Ivan Klima - The Ultimate Intimacy

He asks her then where her husband preaches, and she tells him.

'I must come and hear him some time. Maybe I'd get to see you at the same time.'

She takes her leave of him. She can't fathom out why he should want to see her again, but when she emerges from the smoky and noisy

room she realizes her mood has improved, and she actually feels vaguely pleased. Someone has felt it worth his while to spend some time with her.

5

Captain Bubnik lived in a four-storeyed house in Vokovice. As Daniel mounted the staircase he was unable to dispel a queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. He always used to feel something similar when he was summoned to an interrogation or to the office of the Secretary for Church Affairs.

The State Security was no more, even the police uniforms had changed, but the incidents and experiences of the past had not disappeared, they remained — indelibly — lodged in peoples memories.

He rang a doorbell on the third floor. The door was opened by a little grey-haired old lady in a flowery apron.

He introduced himself and she said she knew who he was and that her husband was expecting him. Then she asked if he preferred coffee, tea or beer, maybe. He refused everything, still obedient to the old wisdom that it was better not to accept anything from such people. By now a man appeared in the doorway, and having overcome all his distaste and embarrassment, Daniel announced himself.

'Is that the pastor?' A slightly corpulent seventy-year-old with a grey deadpan face, rather gingery eyebrows and senilely expressionless eyes behind cheap spectacles stepped towards him. 'You're very welcome.' The man shook his hand firmly like an old friend he was meeting after many years. He led Daniel into the room which looked 100 per cent mass-produced, from the carpet on the floor to the pictures on the walls and the ceiling lamp.

'Pastor,' he repeated when they were seated at the chipboard table. 'That's an honourable calling, caring for souls and their salvation. I've been retired for thirteen years now. I always used to say what a treat it would be not to have to get up in the morning, except that these days I wake up at 4 a.m. and I'm not able to go back to sleep. More aches and pains, fewer joys and pleasures. You mentioned your father in your letter, didn't you?'

'I understand you,' he said when he had heard him out, 'those

pirate lists caused a lot of harm. And above all among the survivors, because they weren't able to seek redress. Where they had been wronged.'

'Were they often?'

'It depends what you mean by wronged, Reverend.'

'Wronged is probably not the right word. Duped or misled would be more accurate, seeing that people were often included on the list without their knowledge.'

'I shouldn't think so, Reverend. And anyway it's neither here nor there. Some didn't sign and even made things up; others signed and you didn't get anything important from them anyway.'

'And my father?'

'Your father, your father. He was a doctor, you say. Dr Vedra?'

He looked as if he was trying to call the name to mind. Then he shook his head. 'I've got a bad memory for names. There was a time when I could remember all sorts of things, I knew all the Sparta football team line-ups for the previous twenty years, but nowadays — you know what its like for old people.'

'I've brought a photograph.' Daniel took an envelope containing two likenesses out of his bag. As he passed it across he had the impression of doing something dishonourable. As if it was he, now, who was acting as an informer by offering a picture of his own father.

'Yes,' said the man opposite, 'the face is familiar. At least I think so. On the other hand, nothing definite comes to my mind. After all, it's thirty-five years ago or thereabouts. Are you able to remember people you dealt with thirty-five years ago?'

'I used to deal with people in a different fashion. And yes, I do remember the people who attended church.'

'You've got a good memory, and you're younger. But I will tell you one thing: the fact I don't remember means your father was totally insignificant. From the point of view of being of any use, I mean. The big fish — the ones that really meant something — you remember them even after all those years.'

'Can't you recall even a single interview?'

'No I can't, really. Don't forget that I was given the boot from there. After that you try to forget it all. I had other worries. The only ones that stuck in my memory were those that stood out in some way. From the intelligence point of view, I mean. As well, of course, as the ones we pumped regularly. They were the ones that yielded a lot. Your

father was definitely not one of them.' He leaned over towards Daniel and said, 'There's no sense in investigating it like this. You must know best of all the sort of person your father was. Even if there were some files still around and you got access to them, you wouldn't learn much from them because everything was far more complicated than anything you might read there.'

'Thank you. I expect you're right.'

'Your see, people these days over-dramatize everything. They've got the idea that it was only scoundrels, brutes and fanatics who worked with us. But we were normal people. At the beginning we believed, like a lot of others, that socialism would bring something better than what we had. Anyone who resisted it seemed to us like an enemy. But when you started to analyse things, you soon lost your enthusiasm. We only did as much as we had to.'

'I also had some encounters with some of your people,' said Daniel. 'It's possible that the people who dealt with me only did what they had to, but it was plenty, I assure you. But that is neither here nor there at this moment.'

'Yes, you're a pastor. The way the church was treated was crazy, absolutely mindless. We are all reaping the dire consequences of that now. People nowadays only believe in property, money and their careers.'

He was unable to fathom whether the man was putting it on, or whether he was saying what he truly felt.

Then Daniel realized that this man had once sat at a desk with portraits of the murderer Stalin and his local Czech satrap on the wall behind him, while his father had sat facing him, the indelible experience of eight years in the camps imprinted on his mind, and an understandable feeling of tension. His father would have known he had to give some sort of answer, and whether he left the room a relatively free person was entirely up to the person who now sat opposite his son Daniel with a friendly expression on his face, talking to him as if they were jointly engaged in the struggle against present-day materialism. The man could not recall his father, he had just been one of the many they had summoned whenever they needed them. Whereas his father, if he were still alive, would certainly have remembered him. This captain had been one of just a few of those who had attached themselves like leeches to his father's life. Later this man had disgraced himself and maybe then some other captains had latched on to him, so

that he now felt justified in bemoaning his reduced state. Any sense of humility, let alone repentance, was foreign to such people. And by coming to see him, he, Daniel, had bolstered the man's feelings that he was one of the just, one of the victims, someone worthy of honour, praise and trust.

Suddenly he felt disgusted at his action in coming here and the fact that he was meekly sitting and listening and scarcely taking issue. He stood up, saying he had no wish to stay any longer, thanked him and prepared to leave.

'Should you ever need any advice,' said the erstwhile captain, or just feel like dropping in for a chat, you'll be very welcome!'

6

Matous