Ivan Klima - The Ultimate Intimacy

I think of that first day I entered the church where you were preaching and it was the day when your mum died, which was something I didn't suspect and in fact at that moment you didn't yet know about it. Such fateful coincidences have been written about. Who arranges them? But in order for one to obey that mysterious command it is necessary to have a very special sort of perceptiveness. You summoned me to you and I know of no boundary I wouldn't want to cross with you. I'm not afraid of you. I trust you. When I'm with you the only feeling I have is one of security. I'm not afraid of you and I'm not afraid of myself with you. I'm happy, I'm unhappy that one day I'll discover it's the last day. I feel I'm morbid the way I'm often thinking about death, but most of all about the end. One day it will be adieu instead of au revoir. At every beginning I've always sensed the end and known that life only has meaning because it has an end. Like every embrace, every day, every joy, every pain.

I'd like to be with you now and instead I'm going away. With a husband who isn't nice to me, and with my children. They need me. I am their mother after all and I want to be a good one. At least that. I'll try and write you a letter if they leave me a few moments to myself.

I'll be back in Prague on Monday. Will you phone? Or write?

I'm thinking of you. I love you. Don't leave!

Love, Bára

Dearest,

Again I haven't seen you for several days. You're not sitting opposite me. You're not asking me questions. You're silent. But I know that for most of the time you'll be with me only in spirit. I can't tear myself away from you. It looks as if I — or we — might have crossed some inner barrier beyond which it is impossible to tear oneself away. Is that good? I don't know, but it is only beyond that barrier that real intimacy begins.

People oughtn't to lie to each other, they shouldn't lie about their feelings. One often forces oneself to have certain feelings on account of the children, or out of cowardice, or from a sense of duty, or out of sympathy (that's a feeling too), or from inertia, or anxiety, or from fear of being left on one's own or even of losing property. The two of us share neither children nor property, nor any duty to each other. All we have is love and I will never lie to you about it, I promise you, so you will be able to say: 'I believe everything you say'. Loveless love-making is humiliating and soul-destroying. Sometimes when I realize that's the way it is with most people (or so I believe and I have some knowledge from my experience as a clergyman), I say to myself: What hells people create instead of homes.

I read your letters and I'm almost afraid to believe them: they contain so much tenderness, anxiety, pain, longing, determination and despair. We have so little time and yet it flies at its age-old speed and we don't even manage to tell each other what has happened over the past hours let alone what has happened in the course of our lives. But love is not measured in minutes. What is it measured in? Completeness? Or devotion? Or the extent of longing? Or intimacy? What is completeness? How far does devotion extend? Giving one's life for another. Being frank with them. Standing by them in suffering. Not abandoning them even at moments when they seem quite distant. Thinking about them every moment. Saying not a single word to hurt them. Having patience. Knowing how to listen. Knowing how to understand what seems incomprehensible. Knowing how to wait. How to forgive. What is intimacy? There must be several degrees of intimacy and which of them is the highest degree, the most special, I am not able to say.

Something else occurs to me: the fact that you yearn to live in love means

you are closer to Jesus than those who pray every day yet call for revenge or harbour hatred in their hearts.

I'm talking like a preacher again. But I love you so much that I lose for a few seconds at least the feeling of guilt that pursues me almost unceasingly.

What will become of us?

Love, Dan

Dear Dannie,

We're having an Indian summer out here in Oregon and it's our second year fighting for the survival of the salmon. I've had loads of work as we've been repairing the house and changing the heating system, apart from which we've taken in my mother-in-law. She is eighty-five (see, there are even older grannies than me) and a bit confused. The other day she took the old pendulum clock off the wall, weights and all, and started to fiddle about with it. When I asked her what she was doing, she told me she was changing the batteries. I told her that that was something we all needed — to have our batteries changed — but unfortunately (for the time being anyway) it's not possible. So I have to shoulder everything here. My Bob can just about manage to trim branches and mow the lawn, but he's helpless in the house, even though it's his mother and he loves her.

Re. what you told me about Dad: I don't know what to think, I've been away for twenty-five years (a quarter of a century, brrr!). As far as his moral conduct is concerned I don't think he had too many scruples. He two-timed our mother. He thought Mum didn't know, but she did and she let me in on it (though probably not you), and she actually used to write to me about those women. She used to call them 'Daddy's tarts'. But I don't condemn Dad. In fact, I might have a teeny bit of understanding for him. He was a good-looking guy and women were crazy about him. I noticed it in the hospital. Mum was from another world, he must have had to live like a hermit with her. I don't think he and she hit it off too well, but since he was basically a nice guy, he never abandoned her. On the other hand, he lost a lot of years of his life. Maybe you don't know, but when they arrested him they held him for eight months in solitary. Can you imagine how horrific that was? And they beat him up. But seemingly they didn't manage to beat anything out of him, which is why they jailed him afterwards. What

happened after I've no idea, but I can understand that when he got back from there he wanted to make up for everything he'd missed. Or to experience something really powerful that would exorcize the horror of it. I expect I'm talking about something other than what you wanted to know, but then again, maybe not entirely. I don't know what's worse: to betray people you don't know, or betray your own folks. I understand your desire to clear Dad's name insofar as it's in jeopardy. I've always been pragmatic to a fault and it seems to me that when someone is that long dead, it's best to let him rest in peace. Those who loved him will go on loving him as long as they live. Those who didn't are not going to be swayed by you anyway. And in the end we'll all be forgotten, along with all the good and the bad things we did on earth.

I wrote that Dad was a good guy and like you I don't believe he wanted to hurt anyone, or ever did.

Do you remember how they stopped you from attending grammar school when the poor guy was in jail? And how they admitted you when he was released. Maybe the two things were connected. The best thing is to say: it's a closed book.

There goes the mother-in-law ringing for me again. She rings for me at least twice a day, but at least it's cheaper than when she calls her friends on the East Coast or in London. She does that all the time, unless she happens to be eating, sleeping or ringing for me.

We're planning a trip to Europe next year so maybe we'll see each other. What's new in my dear homeland? Have our films, hamburgers, chewing gum and tourists reached you yet? Poor country!

Give my love to Hana and the kids.

And a big kiss for you, saintly man!

Love, Rút

Dear Dan,

It's Sunday morning, the sun is not yet fully awake and the rest are still asleep so I'm actually all alone. The garden is beneath my window. The grass is full of leaves that give off a scent of mould. There is music playing. Heaven must be something like this. Forgive me for such a banal image of