Ivan Klima - The Ultimate Intimacy

'It's so silly. I'm calling from a phone booth and there's no telephone directory. You wouldn't happen to know the number of the television centre, would you?'

That kind woman tells her to hold on a moment so that she can have a look in the directory, and Bára finally hangs up.

Half an hour later she is sitting with Helena at a small table in

front of the Loreto and sipping something that purports to be vintage wine.

Helena is her age but looks older, having become stout and maternal although she only has one daughter. She has also held on to her first husband, some kind of civil engineer, who is in no way remarkable but earns good money at least.

For a while they chat about their husbands, trying to work out which of them is less self-reliant and more dependent on his wife and they come to the conclusion that those mummy's boys would most likely perish if their wives abandoned them. Bára complains that her husband increasingly neglects her, substituting conversation for sex and severity for tenderness. She only needs to arrive home half an hour later than he expects and he is already threatening to divorce her. Her friend reassures her that it's only talk. Bára is well aware of that, of course. Without her, Samuel would expire from one of his fifty ailments — his eternal migraines, the cramps in his intestines, his muscles, his gall bladder and his kidneys. His painful heart would have beaten its last long ago and he would most likely have taken an overdose or shot himself in one of his fits of total angst-ridden hopelessness. She is the one who keeps him alive, but why should she have to suffer for it beneath the lash of that slave-driver's nagging tongue?

Leave him then?

She can't leave him. She couldn't do that to her little mummy's boy. Nor could she deprive her real child of his home and his dad. She had done it once already and discovered that a new dad never becomes a real father. Poor Saša had already paid dearly for it.

When they have finished the bottle, they get up and set off in the direction of Střešovice. At Ořechovka, they come upon a little wine bar, where they order themselves a tasty snack and just a bottle of ordinary Frankovka this time.

Helena says that her silly ass of a husband doesn't nag. Instead he snivels and is sorry for himself. Sometimes he clears out and tries to get drunk on Smíchov light beer, but he never manages to. He just spends the night running out to piss and the next morning his poor old head aches.

Bára still feels happy. She has a whole free night ahead of her. As she puffs away, she tells her friend all about the pastor who doesn't even know how attractive he looks as he declaims about love from the pulpit. He speaks about the love of Jesus, who wants to forgive and free

people from the realm of death, while he obviously longs for ordinary human love. Those lofty phrases are just sublimated desire.

Helena wants to know if they have kissed yet. Bára says only once when they were saying goodbye, and gives the impression they have said goodbye more than once. 'But he's as shy as a little boy and has certain prejudices that such things are not done when the man and the woman are both married — that it is against God's commandments. All the same I get the feeling he is a good lover.'

Bára has aroused her companions interest. 'It's his vocation that turns you on, isn't it?'

Bára admits this. 'And there's something about him; something totally out of the ordinary.'

'It always feels that way at the beginning.'

'No, not always. Almost never. Most of the time it's obvious at the outset that it'll be the same.' Bára bursts out laughing and then gets up and goes out into the passage. There she notices a public telephone.

This time the pastor himself answers the phone. Maybe his wife is already asleep. 'Daniel,' Bára says in a disguised voice, 'I love you.'

For a moment there is silence at the other end. Then the minister asks who is calling.

'Me, of course, Daniel. Don't you recognize me? That's a pity. I'm really sorry you don't recognize me.' Then she hangs up. She regrets she can't be with that man now, the one whose passion she senses, the one she suspects is a good lover.

When they leave the wine bar, they are both light-headed and jolly. They are not quite sure where they might go now and return to Pohořelec where, in front of the statue of Tycho de Brahe and Kepler, they catch sight of a large nocturnal gathering of tourists. The Germans are either drunk or lost or homesick. Bára cannot fathom how anyone could be homesick for Nuremberg or Hanover in the most beautiful city in the world and decides to raise their spirits a bit. She leans against the plinth of the statue and sings Rusalka's aria to the moon. She sings faultlessly, and astonishingly enough, even out here in the open, her voice sounds loud. When she finishes she passes her straw hat to Helena who does the rounds of the enlivened tourists who richly reward this unexpected experience.

When they turn the corner the two of them laugh long and loud and determine to give the money collected to the Bosnian refugees.

Helena suggests that they might still go back to her flat, as she lives

on a housing estate not far away. Bára wants to know what her husband would say, but Helena assures her that he will have fallen asleep long ago and nothing will wake him.

It is already well past midnight when the taxi drops them right in front of the tower block on the seventh floor of which Helenas flat is located. The lift doesn't work so they both walk up the staircase. Bára is quite out of breath but looks forward to the view from the top. From Helenas room there is a good view of Prague, and a panorama of Hradčany all lit up. Bára goes over to the window, draws aside the curtain and gazes at the city which flickers in the mistiness of the small hours. Helena fetches a bottle of Frankovka from the larder and is pouring some into glasses. But Bára doesn't feel like drinking any more, besides which she is afraid of someone bursting into the room and spoiling the rest of the night. She would sooner look at the city, but feels that she is not high enough here, that the surrounding buildings block the view. What if they climbed up to the roof? If her memory serves her right, this type of building has a flat, tiled roof with access.

Helena agrees; there is a bench up there for them to sunbathe on. Marvellous — they'll sunbathe then. So they run up the remaining five staircases, Helena unlocks the iron door and they climb out on the roof. The moon up above them is just one day off being full and the roof is bathed in pale moonlight.

Helena goes over to the bench, but it is still not high enough. The terrace is surrounded on all sides by a waist-high concrete wall in place of a balcony. It is wide enough to climb on to. Bára suggests to Helena that they do so, but her friend is afraid. Beyond the wall looms a chasm and the twelve-storey drop frightens her. Admittedly, Bára has no head for heights, but at this moment it does not deter her — she must climb higher and higher. The moment one stops one's fall really begins.

She grips the wall and swings up on to it. She staggers momentarily but quickly regains her balance. 'Look at the city, rocking like a ship, and those lights above the water. You can keep your Venice and your Amsterdam, this is the most beautiful port in the world.'

'You're like a statue,' her friend comments admiringly. A pity I didn't bring my camera. But if you wait there I'll go and fetch it.'

'I won't!' Bára decides to walk all the way round along the wall. She stretches her arms out to the side like a tightrope walker and balances forward.

'Really like a ship, I can feel it rocking.' Helena prefers to sit down on the bench. 'I think I'm becoming sea-sick,' she announces and laughs at the thought of getting sea-sickness up here. Then she glances at Bára slowly tottering forward and advises her, 'Come down before you fall down.' But Bára laughs. 'But I have wings!' And indeed she has, for she can feel love entering her and love will give her wings, won't it? She reaches the end of the wall, and stops at the very edge, suddenly aware of the chasm before her and around her.