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

'Are you going to take pictures of me?'

He shook his head. 'I don't want to leave anything inside.'

Where are we going?'

'Nowhere in particular.'

The narrow pathway wound up to the top of a hill. It

was already twilight in the woods. He put his arm around her waist.

'I don't like walking uphill,' she said, panting. 'Let's go back now. Or we can stay here if you like.'

He found a grassy spot among the trees. He took off his sweater and laid it on the grass.

'Do you like it here?' she asked.

'I like you,' he said.

'I like you too.' She took off her skirt and laid it beside his sweater. When he took her in his arms, she gave a practised moan.

It was so dark now that he could hardly make out her features. Oddly enough, he couldn't remember them. She was such a complete stranger that if she had slipped out of his embrace at that moment and become another woman, he wouldn't have noticed.

When they had crossed the border, she said, 'There! Now you're abroad!'

'Yes.' He should have explained to her that he had lived and moved among foreigners for a long time now, but she wouldn't have understood, and wouldn't have been interested anyway.

They had dinner in a small hotel just over the border and took a room there for the night. She got drunk and fell asleep as soon as she lay down. He too was a little drunk. His stomach felt heavy, and every breath he took was accompanied by a stabbing pain in his chest.

He lay beside the stranger, stared into the emptiness and felt anxious. Sleep did not come, and he was sure that it never would. He had to do something, go somewhere, start something — or end something. He got up, though he knew he had nowhere to run to. He flung aside the curtain and looked out of the window. The dimly lit car park was full of cars. His red sports car seemed to have changed colour. He got dressed quickly, drank a glass of water in the bathroom and then slipped out of the door. The night air was fresh and smelled of jasmine. The stars were sparkling in a cloudless sky, and the hotel's neon sign glowed redly behind him. He was abroad, he was finally where he had once longed to be, and he had an expensive

car and a mistress with him. He should feel some sense of satisfaction now, but what he noticed most was the pain in his chest and the emptiness above him.

He got into his car. He could hear the sounds of jazz coming from a nearby bar. He'd come back for the stranger in the morning. He started the car and drove out through the gates of the car park.

Wedding guests are crowding through the open gate. Fuka, tall and thin, has on a slightly worn black suit. Alina is clinging to him in a pale blue dress with a collar and cuffs of white lace. He kisses her, then lifts her up as gently as he can and carries her in his arms over the string that his friends have stretched across their path. The wedding guests form two lines, and as they walk between them to a coach hitched to a pair of sorrels, the guests shower them with flowers. The coachman in a top hat shakes the reins, and the coach sets off.

'Where are you taking me?' Alina says, still clinging to him.

'It doesn't matter. We'll be at home wherever we are.'

'My God,' she laughs, 'You must know where we're going to live.'

'I have nothing,' he says. 'But I've bought a big tent.'

'That's what we're going to live in?'

'Why not?'

'Yes, why not! I'm looking forward to your big tent.'

He thought that this might make a good beginning for his new screenplay.

It was only a short distance to the Autobahn, which was almost empty at this time of night. He sped through the alien countryside, and the faster he drove the greater his sense of relief.

Suddenly he saw an enormous tent pitched directly ahead of him in the middle of the road. In the light of his headlights he could see the red-and-white striped canvas. The horses whinnied impatiently. He braked slightly and at that moment his bride, no longer in pale blue but all in white, was beside him. 'Is that you, Ali?'

She presses close to him, embraces him and kisses him, and kisses him again.

Fortunately, the entrance to their dwelling opens wide. He drives through it, and the horses don't stop but plunge forwards with increasing frenzy.

He suddenly feels anxious and reaches beside him with his right hand, but his fingers close on a void. His bride has vanished. Perhaps she has been sucked up in a whirlwind. The countryside also seems to have vanished.

Nothing distracts him now, and he feels he can almost rise above the earth, rise above his own life as though it belonged to someone else.

What is life?

Which life is really my own?

I would like to thank Ivan Klíma for his trust and willingness to help clarify some of the inevitable ambiguities in the text; and Ursula Doyle for her sensitive reading and editing of the translation.

My deepest gratitude goes to Patricia Grant who, with her assistance, suggestions, enthusiasm and good humour, made it possible to finish the translation on schedule.

Paul Wilson, Toronto, August 1994