Lovers for a Day

LINGULA

1

The student canteen was a long, bleak hall in the basement and its walls, apart from the glass one at the back, had blind alcoves instead of windows. The canteen committee, it is true, had added some hand-painted commandments in an effort to conceal its drabness,

NO SPILLING OF FOOD! NO LEAVING OF DIRTY CROCKERY! NO SMOKING!

However they did little to cheer the place up and Tomáš and his friends used to carry their lunches to the glass wall. It was airier there and brighter and the table under the tenth commandment had one short leg and nobody sat there, so it was the perfect place for dumping coats, briefcases and empty soup dishes.

They got used to the spot — the last table in the second row — and cut a large scorpion out of cardboard, writing on it the words,

BIOLOGY — RESERVED!

Just beyond the glass wall lay a small garden: two lilac bushes, a low acacia bush, a white magnolia and a forsythia. Blackbirds and a pair of turtle-doves nested there. The students paid little attention to it, simply tossing their leftovers to the birds in the winter, and one day were almost surprised to find that the acacia was putting out its first leaves just as they were studying the viciaceae family.

When the lilac was starting to bloom they arrived to find an unknown girl sitting at the table with the short leg. Her hair was almost white and combed into a beehive. Her eyes were olive-green beneath dark brows and her neck was long. She sat as erect as a statue and held her knife and fork with such elegance that she could have been sitting in the Hotel International, or on a film set.

They did not take their eyes off her the entire time she was eating while she spared them not a single glance, as though unaware of anyone sitting nearby, or of the tenth commandment above her head that read,

BE CONSIDERATE TO YOUR COMRADES!

When she finished her meal she wiped her mouth on her handkerchief while gazing blankly into the distance. Then she got up and looked around briefly. She couldn't help noticing them now, but she made no sign and left, walking away from

them in her stiletto-heeled shoes, with the short, quick steps of the ideal secretary.

They stayed at lunch longer than usual, droning on about the girl: her legs, her hips, her breasts, her eyes. They couldn't just let her disappear like that. Tomáš was at the time the only one of them to have any free moments, so the task fell to him, even though the general opinion was that it was probably beyond him. The next day they caught sight of her from a distance. She was sitting at the same table. Opposite her was some guy at least fifteen years her senior — balding, stylish little spectacles perched on his snub nose, one corner of his shirt collar turned up.

She was eating like a duchess. He slurped his soup noisily, his face almost in the soup bowl.

'Do you like it?' they heard him ask.

'Yes.'

For a long time the two of them said nothing and then she asked, 'How about you?'

'Of course — I'm here with you!' He stopped eating and bared his brownish teeth.

'Stop it — I don't like that sort of talk.' They ate the rest of the meal in silence. Then he took away the dirty plates while everyone congratulated Tomáš because against someone like that he was in with a chance.

Over the next two days they found out that the fellow lectured in family law, was divorced and had a two-tone Skoda Spartak, but about her they discovered nothing. Nobody knew her or had seen her before. Apparently she wasn't a student but simply attached to the lawyer, and after that first day had only appeared in his company.

Soon they got used to her and stopped listening to what the

pair at the next table were saying. They were almost always silent anyway — he was still as unappealing and she as perfect as ever; when they finished eating he would clear away the dirty plates and she would remain seated a few moments gazing blankly after him. Then she would follow him and they would go upstairs, holding hands.

She was dubbed 'Tomas's girl' with friendly mockery: she had been assigned to him and he assigned her to himself too, even though he'd yet to say a word to her. The problem was that fellow didn't budge from her side and she never gave Tomáš a chance to speak to her. By now nobody even expected him to try. Only he thought about it, imagining the moment when he would do it. And since that was so easy to imagine he also imagined the moments that would follow: the two of them sitting together on the terrace of the Brussels Restaurant — music, the midnight dance floor, her olive green eyes, her full lips, kissing her as they danced, then beneath the bridge on the quay, and then in the entrance of the house where she lived, inside, kissing her as she sat on some unfamiliar fine-legged chair, and then making love on an unfamiliar couch — a long, lingering moment. Then he would start all over again.

'What are you doing this afternoon? Do you know you could spend it in the company of a fascinating man. .' No, that wouldn't work. She wouldn't even respond. He stared at his textbook. The fasciola and opisthorchis genus: heart-shaped bodies with two suckers. .

'You must be made from the foam of the sea. Let me look at you for a moment. Just a single moment! Just gaze!' She would hardly refuse. But it would look as though he were totally infatuated with her.

'You have a head like a hoopoe.'

'Like a what?'

'Hoopoe!'

A slightly bewildered laugh.

'It's a bird. With a magnificent head. Though nothing to compare with yours!' That sounded promising.

The term's lectures were finished and they no longer all went to lunch together. Some days they didn't set foot outside the student residence but lived on bread and tinned cod in tomato sauce, with poppy-seed buns and potted mushrooms from their mothers, while chatting away about the four features of the dialectic, the unfortunate Belinda Lee, the latest show at the Semafor, about how Fuchs yelled so loudly the last time he failed his annual exams that the cleaning woman on the floor below dropped a jar containing a rare specimen of Chinese crab and the crab and the alcohol skidded over the floor as if alive and the old dear nearly had a heart attack.

Then there was only a day and a night left before the exam. Mulling things over, they revised worms in their heads — he had just got to the order of brachiopods, stupid little sea worms he'd probably never lay eyes on. Maybe today of all days she had come on her own — it would make a wonderful change from these wretched worms! But on the day before the exam?

He thought he might shave, at least. Then he polished his shoes. After all, the canteen was only twenty minutes away. He put on a new shirt — the latest style. He looked quite interesting (he might just borrow a silver cigarette-lighter), he'd enough money, a full hundred crowns he'd been saving for emergencies.

The day was unbearably hot, and the crowded tram was sweaty. He cursed all the idiots around him and resolved that if

he actually managed to catch her he would speak to her, even if the dean himself was sitting at the same table.

He saw her from afar — her bright green blouse, the light blond hair. She was sitting at the wobbly table, and the chair opposite was empty.

He quickly collected a lunch and made his way over to her with his plate.

In her low neck-line hung a decorative coin on a bronze chain; her skin was smooth, so fine and smooth. 'Is this place free?'

She looked up in surprise. 'Watch out,' she said. 'You're spilling your soup.'

He tried to match her table manners, but she had had a head start and two dumplings remained on his plate when she finished her meal. There was no time to waste. 'On your own today?' What a daft thing to say. How utterly trivial. 'I suppose he's examining,' he added quickly.

'I've no idea.' She stacked her plates and stood up.

'Wait,' he blurted out. 'What would you say to an afternoon stroll?'

'A what?'

'What else are you doing this afternoon?'

'Going fishing.'

'That's no fun.'

'What do you suggest?'

'Something you've never experienced before. An original and unforgettable evening!'

'You were talking about the afternoon a moment ago.' She picked up the plates with one hand and her handbag with the other and walked away — those short, brisk steps of the ideal secretary.

He hurried after her, up the staircase and then along the hot,

overcrowded street. This chance would never come again. He tried desperately to come up with something clever, witty and slightly ironic to say, something charmingly self-assured — but remained silent.

The lights at the intersection were red. 'Well,' she said with her eyes fixed on the red light, 'will we be going in the same direction for much longer?'

'For ever,' he said, despairingly, 'unless you want to destroy me utterly!'

They crossed the intersection, a taxi appeared from the direction of the Powder Tower. She hailed it resolutely.

The driver leaned over the front seat lazily and half opened the back door.

He dashed to hold it open from outside.

'Where to?' asked the man behind the wheel as she got in.

'The Golden Well,' he said, then quickly jumped in and the taxi drove off.

Tight-lipped, she stared ahead. He now caught a slight scent of lilac and was overjoyed: it must have worked. Action is always better than blathering.

The car crossed the river, turning several times into ever narrower streets. 'Sixteen crowns!' declared the driver and quickly cleared the meter.

'Thanks for the lift,' she said. 'Your cheek really is something extraordinary!'

He felt flattered. 'So come on up! There's no point hanging about down here.'

'A truly unusual afternoon,' she said, scornfully. 'Sitting on a terrace and gawking at our city's famous "hundred towers". And a glass of wine with you into the bargain! Was that the best you could dream up?'

'I would have dreamt up something better, but you didn't give me enough time.'

'Well you have plenty now.'

'Okay, I'll think up something original. But let's go and sit on the terrace first.'

After they had climbed the 160 steps he called over the waiter and coolly ordered a bottle of champagne — I'll find out what it tastes like, at least.

The city was truly beautiful. Some of the windows shone like flame and small, old-fashioned tram cars moved soundlessly along the distant embankment. The familiar towers soared upwards and a haze of smoke and exhaust fumes hung over everything.

'We could introduce ourselves,' he suggested.

'Such an incredibly original gambit,' she said. 'My name's none of your business. And yours doesn't interest me in the least.'

He raised his glass, determined not to be put off. 'You're extraordinary. Really extraordinary. And fascinating.'

She looked past him and over the low railing at the dark, sooty roofs. 'And now tell me what you really want.'

'I told you. To spend the afternoon and the evening with you!'

'What would be the point?'

'I don't know. . We could both be happy, perhaps.'

'You can stop that kind of talk. I've heard it too many times.'

Won't you tell me something about yourself?'

'No!'

'Are you a student?'

She remained silent.

'Do you love him?'

'Stop it!'

'You're not happy, are you?'

'You say the same thing to every girl and she's amazed you could possibly know. Is that it?'

'But you're not. I can tell!'

'You can stop talking like that immediately — or I'll leave you to sit here on your own.'

He paid for the wine. The tip alone would have bought three lunches at the canteen. He had scarcely forty crowns left.

'Now I hope you'll let me go,' she said at the bottom of the steps. But the question already contained the answer. After all, there was nothing to stop her leaving, there was no need to ask him. Now was the moment to come up with some brilliant subject. Or an anecdote. But he had spent the last days deep in worms.

'I won't,' he said perfunctorily. Last winter he had almost perished in the mountains. Well, that was a bit of an exaggeration, but it had been quite an experience anyway. How could he tactfully steer the conversation towards winter? In the meantime he asked, 'Do you go to the Semafor?'

'As if you cared.'

'That's real modern music. It manages to cheer you up, even when you know the next moment could be your last.' How was that for an ace conversational move! He glanced in her direction but her expression showed no trace of interest.

So he started to describe the dreadful fog, the howling storm, the ice crystals whipping into his face, his breath freezing at his lips.

She walked beside him, indifferent, concentrating on where she was placing her feet and staring straight ahead. It was four in the afternoon and the streets were starting to fill with people

who swarmed into shops, hot and sweaty, gaping at shop windows, and barging into him. The queue in front of the ice-cream shop grew longer. Few things could seem as senseless at that moment as a howling storm, snow drifts and the danger of the mountains.

He swallowed repeatedly in desperation as he tried to find a creditable way out of his bind. He described his feelings of total exhaustion.

Some actress or other grinned at him from a poster. Behind her a red car was hurtling into an abyss. He had no idea what kind of film it was, but the poster promised an Italian comedy, so he told her he'd heard it was supposed to be splendid.

She sneered slightly and he dashed off to buy tickets. The film had started long before, but fortunately this particular film didn't seem to need any beginning. He couldn't concentrate at all but tried to pretend he was enjoying himself, laughing loudly at the silliest jokes and looking round at her triumphantly. But she wasn't laughing. Her face was oddly taut, her eyes were barely open, obviously registering nothing, and her mouth seemed to indicate she was in some kind of distress.

There's something strange about her, he said to himself. Maybe something has happened to her. Something I haven't a clue about. Or to him maybe. That's why he didn't come to lunch and the whole time she's been thinking about him. Some tragedy, he decided, that could be quite interesting. It'll be a long while before she's able to confide in me. We were still strangers yesterday but you can count on me!

But it would call for some action, of course.

But what sort of action could one possibly come up with in this absurd world?

Short of taking the tram to Sarka, he thought to himself

peevishly, and throwing myself off the cliff. As proof of my love. Or chucking myself in the Vltava fully clothed. On the other hand, he thought, maybe I'll make do with an ordinary bench and the sort of things that people don't usually talk about. Such as the first time I fell in love, or how I discovered Dad was avoiding Mum, or how they bombed Prague when I was six months old. The house next door was hit. Can you believe it? I could have ceased to exist. If it had fallen a bit closer there could be an empty space sitting next to you.

The film ended.

'It was a bit tedious,' he admitted. 'I'm sorry if you found it boring.'

'Why?' she said in surprise. 'Have you got something even worse up your sleeve?'

'Like?'

'Dancing,' she said. 'That's the next invitation, isn't it? Dinner followed by dancing. I reckon you're the Shooters' Island type. You're not classy enough for the Café Vltava and they don't serve alcohol at the Luxor. You'd be hard pressed to look even slightly debauched there. And at the Fučík Park they only have oompah.'

A suicidal notion took hold of him. 'But that's precisely where I wanted to take you.'

'Aha, you're starting to be original.' She's bound never to have set foot in the place and be horrified of parks and daddies taking time out with their kiddies. 'I'm sure it'll be unforgettable,' she said. 'Will you buy me a balloon and some candy-floss?'

'Whatever you fancy!' He had only been there once himself and had a vague memory of hordes of people and unrelieved boredom. There's nothing more tedious than organized fun.

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO ENJOY YOURSELF! But

maybe he'd find something there, something he could use as a starting point! An exhibition of artificial flowers, perhaps. Or a poetry evening. Do you like Holub? Or Morgenstern? Do you know the one about the worm?

Hidden in its shell

A most peculiar worm did dwell

Do you know how the eunice viridis procreates? Ugh!

They got on a tram and he bought tickets. He had 16 crowns 40 hellers left.

The park gates were wide open and a man and woman emerged, tottering towards them. She had rumpled clothes and painted lips. Water flowed quietly from the beaks of china dabchicks. They veered to the right and circled the locked sports hall. Trampled paper cups lay scattered in front of empty stalls and a solitary sweeper was piling them into an untidy heap. As they passed, he looked up and nodded in the direction of the empty park benches lining the flower beds. 'Things aren't what they used to be. The lovers are all sitting at home watching telly.'

He was grateful for 'the lovers.' 'Not all of them, as you see.'

'Come on,' she urged, impatiently 'There has to be something here somewhere!'

There was a new layer of sand on the path and the dark buildings slumbered with their windows forbiddingly shuttered; the empty arena with its banks of seats, the amphitheatre and the great circular structure of the Circlorama. An abstract sculpture of shiny metal rose out of the grass.

He stopped in front of it.

'Anything but that,' she said quickly. 'I don't want to talk about modern art. I'm not interested in Miró or Klee. They don't concern me in the slightest.'

She turned towards him. Her hair shone red in the reflection of the setting sun. She was extremely beautiful at that moment and he forgot what he had intended to say. All he could think was that they might love each other.

'And what does concern you?' he asked.

'Come on,' she said, 'there must be something happening here somewhere.'

'There's nothing happening here… So what does concern you?'

'Not you, for sure,' she snapped, 'as you have to keep on asking.'

'But you concern me\ Because I love you.'

'Stop it! Stop that talk!'

'I've had a couple of girlfriends. One of them I really loved.'

'So what?'

'She left me. . She was my first. I thought I'd never love anyone as much again. But I'll love you more.'

From a long way off came the sound of a brass band, the rattle of goods trucks at the railway station and the clang of a tram car. The sounds only deepened the silence. And the two of them were quite alone in this immense cemetery of entertainment.

He stopped by one of the park benches. 'Shall we sit down?'

She placed her handbag between them and tried to pull her skirt down over her knees.

'I'm serious,' he said.

She stroked the leather of her bag and touched his hand in the process, maybe intentionally. If he hesitated now she would

be bound to think he was a beginner; he closed his hand over her fingers. He felt a momentary thrill at the touch. If she doesn't take her hand away, I'll put my arm around her. The thrill grew more intense while deeper inside lurked the fear that it had all been too easy, that she wasn't so remarkable, inaccessible or refined after all, that she could be sitting here with anyone, that she was the same as the rest of them.

She withdrew her hand and placed both hands on her knees without looking at him. Her breath came slowly and calmly. He looked into her face; her features were no longer taut, just very tired.

'Is nothing ever going to happen?' she asked.

'What kind of thing?'

'Something big. Some movement. Will there never be any

more revolutions?'

'Revolutions? But we had one!' 'That's not the sort I meant,' she said testily.

'What sort then?'

'Movement of some kind! Hue and cry. A theatre performance on an enormous staircase. In the open air.'

'And that's all?'

'No.' For a moment she spoke as though reciting from some strange text. 'You could do whatever you liked. Join in the play — or not. Or play something else. Walk down that staircase and say nothing and take no notice of anything.'

He didn't understand her. Perhaps she wasn't able to say precisely what she wanted; it was something one had to accept with women. But there was an excitingly wistful note in her voice that he understood. At this moment she seemed extremely close to him.

'What am I to call you?'

'What? Oh, that again. .Will you stop!'

'But I have to have to call you something!'

'So make something up.' Once more she was totally and haughtily impassive.

Rancour overwhelmed him. 'Okay. I've thought of one. How about Lingula.'

'What?'

'Lingula!'

'If you like,' she said, unconcerned.

A train moved along the embankment. She stared after it. Sparks and light from the windows. He noticed. 'Lingula,' he said, 'there's a station not far from here. We'll take a train.'

'Where?'

Who cares?. . It's movement.'

She shrugged.

They got up and walked back along the deserted path. I've only got 16 crowns left, he realized. But we'll always manage to get home if we want to.

No one was waiting at the booking office window. He tipped all his money out on the counter. 'Two eight-crown-twenty tickets,' he said.

'What?'

He caught sight of a spinsterish face and a bewildered look behind dark-framed spectacles.

'Two eight-crown-twenty tickets,' he repeated.

Where to?'

'It doesn't matter,' he said. 'On the next train.'

'You don't know where you're going?'

'No!'

'There's no such ticket,' the booking-office lady declared. 'You can have one for seven-eighty or eight-forty.'

She passed him two cardboard tickets. 'Hurry up. Your train leaves in four minutes.'

2

The carriage swayed gently and the night flowed past the window. There were four workmen in the compartment, three playing cards while the fourth sat opposite her, watching her in silence and smoking.

She couldn't remember the last time she'd taken the train. Her recent boyfriends had always had cars. And always Spartaks. She'd liked the last one most of all — two-tone, red with a black roof. But apart from that he was the same as the rest, the same talk; a drive to the dam every Saturday — a divorcee. She wasn't even really sure why she went with them. All those cabins on steep slopes. They were stifling hot inside, long into the night. But she had to survive the weekends somehow. She always managed to find someone. If only he hadn't gone on the way he had, though. He was just an ordinary lawyer but with a passion for lyrical verse. Sweetheart, you have eyes like a goldfish and a head like a Madonna, I'd like to take you away with me — or just a little bit of you to put under the glass of my desktop. Those words would come back to her even in the dead of night when all was silent and she was trying desperately to get to sleep. The words would choke her and she would long for the morning to come. She longed for it so much that she would start to whisper out loud, 'Dear God, if only it was morning!'

This student she was travelling with had been telling her stories about some crazy professor or other while the workman

kept on looking at her. She looked at him too, but not at his face: he had a thin sinewy neck like a strange landscape of rounded slopes and hollows. In one of the hollows lay a small seashell on a fine chain.

She found it odd that he should wear such a trifle. Perhaps he had been at the seaside and wanted people to know it.

He saw she was watching him and smiled slightly. She smiled too. Just as long as he doesn't start to talk, she thought. She didn't want to hear any talk. About herself, or him or about life.

The train would stop and set off again and there would be the tramp of feet in the corridor. From time to time she could not help laughing at the stories. The workman stared at her intently: perhaps he had stood like that on the seashore, motionlessly scanning the waves, maybe that's why he brought back that seashell, because he loved the sea and wanted to remember it. For a moment she glanced into his calm eyes and she realized that in fact he was unaware of her, he was just staring, looking at the sea or his daughter or some long lost object which he could see only through her.

She smiled at him again. Maybe it wasn't even a smile but an expression of satisfaction.

The train started to brake. The workmen got up and the one opposite her put on his beret and nodded in her direction like an old acquaintance and she replied bye in a tone she kept reserved for her friends.

Now she was alone in the compartment except for that student. He sat opposite her with a sullen look on his face — like Belmondo. He had full lips too, and a straight nose. All he lacked was a bit of carnality.

'You haven't listened to a word I've been saying,' he said, trying to look exasperated. 'Did you know that guy?'

'Yes.' His eyes had none of that man's serenity. She began to feel regret. Whatever possessed me? Where am I going? I don't even know where we'll sleep. But in the end that doesn't matter. So long as there's running water. And he doesn't start talking drivel beforehand.

He's giving me a sheepish look. Why?

He's still only a boy, she realized. He must be younger than me. He's just putting it on. Maybe he'll still manage to like me, it occurred to her. But what's the point, she rebuked herself. Why start all over again? It's of no importance. Nothing's important really. So long as it's nice, a bit nice, at least. From beneath half-closed eyelids she could make out yellowish lights passing the window. 'Come on,' she heard him say. 'We have to get off here.'

It was a small station. Four lamps and beneath them tubs of pelargoniums and a sleepy stationmaster.

'Do you know this place?'

'Not in the slightest.'

They followed the other people along a beaten path in the dark and arrived at a number of lights, one of which belonged to a pub.

'Aren't you going to invite me to dinner?' she asked.

'Naturally' he said. But he stood outside the door with a look of despair. Finally she recalled how he had tipped out his last coins at the booking office. She reached into her handbag, took out a small purse and handed it to him.

There were just three foresters sitting in the bar-room. And a black hunting dog. The landlord squatted at their table. They seemed to have been drinking together; now they were all staring at her. 'Bloody hell,' one of them said under his breath.

Four sausages and bread. They sat at a corner table covered in oil-cloth. Above their heads a full-antlered rutting stag on the banks of a blue river.

The foresters raised their voices: '. . he was belting along with his gob right near the ground when all of a sudden he stops dead in his tracks and his hair's all standing up on end, and I couldn't get him to move an inch. .'

She knew for certain that she had heard the very same thing before, in this exact pub — amazingly, here too everything repeated itself, those three foresters and the black dog. She knew that the dog had come across the tracks of a raging wild boar. When had she heard it, though? It must have been a long time ago. Yes, she remembered now, it was when her father was still alive, so it must have been during the war or the first year after it. They were walking along a track, though she couldn't recall a thing about it. Then in the evening they reached this pub and three foresters were sitting just by the door with a dog and telling the story of the tusker.

It's very odd, she thought, that they should still be sitting here, that they haven't grown tired of the story yet. On the other hand, don't we all go on listening to the same handful of stories, over and over again?

The landlord placed plates in front of them.

They ate in silence. Suddenly he said, 'Something sad happened to you, didn't it?'

'Yes,' she said. 'I met you,' and she burst out laughing.

'And what about him?'

'Who?'

'You know who.'

'Ah. .' She had completely forgotten him until that moment. As almost always happened when she wasn't actually

with him. No one had ever been so close to her that she would want to think about them all the time.

'Do you love him?'

She shrugged.

'But you must know!'

'Stop that sort of talk! At least over dinner.'

One of the foresters came over to them with three small glasses. He was still young: a ruddy face and cunning eyes. 'How about a toast? To the beauty of this young lady!' He was unable to take his eyes off the bronze coin on the chain around her neck.

He had come over that time too, she recalled. And forced me to drink. Then everyone had laughed. I expect I made a face.

I was five at the time, she realized in alarm. Why had he done it? But she was sure she knew why he came.

'So get it down you,' the forester said irritably, 'or else I'll shoot you in the night. You and that boy. Through the door.'

Laughter came from the other table.

She knew he had come precisely for that laughter, and also so he could get a look at her and have a better idea of everything that was going to happen when he would no longer be able to see.

She stood and took the glass and parting her lips slightly, drained its contents. She detested those final moments: a key on a heavy metal ring; leaving the bar with strangers' eyes on her back. 'Thank you,' she said and smiled at the forester. 'Maybe I'll pay you back some time.'

Then she sat down again. So long as the bed doesn't creak and the landlord doesn't make any comments, and the boy doesn't talk needlessly and it's a bit nice at least. He came back from the counter and handed back her purse.

She opened it absentmindedly, and sorted through the change. Suddenly she realized: 'Wasn't there enough left for a room?' It sounded almost triumphal.

'I don't know… I… I didn't ask. .' Then she saw him blush and at that moment she too felt a pang of shame and pushed back her chair noisily.

They walked down the long street of darkened houses with dogs barking from the gardens as they passed. But there was a pure and comforting silence. God I've not done this before, it's really crazy. Then there remained a path through the fields, the scent of acacia, and the only light came from the moon high above: unfamiliar and mysterious.

'Where are we going?' she asked. She stared at the rounded toes of her shoes and tried to make out how badly damaged they were. 'Nowhere, I expect,' she answered herself, 'that's the whole point. .'

He probably didn't notice the irony. 'Once when I was a boy I ran away from home,' he began. 'With a friend of mine. I didn't know where I was going then either. We took sleeping bags and loads of tinned food. .'

'Yeah, yeah,' she interrupted him impatiently. 'You slept in the woods and the owls hooted but you weren't scared. Then they caught you at the railway station at Český Krumlov. You didn't even get a beating when you got home and so you fell in love. You were thirteen. She was a geography teacher. She clashed your hopes when you came upon her in the arms of the married PE teacher. So you wrote your first poem. Oh, God! If only you'd written a song, at least!'

'What?' he said, mystified.

'A song,' she repeated. 'But no. All any of you wrote was poems.'

Perhaps she shouldn't have said 'any of you'; he would find that the most hurtful thing. Now he said no more and their journey was even more aimless. And the silence was oppressive.

At length he spoke up once more. 'Why are you always like that? You never want to hear anything!' And when she did not reply he asked her again, 'What do you actually do?'

'Stop it! Stop interrogating me!' Then she said, 'Film. In the archives if you must know.'

'That must be interesting.'

'Awfully!'

Before that she had worked in an accounts department and had never dreamed of anything like it: four films a day; Marlon Brando, Laurence Harvey, Alain Delon; all those kisses, those rendezvous on street corners, those ball gowns, those dinners, those bars and orchestras. The stars: Cybulski, Marilyn Monroe, May Britt. Unfinished stripteases and suggested rapes. War: all that horror and lucky encounters. Successful careers. Railwaymen, turners and miners looking for new relationships. Hooligans. Murder in a bathroom and murder on a deserted road. Many abandoned journeys. Twilight and dawn on deserted trails. Parks. Park benches. Children and pensioners and lovers in parks. Hide-and-seek in parks. Departing trains. Street lights at night. The world through a wet windowpane. The poetry of solitude. The poetry of rain. The poetry of great plains. The poetry of mountains. The poetry of discord. The poetry of war ruins. The poetry of sun between branches. The poetry of the first kiss that ends the film — or starts it. Everything. She knew everything.

The power of the sentence left unsaid. Of the gesture not made. The effectiveness of the hint. The provocativeness of undressing viewed from the rear and of brassieres discarded.

Legs naked up to the thigh. Necks exposed. Down as far as the breasts. The provocativeness of concealed nakedness. Nakedness concealed by a blanket. Nakedness concealed by darkness. Concealed by a table. Nakedness behind a screen. Nakedness wrapped round by a towel. In an untied dressing gown.

She knew everything. She knew precisely why it was worth living. She knew precisely why it was not worth living.

'I'm studying worms,' he said, 'and suchlike stupidities. I'm being examined on them tomorrow.'

They slowly climbed a long shallow incline. They didn't stop until they reached the summit where there stood a low ramshackle chapel. A rugged limestone cliff fell away sharply below. In the valley was a river from which dark paths rose upward. The horizon was far away, several ranges of hills in the night.

'Look!' he pointed.

She was tired and her feet were hot and sore. I ought to take off my shoes, it occurred to her. Whatever possessed me to come here in my stilettos? Whatever possessed me to come at all, in order to stand here in the middle of the night on some unknown rock — she'd never believe it if someone else Cold her about it. 'So what now?' she said. 'We can hardly stand here gawping for ever!' He turned and gingerly grasped the church door's rusty handle. A warm air drifted from within the chapel, full of the scent of flowers long wilted and burnt wax.

The corpse-like face of the Madonna stared at them from (he altar and on the floor lay a threadbare rug.

'What are we going to do here?'

'Nothing,' he said, 'unless you fancy praying.'

She sat down wearily on the rug and leaned back against the low step beneath the altar. She drew her knees up beneath her chin and closed her eyes.

'There's a strange silence here,' she whispered.

'Well that suits you, doesn't it?'

'Yes.' But the silence here was more ponderous than outside. This was a place of vast desolation.

'Do you know how to pray?' she whispered.

'No.'

She didn't know how to pray either. Back in the war her grandmother had taught her the Our Father and the Hail Mary and she herself had mumbled the words she'd learnt the moment the sirens started to wail and the flak to explode, but she had never prayed. She had been only three years old at the time and since then nobody had required her to pray, not even when she was ill or her parents' marriage collapsed and her Dad left home. She had not asked for mercy or help or even revenge, nor had she asked for a blessing on her new father — by that time she was a big girl of ten. She had never prayed or asked for anything. Now it struck her that it must be an odd and marvellous feeling to have someone. Not to have someone to pray to as much as someone to turn to and confide in. It was a long time since she had had someone like that.

And what for anyway, she said to herself bitterly. It's easy to fool yourself. Whether you believe in God or some guy or whatever, you always fool yourself in the end.

'Say something!' she said out loud. 'Don't just sit there like a mummy!'

'I don't feel like it!' he snapped.

She felt the waxen face of the statue behind her, and the

scent of the old flowers aroused her. He was standing somewhere behind her, or maybe beside her. All she could see was a bare wall and a tiny window that a strange dim light shone through. But she could hear his breathing. It irritated her. 'Can you sing?'

'A little.'

'Sing something!'

'I don't know anything suitable.'

'That doesn't matter.'

'I can hardly belt out hit songs here, can I?'

'It makes no difference.'

'You're crazy,' he said.

'Well stop breathing, then!'

'What?'

'Go away!' she yelled. 'Or stop breathing!'

'Okay,' he replied.

And now she really couldn't hear anything. As if he had suddenly disappeared or died and she was left alone here in this deserted spot, totally alone. She knew she lacked the strength to stand up and go out into the darkness, and even if she did stand up, and even if she did find the path, she would have nowhere to go.

She felt a pang of anxiety. Come back and don't be dead, she silently told him. Don't die! Don't go away! Don't struggle! Stay with me! Take me away from here!

'Sing something,' she said quietly.

'Okay.'

She still could not see him, but on the adjacent wall she could now make out his silhouette as he opened his mouth.

He sang very quietly. His voice was pleasant and the melody very simple: slightly soothing and slightly amusing. Soon she

stopped being aware of it, even of the words, leaving only random pictures without any meaning: elephants with flags, damp roofs plaited out of football shirts, flocks of flying bears, palm birds, mouse-driven clocks; warm colours, pictures like flickering ink blots. She could still see the moving silhouette, but it was no longer leaning against the wall nearby but standing beneath a tall, white staircase: it belonged to her. She could stretch out her hand and say, Come to me, don't go away, don't struggle, stay with me — she could say it and knew he would understand it and stay with her.

So she said, Come with me! And they were running up an enormous staircase, with thousands of actors milling about, some waving flags, others just mournfully reciting, but they ignored them completely and climbed up and up.

'Not so fast!' they shouted after them. 'The abyss looms before you! pon't lose your heads, youngsters!'

'Take no notice of any of them,' she heard his voice. 'Those old clowns, those fogies, those windbags, those car-driving TV heroes paid to recite anything at all.'

'Let them witter away here,' she said. 'They're quite amusing when they perform here.'

'What can you see?' he asked.

'Everything,' she said. 'It's a total blank but in it I can see everything I ever wanted to see.'

He had stopped singing. For a moment she was alarmed, but the silence was now cheerful and friendly and she was still standing on a thin strip of concrete beyond which lay everything and she could make out his dark silhouette in front of her. Don't let him move, she wished, let everything stay the way it is, we'll stay here together always. Let the morning never come, let this moment last for ever.

She was overcome with a drunken longing for laughter and held her breath; then she felt tears on her cheeks. I'm happy, she realized with amazement.

3

It was a silly song that they had made up during evenings at the student residence when they were feeling totally drained. It had thirty verses. I'll sing her two of them, at most, just to show her how she wide of the mark she was about those poems and then I'll kiss her. But he went on singing more and more verses, staring at her face: motionless and very beautiful. She was beautiful. He could lean down and kiss her, but at the same time she was too remote and indifferent, so he didn't.

It's because I know nothing about her, it struck him, and he didn't take his eyes off her: he was accustomed to staring with concentration for hours on end, imprinting on his memory the shapes of beetles and plants, although he had never taken the trouble to memorize the appearance of a particular person — that tends to be obvious at first sight.

He had watched her from the first moment they were together. At the same time he had registered the journey, the houses, the night, the barking dogs and passing trains. He had also talked a great deal and thought about what he was doing and what he was going to do. But at this very moment he was not thinking about or even noticing anything else, just her and her stillness, and then beneath that stillness he saw with astonishment a slight tremor of hair and eyelashes and at last he saw tears well up and start to fall. And he felt compassion and sympathy; she must be experiencing something terribly painful.

But he would do everything to make her happy! He touched her on the shoulder.

'No!' she blurted out. 'Not here! Not now!'

'Say something! Tell me something about yourself.'

'Yes.'

'You will?'

'Yes,' she said quietly, 'but not now.'

He took her by the hand and they left the chapel. To the north-east the night was gradually receding.

They blundered down the stony path in silence. He helped her and waited. She was extremely tired. Her hair was mussed and there were shadows under her eyes. It would soon be morning and they had not even kissed yet. Just because she had to stay so stupidly silent all the time! Why? What was she waiting for? What was she still waiting for?

He turned to her. 'I'm looking forward to hearing everything.'

She felt his impatience.

'Shall we sit down here?'

'Wait a bit.'

She was very tired and gripped by a peculiar feeling of regret. As if someone had woken her up abruptly from a vivid dream full of colour and powerful emotion. She could neither rouse herself nor go back.

The first cottages of some village emerged out of the darkness. Cocks were crowing like mad, the path grew lighter and the dust was slightly damp.

'Well?' he said.

'Just wait a bit.' Then she asked, 'How will we get home?'

'Do you have to go to work?'

She nodded.

'There'll be some long-distance drivers along soon,' he said. 'They're bound to stop for you.'

But they were walking along a byroad and he knew that no long-distance drivers came this way. He was quite glad they didn't. They had so little time left.

'Come on, let's sit down here!'

She shook her head. What shall I tell him? she thought wearily to herself. That time back then, when the first one took her by the hand… It was strange, it had been the very same gesture as his yesterday evening. It hadn't been on a bench but in the empty natural-history study. She recalled the tall green cupboard full of stuffed birds, the toad in alcohol, the tarantulas, the very same gesture as his yesterday. It was strange how many important and involved experiences she had had since — rendezvous and car journeys, protestations, entreaties, threats, men's tears, nights in parks and nights in strange flats, disappointments, hotel beds and separations — but this was something she recalled more clearly than all the rest, and she remembered that touch, how he had covered her hand with his, that lovely touch that was so tender and so long ago.

I'm awfully sentimental, she thought. It must be the lack of sleep.

She closed her eyes slightly and managed to clear her thoughts. Her entire life had collapsed. The feeling of that dream came back to her. She could see the dark outline of a forest below a sky that was turning blue — the charred wall of the city. She could see the faint reflections of the fire: now she was part of a column of marching soldiers that was once more approaching its destination.

Where are you leading me?

I'm leading you soldiers to the future. To a greater love. To a new and more valuable happiness!

No, she said, I don't believe any more. I know I won't be convinced. I'll stay here.

In that case, said the one in front, you'll be a little lost soldier. Little lost soldiers are worst off of all. They're the ones that stumble around an empty field telling themselves they'll conquer something on their own. You'll suffer rain and loneliness and silence, you'll get out of the habit of our regulations and excellent orders, and when the enemy finds you you'll just gibber with fright and he'll slaughter you and there'll be no one there to close your eyes.

I'll stay here with him, she said happily. I'm fond of him.

He suddenly stopped to listen. He was unable to conceal his annoyance. 'Something's coming!'

It was a heavyy Tatra truck, with its load covered by a tarpaulin. The driver opened his swollen eyelids wide: 'You've been out gallivanting late,' he said. 'I've never seen the like — four o'clock in the morning!'

He remained silent for a moment, looking first at her, then at him, then back at her.

'Okay, climb aboard,' he said eventually. 'You'll find a bit of space somewhere among the barrels.'

He jumped on board. He could make out the brown oval barrels in the darkness. There was a smell of beer.

She had to take off her shoes and hand them to him. Then she tried to swing her leg over the high tail gate, but her skirt was too tight. He leaned over, gripped her under the armpits and hauled her up. For a moment he held her in his arms with her mouth very close to his.

A bundle of damp, grubby sacks lay by the side board. It was

extremely cramped. They sat on the blankets, their elbows touching and their knees drawn up under their chins.

'There you are, then,' he said. 'There you are.'

His face was right next to hers. She could see each of his features in the light that streamed through a hole in the tarpaulin. A boyish face. Quite smooth and unblemished.

He wants me to say I'm fond of him. And he wants to kiss me. I have to find some way of telling him I like him and for that reason don't want to kiss him. Not now. Not now, at least. She knew she had to say something quickly so that he understood her. It was a matter of finding the words, ordinary words: I like you!

So you love me, he will say. Let's go somewhere together, then. No! Some other way. She strained every muscle to find the words and they started to come to her, from a long way away: two lights on a deserted dawn road, a broad sheet of canvas, a quiet whisper from beneath the tarpaulin. It's been an unforgettable evening. Even if we are to share nothing else together, it will have been worth getting to know one another. But we'll never leave each other now!

'You promised me. .' he said.

'Just stop that!' she snapped at him. How she hated all those clichés. They confined her. They merged with her. They were inside her. She was drenched in them. They were all she could come up with. She couldn't manage anything else. All she could do was kiss him!

So you love me? Let's go somewhere together, shall we?

Where?

To your place maybe.

She tried to stop the film but it was already running.

A little bedroom as dawn is breaking. An unmade bed. I'm afraid it's a bit of a mess.

Boyish eyes open wide. It's really nice here! Nervous shuffling. Where should I go while. .

Turn your back!

A languid feline gesture. Arms raised. A bronze chain being undone.

Outside the window the city awakes. Dustmen. Milk cans.

Detail of a chair. The remaining items of underwear fall.

'There you are then,' he broke the silence. 'We'll be in Prague in a minute. A fat lot you're going to tell me.'

By now he didn't even want to hear anything. He just needed something to take his frustration out on. Frustration at the fact she'd constandy managed to evade him, that he had fallen for that mystique of hers. She had come with him so that he could fill her emptiness for one evening. But he wasn't completely sure. If she were to look at him now, if she were to smile a little bit, he'd take it all back. But no, she remained silent, and he repeated to himself over and over again. An empty, ordinary, empty girl… 'So you're not going to tell me anything?' he asked once more.

She tried desperately to find a single sentence, but a meaningless jumble of phrases and protestations swirled around in her head: the tenderest of banalities, the names of animals and flowers, jabbering words — my love, my precious, my darling, my valentine, my copperhead, my sweet boy, my one and only — long lingering glances seemed to pour out of the beer barrels along with the soft sound of kisses. There was nothing else. Nothing at all. She opened her mouth slightly, gulped and shook her head from side to side.

'You. . you!'

'No,' she said hastily, 'please don't!'

She shook her head stupidly. He clasped her face in his hands, for a short moment her eyes were very close and he was

appalled at how motionless they were. 'No,' she said very quietly, 'please don't!'

Then they knelt there on the damp, grubby sacks and kissed.

He kissed her — my love, my precious, my darling, my Snow White, my beautiful, my fragrant, my Lingula, until at last the lorry started to jolt over the cobbles of the city and she whispered, 'Stop it now! Stop it!' And again they sat side by side with their knees under their chins, and his arm around her shoulders. With the stench of beer.

Through the hole in the tarpaulin she could see sooty fragments of walls and roofs and chimneys and her head was clear and she was utterly calm as always when she returned late from a night out.

'Lingula,' he said, 'are you happy?'

Oh, God, back to work again. I'll hardly have time to change and I'll have bags under my eyes. 'You know I am,' she said with a voice that was clear and level.

The lorry pulled up in front of the Electricity Board. She jumped down first. He held her in his arms once more. Then they waited in front of the white-tiled building as a golden mist rose up from the river.

'Shall we go?'

One of the old-style trams came rattling over the bridge. 'I'll take this one,' she said. 'Perhaps you'll let me go now.'

He nodded. 'And when will we see each other again?'

'What for?' she repeated.

She saw the amazement on his face and remorse began to well up in her too. She should have run across the street long ago. But she wanted to say at least something to him.

They faced each other in silence. 'What's "Lingula"?' she remembered.

At last he could get his own back for all her silence.

'Lingula? Stop that! Your tram's about to leave!'

He watched her run across the wide, deserted road junction.

He couldn't understand how she could leave just like that. Without a single word. Had it all really meant nothing to her? Could she really have felt nothing of what he had felt? For a moment pain gripped his mouth and throat and he was obliged to swallow several times to ease it slightly. He saw her leap into the open tram car as it started to pull away. It was time for him to go too but he waited. She was still standing on the steps of the tram. She could have turned her head at least.

She stood on the dirty steps. She was getting back very late again but it didn't matter. It had been a remarkable night — a pity it couldn't have lasted, a pity the lorry had turned up, a pity the morning had come, a pity he was like all the others. . Someone behind her shouted, 'Climb aboard, miss!' She moved to the top step and the tram screeched its way round the bend. Maybe he's still standing there. She wanted to lean out and check, but she was being jostled into the car. She caught sight of an empty seat. At last she realized just how tired she was. The conductor clipped her ticket — the dark-coloured tram uniform — he smiled slightly, possibly at her, but more likely at the bronze coin — it felt out of place at this time of the morning.

She half closed her eyes and could suddenly see the dark silhouette and it occurred to her that even if she were to shut her eyes tight or run away from it as far as she could, she would still see it — motionless on the dark wall nearby. It was inside her. She could reach out and touch it, saying, Come with me, don't

leave, don't struggle, stay by me, and he would be with her at last and never leave her. She took her ticket and smiled back.

The time on the large street clock was 5.30 a.m. He had to be in for his exam by eight-thirty. Nobody else will have prepared themselves in such a sensational fashion. An entire afternoon, evening and night. With her. And in the end she kissed me. They're not going to believe that.

Lingula, he said to her in his mind, lingula, he recited silently, a genus of the order of brachiopods, the shells either open or closed in the anterior free part of the shell that has embedded bristles. Like this entire group of worms, the lingula is closely related to the order of phoronids. .

(1962)