Ivan Klima - The Ultimate Intimacy

she didn't need anything but they could give something to Máša.

What a suggestion!

'But she's abandoned,' his wife explained, 'she has nobody. Last week she called in to see me and wept. She's lost her husband and her children. Do you realize how awful that must be for her?'

'Nothing we can give her is going to cure her loneliness.'

'But she'll feel that we are fond of her and thinking about her.'

'Fine.'

'She goes around in such a threadbare coat.'

'If you think so, then you — we — can buy her a coat. But I want to buy you something too.'

'But I don't need anything. I've got you.'

To conceal his embarrassment, he picked up a tray of filled cookie-moulds and carried it over to the oven. On the way, he skidded on some spilt oil that had been badly wiped up and just managed to catch the edge of the cooker to prevent himself from falling, but all the metal moulds in the shape of stars, pine-cones and hearts tipped on to the floor with a crash.

Everything was falling to pieces, and even the things that still held together, only held together illusorily.

He didn't buy Máša a coat but took her some money. He noticed that she had a bruise under her eye. Her ex-husband had punched her when she came to collect the children for the weekend. At least that is something Daniel would never do. A reassuring thought that all around him there were people harming each other who had fallen even lower than he.

'Money won't help me, Reverend, I have lost the will to live,' she said.

'Whatever are you saying, Máša?'

'Every night I think of jumping off somewhere, from a rock or some bridge, and never waking up again.'

'Stop tormenting yourself over someone who did not deserve your love.'

And what about the children?'

'You have to get the children back. You've lodged an appeal, haven't you?'

I won't get them back. I know he won't give in. He has money and knows people, and he wants to destroy me! What have I got?'

'You have truth on your side.'

'No one gives a damn about that, Reverend. Money is the most important thing, not truth.' Máša spoke in a tearful whine, which aroused his aversion rather than his sympathy. As if she were blaming not only her ex-husband but him too.

'You see?' he said. 'You could have a use for the money. You mustn't give up. We will all be on your side and help you.' He left the money in an envelope on the little table in the hall and fled.

A time of joy and mirth

has now come to the Earth

for God eternal,

is born of a virgin.

There in Bethlehem town

upon the straw she laid him down. .

He lays aside the guitar. Magda can at last distribute the presents.

Daniel looks on in silence. He has been striving the whole evening, since morning, in fact, to revive within himself a festive spirit. But it is beyond him. Instead, he feels a growing sense of uncertainty and shame. He preached about the birth of the Saviour even though he has growing doubts whether the birth occurred in the manner described. And now he is sitting here pretending to be in the same loving relationship with them all as at any other Christmas.

In previous years his mother would still have been here with them at Christmas. The sudden feeling of loss grips his throat. He has lost his mother, as well as the purity of a life unfolding in truth. His mother departed and a woman arrived offering him love or passion or maybe passionate love. He received her and gave up truthfulness and honesty.

Magda revels in her new skates and Marek can hardly believe that they have bought him a real astronomical telescope. (Dad, it must have cost a packet!) Hana went to try on her new skirt. He fobbed Eva off with a CD-player. He should have given her his mother's old flat, of course, but he needed it for himself.

He had met Bára there the previous week. He had thought long and hard about what might give her pleasure. Their lives tended to impinge on each other outside the world of material things so he didn't know what she needed, had never looked in her wardrobe, and he had spent such a short time in her flat and in such a state of mind that he had

scarcely taken in the individual items. Then he remembered that she had once daydreamed about Barcelona and its warm, bright winters, and about Gaudi. He went to a travel agency and paid for two excursions to Catalonia, leaving the departure date open for the time being. It crossed his mind that it would be wonderful if he could accompany Bára on such a trip, if it were actually to take place, but then he shrank back from his own idea: he would offer the second place to Bara's older son, of course.

Magda hands her father her own gift: she has knitted him a stripy winter hat. (Do you like it, Dad? It's fantastic — I didn't know you were so handy.) From Hana a shirt and a set of gouges, from Eva a book about Plato and Augustine, and from Marek a photo album.

When they were still in the highlands they used to receive gifts from every member of the congregation. The older members brought them food, the younger ones drew them pictures or made little figures out of dough, or plasticine, or even conkers.

A gift may be an expression of love, respect or sympathy, or a ransom for insufficient love, respect or sympathy.

Hana reappears in her new skirt, he pours everyone a glass of wine — even Magda gets a few drops — and they all drink a toast: To love, as is appropriate on a day recalling the Saviour's birth.

When Bára opened the envelope with the tickets for her forthcoming trip, she looked puzzled, and then she said: 'You're out of your mind! Do you really suppose that Musil will let me go to Spain just like that?'

'Why wouldn't he?'

'On my own?'

'With Saša.'

'He can't stand my son.'

'Maybe he's open to persuasion.'

And how am I to explain to him that I want to travel with Saša and not with him?'

'He says he's ill, anyway.'

'No, he'd never let me go anywhere that was nice, with Saša and without him.'

Marek opens the window slightly and gazes up at the sky, which, as usual at this time of year, is starless. Eva says: 'What do you think people in prison are doing now?'

'And anyway I can't accept it from you,' Bára said. 'What possessed you to send Saša to the seaside when his own rather never sent him there? At least if you were going with me.' She thrust the envelope back at him, but he refused to take it. Then they made love and Bára suddenly burst into tears: 'Nobody was ever kind to me the way you are. Why are you always leaving me? Why do you leave me at the mercy of a guy who tortures me?'

Hana sits down next to him. 'I really like it when we're all together like this at home and we're all in a festive mood.' Quite exceptionally, she kisses him in front of the children.

This is his home: a good home. Why is he leaving it?

When he prays that evening, Daniel asks God for strength and help. He wants to step out of the circle in which he now moves. He wants to put an end to the deception and live in the truth. He has prayed for this on several occasions in the past, but today he feels a vague kind of hope that he'll really manage to step out of the circle without harming anyone in the process.

When one prays one becomes a believer. One expects neither reward nor profit, nor even an answer; simply a sign that one has been heard. A sign which, even if it came, one could never be entirely sure of.

It is gone midnight when they go to bed. Hana snuggles up to him as usual. Then she asks him if he still loves her and Daniel says yes. Exhausted by the Christmas celebration, Hana quickly falls asleep, while Daniel stares into the darkness and silently asks her for forgiveness and also for help: stay with me and don't let me fall. Then he can hear Bara's voice begging him: Don't forsake me! and he feels a heart pang. Anxiety and love and despair.