Ivan Klima - The Ultimate Intimacy

'Do you think you could come and meet me somewhere?'

'Are you crying?'

'Maybe. I'm awfully upset.'

'Has something happened? Is it the children?'

'No, the children are asleep. Everyone's at home in the warm, only I'm out here freezing in the phone-box at the bus stop. It's like being in a glass coffin. But I'd sooner be in a wooden one. Seeing nothing, knowing nothing and then being pushed into the flames where it would be warm at least.'

'I'll come then.'

Half-past midnight. Outside, an unseasonal July chill and the wind chasing clouds across the sky, their edges pallid in the light of the moon.

He catches sight of her in the distance standing at the bus stop, long after the last bus has gone. She is huddled up in a short blue-and-yellow mottled coat.

He pulls up right in front of the bus stop and opens the door.

'I've got cold hands again,' Bára says, 'and feet too. I'm cold all over and you've come in spite of that.'

He asks her what has happened.

'I ran away. He threw a ruler at me.'

'Your husband?'

'Who else? We were having a row. Over Saša. But I don't want us to sit like this in the car.'

'I don't know where we could go.'

'So just drive on!'

'All right. Will you tell me what happened?'

'You don't mind the muck spilling on to you?'

'That's why I've come, isn't it? So you could tell me what happened.'

'Didn't you come because you love me?'

'It's one and the same.'

'I know. So take my hand.'

Her hand is as cold as that time she drove him. How long ago was that?

'He can't stand Saša,' she says of her husband. 'He's always bossing him about, forbidding him things. Calling him a good-for-nothing idler who does no studying and comes in late. And today he yelled at him that he needn't think he'd be going on to university, that he'd maintained him long enough. And I said I'm the one who maintains him anyway, he's my son, and Sam started yelling at both of us that we're layabouts. I sent Saša away and told Sam that he mustn't dare do that to me. It flabbergasted him that I should have the gall to stand up to him, because after all he is someone whereas I am no more than a flea that has crept into his clothes, a dustbin in which he chucks all his foul moods. He grabbed the steel ruler and hurled it at me. If I hadn't dodged, he could have killed me. Oh God, it's so vile, forgive me, I dashed out of the flat but I had nowhere to go. I would have gone to Mum's, but it was too late and she would have had a fright, so I called you.'

'I'm glad you called me.'

'I'll never forget you came for me, that you didn't leave me in that phone-box. And now, instead of getting a night's sleep. . Where are you taking me? To the airport?'

'No, I'm just driving along.'

'I'd fly somewhere with you. Somewhere far away. Somewhere overseas. Somewhere that's warm. Barcelona, say. They're bound to have warm weather there, and Gaudi too. But wherever I am with you it's warm, your heart gives out warmth. Don't worry, I don't intend to drag you off somewhere or throw myself on you. I'm going home. No, don't stop. Bear with me for a while still. Drive me somewhere, just for a short while.'

So at Červený vrch he turns off the main road. He draws up in front of one of the tower blocks. 'There's an empty flat up there. It belonged to my mother.'

'Your mum died that same day. I know.'

When he unlocks the door he looks up and down the passage, as if fearful someone might see him. But they are all asleep at this hour.

Inside the flat, he is aware of the familiar odour that has still not disappeared even in the five months that his mother has not been here.

He helps Bára out of her coat and they sit down opposite each other. Bára fixes on him a look of total devotion, or at least that is what it seems like to him and he realizes he is pleased; instead of wasting time sleeping he can spend it with her.

'I don't suppose you'd have a drop of wine here?'

'There's not a thing to eat or drink here. Nothing but ketchup.'

'It doesn't matter. Why did you sit down so far away from me?'

'I'm sitting quite close.'

'I want you to sit closer.'

He moves his chair so that their knees touch.

'There was a time when he really did maintain us,' she said, 'when Aleš was small. But I was the one who looked after them. He didn't have to lift a finger at home. And what's more, in the evenings I would help him with tracing plans. But since the revolution I do as much work as him, maybe more, because I drudge for him at the office, play the occasional bit part on television, and also do the housework. So tell me, what sort of layabout am I? How can he say he maintains my son?'

'I don't consider you a layabout, do I?'

'But he does.'

'I doubt that even he does, really.'

'So what makes him say it?'

'I don't know. I don't know him. Maybe he just wanted to hit out at you somehow. The pain of a slap passes quickly, the pain of injustice lasts longer.'

'But tell me why, why he should want to cause me pain? Why?'

'Maybe he's jealous of your son.'

'Why should he be jealous of my child?'

'You give him love he would like for himself

'And don't you find that horrible?'

'It's human.'

And would you be jealous of my Saša too?'

'No. No one has the right to deprive another of his share of love.'

'I know. You definitely wouldn't torture me.'

'I've done all sorts of bad things in my time, but so far I don't think I've been cruel to anyone.'

'You've done lots of bad things? There is only one that I know of. Tell me, why didn't you come for me long ago?'

'How could I come for you when I didn't know you?'

'Exactly. You weren't interested in any old Bára. You happily left me to the mercies of a fellow who hurls steel rulers at me.'

'Don't think about it any more.'

'You're right. I'm sorry. Here I am with you and I spend the time talking about another man. Tell me, do you still remember your first wife?'

'How do you mean?'

'Can you still bring her to mind?'

'Of course.'

'Often?'

'It depends what you mean by often. Less now than years ago. But most frequendy I remember some situation when we were really happy or, on the contrary, when we hurt each other.'

'You're able to hurt someone too?'

'Such as when I didn't do something she wanted or didn't protect her enough. When we were going out together, we lived a long dis-tance apart, several hours' journey. There were times when I didn't bother to make the trip because I didn't feel like trudging all that way. And once — it was when she was already expecting Eva — she was summoned to an interrogation. And I let her go there and didn't even wait for her outside the office because there were other things I had to do. Whenever I remember that, I feel regret that I didn't stand by her then.'

But it only bothers you because she is dead.'

'Yes, I can't make up for it any more.'

'You can make up for it with the living.'

'I've tried to ever since.' Then he says, 'And you remind me of her.'

Do you think I resemble her?'

'No. It's more a sense of familiarity, a sort of intimacy.'

'It must have been awful for you when she died. Tell me, did it ever strike you as unjust?'

'It's not the business of death to be just, is it?'

'And how about God?'

'God is just, but his justice is not the same as human justice.'

'Do you think there can be two sorts of justice?'

'It's not the question of a different sort, but of a different dimension.'

'You believe in the fourth dimension?'

'I mean the dimension in which God moves.'

'When my sister died I felt it to be an injustice. Why her, of all people?'

'Your sister died? You didn't tell me.'