Ivan Klima - The Ultimate Intimacy

'Who do you mean by "you people"?' Daniel asked.

'When you're preaching,' Marek explained. 'The people that wrote the Bible saw the world differently than we do nowadays.'

'They knew nothing about the galaxies, for instance?'

'For instance. And they believed people could be raised from the dead. And that there were evil spirits inside people and you could see angels.'

'Do you think those are the most important things in the Bible?'

'If they were wrong about one thing they could be wrong about others.'

'People have always been wrong about some things. But that doesn't mean they have been wrong about everything.'

Martin called out, 'I think I can see Saturn.'

'They didn't even know about telescopes in those days,' Alois added.

'Alois, a telescope won't help you to see the truth or God, for that matter.'

'That was below the belt, Dad,' Marek said, coming to his friends defence.

'I apologize to you both,' Daniel said. 'I simply wanted to suggest that occasionally one may glimpse the essential even without a telescope. Too much clutter can sometimes prevent us from seeing the whole.'

'Galaxies are not clutter.'

'Maybe people didn't have an inkling about galaxies in the past, but it occurred to them nevertheless that man wasn't necessarily the most important and perfect thing in the entire universe.'

They left the lads to their telescope. Martin said, 'I know what they mean. We're too intent on defending the supernatural and fail to realize that there is no acceptable defence as far as they are concerned.'

'OK,' Daniel acknowledged. 'So away with Jesus's divinity, the resurrection, the Holy Spirit. What's left? God is supernatural too. Away with the Lord in whose name Jesus preached. But religion without a god is a nonsense. All you're left with is some — ism. Jesusism, like Buddhism.'

'The message of love is bound to remain. That's understood by all. Or almost all.'

Daniel recalled the lady architect who wanted to talk to him about love and was surprised to find the thought of her made him uneasy. 'Love is the essential thing in life, but there also has to be something above it. Even the Beatles had a message of love,' he remarked.

'The Beatles maybe; the church didn't always have much time for it.'

8 Letters

Dear Reverend,

I have the feeling I didn't thank you enough for those flowers. I have them on the table in front of me. As I look at them I think to myself what a

special person you are. My husband asked who gave them to me. I said: Why you, of course, darling, you're always bringing me them. It's just that these days you're a bit forgetful about what you do. I think that nettled him.

Thank you also for the patient way you listen to the stories from my life and my inane questions. After all, preachers are there to preach not to listen, but you know how to listen and you make an effort to understand the other person. Last time you told me you thought true love could last an entire lifetime. Do you really think so? Is it something you believe in, or something you know for sure? And if it's something you know, then you're bound to know what one should do to achieve it. The way I see it, great love can only happen to people who manage to preserve complete freedom. You wrote to me about inner freedom, but what I have in mind is the freedom that we grant each other. It's not just preserving our own, it's also not begrudging the other person's. After all, it's not possible for a slave and a slave-driver to live together in true love.

It was something I discovered at home when I was small. My mother could never rid herself of the feeling that she owed her life to my father. I'm sure I told you that otherwise the Germans would have packed her off to Auschwitz — and how many survived that? Father was her rescuer and he accepted that role and played it to his lamentable end. I could never stand my mother's meek servility, I couldn't even stand my father for that matter, but that servility seems to have wormed its way into me. I can feel how it stifles all the better feelings in my soul, but still I serve my husband exactly the way my mother did my father, and Sam certainly didn't rescue me from anything, that's for sure. It's more likely me who rescues him — from his anxieties, before they totally unhinge him. But at least he's not like my father in that respect. He's reliable at his job and in his relations with me. I ought to value that, oughtn't I? And I do. I used to admire my husband. I considered him to be a remarkable individual, and still do, but that doesn't mean that I'm nothing, that I'm only here for him, simply a mirror for him to admire himself in.

Tell me, what must one do to preserve the most important things in one's life? To build them up instead of destroying them? Tell me: Is it at all possible? Why is it that all men — pardon the generalization, but it's not only my experience — why do they stamp around when they ought to go on tiptoe, strike when they ought to caress and cower when they ought to be offering support?

There, I've lumbered you with a pile of things again. So don't be cross with me and don't forsake me. Yours, Bára M.

Dear Daddy,

I arrived safely. Grandpa and Grandma were waiting at the station for me and as soon as she saw me Grandma cried out: 'You're the image of your mother.' Everything here is as it always was, nothing has changed since I was last here a year ago, apart from me, I suppose, but I don't see myself, except in that big mirror in the lobby, and luckily it's too dark there.

On Saturday, I borrowed Grandma's bike and cycled with Grandpa along the dike around Rožmberk. There are these enormous great oak trees there that must have been planted in the sixteenth century when Krčin was Regent. We stopped for a while and sat down underneath one of the oaks and looked at the water. Above it the mayflies hovered and a carp leaped out of it every now and then. Grandpa told me about how they take care of the fish ponds and then about Mummy when she was a little girl. It always makes me happy to hear about Mummy and at the same time I want to cry. I say to myself the way you do: it was God's will. But immediately it occurs to me: why? Why do some people die young and others are born deaf mute, blind or cruel? Why is there so little justice?

The other day I was walking past the church and I heard someone playing the organ inside. I went in. It was empty, but someone was playing Bach fugues on the organ — in a very special and beautiful way. There's no way of describing it because it's impossible to talk about music. I sat down and listened and had the feeling that life was endless. That's a silly way to put it It just struck me that even though I was there on my own, God was with me because He is infinite and He is everywhere, that He finds it worth His while to be. I was curious to know who was playing so marvellously. So I got up and crept up to the organ loft, quietly so as not to be heard. Sitting at the organ was a tiny, grey-haired old lady and she was playing. She didn't notice I was there at all.

It was lovely of you, Daddy, to take me on that trip before I left. It was really nice and I keep on thinking about it. You're kind to me, you're all kind to me

and I don't deserve it. I don't live the way I ought and even though I got my Cert I know I'm no good at anything and don't understand anything. How can I repay your kindness?

I always wanted to be like you, to be a bit remarkable in some way, to have faith, hope and love, to be kind to people, to know a little bit of what you know, to be good at something, maybe English, or sums like Marek, or putting together a telescope like Alois, or painting, or writing poems or songs. But I'm even hopeless at the harmonium — you must notice it most of all, except you pretend you don't because you don't want to hurt me, because you've always been sorry for me on account of Mummy. You always see her in me, but I'm not a bit like her. She was pure and good, I know that from you and from Grandma, whereas I'm…