Ivan Klima - The Ultimate Intimacy

7

Next morning, Daniel had to go to Plzeň to visit Petr.

He found an empty compartment on the train and sat down, full of Bara's kisses and caresses and the scent of her body.

They had slept for only a short while when he was awoken by her crying. He had asked her what was wrong.

She had had a terrible dream and now she was afraid. Afraid that her husband would die. Afraid that he, Daniel, would die and that she would die too. Life was senseless. It was badly devised. You were either unhappy and suffered or you were happy and afraid that everything would coma to an end.

He had taken her in his arms and she had begged him: Stay with me. Hold me tight. Don't forsake me! Then she had fallen asleep. He had felt an oppressive tiredness. The bridge that led across the dark pit ended on the brink of another dark pit. What was the point of seeking bridges that led nowhere anyway? Was life really just the outcome of a lottery run by nature? Just a cluster of incredibly complex proteins? Would everything come to an end? Our soul, this earth, the entire universe? And he, for most of his life, had merely cherished false hopes, and consoled himself and others with the news of the great, miraculous event of resurrection, an occurrence that overturned all the natural laws that had applied up till then?

Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?

A lamp had been shining weakly in the corner of the bedroom so he had been able to make out that the room he was lying in was not his

home and the woman lying at his side was not his wife. He had been gripped by a strange feeling of uncertainty or even angst. As if someone had thrust him into an alien world, a tree in a foreign garden, a landlubber in a wobbly coracle or a sailor in the desert. He had got up and tiptoed out of the room, finding the toilet in the dark. Then he had drifted around the strange house for a while. The emptiness of the universe had stared out at him from the abstract paintings that covered the walls. One of the houses inhabitants had placed a model of some lofty and extremely concrete hangar in a glass case. A desk was strewn with rough drafts of plans, as well as several journals. He had picked up the topmost one. Discovering Modernist Art in Catalonia.

He had leafed through it nervously, registering in passing the bizarre shapes of buildings in coloured photographs: Casa Vicens, Casa Batdó, Palau Guell, Casa Lleó Morera. . He had put the journal down again and closed his eyes for a moment.

It was an alien world. Six billion people. Six billion separate worlds. What were the chances that the one he had entered into a relationship with, maybe by accident, maybe by divine guidance, would turn out to be friendly? What if the woman on whose account he was staking everything he had lived by so far had really driven her husband to that desperate action? How could he have agreed to make love to her in a suicide s bed? How could he believe in the totality of her love, knowing that she was deceiving another man?

Because he is a foolish clergyman, who has more experience of Scripture than of women and childishly believes that his vocation is to believe!

From somewhere a carillon could be heard, no doubt sounding the hour. It was six in the morning.

When had he returned, Bára had been sitting on the bed. 'Something up?'

'No, nothing.' What did it mean that this woman had first appeared at the very moment his mother was leaving the world?

'Don't you like being with me any more?'

'What makes you ask?'

'You're looking at me so strangely.'

'It's the unfamiliarity, that's all. I'm not accustomed to seeing you the moment I wake up.'

'Do you find me frightful in the morning?'

'I never find you frightful.'

'I hope not.' She had let him embrace her but then had pushed him away. 'You've got your prisoner to go and see and I must go to the hospital.'

'First thing this morning?'

'I must go to the hospital,' she had repeated, 'and sort out lots of other things. You forget I also have a job, and I'm a mother and a wife.'

He couldn't understand her. She cared for her husband with the selfsame devotion with which she had made love to him a few hours ago. It didn't perturb her to make love to him while her husband was lying in a mental hospital. Was she callous or just desperate? Perhaps her husband had hurt her so much that she felt free to heed the promptings of her heart. Or perhaps this was natural behaviour, the way that most men and women behave, and it was only that he had never suspected it till now, because he had lived in the artificial, long-abandoned world of biblical commandments?

'Do you love your husband?' he had asked, when they were sitting at breakfast.

'Don't parrot my questions!'

'Sorry.'

'I'll tell you the dream I had last night.' She had briskly cut and buttered some bread. 'Do you like honey?'

'I'll have what you have. Are you going to tell me that dream?'

'Dream? Oh, yes, the one that gave me a fright. Wait a mo, I must try and remember the beginning. Oh, yes. I was walking along a road; it was in the country, where we have our country seat, and all of a sudden I saw an overturned motorcycle at the side of the road and alongside it a headless human body — the head was lying on the ground a little way off. But living eyes were staring at me from that head and when they caught sight of me, the head started to speak, begging me to save it. And I dashed back like a wild thing to the village post office and shouted at them to call for an ambulance, that there was a man lying there in need of help. In the dream I believed that the head could be joined back on to the body, but the women sitting there gossiping weren't perturbed in the least, they just pushed a telephone in my direction and told me to call whoever I liked. When I managed to get through to the hospital and tell them I'd found a head without a body and a body without a head and they had to come and help quickly, the doctor said to me — and I remember it word for

word — "I fear, madam, that it will be too late, we don't resuscitate the dead."'

'A strange dream.'

'Why strange? All I've got left of Sam is his head which has achieved things I have great regard for. And I don't want to accept that a head without a body is dead and can't be saved. That's the way it is with my love for him, seeing that you asked.'

She had accompanied him all the way to the station and on to the platform. 'So we won't see each other again today?' she had asked, as if she had only just realized that he was leaving. They had kissed, but she had stayed waiting on the platform until the train had pulled away.

He opened the window, letting in a gust of cold air full of smoke, soot and poisonous fumes, and leaned out to cool his forehead.

Then he sat back in the corner and closed his eyes. I ought to focus my thoughts on the prison visit: what am I going to tell that lad? Am I to cheer him up or reprimand him for letting me down and tell him he can no longer count on my help? His thoughts didn't obey him. He was unable to tear himself away from the previous night, from his own promises, from the caresses that his body could still feel.

How long ago was it since he first set eyes on that lad among the inmates? Petr had aroused his interest because of the rapt attention with which he followed his message about a forgiving Lord who calls to Himself all those who are pure in heart.

That time, two years ago, he still had some enthusiasm and strength and could impart it to others. Or perhaps he thought he had some, and thought he could impart it. When he baptized Petr, he believed he had managed to wrest one victim from the clutches of Satan. And he had said as much to the lad, even though for Daniel, Satan was just a pictorial expression of the fall into the void, into the dark pit, where nothingness reigns. When he formally pronounced the words: Petr Koubek, I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, he noticed the lad starting to shake with emotion and saw a tear roll down his cheek.