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

'They brought these to the shop yesterday, so I kept some back. They'll certainly sell well. Shetland wool.' She took one of them off the shelf and unwrapped it.

'I know. You've got your own private customers.'

'I have more customers than goods.'

'One day you'll have your own shop and then you won't have to drag these things home.'

'You think so?' She smiled happily as though he'd told her he loved her. She longed for a shop of her own, but the truth was she couldn't possibly imagine it. Most people can't imagine a life that is any different from the one they are actually living. They can dream about it, they can even go into the streets and demonstrate for it, but they still can't imagine what it would be like.

Eva's smile reminded him of the shy smile of Ditta in a film by the Jensens, and it moved him. Maybe he should spend more time with her, be a little nicer to her. She was all he had. As she bent over by the cupboard, he reached out and stroked her hair.

She looked up at him in surprise. 'Is anything the matter?'

'No, nothing — nothing at all. Why?'

She went into the kitchen and after a while came back with supper. His sudden feeling of warmth towards her had, in the meantime, evaporated. She had nothing at all in common with Ditta; there was no shyness in her demeanour. Besides, he was certain she valued success over kindness. Success meant buying cheap and selling dear. It was a simple formula, and kindness or no kindness, he obviously fitted in with it. He knew how to sell his abilities, and himself.

Eva ate only a few mouthfuls. She was afraid of gaining weight, although there was no danger of that. She had a pretty figure, with small breasts, slim hips and a long neck. He'd photographed her nude several times, mostly with her face obscured. Her face looked good behind a counter, but it wouldn't have been right on the cover of a magazine. There was something missing from it, the thing that would make it special, a birthmark, a small scar, a mole. But most of all it lacked interest.

'Looks as though I'm going to have to do a film about the big chief,' he told her.

'That's good, isn't it?'

'I'd rather film animals than people. Big animals. But then again not as big as this particular one. Not as old, either. And certainly not the kind they're likely to send to the slaughterhouse.'

She looked at him in astonishment. She wasn't used to hearing him talk like that. 'Does that mean you're going to turn the job down?'

'They haven't offered it to me yet.' The first time he had been entrusted with filming the president, he had felt honoured. Gaining access at such a high level strengthened his position, made him less vulnerable. And the president's life, which had been so full of ups and downs, was an attractive subject for a film. Yet so much had changed in the past few years. The president's influence was in decline, and so was the position of everyone connected with him. Perhaps the best thing would be to turn down the offer when it came. But what excuses could he make? That he was tired? That he had heart trouble? Perhaps a doctor would back him up. But the idea that the job might go to

someone else didn't appeal to him either. Presidents come and presidents go, and the president who replaces the present one will need someone to record his achievements. Whom will he choose? The most skilled and experienced manipulator he can find. No, he mustn't drop out of the game, not even for a second. The single most important thing was to recognize in time that the old game had ended and a new one had begun.

He quickly swallowed a mouthful of food. Whether they offer the job to him or to someone else, those in charge will not allow authentic films. They won't be looking for a genuine, inimitable work of art. 'Did any replies to the ad come?' he asked Eva, changing the subject.

'Yes,' she said happily. 'Do you want to see?'

She longed for a house of her own. She was saving up for it and she assumed he was too. Until then, she was trying at least to exchange this flat for another. Perhaps she believed that once she had a flat all to herself she would have him to herself as well, and that he would finally marry her and surrender his right to leave at any time. He neither confirmed nor denied her belief. He studied the ads, and occasionally the two of them would ring doorbells and look at flats which, fortunately, he could declare too ugly, or which were no longer available. He had no desire whatever to acquire a cage in which he would have to set up house with her.

He picked up the leather folder and leafed through the papers in it.

'Does anything take your fancy?'

He shrugged.

'Kučera came yesterday.' She always referred to her former husband by his last name. 'I don't like running into him all the time.'

'Robin told me he'd been.' Pavel got up from the table, but there was nowhere to go. He'd been coming here for two years and hadn't yet found a corner of the flat he could call his own.

She got up too and stood close to him, waiting for him to embrace her. 'Sometimes I think you don't really want to be with me.'

'I'd never be with anyone I didn't want to be with,' he replied, using a line he'd heard in a television serial. But the reply satisfied her for the moment, or she thought it proper to pretend that it did.

What did it mean to be with someone?

He lit a cigarette and waited. The boy came in to say goodnight. Eva unfolded the sofa bed and went into the bathroom.

He hadn't been with anyone for a long time. At one time he had had a number of friends, but they had drifted away, their places taken by colleagues at work, some of whom kowtowed to him, while others watched, waiting for him to make a mistake so that they could step into his shoes. Until recently, he had occasionally stayed with his mother. But she had suddenly aged and was losing her sense of time and her interest in the world around her. Sometimes she could be unexpectedly and unreasonably hostile. He might pity her, but he could no longer be with her.

He was overwhelmed by restlessness. He wanted to go somewhere, do something, change something. Go back somewhere.

He opened the drinks cabinet. There was always a bottle of cognac there, and a glass just for him. He uncorked the bottle and drank from it.

The bathroom was free. He went in to wash, then tiptoed past the room where the former husband sometimes lived in silence, and slipped into bed beside Eva. He took her in his arms and without a word skilfully caressed her, just as he had done yesterday, and a year ago. Then he placed his palm on her stomach because he knew that she liked that and would fall asleep more quickly. As he did so he looked into the semi-darkness, faintly illuminated by the lights in the street, and into the windows of the tower block opposite. He was afraid he wouldn't fall asleep. Recently he'd been having more and more trouble sleeping. If only he had something to think about, but nothing in his immediate future seemed worth the effort. What was the point of replaying the same old images and the same old stories? He should be inventing new ones. But he was too tired for that now. Whenever he began a

new story these days, he tired of it before he had finished.

They sent him to an operating theatre to film a chief surgeon who was about to be awarded a state prize. The surgeon wouldn't allow him to light the room properly: the cables were apparently not sterile. Pavel was so angry he felt like packing everything up and walking out, or at least refusing to operate the camera. But he was fascinated by the hands of the young woman passing the instruments to the surgeon. He wanted to see the face that went with them, but it was hidden behind a mask. Only dark blue melancholy eyes beneath a high forehead were visible; the blue in them was so unusual they seemed foreign.