Ivan Klima - The Ultimate Intimacy

'Have what you feel like.'

'Maybe it's a daft idea; I've never eaten anything like that before. The Big Boss doesn't take us out for meals and Dad only takes me to a sweet shop sometimes or to some buffet where he has a beer and orders me some sickly muck.'

'Saša won't drink alcohol,' Bára explained.

'And what would you like to talk to your father about, for example?' Daniel asked him after ordering the food.

The lad shrugged. 'I don't know. With the lads and the girls we just talk drivel. You know what I mean.'

Are you going out with someone?'

'Of course, but I can't talk about it. Not here, at least.'

'I didn't mean to pry. It's just that I have a daughter of your age and a lad just a bit younger.'

'I know. Mum told me. She knows them from the church where she used to go to see you.'

'Saša,' Bára interrupted, you're talking too much. The reason I went to church was to hear something to raise my spirits.'

'That's true, that is the reason she went,' the lad chimed in. 'She often got the blues. We all suffer from depression, in fact. It's a kind of virus we have: we are all frightened of the Boss and of death. The Boss — Musil I mean, the architect, the Doctor of Science and laureate is only afraid of death, of course, but quite a lot because he's old and has high blood pressure. He's always swallowing pills. We used to call him the Builder of the Tower of Babel because he had a hang-up about grandiose projects, but now we just call him the Pill Popper. And we also call him Vampire Bat. Whenever he gets a downer he starts to wail. He climbs up on to Mum's shoulder and starts to suck her strength. Then Mum has to comfort him. But there's no one to comfort Mum: I can't, and anyway when the catkins arrive on the trees I start to whine too because I can hardly breathe. Aleš is healthy but he's still small and silly. And then you came along. But Mum deserves you, she's a lovely person.'

The waiter interrupted his monologue and started to serve their meals from large metal bowls.

'Wow,' the lad commented, 'I feel like the Little Prince. We'll have to persuade rill Popper to bring us here too some time.'

'Sasa's putting it on a bit,' Bára said. 'He's acting as if he grew up on bread and water.'

'Come off it, Mum! When did we last go out for a meal?'

'Last spring at the seaside,' Bára said. 'Were you living in a cave, or what? And we went there on your account, because the doctor recommended sea air for your allergy.'

'And it did me good too!'

He observed the two of them. It seemed to him that they were merely continuing a long-established game in his presence: the fellow-conspirator son taken by his mother into another home in search of true love, and now brought here because she was still searching, while the son was seeking a father. The question was whether it wasn't already too late for both of them. Even though the expression 'too late' was one he always challenged — at least as far as faith was concerned.

'I used to go to Divinity classes,' the lad said. 'Mum wanted me to and Musil let me. But it meant nothing to me — no, nothings too strong — very little. It was all too otherworldly. All those miracles and angels and

fallen angels and hell and damnation. Anyway, I immediately forgot it all.'

'I used to send him to the Catholic class,' Bára explained. 'I could have sent him to a Jewish class on account of Mum, but there wasn't one. I wanted him to hear something about God at least, so that he could make up his own mind. The trouble was their teacher wasn't like you. He hadn't the slightest bit of enthusiasm, he was just bitter somehow, and he talked to them more about hell than about the need for people to love one another.'

'Anyway, I could have got more out of it,' the lad admitted, 'but I found it impossible to concentrate. It's the same with all subjects, apart from geography. I enjoy geography because it's about real things.'

'Would you like to travel?'

'Everyone would. But I'll have to wait for the time being because the Big Boss won't let me: I don't behave well enough at school or at home. But anyway I wouldn't like to travel to big cities and go sightseeing around monuments. I prefer it where there are fewer people, such as in the forests or mountains. People in cities are like ants. Thousands of ants all over the place, in cars and walking down the street. I'm not just getting at the rest. I'm an ant too, and a lazy one at that.'

Bára said, 'It's not surprising he has an aversion to monuments and buildings in general, seeing his stepfather and mother are architects. I haven't a clue how he's going to make a living.'

'So what that you haven't a clue,' the boy commented. 'What's more disturbing is that I haven't got one. But if the worst comes to the worst I'll be a hunter.'

'What would you hunt?'

'That's the problem: I wouldn't kill a frog, or even a butterfly.'

'Castles in the air are the most he'd ever hunt!' Bára said.

'I'm no worse than you, Mummy!'

When dinner was over, the lad got up, and after rather profuse thanks — he was his mother's son, after all — he left.

'You have a splendid son,' Daniel told her.

'Did you like him? He made a real effort. He's not usually that talkative. Most times he's a fairly quiet boy. He's a bit lazy but his heart's in the right place.'

'Definitely.' He recalled the lad's remark about the lazy ant. Once, when he himself was still a boy, he had observed an ant that had fallen into the cleverly constructed pit of an ant-lion. He had watched its

vain efforts to free itself. He had watched it fulfil its destiny. He could picture it so clearly that he shuddered involuntarily.

She noticed and asked, 'What's the matter? Is something wrong?'

8 Letters

Dear Bára,

This is a letter for your birthday. Although I know but a modest six months out of your forty-one years I feel as if I've known you longer than people I've known for many years.

I think I knew true love with my first wife — and I love Hana. I never thought I'd be able to love another woman. I genuinely had no wish to. I don't know whether I secretly yearned to in some corner of my soul, but if I did it was so secret I didn't even discover it. And then you appeared. For me, every moment with you is special and beautiful (even though it also fills me with a sense of guilt — guilt towards Hana, towards you, guilt towards God who, while I believq He is merciful, could hardly approve of deceit).

Birthdays are times for wishes. So I wish you first of all, that wherever you go, you should dwell in mercy, understanding, freedom and kindliness. I wish you moments of peace and a faith that will overcome your anxieties. I wish you the love of your sons. I wish that everything of importance that happens in your life will be better than what went before. I wish (and pray) that death, of which you so often speak, should stay away from your door. I wish that your eyes should see what the eyes of others cannot, that your fingers should work wonders, that your plans should find fulfilment and that your words should be heard, that your heart should find love and your dreams peace.

/ ask God to forgive us for yielding to love. My sweet dove in the cleft of the rock concealed above the ravine grant that I see my own face allow me to hear your voice.

Thinking of you,

Love, Daniel

My love,

I still feel you to be a miracle. (How long can one live with a miracle?) It's as if you were wanting to demonstrate to me everything that is unbelievable. You surprise me again and again, either with something new or with something that endures.

I read your birthday wishes over and over again and each time they thrill me and move me. No one has ever said so many beautiful things to me. What I find most fascinating of all is that I believe every word, that I trust you, that I believe things can last. The possibility of things lasting dumbfounds me because it is something so rare, so difficult and even unseemly. That love could last — I don't mean the everyday kind, but the love that is a celebration — is something I had ceased to believe in when I realized the weakness and weariness of the poor little human creature and its inability to stick at anything.