Ivan Klima - The Ultimate Intimacy

'What's that supposed to mean?' Bára asks.

'That no home would be better than such a home as this.'

'Nobody's forcing you to stay here,' Bára says.

'Stop fighting,' Saša begs them, afraid that a row is brewing between them. 'After all, nothing so terrible has happened.'

'Does that mean you want a divorce?' Samuel asks.

'You're the one who doesn't feel at home here.'

And are you trying to say this is a home?'

'Jesus Christ,' Bára shouts, 'what's a home supposed to be then? Am I supposed to sit at home like a slave even when my lord and master isn't meant to be here?'

And what about the children?'

'Children, children. The boy's not even allowed to whistle in the front hall.'

'Your son does too much whistling.'

'My son is not allowed to whistle because he's my son,' Bára shouts. If you loved me just a little bit you'd love him too.'

'If you loved me just a little bit, you'd behave differently.'

'If I behaved differently — it's always me. I spend my time running around you like a maidservant and when did you last even say a kind word to me?'

'If you were to behave differently I might say kind words to you.'

'What is behaving differently supposed to mean?'

'Not behaving like a tart!'

'What did you say?'

Samuel can feel the blood rushing to his head and at the same time he feels a sharp pain in the region of his heart: she'll actually cause him to have a heart attack.

Bára sobs and her son comforts her. Samuel turns on his heel and without a word locks himself in his room.

He feels like breaking something. He picks up the newspaper, crumples it up and throws it in the basket; then he kicks the basket, which overturns and scatters papers all around the room.

Coloured stars move around on the computer screen. He stares at them for a moment; he could throw the computer on the ground, but he knows that he won't, he'll just switch it off to stop it irritating him.

His anger gradually gives way to despair.

He opens the top drawer of his desk in which all his various medicines are neatly arranged and he takes two diazepam tablets to calm his nerves, although he knows that no tablets will help him. She's the only one who can help him, that damned woman. If only she were to come and say: I love you, I don't want to be with anyone, anyone, anyone but you because you're the best man in the world. The best man of all — the way she used to repeat it when they first met, when she was fighting to win him and to get him to marry her.

Then he remembers how they spent a holiday in the firm's chalet in the Western Tatras three years after their marriage. She was already expecting Aleš and couldn't go on hikes. So he and two of his colleagues set off on a long hike to Ostrý Roháč via Baníkov. When they set out in the morning it looked like the start of a sunny summer day, hut on the return journey the weather changed completely and a storm arrived with hail, fog and cold. They were obliged to shelter for some

time beneath a rocky cliff, and instead of returning at dusk they didn't get back until late at night.

When at last they arrived totally exhausted, she threw herself on him, hugging him and kissing him and helping him out of his wet clothes and rubbing his frozen feet, all the while repeating over and over again how she had been afraid for him, and had actually prayed for him to return safe and sound, and how happy she now was that he was back with her again. Then all of a sudden she burst into tears. He asked her why she was crying and she said, 'because I love you so much and couldn't live without you'.

It occurs to Samuel that if he had died that night he would have died happy, because he was loved. Still young and loved. He won't ever manage that now, he has lost his chance to die young and loved. His chest tightens more and more with self-pity and he notices that his face is wet. Now it is he who is crying; he is crying because if he were to die now Bára would not even shed a tear, instead she would probably heave a sigh of relief.

If only he had the strength to leave this hell, this insecurity. If only he had sufficient determination to be alone. If only he had just one pillar to lean on. Samuel sits crumpled up in his armchair. He listens to the movements in the flat. But his stepson isn't whistling any more and Bára nas most likely locked herself in her bedroom. He would wait in vain for her to come and ask him to forgive her.

It strikes Samuel that he should buy himself a dog to share his dog's life with him.

5

First thing in the morning, Dr Wagner rushed into the parish office and informed Daniel that he had some important news for him about his father. He had managed to find a man in the ministry who had access to the secret police files and he was willing to let him have a look at them. 'I needed it in connection with something else but as I was there I asked him whether I might not take a look at your father's file too, if it existed. He brought it to me and I discovered that it contained no agreement signed by your father.'

Wagner then started to explain that State Security classified their

collaborators into several categories. At the lowest level were the 'confidants' who were often unaware what they were being used for. For instance, it was enough to persuade a doctor to send someone for spa treatment or clinical examination and that would allow their agents to enter his flat undisturbed in order to install a bugging device or photograph something.

'The doctor would have to have been willing to do what they wanted,' Daniel commented.

'But they wouldn't introduce themselves as secret policemen, would they? They would pretend to be someone who was concerned about the health of one of his subordinates. Or as the chairman of the trade union branch. On other occasions, they would pretend to be investigating some crime or other.'

'Do you think they merely took advantage of my father, then?'

'Definitely.'

'For how long?'

'That's the second piece of good news. Less than two years. Then your father, as is clear from the report of his controlling officer, started to suspect they were playing some game with him and began talking to his friends about it, and that fact was reported by one of the secret police agents working in the hospital. So they terminated the connection.'

'When did all this happen?'

'Shortly after your father's release from prison. Inter alia they classified him as a 'has-been', on account of that house of your grand-lather's.'

'Poor old Dad. They would stick a label on people and shove them into a category from which there was no escape.'

'But your father did escape, as you can see.'

Yes, the best way of escaping them was by departing from this world. Dad managed that seventeen years ago.

'Thank you very much, I'm extremely grateful.' He ought to make a greater show of gratitude and pleasure, even though, as he noted to his surprise, he felt nothing of the kind. He was too aware of his own burden to feel any real sense of relief at that moment. None the less he said, 'I am in your debt, very much so.' Then the thought struck him: 'Figuratively and literally. I expect that information must have cost you something, not to mention the time that you have spent on obtaining it.'

'But Reverend, I did it on account of your father's good name. Moreover, as I explained to you, I got in contact with that fellow in connection with another matter.'

Dr Wagner took his leave and it struck Daniel that it was possible that the file the lawyer had seen had also contained details about his father's private life. The thought that a member of his congregation might know about his father's peccadilloes, and perhaps even the names of his mistresses, did not cheer him.