Ivan Klima - The Ultimate Intimacy

when they allowed visits I used to travel to see him. But I committed a sin, all the same. And I never told him about it.

Hed forgive you, Mummy, I said in dismay and the Lord will forgive you too.

He left anyway — that architect. He moved away six months later, and he wrote to me afterwards but I burned the letters.

Don't distress yourself, Mummy. You know what Christ said to those who brought him the woman caught in adultery and wanted to stone her? He said: Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. And when they heard this they left one by one. And then he asked her: Where are they who condemned you? Has no one condemned you? And she replied, No one, Lord. And what did our Lord say to her? Then neither do I condemn you. Go, and sin no more!

A peculiar dream. Was it about Mum or rather about me? How did that profession come into it: architect? Is it possible to go through life without betraying trust at least once? That's why he said: 'Then neither do I condemn you. '

3

Eva did fairly well in her leaving exams, but none the less Daniel had the feeling that she was changed somehow: dispirited, or more exactly, remote from everything around her.

'Glad you've got it over with?' he asked when she brought him the results.

'I suppose so.' She was due to start studying at the Conservatoire in the autumn. Then she added: 'It means you've got something behind you and something ahead of you. At least you know the thing you left behind.'

'And you're afraid of what you don't know?'

'No, I'm not afraid. I just don't know whether I'm looking forward to it.'

'That's just because you're tired out.'

She looked at him and said, 'I'm not tired out, Daddy. I just don't have anything to look forward to.'

'You'll have moments like that in your life. And afterwards you'll feel quite differently again.'

'Do you look forward to anything?'

'Of course. To seeing all of you, when we come together again this evening. To meeting people I like. To the things I have yet to discover in my life.'

'Yes,' she admitted, 'I do too.'

Early that evening, just as they were about to sit down to dinner, Petr arrived with an enormous bunch of roses for Eva.

'Petr, you're crazy. All these roses? We don't even have a vase big enough.'

'I was given them. When I told Mr Houdek they were for you.'

Petr had been working at Houdek's garden centre for four weeks now and he seemed to be enjoying the work. 'And I've got this too,' he said, taking from his pocket something wrapped in paper. 'I tried to make it for you.'

Eva took the gift and blushed. Wrapped in the paper was a little dove cut out of copper and hung on a leather thong.

'She only got one B,' Marek boasted on her behalf.

'If I were to have a leaving certificate,' Petr said, in an effort to speak grammatically, 'I would be in quite a different situation.'

'Exams are not all that important, Petr,' Hana said. 'It's possible to be a useful person without going to university.'

'What sort of job will they let you do these days without university? The best you can hope for is what I'm doing now. Sitting behind a wheel.'

'What would you like to do?' Eva asked.

'Preach. I'd like to tell people how terrible it is when they don't know Jesus and his love, when they land up in Satan's power. Do you know, Reverend, I caught a glimpse of him going by yesterday.'

'Of whom?'

'He was terribly tall, even taller than you. He had ginger hair like Alois. All of a sudden he appeared on the street when I was on the way to my sister's. Just under the bridge in Nusle, if you know where I mean. And he said to me: I know you from somewhere, pal. I never saw him in my life, Reverend. I remember everyone I ever met and I wouldn't have forgotten him, because he had a tattoo on his neck and stank like a kipper.'

'What did you say to him?' Eva asked with interest.

'I told him I didn't know him, and he starts to laugh and says: 'Peter, Peter, you may have denied the Lord Jesus, but you can't deny me.'

'He said that to you?' Daniel said, displeased with the story.

'On my oath, Reverend.'

'Save your oaths for something more important, Petr!'

'That was important for me, Reverend. The point is he asked me to go with him, saying he had a job for me, and if I didn't, I'd regret it. And I said to him: Get behind me, Satan, you monster from hell. And he laughs again. Then all of a sudden he wasn't there. Really, I swear it, Reverend. The pavement was all dug up for some pipes or other, so I even looked to see if he hadn't fallen down some hole. But he wasn't anywhere.'

Daniel noticed that Hana had followed Petr's story about Satan with interest. It matched her own worst experience. Perhaps that was why he commented, 'All sorts of strange things happen and sometimes it's difficult to find a rational explanation, but I wouldn't say you really met the devil.'

'So who was it, then?'

'Someone who'd heard about you from someone else, maybe.'

And where did he disappear to?'

'I don't know, I wasn't there. Maybe he had a car parked nearby and got into it without you noticing.'

'Reverend, you forget where I've just come from. A real con has eyes in the back of his head, so I'd hardly miss someone climbing into an old banger right alongside me.'

'All right,' said Daniel, 'and you hadn't just happened to have had a few drinks?'

'Even if I had, I know what I saw. And I woke up in the middle of the night and it was as if someone was walking around the bedroom. So I switched the light on. There was nobody there, only I could smell that stink of kippers. And my shirt and trousers that I put on the chair the night before were lying all tangled on the floor. You may think that I dreamed it all up, Reverend, but I'd really love to preach to people about the danger they're in. Because I've seen it. I've seen it when someone's on a trip and he's in such a mess he thinks he won't find the way back, and how he's weak as water when he's coming out of it. I know what it is when someone has a wild beast inside them that just wants to booze, stuff itself with food and leap on a woman. The stuff they show on the telly, all them horror films and the cops and robbers — they're only fairy stories to frighten little children, even when they show someone eating a human liver. And I've seen someone do that too, but for real.'

The children — and Eva, in particular — were following what Petr said with almost too much attention. Daniel wasn't sure it was a good thing. He ought to send Magda off somewhere, at least.

Petr was a good speaker and there was no doubt he would be capable of winning people over to his ideas or plans. He'd proved that in the past, when he had been intent on doing evil, and he would no doubt be just as capable of doing it now — now that he had decided to do something useful, now that he had been given grace, as he hoped, to do so.

This gift should not be wasted. Nor should it be abused by people who might think they could use Petr to serve their own ends.

'We'll see, Petr,' he said, interrupting his preaching about evil. "We'll find some way for you to tell people what you want to tell them. It might even be possible to fix something up with the schools.'

'Thank you, Reverend. But I didn't mean us to talk about me when we're celebrating Eva's exams.'

They all sat down to dinner together. In the middle of the table, in a five-litre gherkin jar, the fifteen roses gave off their scent. Eva hung the little dove around her neck and appeared at that moment contented, even happy.

4

Samuel

Samuel is leaving for Brno in the early evening to attend an important meeting first thing in the morning. There is a multimillion-crown sports complex project up for tender. There are always plenty of people interested in a contract like that, so if you don't take the initiative and aren't ready to pay 'a broker', then it's your own bad luck. For that reason, he needs to meet in advance at least some of the people who will be involved in the decision on the contract. Samuel is going reluctantly. He finds bribery distasteful and humiliating, and he begrudges the money, even though he knows he will make a good return on it. Moreover, he has not enjoyed travelling lately. It takes up too much time and exhausts him. Apart from that, he has to leave Bára in Prague and he knows her well enough to imagine what she'll do with her time