Ivan Klima - The Ultimate Intimacy

She called Hana 'Mummy', but she knew from her childhood that her real mother was not on earth but in heaven. When she started to learn the piano, she asked him if Mummy could hear her up there. 'Of course she can hear you,' he had assured her. Since then she had played to her. Once she said to him, 'Mummy told me I played well.' He had thought she was referring to Hana, but when he asked Hana she told him she hadn't praised her. The praise had come from her mother in heaven.

'How about us playing a duet?' he now suggested.

Eva gave a start. 'That would be lovely. It's ages since we played together.'

He brought another stool and Eva made room for him.

Music had always brought him relief. The awareness that whatever happened in life, there existed something that was so elevated and elevating above the mundane filled him with calm and gave him hope.

He had still not been to a concert with Bára nor had the opportunity to play anything to her; he had only heard her sing, and could only sing with her during the service.

'Did you know they called Bach the fifth evangelist?'

'You told me that before, some time!'

'Really? I'm starting to get old and repeat myself.'

'Maybe you're just absent-minded. You've got too many worries.'

'What do you think I'm worried about?'

'Me, for instance,' said Eva. 'But my piano teacher complimented me yesterday,' she added quickly, 'on my technique.'

'I'm glad she complimented you.' He suspected that he worried more about the fate of his eldest child than about the fate of her brother and sister. As if he felt accountable for her to her late mother. Or maybe he wanted Eva to achieve what her mother had not had time to achieve.

'She wants me to practise at least three hours each day,' Eva went on to inform him. 'At least. Four hours would be better and five hours best of all. That's pretty tough, don't you think?'

'It requires effort to learn anything. And to learn anything well requires even more effort. It's just that in some fields it's possible to cheat a bit. That's not possible in music because it's immediately noticeable.'

When they finished playing he went downstairs to his workshop. He had a new carving half-completed there. He ought to finish it. And prepare that exhibition the gallery owner had asked him for.

The wood was fragrant in spite of being dried out, just as it was in his grandfather's long-defunct workshop. From the dead material familiar features emerged. Instead of a violin shape a woman's face.

Most of the time he managed to concentrate on this work, but otherwise he really was absent-minded and worried. About himself.

In the corner of the room, there still lay the boxes of correspondence, just as he had brought them from his mother's flat. He ought at

least to take a look at them, sort out what he would keep and take the rest to the recycling depot. Maybe he would find among the correspondence some clue as to whether his father had really committed something dishonourable. He had probably not looked in the boxes out of a subconscious fear of what he might find there.

He hesitated a moment and then brought out a box of his father s letters. It was stuffed with large envelopes on each of which his mother had written a description: Pre-wedding. Letters from prison. From the camp. From the tart. He stared in amazement at the last inscription. He took the envelope and opened it. There were only a few sheets of paper inside and a card on which his mother had written: I found these letters in Richard's desk at the hospital after his death.

On the first sheet, written in large, neat — apparently female — handwriting, he read:

Dear Ritchie,

I couldn't phone you my love so this is just a note to say that I'll be all on my own for the next three days. Do you think you'll be able to find some way of slipping away from your Mumsie? I know you can do it. You can do anything. At least for me who loves you the most. Looking forward to you, my little doenut. A lot. .

He skipped the remaining few lines; he oughtn't even to have read the previous ones. You shouldn't read what isn't intended for you. Or rummage in letters full of bygone feelings, spelling mistakes and betrayals that we leave behind.

He recalled his fathers funeral. Hundreds of people came to it; the room at the crematorium had been full. Most of them were women, some of whom were weeping. His father had been a gynaecologist and had no doubt saved the lives of many of them or restored them to health. Maybe they included his mistresses too. By now they would probably be old ladies, if they were still alive. Sixteen years had passed since that day.

Even the serious crimes and real betrayals of the living were no longer prosecuted after that length of time.

Even the lists had almost been forgotten now, although it was only three years since they had been published. Everything slipped into the past. More quickly nowadays than before, because the times were fast-moving and forgetting was one of the ways to escape going mad.

My children don't remember Dad any more, they know their grandad only from stories and nobody is likely to tell their children about him.

So what is the point of investigating and trying to seek some son of judgement?

Judgement, he had always believed, was the Lord's when He came again in glory — the Lord who taught love and forgiveness.

But it was unlikely there would ever be any Last Judgement. It was just a fiction, just a longing for a higher justice which would redress all the wrongs and injustices committed on this earth; a fiction from the days of the first church when they were still awaiting Christ's return in their lifetime. Christ had not returned; how many wrongs would have to be judged since those days?

There was nothing more to be done with his father's life. On the other hand, he ought to do something with his own.

6

Hana

The hospital director summons all the senior nursing staff and announces to them that he already owes three months' laundry payments. In all, it come to three-quarters of a million. Unless he is able ro obtain credit from somewhere or to persuade the laundry to wait another month, they will be obliged to close down the hospital or do the laundry themselves. For the time being, he asks them to go easy on the linen and try to wash any slightly soiled items on site. He realizes this will mean extra work but he won't be able to pay them for it; he'll be happy if he can find the money to pay their salaries at the end of the month. 'The insurance companies owe me over a million crowns,' he says finally. Then he dismisses them and Hana returns to her ward where she reluctantly conveys the director's request. Recently the worries at work have grown while her sense of satisfaction has waned.

She makes herself a coffee, sits down at her small desk and tries to think of something pleasant.

A few days ago she got a call from that journalist who had showered her with kind words. He complained a bit about his health; he

had run out of tablets and he didn't feel like going to the doctor for more. He didn't feel like going out at all, in fact. He didn't feel up to it even though at home his only companions were gawping Buddhas and a stuffed canary. Then he renewed his invitation to her to come and see his collection. She told him that it would not be proper for her to visit him — unless she were to bring him his medication, it occurred to her.

Then she did pay him a visit. She was unsure why she decided to, and persuaded herself that she was only doing it in order to deliver his medicine to him.

And of course when he opened the door she told him that she wouldn't be coming in, but then let herself be persuaded to sit down for a few moments.