Ivan Klima - Lovers for a Day

Rummaging in her handbag she found some sweets and the horse nuzzled them wearily from her palm with its grey lips while gazing at her motionlessly with its one eye. She placed her hand on its mane and stayed at its side, feeling now the pulse of the large creature and hearing its breath, while its scent enveloped her. She suddenly felt something akin to tenderness or even love, or at least warm, comforting friendship. 'You lovely beast,' she murmured, 'my little brother, you silly old horse,' and the horse's breathing seemed to slow down and a tremor ran through its enormous body.

Then the doors of the strange hangar opened in front of her and out stepped two men in blue-and-white striped overalls.

'He's been getting friendly, the old so-and-so,' said one of them.

She had to step back several paces and she observed how the men unwound the rope from the raw timber post and dragged the horse towards the open doorway.

She wanted to shout something after them but at that moment the horse stopped, braced itself and began to neigh.

'Come on, you stubborn old bastard,' they yelled and the horse stood, nailed to the spot, tossing its old silvery head and neighing. One of the fellows turned towards her and said in a friendly voice, 'The beast has caught the scent of blood. That's put it off!'

And then suddenly she realized what the two men were and that she ought to do something to save the horse, though she knew she could do nothing.

All she could do was leave and that's what she ought to do. At least she wouldn't witness what was going to happen. But she couldn't budge from the raw timber post and she stared numbly as the men lowered a pulley from the roof of the

hangar, threw a rope over the pulley wheel, made a noose with the other end and put it round the horse's neck. And she watched rigidly as the men started to pull with all their might, while the horse also strained its every muscle, all its veins standing out. And then she saw the horse gradually rear on its hind legs — in ghastly human fashion, pulled by the terrible rope, she saw its hooves first pound the earth in terror and then just thrash the air, heard the roar of the creature, the despairing roar of a horse, its cry of anguish, its vain entreaties, a roar not of foreboding but of certainty. And she watched the horse as with strange, unnatural leaps it drew nearer to the hangar's gaping maw. Have pity! Oh, God! At least let them close the doors. And indeed at that very moment the doors closed behind the two men and the condemned beast and she waited, although she didn't know what for, and then it came: not a cry, not a roar, but a thud, the dull, resounding thud of a heavy body falling on to a stone floor. So that was the end. Suddenly she could no longer feel her own body. She drifted in the air, before sinking on to the soft, sandy soil. But she still held on limply to the wooden post, her hands above her head, and pressed her lips to the rough, hard bark. She dug her teeth into the bark until she tasted the bitterness of the wood beneath.

And the thud swelled and spread out, resounding within her until it drowned out everything that was and everything that would be; she was sure the sound would never cease, because it was not the sort of sound made by things but a sound that came out of the void, from between slightly closed doors: it was the voice of the darkness into which all defenceless creatures are dragged.

Then she heard the creak of the hangar doors again and looked up in a sort of vain and macabre hope, but all she saw

were the two men in the blue-and-white overalls, each pulling a small cart on which lay a metal washtub covered by a bloody canvas. So she stood up and even though she still could not feel her own body she set off with strange, unnatural leaps into the void in front of her.

3

Towards evening it started to cloud over again and the sun disappeared behind a smoky screen. The soldiers dropped her off as soon as they reached the city limits and shouted something at her in parting. That morning she had never suspected she would be back so early, while it was still fully light, or in such a frame of mind. Where shall I go now? I must go and find someone. I could go to a film — but go to the cinema on my own? Anyway I have to eat something. I'll have something to eat and then I'll call Markéta, but what will I talk to her about? A squalid eating place in a side street. Sit at a table on my own? But I'm hardly going to go home and sit looking at the pair of them.

She sits at a bare table. The grubby waiter arrives carrying mugs of beer, and a bowl of tripe soup for her. Her fingers tremble slightly. I'm really hungry. At least I'm eating and I'm able to eat, even if it's vile, disgusting meat.

She wants to think about something, about some book or film at least, instead of about the man in the suede jacket, the township of little wooden cages, the stench. . And here it is standing in front of her with its grey coat and lank mane. It's no longer tied up but grazing freely, tossing its one-eyed head,

and the meadow stretches from horizon to horizon and the horizon is dark, like a line run through the night. A corpse-faced man stares at her from the next table.

'Are you a student?'

'No.'

'Come and sit over here, then.'

'I've got a bowl of soup here.' And she doesn't feel like sitting next to the man, even though it makes no difference in the end. He looks a bit like Mum's old slob. I expect that's the way they lounge about. Poor Mum, when he touches her afterwards with those yellow talons of his.

'It looks as though you're a student after all.' His voice is high-pitched, almost effeminate. 'You don't want to sit with a man.' But I expect Mum is miserable about being left on her own. She needs more than just me. She misses love. So that's what that love is, the divine love they croon about. She took her soup and moved to the man's table.

'Are you a sales girl?'

'No!'

'I thought so. You're a student.'

'And what business is it of yours?' she snaps. If she were a student. . but what difference does it make. What difference does it make what I am, what we happen to be at this moment — and she hears the echoing thud; it comes out of nowhere and no one seems to hear it — when we know what we will be one day.

'I could have gone to college too. Only they didn't send me there. I had to become a carter. And I can't stand those smart alecs,' he trilled. 'They're always showing off. What would they be without us? You're a secretary, then?'

'I'm nothing,' she says and it was true: nothing sipping tripe

soup. But what will I be? Or will I stay being nothing until the moment when. . no, I won't think about it.

'But we had some fun with them last year on Petřín Hill. We lit them up with rockets and pulled them out of the bushes.'

'What were they doing?'

'What were they doing? What were they doing. .' and suddenly she remembers the little room almost up in the sky with the rocking chair and the window that starts at neck level and ends at the height of your forehead, and the enormous ball of blue twine whose free end is always swaying to and fro. She tries to remember when she was last up there and finds it impossible to believe that moment in the distant past had been that very morning.

'They'd already elected a prime minister,' the man piped up. 'They had it all worked out, the whole government and the central committee.'

'Did you beat them up?'

'Hold on, hold on,' he rebuked her. 'I'm asking the questions here.' Then he said, 'If my son went to college, he wouldn't bugger about like that lot. You ought to see what they get up to in those student halls. They take some tart or other. .'

She had finished her soup at last. I must leave, get up and go somewhere, but where? I'll go home, but where. . Or I'll go to his place. He fancies me a bit, or he used to. Except we've split up. I can't go and see him. .