The Ultimate Intimacy

Chapter Three

1

Brother Soukup has been sitting in his office for almost an hour and the conversation is getting nowhere. 'You condemn me, Reverend!'

'I never condemn anyone.'

'I know. But you think I'm behaving badly.'

'Irresponsibly perhaps.'

'Towards the children, you mean?'

'Towards everyone.'

'But you know I'm not an irresponsible person.' He has recently been elected chairman of the board of a printing company and he sets rather too much store by it. He wears only white shirts these days and even on this hot June day he has come dressed in a jacket and tie.

'It's possible to act responsibly at work and less so towards one's nearest and dearest.'

'If you only knew the sleepless nights I've had over it, Reverend Brother. You wouldn't believe how much soul-searching I've gone through before reaching this decision.'

'I believe you.'

'Máša was my first woman. I knew nothing about life.'

'At that time maybe, but now you're the father of four children.'

'But what am I supposed to do, Reverend Brother, now I don't love her any more?'

'It's up to oneself whom one does or doesn't love.'

'No, I can't any more. I simply can't stand her. When I see her looking shattered every morning, with tears in her eyes, it spoils my whole day.'

'But she's shattered because of you.'

'She's shattered on her own account. She's not built for today's world. Or any world, for that matter. She's like an old rag, if you'll

excuse me, Reverend, for using the expression about the mother of my children.'

'Maybe you didn't give her enough support.'

'That's not true. I gave her everything she ever asked for.'

'Love too?'

'Love, too, while I could.'

'Don't you feel even a tiny bit of sympathy?'

'I did — while I could. But all I feel now is anger. That she's standing in the way of my life.'

'Those are very wicked words.'

'You're driving me to say them, Reverend. Because I feel you privately condemn me.'

'I never condemn anyone. And what about the children?'

'The children go around crying. And they're fearful of what s going to happen. The youngest one, the little mite, is always begging us not to quarrel! Do you think that's any sort of home for them? They'll be better off when I've taken them with me.'

'Without their mother?'

'She wasn't a good mother. Someone like her can't be good at anything.'

The phone rings. 'Excuse me,' he says to Soukup.

'This is Bára. Bára Musilová. Do you still remember me?'

'Of course.'

'You wrote that I could come and see you on Mondays or Wednesdays.'

It occurs to him that the woman is raising her voice needlessly; even the person sitting opposite him must hear every word. 'Of course,' he says, in as official a manner as possible.

'So that means today too?'

'How soon?' He glances at his watch.

As long as it takes me to get from here to you.'

'All right, you'd better come then.' He hangs up before she has a chance to reply.

'I'll be going, Reverend. You won't understand me whatever I say'

'Understanding is not the same as approving.'

'You condemn me.'

'I never condemn anyone,' he repeats wearily.

'I'm a home-breaker in your eyes. I've broken several commandments in one go.'

'We all break the commandments from time to time, but you can't expect me to be thrilled about it.'

'There are commandments that are worse to break.'

'It is not up to us to judge.'

'Yes, I know. But there are people capable of killing someone who gets in their way. Surely it is better to separate peacefully.'

'Certainly. And the best thing of all is to live in peace.'

'I can't any longer.'

'All right. Act according to your conscience. But be aware of one thing: this action is capable of turning against you one day.'

The man opposite thanks him and gets up from the armchair. He is pale and his thin lips are pursed so tightly that they are almost invisible.

Daniel recalls Soukup from the time he was still a member of the youth section. They met at summer camp. A fervent and even fanatical exponent of scripture, he once argued that people who did not obey the Ten Commandments could not be Christians. Martin Hájek had disputed this, saying that if that were so there would not be a single Christian left on earth. How many years ago was that? At least fifteen. People even forget what happened a week ago. Having a good memory tends to be a disadvantage.

It occurs to him that this man might actually commit murder one day. The worst thing would be that he would then demand that others should understand him. All he was doing was removing an obstacle in the way of his life.

Someone knocks and the woman architect enters. On this hot day she has decided to wear a short-sleeved blouse and a skirt that almost reaches down to her ankles. She is wearing slightly scuffed and down-at-heel canvas shoes. The skirt is black, the blouse white. She has a black fabric handbag slung across her shoulder.

She sits down in the armchair at the coffee table. 'So, here I am,' she announces. 'In a moment you'll be sorry you didn't say you weren't available.'

'It's not my habit to say I'm not available.'

'No, I suppose you can't really. You're not allowed to lie, are you. But you could have said you didn't have the time. Or told me that there was nothing for me to come here for. So I really am grateful.'

'Would you expect me to say: There's nothing for you to come here for?'

'No, I wouldn't.'

'So don't thank me. There's nothing to thank me for.'

'There is. Your own flock is big enough and you're bound to be tired of ail the complaints they heap on you.' She takes a small white handkerchief out of her handbag and fiddles with it in her fingers. All the while she stares fixedly at him. She has large eyes the colour of dark honey; he would even call them Semitic. Her gaze unnerves him.

'There are more tiresome occupations. And I am doing this job of my own free will.'

'But it was not at all my intention to complain. I have an interesting occupation, a faithful husband, splendid children, fantastic friends and a dear old mother. I wanted to be an actress, but then I decided to practise architecture, which I now do, a bit, at least. I'm a "happy woman", in fact.'

'There aren't many happy people.'

'Aren't you happy?'

'I can't complain.'

'Sorry, it was a stupid question. All I meant to say was that a lot of people would be happy in my situation, and I realize that fate has mostly been good to me. I ought to say the Good Lord, as I'm sitting in the manse. Is that a picture of Comenius over there?'

'It is.' He also has two of his old wood carvings on the shelf. He is relieved that she seems not to have noticed them.

'Was he a member of your church?'

'No, but that's not really important, is it? I don't classify people according to the church they belong to.'

'So how do you classify them?'

'I endeavour not to classify them at all.'

She takes a packet of cigarettes out of her handbag. 'Would you like a cigarette?'

'I haven't smoked in a long time.'

'I thought not. Will it bother you if I smoke?'

'Not if it doesn't bother you.'

She lights a cigarette but exhales the smoke to one side. 'I'll ask you the question, then. When you wrote to me about love, what did you understand by the word?'

'There is no precise answer to that question. Everyone understands something different by the word.'

'But what do you understand by it?'

'Maybe the ability to sacrifice yourself for others. Or service. Or the ability to be with others when they need you.'

'That is also a service. But that kind of love is one-sided, isn't it? If everyone wanted to be self-sacrificing and serve, there'd be no one to sacrifice oneself for and no one to serve.'

'It's also a way to overcome anxiety.'

'Anxiety about what?'

'Loneliness. Death.'

'But you love God first and foremost. Christ. Or am I wrong?'

'It's rather that He loves us. And as regards our love, I give priority to love for people. I believe that Jesus did and does likewise.'

'What form does Jesus's love for us take?'

'Jesus sacrificed his life for people's salvation.'

'Lots of people sacrifice their lives. But that happened a long time ago. What form has it taken since then?'

'That sacrifice still applies and prevails as it did then.'

'How can you tell? After all, how many dreadful things have happened since then?'

'You're right. Some of them were so terrible they are beyond my imagination. I believe that love endures none the less.'

And normal human love can endure an entire lifetime?'

'I believe it can.'

And you also maintain that love manifests itself when we're with someone who needs us. I'd like to meet someone who is able to love that way.'

'You haven't met anyone like that yet?'

'No, I certainly haven't. Except my mother maybe. But I didn't meet her. Without her I wouldn't be here at all.'

Are you glad you are?'

'Here and now, you mean?'

'I mean, in the world.'

'I'm glad I am here now — apart from that, I can't say. Or rather, sometimes yes, sometimes no. And there was one occasion when I decided to stop existing altogether. Am I keeping you?'

'No, I was expecting you, after all.'

She lights another cigarette. She has slender fingers: in that respect also she resembles his first wife.

'When I was seventeen I used to sing in a band. That's a long time ago. But I ought to start with something even longer ago than that.

When I was a very little girl, we used to spend the summer in a little village just outside Sedlčany, if you know that part of the world. It's not really important where it was. There was this hunchback living there, a dirty, crazy fellow who used to wear terribly muddy wellies and had black hairy arms like a gorilla. He used to kill small birds. Tiny redstarts, blackbirds, chaffinches and the like. Whenever he saw a nest in a tree he would climb up it, pull out the nestlings, wring their necks and throw them under the tree. I was terrified of him. Whenever I met him I would start to cry and my mother had to pick me up — at the age of five.'

'And the people there let him carry on?'

'It's conceivable that they forbade him to do it, but they couldn't lock him up for it, there was no law against it at the time. And maybe there isn't one even now, although there ought to be. But I don't expect he's doing it any more. He's probably dead. So when I was singing in that band — I don't want to take up too much of your time — one lad that used to play with us on the banjo travelled as far as Mexico and brought home with him some weird horrible thing — a mushroom. It was dried, and you could eat it or smoke it, or you could make it into a tea. It tasted bitter, not at all mushroom-like. We all took some of that mushroom and afterwards everyone had beautiful, colourful visions and the urge to make love — all except me. Instead I had the most horrible dream. I wasn't a human any more, but a nestling, and I saw that disgusting fellow climbing up towards me through the branches. And I began to be really terrified.'

Fear suddenly appears in her eyes. As she speaks she leans so near to him that he can smell her scent. Then abruptly she seizes him by the hand and squeezes it firmly, almost too tightly. 'Apparently I started to scream and there was no calming me down. That's how I spoiled their mushroom party. Why did I start telling you about it? Oh, yes. It was about me never finding it easy to be in the world. Well, it isn't, I tell you. That hunchback will suddenly jump up on to my breast and strangle me. I don't even have to eat any sort of mushroom any more. I simply have to wake up in the dead of night and I know that it'll happen one day. Death will come and wring my neck and no one, but no one will save me. Am I delaying you?'

Even now, it strikes Daniel, she might be under the influence of some drug. Maybe that is why she is squeezing his hand. People flee from death. He does too, except that he has chosen a different escape route.

'You're not delaying me. Is that why you came? On account of that anxiety?'

'Among other reasons. Don't be cross with me. My husband calls me hysterical. I am a bit. But only on the odd occasion. Tell me, what sense does it all make?' She finally releases his hand.

'What do you mean?'

'I mean life. The fact that we're here. No, don't tell me it's God's will. That that was the reason my father created me. And why do all those billions and billions of men father more and more children? That can't be God's will, can it? A God like that would have to have a computer in place of a head, except that a computer is incapable of love, so what use would such a God be?'

'Don't bother your head with questions like that. God is beyond our imagination, and so is his will.'

And you know he exists, even though you can't imagine him, and even though you can't produce convincing proof of his existence?'

'There is so much in the world and the universe that is beyond our imagination, and yet we believe it exists. God is no more understandable than the universe, for instance, and the universe is no more understandable than God.'

And do you think that's a good thing?'

'No, I wouldn't say so, but that's the way it is.'

'I'll give it some thought. I mustn't bother you with any more questions.'

'It's no bother. People are mostly afraid to ask frank questions.'

She gets up. 'You're not cross with me for taking up your time?'

'I've no reason to be.'

'Don't be so polite.' She shakes his hand.

'Did you come by car?'

'No, the car's my husband's. It was only when he took the firm's car on that trip that I had the use of the little Japanese one. I mostly travel by bus and tram.'

'If you'll permit me I'll drop you home. I owe you a long drive, don't forget.'

'You don't owe me a thing,' she says. 'On the contrary. You had the patience to listen to my hysterical questions.'

There is a flower stall at the tram stop. He pulls up and without even switching off the engine he goes and chooses three dark-red roses and returns to the car. 'Where do you live in Hanspaulka?'

'You still remember? At Baba, of course. But you only need to drop me at the bus stop. It will be better that way.' In the car she asks, 'Do you think I might be allowed to come and bother you again some time?'

He replies that if she finds it of some benefit, then of course she may.

'Thank you. And tell me also when it would be the least bother to you.'

'Come some day. Whenever it suits you.'

'Some time means never.'

'Monday week?'

'Yes, Monday's a good day. My husband usually has a meeting in the afternoon. At what time?'

'Whatever suits you.'

'Two o'clock, say,' she suggests. 'I oughtn't to accept them from you,' she says as he hands her the roses.

'I don't mean anything by it. It was just that — I had a kind of feeling of empathy when you were talking about your anxiety'

'It's a long time since anyone gave me roses.' She leans towards him and gives him a quick kiss. 'Thank you. And don't forsake me!'

2

Diary excerpts

Petr brought the sister of one of his former gypsy fellow prisoners to the youth meeting. Her name is Marika and she must be about sixteen, although she looks at least twenty. She said almost nothing at the first meeting and she looked more at the floor than at the others. But when we started to sing she quickly caught the melody and sang without a single mistake, even though her voice sounded — I'm not sure how to put it — perhaps 'wild' might be the most accurate way to describe it.

I was apprehensive about how the others would take to her, but they treated her with consideration and praised her singing. When we were saying goodbye, young Kodet told her we looked forward to her coming again. I asked her how she felt about being with us and she said: fine.

Something has happened that I find impossible to comprehend or rather to accept. The moment Mrs Musilová walked in the door I became aware of an odd sense of anticipation that had nothing at all to do with the service or my vocation. I watched her sit down and my agitation grew. I said to myself: a black and white butterfly or moth. A death's head hawk moth. I bought her roses. Out of sympathy or in an effort to attract her attention? Or did I merely want to prove to myself that I could now scatter flowers all around me?

I have never been unfaithful, not in the real physical sense, at least. But unfaithful in spirit? I've tried to avoid that too, although I can't deny there have occasionally been other women I have found attractive. And seductive. There's Mrs Ivana Pokorná who has been attending our church for more than ten years now. I remember when she first entered the church I was bowled over by her appearance: there was something pure, spiritual and open about her, and the first time I spoke with her I was captivated by her voice.

I never touched her, but for several months I had the impression I was writing my sermon especially for her, and while I was preaching, I kept looking at the place where she was sitting. Worst of all, I had the feeling she found me attractive too, that she spoke differently to me than to other people. It's possible that someone else in my position would not have resisted. Was it my faith that prevented me? Or my position? Or quite simply the conviction that it would be unfair and mean to deceive Hana? I didn't try to embrace her, although I did several times in my dreams. I even dreamed of going to bed with her. When I awoke I felt ashamed, as if I had been in control of my own dreams. But then, what do dreams depict, apart from our hidden desires or anxieties?

And then there are day-dreams and the subconscious. A few days ago, when I started to carve the face of a new figure, I was surprised at the form it took. A narrow oblong face with sensuous lips, eyes set far apart, a high, backward-sloping forehead, a nose whose ridge was so straight it reminded me of the Cnidian Aphrodite. (In his Dialogues, Lucian calls this statue, which I only know from reproductions, 'the expression of perfect beauty.) I was amazed to discover that the face did not resemble the faces of my previous figures; the features were those of the woman architect who had come to seek advice about love and when she left had made such an unusual request: Don't forsake me!

Eva is oddly dreamy. During our evening singing, she either remains silent or joins in as if her mind was elsewhere. She says she has to study for the leaving exam and indeed every evening when I enter her room she has a textbook open in front of her. But today I noticed that she was on the same page as yesterday.

She wore the sweater I gave her for several days and then stopped wearing it. It occurred to me to ask why. She blushed and said she'd lost it.

Where?

At school. In the gym.

I felt she was concealing something but then I was ashamed of myself. She wouldn't do anything like that, would she? And since then we've not mentioned it.

Twelve billion light years, Marek said the other day. Does it ever occur to him how unimaginable that expanse of time is compared with the fraction of time we are on this earth? And two thousand years ago, a wonder happened: God sent his only son, part of himself. He delivered himself up to people. So long ago, so recently. A miracle on the scale of the universe or only here on a human scale? But in what proportion to eternity is our dimension? Are we dreaming a dream about God, who is eternal, or are we, on the contrary, his dream and therefore do not exist at all?

Marek wants to get to the bottom of time. Not through meditation or contemplation, but by means of observation. He and Alois have completed their telescope. It looks like a little anti-tank weapon or bazooka, but the boys are thrilled. Alois just loves model-making. He has several model planes on top of his wardrobe already, along with a model of the Apollo spacecraft. He impresses Marek. Both of them are more interested in things that are connected with matter than with the spirit. It is probably something to do with their age, although I recall that when I was fourteen I was buried in books. I even regarded mountain climbing as something that took one's mind off material considerations.

I cannot deny Marek's meditative spirit but at the same time he has a tendency to make snap judgements and he also displays excessive self-confidence. Once when he was barely eight years old I came upon him in

the bathroom with a look of concentration on his face holding a watch in his hand. I asked him what he was doing.

He explained to me that he had filled the hand basin with hot water and submerged a glass of cold water in it. Now he was measuring how long it would take for the water in the glass to warm up.

I praised his inquisitiveness and he informed me that as soon as he had calculated it, he would send his results to the newspaper. Why to the newspaper, I was curious to know.

So that everyone should know about it.

I told him that his experiment was admittedly interesting but that the newspapers only wrote about big and important experiments.

But this is a big experiment, he objected. Not everyone's going to think of it.

More recently he has wavered between astronomy and ecology. He wants to know what I think about nuclear power stations, the hole in the ozone layer and the greenhouse effect. He is of the view that we oughtn't to buy anything in plastic packaging and that there is no need to have lights on in church. He protested when I told him of my intention to buy a new car.

I told him I'd hardly use the car, but that I needed it from time to time, for example, those Sundays when I have two services in close succession.

So don't have them in close succession, was his advice.

But I shouldn't just write about him critically. He goes with Alois to visit Fyodor. I asked him why he does it. He hasn't got anybody else, ' he explained. The operation was successful apparently and Fyodor is happy. He was afraid he would be a cripple.

'Tell me, please, what's the Russian for cripple?' I asked.

'Kripel, of course, ' he said, with his usual assuredness.

I went to check in the big Russian dictionary. The word doesn't exist in that language.

At the theological faculty, most of my fellow students came from families with a Protestant tradition. Often they would be children of clergy.

In our home, Dad put up with Mum's faith because he was tolerant, but he made it plain that God was simply a human invention: man created God and not the other way round.

A lot of what my fellow students took for granted I had to figure out for myself. I would often obstinately silence within me Dad's sceptical voice. Anyway, I was never able to summon up interest in a range of questions that for centuries had agitated the Fathers of the Church and — to my astonishment — a number of my contemporaries. What point was there in arguing over whether fallen angels could atone for their guilt, whether mortality was a consequence of original sin, or whether man was subject to a single or a double judgement: judgement of the body and of the soul?

What excited me most of all was the figure of Jesus and his revolutionary message. At one time — I was barely twenty — I was determined to write a book about Jesus and started to seek out literature and study it. I was astounded at the amount of material written on the subject. The handful of facts recorded by the evangelists had given rise to thousands of parallel and quite contradictory interpretations. According to some, Jesus was God; according to others he had a dual nature and was therefore God-man. Some regarded him as a man, but endowed with a prophetic spirit; according to others, he was a messiah, or a leader of an ascetic religious sect, or alternatively a Jewish rebel. And of course I also read elsewhere that he did not live at all, or that the gospels had merged two diffèrent figures into one.

I perceived that I would not be capable of writing a real portrait of Jesus — nobody had yet and nobody ever would— and that the books I was reading told me more about their authors than about the subject matter. Only later did I realize that this was the fate of all books and films that try to deal with a real person. The essence of another person is unfathomable, and even more so when it is the Son of God, about whom information is not only fragmentary but also affected by prejudice, superstition or outdated belief.

For me in my younger years, belief was chiefly an alternative to the depressing lifestyle which then prevailed, an alternative to the miserable planned 'happiness' that depended solely on the number of things one could or was allowed to own. In the Bible I found passages that resonated with my own feelings and that filled me with satisfaction and helped me dispel my doubts and scepticism about its message.

When I informed Dad that I wanted to study at the theological faculty, he was stupefied. Then he asked me if I had given it proper thought. 'Yes, ' I replied.

If that's your decision, ' is all he could say. But he went on to add that

it was necessary to weigh up one's decisions very carefully, but once one had taken them it was necessary to follow them through to their conclusion.

I told him that it went without saying.

I went to a lecture by a German psychologist on 'Esoterica and Reincarnation. In it he maintained that, according to the law of rhythm, which is the fundamental law of the universe, death alternates with life in the same way that waking and sleeping do — being alive and being dead are just two poles of the unbroken stream of life. So death was not unbeing but the opposite pole from being. When you die, you cross the boundary between two worlds, this one and the next. For the person who enters the next world, the next world becomes this world and our world becomes the next world for him until such a time as he again returns to it. Birth, the arrival in our world and hence the departure from that other, astral world, is regarded there as death. The speaker deduced that the soul brought with it from past lives a hidden memory and a knowledge which in this world takes the form of talent or curiosity. The lecturer talked of experiments in which patients had apparently been induced to recall not only what they had felt in their mother's womb, but also the life of their soul in the other world before their latest reincarnation. He even went so far as to speculate on the probable length of time between successive incarnations (apparently the period is getting shorter all the time and now lasts scarcely ten years) and whether a change of sex is possible in the process.

While I try to keep an open mind as regards the fate of the human soul during this life and after it, and am fully aware that Scripture expects not only the return of Jesus Christ but even of the Prophet Elijah, and that we all believe in the resurrection of the body, which assumes the continued existence of the soul beyond our world, I couldn't rid myself of the unpleasant feeling that I was listening to a charlatan.

I pray badly. I'm not talking about the prayers that I say aloud during services, but about the silent prayers in which I speak to God on my own behalf. I am incapable of being intimate even with Him. I remain silent

about the most important things: my anxieties, my suppressed longings, my backsliding.

I do likewise in these notes. I am afraid that one day if someone reads them (although it's most unlikely; Dad left heaps of official bumf and notes — I brought home two full boxes when Mum died. I haven't opened them yet and I don t know if I ever will) they'll say to themselves: didn't anything bother him, did nothing drive him to despair, were there no moments when he was scared of nothingness and his vain attempts to elude it?

I mentioned to Martin my inability to be intimate enough in my prayers. 'That's something I'm aware of he said all too well aware of, in fact. But prayer is itself a deeper level of intimacy. '

'What level?' I asked.

'At least the second, ' he said and laughed.

'And which is the first?'

He reflected. 'When you tell your wife your dreams, say. Even the very intimate ones. '

I don't tell Hana my dreams. At best I write them in this notebook. I am at the first level of intimacy with my diary.

A dream about my mother. She was already old and infirm. She was lying in bed and I was sitting by her. Suddenly she said, I have to tell you something, Dan.

Go ahead, Mummy.

I've not told anyone about this, she said. Then she asked if I remembered how they had once built a new road not far from our cottage. I said I did. (We never lived in a cottage and no such road was ever built.) And did I still remember that young architect who lodged with us in that cottage? I didn't. It was when they sent Dad to prison, she insisted. I told her I now remembered.

He didn't want to live in a trailer, Mum explained and the money came in handy, as it was already Dad's second year in prison. I took him in even though I knew that people would start rumours. He wasn't particularly young, but he was a fine man. He had eyes like the gamekeeper who seduced Viktoria. And so I had an affair with him, Dan. You know Dad got ten years, don't you? It never occurred to me he'd be released earlier. I used to write to him and send parcels, and

when they allowed visits I used to travel to see him. But I committed a sin, all the same. And I never told him about it.

Hed forgive you, Mummy, I said in dismay and the Lord will forgive you too.

He left anyway — that architect. He moved away six months later, and he wrote to me afterwards but I burned the letters.

Don't distress yourself, Mummy. You know what Christ said to those who brought him the woman caught in adultery and wanted to stone her? He said: Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. And when they heard this they left one by one. And then he asked her: Where are they who condemned you? Has no one condemned you? And she replied, No one, Lord. And what did our Lord say to her? Then neither do I condemn you. Go, and sin no more!

A peculiar dream. Was it about Mum or rather about me? How did that profession come into it: architect? Is it possible to go through life without betraying trust at least once? That's why he said: 'Then neither do I condemn you. '

3

Eva did fairly well in her leaving exams, but none the less Daniel had the feeling that she was changed somehow: dispirited, or more exactly, remote from everything around her.

'Glad you've got it over with?' he asked when she brought him the results.

'I suppose so.' She was due to start studying at the Conservatoire in the autumn. Then she added: 'It means you've got something behind you and something ahead of you. At least you know the thing you left behind.'

'And you're afraid of what you don't know?'

'No, I'm not afraid. I just don't know whether I'm looking forward to it.'

'That's just because you're tired out.'

She looked at him and said, 'I'm not tired out, Daddy. I just don't have anything to look forward to.'

'You'll have moments like that in your life. And afterwards you'll feel quite differently again.'

'Do you look forward to anything?'

'Of course. To seeing all of you, when we come together again this evening. To meeting people I like. To the things I have yet to discover in my life.'

'Yes,' she admitted, 'I do too.'

Early that evening, just as they were about to sit down to dinner, Petr arrived with an enormous bunch of roses for Eva.

'Petr, you're crazy. All these roses? We don't even have a vase big enough.'

'I was given them. When I told Mr Houdek they were for you.'

Petr had been working at Houdek's garden centre for four weeks now and he seemed to be enjoying the work. 'And I've got this too,' he said, taking from his pocket something wrapped in paper. 'I tried to make it for you.'

Eva took the gift and blushed. Wrapped in the paper was a little dove cut out of copper and hung on a leather thong.

'She only got one B,' Marek boasted on her behalf.

'If I were to have a leaving certificate,' Petr said, in an effort to speak grammatically, 'I would be in quite a different situation.'

'Exams are not all that important, Petr,' Hana said. 'It's possible to be a useful person without going to university.'

'What sort of job will they let you do these days without university? The best you can hope for is what I'm doing now. Sitting behind a wheel.'

'What would you like to do?' Eva asked.

'Preach. I'd like to tell people how terrible it is when they don't know Jesus and his love, when they land up in Satan's power. Do you know, Reverend, I caught a glimpse of him going by yesterday.'

'Of whom?'

'He was terribly tall, even taller than you. He had ginger hair like Alois. All of a sudden he appeared on the street when I was on the way to my sister's. Just under the bridge in Nusle, if you know where I mean. And he said to me: I know you from somewhere, pal. I never saw him in my life, Reverend. I remember everyone I ever met and I wouldn't have forgotten him, because he had a tattoo on his neck and stank like a kipper.'

'What did you say to him?' Eva asked with interest.

'I told him I didn't know him, and he starts to laugh and says: 'Peter, Peter, you may have denied the Lord Jesus, but you can't deny me.'

'He said that to you?' Daniel said, displeased with the story.

'On my oath, Reverend.'

'Save your oaths for something more important, Petr!'

'That was important for me, Reverend. The point is he asked me to go with him, saying he had a job for me, and if I didn't, I'd regret it. And I said to him: Get behind me, Satan, you monster from hell. And he laughs again. Then all of a sudden he wasn't there. Really, I swear it, Reverend. The pavement was all dug up for some pipes or other, so I even looked to see if he hadn't fallen down some hole. But he wasn't anywhere.'

Daniel noticed that Hana had followed Petr's story about Satan with interest. It matched her own worst experience. Perhaps that was why he commented, 'All sorts of strange things happen and sometimes it's difficult to find a rational explanation, but I wouldn't say you really met the devil.'

'So who was it, then?'

'Someone who'd heard about you from someone else, maybe.'

And where did he disappear to?'

'I don't know, I wasn't there. Maybe he had a car parked nearby and got into it without you noticing.'

'Reverend, you forget where I've just come from. A real con has eyes in the back of his head, so I'd hardly miss someone climbing into an old banger right alongside me.'

'All right,' said Daniel, 'and you hadn't just happened to have had a few drinks?'

'Even if I had, I know what I saw. And I woke up in the middle of the night and it was as if someone was walking around the bedroom. So I switched the light on. There was nobody there, only I could smell that stink of kippers. And my shirt and trousers that I put on the chair the night before were lying all tangled on the floor. You may think that I dreamed it all up, Reverend, but I'd really love to preach to people about the danger they're in. Because I've seen it. I've seen it when someone's on a trip and he's in such a mess he thinks he won't find the way back, and how he's weak as water when he's coming out of it. I know what it is when someone has a wild beast inside them that just wants to booze, stuff itself with food and leap on a woman. The stuff they show on the telly, all them horror films and the cops and robbers — they're only fairy stories to frighten little children, even when they show someone eating a human liver. And I've seen someone do that too, but for real.'

The children — and Eva, in particular — were following what Petr said with almost too much attention. Daniel wasn't sure it was a good thing. He ought to send Magda off somewhere, at least.

Petr was a good speaker and there was no doubt he would be capable of winning people over to his ideas or plans. He'd proved that in the past, when he had been intent on doing evil, and he would no doubt be just as capable of doing it now — now that he had decided to do something useful, now that he had been given grace, as he hoped, to do so.

This gift should not be wasted. Nor should it be abused by people who might think they could use Petr to serve their own ends.

'We'll see, Petr,' he said, interrupting his preaching about evil. "We'll find some way for you to tell people what you want to tell them. It might even be possible to fix something up with the schools.'

'Thank you, Reverend. But I didn't mean us to talk about me when we're celebrating Eva's exams.'

They all sat down to dinner together. In the middle of the table, in a five-litre gherkin jar, the fifteen roses gave off their scent. Eva hung the little dove around her neck and appeared at that moment contented, even happy.

4

Samuel

Samuel is leaving for Brno in the early evening to attend an important meeting first thing in the morning. There is a multimillion-crown sports complex project up for tender. There are always plenty of people interested in a contract like that, so if you don't take the initiative and aren't ready to pay 'a broker', then it's your own bad luck. For that reason, he needs to meet in advance at least some of the people who will be involved in the decision on the contract. Samuel is going reluctantly. He finds bribery distasteful and humiliating, and he begrudges the money, even though he knows he will make a good return on it. Moreover, he has not enjoyed travelling lately. It takes up too much time and exhausts him. Apart from that, he has to leave Bára in Prague and he knows her well enough to imagine what she'll do with her time

the moment she's sure she won't bump into him wherever she goes and whatever she does with the one she happens to be with.

At least he is taking with him that architect Vondra who seems to him to flirt shamelessly with Bára. Samuel justifies taking him on the grounds that Vondra is a Moravian and knows the officials they will be dealing with. He is also taking his secretary Ljuba, both because she is capable and because he finds her attractive.

As always, Bára packs his overnight case carefully and goes out with him to the car. She gives him a hug and a kiss. Neither the kiss nor the hug have the warmth he used to feel. And she doesn't even put on a very good show of being sorry he is leaving, despite the fact that acting is her second profession. She cannot completely conceal her pleasure at getting rid of him for a short while at least. Samuel starts the car and takes a last look; Bára is standing on the edge of the footpath waving to him. She is still beautiful, she's tall and statuesque, and for a moment he feels a sharp pang of regret for something that is irrevocably lost, and sorry for himself that his life is constantly taking a different turn from the one he had imagined.

At the office he picks up the papers he needs and it occurs to him to ring home to see whether Bára picks up the phone, but he decides against it. Not because he would feel abashed but because he fears there would be no reply and the uncertainty — or rather the certainty — would play on his mind so much that he would be unable to concen-trate on the negotiations.

He sits Ljuba next to him. She exudes a Gabriela Sabatini perfume (which he had also bought Bára) and youthfulness.

Once on the motorway, Ljuba tries to recount to him the latest episode of M.A.S.H. She wants to please him and has no inkling that he can think of few things that are a greater waste of time than listening to an account of a TV programme. Ljuba then proceeds to impart some bits of news, or rather gossip, about goings-on in the office — Samuel really couldn't care which of his staff are going out together, sleeping together, speaking together, or not speaking together. With one exception, of course: and about his wife no one will ever say a word, naturally, even if everyone knows what he doesn't, and might never know.

Vondra, for his part, talks about New York and Boston where he recently spent a whole month. He tells them about the musical, Cats, giving a passable rendition of Andrew Lloyd Webber's feline hit about

the moon, before relating with considerable enthusiasm a meeting of the Krishna Consciousness Society. He learnt that in the next life, the sort of body people will receive will depend on the way they have lived in their previous incarnation. They could become demi-gods of which there are 33 million, or they could be born as a cat or as a pig and consume their own excrement. Our body is apparently like a bubble that forms on the surface of the water. In a while it bursts and is never seen again. Our soul simply moves from one bubble to another and we stupidly believe it to be the source of our happiness.

"What is the source of happiness, then?' Ljuba wants to know. She, no doubt, dreams of it like all women.

'Coalescence,' Vondra explains. 'Coalescence with Krishna. He's the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the incarnation of absolute truth.'

'Coalescence doesn't appeal to me,' Ljuba says.

Vondra assures her that she won't coalesce, but will definitely turn into some goddess when she dies. A goddess of love and beauty, naturally.

Samuel finds this sort of talk repellent. Young people nowadays have a tendency to make light of things beyond their comprehension, of anything they can't buy or misappropriate in some way.

But Vondra is winding up the topic anyway. 'If you're interested,' he turns once more to Ljuba, 'the Krishna people are supposed to be here in our country too. They could explain it to you much better than me.' And he turns to a subject he knows more about. With a certain disdain he talks about the work of the avant-garde, those intellectual Bolsheviks who fled to the States from Europe in the thirties and changed the face of most American city centres (Vondra actually uses the word 'downtowns'), and New York in particular. In his view, it was a baleful influence and transformed every major American city into one big cemetery with monumental concrete tombs poking up out of them. No, tombs is not the right word, because a tomb tends to be decorated at least, and have a dove or an angel, whereas these are more like gigantic gravestones: in place of carved letters, windows that don't open; in place of angels, television aerials.

One of the reasons why he is saying all this is to impress Ljuba, of course, but it is mainly to pique Samuel. Vondra knows he was a supporter of the avant-garde and that he strove, even in the worst times, to preserve and defend something of their principles.

Samuel could wipe the floor with the young know-all. He could draw his attention to dozens of buildings around the world where the avant-garde proved its prowess, but he doesn't feel like arguing, he doesn't feel like talking at all, in fact. He can feel one of his depressions coming on, and he is beginning to get a headache. He ought to take a tablet, but they are in his bag and his bag is behind him in the boot. He starts to drive faster, not because he is in a hurry, but more out of edgi-ness or a desire to leave behind all that talk, that clichéd meandering from Broadway musical to transmigration of souls, and from incarnation to the Bauhaus.

It is possible to chatter away about all and sundry in the course of a single car journey, express a view on every topic, throw cold water on everything and feel high and mighty. In reality it's all much more complicated and mysterious, both life and death. How many times has he found himself in a place he has never visited before in his life and yet has known precisely what he is going to see! He was walking along a street towards the Herengracht in Amsterdam and all of a sudden he realized that if he were to cross the street and pass through the entrance of one of the buildings he would find a flea market there. How could he have known this, seeing this was his first visit to Amsterdam and nobody had ever spoken to him about a hidden flea market? Why was he born on the first of September like Dietzenhofer? In fact, the first time he came across his portrait in some book and pictured the face without the period wig with its artificial curls, he had marvelled at his resemblance to him. And when he first met Bára, her face seemed ominously familiar. He just didn't know — and only on that point was his prescience or memory hazy — whether it was a good or a bad omen.

As he approaches Jihlava, he recalls how at one time — as if in some other life — he used to hitch-hike to Bratislava to visit his first wife. Scarcely anyone would have imagined a motorway in those days, just as no one would have dreamt that the Republic would break up and Bratislava would be a foreign city. There were fewer cars then, of course, but they used to stop and he would often reach Bratislava more quickly than by train. He remembers making love all those years ago, the passionate embraces and then the sudden despair when he discovered he was no longer loved, no longer desired. And he lost his first daughter Linda before really getting to know her. Not long ago, about six months in fact, she called to see him in Prague. Not just a stranger, but actually a foreigner now. He hardly recognized her at first, but then

he realized she had become more like him. Strange. And she called him otecko, Dad, in Slovak. That was strange too. He had not seen his second daughter Lida for a number of years and had met her husband only twice, maybe three times. They don't live in Prague. Two of his families have broken up and he didn't have the time, or the inclination maybe, to hold on to the children. And his third and last family? It is only self-deception, force of habit or lack of courage not to declare broken something that wrecked itself a long time ago. Nothing in life lasts. Life itself only lasts a moment — a bubble on the water — and it's curious how even for that moment one is incapable of maintaining some deeper feeling, loyalty or devotion. Maybe this depressing state of affairs is also affected by the general state of things. After all, there have been so many turbulent changes in the life of this country that spreads out each side of the motorway. The rich became poor and the poor rich, the powerful lost their power and sometimes their lives, and others took their place. Splendid old buildings fell into rack and ruin and ugly new ones were built. Everything took place at such a frenzied pace, in a mad dance, or a dance of madmen. One either joined in or fell out of the circle and straight into the abyss at whose brink the dance was held.

He didn't join in. He merely adjusted to it slightly, as a result of which he was able to create works that received recognition, and definitely much greater recognition than he receives now that young vultures are circling around devoid of scruples and intent on only one thing: making a fast buck. They will all end up in the next life as wild pigs, or tigers, more likely. A rather ludicrous and naive thought. Worse still, he is touching sixty. He is not as flexible as he used to be and he realizes he can't take the pace for much longer.

They skirt Velké Meziříčí. He once had a date here with his first wife, Katarina. They slept together in a little hotel on the square. Accommodation was so ludicrously cheap in those days, as was the price of a meal, although his salary had been ludicrously small too. But everything lay ahead of him then: all the projects, all the important buildings, the many journeys, the foreign countries, the interesting encounters, conferences, lectures, articles, receptions, recognition and conflict, not to mention two divorces, two more marriages and parenthood — he never seemed to find much time for the children, though he wasn't really such a bad father. Suddenly he is seized by an unexpected regret for times gone by, for his past life and even the old order

of things which, while he didn't like it and didn't think it was right, he had grown accustomed to, learning to manoeuvre and even excel in it; regret for his youth and his life as it gradually draws to its close. What is left for him? Scrabbling for contracts and offering bribes, because money means more than his name, his skills or his experience.

Besides, every new contract takes him nearer to the last one he'll ever receive, and to his own end. What sort of life has he had, really? What would his next rebirth be like, if something of the sort could happen in the mysterious order of life?

Out of the blue, the young vulture Vondra asks what sort of commission they should offer. Vondra thinks at least 13 per cent of the price. This strikes Samuel as excessive; it's shameless to demand several hundred thousand for nothing and therefore stupid and immoral to offer so much. But Vondra believes that everyone will offer 10 per cent and if they want to win it they will have to be generous. Generously immoral, he adds, and makes Ljuba laugh.

But no one will be offering a design like ours, Samuel points out. Vondra agrees, but the ones who will be taking the decision don't care about the quality of the design, only about their commission. That's the way it usually goes, and if things turn out differently, then so much the better.

They reach the Hotel Kontinental almost an hour before they are due to meet with the chairman of the sports club that is investing in the complex. Samuel takes leave of his travelling companions for a short while. The two of them go off together. They each have their own rooms but will most likely sleep together. A tiger and a pussy cat. He prefers not to think about such matters any more. He and Bára hardly ever make love now, and he fears other women because of AIDS and potentially emotional entanglements.

In his room, which is fairly luxurious, he removes the plans from his overnight case and looks them over once more to assure himself that they are original and interesting. The suspended cable construction of the roof might seem unnecessary for a small complex, but it creates a sense of vastness, of loftiness and originality. People yearn for originality. And even though it is no longer possible to come up with anything unique, there is no harm in a little surprise. He folds up the plans again. The time drags. There is still time for him to shower and change. He could even stretch out for a while.

There is a telephone on the bedside table. He ought to call home as

he always used to do whenever he went on a trip, and Bára would take it as an expression of love and concern. Now, though, she would think he was checking up on her and regard it as an expression of his jealousy and lack of trust. That's if she is at home and answers the telephone. Except that she's not at home at all, or if she is, she's not on her own; the phone won't give him any clue to the identity of her visitor anyway. She could be sitting on her lover's knee and begging Samuel down the phone to come home as soon as he can because she misses him so, and is afraid to be home on her own. Even a very bad actress can manage that. He suppresses an urge to get in the car and drive off home. Instead he takes a tablet of Imigran for his headache and another red capsule of Prothiaden. Then he goes down to the lobby and orders a glass of mineral water, since he can't mix the pills with alcohol, and with a sense of total desolation he awaits the arrival of those he is to bargain with, as well as those he is to bribe.

5

Daniel noticed that Eva was downcast rather than elated when she returned from her school-leavers' party. He felt like doing something to raise his eldest child's spirits. 'What would you say,' it occurred to him, 'if we were to go off on a trip somewhere together, now that you are an adult?'

'Just the two of us?'

'Just the two of us for once — that's if you could put up with my company.'

'We've never done anything like that before.'

'Maybe when you were very small. We might have been left on our own, but you wouldn't remember that.'

'And where would we go?'

'I was thinking maybe about the Prachov Rocks, it's beautiful there.'

'You and Mummy used to go climbing there, didn't you?'

'Yes. In fact something happened there that concerns you.'

'What was that?'

'Mummy and I were camping there exactly nine months before you were born.'

'I see. Do you think you'd still find the spot?'

'Definitely, although I've not been there since.' 'But I couldn't manage to climb the rocks.'

'We won't climb them. With my back I wouldn't go climbing anyway.'

Daniel found the spot easily — on a raised level area away from the Emperor's Passages and the other tourist trails. Several birch trees and two tall bushy larches pointed skywards, the colour of the leaves and grass were both soothing and hopefully spring-like. In the middle of a patch of sand were the traces of an old camp-fire. And on all sides there was a view of the many rock pillars, sheer rock faces and rock passages.

'Did you make a fire here?'

'I think so, but I expect there have been lots of other camp-fires here since.'

'Did Mummy enjoy rock climbing?'

'We both did. There was a good crowd of us. We even went abroad together, to Yugoslavia. It was still one country then and it was easier to get there than to the Alps. We climbed Bobotuv Kuk and several other rocks on Durmitor. I got stuck in a chimney there and I suddenly had the feeling I couldn't go up or down.'

'What did you do? Did you pray?'

'No, I certainly didn't. I was never one to believe that the Lord is there to help us out of sticky spots. Mummy was with me, or rather below me, and that helped me to keep my calm. In the end I climbed out like everyone else.'

'Was Mummy a good climber?'

'We all had to be, or we would never have reached the top together. Your Mummy had a very special affinity for the mountains. She used to say that rocks were ancient giants turned to stone who definitely lived once upon a time.'

'Did you try to talk her out of it?'

'Why should I have? Maybe she was right. Maybe they're still alive, but we are just unaware of their life because it takes place in a different dimension of time.'

'Daddy, you'd never say that in a sermon.'

'I suppose not,' he conceded. 'But it's a mistake.' Then he showed her some of the nearby rocks that he had either climbed or attempted to climb in vain, as well as some of the rocks her mother had scaled.

'I wouldn't manage that; Mummy must have been good.' Then she

added, 'It seems odd to me to be talking about her as my mum, seeing that I never saw her, that I don't recall seeing her.'

'But she can see you all the time.'

'Do you really think so?'

'Don't you?'

'I just can't imagine it: I can't imagine her seeing me without me seeing her.'

'I expect it's a different kind of seeing. It's beyond our imagination. But she's bound to be pleased with you.'

He looked towards one of the larches where the little blue tent stood. The blue had faded with time, the warmth had long ago evaporated from it and the canvas had gradually turned to tatters, like his memories. A lump came to his throat.

'No,' Eva blurted out, 'she can't be pleased if she sees everything. She's most likely weeping.'

"What makes you say such things?'

'Oh, nothing.' Eva resembled her mother in hair colour, figure and facial features. If he squinted slightly he could actually imagine it was his first wife standing there, untouched by time, that she had vaulted the abyss of years and just stepped out of the tent and was listening to the calm of the rocks. He ought to ask her what her 'Oh, nothing' concealed but he was strangely shy of his daughter.

'Shall I unpack the food?' she asked.

'OK.'

They sat down on a sun-warmed boulder and ate their bread.

'How did you and Mummy first meet?' she asked.

'It wasn't here. But it was on a climbing holiday. In the Tatras. I was already a vicar in Kamenice then. They used to call me "the climbing clergyman". Mummy was still studying at the Conservatoire. I found her very attractive.'

'But you waited a long time before you married.'

'We scarcely had time to see each other. She was studying in Prague and I was out in the Moravian Highlands. We used to meet a couple of times a month. We used to hitch-hike to get to see each other. We were poor.'

'If you'd got married, though, you could have been together earlier.'

'But Mummy had to finish her studies. But we spent longer together in the summer. When we first met, Mummy was just a bit older than you are now. She didn't say much, she sang beautifully, was

a marvellous pianist and was nearly always smiling. With her eyes more than with her lips.'

'Maybe she only smiled like that at you.'

'We were in love,' he said, 'from the moment we met. How about you,' it occurred to him, 'have you fallen in love yet?'

'You're not serious, Daddy?'

'Yes I am. It's occurred to me on several occasions, but I've not wanted to ask.'

'I've fallen in love lots of times.'

'Lots?'

'But they didn't know about it. Those boys.'

'Not one of them knew about it?'

'Maybe one of them. Or two.'

'And where were they from?'

'From my class, some of them, or I knew them from St Saviour's. And I went to the Pentecostals a couple of times.'

'You didn't tell me.'

'I was afraid you'd be cross. Petr and I went to their youth meeting the other day.'

'Petr went?'

'He was awfully interested in them, so I took him. He was really mad about them. He told them about a feeling he had had of something coming down on him, that he couldn't describe. It was at night. He woke up and saw a strange light coming straight at him. He couldn't explain it, and then he realized that it could be the Holy Ghost.'

'An experience like that and he didn't even mention it to me.'

You see, Dad, we think — he thinks,' she corrected herself, 'that you'd most likely start to talk him out of it.'

'I expect I would.' It struck him that Petr's experience of life had taught him how to speak in different situations in a way that gained him attention, recognition or even admiration.

'But something has really happened to him, Daddy. If only you could hear the way he talks about the way he used to live and how he has changed. Everyone listened to him with excitement. And at the end they asked him to say a prayer for everyone. And the way he prayed gave us all the shivers.'

'That's fine. So long as he prays sincerely, it's all right.'

'How else would he pray?'

'People can pray for all sorts of reasons, but I don't want to suspect him of anything.'

'He's interested in everything he's not experienced so far. He'd like to hear the Adventists and the Jehovah's Witnesses.'

'And you'd go with him?'

She shrugged. 'Surely there's nothing wrong with us wanting to know what other people believe, is there?'

'No, of course not.' Then he asked: 'Do you fancy Petr?'

She blushed and shook her head violently. 'It's not like that. I just find there's something special about him. He's completely different from the other boys.'

'That's for sure. Just think it over carefully, before falling in love with him.'

As if something like that could be thought over carefully.

6

Bára

Bára feels an unexpected flood of happiness. Samuel has gone off to Moravia for one of his business deals and is staying there overnight, so she has the whole evening free. She packed Samuel's overnight case, forgetting nothing, not even a single jar of tablets, and then accompanied her husband to the car. She hugged and kissed him, Samuel started the car and she finally waved him goodbye before going to phone her old college friend Helena and arranging to see her that evening. She takes Aleš over to her mother's, finishes a set design for a television adaptation of an Italian comedy — it's interesting how easy she finds the work when there's no one around clamouring for her attention.

Towards evening, she quickly gets dressed, putting on a white blouse and a long dark-green skirt — the colour goes well with her hair. She ties up her hair, which hangs halfway down her back, with a black ribbon, applies a bit of eye make-up, dons a straw hat, and sets off for town.

She is not due to meet Helena for another hour. She takes the bus

to Dejvice and then the metro to the Small Quarter. She walks along Wallenstein Street and across Wallenstein Square. Everywhere teems with tourists, but she doesn't notice them. She notes with satisfaction that several houses in Thomas Street have been recently done up: the city of her birth is donning new clothes.

Then she walks up Neruda Street and on up as far as the Castle, where she notices she is already out of breath — she ought to cut down on her smoking, it's an awful habit. She then leans on the low stone wall that forms the eastern side of Hradčany Square and gazes at the city below. She is overcome with a spirit of generosity: she forgives those who have disfigured the city with the prefabricated grey of human rabbit coops, she forgives her husband who contributed several degenerate architectural monstrosities towards the general devastation, and it occurs to her that the beauty of her city as it was built up layer by layer over the centuries cannot be banished; maybe only a nuclear catastrophe could destroy it.

When at last she turns away from this elevated spectacle, she notices to her surprise that the telephone booth on the square is empty. She is seized by a sudden longing for an amorous conversation. She has lived so long without real love and has really experienced so little of it in her life. She goes over to the phone booth. She remembers the number although she has only called it once — she was a long time making up her mind on that occasion.

The minister's wife answers the phone, of course. Bára could hang up without saying anything or she could say that she wanted to speak to the minister, but instead she asks, 'Is that the television centre?'

'No, this is a Protestant manse.'

'That's silly. I need the television centre.'

'I expect you dialled the wrong number.'

'But this is the one they gave me!' And she gives the number of the manse. She has to repeat it three times before the woman, whom she only knows from sight at the church, concludes, 'They must have given you the wrong number.'

'It's so silly. I'm calling from a phone booth and there's no telephone directory. You wouldn't happen to know the number of the television centre, would you?'

That kind woman tells her to hold on a moment so that she can have a look in the directory, and Bára finally hangs up.

Half an hour later she is sitting with Helena at a small table in

front of the Loreto and sipping something that purports to be vintage wine.

Helena is her age but looks older, having become stout and maternal although she only has one daughter. She has also held on to her first husband, some kind of civil engineer, who is in no way remarkable but earns good money at least.

For a while they chat about their husbands, trying to work out which of them is less self-reliant and more dependent on his wife and they come to the conclusion that those mummy's boys would most likely perish if their wives abandoned them. Bára complains that her husband increasingly neglects her, substituting conversation for sex and severity for tenderness. She only needs to arrive home half an hour later than he expects and he is already threatening to divorce her. Her friend reassures her that it's only talk. Bára is well aware of that, of course. Without her, Samuel would expire from one of his fifty ailments — his eternal migraines, the cramps in his intestines, his muscles, his gall bladder and his kidneys. His painful heart would have beaten its last long ago and he would most likely have taken an overdose or shot himself in one of his fits of total angst-ridden hopelessness. She is the one who keeps him alive, but why should she have to suffer for it beneath the lash of that slave-driver's nagging tongue?

Leave him then?

She can't leave him. She couldn't do that to her little mummy's boy. Nor could she deprive her real child of his home and his dad. She had done it once already and discovered that a new dad never becomes a real father. Poor Saša had already paid dearly for it.

When they have finished the bottle, they get up and set off in the direction of Střešovice. At Ořechovka, they come upon a little wine bar, where they order themselves a tasty snack and just a bottle of ordinary Frankovka this time.

Helena says that her silly ass of a husband doesn't nag. Instead he snivels and is sorry for himself. Sometimes he clears out and tries to get drunk on Smíchov light beer, but he never manages to. He just spends the night running out to piss and the next morning his poor old head aches.

Bára still feels happy. She has a whole free night ahead of her. As she puffs away, she tells her friend all about the pastor who doesn't even know how attractive he looks as he declaims about love from the pulpit. He speaks about the love of Jesus, who wants to forgive and free

people from the realm of death, while he obviously longs for ordinary human love. Those lofty phrases are just sublimated desire.

Helena wants to know if they have kissed yet. Bára says only once when they were saying goodbye, and gives the impression they have said goodbye more than once. 'But he's as shy as a little boy and has certain prejudices that such things are not done when the man and the woman are both married — that it is against God's commandments. All the same I get the feeling he is a good lover.'

Bára has aroused her companions interest. 'It's his vocation that turns you on, isn't it?'

Bára admits this. 'And there's something about him; something totally out of the ordinary.'

'It always feels that way at the beginning.'

'No, not always. Almost never. Most of the time it's obvious at the outset that it'll be the same.' Bára bursts out laughing and then gets up and goes out into the passage. There she notices a public telephone.

This time the pastor himself answers the phone. Maybe his wife is already asleep. 'Daniel,' Bára says in a disguised voice, 'I love you.'

For a moment there is silence at the other end. Then the minister asks who is calling.

'Me, of course, Daniel. Don't you recognize me? That's a pity. I'm really sorry you don't recognize me.' Then she hangs up. She regrets she can't be with that man now, the one whose passion she senses, the one she suspects is a good lover.

When they leave the wine bar, they are both light-headed and jolly. They are not quite sure where they might go now and return to Pohořelec where, in front of the statue of Tycho de Brahe and Kepler, they catch sight of a large nocturnal gathering of tourists. The Germans are either drunk or lost or homesick. Bára cannot fathom how anyone could be homesick for Nuremberg or Hanover in the most beautiful city in the world and decides to raise their spirits a bit. She leans against the plinth of the statue and sings Rusalka's aria to the moon. She sings faultlessly, and astonishingly enough, even out here in the open, her voice sounds loud. When she finishes she passes her straw hat to Helena who does the rounds of the enlivened tourists who richly reward this unexpected experience.

When they turn the corner the two of them laugh long and loud and determine to give the money collected to the Bosnian refugees.

Helena suggests that they might still go back to her flat, as she lives

on a housing estate not far away. Bára wants to know what her husband would say, but Helena assures her that he will have fallen asleep long ago and nothing will wake him.

It is already well past midnight when the taxi drops them right in front of the tower block on the seventh floor of which Helenas flat is located. The lift doesn't work so they both walk up the staircase. Bára is quite out of breath but looks forward to the view from the top. From Helenas room there is a good view of Prague, and a panorama of Hradčany all lit up. Bára goes over to the window, draws aside the curtain and gazes at the city which flickers in the mistiness of the small hours. Helena fetches a bottle of Frankovka from the larder and is pouring some into glasses. But Bára doesn't feel like drinking any more, besides which she is afraid of someone bursting into the room and spoiling the rest of the night. She would sooner look at the city, but feels that she is not high enough here, that the surrounding buildings block the view. What if they climbed up to the roof? If her memory serves her right, this type of building has a flat, tiled roof with access.

Helena agrees; there is a bench up there for them to sunbathe on. Marvellous — they'll sunbathe then. So they run up the remaining five staircases, Helena unlocks the iron door and they climb out on the roof. The moon up above them is just one day off being full and the roof is bathed in pale moonlight.

Helena goes over to the bench, but it is still not high enough. The terrace is surrounded on all sides by a waist-high concrete wall in place of a balcony. It is wide enough to climb on to. Bára suggests to Helena that they do so, but her friend is afraid. Beyond the wall looms a chasm and the twelve-storey drop frightens her. Admittedly, Bára has no head for heights, but at this moment it does not deter her — she must climb higher and higher. The moment one stops one's fall really begins.

She grips the wall and swings up on to it. She staggers momentarily but quickly regains her balance. 'Look at the city, rocking like a ship, and those lights above the water. You can keep your Venice and your Amsterdam, this is the most beautiful port in the world.'

'You're like a statue,' her friend comments admiringly. A pity I didn't bring my camera. But if you wait there I'll go and fetch it.'

'I won't!' Bára decides to walk all the way round along the wall. She stretches her arms out to the side like a tightrope walker and balances forward.

'Really like a ship, I can feel it rocking.' Helena prefers to sit down on the bench. 'I think I'm becoming sea-sick,' she announces and laughs at the thought of getting sea-sickness up here. Then she glances at Bára slowly tottering forward and advises her, 'Come down before you fall down.' But Bára laughs. 'But I have wings!' And indeed she has, for she can feel love entering her and love will give her wings, won't it? She reaches the end of the wall, and stops at the very edge, suddenly aware of the chasm before her and around her.

'I can't go on,' she complains. 'They've dug a hole in my way.'

'Come back, then!'

'How?'

'Turn round!'

'I can't turn round, the hole is all around me.' Bára stands motionless above the abyss, her legs suddenly turn to jelly and she knows she won't manage to turn round and therefore won't be able to return. She will remain standing here until the moment when suddenly an enormous wave rolls in and sets the vessels rocking, and her jelly legs will give way and she will tumble into the depths. She senses the waves breaking on the side of the ship; in a few moments, maybe, it will happen. She feels the floor rocking, she won't hold on much longer.

'Hold on, I'll go and fetch my civil engineer. He'll get you down.'

'Don't go anywhere!'

'Hold on, then, for heavens sake!' Her friend calls to her from some distant shore and gets up from the bench on the dockside, but she is starting to stagger. 'Here comes the sea-sickness now, at last,' and instead of going to Bára, she heads for the harbour wall. She vomits.

Bára stands alone on the very edge. All of a sudden she feels like crying because she is standing here all alone, and nobody will come to help her. She would like to call out, Daddy! But her father is filling out his betting forms somewhere, or playing cards, or sitting at home with his feet up on the table staring at television. He doesn't care that his younger daughter has cut her wrists on his account and is now once more standing above the abyss, he doesn't care, because he skived off into the grave long ago, and even if he did manage to claw his way out of that grave he wouldn't come, he never did come when she needed him. The only one who ever came was her mummy, but her mummy is seventy-seven and she can't come, the lift's not working and she'd never climb up those twelve floors. Samuel won't come either; he's working hard on his career somewhere far away. She would come,

though, if it was him that was standing here, and she'd lift him down and bandage the cuts on his wrists and then comfort her poor little mummy's boy.

'You look like the statue of Aphrodite,' Helena calls to her from afar, 'just like a statue standing there. Now I know what's missing here: statues of Aphrodite and Hephaestus.' She vomits again.

And at that moment Bára remembers the pastor who looked at her in such a kind and shy way. He'd come, he'd be bound to come if she called him, because he already loves her, even though he hasn't allowed the idea to enter his head yet. And Bára suddenly feels relieved and is able to move once more. She turns towards the terrace and jumps down on to the tiles.

Helena says: 'You were beautiful. You looked just like the goddess of beauty.'

'I know I'm more beautiful than any goddess,' Bára says and bursts out laughing.

7

Daniel invited his friend Martin Hájek to speak to the young people of his congregation about sects. It was a topic that Martin had been studying for a long time. Why was it that people often found nonsensical ideas more attractive than the teachings of the church? Was it because the church was in a rut, that it wasn't looking for new ways of speaking to people, or perhaps that it had nothing to say?

Martin spoke first about each of the different sects and then tried to identify what they had in common. Most people wanted to feel they shared in some sort of exclusive destiny, that their particular faith marked them out from other mortals. They wanted to believe that in addition to the Saviour, who was long dead, they had found a new saviour, one who was alive, powerful, charismatic, and that he would lead them to what they yearned for; he would negotiate their journey to the heavenly kingdom and guide them along the path that would ensure them salvation and eternal life. Often such people would fall for simple-minded tricks and be taken in by confidence tricksters; they would be willing to give up their property and even their own minds, to leave their nearest and dearest and entrust their

lives to the one they venerated. All the same, it had to be said that their experience was often both genuine and mystical, and possibly more profound than the experience of most Christians. What was typical for sects, therefore, was that they had a prophet who was unique among all the exponents of Christian scripture or any other holy book, and that the sect's members believed that the world would be transformed or end now, and not in some indefinite future. Some preached asceticism, others loose behaviour, some a life of love, others a life of hate. Some espoused exclusivity while others, on the contrary, believed they would become the one universal community. In none of the cases did they entertain any doubts about their path being the correct one.

Daniel regretted that Petr had not come. It was particularly on his account that he had invited Martin. On account of Petr and Eva. Admittedly, Eva was sitting here, but her thoughts seemed to be elsewhere. On the other hand, Marek and Alois, who had both come — as Marek had confided to him — because they found the topic 'really interesting', would whisper to each other every now and then during the talk.

When Martin finished and asked for questions, a customary silence ensued, and then Alois, who, if he attended such meetings was always silent, surprisingly raised his hand. Marek had probably egged him on.

What was the difference between the sects and the early church? In those days people had also believed in a miraculous Saviour. They also gave up their property and regarded their faith as the only right one, even though they were persecuted for it.

Martin conceded that every religion arose out of nothing, as it were, in that some chosen person heard God's voice and answered his call. At first glance, the similarities were striking, particularly as regards those who received a call and whose longing for faith, change, comfort and hope often blinded them. But when all was said and done, with a bit of effort we were able to distinguish the voice of the truly chosen from the voice of the charlatan who arrogantly convinces himself and others that he is the one and only infallible exponent of Scripture, the point being that he always chooses just the part of the message that suits his ends.

Daniel did not have the feeling that Alois found this answer convincing. It had not convinced him either, although he would probably

have given the same answer in Martin's place. Over the centuries, we have come up with answers that seem to us acceptable even though we are unable to prove their truthfulness.

There were no further questions, so they sang another song, said a prayer and wound up the meeting.

At supper, Hana returned once more to the topic of the talk. Not long ago a young fellow had been admitted to their hospital with burns and wounds that had obviously been caused by flogging. He was said to be the victim of a satanic ritual. The lad was in such pain that they had been obliged to give him morphine, but when they asked him how he came by the injuries he either said nothing or claimed he couldn't remember.

'I expect he was doped when it happened,' Alois suggested as an explanation.

'Even if he was,' Martin objected, 'he is bound to have known where the black mass was held. Also he must have known that if he betrayed it, something even worse could happen to him. The sects don't generally countenance deserters. That is true not only of religious sects but also of most closed societies, whether it be the secret services or revolutionaries.'

After supper, Marek and Alois wanted to show the guests their telescope through which, they said, Saturn's rings were visible.

While Martin strove in vain to make out anything at all, Marek commented, 'If you ask me, you people don't really give a toss about science.'

'Who do you mean by "you people"?' Daniel asked.

'When you're preaching,' Marek explained. 'The people that wrote the Bible saw the world differently than we do nowadays.'

'They knew nothing about the galaxies, for instance?'

'For instance. And they believed people could be raised from the dead. And that there were evil spirits inside people and you could see angels.'

'Do you think those are the most important things in the Bible?'

'If they were wrong about one thing they could be wrong about others.'

'People have always been wrong about some things. But that doesn't mean they have been wrong about everything.'

Martin called out, 'I think I can see Saturn.'

'They didn't even know about telescopes in those days,' Alois added.

'Alois, a telescope won't help you to see the truth or God, for that matter.'

'That was below the belt, Dad,' Marek said, coming to his friends defence.

'I apologize to you both,' Daniel said. 'I simply wanted to suggest that occasionally one may glimpse the essential even without a telescope. Too much clutter can sometimes prevent us from seeing the whole.'

'Galaxies are not clutter.'

'Maybe people didn't have an inkling about galaxies in the past, but it occurred to them nevertheless that man wasn't necessarily the most important and perfect thing in the entire universe.'

They left the lads to their telescope. Martin said, 'I know what they mean. We're too intent on defending the supernatural and fail to realize that there is no acceptable defence as far as they are concerned.'

'OK,' Daniel acknowledged. 'So away with Jesus's divinity, the resurrection, the Holy Spirit. What's left? God is supernatural too. Away with the Lord in whose name Jesus preached. But religion without a god is a nonsense. All you're left with is some — ism. Jesusism, like Buddhism.'

'The message of love is bound to remain. That's understood by all. Or almost all.'

Daniel recalled the lady architect who wanted to talk to him about love and was surprised to find the thought of her made him uneasy. 'Love is the essential thing in life, but there also has to be something above it. Even the Beatles had a message of love,' he remarked.

'The Beatles maybe; the church didn't always have much time for it.'

8 Letters

Dear Reverend,

I have the feeling I didn't thank you enough for those flowers. I have them on the table in front of me. As I look at them I think to myself what a

special person you are. My husband asked who gave them to me. I said: Why you, of course, darling, you're always bringing me them. It's just that these days you're a bit forgetful about what you do. I think that nettled him.

Thank you also for the patient way you listen to the stories from my life and my inane questions. After all, preachers are there to preach not to listen, but you know how to listen and you make an effort to understand the other person. Last time you told me you thought true love could last an entire lifetime. Do you really think so? Is it something you believe in, or something you know for sure? And if it's something you know, then you're bound to know what one should do to achieve it. The way I see it, great love can only happen to people who manage to preserve complete freedom. You wrote to me about inner freedom, but what I have in mind is the freedom that we grant each other. It's not just preserving our own, it's also not begrudging the other person's. After all, it's not possible for a slave and a slave-driver to live together in true love.

It was something I discovered at home when I was small. My mother could never rid herself of the feeling that she owed her life to my father. I'm sure I told you that otherwise the Germans would have packed her off to Auschwitz — and how many survived that? Father was her rescuer and he accepted that role and played it to his lamentable end. I could never stand my mother's meek servility, I couldn't even stand my father for that matter, but that servility seems to have wormed its way into me. I can feel how it stifles all the better feelings in my soul, but still I serve my husband exactly the way my mother did my father, and Sam certainly didn't rescue me from anything, that's for sure. It's more likely me who rescues him — from his anxieties, before they totally unhinge him. But at least he's not like my father in that respect. He's reliable at his job and in his relations with me. I ought to value that, oughtn't I? And I do. I used to admire my husband. I considered him to be a remarkable individual, and still do, but that doesn't mean that I'm nothing, that I'm only here for him, simply a mirror for him to admire himself in.

Tell me, what must one do to preserve the most important things in one's life? To build them up instead of destroying them? Tell me: Is it at all possible? Why is it that all men — pardon the generalization, but it's not only my experience — why do they stamp around when they ought to go on tiptoe, strike when they ought to caress and cower when they ought to be offering support?

There, I've lumbered you with a pile of things again. So don't be cross with me and don't forsake me. Yours, Bára M.

Dear Daddy,

I arrived safely. Grandpa and Grandma were waiting at the station for me and as soon as she saw me Grandma cried out: 'You're the image of your mother.' Everything here is as it always was, nothing has changed since I was last here a year ago, apart from me, I suppose, but I don't see myself, except in that big mirror in the lobby, and luckily it's too dark there.

On Saturday, I borrowed Grandma's bike and cycled with Grandpa along the dike around Rožmberk. There are these enormous great oak trees there that must have been planted in the sixteenth century when Krčin was Regent. We stopped for a while and sat down underneath one of the oaks and looked at the water. Above it the mayflies hovered and a carp leaped out of it every now and then. Grandpa told me about how they take care of the fish ponds and then about Mummy when she was a little girl. It always makes me happy to hear about Mummy and at the same time I want to cry. I say to myself the way you do: it was God's will. But immediately it occurs to me: why? Why do some people die young and others are born deaf mute, blind or cruel? Why is there so little justice?

The other day I was walking past the church and I heard someone playing the organ inside. I went in. It was empty, but someone was playing Bach fugues on the organ — in a very special and beautiful way. There's no way of describing it because it's impossible to talk about music. I sat down and listened and had the feeling that life was endless. That's a silly way to put it It just struck me that even though I was there on my own, God was with me because He is infinite and He is everywhere, that He finds it worth His while to be. I was curious to know who was playing so marvellously. So I got up and crept up to the organ loft, quietly so as not to be heard. Sitting at the organ was a tiny, grey-haired old lady and she was playing. She didn't notice I was there at all.

It was lovely of you, Daddy, to take me on that trip before I left. It was really nice and I keep on thinking about it. You're kind to me, you're all kind to me

and I don't deserve it. I don't live the way I ought and even though I got my Cert I know I'm no good at anything and don't understand anything. How can I repay your kindness?

I always wanted to be like you, to be a bit remarkable in some way, to have faith, hope and love, to be kind to people, to know a little bit of what you know, to be good at something, maybe English, or sums like Marek, or putting together a telescope like Alois, or painting, or writing poems or songs. But I'm even hopeless at the harmonium — you must notice it most of all, except you pretend you don't because you don't want to hurt me, because you've always been sorry for me on account of Mummy. You always see her in me, but I'm not a bit like her. She was pure and good, I know that from you and from Grandma, whereas I'm…

Something else I want to say to you is that whenever I do something wrong now or in the future, it's entirely my fault and nobody else's, certainly not the fault of anyone at home at least, because you've always been much nicer to me than I have to you. Grandpa and Grandma send best wishes too.

Love, Eva

Dear Eva,

I'm pleased you're having a good time at Grandma and Grandpa's and having a little rest after your 'hard' studies. I understand what you meant about justice. Believe me, I've often had similar thoughts, even though I know that no one can understand divine dispensation. When your mummy died I was so full of bitterness that I even considered giving up preaching. (When people become bitter, they oughtn't to preach.)

At that time, it was Emanuel Rádi who helped me. In his Consolation of Philosophy he came to the realization that Christ brought direct guidance for mankind and that God acts the way that Christ did. He does not force anyone to do anything and so he is perfectly defenceless. He doesn't do miracles, doesn't send lightning or floods or plagues against people. He doesn't punish people in this world, he doesn't protect the wheat from the weeds that spread all over the field. In other words, to expect God to intervene directly in any matter whatsoever is to wait vainly for a miracle. But if God is a defenceless being, how does he operate in the world? He operates the way Jesus did. He loves people more than we can ever imagine and helps them

the way a defenceless person does: by teaching, by guidance, by praise, by example, by rebuke and by admonition. I am not telling you this as a lesson, but to let you know I understand.

But your letter also embarrassed me and worried me in fact. It embarrassed me because you praise me excessively. What worried me was the way you speak about yourself as if you were someone guilty of some great wrong. Your unfinished sentence: 'Whereas I'm…' startled me. I don't know of anything that you're guilty of, not that that is relevant of course. You're an adult now and have the right to your secrets. But if you have any, and they're a burden to you, you might be advised to share them. You know we'd never judge you. We know that it is not the role of people to judge others (Our Lord will judge us one day), but we'd try to understand you or help you somehow, should you need it and want it.

You must believe in yourself more, Evička. After all, you're only a beginner and no one expects anything from you but a willingness to live a decent life. And you have that. You've never done anything to harm any of us, leaving aside minor naughtiness or disobedience. And as far as faith is concerned, that's a gift for which we must be always grateful, it is a grace that we must ask for again and again. And, as you know, while grace can be refused, it can also be granted at the very last moment of life. And the Lord is good and will never ignore a sincere petition.

I am thinking of you and will continue to, and I'm already missing you. Give my best wishes to Grandma and Grandpa,

Daddy

P.S. Apart from the odd mistake you play the harmonium perfectly, and you know that as well as I, of course. And at the Conservatoire they'll give you the additional instruction to overcome what you perhaps regard at the moment as your lack of proficiency.

Dear Reverend,

I tried to call you before going off on holiday, but you weren't at home. I have some interesting news for you. I have managed to discover who had your father 'in his department' during the years sixty-three to sixty-eight. It was a certain Captain Bubnik. After the Russian invasion, they kicked him

out of the secret police. He earned his living for a while as a taxi driver and then worked as a warehouseman. That suggests to me that he was one of the more decent ones, and were you to approach him, he might tell you something about your father. Capt. Bubnik is now a pensioner but earns some money on the side as a night-watchman for the Gross construction company. I enclose a list of all the necessary addresses and telephone numbers.

I wish you tranquillity and peace of mind during the holidays.

Yours, Dr M. Wagner

Dear Mrs Bára Musilová,

You sent me a nice letter with a number of questions, which I doubt I'll be able to answer as I don't want to give a preacher's answers and I'm not very good at any other kind. You ask not only about love and freedom, but also what we must do to build up our relationships instead of knocking them down.

I share your belief that love is the most important emotion in one's life; where it is absent, people are in a bad way, while on the other hand, where it is to be found, as Scripture tells us, it covers all offences. But love not only gives, it also makes demands and takes away. If nothing else, it gives the intimacy of a loved one and always takes away some of our freedom. (That also applies to the love of Christ.) These days people mostly choose freely to live together while promising at the same time that they will not freely enter into an intimate relationship with anyone else. In the modern world, that commitment bothers many people and they are not even particularly remorseful when they breach it or betray each other. I'm sometimes amazed at what a high value we set on freedom and how little we value responsibility or our faithfulness to our own promises.

I don't want you to think I don't understand what you say about freedom. If one truly loves another then one must not begrudge them their freedom, including the freedom to leave — for good, even. If one knows one may leave, it is easier to remain with another person, because there is no sense of anxiety at having entered a space from which there is no escape, and there is no sense of being a prisoner.

You also want to know what one may do to prevent one's emotions from

dying. It's hard to give an answer. One cannot see into another's heart, possibly only He can do that. I think that if one wants things to last one must constantly strive for a place in the life of one's companion and be for them the best of people. The only thing we have to bind another to us is love and understanding. All other bonds can be broken or feel like shackles.

And remember the words of Karl Barth that I quoted last time. There are boundaries that we will not cross on our own, while on the other hand there are chasms which lure us and can easily swallow us up. I don't want you to think I'm preaching to you impersonally; I too am confronted by these boundaries and chasms.

Yours sincerely, Daniel V.

Dear Reverend,

Thank you for your beautiful, wise and human letter. I am thinking of you. I would very much like to talk to you. But one cannot have everything. That's a precept I have to keep repeating over and over again, because I want to have almost everything. So far, I have almost always managed to obtain it, but I realize that I have to pay for this covetousness, by my services, work and good deeds. Thus I take care of my husband and fulfil his every wish. I comfort him when he is anxious, praise him when he doubts himself for a moment, I attend on him, I put up with his groundless fits of jealousy. I act as his wife, his secretary, his skivvy, and his nurse. And for what? To earn the right to spend a little time with my kind of people. How ludicrously tiresome: always wanting to earn something. I'm tired of all this 'earning' and would like something for nothing too: for no good reason, just for the fun of it, just for being me. I'd like time — time that doesn't rush madly away, the time and the freedom to make up to you for finding time for me, and to have the chance of taking up some more of your time maybe. Though I know that's something I can't expect, that I have no right to.

I don't know what I'm to do, don't know how to seek the truth, don't know how to manage to do all the things I want to do and I'm scared of time that keeps giving me menacing reminders. And I don't want to race through life, I want to live it: decently, properly, in love and kindness and hope. That's why I came to hear you preach, to hear what you would say about it.

I'd like to write something personal, but I am shy to put it down on a piece of paper that will go through the post. So instead I heap all my pitiful little anxieties on to you. One of the reasons I do so is to let you know I'm not cold, that I feel things: both pain and kindness, that I'm capable of being grateful for every kind word. I also want you to know that I can be happy too. Nowadays, the only time I'm happy is when I realize that you are there and that I might get to see you from time to time. I think about you, about how you spend your days, what you may be doing, what you may be thinking about, what is going on in your soul, because you have a soul, a beautiful one. You also have a kind and good heart and try to give so much with all of it.

There, I've heaped a load of stuff on you again. Forgive me and don't forsake me.

Yours, Bára

Dear Mrs Bára Musilová,

I have thought a great deal about your last letter. It contains so much by way of feeling, pain, expectation and makes so many demands on life. I have been puzzling over what impels you to shower such praise on me, even though you do not know me at all. It struck me that you are in great need of something — or, more likely, someone — to believe in. Something good. Someone good. And from what you wrote about your husband I get the impression that you dream about a perfect man. But no man is perfect. People aren't perfect, only He is perfect. So you are always going to be disappointed, because only Jesus is incapable of disappointing us: he is the embodiment of love and understanding. The most that any of us can do is to seek in Him an example for our lives. You write: Do not forsake me! This is a plea that we address precisely to him. He alone is able never to forsake us because his love and his kindness are not restricted by time. The rest of us are here for just a short time, the length of a dream, and we do not know the moment when that dream will end.

We do not want to betray or forsake others. I know that I never want to forsake my wife as long as I live. I don't want to forsake any of the people who are near to me or who trust me. In that sense I do not wish to forsake you either. But what can I promise you? And so I simply beg you not to seek

God in people, apart from that of God which is in each of us. And try to find Him. He will never disappoint or forsake you.

I sense in you a great disquiet. I fear that it might send you hurtling off in a direction you don't want to go. One ought to strive to discern the consequences of one's actions.

I wish you success in your search for inner peace.

Yours, Daniel Vedra

Dear Reverend,

What a pagan I am that I never make it to church. And then the rheumatism has been troubling me just lately and I'm glad of a rest on Sunday. The gardens permitting, that is. And while I'm on the subject of the gardens, you know I'm not one to complain, but that young Koubek fellow, Petr, is going down in my estimation all the time. Two days last week he failed to turn up, and the next day he walked in bold as brass with no thought of excusing himself or anything. When he took his pay, and Reverend I don't pay badly, not when I think how much I had to slog every week when I was his age and what I'm giving him, he plays the lordship and sneers that it's not enough to buy a rope to hang himself. His very words. And this week he hasn't shown up at all and I've had to drive the tractor myself or ask Marie, and she's supposed to be in charge of the glass houses. So I'd be very glad if you'd let me know if I'm to count on him still or if I'm to find a replacement. I'm sorry to be the bringer of bad news.

Wishing you the best of health,

Yours truly, Břetislav Houdek