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

'Personal? Was it about her?'

He shrugged his shoulders.

'Or about you?'

'It was just personal.'

'But there's nothing about me in it?'

He said nothing.

Who's waiting for the dark and who's waiting for the light?'

'The heroine is waiting for something the hero is unable to give her. It's also about a lot of other things.'

'You're intriguing me. What's the heroine's name?'

'That's not important. Her name is Albina,' he said. 'It's not about you. I invented her. But I invented her in a way that reminds me a little of you.'

'Why me?'

'I think you can probably guess.'

'It seems strange, with your profession. You're surrounded by so many women. Or did you write it because of the child? Tell me, is there something about that in it too?'

'It's not about us. I tell you it's not about us. I changed everything.'

'But you can't change that.'

'You can change anything in a film.' Then he said quietly, 'As a matter of fact there is something about the child in it.'

'So am I such a terrible murderer that you're afraid to tell me right out what it is you really want to make the film about?'

'On the contrary.'

'What does that mean: on the contrary?'

'You would know, if you read it, that you are the only person on earth that I still care about.'

'Now you're starting to get really personal.'

'That's why I've come.'

'Your mother died, you've separated from Eva and you've come to tell me that I'm the only person you have left?'

Yes.'

'It's a shame you left it so late, Pavel. In the meantime, I got married and had three children.'

'I don't have any, Alice.'

'But you could have had.'

'You still haven't forgiven me for that?'

'I forgave you long ago. It was my fault as much as it was yours.'

'No. I persuaded you to do it. A child didn't seem to fit into our plans. You weren't even seventeen, and I. . well, I thought I had to do a lot of things before I could allow myself the luxury of being a father. Now I know it was the worst thing I've ever done in my life. Everything else followed from that.'

'What can I say to you, Pavel?'

'If there was some way I could make up for it.'

You can't make up for it, Pavel. You can't bring it back

to life. It's dead. We had it killed before it was born.'

'I'd like to have a child with you, Alice.'

'It's too late, Pavel.'

'I thought — do you remember how we last met during that big demonstration, and we went into that little bar and the television was on… '

'Of course I remember.'

'You kissed me out of the blue, and it seemed… it seemed that we were as close then as we were all those years ago.'

'It was the moment that did it, Pavel, the time. We were all close in those days.'

'Is that time over now?'

'A time like that can't last for very long.'

'So it's too late, Ali?'

'I can't start all over again with you. I don't know if I could live with someone else, but I do know that the two of us can't begin again. You said yourself that nothing can repeat itself.'

'Exactly. I wouldn't want to repeat anything.'

'You'd want to start something completely different?'

He nodded.

"That's impossible. We're not completely different. You're sad and lonely, maybe too sad and lonely. And I really feel sorry for you, Pavel. But that's not enough.' She leaned over and stroked his hair. The way she caressed her children.

4

Their firm, with a name that might have sounded Japanese to anyone not in the know, had been going for a year. The company's accountant, one of the many aliens who had forced their way into his life, suggested that they celebrate the anniversary with a reception to which they would invite as many entrepreneurs — that is potential customers— as possible. The reception, of course, had to take place in one of the top hotels.

Pavel had no objections. He didn't get involved in the

business side of things. It didn't interest him. He tried to do his job well, even to the point of watching pre-war film advertisements in the archives. They seemed wittier than present-day commercials. But he did this only out of professional habit; the work did not satisfy him, nor did he enjoy it. But how else was he to spend his time?

When he drank a little more than he should, his head would ache, and he would feel, more frequently now, an unpleasant pressure in his chest. He was afraid of solitude, yet found himself alone more and more often. The blank spaces in his life that could not be filled were increasing, spaces left by his mother, by Albina and even by Eva, although he could fill that particular blank any time he felt like it. Writing his screenplay occupied his time, but unfortunately he had only two or three final scenes left to write. He put off working on them; what would he do when he had finished?

He bought a new Mercedes coupé even though he had to sell a baroque table from his cottage to raise the money. Sokol was furious; he considered their private assets part of the firm's common property. His plan was to buy a well-located shop when the state began auctioning them off, where he would open a large electronics store. Didn't Pavel understand that there would be a high reserve price, and that other interested parties would have to be bribed to stay out of the bidding? Where would the money for that come from if he squandered what he had on cars?

But he didn't need a big store. He needed a new car.

'What for?'

'For life.'

'You don't understand. Either the firm grows or it dies.'

'I've been dying for forty-eight years now.'

The car was vermilion. Everything was automatic, and the speedometer showed speeds of up to three hundred kilometres an hour.

He drove his new car to the reception, arriving as late as he could. There were more familiar faces here than he expected, faces he remembered from past meetings and conferences. These faces had ruled over ministries, press agencies, factories, personnel departments, the television

network and him. Halama was there. He now owned a private radio station that broadcast the same hit songs he himself had so recently banned. He saw a poet with whom he'd once made a film about folk carvings of nativity scenes. The poet had gained official recognition by writing verses that expressed his love for women, the motherland and the Party. Now, anonymously, he wrote copy expressing his love of ever-sharp kitchen knives, ketchup and chewing-gum. Also, after a moment of uncertainty, Pavel recognized the good-looking strawberry-blonde who seemed to keep looking his way. He'd never known her name, but years ago he'd made love to her at a party near the explosives factory. He wondered if she had got back together with her husband, whose pockets had been filled with cheques from sheikhs and terrorists made out for amounts he could not even imagine. Even Little Ivens was here with a film crew to make a documentary about the new entrepreneurs. Little Ivens had now taken his place, but he had no reason to feel resentful about it because he had relinquished his job voluntarily.

He had no desire to be resentful about anyone.

He took a plate of sandwiches and as he did so he recalled his evening at the drama faculty. He remembered the room full of people sleeping on the floor, the girl who had offered him her blanket, the feeling of nearness to students he didn't know by name but who could easily have been his children. In the end, they had delivered handmade posters by car. What were the names of the two students who went with them? He couldn't remember, though he'd know them if he ever met them again. It hadn't occurred to him to invite the student who wanted to be a cameraman here. How could he, if he didn't know his name?

He felt an unexpected sense of uneasiness, as though he'd made a mistake and it had suddenly come back to haunt him.