Ivan Klima - The Ultimate Intimacy

Reverend, if I'd written you a letter like this twenty years ago you might

have taken it as a provocation, but not now, surely? Looking forward to your reply, Alois Bubnik

Dear Bára,

From our first or maybe our second conversation, I was taken aback by your gratitude for every sign of interest and for every answer to a question. Then I realized that you were someone thirsting for love (since childhood?) and that was why you were so grateful and humbly thankful.

I can imagine the gratitude you heaped on your husband, particularly since he was a professional whom you respected, when he left his wife and daughter on your account (or so you thought, although he no doubt did it on his own account as well, because he wanted you).

Gratitude, humility and praise are the way to kindle love in a good heart, that is what you believed and you behaved accordingly, as you still do. But when gratitude and admiration are expressed constantly they can have the

opposite effect. They become a kind of drug for the one who is on the receiving end, who then starts to demand admiration and gratitude at all costs, by means of violence, blackmail or threats.

In so doing you can cause the person on whom you shower gratitude and admiration to believe in his superiority and above all his superiority over you. In place of a companion from whom you expect love you create yourself a master who regards himself as a god, who gives orders, takes decisions and issues pardons and rewards where appropriate. But all those functions belong to another Lord altogether. The human reward for gratitude and recognition tends to be ingratitude. The person who has tried to obtain love by means of gratitude and service tends to receive the opposite. In the words of the apostle: love is the fulfilling of the law. Everything in life that is given apart from it is of less account. Therefore, he who gives thanks for love without accepting thanks for the love he himself gives, helps to enfeeble or even destroy it.

You heap gratitude on me but forget about yourself. You're very special. And don't thank me for every caress — after all, you do your share of caressing.

I'd like to caress you now, for a long time without stopping. I'd caress you like that until the world outside the window disappeared along with my 'mission', our obligations and commitments and we'd remain all alone in the world (for a moment, at least).

All alone — does that mean without God too? I expect so. He might be able to accept our love but not our deception.

I'm sorry for also mentioning the thing I fear, but perhaps it only shows how much I love you that I act the way I do.

Love, D.

P.S. Re. the future of the world and humanity. I think it all depends on whether we manage to feel another's pain as our own.

Dear Rút,

I've hesitated a long time, wondering whether I ought to write to you about something I've not talked to anyone else about, or whether I was able to. But even though you're so far away, you are still the only really close

relative I have and the only one who might possibly have some understanding for me.

I've committed something I never thought I'd be capable of doing. No, of course I've not killed anyone, or stolen the Sunday collection. Maybe you can guess. Yes, I've been unfaithful to Hana and still am and I've not had the courage to tell her yet.

I'm not able to explain my behaviour let alone excuse it. I still love Hana. But it's sort of a calm and unexciting relationship. The other woman excites me. She is passionate by nature and she lures me the way one is lured to an abyss. I've made up my mind a hundred times to put an end to it but then she phones me or I catch sight of her and I realize that I haven't the strength to break it off with her. Besides which, she begs me over and over again not to forsake her. I have the feeling she needs me in order to live. Maybe I'm deceiving myself as I have on so many occasions when I have trusted my conviction that people mean what they say. I know you can't advise me and it's not advice that I want, nor understanding for that matter. I simply needed someone to confide in and don't really have anyone but you. What a pity you're so far away.

Best wishes. Love, Dan

1

Old Mrs Houdková is on the point of death. She wants to stay home, she has no wish to die in hospital. Daniel therefore calls on her at least once a week, usually on a Thursday. He doesn't even need to say anything or comfort her, just his presence reassures the old lady.

A bunch of asters is wilting slightly in a vase. Daniel makes the old lady some tea and puts the piece of tart that Hana has sent her on a plate, which the grandmother hardly touches. 'How is it out?' she wants to know.

Outside it is fine and unusually mild for the third week in October.

'But the birds haven't flown away yet,' the old lady says, 'and the roses are almost finished.' Then she asks Daniel to say the Lord's Prayer with her and she adds the Apostles' Creed of her own accord. She believes that Christ will come to judge the living and the dead and also in the resurrection of the dead. 'Verily, verily, I say unto you He that heareth my word, and believeth in him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.'

The old lady glances up and says without warning, 'I'm anxious, Reverend.'

'About what, Sister Houdková?'

'About what's to come.'

He ought to reassure her and tell her that she can expect bliss in the presence of the Lord, eternal love, in other words, but he remains silent, and suddenly feels as if he is on the edge of a dark pit into which every living thing falls, in which nothing lasts, neither hours, nor days, nor years, nor centuries, nor millennia. Nothing will escape it.

Make haste to answer me, O Lord! My spirit fails!

Hide not thy face from me, lest I be like those who go down to the Pit.

(Psalm 143)

He merely takes the old lady's veiny, wizened hand in his and says what anyone might say: 'Have no fear, Sister Houdková!' That's all. He doesn't even add: The Lord is with you and will not forsake you. Not even what he had once said to his father: that his soul would not die but would live for ever. He just holds her hand in silence. Then he gets up, promises he will be back soon, and leaves her.

When he leaves the house he realizes he is still standing on the edge of a dark pit, with emptiness below him and before him, and he is overcome by dizziness.

It is just midday and suddenly he is at a loss what to do with his time. Hana is at work and the children aren't back till the evening. He can go and sit in his office and wait in case someone comes requiring help, which he won't give anyway. Also he could prepare his sermon but he has the feeling he will never again be able to mount the pulpit to say a single word. He could go to his workshop and do some carving, wrest from the formless wood all the shapes it contains. He could sit and play the piano. Or write a letter to Bára. Instead he stops in front of a telephone booth and hesitates for a moment. He knows Bára doesn't like him calling her at home or at the office where her husband might be present, and even when he is not there, his and her colleagues are, and are always watching her.

Nevertheless, he dials the office number and an unfamiliar female voice announces it to be the design studio. He asks for Mrs Musilová, the architect.

A moment later Bára takes the phone. 'How do you do,' she says in a formal tone. 'One moment, please,' she says then, 'I'll take the call next door.'

He waits in the booth, aware of a strange agitation; another step and he'll fall.

'Dan, is something up?' her voice says at last.