Ivan Klima - The Ultimate Intimacy

'Whenever you come it's like the sun coming out.'

'Come on, Petr, where did you read that?'

'In the Bible, of course, the one you left here for me: "His face shone like the sun", or something like that.'

'Everyone sends you greetings,' Daniel said, ignoring Petr's comparison of him with the Saviour. 'Alois too. He's earning money now. He's got a job with a building firm as a bricklayer.'

'Yeah. It's wicked how time flies. On the outside, at least.'

'I brought you some fruit. And my wife baked you a cake.'

'You are angels, the pair of you, Reverend.'

'Give the poetry a rest, Petr, you know I don't like it. It's quite possible that you won't even get a chance to eat it in here.'

'I bet I will. My lawyer told me they're postponing the hearing again. The court went and lost some papers apparently.'

'They've postponed the hearing?'

'For at least a month. They won't get here any sooner.'

'You'll put up with it for another month, seeing that you've put up with it for two years already.'

'I will, of course, but Reverend you have no idea what it's like when you're all ready to leave and then the moment is put off Every day drags by and you suddenly feel what a hell hole this place is.'

'It's also up to us to decide whether we live in hell or not.'

And also up to those who are with you here from morning to night. This place is swimming in evil as if you'd kicked over a bucket of it. And when you behave any differently they start to hate you. When they notice you praying, for instance, they either laugh at you or want to beat you up.'

'I know, Petr. I'll ask the lawyer if there is any way of speeding up the hearing.'

And what if they don't release me?'

'They will. And if they don't, you'll have to put up with it.'

'With your help, I would.'

'You'd cope with it even without my help. If you have really changed inside you'll manage it because you know that the Lord Jesus will help you.'

'I tend to believe in your help, Reverend. The Lord Jesus is too far away'

'He isn't, Petr. You only need to open the Bible.'

'Yeah, I know. But I haven't even got my copy any more. I lent it to that bright spark who shares my cell. He's half gypsy, or says he's only half. He's never read anything like it, but he's quite taken with the way Jesus performed miracles.'

'Petr, the miracles aren't the most important thing in scripture. What's more important is the message of love.'

'I know, Reverend. But what would a gypsy like him know about love?'

'So you tell him then.'

'Me? Hold on, Reverend. . After all, I've lived like an animal all my life. An animal among animals. I can recall every kind word that was ever said to me, there were so few of them.'

'But there were some. Anyway it's good you're thinking this way. That you're thinking about yourself and not blaming everyone around you.'

'You're the one who taught me that, Reverend. Before then I used to do the same as everyone around me. I saw the splinter in other peoples eyes but didn't notice the beam in my own.'

'Petr, I also wanted to tell you I'm trying to find you a job. Mr Houdek from our congregation has a garden centre and he's bound to have some kind of job for you.'

'Thank you, Reverend.' He didn't seem too enthusiastic at the prospect of a job in a garden centre. 'I've also done something for you.' He pulled out a large sheet of paper. On it was drawn a head with a crown of thorns. The face was so deformed that it looked almost cubist. 'I drew this for you. And for your wife.'

Daniel took the picture and thanked him for it. Then he wished him patience and strength. 'Christ can be with you anywhere,' he said to him as they parted. 'There is no place His love can't reach.'

On the way home, it occurred to him to call in at his mother's small flat at Červený vrch and collect a picture. His mother had moved there after his father's death. There had only been room for a few pieces of furniture from the old flat, and some pictures, most of which

had been given to his father by women artists he had treated. There was one picture that Daniel liked. It depicted a young gypsy girl with a basket of flowers. She had a sweet face and big breasts that were just partly revealed. The painting wasn't signed but he didn't mind that; he liked the flower-girl. She had represented for him — during his adolescence at least — an ideal of beauty: dark eyes, a dusky complexion and big breasts. Maybe that was what he found attractive about Hana when he first set eyes on her.

He gazed at the picture for a while but could not make up his mind to take it down from the wall. Instead he opened the window. On the lawn below, someone had set up a low metal pylon and fixed vanes on top of it. It might have been a work of art, a child's construction or even part of a wind generator. He watched the vanes revolving quietly for a moment and then went back into the room and opened the wardrobe. All his mothers clothes were hanging there: her jumper with the darned sleeves, her worn overcoat and a few dresses, only one of which was worthy of the name of Sunday best. His mother wore it only on family birthdays, or for church on Sundays.

He was touched by the shabbiness of the things, even though possessions meant little to him. His mother couldn't afford to buy clothes and he didn't earn enough to give her anything towards them. It was only now that he could afford it, now that it was too late.

He wandered around the flat a little longer. He opened the refrigerator, which contained nothing but a half-empty bottle of ketchup and a tube of some ointment that had to be kept cool. It looked as if Hana had already taken away any food that might have gone bad.

On the armchair by the bed there lay a black-bound Bible in the Kralice translation; his mother had refused to abandon the language she had grown up with. There was a bookmark in the third chapter of John's Gospel and he noticed that his mother had drawn a faint line alongside three of the verses.

And this is the condemnation, that light came into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.

But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.

His mother strove to live in truth as revealed in scripture and as required by it, and she had brought him up to do likewise. She had believed he would manage it; she believed he would achieve something important, that he would leave his mark on this world.

When he failed to get into the grammar school because his father happened to be in prison at the time, branded as an enemy of the state and of the rotten system that held sway then, Daniel became despondent at the thought of having to become a trainee somewhere. At the time, his mother consoled him and assured him that everything that befell him would prove useful one day, and that as long as it was God's will that he should achieve something good and useful, there was no power on earth that could prevent it, and there was no reason why he should slacken his resolve.

In those days, he really did believe he was pre-destined for great deeds. Since he had no interest in technology, travel or politics, those deeds would have to be performed in other spheres. He used to have dreams — they might have been daydreams, but it was impossible to tell so many years on — in which he would appear dressed in a toga like a Greek philosopher, or a prophet even, and at such moments of enlightenment he would come up with all sorts of sentences that struck him as both wise and significant.

So he was enrolled on a booksellers' training course, but he didn't have a chance to qualify, as a year later his father returned home from eight years in prison, and strangely enough, Daniel was accepted into the grammar school.