Ivan Klima - The Ultimate Intimacy

Love, Bára

P.S. Monday a.m. Last night I wailed about myself, but I don't like feeble self-pity. I want to tell you that I am happy on account of my love for you.

Now the sun has come out again, a spider has crocheted me a lovely web in the lounge that is a real architectural achievement. (What will the poor thing eat now there are no more flies around?) The day is beautiful. And so is life.

Don't cry, little girl, don't cry,

And don't despair. Your husband is more despairing because he feels that the order he was accustomed to is crumbling (it is something that is happening to all of us but we have to find the strength to endure it) and in addition, he has heard death knocking on the front door. He felt lonely and still does. And he blames that loneliness on you. It would require great wisdom for him not to try using force to extort what he wants. You say yourself that men tend to be weaker and neither weakness nor despair are conducive to wisdom. A person in despair makes fatal mistakes and acts foolishly and self-destructively. Don't ascribe evil intentions when someone is shaking with despair. Despair has no logic or rational cause, in this it is akin to love or hate or any other emotion.

You haven't told me much about your life but one thing I've understood is that you wanted an outstanding man at your side. What you failed to realize is that men who have achieved something tend to be engrossed with themselves; they follow their own goal and don't look around themselves much. They want to be cosseted and praised, they require obedience and service. I expect that was and is your experience, which is why you praise me so much and apologize for not being of service to me. Why ever should you be? One can't serve another's interest and will and live and create at the same time. If two people want to live together they must give up at least some of their selfishness, in fact it is a major opportunity for people to prove their ability to love selflessly. If they're not capable of it, or if one of them isn't, it is generally bad for both. Those that felt themselves the centre of the universe suddenly discover that they have been left all on their own, but they rarely admit their fault. Instead they start to lament or blame their companions. But there's no reason for you to be depressed. You're not alone, it's just that your cross sometimes weighs you down. Nobody's going to forsake you. Even your husband got into such a panic at the thought of losing you that he made up his mind to do what he did.

It's late now. Outside it's a starry night even here in Prague and I'm still

affected by your letter. I'm thinking of you and am beginning to understand that the praise that you heap on me so often and which seems to me unmerited I am actually hearing on behalf of someone else. It is someone else that you're constantly apologizing to, someone else you're trying to explain to that he is marvellous, whereas you are no rose of Sharon, no lily of the valley, no turtle dove in the cleft of the rock, but nothing, the dust of the earth to be walked on. You do it in the hope of receiving mercy at last. Dearest, you are the cause of your own suffering, you give rise to a situation in which the one who should be thanking you is angry instead, and the one who does the giving also does the thanking. And I have the feeling that the scar on your wrist is not your only one, nor the most important one for that matter: the main one is inside, in your heart, in your mind, in your soul. Somewhere in that scar, in that wound, is the root of why so often you feel you would like to end your existence, end your life, to escape. Those who are denied the right to an equal share of love (as they see it) are affected in the very ground of their being.

For me you remain a rare treasure, a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valley, a dove in a cleft of the rock, where I would always come to find you and hold you in the palm of my hand, so that you should know you are worthy of love.

Love, D.

Dear Reverend,

I am sending you these two roses which have miraculously flowered with many thanks for the words you said at my dear Betty's grave. If she could have heard them and still been able to understand them, she would have wept with emotion the way I did. Even though I'm a pagan, Reverend, and the only thing I believe is that we are dust and to dust we will return, I'm grateful to you that you bring some dignity to that departure from this world. There is nothing worse than an assembly line ceremony and I am sure that you would render me the same service.

When I entered the greenhouse this morning for the first time since the day she died, I came and gave the sad news to all the flowers. You might not even be aware that my late wife had a very special relationship with them and she was endowed with a great power. Whenever the roses started to wilt or when they didn't come into flower, she would come and talk to them

or sing them a song and the roses would perk up and a few days later would blossom abundantly, and the same applied to other flowers too.

Now we've been left on our own, motherless orphans, but I can look after myself. In the final months I had to take care of Betty too when she was unable to look after herself any longer.

When she was still alive, you mentioned that you were looking for a room for that lad who's staying with you. I've got plenty of room here and he wouldn't even have to pay anything. What need have I for money? I only hope there won't be any problems with him like with that Petr Koubek, although even he parted company with us peacefully. On the other hand, at least I wouldn't be alone in the flat and I don't want to think about a woman in place of my Betty. I'm too old to change my ways now.

The roses are a hybrid tea called Bettina. I grew them on account of their name and they used to love her. Whenever she walked among them they would bow their heads to her. Once more, please accept my thanks.

Respectfully yours,

Břetislav Houdek

Dear Dan

The first thing Samuel did when he came back from the mental hospital was to lay into me verbally: I didn't have enough fresh bread at home and water had been splashed in the bathroom (Saša had taken a shower in the morning). I was told that life with me is quite simply unbearable because I constantly force him to concern himself with crap. I'm not sure whether the crap is supposed to be me or whether he meant it figuratively, but quite simply I drag him down with banalities. I had, of course, scrubbed the place from top to bottom and done the shopping as if expecting a visit from the President himself. This was his response to my efforts, and at moments like that something inside me rebels and I cease wanting to live.

I have to admit that after Samuel's scene I took myself off and visited my tarot reader. And she read it all: suffering and illness in the family, but what was most important of all was the location of the king of hearts which led my card reader to utter: You have a big love on the way. Not on the way, I said, it's here already!

I'm happy. I've met you. You are the most beautiful thing that has ever happened to me. In a lasting sense too, I believe. And that's coming from someone who every minute of her life thinks about finite things. The joy you bring me is pure; it is unsullied by doubt, lack of trust or fear — or, you may be surprised to hear, by pangs of conscience.

When I fell in love with my husband, I believed there would never again be anyone who would mean more to me. I valued the fact that something like that had happened to me. In the end it all came to naught. How naive it is to think that something is going to last, that it will be the same at the end as at the beginning. Is it a failure? Is it a defeat? I still believe that love outlives everything and it can last. I know that as long as I live I shall love, as long as I breathe my heart will yearn for deep, complete feeling.