Ivan Klima - The Ultimate Intimacy

'There are more tiresome occupations. And I am doing this job of my own free will.'

'But it was not at all my intention to complain. I have an interesting occupation, a faithful husband, splendid children, fantastic friends and a dear old mother. I wanted to be an actress, but then I decided to practise architecture, which I now do, a bit, at least. I'm a "happy woman", in fact.'

'There aren't many happy people.'

'Aren't you happy?'

'I can't complain.'

'Sorry, it was a stupid question. All I meant to say was that a lot of people would be happy in my situation, and I realize that fate has mostly been good to me. I ought to say the Good Lord, as I'm sitting in the manse. Is that a picture of Comenius over there?'

'It is.' He also has two of his old wood carvings on the shelf. He is relieved that she seems not to have noticed them.

'Was he a member of your church?'

'No, but that's not really important, is it? I don't classify people according to the church they belong to.'

'So how do you classify them?'

'I endeavour not to classify them at all.'

She takes a packet of cigarettes out of her handbag. 'Would you like a cigarette?'

'I haven't smoked in a long time.'

'I thought not. Will it bother you if I smoke?'

'Not if it doesn't bother you.'

She lights a cigarette but exhales the smoke to one side. 'I'll ask you the question, then. When you wrote to me about love, what did you understand by the word?'

'There is no precise answer to that question. Everyone understands something different by the word.'

'But what do you understand by it?'

'Maybe the ability to sacrifice yourself for others. Or service. Or the ability to be with others when they need you.'

'That is also a service. But that kind of love is one-sided, isn't it? If everyone wanted to be self-sacrificing and serve, there'd be no one to sacrifice oneself for and no one to serve.'

'It's also a way to overcome anxiety.'

'Anxiety about what?'

'Loneliness. Death.'

'But you love God first and foremost. Christ. Or am I wrong?'

'It's rather that He loves us. And as regards our love, I give priority to love for people. I believe that Jesus did and does likewise.'

'What form does Jesus's love for us take?'

'Jesus sacrificed his life for people's salvation.'

'Lots of people sacrifice their lives. But that happened a long time ago. What form has it taken since then?'

'That sacrifice still applies and prevails as it did then.'

'How can you tell? After all, how many dreadful things have happened since then?'

'You're right. Some of them were so terrible they are beyond my imagination. I believe that love endures none the less.'

And normal human love can endure an entire lifetime?'

'I believe it can.'

And you also maintain that love manifests itself when we're with someone who needs us. I'd like to meet someone who is able to love that way.'

'You haven't met anyone like that yet?'

'No, I certainly haven't. Except my mother maybe. But I didn't meet her. Without her I wouldn't be here at all.'

Are you glad you are?'

'Here and now, you mean?'

'I mean, in the world.'

'I'm glad I am here now — apart from that, I can't say. Or rather, sometimes yes, sometimes no. And there was one occasion when I decided to stop existing altogether. Am I keeping you?'

'No, I was expecting you, after all.'

She lights another cigarette. She has slender fingers: in that respect also she resembles his first wife.

'When I was seventeen I used to sing in a band. That's a long time ago. But I ought to start with something even longer ago than that.

When I was a very little girl, we used to spend the summer in a little village just outside Sedlčany, if you know that part of the world. It's not really important where it was. There was this hunchback living there, a dirty, crazy fellow who used to wear terribly muddy wellies and had black hairy arms like a gorilla. He used to kill small birds. Tiny redstarts, blackbirds, chaffinches and the like. Whenever he saw a nest in a tree he would climb up it, pull out the nestlings, wring their necks and throw them under the tree. I was terrified of him. Whenever I met him I would start to cry and my mother had to pick me up — at the age of five.'

'And the people there let him carry on?'

'It's conceivable that they forbade him to do it, but they couldn't lock him up for it, there was no law against it at the time. And maybe there isn't one even now, although there ought to be. But I don't expect he's doing it any more. He's probably dead. So when I was singing in that band — I don't want to take up too much of your time — one lad that used to play with us on the banjo travelled as far as Mexico and brought home with him some weird horrible thing — a mushroom. It was dried, and you could eat it or smoke it, or you could make it into a tea. It tasted bitter, not at all mushroom-like. We all took some of that mushroom and afterwards everyone had beautiful, colourful visions and the urge to make love — all except me. Instead I had the most horrible dream. I wasn't a human any more, but a nestling, and I saw that disgusting fellow climbing up towards me through the branches. And I began to be really terrified.'

Fear suddenly appears in her eyes. As she speaks she leans so near to him that he can smell her scent. Then abruptly she seizes him by the hand and squeezes it firmly, almost too tightly. 'Apparently I started to scream and there was no calming me down. That's how I spoiled their mushroom party. Why did I start telling you about it? Oh, yes. It was about me never finding it easy to be in the world. Well, it isn't, I tell you. That hunchback will suddenly jump up on to my breast and strangle me. I don't even have to eat any sort of mushroom any more. I simply have to wake up in the dead of night and I know that it'll happen one day. Death will come and wring my neck and no one, but no one will save me. Am I delaying you?'

Even now, it strikes Daniel, she might be under the influence of some drug. Maybe that is why she is squeezing his hand. People flee from death. He does too, except that he has chosen a different escape route.

'You're not delaying me. Is that why you came? On account of that anxiety?'

'Among other reasons. Don't be cross with me. My husband calls me hysterical. I am a bit. But only on the odd occasion. Tell me, what sense does it all make?' She finally releases his hand.

'What do you mean?'

'I mean life. The fact that we're here. No, don't tell me it's God's will. That that was the reason my father created me. And why do all those billions and billions of men father more and more children? That can't be God's will, can it? A God like that would have to have a computer in place of a head, except that a computer is incapable of love, so what use would such a God be?'

'Don't bother your head with questions like that. God is beyond our imagination, and so is his will.'

And you know he exists, even though you can't imagine him, and even though you can't produce convincing proof of his existence?'

'There is so much in the world and the universe that is beyond our imagination, and yet we believe it exists. God is no more understandable than the universe, for instance, and the universe is no more understandable than God.'

And do you think that's a good thing?'

'No, I wouldn't say so, but that's the way it is.'

'I'll give it some thought. I mustn't bother you with any more questions.'

'It's no bother. People are mostly afraid to ask frank questions.'

She gets up. 'You're not cross with me for taking up your time?'

'I've no reason to be.'

'Don't be so polite.' She shakes his hand.

'Did you come by car?'

'No, the car's my husband's. It was only when he took the firm's car on that trip that I had the use of the little Japanese one. I mostly travel by bus and tram.'