Ivan Klima - The Ultimate Intimacy

They reached a bush that was covered in blackberries. He bent down and picked a handful of them to offer his wife.

'You're so kind to me, Dan.'

'But it's nothing at all.'

'It's lovely here. A pity Magda isn't here, at least.'

'Magda's fine at your parents.'

'I know. It just struck me that it would be nice if we were all together.'

He stroked her hair and then took her by the hand and they continued along the footpath towards a village some distance away. He

couldn't remember the last time they had walked along like that, holding hands. But that time it must have been from a sincere feeling, whereas now he was trying to atone for his offence in some way. That was why he had booked an expensive hotel room and thought up the trip to Regensburg. He would buy her some clothes there, anything she fancied — as if that would in any way change what had happened or make up for anything. At most it would delay the moment when he would find sufficient courage — or hard-heartedness maybe — to tell her at least something of what he was perpetrating.

'And I'm a bit worried about Eva too,' Hana said a moment later. 'Once someone starts to experiment with drugs, there is always the temptation to return to them. We oughtn't to leave her for a long time at home on her own.'

'We wouldn't be able to keep an eye on her all the time anyway. If someone really has a mind to do something, there's no way you can watch them continuously. They don't even manage to keep the inmates in prison under permanent surveillance. All you can do is explain, entreat, ask and trust.'

'When someone's eighteen and on their own it's a temptation for them. Besides which, she's attracted to Petr.'

'You've noticed that too?'

'It's not good. Not for her, anyway.'

'Don't worry. When she gets to the Conservatoire and into a different environment, she'll find other friends.'

They had dinner together in the hotel dining room and he prevailed on his wife not to look at the prices and just have what she liked.

That night they lay down beside each other as always. The blue reflections of the neon signs shone into the room. He got up and drew the curtains.

Then Hana said, 'It's been a lovely day, Dan. Did you enjoy it too?'

His wife quickly fell asleep. It had been a long time since he made love to her. He knew it gave her no pleasure, so he had the feeling he was molesting her or taking physical advantage of her.

He could not get to sleep. It was his custom to meditate last thing at night, turning over in his mind everything that had happened or pondering on what he had to do in the coming days. Now it was as if everything, both the past and the future, fixed him with a reproachful look. He tried to pray. To think about a sermon. On what text? Put off your old nature which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt

through deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore, putting away falsehood, let everyone speak the truth with his neighbour, for we are members one of another. (Ephesians 4: 22–25)

For a moment he tried to summon up the image of his first wife and recall the words he used to lavish on her. The tender words returned but not the image of his first wife, instead the image of the new one — the one who had come on the day of his mothers death — forced itself upon his consciousness. What had brought her to him? What was she intended to recall? His mother's love or her death? Why had she appeared that particular day? Who had sent her — what force?

He strove to dispel the picture of her face, but instead her voice imposed itself on him: Don't forsake me!

How was it possible not to forsake a person one wasn't with and oughtn't to be with? Or was it the despairing cry of someone who feels forsaken? Forsaken by whom?

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Suddenly the telephone rang on his bedside table. He snatched up the receiver and in spite of the absurdity expected to hear the voice of the woman he had been thinking about.

'Reception here,' said the voice on the telephone. 'I'm sorry to disturb you, but I noticed the stamp of a Protestant church in your identity card and thought you might be a pastor.'

'I am, yes.'

'I thought I'd just ask you: one of our guests, an old gentleman, has had a bad turn. We've already called the doctor but the gentleman also asked for a priest.'

'But I don't give extreme unction.'

'If it wasn't too much trouble to you, I don't understand these things, but seeing that he did ask

'Yes, of course,' he said, and started to get dressed.

4 Matous

Matouš is seized by the demon of activity. He scarcely sleeps and he wrote sixteen articles during the month of September. In fact, though, it was not he who wrote them, but some essentially alien and rather unpleasant being that occasionally worms its way into his mind and, before he can expel it, commits all sorts of indiscretions. He knows by now that when it whispers something into his pen he mustn't sign it with his own name, and so for at least a year now he has been delivering these inventions under the name of Lukáš Slabý.

Matouš brings a feature about schoolchildren smoking pot to one of the tabloids, and pretends he wrote the article himself. He tells the editor that in these times the only successful stories are about drugs, prostitution, contract killings, and billion-crown scams, or so it seems to him. But he has an advantage over the others who write about the same things: he can enrich his stories with his experiences of the hashish dens in Hong Kong or Singapore, although — to be honest — he felt safer there than here. His colleague nods, Matous's articles read well. Then he goes off with Matouš to a cheap wine bar for a drink. After the fourth glass he mentions that Matous's ex-wife Klára spends her time sitting around with foreigners at the Hotel Evropa. Sitting around and lying around, most likely.

Matouš, who makes a practice of referring to Klára as his ex-wife although he is not yet divorced, gives no indication, even now, that this news affects him in any way and simply says, 'She always was a tart.' And he concurs with his colleague that women are tarts by nature, although some lack the courage to be so brazenly open about it.

However, when he gets home he feels to his surprise something akin to grief, disappointment or bitterness. That woman still continues to use his name and can even keep it should she cease to be his wife. When he first met her she had seemed to him innocently girlish and he loved her, trusted her and brought her into his home, from which she soon drove out all peace and tranquillity.

He sits down in the armchair placed in front of the television set. As the news is about to start, he switches on and watches the reports with the professional eye of Lukáš Slabý to whom he owes his living. On the screen, they are just carrying away the corpse of a woman

covered in blood, another woman tears her hair — a Bosnian or a Serb. It doesn't register with him anyway. Countless unknown corpses affect one less than one single betrayal close to home.

Matous watches the flickering colours impassively and he is suddenly seized by torpor. He stares for a moment at the stuffed canary sitting motionless on its perch in the cage. He recalls a park not far from Peking University where the old men would bring their caged birds to give them an airing. Birds flying out of their cages. The scent of jasmine. Bright-coloured kites. Nostalgia. He won't find the energy or resolve to make any more journeys, he is gradually losing the will to live.

Then he makes up a not particularly successful haiku in his head about his not particularly convincing notion about his own death: