Ivan Klima - The Ultimate Intimacy

'What about the scandal then?'

'I don't know what you're talking about. '

'You preach scandal. And in addition you went into the pulpit naked. '

'That's not true. '

'But you had yourself photographed doing it. '

I banged my fist on the desk. 'That's not true. '

'And what about the little girls in Sunday school? What do you teach them?'

'I teach them the word of God. '

No, you tell dirty stories. I have a pile of complaints here. In children's handwriting. '

All of a sudden a pile of envelopes appeared on the desk in front of me. 'Read that one there, for instance. '

I found in my hand a piece of paper that was indeed covered in children's handwriting but I couldn't decipher a single letter. But I knew that there could be nothing against me in the letters so long as they were genuine. Except that these were definitely not genuine.

'So what do you say to that? Great, isn't it? What do you think your missus will say when it's published?'

'What missus?'

'You've got more than one?'

I became uneasy. There was something out of order here, something bad had happened. After all, my wife was ill and dying. 'You can't do that,' I shouted.

'That depends on you. '

'What do you want of me?'

'You know full well! Take a leaf out of your father's book. He understood the right way to behave. '

All of a sudden the room was full of big fellows in grey clothes, each one identical, the same unfamiliar faces, but they seemed to be smiling in a friendly way and actually offering me a glass of wine. 'We'll reach a deal, though,' said the one offering me the wine.

'You scratch our backs, and we'll scratch yours,' said a fat, grey-haired man as he entered the room. He seemed to be their leader — I recognized him in fact. It was Berger, my old Secretary for Church Affairs.

But there aren't any Secretaries for Church Affairs any more, I remembered to my relief. We're free again, it's just that these chaps don't know it and are threatening me and trying to bribe me with a glass of wine.

I took the glass and smashed it on the ground. The wine spread all over the floor, blood red. And at that moment I realized that Jitka, my good, gentle wife, had died long ago, and I had been left alone, and it made me sad.

3

Daniel generally took a holiday in the second half of August. Sometimes he would stay in Prague but usually he would set off with Hana and the children for a manse in the country run by one of his friends or a former fellow student.

This year, for the first time, they could afford a holiday that would depart from the normal routine.

When he suggested to Hana that they might go abroad it occurred to him that it wasn't so much foreign travel that appealed to him as the possibility of escaping somewhere a long way away. Escaping from the other woman? No, from himself, more likely. Except that there is no escaping oneself.

Hana agreed that he should take a rest. It was necessary to renew one's strength or one day it would run out. But why go on a foreign holiday and leave the children here? What if something happened to them?

The children would be at Grandma's and we don't need to travel far. Just to the Alps, say.

The Alps held no appeal for Hana. The Šumava Mountains seemed more feasible to her, besides which she could make herself understood there.

Fine, we can drive to somewhere in Western Bohemia and maybe go on an excursion to Germany from there.

While Hana was doing the packing he quickly sorted out his correspondence. When the phone rang, he felt a strange agitation and hesitated before picking up the receiver.

'It's me, Dan,' said a familiar voice. 'I'm calling from our casde in the country. Samuel has gone fishing and I thought I might still catch you.'

'Your instinct was sound. We are about to leave any moment.'

And you don't mind me calling?'

'No, I'm pleased to hear you.'

And are you on your own there?'

'My wife is packing.'

'So go and give her a hand! I just wanted to tell you I'm thinking of you and that I'm missing you, that I wish I could be with you.'

'I'm thinking of you too.'

'Nice things or nasty?'

'That's not a proper thing to ask.'

'I wanted to ask whether you'd forget me.'

'It's almost impossible to erase anything from my memory.'

'And you'd be so vile as to want to erase me?'

'I didn't say anything of the sort. I only said I have a good memory. And I'll never erase you from it.'

'That's good. I wish you lots of sunshine. And I don't only mean the sort that comes from the sky. I mean the sunshine you have within you.'

'I don't know whether I ever had it within me, and even if I did, I fear it's hidden behind the clouds now.'

'Do you feel that I'm the clouds?'

'No, if it's possible to have sunshine within oneself then the clouds must also come from within.'

'That's true. And you have love within you and that sunshine. I'll hang up now, you have to go and pack. And forgive me if I've hurt you.'

'How could you have?'

'It's possible to hurt someone without wanting to, even someone you love.'

'The person you can hurt most is yourself. And then those you love, of course.'

'I know that. So I'll say cheerio. And don't forsake me.'

He and Hana were staying in a new hotel near Domažlice. Their room had a bathroom and a colour television, and there was a telephone on each of the bedside tables.

'Do you like it?' he asked his wife.

'It's unnecessarily luxurious.'

'We could make a trip over the border to Regensburg tomorrow.'

'Why Regensburg?'

'It's only a short drive from here and it's a beautiful city. With an old cathedral.'

'If you like.'

'I thought you'd like it too.'

'I'm happy wherever we are together.'

'Do you fancy a little walk before dinner?'

'That's a good idea. I'll just have to change my shoes.'

'It's ages since we've been for a walk together, isn't it?' he said as they left the hotel.

'It's because we've had so little time. Whenever you had a spare moment you had to visit your mum. And apart from that, you've had so much on your plate.'

He had the feeling they hadn't done much walking even when his mother was still well. Sometimes he got the impression that his wife was afraid of being left alone with him. Maybe it was more shyness than fear. And now it was he who avoided talking to her.

They set off along a path that led between meadows. The edge of the path was yellow with hawkweed and cat's ear and a kestrel circled above the meadow.

'I wonder what the children are doing,' Hana said.

'They're rejoicing at having got rid of us for a while.'

His conversation with Hana tended to be mostly about the children. And sometimes she would tell him about goings-on in the hospital and he would share with her his parish concerns. They almost never talked about books. Hana had no time to read, even if she had the inclination. They only rarely went to the theatre and he didn't watch television. Whenever they had guests, which was at least once a week, she would worry about what they would eat or drink and see to it they had fresh bed linen, but she seldom took part in the conversation, which generally dealt with theological issues or the situation in the church.

Also he did not talk to her about things that happened to be on his mind, and he would prepare his sermons without discussing them with her.

She differed from his first wife in almost every way, both in character and appearance, and maybe that was the very reason why he had never managed to be completely intimate with her, even though, until just recently, he had had nothing to conceal from her.