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

1

A crowd had begun to gather at the lower end of the square. Most of the people were young. Some of them Pavel remembered from earlier demonstrations. He had a good memory for faces and even thought he recognized some of the onlookers lounging on the pavement. Like him, they were fixtures on these occasions. They were probably here on duty too, though it was duty of a different kind. Not far away, in front of a large display window full of shoes, was a man with a small movie camera. He didn't recognize the man, though he knew most people in his line of work; perhaps he was a curious tourist, an amateur photographer or someone taking pictures of the demonstrators for the archives of the security police.

But what was he doing here himself? Why were he and his crew filming these events? For television? The network wouldn't broadcast a thing he shot, or rather what they did broadcast would have little to do with what actually happened. Perhaps he was working for the future.

But what was the future?

The future was a time that called into question everything that came before it.

Several uniformed policemen were standing around on the pavement. As usual, it was a peaceful demonstration. No one was shouting slogans, or getting ready to throw stones through shop windows, overturn cars or attack the police. Yet in most of the faces he observed through his viewfinder, there was tension, the nervous anticipation of the inevitable clash that would take place according to precise, though unwritten and not exactly high-minded, principles.

Why had the demonstrators come? What were they trying to prove, or change? What did they believe in that made them willing to endure being beaten, locked up, dismissed from their jobs? Was their protest for some higher cause, or were they there only because there wasn't enough else to interest or motivate them — were they simply bored?

He wanted to ask them, but knew there was an impenetrable barrier between himself and them, a barrier symbolized by the logo on the transmission van and by his camera, a barrier as blatant as the double row of barbed-wire fencing that isolated this country from its neighbours, or at least from the country to which he had once foolishly attempted to flee. Sometimes he felt a vague uneasiness about being on this side of the barrier yet, at the same time, he felt safe. No one would beat him or interrogate him or try to blow him off the street with a water-cannon.

The crowd closed ranks, although there were still no more than a few hundred people in it. A young woman raised a piece of white cloth above her head. It bore the inscription less smoke, more air. He took a shot of the banner, studying the woman's face and hands as he did so.

Her hands were small, almost childlike, with unpainted nails, and they were quivering slightly, perhaps because of the wind straining against the banner. Her face too was childlike, guileless and innocent. For a moment she reminded him of Albina. Where was she and what would she be doing right now? She might be somewhere here on this square holding a sign above her head. He'd put her out of his mind for so long. What would he say to her if she appeared? What would she say to him if she saw him on the pavement, trying to capture her and her presence on an Ampex tape?

She would say: how could you bring yourself to do this? Or she would say nothing at all. Why should she talk to him?

He looked around at the crowd, partly out of professional interest — in case he saw a new banner — but he also wondered if he might not actually catch a glimpse of her. She wasn't here, of course; there were only more uniformed men on the pavement and a lorry with a water-cannon mounted over the cab which had begun moving slowly down from the upper regions of the square. In the same instant the crowd came together and acquired a voice of its own, a low rumble like a swarm of bees or a looming thunderhead. He felt its agitation grow in anticipation of the coming clash.

The clash would be as absurd as all the others before it, but there was no stopping it. Everyone knew this: those who would administer the beatings and those who would be beaten. This utter certainty transformed the raw determination on both sides into movements that almost seemed preordained. Even Pavel found himself hoping that the clash would soon start, not because he was eager for violence, but because he wanted the inevitable to be over with so that he could do his job and leave.

A yellow-and-white car with a large loudspeaker on its roof moved slowly down the square. The amplified voice, sounding more bored than threatening, announced that the gathering was illegal and ordered everyone present to disperse peacefully. The clamour around Pavel grew.

He took a shot of the car with the loudspeaker and then looked back at the woman with the touchingly naive banner. The white cloth in her hands was trembling more obviously now.

When it was over he walked down one of the narrow side-streets to where he had parked his red sports car. He looked at it, as he always did, with affection, then got in and drove off. The road and the pavements were still wet, and the buildings were spattered with water, but anyone who happened to come this way now would be unaware of what had happened here only moments before. He drove as fast as he dared through the narrow, winding streets. He would love to drive somewhere far away, as far away as possible from people, demonstrations and water-cannons, but he'd promised to visit Eva that evening, and

had promised her son that he would stop off at the stadium to watch his game — he was the goalkeeper of a youth soccer team. He was a sweet kid, and Pavel felt a fatherly concern for him. It was certainly more pleasant to demonstrate his interest in the kid by watching a game than by talking to him about school in the evening. First, however, he had to drop in at the studio, look at the tapes and hand over his material.

The news-room secretary told him the boss had asked where he was twice that day. She supposed it was because of the president's birthday. They'd talked about it at the meeting, she said; it was a big event, they were going to have to shoot a special report at the castle, and he and Sokol were naturals for the job.

He didn't respond. It gave him some private satisfaction that they would trust him, of all people, with such a responsible job, but publicly he liked to say that the only thing he had in common with the head of state was that both of them had been let out of prison the same year.

As usual, the small editing room was hot and stuffy and stank of smoke and bad coffee. To make matters worse it was crammed with people who wanted to know what had really happened on the square. Two bottles of wine and some glasses stood on the mixing desk. Someone must have been celebrating something; you could always find something to celebrate. He pulled a banknote out of his wallet, tossed it in the kitty and poured himself a drink, then handed the tape to the executive producer, a churlish man named Halama, who slipped it into the machine.

Pavel watched the monitor intently. There was the young woman who wanted to breathe less smoke and more air, but now he noticed a young man standing near her. He was tall and thin, wearing a check shirt, and had a pale, dreamy face that looked briefly and sullenly into the camera. He has blue eyes like me, Pavel thought. In fact, he's very like me twenty-five years ago. Would I have been out there too, demonstrating, if I were twenty years younger?

The young man moved out of the frame. The car with the loudspeaker crossed the screen. The crowd roared and stood its ground. A squad of riot police with truncheons