Ivan Klima - The Ultimate Intimacy

'Please don't tell me any more,' Daniel requested him. 'I'm a Protestant minister and my father was a doctor. I don't believe in such nonsense.'

The man relapsed into an aggrieved silence.

When Daniel first came round in the intensive care unit a week earlier, his wife was sitting facing him and stroking his hand. At the time, the pain permeated his entire body. Then it gradually receded and he could distinctly hear a familiar melody and a huge mixed choir singing faultlessly the old Calvinist hymn:

How beauteous is the blue sky, It wondrously doth bless. This gift to man from God on high Is so hard to express.

How often, though, the light of dawn Is hid by evening's fear. Man wakes perplexd and all forlorn And trust doth disappear.

Tears started to flow from him and fear concealed the light. He didn't know what he feared more, death or life. He closed his eyes and whispered to Hana, Am I dying?'

'Don't worry, everything will be all right.'

After that he no longer heard a coherent melody, just a weary, monotonous drumming.

Ever since then, Daniel had pondered on his life. The drugs that they introduced into his bloodstream filled his mind with disconnected images. They were mostly images from his own life: long-forgotten fragmentary memories and phrases were washed up and then dissolved. Faces the way they looked long ago. His mother lighting a candle before a storm, her face still unwrinkled; the high forehead, the Byzantine nose, and the halo of hair around her head. Father returning from prison emaciated, his eyes lost in the depths of their sockets. Who is this man picking him up? I'm frightened of him, he's a stranger. His sister, whose pigtail always tempted him to pull it, waits for him at some station, or maybe it isn't his sister; can it be Jitka? Jitka laid out in the closet. Jitka-no-longer, just her body. May I lift the sheet? No, don't, Reverend, the image will only haunt you afterwards. I want to see her once more. It would be better to remember her alive. The cold touch of her cheek on his lips. Hana in a long white dress with a posy of white roses. Dan, I trust you, you'll never let me down. Nor you me, I'm sure. Children running in the garden of the country manse. A dog barking: come to think of it, what was its name? Daniel just cannot remember, as if it mattered at all that the bitch was called Diana. Don't cry, my little Eva. But my ear aches. Mum will give you something warm to put around it. It's a boy. Reverend, if you'll wait there we'll bring him to show you. Marek Vedra, I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Magda, whatever possessed you to throw spiders at people? And suddenly that unexpected woman: Don't forsake me! Darling, don't be cross with me for pouring out my unhappy soul to you in such a miserable way. I miss you. I just want to tell you that I'm happy that you're alive and thinking about me.

The pain near his heart again. Maybe he should call the nurse.

Don't think about anything that might upset you!

Augustine was the first one to talk about the heart as the site of love. A father of the church, Bishop of Hippo. During his life he had several quite worldly loves and he wasn't too worried about being unfaithful to his betrothed. For him love was the highest attribute, the true form of God. Love of God is simply a reflection of our capacity to love man.

Mount Durmitor. Dannie, would you dare tackle that chimney?

If you'll anchor me!

Lord Jesus, be with all those who are suffering and ill, and also with all those who in these moments are dying. Be with my wife and don't forsake her; look down on her in your love. Do not forsake me!

I am sated with you. You fill me with love. You are the most beautiful thing that ever happened to me in my life. I share everything with you, Dan. Sorrow, pain and even this anxiety. I've fallen in love lots of times, Daddy. I wish you a life of love, and that you should dwell in mercy, understanding, freedom and kindness.

Daniel lifted the receiver and started to dial Bara's number. If her husband answers, he'll replace the receiver. If she takes the phone, he'll simply tell her he's in hospital and still alive.

For a moment, he had the impression he had stopped breathing.

There was a ringing tone. He waited. The ringing tone continued; he realized his hand was shaking.

Apparently there was no one at the other end. Should he take it as an omen?

'I wouldn't bother,' his neighbour chips in. 'The telephone costs you three times as much these days and you don't get through anyway.'

Daniel hung up.

'Even if you are a Protestant,' his neighbour returned to his favourite topic, 'I don't see how you can reject the Virgin Mary. We should all work with her for the salvation of the world.'

We can't work for the salvation of the world unless we work first of all for the salvation of ourselves. Who will help us, seeing that the mother of Christ and her son have long ago rotted in their graves? Will we manage it without the help of someone above us? The starry heaven above us and the moral law within us.

Fortunately, the door opened with a creak. It wasn't Hana but quite a young nurse. 'How are you feeling, Reverend?'

'Not too bad, thanks!'

'In a few more days you'll be out running. .' She stopped short; she was probably about to say: running after the girls, but such encouragement seemed out of place for a clergyman. Clergymen don't run after girls. They try to live according to God's commandments as best they can. And they pray to Almighty God, as long as their faith remains. And when they don't live according to the commandments and their faith dwindles, so that all that remains are empty words? Then they can run after the girls, but they try to conceal them from the rest of the world. When they succeed, they don't

conceal them from their consciences, or their hearts. Then their hearts fail.

Daniel pondered on what had happened to his life. The other woman was now very remote and seemed to him like a dream, as if from another life. It was odd, almost incredible, that just a few days ago they had lain in each others' arms and made love. Had it been bad or just human, the way he had behaved?

One succumbs to a longing for love, for new companionship, for feelings that seem stronger than all other feelings. These then overwhelm the sense of duty and promise of fidelity, putting at risk everything: family, reputation, honour, and in the end, one's life too. But now, as he lay here with only a remote possibility of seeing the other woman, and the illness widening the gulf between them, not only in space but also in time, Daniel was overcome with shame and regret for what he had dissipated, and above all that he had deceived his nearest and dearest. Hana showed him love even though he had betrayed her and that made him feel ashamed. He didn't know whether he would live or how he would live, he only knew that he oughtn't to go on living the way he had been: in deceit and duplicity.

6

Matous

Matouš leaves the courthouse. Even though he feels that the woman judge who has just released him fairly willingly from the shackles of marriage has removed his life's heaviest burden from him, he is overcome by nostalgia. He stops outside the front entrance. Although he won't admit it, he is waiting for Klára.

Finally Klára appears and notices him. She seems to hesitate for a moment, wondering whether to walk past him disdainfully as if he was of less interest than the window display of some boutique, but then she stops and says: 'Ciao then, you poor old devil. Enjoy yourself!'

She then permits Matouš to light her cigarette before walking away on high heels towards a Honda car in which some foreign devil is

waiting for her. She climbs into the seat next to him and then drives out of Matouš's life, probably for good.