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

He looks around in the vain hope that someone will come to his rescue. But who could he expect to do that? And why haven't they brought him that criminal yet?

Have they even prepared the room as he'd ordered them to? With the special chair in the middle, and twenty-two seats in a square around it for the guests? Have they remembered to get the robe ready? He should check on it at once; they can't be depended on for anything. He's all alone, surrounded by enemies. He knows who they are. Some of them are staggering tipsily around him, others are lurking among the Chinese vases or concealed behind heavy curtains, behind the firescreen, behind secret doors, all of them perfectly disguised in suits and white shirts, their bodies creating a net so dense that not even a little bird could fly through, and they have hidden hooks in their

trouser-legs. When he looks around with his heightened vision, he realizes there are more of them now. On the opposite wall, under the enormous tapestry depicting a scene of debauchery between a naked woman and a swan, two pairs of black shoes peep out. He sees that a tiny, almost invisible door in one of the bookshelves is open, a sinister eye peering through the crack. His heightened senses pick up the sour odour of the deviousness molecule in the air. They are undoubtedly planning something, weaving some treachery around him. Now he must be especially watchful. He must not be caught off his guard, yet he must conceal the fact that he has seen through their designs.

He who grants pardon also has the right to mete out punishment. Suppose that when he grants clemency to the hijacker, he also punishes some of these layabouts who so perfidiously pretend to be his friends?

He hopes they haven't forgotten to hang up the antique banner. He gets up to check, but before he has gone more than a few steps he hears a metallic scraping at his back as though they were stealthily sharpening knives. He turns around abruptly and sees the chancellor, that devious hyena, huddling in treasonous conversation with the minister of the interior, his chief enemy and pretender to his position. The two of them suddenly spring apart, grinning hypocritically. But he pretends that he hasn't even seen them and goes back to his place among the savages.

Before he's able to sit down, the Judas chancellor waltzes up to him on his chickenlike legs and puts on an extremely gloomy expression. As soon as the chancellor addresses him, he knows that he is getting ready to present him with a freshly plucked flower of deception.

'Mr President, I've just learned some rather unpleasant news.' His satisfaction is evident in his voice, although he is trying to conceal it. 'The granting of clemency will have to be rescheduled.' And before the president is able to ask the chancellor why he wants to spoil the plan, the scoundrel informs him that the car bringing the hijacker to him has been involved in an accident. The escorts have been fatally injured, and the hijacker has temporarily absconded.

'The guards are dead?'

The chancellor nods and mentions names and details. So, they did have a plan after all. It was their favourite trick — a traffic accident. It worked before, so now they're going to work it to death. More new victims, and then they'll bring them all in here to haunt him. He could expect them any moment now. This time they killed off the guards too, and it will be left to him to decorate them posthumously, sign letters of condolence to the widows and arrange for their personal pensions. All this, just to frustrate his plans, to diminish him in front of this savage, who is now glancing at him with malicious glee, as though he already knows what they have done. And he can't even have them prosecuted. In any case, who would he prosecute? There is nothing he can do but wait for them to arrange a traffic accident for him too.

'It's unpleasant,' the chancellor drones, 'but it must not be allowed to cast a shadow over the evening.' He snaps his fingers at one of the lackeys, who moves in quickly with a tray bearing a glass of his favourite drink, golden and aromatic. That's something at least — this miserable little fox is trying to mollify him. He grasps the glass, and though the tiny amount of golden liquid scarcely quenches his thirst, it gives him a jolt and he remembers something else. 'What about that other fellow?'

He watches with delight as the devious little runt squirms in embarrassment, vainly searching for an excuse.

'Was this another case of clemency?' the chancellor enquires tightly.

'Yes. And a film,' he remembers, 'a film about snakes.' The chancellor is just about to unleash a torrent of the usual pretexts, but this time he has miscalculated, he's underestimated him, failed to observe that today, the old determination is flowing through his veins. 'Why isn't that fellow here? How dare you not bring him?'

The runt bows his head. He's so small now that all he would have to do would be to lift his leg and. .

'Bring him here!' the president orders. And bring me the other one too, the one who's hiding, the terrorist. Use all means necessary! And I mean all! Right away!'

At last he has managed to foil them.

II

It's dark. Robert crouches in the bushes by the wall, as hungry and thirsty as a runaway dog. His leg is hurting.

It's high time he had a roof over his head, somewhere nearby. He mustn't be seen on the streets. The best thing would be to hole up for a couple of days in one of those blocks of flats on the other side of the wall.

He scans the lit windows. One looks possible, the second on the left on the third floor of the middle block. The lights have just gone on and he sees a colourfully painted ceiling. The walls are covered floor to ceiling with photographs. A blonde girl appears in the window and stares out into the darkness for a while. He waits to see if there's a man with her, but no, she seems to be alone. He watches her as she wanders about the room.

It's getting late. It's Friday evening. He has to get moving before they lock the apartment building. He climbs the low wall and drops down on the other side. A narrow path leads through the bushes. He hopes that no one will be using it at this hour. In the moonlight he can see the grey walls of the prefabricated buildings in front of him, a battery of dustbins and empty sandboxes. He has to get this right. He scans the windows, the courtyards and the end of the path. Not a soul.

When he walks across the open space around the building, he tries not to limp. With only a step or two to go, the door to the next block of flats opens, releasing a shaft of light. He sees a puffy face, a piglike neck throttled by an olive collar. A uniform of some kind. He notices all this in the fraction of a second before he grasps the door handle and pulls. Thank God, it's not locked. The dank corridor swallows him up. He has no idea whether that bastard outside noticed him or not. Maybe he couldn't see much, since he was coming from the light into darkness. He walks up a foul-smelling staircase. They've probably had his picture all over the television, so that fellow must have been curious about a stranger entering a neighbouring building by the back door. He should probably get

the hell out of here. But if this fellow has called the police, there's nothing much he can do about it.

Third floor, second door from the left, a card with a handwritten name on it under the bell:

VALENTOVÁ

He rings the bell twice and waits. He hears a muffled woman's voice: 'Just a moment.' A door slams. He hears a lavatory flushing.

Someone is coming up the stairs. If it's the uniform coming after him, he's not going to pull any punches. He knows how to handle people like him, and he's got nothing to lose.

He hears light footsteps on the other side of the door. One floor below, a key turns in a lock. Someone is bound to hear him. The door opens.