Ivan Klima - The Ultimate Intimacy

'Yeah, I know, 'she said, 'but it was no fun for me. It was awfully cold and the people just stood there and there were terribly long speeches that were no fun at all. '

'And there were all the flags. '

Flags are no fun either. '

'What's your idea of fun, then?'

She pondered for a moment and then asked, 'That time, or in general?'

'That time or in general. '

'My idea of fun would be to fly. Not in a plane, but to actually have wings. To be a flamingus, say. '

'A what?'I said, baffled.

'You know, a bird of some kind,' she explained. A beautiful bird that flies where it likes. And I shouldn't think it suffers from sore throats and it doesn't have to go to a stupid school,' she added prosaically.

I gave her another cold compress and spread her some bread and butter. Then I told her I had to pop out for a while, but that her mother would be back in an hour.

She asked me where I was going.

I told her I had a meeting with the moderator but actually I had a date with Bára. We had arranged it when Magda was still well and I hadn't had a chance to call her and cancel it.

I knew that Magda would survive on her own for an hour; most fathers are out at work during the day and are therefore unable to sit

with their sick children, but I also knew that if I left her I would be taking one more step towards the destruction of myself and my family. A home that is divided inside cannot survive. 'I went anyway.

There was an autumnal storm in the night. The sky lit up and went dark and the thunder gradually got louder. I love storms. Maybe because they signify change, or more precisely a change that does not disturb order but on the contrary happens in harmony with it. Suddenly I recalled a storm in the distant past: the centre of it seemed to come to rest right over where we were living at the time. The lightning flashed again and again and the thunder roared without stopping. Mum was visibly scared, though she scarcely ever showed her feelings and certainly never fear. She was so scared that she made Rút and me move into the middle of the room and say a prayer with her.

So I relived the moment when my mother, still young at the time, stood next to me asking Almighty God for protection. I could still hear her voice that was lovelier and more powerful than any other sound and truly drowned the thunder.

I was overcome with nostalgia. How cruel is the law that God has imposed on all life. Death takes one's dearest and there is no appeal.

'Remember,' John Hus writes in The Daughter, 'that God created thee eternal and wants to dwell in thee for ever: eternal, to wit, immortal, for thou wilt never die. And in order that, immortal, thou shouldst be in eternal joy, God the Father gave His only begotten Son, true God, His own equal, and for you the Son submitted himself to a most loathsome and most cruel death, so that thou shouldst never die, He the best, the most beautiful, the most wise, the most rich and the most honoured!'

Haifa millennium later, the Czech — or more accurately, Moravian — philosopher Šafařík wrote: 'We can thank Darwin for having brought nature into history and thereby thrown light on the nature of "success" as a historical phenomenon: in "survival of the fittest" he distinguished success as an animal category and demonstrated that a live dog is more successful than a dead saviour. . In this respect, Jesus's life was a total failure. In historical terms, Golgotha is a place of execution and Jesus is

dead. The gallows are history, the cross mythology. Science and technology represent the hangover of a Christian world woken and sobered up after a mythical dream about the magical giver of cheap immortality. . It is an irony of the "history of salvation" that whereas salvation was supposed to put paid to history, history, on the contrary, has put paid to salvation. '

In Prague almost every second marriage ends in divorce. That doesn't apply to our church and even less so to married clergy. I know only a few divorced clergymen. They are condemned by their congregations and in most cases the pastor is obliged to leave. Does a man have a right to fall in love once he is married? Has he the right to look for intimacy with another person when he is unable to find it with those nearest to him?

The trouble is it is hard to recognize rights in love. It happens when one doesn't want it and even when one resists it. One tries to suppress that illegitimate feeling but the more one suppresses it, the more it grows.

I don't want to excuse myself or find excuses. I have acted irresponsibly. Certainly I acted irresponsibly that time, at the very beginning. When I held the hand of a woman who was still a stranger at the time. When I invited her into a house where I was alone and asked her not to leave yet. When I first embraced her. And I've only myself to blame that I wasn't able to confide in my wife.

The last time we met I put the following suggestion to her: What if I told my wife about you and you told your husband about me?

How old is your little girl? she asked.

I told her she was just twelve.

And you want to abandon her?

I said nothing.

Do you want to leave your wife?

I said nothing.

So why do you want to hurt them?

But it's just not possible to go on deceiving forever the people you live with.

Nothing lasts forever, she said.

I wanted to know what she meant.

Everything comes to an end one day. Even the tallest skyscraper has a roof. Life isn't a television serial.

You mean our love will end?

I mean everything will end. Life too.

I tried to persuade her that lying corrodes the soul. By doing things in secret we did more harm than if we acted openly.

No, she stuck to her guns: it wouldn't change anything, people would only suffer more. Then she added: Maybe it would change something, after all.

For a moment I fell for the hope that she knew of some solution, but she said: We'd stop seeing each other, because they would give us an ultimatum.

Then she burst into tears. You want to leave me. You're only thinking about it because you want to leave me! Then she said: There's nothing to stop you leaving me and no reason not to hurt me because I contravene the Ten Commandments!

I don't want to hurt her or Hana, but there's nothing for it but to hurt someone now. Either that or live a lie and destroy my soul. Can someone preach the Gospel to others, knowing that he is going to hurt another, or when he is living a lie?

Oh, Lord. . you are not a God who takes pleasure in evil; with you the wicked cannot dwell. The arrogant cannot stand in your presence; you hate all who do wrong. You destroy those who tell lies. (Psalm 5)

On the way home I decided I would make a clean breast of it to Hana. The moment I decided, I felt a sense of relief. I also considered each of the sentences I would say and their possible consequences.

When Hana came home from the hospital in the evening, she sat down as usual and made herself a coffee. I went to her but instead of asking her what was new at work I told her there was something I would like to speak to her about.

She glanced in my direction. Has something happened? she asked.

Her face, so familiar to me, reflected her tiredness, but in her look L saw total unsuspecting trust and I suddenly felt like a criminal lying in wait for his victim and raping her, thereby depriving her of any belief