Ivan Klima - The Ultimate Intimacy

'It was at a disco.'

'That's just talk.'

'It isn't.'

'There's no point in our talking about people at discos. I'd prefer to talk about you and Petr.'

'Well, he isn't wicked and he loves me.'

'Eva, now you're not talking sensibly. You're just being obstinate.'

'Why do you think he was having shots? It was because he couldn't stand all those things.'

'That's simply an excuse.'

'It's not. I found out for myself. When you give yourself a shot or just smoke marijuana, the world looks better. And you don't even feel like coming back.'

'Babies are born into the real world.'

'I know, Dad. I know I've been a disappointment to you.'

'That's not the point. It's not me that matters, but you and the baby that will be born. How will it live?'

'I'll take care of it!'

'How do you think you'll take care of it, when you can't even take care of yourself? Seeing that you think the world is such a horrible place.'

'It's not that I think it — it is. But he'll help me!'

'Who? Petr?'

Silence.

'So God will, then,' she said in the end.

'Let's hope so.' Then he said, 'We'll help you too, but no one will be able to help you if you don't know what to do about yourself.'

She turned her back on him and he could see her shoulders start to quiver.

He would like to have cried too, but he had forgotten how to, long ago.

'Don't condemn me, Daddy,' she said in the midst of her tears. 'I'll cope, you'll see.'

He had no right to condemn her. She would have more right to condemn him if she knew everything about him.

6

Samuel

Ever since Bára returned from Spain with her son, Samuel has refused to speak to her about anything but those things strictly connected with the running of the household. Instructions related to the office he gives her in writing. On the occasions when Bára tries to tell him something, Samuel either hears her out in silence or turns and walks away while she is still speaking. Bára gives him a hurt look and begs him to make it up with her, because she loves him, because he is her home and because it is impossible to live together all the time in silence. When he still remains silent, her eyes fill with tears and she goes off to find the children or to her own room and locks herself in. He can't deny that she makes efforts to discharge all her obligations and tries not to do anything that might arouse his anger further. So perhaps she really is suffering, but what is her suffering compared to his?

He has to live with a woman who constantly flouts order of every kind. She thereby destroys not only him but also the order on which life is built. For years he has tried to explain it to her but to no effect, or rather with the opposite effect. Bára is more recalcitrant than ever: right in the middle of March when the work load is greatest, she takes herself off with her son, who is only just managing to scrape through school. They go off on an excursion, but not to the Giant Mountains, for instance, but right to the other end of Europe instead. Why? Bára used Sasa's allergy as an excuse, but in reality her intention was quite simply to let him know how much she disdained everything that mattered to him, as well as all his wishes. She wanted to demonstrate to him that it was her sacred right to do just what she felt like. And obviously she didn't give the slightest thought to the fact that her bit of fun cost a lot of money that should have been invested in developing

the practice. Then she pretends to be surprised that he has lost all interest in work at the office. What reason could there be to continue with work which his wife so obviously holds in contempt, to build up something that she will destroy with a mere wave of the hand the moment he leaves the world?

He barely goes in twice a week to check on the work and assign jobs, but he cannot summon up the least desire to design anything himself, let alone come up with ideas or create anything. One of his reasons for stopping work is to demonstrate to Bára how deeply she has wounded him in the very essence of his personality, and the suffering she is causing him.

And he is suffering terribly. The days loom emptily ahead of him, and he just gazes at them impassively, wondering to himself which of them will be his last. In desperation he wonders how he might still change his life. What if he were to return to his second wife? It is years since he last spoke to her, but she has not found another partner as far as he knows. Maybe she'd take him back. He'd be better off with her; at least she wouldn't try to destroy him. But if he were to do that he would deprive his only son of his father, as he had already done to his two daughters. Besides, everyone he possibly still cared about would consider his return to the old woman that he left fifteen years ago to be an acknowledgement of total failure. No one would ever believe he had done it of his own accord, that he had left a woman whom everyone regarded as beautiful, interesting and attractive, who treated every man apart from her own husband considerately or even seductively, simply because life with her was no longer bearable. He could, of course, find a new wife entirely, one who was young and maybe interesting but definitely less extreme; or at least a mistress. But he didn't have the stomach to go behind his own wife's back, besides which he didn't feel he had the strength any longer to start a new life for the fourth time.

For a while he toyed with the idea of buying a dog, but in the end he realized that a dog was more likely to disturb him. It would require care, time and attention, and until it had learnt to understand the order demanded of it, it would actually worsen the muddle sown by Bára and her son — both her sons.

In her monologues Bára asks him, begs him not to upset himself, but to see a doctor, a psychologist or a psychiatrist who would prescribe for him an anti-depressant or send him for psychotherapy, or at

least advise him how to overcome his depression. So she says, but in fact she's hatching a plan to get rid of him from the house, have him locked up among lunatics, have him declared insane and then take away his son, his property and eventually his life.

His life is drawing to a close anyway. If Bára doesn't manage to take it from him, or if he doesn't take it himself, how many years might he have left? A life devoid of hope, meaning and peace of mind can't have much staying power. Depression destroys the heart and encourages malignant tumours.

For some time now he has found the thought of death attractive, though at the same time he is terrified by the void that yawns behind it. For years he has tended to give greater thought to his body. There was a time long ago when he would take plenty of exercise, but just recently he hasn't done more than just keep it ticking over. Now it occurs to him that he should pay more attention to his soul. It is no accident, after all, that he has turned out this way. Could one state with certainty that someone whose plans had been used for the construction of at least a hundred buildings in this country would one day simply disappear into the void, that his consciousness would die and his spirit simply vanish? That the only things that would remain for some time would be those very buildings. The master of ceremonies or whatever devil would preside at his funeral would be right in declaring: And he will live on in his work — thereby elegantly implying that nothing else of him would survive.

For the first time in his life, he starts to feel disgusted with his parents for having failed ever to speak to him about the soul and for leaving the world themselves with bitter resignation; disgusted with himself in his younger years when he didn't find the time to worry about anything else but work, materials and numbers, when his head was soaking up countless figures, definitions, building plans, the characteristics of dozens of architectural schools, charts, ground plans, elevations, but not a single thing about the meaning of his own existence, not a single thought about who he actually was, or how it was that he of all people had come to be washed up in this cosmic sea of possibilities.