Ivan Klima - The Ultimate Intimacy

guarantors. Although the accused denied it, it was obvious that he acted as part of an organized gang involved in the manufacture and sale of drugs. Society and particularly minors had to be protected from these people. The prosecutor asked for a sentence at the upper end of the scale.

Daniel felt as though he was in the dock. His throat was dry and his forehead burned as if he had a fever. Eva sat next to him motionless, her gaze fixed on the prosecuting counsel. What was she going through as she heard such negative judgements about the father of her baby?

Daniel was unable to come to terms with the fact that his daughter was expecting a baby out of wedlock, let alone the fact that the father was a criminal who had betrayed her trust and his. He had tried to persuade her that it was better to live as a single parent than to bind herself to someone who repeatedly demonstrated that he was incapable of leading a decent life. But Eva stuck to her guns. Petr wasn't bad, he had just had a hard childhood and suffered from insufficient love. 'Haven't you always preached the importance of love for people's lives, Daddy?'

'Yes, real love.'

'What is real love? How do you recognize it?' And she answered herself: 'Real love never abandons others even when they fall short.'

At least he had persuaded Dr Wagner to undertake Petr s defence. He based his case on the fact that Petr was not a normal dealer who sells for personal gain but was a dreamer who was incapable of distinguishing between reality and his own fantasy. He assured Daniel that he would manage to get Petr a 'first paragraph, in other words, a fairly short sentence, although probation would be out of the question because of the previous offence.

Petr's examination began. Petr admitted that he felt guilty about selling drugs on several occasions to random customers, but he had never sold them to 'beginners'.

How could he tell, maintaining as he did that he did not know the people who bought from him?

'You can just tell, can't you?'

'So you have plenty of experience in this field!'

'Even if I have, I didn't get it through dealing.'

'So how did you get it?'

'On my own or from friends.'

'Have you been using drugs for a long time?'

Dr Wagner objected that drugs use wasn't part of the charge.

The judge considered that it helped none the less to give a fuller picture of the defendants character.

Petr declared that he could not remember. He just knew that when he was in a bad way, drugs helped him to survive.

'Why were you in a bad way?'

'I didn't have a dad and my stepfather hated my guts. He used to beat me and Mum. So I ran away and lived as best I could.'

'In a gang?'

'I had pals who would let me sleep in their pads.'

'What did you live on?'

Petr could not recall. Then he said: 'But I never stole.'

'Or you didn't happen to get caught,' the judge commented. 'Did you know how to make the drug yourself?'

'Manufacture it, you mean?'

Dr Wagner objected once more.

'I never tried,' Petr said.

'How old were you at the time?'

'It depends. When I first ran away I was thirteen.'

'Did you first use a drug at that time?'

Petr could not remember.

'Surely you can recall something as important as that in your life?'

'I don't know whether it was then, but it was fairly early on. Everyone was popping it then.'

'Who was everyone?'

'My pals.'

'The members of your gang! Do you still mix with them?'

'No.'

'So who were you mixing with when they arrested you?'

'I'd found new friends and acquaintances.'

'Where?'

'At the place I was working, and in the church.'

'I assume that they didn't incite you to crime.'

'No, on the contrary.'

'Did they know about it?'

'No, definitely not!'

'And what would they say about it?'

Petr said they would definitely try to talk him out of it.

'So you deny selling drugs to minors?'

Petr said he had never sold anything to beginners.

'We'll see what the witnesses have to say. You have testified that you did not know the person who supplied you with the drug, is that not so?'

Petr repeated that he did not know the person.

'Doesn't that strike you as rather implausible?'

'In that trade it's best not to know anyone by name,' Petr explained.

'You weren't interested where he got it from or when you were to come for a new supply?'

'We'd reach an agreement.'

'What did you call him?'

'We didn't use names.'

'Did he know yours?'

'No.'

'And you'd never met him before — on some trip, I mean?'

'No.'

'Did you know any other dealers who got supplies from him?'

'No.'

'When you were interviewed,' the judge said, 'you stated that you wanted to get money to publish a magazine. What kind of magazine was it supposed to be?'

'I wanted people to understand the importance of the Holy Spirit for their lives.'

The judge was taken aback by the answer and said nothing for some moments. Daniel was gripped by an almost suffocating sense of shame. That lad was misusing terms that would be better left unsaid. People should avoid words whose meaning was still a mystery to them. But who respected that principle? We live in a world of empty words. He glanced at Eva once more. She had reacted differently to Petr's statement: there were tears in her eyes.

Then the judge dictated Petr's reply word for word. The sound of the clattering of a typewriter and Eva's sobbing.

At last the judge asked: 'And didn't it seem odd to you to obtain money for that purpose by means that were diametrically opposed to your objectives?'

'I didn't know of any other way.'

'But you had a job of work, hadn't you? Except that you left it.'

'Because you can't make money by working.'

'That's rather a bold statement.'

'I couldn't have saved a single crown from my pay.'

'And didn't it occur to you that there were other ways of obtaining money?'

'What other ways, your Honour?'

'Some church or other might have given you a contribution for such a purpose.'

'No, your Honour. They wouldn't have given it to me.'

'Did you publish at least one issue of the magazine?'

'No.'

'In other words, the magazine existed only in your imagination.'

'I really wanted to do it. I wanted people to lead better lives. I wanted them to know that only through the Holy Spirit, not through any of our deeds, can we be saved.'

The judge said that Petr wasn't here on account of his magazine, and never would be. He was here for quite a different offence. If he had genuinely wanted to obtain funds for a useful purpose, then in his view it was most regrettable as he had only harmed the thing he sought to benefit. Finally, he asked if he was sorry for his actions.

Petr said he was sorry he had been unable to start doing what he had wanted to do.

'I am asking you,' the judge said, 'whether you are sorry for the crime you have committed?'

Petr said nothing. Then he glanced quickly at the place where Eva was sitting.

'I'm sorry,' he said quietly. 'I'm sorry most of all that I deceived the people who believed in me.'

8 Letters

Dear Reverend Vedra,

I ought to have written to you ages ago, but I was shy and I didn't want to take up your time either. Most of all I want to thank you for Barcelona. I think it has to be the most wonderful experience of my life, not just because we saw so many wonderful things such as paintings, houses, parks and even

that old Roman fort, for instance, but most of all because I was there with Mum. We'd never been on our own like that before, except for when I was in first class at the primary school. And thanks to you my allergy has disappeared. The sunshine and the sea air sent it packing.