Ivan Klima - The Ultimate Intimacy

But apparently he had been wrong about him and about himself.

Perhaps he had only imagined his strength. Perhaps he had only imagined his faith — he had simply needed it to give his actions a goal

and lend meaning to his life, to cover up the emptiness that terrified him.

Faith could offer an escape from reality, from the cold indifference of the universe, from the cruelty of the world and from life's sufferings, in the same way that drugs or love could.

'He wants to help people,' his daughter had said about Petr. Help people find an escape from reality. From the cold indifference of the universe. Etcetera.

If I accept that, in what way do I differ from that lad, whom I should console and try to wrest once more from Satan's grasp? What kind of moral relativism will I end up in?

Less than two hours later he was sitting opposite Petr in the visiting room, where cheap curtains sought to conceal the bars. Daniel passed him a parcel of food and a few books that Eva had chosen for him. But he did not let on who had wrapped the parcel or chosen the books.

Petr was pallid but didn't seem to be low in spirits. Everything he had done, he now asserted, he had done in a good cause. Nothing in the world could be achieved without money, not even spreading the faith in the saving power of the Holy Spirit. He had already come to an agreement with some of his new friends — he'd better not mention their names here — that they would start to publish a magazine and he had promised to get them a few thousand at least to get it off the ground, for paper and printing. Once they had started selling the magazine, everything would have been different. He had tried to explain that to the people who interrogated him, but there were so many ex-Communists among them and they hated any mention of God's work. In fact they enjoyed obstructing it.

'If you think,' Daniel interrupted him, 'that you were doing God's work, then you're very much mistaken.'

Petr was ready for that reproach. 'So what about those who were doing God's work and were tortured or burnt at the stake as heretics?'

'You're not being prosecuted because of your beliefs but because you sold drugs.'

'That was only a beginning, Reverend. It was necessary if I was to show people they had to believe. Mankind is on the wrong path and Satan is leading it to destruction.'

Daniel said nothing. Petr's words echoed around the room: as empty, wretched and hollow as this place with its curtain-covered bars.

It was strange how for years he had striven to spread belief in a Saviour who rose from the dead and could resurrect others, and had never before doubted that the belief was good and that therefore he was doing good, and rejoiced over every single person he managed to persuade to listen and reflect. But what if he had been wrong throughout his life and the belief was neither positive nor negative? What if it was conducive to good and evil alike, in the same way that, as so often in the past, what was said in its name could be life-giving or deadly, hollow or meaningful, helpful or despicable. Was it possible to murder in its name and help the sick?

'But Reverend, you know me, don't you? You know I've taken the path to a new life, and what I did I did to guide to that path everyone who is looking for it.'

He felt like shouting at him to hold his tongue, and stop yelling about his great plans, that they were simply a means of trying to cover up his contemptible behaviour. But he wasn't here to accuse Petr. He had lost the need to reproach him for letting him down, and could not find in himself sufficient conviction to trust him again, or convince him of anything.

When they were saying goodbye, Petr asked him to take his best wishes to Eva, but he pretended not to hear the request. Anyway, there was nothing to stop him writing her letters should he wish.

He left the prison. Large snowflakes were flying through the air. It seemed to him that they were a dirty grey colour even before they reached the ground. Maybe they only looked that way to him. It occurred to him that his decision, after the revolution, to visit the prisons and try to save prisoners' souls, was maybe just a sign of overweening pride.

8 Letters

Dearest Dan,

I am so filled with you, and so desperate to talk to you (and when we're logether there's never time for anything — why must one eat and sleep?)

that I will pour my heart out to you through the computer at least. But fear not, there'll be no blood on the paper, just ink (my printer runs on ink).

It's odd how in spite of having death so near to me I am unable to perceive it as something real. I perceive it with my intellect, but not with my entire being. As if I was most aware of death at moments that seem unconnected with it. Such as when love or enthusiasm die, or if I say to myself: that's nothing new. Maybe it's because I was in a kind of shock and didn't have time to take in what had happened as something real. Now that I'm gradually getting over it, I feel an intense sorrow. I can't help thinking that life is so fragile, and the boundary between when someone is alive and when they turn into a corpse destined for nothing but decay is such a fine line and so hard to be aware of, that we can cross it at any moment, without warning and without a farewell.

We will all die. We are no more than flowers that wilt, for instance, or animals that die.

Perhaps I'm sad because people are being nice to me, while the man that I devoted most of my care, my time, my energy and my life to wants to hurt me, wants to bring me to my knees even if he has to die in the attempt. Now I've realized how cunningly he dreamed up his revenge (for what, dear God, for what?). Either he'd survive — which he definitely hoped he would — and I'd have to live with the permanent threat that he would do it again, or he wouldn't survive and he would burden me for ever with guilt by making a murderess of me. It was his intention to bring me to my knees, not to kill himself. If he had really wanted to kill himself, he has a revolver at home. All he had to do was take it out, place it to his head and press the trigger. Except that that would… I won't talk about it any more.

Darling, I'm so miserable that when I wake up in the morning I wonder whether I ought to get up at all, whether there is any sense in living. But then I remember the children, my mother and you, and think to myself that you might be sorry if I wasn't around, so I get up and keep going.

I thought about you today, how I woke up yesterday to find you there. I ask myself whether I really deserve you and persuade myself that I do, but the very next moment I am unable to figure out why you love me. I think about the worth of a person and what is important in life. I think about the fact that no one has ever been so kind to me as you. I'll never get used to it, I'll

never take it for granted. It will always remain a miracle and an honour, a favour, a whim of fate, maybe an accident, but in that case the accident is God or his mercy (see how you've already trapped me in your web?), in other words, something I didn't dare believe in, but must have been heading towards, after all. He made me a gift of you even though it went against his own Commandments, and his gift will last as long as I deserve it. I don't mean as a reward for anything specific, I mean a reward that won't ever be assessed, let alone enumerated or named. Maybe it will be for as long as I remain pure, hopeful, undemanding, unselfish, and believing that only pure love gives life meaning. Our love cannot be impure, even though, in the eyes of the holy joes and all the rest who aren't capable of it, all love-making is impure. You're incomparable and I thank the Lord God that he led me to you. If ever again I had the right to choose the man I'd like to live with, you would be the one.