Ivan Klima - The Ultimate Intimacy

I thought to myself that you really must be very fond of Mum to have done something for her and for me that neither my Dad nor my stepfather would do. I'd like to repay you in some way but I don't know how or what I could do for you. Some time in the future perhaps. One possibility is that I enjoy fiddling around with tape recorders and suchlike machines. If anything went wrong with something of yours, even the computer, I could have a go at repairing it (no guarantee though).

There was something else I wanted to tell you. Ever since Mum first met you she's been totally different. She doesn't get the blues any more and she is actually glad to be alive. So I'd like to thank you for that too and hope that you are happier, because Mum is the best thing alive. I know it sounds daft coming from her son, but it's a fact.

Best wishes and thanks again,

Saša

Dear Bára,

I hoped we'd see each other as soon as you got back, but something happened that has taken maybe not all my time but certainly all my energy. Or rather, it rudely awoke me from the state of rapture I had been in. I told myself I wasn't going to burden you with my troubles, you have enough of your own. But I can't keep to myself something that has deeply affected my life. So: Eva's expecting a baby. And what's more, with Petr, one of those two lads I'd promised to take care of when they were still in prison. Petr is back inside again (he's just been given another two years) for drug dealing.

I always regarded myself as liberal-minded. Far more so than my vocation permitted, in fact. I understand young people making love before they get married, but her choice frightens me because it will probably burden her for the rest of her life, and I feel guilty for having influenced that choice, by my exaggerated belief in people's capacity to reform themselves and by the sympathy I've shown, both of which have influenced Eva. I also feel guilty about neglecting her over these recent years. First of all because I became so

enthused about the freedom I now had to pursue my vocation. I gave generously of my time and energy wherever I went, but left almost nothing for my home. And then, as you know yourself, my life became centred on my love for you and I let Eva out of my thoughts just at the moment when she needed me, just when I could and should have been at hand. And she had no one else but me.

I don't know whether it is still possible for me to make amends in some way. I feel as if I have betrayed everything and everyone, that I have hurt the people I loved and still love. You too, in other words. No harm was intended, it was more a matter of weakness. The trouble is it is deeds not intentions that count in life. The same applies to love which I've preached about so often and which I declared to you.

Love Dan

My dearest, my one and only love,

It's ages since you last got in touch with me. I called you twice, but your wife always picked up the phone. Yesterday I wanted to run to you, to find you and placetmyself under the protection of your love and your strength. It wasn't from some whim but from desperation. Sam has gone mad and I mean that seriously: he has gone mad and wanted to kill me, to shoot me like quail, like a little Bosnian girl caught in a sniper's sights. I don't know why he didn't in the end, the pistol was loaded. He has gone mad and he is crazy enough to do anything.

My darling, you of all people know that even though I found you and love you, I haven't abandoned him. I've taken care of him a thousand times more than I have you, I've respected his sense of order. I wanted to preserve the home on account of Aleš, but for Sam too, because I once loved him. I was sorry for him when I saw how his powers were declining and his manliness was going. Yes, I was sorry for him and not for myself and I tried hard to satisfy his whims, all his selfish requests, anything to stop him lapsing into those depressions of his.

But now he's gone completely round the bend. He thinks I'm the reincarnation of some murderess that murdered her husbands and children in England about a hundred and fifty years ago. It looks as if he really believes that I want to poison him too — he can think that about me, who

has sat by his bedside when he was ill and held his hand so he shouldn't feel alone in his illness.

Darling, I don't know what I'm supposed to do, what I'm to do with him and with myself, what I'm to do with his life and mine. If I didn't have you, I wouldn't want to live any more, I might even have begged him to pull the trigger when he had me in his sights. You are my salvation, the only person I have left, not counting my mother who is already old and my children who are in no position to help, apart from giving me another reason to live.

Can it be possible that I really am so terrible and that my husband is so desperate on account of me that it has unhinged his mind? Tell me truthfully, do you really think I'm impossible to live with?

I feel sad because I miss you. I feel sad because of me, and life and my husband who sits locked in his room and is probably even more desolate than me, because he doesn't have you, he just has his ailments and a pistol, that he can use to shoot himself or me, depending on his mood.

I know that everything has to end one day, but don't forsake me yet, don't forsake me now, my darling.

Your sad and loving Bára

Prague, 20 March 1995

Dear Brother Vedra,

The board of Diakonia has discussed your proposal for setting up a centre connected to your congregation.

The Diakonia organization is a great gift from Our Lord and gives us an opportunity to make our church, our principles and our work more visible.

Even though the work of the Diakonia receives a partial subsidy from the state we are always fighting to make ends meet, among other reasons because the wealthier churches in the democratic countries which generously supported our activity after the revolution have now found recipients in other parts of the world, those who have greater need of their gifts than we do. The board therefore particularly values your commitment to finance part of the costs of converting rooms for diaconal activity and for the purchase of necessary equipment from your own private funds. This

is a further reason why we chiefly leave it up to you whom you wish to employ in the centre and what area of handicap you wish to focus on. For your information, however, we would like to tell you that the greatest need at the moment is for the care of young paraplegics and people with a hearing disability.

We all have a high regard for your work and regard your decision as further evidence of the goodness of your heart and the intensity of your faith, that you so readily confirm in your actions.

May the Lord assist you in your work.

On behalf of the Board.

Bárta

Dear Daddy,

I've decided to write to you, because when I speak, the right words never come to me quickly enough and I am no match for your eloquence.

I know you wanted me to become a pianist and perform for people because you consider music to be the first step towards a better and more spiritual life. And apart from that you hoped I'd continue what Mum scarcely had time to begin.

Dad, there have been times when I also wished very much for all that on account of you, on account of Mum's memory, and also on account of myself. The trouble is that I, unlike you, lack the will. I'm unable to do the real groundwork in order to achieve what I want. Or I only manage it sometimes. Then there are other moments when everything seems pointless to me. I just feel like lying about, looking up at the sky, or not looking anywhere at all. But I did show a bit of willpower though: when I gave up speed in time. You won't want to believe this, but it was Petr who helped me with that most of all. He explained to me the horrible situation I would be rushing into. He also helped me with his love. Or rather it was not so much his love as my love for him. And that's something you taught me, after all, that love is the most important thing in life. That to believe in Jesus means taking the path of love, compassion and sacrifice. That's the way you have lived, after all, and so has Mum — by whom I mean Hana.