Ivan Klima - Waiting for the Dark, Waiting for the Light

When he received no reply, the man went on to explain: 'At first I told this only to my birds, but ever since they certified me, I say it everywhere. In streetcars, in bars, at meetings. I used to be a proper schoolteacher. First I had pupils, then I had birds in a cage, and now I have birds here.' He tapped his forehead. Then, with a dramatic flourish, he pulled out a dog-eared sheet of paper, apparently a certificate that confirmed his madness.

'Good piece of paper to have,' he told the old man. 'I'm sure it comes in very handy.' And he quickly got into his car to escape him.

An hour or so after dropping the tape off at the studio, he was climbing the stairs of an old tenement house only a few streets from the square where the public meeting had taken place. This was where he'd been born. He'd gone to school nearby. It was from this place that his father had run away. Then he too had tried to escape. Unlike his father, he had come back, and was still coming back today.

His m6ther was sitting in a deep armchair by the window. Now, in the autumn, almost no light came into the room. She was asleep. She seldom left her chair any more. He'd put the television where she could see it, but she never turned it on, nor did she ever open the book that lay on the table beside her. She could no longer sew; the needle was too small for her to hold in her fingers. Her life had become empty of interest. Her face was expressionless, and the veins on her hands stood out so starkly that they looked like a crude wood-carving. She reminded him more and more of a wooden puppet with the perfectly carved head of an old woman. One day, probably not long from now, he would speak to her, and touch her, and the puppet would no longer respond.

His mother shifted in her chair and looked at him through her thick glasses. 'Is that you, Pavel?'

'It's me.'

'What are you doing here?'

'I had some work nearby,' he explained.

'You're always up to something.'

'The opposition held a demonstration.'

'I don't know what you mean.'

'Some people gathered in a square. They made speeches.' It no longer made any sense to explain anything to her. She didn't understand him. Either she couldn't hear what he said, or she could make out the individual words but couldn't fit them together into sentences that meant anything to her. For years he'd talked to her about his life, mainly about his achievements, and she had listened to him. She'd been silent, perhaps even mistrustful, but she had listened. He found it hard now to accept the fact that he was losing her, that he had, in fact, already lost her.

'It's good of you to stop by. What are you up to all the time?'

'I finished that film about the president. They're going to broadcast it next month.'

She nodded. She had no idea which film he was talking about, nor which president. She'd lived through many presidents, and she wasn't interested in them. She wasn't even interested in him any longer. If she had ever been interested in anyone but herself, that is.

'What should I do?' she asked.

'We could go for a little walk.'

'I can't do that.'

'Why not?'

'Because I can't.' Then she added, 'It's cold out there.'

'You could take your coat.'

'I don't have a coat.'

'I'll fetch it for you.'

'I can't go for a walk when my feet are dead.'

Her feet were all right; it was her mind that was dead.

She closed her eyes. On a table beside her lay a plate of cold, half-eaten food — a few potatoes covered in a reddish-brown sauce with an unsavoury smell.

'What should I do?'

'What do you think you can manage?'

'I don't know. That's why I'm asking you.'

'Should I turn the television on?'

She didn't understand him. Besides, he saw that she wouldn't pay any attention. And anyway television was a

sop for the lonely and forlorn, for people who see no one, to whom no one ever speaks. He took the plate with the leftovers into the kitchen. The washer on the kitchen tap was worn, and a thin stream of water dribbled out of it. Hanging on the wall above the sink, in cheap frames, were several photographs he had once taken: a self-portrait when he was eighteen, the hands of an old woman who by now was long dead. The Dalmatian in the next picture was dead too. He was called Ciudad. Ciudad means city. Back then, the word embodied all his longing for a faraway place. With this distant city in his mind he had planned his escape. When he was in prison, his mother used to visit him, always bringing a carefully wrapped parcel of food. On one of her visits he had asked her how she was. She had replied: What do you expect? I'm alone. Everyone's left me. Even you tried to leave me.

He threw the leftovers into the garbage and washed the plate. Then he fetched some tools and began dismantling the tap.

'I was fond of one person,' Albina had said to him when they had gone off to the borrowed cottage together. He waited for her to tell him more, but she said nothing and looked at him as though she had said too much already and now it was his turn to speak.

'Who was it?' he asked.

'It's not important. You didn't know him anyway. I only wanted you to know. We were going to get married.'

'But you didn't.'

'He left the country. He succeeded where you didn't. He didn't take the adventurous approach. Besides, he was older than you were then. He got himself an exit permit. Before he left he was able to sell almost everything he had. But he didn't tell me anything, and I didn't know until he wrote to me.'

'What did he say?'

'That we would meet again.'

'Do you want to meet him again?'

'Never!'

Her 'never' sounded very resolute. At the time he'd liked that, because her resolve had nothing to do with him.

'Where is he now?'

'I don't know.'

'When did this happen?'

'It doesn't matter. I don't know if I'll ever completely believe in anyone any more.'

'You will.'

'How can you know that?'

'I feel it. I can feel what is in you.'

What did he really feel? That she was a passionate being who was suppressing her own desires.

How long can you suppress your own desires?

Until you understand that in doing so you will destroy yourself.

'That's just talk,' she said. 'What can you know?'

'That I won't leave you.'

The same night she asked him: 'How can you do what you do?'

At first he didn't understand that she was talking about his work.

'You must know that what they broadcast is a lie. And you work for them. How can I believe anything you say if that lie doesn't bother you?'

'The two things have nothing to do with each other. I make films about animals.'

'Only about animals?'

'I like animals,' he said, avoiding a direct answer, 'and I don't have to lie about them.'

'I don't know. Maybe I don't understand.'

'I don't tell lies,' he said. 'I promise I will never lie to you.'

They had intended to spend the whole week at the borrowed cottage. They were together for five days, day and night. He wasn't used to that kind of closeness, and on the fifth day he was overcome by exhaustion, or perhaps it was anxiety. He felt trapped, locked in a cage, in a prison cell again, even though her tenderness made it easier for him. By the sixth day his need for change, for another voice and different company had become too great. He got up at dawn, when she was still asleep, and gazed at her face for a while. All at once it seemed alien and unfriendly. Her limp hair was stuck to her forehead, her sensual lips had become

chapped and dry in sleep and marks left by his mouth were still visible on her slender throat. He tiptoed out of the room and fled, leaving not a whisper behind, only an unmade bed and an unfinished bottle of wine.

He ran across the dew-covered meadow and suddenly felt free.