure on him to pass the death sentence, but that he would never do so, even if it cost him his job.

That was him all over. He wanted to save a murderer he didn’t know, while he would calmly let her die, or drive her to her death, because he didn’t have to take a decision, because he didn’t have to formulate his sentence on her or deliver it in triplicate. Why hadn’t he phoned her even once today?

Anguish welled up in her. She was so lonely.

Even Honza hadn’t called her today.

Yesterday, when she came back to work again, he had come running after her: thin, tall, gaunt and rather pale. She did not take in anything of what he tried to tell her, but merely told him repeatedly to go away. Then he tried telephoning her; how many times she couldn’t say because she didn’t pick up the phone, and when she did, she had immediately put it down on recognising his voice.

She took the envelope with the letters out of her bag. She could go and see that minister; that way, at least she wouldn’t have to go home directly.

She dialled the number and while she waited for the connection she read the first page of the criminal’s letter.

Then a familiar voice answered: soft and kindly. He immediately recognised her and thanked her for being ready to take the trouble to visit him.

In the first letter, Karel Kozlík had written:

Dear Friend,

I haven’t been in touch for a long time. The thing is I’ve been very busy, but even so I read Dr Schweitzer’s book straight off non-stop over two evenings. I also set myself lofty goals after my last release from prison namely to continue educating myself and be useful to the people I meet. In fact it was just last week that I asked for a recommendation from the hospital here so that I could register for night school. They were very surprised and wanted to know what I needed to study for, wasn’t I happy with my job in the boilerhouse, and if I was losing my taste for work they wouldn’t hang on to me, but I wasn’t to think I could waste their time with provocative activities. I had another go at trying to explain, but I could see they weren’t listening. It’s always been like that, I never in my whole life found anyone ready to listen to me apart from you. When I finished the book I imagined to myself I was living in another country, such as England. They allowed me to study for a regular profession. I’d like to be a priest like you or a doctor like he was. Also I imagined going away to some backward country. I think I would manage to cope with all those hardships seeing that I managed to put up with months on end in the slammer. You know that when I tried I was able to fulfil the prison norm and then spend several hours learning English and listening to your commentaries on philosophy and theology. How ennobling it was to put one’s efforts into something that would be meaningful and give a sense of usefulness. I imagined the sick people coming to my hut, showing me their ulcers and festering wounds and me helping them. If something like that could happen I would be happy. I wouldn’t even ask for reward, it would be enough to know I was rendering a service to others.

The tears were running down her cheeks again. It touched her that a person who was being held in gaol for murdering someone could yearn to be good, and that his yearning was clearly stronger than that of many other people, stronger, perhaps, than of the people who would judge him. At any rate she could not imagine Adam ever wanting to go off to the jungle and cure people there. What did Adam yearn for?

For her, most likely, at this moment! To go away somewhere with his tart. Adam never yearned for anything really noble or romantic. The need to serve others was alien to him. Abstract ideals were the most he could work up enthusiasm for.

The gatekeeper let her in when she explained whom she was going to see, and did not even ask to see her identity. The site only consisted of a few wooden huts surrounded by a dilapidated fence. A railway embankment towered above the last of the huts. The last building was the one to which the door-keeper had directed her. She went up to the door and knocked: no one seemed to have heard. So she carefully opened the door a fraction and peeped inside. She saw nothing, however, apart from rows of shelves filled from floor to ceiling with tins of every colour.