The Ultimate Intimacy

Chapter Four

1

Bára Musilová arrives as they agreed. She is only a few minutes late. 'You're not cross with me for keeping you waiting?' she apologizes breathlessly.

'But I'm at home.'

'I hate keeping people waiting.'

She is wearing the same black skirt as last time. And the ribbon that ties her hair is black as well. Her white blouse is open at the neck. It strikes him that as always there is something provocative in her appearance. Not so much in the way she dresses as in the way she moves, or rather in the way she looks at him. Daniel feels uneasy. 'Would you like a coffee?'

'I'd like a small glass of red wine if you have any, and a drop of water. It was stifling in the bus. But I don't know — maybe I'm holding you up?'

He brings wine and mineral water and two glasses for her.

'Won't you have a glass with me?'

'I'm not accustomed to at this time of day.'

'Nor am I. Nor am I accustomed to sitting in a manse — that's why I asked you for the wine.'

'That's perfectly all right. I'm accustomed to sitting in a manse.'

'But not with me.'

He gets up and goes to fetch another glass. He also brings a small plate of savoury biscuits and slices some salami to go with them.

'You're going to feed me too? You mustn't waste any time. I don't want to lose even one second of the time I can be with you.' But she reaches impatiently for the glass. 'So here's to our meeting and a successful afternoon. Is it all right to drink to such banal things? Here at the manse, I mean?'

He clinks glasses with her.

'On the journey here, all sorts of things occurred to me that I might ask you, though I don't think any of my questions are particularly original. I expect everyone asks you the same things.'

'I don't know what you have in mind.'

'Doubt about God's existence, for instance.'

'People don't usually ask. Either they have no doubts, or, more likely, if they do, they're ashamed to admit them to the minister.'

'And you personally, do you have doubts?' She stares fixedly at him. As if his reply really mattered to her. It occurs to him that her ancestors on her mother's side might well have been in that country that Jesus walked in, that they might have actually set eyes on Him and been struck with wonder by His deeds but turned away from Him when He died such a shameful death.

'I find it hard to imagine someone who wouldn't doubt from time to time.'

'I'm glad you replied that way. I was afraid you never doubted. I wanted to ask: Are you able to imagine the universe?'

That was not a question he had ever had to answer before. 'No, I'm not. My son is interested in astronomy. It's a pity he's not here; he might be able to give you a better answer.'

'It's just as well he's not here; it's your answer I'm interested in. Are you unable to imagine the universe because it's too big?'

'Partly.'

'How could God, who created all that, have assumed the form of a Jewish infant?'

'Jewish because God was fulfilling the promise made to Abraham. All the tribes of the Earth shall bless themselves in you.'

'No, you haven't understood me. I mean, how is it that someone who had the strength to create the universe could suddenly change into a human baby?'

'But God created with the Word. He didn't knock it together with his bare hands.'

'What does "created it with the Word" mean?'

'Let's call it "a command", then.'

'Like on a computer?'

'It's best not to compare God with anything. And I'd definitely not compare him to a computer.'

She sighs. 'I still don't understand. To create the universe and time

and change himself into a baby that grows and ages until one day, in purely human time, some Roman bureaucrat has him executed. How does that differ from some Red Indian or Hindu myths?'

'I don't reject myths. They are rungs to understanding.'

'To understanding what?'

'To understanding existence. The beginning and the end.'

'And that myth of yours, is that just "a rung" too?'

'If you like.'

'You're very conciliatory. Or you're a doubter yourself.'

'No, a sinner.' He pours her more wine.

'You wrote to me that Jesus will not disappoint or forsake me. How can you tell? After all, he promised he would return during the lifetimes of those who were with him and lead them off to the Kingdom of Heaven. I've got that right, haven't I? And what can be worse than not to come when you promise to? And he's not given any news about himself since then, has he?'

'That expectation was premature. People took too literally one single remark of His. Times were different. People believed in miracles; they were expecting the end of the world. He, and the entire impact He had, is a mystery and will remain so. You can either accept it or reject it. It's a question of faith, the belief that what happened, happened as God's will to free mankind from the eternal law of birth and death. Or, to put it in todays language, God decided that man had reached the stage at which it was necessary to remove him from the effect of that law.'

'Why man, in particular?'

'Because man is made in His image. That is how he differs from all other creatures.'

'But you just have to believe all that. I expect you're happy,' she says, 'happy that you have something you can believe in, something that lasts for ever and ever, whereas for me everything is coming to an end when it's barely started and soon will end for good. But before it does, I'd still like to experience something nice. No, that's not the right word — something perfect. But I know that I'm not entitled to it, that I've lost my entitlement.'

'Why? Life does not end until the last breath — up till then everything is open.'

'Such as?'

'Such as grace and the love of Jesus.'

'Yes, we mentioned that. But what about the human sort?'

'There should be that too.'

'That was nice to hear. Thank you. And here you are sitting with me and listening to my talk.' She drinks up her wine and rises. Before leaving she takes another look around the room. 'You have some beautiful carvings here — I noticed them last time. Are they saints of some kind?'

'We don't venerate saints. No, I just do a bit of carving for fun sometimes.'

'You're a woodcarver as well?'

'No. My grandfather used to work with wood, though. He was a violin-maker. Before he died I used to go to his workshop sometimes and watch him working.'

'The faces on those two women are similar. As a matter of fact, they look more like young girls than grown-up women.'

'My first wife died before she reached twenty-five.'

'And those figures — they're supposed to be her?'

'You could put it that way.'

'You must have loved her a lot, then?'

'I did.'

'Forgive me for asking you like that. I didn't know your wife had died.'

He nodded. What she didn't know about him was a great deal more than she did know.

'Do you think you'll ever be capable of loving that much again?'

'But I remarried.'

And do you carve figures of your second wife?'

He says nothing. This person makes him uneasy.

'Would you have to be deeply in love in order to carve the figure of another woman?'

'I don't know,' and it strikes him that it is fortunate she doesn't know about his latest carving. 'I don't know whether it has anything to do with love.'

'But surely all works of art have something to do with love.'

'I expect you'd know more about that than I.'

'But you know it too, don't you? In fact, you haven't answered my question. What I wanted to know was if it was possible, after losing someone you love a great deal, to experience a similar thing again or something even more powerful.'

'I really have no answer to that. I don't think love can be ranked,

and I actually find the idea of ranking people silly. But there are bound to be people more qualified than I am — you'd better ask them.'

'And you wouldn't manage to?'

'Why does it interest you?'

'Maybe I'd like to know whether you'd be capable of loving me.' She makes a short laugh. 'What will you say now? Don't say that we are each of us married, just imagine for a moment that neither of us are.'

She pours herself some wine. 'Now you're cross and remaining silent. Remaining silent means you don't want to say "No" out loud.'

'Remaining silent means simply remaining silent,' he explains.

She quickly puts her cigarettes and lighter away in her handbag. 'Do you think we'll see each other again? I don't mean in church, but like this.' She stands opposite him, waiting. 'You are remaining silent. Does remaining silent always mean remaining silent with you?'

2

Diary excerpts

Mrs Straková from Kamenice came to Prague and paid us a visit. I hadn't seen her for years but she hasn't changed all that much. It always gives me pleasure when someone turns up from those parts. From those parts and from those days, someone who still remembers Jitka.

I enquired how things were with the congregation. She told me that fewer and fewer people come to church on Sundays. No one's able to give fine sermons like yours any more, she said, flattering me. Then she complained about the decline in moral standards. They had had three divorces in Kamenice in the past year. The men had lost their senses and the women were taking leave of theirs, the young people only thought about money and having fun. Mrs Straková laid the blame mostly at the door of television. I couldn't get to sleep the other night, she said, so I switched on the box, and Reverend, there were women running around naked. It's worse than that Sodom you used to preach to us about and that's a fact.

My visitor brought me a bag of dried apples and home-made buns. When she left, it struck me that the world she had come from, and where

I too had lived for a time, was dying. I felt a twinge of nostalgia for it, in spite of its association for me with such dreadful times.

Shortly afterwards the phone rang. It was very late already, but I wasn't asleep as I was writing my sermon. Some woman's voice, it was a mezzo-soprano, called me by my Christian name and said: I love you. The voice struck me as somehow familiar and yet unknown. Once — it was precisely in those Kamenice days — someone rang me and abused me, calling me a creeping Jesus, a hooligan and— surprisingly enough — a Judas. But that abusive call surprised me less than this last one.

It can happen that someone in the middle of the night, just for their amusement, rings an unknown number and blurts something out. But that woman knew my Christian name. She could have found the number in the phone book, of course, or in the list in the church almanac.

I had a visit last week from Mrs Ivana Pokorná of our congregation. She complained about the fact that there was a boy in her daughter's class who had shot his father. When I expressed astonishment that the lad was at liberty she explained to me that he had committed the murder earlier, when he was under fifteen, and so he had escaped prosecution. He had been placed in a diagnostic institution but still attended school. Worst of all, she told me, the students in his class regarded him as a hero. Even the teachers. Why had he done it? His father used to beat him, she said, and had treated his mother brutally, and he might have had a mistress. So what was wrong with the son bumping him off?

I cited that case at the last meeting of the youth group as an example of moral cynicism. Ivana's daughter confirmed that the lad had no qualms of conscience. He declares that if he hadn't been successful that time he would have happily tried again.

We went on to talk at length about his action. Was it perversion, moral indifference or depravity, or was there perhaps another motive? How was it possible that a lad could kill his father and not even have qualms of conscience? I was surprised to find that the young people's opinions were much less unequivocal than I had expected. They explained that the son had obviously found his father's behaviour so despicable that he felt entitled to intervene. There's so much filth in the world and no justice, are you supposed to just look on all the time? Alois asked.

I conceded that parents often made mistakes as well. None the less one ought not forget that one of the fundamental principles on which society was founded reads: Honour your father and your mother, and that the Bible actually states: 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death. ' (Exodus 21: 17)

Petr maintained that most criminals didn't feel guilty. On the contrary they regarded everyone around them as bad for not living up to their expectations. All of you, he said, turning to us, are too concerned about conscience and sin, but people don't give a toss about all that, apart from when someone steals something from them.

I agreed with him that our judgements of others are often categorical, while we tend to display much more indulgence when it comes to judging ourselves. Even so, murder was something that could never be condoned.

But that evening the thought occurred to me that the lad's action might actually have been prompted by desperation and a wounded or offended sense of justice. A wise son brings joy to his father, it says in Proverbs, but a foolish son brings grief to his mother. But what damage do an adulterous father or adulterous mother cause their son? And who nowadays will inform the son of a three-thousand-year-old law that says: Anyone who curses his father or mother deserves death?

The cynicism, hypocrisy and deceit that pervade the adult world burst with indignation over the cynicism of the children which they themselves helped bring into the world.

After service on Sunday I had a word with Marika. (She didn't bring her siblings, but she is a regular attender. I don't know whether she follows the sermon but as soon as she hears the harmonium she enters into the singing heart and soul.) She loves her older brother and is convinced he's innocent. He fell victim to the gajos' revenge. When I asked her what he had done, she said: nothing. They locked him up over a fight in the pub, although he hadn't even been in the pub the night the fight broke out. It strikes me as unlikely but I don't think she's lying; she just believes in her brother's innocence. I am alarmed that the concept of what is just or even moral is being dangerously transformed. I get the same feeling when I think about the Soukups. He's determined to get divorced. He has fallen in love with a woman in the firm where he

works. He has rejected the wife who loves him and serves him body and soul. He wants to deprive her of her children and she, in her despair, is incapable of defending herself. None the less, Brother Soukup considers himself a good Christian. He could have deceived his wife but he chose not to. He could have gone on living a life without love, but instead he gives preference to a life of love. How Christian it all is, and how weak and hypocritical at the same time.

Too many people run to Christ to fill their emptiness. When it doesn't work they start to fill it with something else — but the living Jesus, Jesus on the mountain, means nothing to them. The Ten Commandments? If He were to appear now and approach someone with the commandments, I doubt they'd follow Him. The Ten Commandments belong to another age. These days they call it a paradigm. We are seeking a new postmodern paradigm, we debate it in seminars. We argue about what is permitted these days and where the boundary is that must not be overstepped. We'll soon be asking whether any such boundary exists at all.

When she was on her way out, I told that architect woman she could stay longer if she liked. I don't know what made me say it. Well, actually I do. I find her presence thrilling in a strange kind of way. Even so, no sooner were the words out of my mouth than I took fright. What if she takes my words as an enticement? We sat for a further two hours almost. I think my behaviour was artificial. On the one hand I displayed an exaggerated interest in her life, asking her about her husband, even about the first one, as well as about her two sons, while on the other I was incapable of concentrating on her answers. I was thinking about those words she had spoken and which I had passed over in silence instead of categorically denying them: 'Maybe I'd like to know whether you'd be capable of loving me. ' I had looked at her and realized what a beautiful and interesting woman she was.

For a short while she talked to me about her work and about modern architecture: about vaulted cubism and functionalism. She said tourists in Prague only look at the old buildings and fail to realize all the gems of modern architecture that are strewn around the place.

I know that's her speciality; I've never set eyes on anything she has created, but she talked with such enthusiasm that she enthused me as well.

Then I drove her right to her house. When I got back, I was happy I had resisted a foolish temptation but at the same time I was aware of a familiar sense of longing. That was how I used to feel years before when I would part from Jitka and the world would feel empty without her. Another thing that excited me about this woman was that she had Jewish antecedents. I realize that this is inverted prejudice, but I have always had the feeling that those who belong to the people of the covenant — even when they are totally unaware of the commitments it entails — have inherited something special. Surely somewhere within the consciousness of the entire lineage there must lie hidden the revolutionary insight that we are all made in God's image and an offence against God is therefore an offence against man, and in turn an offence against man is an offence against God.

The things I brought back from Mum's included all sorts of old textbooks and other literature. To my astonishment I discovered among them a copy of the History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) published in 1946. Dad must have bought it with the intention of learning the history of the country whose army had just liberated us. For a short while I leafed through it, finding in the margins my father's notes — sometimes only exclamation or question marks, in other places expressions of horror such as 'dreadful' or amazement — 'surely not'.

On a couple of occasions I started to read some of the actual text and was astonished at the amount of lies, vulgarity, distortion and foul abuse. Dad had drawn wavy lines under them. The thought struck me: is it possible that people actually believed all this nonsense, all these fabrications and artful deceit, and that perhaps millions of people had believed it, even those who had lived through the events themselves, who had the opportunity to discover the truth and speak to eye-witnesses?

Fanaticism and the need to believe in an ideal blinker our vision. When can we be even halfway sure that what is proclaimed actually happened the way it is described, particularly when the news about it comes from people having blind allegiance to their faith?

The reliability of testimonies to past events is something that continues to fascinate me. Christ is the present and the future, we declare. But He is first and foremost the past. Whichever way I interpret

the Bible, I am dealing with events that happened and were recorded two thousand years ago. My gaze is therefore fixed on the past. Most people's gaze is fixed on some point in the distant future. No, that's an exaggeration. Most people gaze neither into the past nor the future, they explore neither truth nor lies, they gaze at the television.

When we were still in Kamenice, our local Secretary for Church Affairs was a fellow named Berger, a former PE teacher. Maybe they had chosen him for his physical fitness and sobriety, in view of the fact that the previous incumbent had fallen asleep in a ditch when he was in a drunken stupor and frozen to death. I was required to apply in person to the Secretary every time I wanted to organize an activity that in any way went beyond my regular services. Sometimes he would make a personal visit. He would take a seat in my office, Jitka would bring him a coffee and he would start to persuade me that everything I did was a waste of time, as in the space of two generations there wouldn't be a single Christian left in our country, apart from a few crazy old grandmothers. He knew the content of all of my sermons and would warn me against any political allusions. I used to assure him that I had no interest in politics. 'I know full well what you mean when you talk about the Jews being taken into captivity and yet they never stopped believing in a Messiah who would free them. ' When I objected that that was simply the way it was, he would say: 'Sometimes I really can't make up my mind whether you're a shrewd operator or just naive. '

When Jitka died he came to the funeral. 'Death is terrible, Reverend, ' he said to me. 'You have my sympathy and I hope your faith helps ease your pain. '

A few days later I went to see him and mentioned that I desperately needed to return to Prague where my parents could help me take care of Eva who was six months old at the time.

He told me he understood my position and that it should be possible to arrange. I don't know whether it was really he who sorted it out but shortly afterwards the ban on my preaching in Prague was lifted for a while at least.

I'm writing about all and sundry in an effort to get that woman out of my mind to avoid writing how I have yearned for her, how I have an urge to meet her again. An urge for love or for sin?

There was this quote from Marti in a recent issue of The Protestant: 'Religion and eroticism — a wild, but inseparable, couple. Even though they fight like cats and dogs, call each other names and curse one another, the one cannot last long without the other. Where religion is dying, eroticism wastes away and becomes simply sex. Where eroticism is dying, religion shrivels up into abstract metaphysics (as was once the case) or into arid ethics (as it is now). '

I also recall what Balthazar the Cabalist says in Durrell's Justine: 'None of the great religions has done more than exclude, throw out a long range of prohibitions. But prohibitions create the desire they are intended to cure. We of this Cabal say: indulge but refine. We are enlisting everything in order to make man's wholeness match the wholeness of the universe — even pleasure, the destructive granulation of the mind in pleasure. '

Where is the boundary between freedom and licence, between responsibility and self-denial that no longer serve life but inertia? Inertia that is one of the signs of death!

I've written nothing for almost a month. Have I lost the courage to be intimate with my diary? Or have I found a different form of intimacy?

I definitely don't have the courage to contemplate the consequences of what has happened. A month ago, B. called and asked if I could spare her a moment. There was a note of urgency in her voice and it struck me she had had some misfortune or other. I told her that I would of course find time for her, and straight away if necessary. She then asked if we might meet in the Small Quarter as she happened to have some business there at that moment. She described to me a bistro halfway along Carmelite Street where we could meet.

I arrived there in under half an hour and when I sat down at one of the small tables I could not rid myself of a sense of something unbecoming. Fortunately the bistro was empty, with just a sickly melody wafting from some unseen loudspeaker.

She arrived a little late. She started to apologize in her usual overstated fashion and thank me for coming. I ordered wine for the

two of us and asked her if anything had happened to her.

She said she was suffering from depression, a feeling of anxiety that there was nothing permanent in this life, in her life, in people's lives, in the life of the Earth. Not even in the life of the universe, she added.

I pointed out that there was something permanent in life and the universe too.

'God, you mean, ' she said and straight away objected that she didn't want any false consolation, that shed sooner get drunk on wine than on some illusion. Then she spoke about her marriage. It was possible to put up with anything if one had a little support from one's partner. She maintained that she loved her husband but she had no support from him. On the contrary, she had to support him. 'You're different, 'she told me, 'you're strong, you don't foist your burden off on to other people, you help them with theirs. '

Just as on the previous occasion, there were moments when I couldn't concentrate on what she was saying but instead simply registered the melody and tonal colour of her voice, and her appearance. I was also distracted by her fingers that involuntarily drummed the rhythm of the obtrusive muzak.

As we emerged from the bistro it was already getting dark. I wanted to say goodbye, but she detained me, saying that her mother lived a short way from there. Her mother was away at a spa and she had the keys to the flat. She had to go and water the house-plants; perhaps I might like to accompany her.

I remained silent and she asked if remaining silent always meant just remaining silent in my case. I continued to remain silent.

Her mother's flat is in an old Small Quarter house: just one room with a view on to a narrow little courtyard. Old furniture dating back to some time at the beginning of the century, a brass menorah on the high bookcase. On the couch lay a black cushion with a Star of David embroidered on it in white. The room was full of vegetation with a cheese plant in one corner and a dragon arum in a large flowerpot, while fuchsias and pelargoniums blossomed on the window-sills.

She went into the bathroom and filled the watering can. She asked if I was cross with her for bringing me there. I told her I wouldn't have come if I hadn't wanted to. While she was watering the plants she spoke to me continuously about how I was a remarkable person, the most remarkable person she had ever met. She said she could sense the goodness of my heart and also my wisdom, that there were words

concealed in me that I didn't dare speak. I told her she was remarkable too and that I sensed in her a passionate longing for understanding, compassion and love. I repeated what I had already written to her: that she sought God, but projected her search on to people.

She said: 'I'm just looking for a good man, a living man. I've been looking for you. ' She came over to me and instead of backing away and making a quick departure, I took her in my arms.

It's strange how at that moment it struck me I'd first set eyes on her the day my mother died. Whose hand had thrust her into my destiny on that particular day?

Then we made love. I felt such ecstasy that I lost awareness of everything but her closeness and tenderness — and conceivably the long-forgotten tenderness that I used to feel with my first wife at such moments.

It was only when I had torn myself away from her that I was struck by the realization of what had just happened, of what I had done, and I was filled with horror and an overwhelming desire that it had all been just a dream from which I would awake into my usual innocence.

'Blessed is the man who endures trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love him._t Let no one say when he is tempted, "I am tempted by God", for God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself tempts no one; but each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin; and sin when it is full grown brings forth death. '

'Surely we have every right to, 'she said, sensing my mood. 'Surely there can't be anything wrong in love, can there?' As we said goodbye, she asked when we would see each other again.

Instead of saying never, instead of saying we couldn't see each other like that any more, I asked her if she really wanted to see me.

'And don't you want to see me?' she said in astonishment.

I couldn't find the strength to say that I didn't.

We met there again on four further occasions while her mother was at the spa. More than once I wanted to tell her that we couldn't continue with what had happened, but the moment I set eyes on her I was incapable of saying anything that might separate me from her for good. Whenever we made love she said: 'Love can't be a sin — you know that, don't you?'

I think to myself yes, but it depends what kind of love, in what

circumstances — but I am looking into those dark Jewish eyes, so full of passion and anxiety and pain, and instead of all the things that burden me at that moment I tell her that I love her.

The most terrible thing of all, it seems to me, is that it's true.

She would say: the most terrible and the most beautiful, because it joins that which cannot be joined, and maybe that's exactly the way life operates.

3

It was already dark as Daniel returned from the presbytery meeting. From a distance he could make out the figure of a man leaning against the lamp-post directly opposite the chapel.

'Waiting for me, Petr?' he asked when he reached him.

'Sort of, Reverend. But if you're busy, I can come back some other time.'

'Come along in. I'm always glad when you turn up. Besides, you haven't called on us for ages. Has anything happened?'

'No, apart from the fact that my sister's getting married.'

'That's good news, isn't it?'

'The guy she's marrying is decent enough, but I won't be able to stay there any longer.'

'Oh, yes. I forgot you've been living there. Have you somewhere else to go?'

'Not easy to find at the moment.'

'We'll come up with something. If you don't find anywhere, there's still another guest room here. But I'd have to talk to the elders.'

'Thank you, Reverend. I knew you wouldn't leave me in a fix.'

As they climbed the staircase Petr staggered and Daniel only caught him at the last moment. 'I had a couple of drinks at my sister's,' he said by way of explanation.

'So long as you didn't do anything worse. .'

'And I chucked in that job last week. I don't like gardening.'

'I suspected as much. Mr Houdek wrote to me about it. And can you think of something you'd enjoy more?'

'It's not really a matter of enjoyment, Reverend. The thing is I'd like

to achieve something and for that I need some education. And that means earning some money.'

'What would you like to achieve, Petr?'

'But I've already talked to you about it, Reverend. Id like to preach. Like you, for instance. So that I can tell people they must turn away from the darkness towards the light. Reverend, you've got a bit of an inkling, but I've known it at first hand — the horror that people live in.'

'I have to congratulate you on that ambition, Petr. But do you have any notion what you might do to earn more?'

'Possibly. But I don't know whether you'd approve.'

'I'll approve anything that's above board.' He led him into the room with the piano. Hana and the children were most likely in bed asleep. So he went to make some tea. He suspected bad news. It was the job of clergy to receive bad news. Worst of all he was still concealing bad news within himself and there was no one who could relieve him of it.

He came back with the tea. 'So how are you going to make a living? If you don't mind my asking.'

He shrugged. 'I could be a dealer.'

'In what?'

'Whatever was around.'

'That sounds fascinating. And what if they catch you?'

'They won't.'

'You said that once before.'

'I was still wet behind the ears then. I was operating solo. Or rather with a gang that was as stupid as I was. And anyway it wasn't good. I used to steal as well.'

'Whereas now you've decided that you'll deal honestly in drugs.'

'I haven't decided anything, Reverend. I've decided I want to do something useful with my life, but if I'm to do it, as I explained to you Reverend, I need to earn something. You can't do anything without money these days.'

'Your news doesn't please me. I thought you'd opted for a different way of life.'

'But I have. I haven't done anything wrong so far, have I?'

'Not so far… Petr, try and recall what you used to say to me when I visited you there. That you never wanted to end up behind bars again. And just a moment ago you were telling me you wanted to preach.'

'Straight up. I really do.'

'If you really mean it, you oughtn't to be considering such plans.'

'I mean it seriously. But you yourself say nobody can be without sin.'

'There are sins and sins, Petr. A preacher who sold drugs wouldn't be a good preacher.' A preacher who preaches the Ten Commandments and does not live by them can't be a good preacher either.

'But nobody would ever find out about it. There are things that nobody ever finds out about. Except the Lord, and he is merciful.'

Daniel suddenly felt uncomfortable and the lad noticed. 'No, straight up, Reverend, there's much less risk in that than in what you're doing. It's run by fellows with experience. There are all sorts of fail-safe mechanisms.'

'What do you mean? What risks am I taking?'

'Preaching. It's not so long ago that you had all sorts of hassles. With the police, I mean.'

'They were a different sort of hassle. And the times were different.'

'Except who helped you in those days? Nowadays if they catch a guy there's always someone who'll see to it they let him off.'

'How do they "see to it"?'

'Reverend, you're such a saintly man; you know very, very little about life. Everything can be seen to, everything's for sale if the money's high enough.'

'I'm not saintly. The opposite, more likely. And as far as big money is concerned, that's definitely not your case, Petr.'

'Exactly. And if I go on pushing a wheelbarrow I'll spend my life paying off debts, and I'll achieve… I won't achieve anything.'

'I'll tell you something, Petr. To manage to lead a decent life is quite an achievement, believe me. And that applies to you and me alike.'

'Reverend, I haven't made any decision yet. But you know full well that I have to pay the bill for the time I was inside and I have just a month to clear out of my sister's place. And even if you let me stay here, I can't stay here for ever. I want to lead a decent and useful life. I'd like to see something of the world and help people who are in a bad spot like I was. Advise me, then, if you know of some other way of earning some money.'

All of a sudden he was struck with alarm by a connection that hadn't even occurred to him before. 'Haven't you in fact already started in a small way?'

'What do you mean?'

'I mean selling drugs.'

Petr gave a diplomatic answer: 'Virtually no.'

'And in reality?'

'I don't get what you mean?'

'Eva, for instance. Did you sell her something?'

'Oh, come on, Reverend, it'd be like selling something to you.'

'And would you sell me it?'

'No, never!'

'Not even give it?'

'That would depend on whether you wanted it.'

And Eva did?'

Petr hesitated a moment. Then he said, 'No, she didn't.'

'She didn't even want to try it?'

'But everyone wants to try it at least once.'

'You louse.' Daniel took a step forward and raised his fist. Petr flinched and shielded his face with his arm. 'No, Reverend, don't ever think that of me. I talked her out of it!'

Daniel's fist remained clenched but he did not strike him.

'I really did talk her out of it, Reverend. I warned her off shooting speed. I gave her a bit of grass; that's less harmful than an ordinary ciggy.'

And did you give any to Marek and Alois?'

'No, no one else. I swear, Reverend. I didn't offer it to anyone here. Eva asked me for it. She told me she'd already tripped on speed twice but she didn't have any money to buy herself another trip. I told her to quit messing about with speed and I gave her the grass just so she'd have something at least. I reckon I did the right thing.'

'Yes, a really good deed, Petr!'

'Reverend, if I hadn't given it her, someone else would have got it for her. They'd get her something harder that she'd end up hooked on, like me that time. You've no idea, Reverend, how quickly it takes a hold on you, and Eva doesn't know yet.'

'What a Good Samaritan you are, Petr.' The world was full of deceit: big words and shameful deeds. He felt an unexpected pain in his chest and his breathing seemed to falter. 'You'd better go, you louse. I don't want to talk to you any more!'

Petr got up and wished him good-night, but he stopped in the doorway and turned towards Daniel. 'The room you mentioned — I don't suppose the offer stands any more, does it?'

'It still stands,' he replied, resisting the temptation to agree with him, 'even though I'd sooner see you a million miles away.'

'Thank you, Reverend.'

'It stands on condition, of course, that you don't turn the manse into an opium den.'

'You can count on me, Reverend. And I genuinely did talk Eva out of it.'

4

Hana

The journalist who is being discharged that Friday brings Hana a bunch of purple irises. 'Whatever possessed you? Besides, I won't get a chance to enjoy them,' she protests. 'I'm off on holiday next week.'

'So you can leave them at home, or give them to someone. Flowers are not for returning!'

So Hana thanks him, and all of a sudden she realizes who the journalist reminds her of: a pity she has no photo. Little Joe has already been dead for thirty-five years but he too was a trifle stunted just like this journalist and would also tell her enthusiastically about far-off lands and their inhabitants. And he once picked her the same purple flowers: in those days they were most likely stolen, as they didn't grow them in the garden at home.

Past times rise up in front of Hana's eyes: her first kiss, the people she would never see alive again. She puts the flowers in a vase, but she hasn't time to enjoy them. Before she can leave she has a vast number of duties to perform, including drawing up the rotas for several weeks ahead and doing an inventory of the linen and medicines. Every year, at the beginning of the school holidays, she takes the children off to her mother's, although in previous years she would only go for a few days, saving up her leave in order to spend some of it together with Daniel. She never did use it all up anyway, preferring to take payment in lieu. Times had been hard and every crown used to come in handy. This year, Daniel had persuaded her to take an extra four weeks unpaid leave; after all, they didn't need the money and she needed a rest.

However, it was he more than anyone who could do with a rest. He

seemed somehow changed to Hana these past few weeks: frail, taciturn and preoccupied. She put this down to his not yet having got over his mother's death, but maybe the work-load he has taken on himself is wearing him out: running his church, preaching every Sunday, travelling to visit prisoners, speaking on radio and television, writing newspaper articles, organizing special days for the congregation and on top of it all preparing for an exhibition of his carvings. It is a fact that he has had to wait till now to do all the things they wouldn't let him do before.

She'd love to help in some way, but doesn't know how. She can never think of anything to talk to him about without delaying him, something to please him or interest him even. She suggested to him that he should take a holiday and make the trip with them. He admitted that he would like to go but didn't have the time at the moment.

Maybe he really didn't have the time, or maybe it was just that he didn't relish the thought of travelling with her. Hana has the impression that he has been avoiding her recently. Maybe he's stopped loving her. Every love grows weary in time, that's something she knows all too well. Besides, Daniel never did love her the way he did his first wife. It's true he still washes the dishes or takes care of the shopping and urges her to buy herself new clothes. In the evening he sits and chats for a while with her and the children, but Hana senses that even at those moments his thoughts are partly elsewhere. Sometimes it seems to her that although she was definitely a support for Daniel in the bad old days, he no longer has any need of her now, or if he does then it is only to cook his dinner or massage his aching back.

The irises in the vase smell sweetly and she conjures up the day she returned from the maternity hospital with Marek. The whole manse was decked out in flowers. Daniel said to her that day: 'I'll never ever repay you for this.' But that was a long time ago now. Much water had flowed under the bridge since Marek was a little boy and they moved from one manse to another, since the days when Daniel used to be called in for interrogations, and he was under permanent threat of losing his permit to preach, so that they would be shunted off to goodness knows where. Since then the bad times had become the good times but what did it mean as far as her life was concerned? It is possible to feel better in bad times than in the good kind. Tyranny binds people together whereas freedom distracts them by holding out opportunities to them.

Maybe Daniel never had needed her, just a mother for Eva, and that was the reason he had taken her into his life. But his heart belonged to the one who had died. Hana recalls how, when she moved into the manse, she found traces of Jitka everywhere: her clothes in the wardrobes, two pairs of ladies' shoes by the front door, her photograph in a frame on Daniels desk and above the child's cot a paper dove whose wings flapped in the draught. 'Jitka was already in hospital when she made that,' Daniel had explained and was at a loss what to do with the clothes and shoes, as he could hardly throw away things that reminded him of the woman he had loved. So Hana had to live for a while with the effects of the departed and for the whole time with the memory of her. Daniel never spoke about Jitka and Eva called Hana 'Mummy'. In fact, until she was eight, she had not known that her real mother was no longer alive.

Now Eva was grown up and could cope without her; so could Daniel, in fact. Who needs you, when you are not even needed by your nearest and dearest? Probably nobody — and that's a difficult realization to live with.

It's almost two o'clock and Hana quickly writes out the most urgent instructions for the afternoon shift. Feed Mr Lagrin!

A week ago they had moved a Romany youth on to the ward. Skinheads had thrown him off the cliff at Šárka. He had survived the fall but had suffered multiple fractures and concussion. This morning they had taken him off artificial feeding on the grounds that he should be able to feed himself by now. When she went on to the ward she discovered he had not touched any of his food. She asked him why.

'I cannot hold the spoon.' And he showed her how his hands were shaking.

'But we would have fed you.'

'I did ask, but the sister she told me that on her wages she would not feed me.'

Later she asked in the nurses' station who had had the nerve to say such a thing, but naturally no one owned up. But even if the nurse had owned up she couldn't throw her out, as she'd never find a replacement.

Hana needs a holiday. She feels tired out. Not so much from work as from life in general. Her life admittedly has its regular routine but there is nothing in it that she really looks forward to. It doesn't offer any enticing prospects. And the heavenly kingdom that Daniel so

often talks about with such enthusiasm has never assumed any definite form in her mind and she has never imagined what might await her beyond its gates. She is almost ashamed of the fact and feels ordinary and down-to-earth compared to Daniel. Maybe she too would be capable of elevated thoughts and deeper contemplation about God and His plans, but how can you have elevated thoughts when two nurses this month have already handed in their notice. One of them she considered the best on the ward; now she has found a job as a hotel waitress.

'And won't you be sorry to be dashing around somewhere with dishes when here you could be doing a job for which only you are qualified?'

'But they pay three times as much.'

Where will she find new nurses now, with nothing to offer them? For the time being they will just have to share out the duties among themselves and that could well cause others to leave. What will happen then she prefers not to contemplate. This is a ward where the slightest neglect or inattention means death; and it can happen that several post-operative incidents or complications can easily occur at the same time. Now she is left with only one nurse for the night shift and she won't manage everything even if she splits herself down the middle. And then there was the holiday; she probably shouldn't have listened to Daniel and taken four weeks extra leave.

It is already two thirty; Hana has finished taking stock of the medicines and is on her way to the changing room. She has not managed to account for all the analgesics and the ephedrine preparations; someone is stealing them for their own use or making some extra money by selling them. Everything comes down to money these days. Everyone wants to get rich quick and the essential things in life are ignored.

What are the essential things in life?

Faith, hope and love.

Except that faith is dying and hope is therefore also on the decline. And what people now regard as love has little in common with it. It tends to be no more than a mutual encounter of bodies and at best a few trite saccharine phrases. She doesn't know them from personal experience, but has picked them up from television serials or from listening to the girls in the nurses' station.

They often confide in Hana, perhaps on account of her motherly appearance, or because she's a pastor's wife, or simply because she's a

patient listener. She is unshockable, understanding and ready to give advice. She tends to advise patience and warn against excessive trustfulness and impulsive decisions guided by feelings rather than prudence.

Sometimes, when she sees that passion, that total surrender to expectations of love, or when she detects the unconcealable tremor in the voice, she realizes that deep down in her there is also a hidden longing or perhaps an anticipation of some vague change, some action that will carry her out of this current that sweeps her along monotonously between the same banks.

It could well be that when she is giving her young subordinates a talking-to and warning them against foolish outbursts, she is addressing and rebuking herself too. She warns others against imprudence, never having been aware of imprudence under her own roof. Thanks to her job, she has heard more about drug addiction than Daniel. In this country every other person is a drug addict without knowing it. Grandparents are used to swallowing a whole tube of tablets each day, unable to imagine life without them. They would die of anxiety at the emptiness. They don't have a god so they stuff themselves with anadin, Valium and anti-depressants. Maybe that's permissible at the end of a life, but what will happen to the ones who start it at age eighteen? Her step-daughter is at risk and Daniel is too good-hearted — naive, she'd say — to give Eva a proper talking-to, let alone punish her. He believes she'll come to her senses on her own. But how many drug addicts ever came to their senses on their own? The only outcome of such a kindly and understanding approach to child-rearing would be that Marek and Magda would end up being tempted too. Marek seems to be sensible enough but Magda is attracted by anything she sees as forbidden or sinful. Not long ago Hana found a box of matches in her school bag. 'What are you carrying matches around with you for?'

'No particular reason. In case I needed to see something when it gets dark.'

'So long as you're not thinking of smoking.'

'Oh, Mummy, whatever makes you say such a thing?'

Her astonishment did not sound in the least convincing.

Those two young criminals that Daniel was so proud of reforming, and that he spoiled more than his own children, wouldn't come into the house if Hana had her way Even if they have been baptized and they feign piety, there is no reason for them to be friendly with their children.

If only Daniel had more time for them to talk together. If only he would find a moment to tell her he loves her.

Hana leaves the hospital in a bad mood. Outside the front entrance she bumps into the journalist who has just given her a bunch of flowers and so reminded her of her first love. His name is Volek. He greets her with a rather unconventional bow. She had mentioned she was going on her holiday. It occurred to him he would probably not see her again so he would like to thank her for all the care he has received and invite her for a coffee, at least.

'No, thank you. I have to get home. My husband and children are expecting me.'

'How old are your children?'

'Twelve and fourteen.'

'You can't be serious, Matron!'

'I also have a step-daughter who is eighteen. Why do you ask?'

'I just wondered whether they might cope for a while without you.'

'That's not the point. You've already given me these flowers. It wouldn't be right for me to accept an invitation from you as well.'

'But I'm only inviting you for a coffee.'

Hana cannot understand the reason for the invitation but it will help take her mind off things. He is an entertaining man, and in spite of his profession he seems quite trustworthy.

The little bar is right next door to the hospital. There are only a few people seated at the small round tables, but the background music is a bit too loud. She doesn't feel at all at ease but she will have to put up with it, having accepted the invitation.

The journalist orders two Turkish coffees.

'That's not really the best thing for your stomach,' she scolds him.

'There you go; I didn't realize you knew my case notes.'

'People mostly take the advice we give them with a pinch of salt. We discharge them and they're back in a twinkling.'

'Actually I don't like coffee,' he admits. 'At home I only drink tea, but real tea, not the sort of thing they offer you in a pub here. When you go into a tea-house out east,' he says, indicating with his arm somewhere a long way off, 'it is not just a ceremony, but something else as well, something for you to taste and smell and see. For instance, they can drop in your teapot a small ball that some dear little Chinese ladies have woven from tea leaves up on some plantation in the

mountains. And that ball starts to swell and turn into a flower that unfolds while at the same time imparting to the water the taste and scent of tea, such as you'll never encounter here. Whenever I'm abroad I stock up on teas. Should you ever happen to have the time or inclination to call on me, I would make you Dragon's Fountain, say, or Snowflake.'

'And you make tea all by yourself?' Hana asks, disregarding his invitation and realizing that she has never seen his wife during visiting hours, though from his notes she saw he was married.

'Yes. I would never entrust anyone else with tea-making.' And for a while he describes the proper way to make tea. Water may be poured on the tea three times: the first time for strength, the second time for taste, the third time for thirst. But in China when you arrive in the evening for a tea session, they just sprinkle tea in the pot and then simply pour on hot water. 'You see, it's my conviction,' he adds, 'that the person who knows how to drink tea also knows how to forget the din and bustle of everyday life.'

Hana then asks about his wife and what she does, but the journalist brushes the question aside. Klára works in a bar, finishing quite late at night and sleeping through the day, so they scarcely see each other.

Apparently he does not enjoy talking about his wife; maybe there's something not quite as it should be between them and that was why she did not even come to see him. Perhaps that was the reason for his illness; Hana recognized long ago that most illnesses have their origin in mental not physical pain.

And what does her husband do, the journalist wants to know.

Her husband is a pastor.

'I've never taken coffee with a pastors wife. Nor with a pastor, for that matter. My people were unbelievers and I take after them. I must have been in more pagodas than churches. But I only visited them because I was interested in statues of the Buddha.'

'Do you think it's possible to live without a faith? Live well, I mean.'

'The way I see it, Matron, what is more important than faith is to have a good heart. I met a lot of people like that in China. They had no faith, just a good heart. And you're exactly that sort of person, and that's why you are able to take loving care of total strangers.'

'We are all carers.' Hana is at a loss; she is not used to chatting with men.

'Of course. But you're different. I'm sure you're kind to good and

bad alike. Because you can't help being kind. You remind me a bit of my mother. When she was still very young,' he quickly adds. 'She was the best person in the world.'

'That's what everyone thinks about their mother.'

'But she really was an exceptional woman. And I have known both exceptional and selfless women.' Again he recalls some Chinese women he once met when he first arrived in that country. Their husbands had been jailed or had been sent for re-education to some commune a thousand kilometres away and everything had fallen on those women: caring for their families and earning a living so that their children did not die of hunger. And in China, particularly for women, that meant working until they dropped. But they did not complain and bore their fate with humility and courage.

'Maybe they were ashamed of complaining in front of you, a foreigner.'

'Maybe,' he concedes. 'But all the same, their patience and composure was remarkable. And they waited loyally for their husbands.'

He then goes on to tell her about a massive flood he once witnessed on the Yellow River. The water got into the houses and barns, carrying away livestock, chattels and even people. The women behaved just like the men. They would carry a hundredweight of earth in baskets on their backs, those little women, to help repair the dikes and save what could be saved. It was impossible to save anything anyway, as water is such a mighty element and in that plain there wasn't even the tiniest mound you could climb up above the water.

Hana listens to him with interest. She likes the way he speaks nicely about women, even if they were women from a country she will never set eyes on.

And weren't you afraid?' she asks him and says that she is afraid of water; water has always played a baneful role in her life, and almost killed her once.

Matouš starts to apologize for bringing water into his narrative but China is all water: rivers, enormous rivers flowing across the plains and between weird-shaped cliffs. And canals and rice paddies. In their paintings and songs, the surface of the water glistens in the moonlight. The trigram 'k'an' denotes water, rain and also danger. As to whether he was afraid, at such a moment one thinks of what one ought to do, not about the danger. The same thing applies to an earthquake. But during an earthquake everything happens so fast that one doesn't even

have time to be afraid. One either lives or not. Perhaps if he were trapped somewhere under rubble he might be afraid. He goes on to tell Hana about a volcanic eruption he witnessed during his one and only visit to Washington State. The volcano had a beautiful name — Helena — but what he saw was terrifying. It looked just like an atomic explosion. The entire mountain top blew off. He just stared at it and in those first seconds it didn't even occur to him that his life was at risk. It looked like a fantastic film effect. It finally came home to him when the cloud of ash and smoke started to drift towards him. All of a sudden he realized he couldn't breathe. And it started to turn dark in the middle of the day.

While Matouš is telling stories, he draws in the air with his finger: the plain, the water, the river winding through the rocks, and the mountain top flying off. Hana notices he has a pretty hand with fine, almost feminine fingers.

'But do you know what I found most astonishing of all was not the darkness at noon, nor the solidifying lava, nor the burning trees, but the silence. Not the cheep of a bird, not the chirp of a cricket — not even the buzz of a fly. Most of the people around me found it horrifying but for me it brought back the words of the Chinese sage: In the sky symbols arise, on the earth shapes are formed. And also: What first rises to the sky must fall to earth. And instead of being horrified, I was aware of the greatness of nature.' Matouš relates terrible experiences yet smiles all the while at Hana. When Hana expresses surprise at his smile, he explains that when he experiences something of that kind he is actually happy: that he survived and that he has enriched his life, his experience. And that was something he always longed for, particularly while he was young — to experience something, to understand something and then tell people about it.

'Tell them what?' Daniel was possessed by that need too. It is a male characteristic. Daniel retells an ancient message, trying to inflame even the hearts of those who seemed bent on taking the opposite view. Because of it they had lived in poverty and had to live for a time in a remote village. And they had not been allowed to travel at all.

'That's not easy to answer in a few words. At one time I had an urge to tell people at least something about the world they were not allowed to see: what it looked like, how the people behaved, the way they thought, what customs they had. You see, the world was divided into two in those days. Our part was good, the other part was bad: now its

the other way round, in a sense. Nevertheless there is only one world and it is both good and bad. Most important of all, it is threatened by what we do in it. We rush forward somewhere without looking to right or left. That's something you become aware of in that place, where, since time immemorial, they have acknowledged values other than just progress and the pursuit of success and change. When you return you are bound to ask: where will it all end? And your answer is: in the end we will destroy ourselves and life in general.'

'People always expect catastrophe,' Hana says. 'At one time people actually expected the end of the world. My husband often talks about it in sermons: how the sun will turn black, the moon will run blood, the stars start to fall to earth and the skies disappear. It's a horrifying thought.'

'That's true,' the journalist admits, and he excitedly starts to tell her how these used to be only nightmares. The beast rising out of the sea had seven heads and ten horns. The Hindus believe that when the age of Kali arrives, the gods will massacre each other, the earth will be engulfed by fire and water, and there will be a return to the chaos that reigned before Creation. The Persians believed that life would perish in the convulsions of the earth, after which would come fire, flood and the fall of the heavens. It was always something that would come irrevocably by a higher will. Nowadays we are preparing our destruction ourselves because we are too attached to material things. Man should fix his mind on other values. He should seek the love that sees and is wise, as well as harmony and the fundamentals of the order that rules the universe.

'My husband says everything happens by the will of God. Without it, not a hair will grow, or fall from the head. But he also appeals for love.' It is odd how easy she finds it to talk to this man. She would never dare broach such subjects in front of Daniel. Daniel was too learned, serious, genuine and responsible. She would be afraid of blurting out in front of him something that would betray her ignorance. She finishes her coffee. 'Thank you for inviting me,' she says, 'and for the coffee.'

He asks her then where her husband preaches, and she tells him.

'I must come and hear him some time. Maybe I'd get to see you at the same time.'

She takes her leave of him. She can't fathom out why he should want to see her again, but when she emerges from the smoky and noisy

room she realizes her mood has improved, and she actually feels vaguely pleased. Someone has felt it worth his while to spend some time with her.

5

Captain Bubnik lived in a four-storeyed house in Vokovice. As Daniel mounted the staircase he was unable to dispel a queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. He always used to feel something similar when he was summoned to an interrogation or to the office of the Secretary for Church Affairs.

The State Security was no more, even the police uniforms had changed, but the incidents and experiences of the past had not disappeared, they remained — indelibly — lodged in peoples memories.

He rang a doorbell on the third floor. The door was opened by a little grey-haired old lady in a flowery apron.

He introduced himself and she said she knew who he was and that her husband was expecting him. Then she asked if he preferred coffee, tea or beer, maybe. He refused everything, still obedient to the old wisdom that it was better not to accept anything from such people. By now a man appeared in the doorway, and having overcome all his distaste and embarrassment, Daniel announced himself.

'Is that the pastor?' A slightly corpulent seventy-year-old with a grey deadpan face, rather gingery eyebrows and senilely expressionless eyes behind cheap spectacles stepped towards him. 'You're very welcome.' The man shook his hand firmly like an old friend he was meeting after many years. He led Daniel into the room which looked 100 per cent mass-produced, from the carpet on the floor to the pictures on the walls and the ceiling lamp.

'Pastor,' he repeated when they were seated at the chipboard table. 'That's an honourable calling, caring for souls and their salvation. I've been retired for thirteen years now. I always used to say what a treat it would be not to have to get up in the morning, except that these days I wake up at 4 a.m. and I'm not able to go back to sleep. More aches and pains, fewer joys and pleasures. You mentioned your father in your letter, didn't you?'

'I understand you,' he said when he had heard him out, 'those

pirate lists caused a lot of harm. And above all among the survivors, because they weren't able to seek redress. Where they had been wronged.'

'Were they often?'

'It depends what you mean by wronged, Reverend.'

'Wronged is probably not the right word. Duped or misled would be more accurate, seeing that people were often included on the list without their knowledge.'

'I shouldn't think so, Reverend. And anyway it's neither here nor there. Some didn't sign and even made things up; others signed and you didn't get anything important from them anyway.'

'And my father?'

'Your father, your father. He was a doctor, you say. Dr Vedra?'

He looked as if he was trying to call the name to mind. Then he shook his head. 'I've got a bad memory for names. There was a time when I could remember all sorts of things, I knew all the Sparta football team line-ups for the previous twenty years, but nowadays — you know what its like for old people.'

'I've brought a photograph.' Daniel took an envelope containing two likenesses out of his bag. As he passed it across he had the impression of doing something dishonourable. As if it was he, now, who was acting as an informer by offering a picture of his own father.

'Yes,' said the man opposite, 'the face is familiar. At least I think so. On the other hand, nothing definite comes to my mind. After all, it's thirty-five years ago or thereabouts. Are you able to remember people you dealt with thirty-five years ago?'

'I used to deal with people in a different fashion. And yes, I do remember the people who attended church.'

'You've got a good memory, and you're younger. But I will tell you one thing: the fact I don't remember means your father was totally insignificant. From the point of view of being of any use, I mean. The big fish — the ones that really meant something — you remember them even after all those years.'

'Can't you recall even a single interview?'

'No I can't, really. Don't forget that I was given the boot from there. After that you try to forget it all. I had other worries. The only ones that stuck in my memory were those that stood out in some way. From the intelligence point of view, I mean. As well, of course, as the ones we pumped regularly. They were the ones that yielded a lot. Your

father was definitely not one of them.' He leaned over towards Daniel and said, 'There's no sense in investigating it like this. You must know best of all the sort of person your father was. Even if there were some files still around and you got access to them, you wouldn't learn much from them because everything was far more complicated than anything you might read there.'

'Thank you. I expect you're right.'

'Your see, people these days over-dramatize everything. They've got the idea that it was only scoundrels, brutes and fanatics who worked with us. But we were normal people. At the beginning we believed, like a lot of others, that socialism would bring something better than what we had. Anyone who resisted it seemed to us like an enemy. But when you started to analyse things, you soon lost your enthusiasm. We only did as much as we had to.'

'I also had some encounters with some of your people,' said Daniel. 'It's possible that the people who dealt with me only did what they had to, but it was plenty, I assure you. But that is neither here nor there at this moment.'

'Yes, you're a pastor. The way the church was treated was crazy, absolutely mindless. We are all reaping the dire consequences of that now. People nowadays only believe in property, money and their careers.'

He was unable to fathom whether the man was putting it on, or whether he was saying what he truly felt.

Then Daniel realized that this man had once sat at a desk with portraits of the murderer Stalin and his local Czech satrap on the wall behind him, while his father had sat facing him, the indelible experience of eight years in the camps imprinted on his mind, and an understandable feeling of tension. His father would have known he had to give some sort of answer, and whether he left the room a relatively free person was entirely up to the person who now sat opposite his son Daniel with a friendly expression on his face, talking to him as if they were jointly engaged in the struggle against present-day materialism. The man could not recall his father, he had just been one of the many they had summoned whenever they needed them. Whereas his father, if he were still alive, would certainly have remembered him. This captain had been one of just a few of those who had attached themselves like leeches to his father's life. Later this man had disgraced himself and maybe then some other captains had latched on to him, so

that he now felt justified in bemoaning his reduced state. Any sense of humility, let alone repentance, was foreign to such people. And by coming to see him, he, Daniel, had bolstered the man's feelings that he was one of the just, one of the victims, someone worthy of honour, praise and trust.

Suddenly he felt disgusted at his action in coming here and the fact that he was meekly sitting and listening and scarcely taking issue. He stood up, saying he had no wish to stay any longer, thanked him and prepared to leave.

'Should you ever need any advice,' said the erstwhile captain, or just feel like dropping in for a chat, you'll be very welcome!'

6

Matous

Matous Volek is not in particularly good form. His appetite is not returning and his stomach hurts from time to time. He can't go to the pub or to any of the offices of the journals he works for. This is the third day he has been entirely alone and to cap it all it is Sunday morning and holy days have always depressed him. He spends a little while playing with the seven tangram dice but fails to build any interesting picture. So he tries to call up a number of friends but nobody answers the phone. They are probably at their weekend country places or at the seaside.

It's hot. Matouš gets up and puts on the big ceiling fan. The fan whines, which Matouš finds irritating, but at the same time its noise and the movement of the hot air remind him of cheap hotels in China or Singapore. He searches among his CDs for the one with Chinese music with its sense of the unusual that always soothes him. While listening to the 'Moon Mirrored in the Waters' he makes himself a pot of red tea and then goes to sit in the old armchair with its worn leather cover.

A white screen and behind it the lively gestures of the puppets. Gongs and Mongolian fiddles. Wooden clappers. The somersaults of the actors in their pure silk costumes. Wu-tan in a red robe and wielding a sword.

Pagodas in parks, the red walls of the Imperial Palace, gates with yellow roofs. The fish market and bicycles flashing past like a shoal of fish. Those under sentence of death being hauled off to execution on a cart; rebellious intellectuals and con men, smugglers, corrupt officials and murderers. The ever-curious crowd goggling at those who are about to die. When the crowd becomes enraged, it hurls books into the flames. Brainwashed children burn the works of old Chinese masters along with those of foreign devils, or goad an old man along: they thrust a four-sided hat on his head and hang a sign around his neck saying 'STINKING TEACHER CHANG PREACHING THE CAPITALIST ROAD'. They make him kneel before a portrait of Mao and recite from memory some of the dictators articles. Then they dance the Dance of Loyalty and hang a wall-poster of loyalty on the wall. They all sing The East is Red'; all in the name of some senseless, self-destructive revolution, all in a country where until recently the old were esteemed as nowhere else in the world.

The Yellow River and in it Mao, the fat, ugly and cruel unifier of the country. Even on the day before he died millions of brainwashed children and old people were shouting: May he live a thousand years!

How many years, how many months, how many days does Matouš have left? He would like to leave his burrow behind, leave behind the world of screeching tramcars, a world well-disposed to con men, loose women, cancer and bad poets, whose works mostly did not get burned, and find a place of silence wherein he would hear nothing but his own breathing. But the fan whines and the solitude presses on his brain and all he can see and hear are mindlessly roaring crowds.

If only his bad wife were to look in; she regularly drops by for money. It is two months since she was last here. She was probably too ashamed to come to the hospital, or else she knew he had no money there. But at this moment he would give her whatever she asked for, provided he had enough. Maybe she would make it up with him and stay till the end.

Matouš believes he is endowed with a special gift of perceiving the aura that surrounds every individual, so that at moments of clairvoyance he is able to discern when the aura is so weakened that the person no longer has enough strength to live. But he is incapable of seeing his own aura and this fact does not help his peace of mind.

He knows he ought to rise above all the cares that flow from his awareness of his own self, cut the umbilical cord that connects him to

the outside world. Instead of succumbing to anxiety, he ought to advance with equanimity towards the Great Coalescence. Except that he spent the whole of yesterday gawping at the television in order to dispel his loneliness, distract his thoughts and not miss what life had to offer for the brief moment that fate still granted him. But on Sunday mornings there are only children's programmes on television. So he pours himself a glass of wine and some lines of poetry come to him:

Drink wine, anyway, do nothing

Float away Fathomless longing.

In his stomach the wine is instantly transformed into boiling lead that rises back into his throat.

The eyes of a jade Buddha stare at him from the glass case opposite his bed. Oh, monks, this, then, is the noble truth about suffering: birth is suffering old age is suffering sickness is suffering, death is suffering, contact with unpleasant things is suffering when one does not attain what one wishes it is suffering. .

Suddenly he makes up his mind. It's Sunday, he'll go and hear the husband of that motherly matron preach. Maybe his sermon will cheer him up.

He enters the chapel after the service has started. The place seems half-empty to him. Perhaps it's always like this, or perhaps it's because the holidays are beginning. All the same, Matous does not sit down but stands behind the last row of pews trying to make out whether the pastor's wife is also in church.

Shortly after his own arrival, another woman enters. She is strikingly attired and her long hair with its faintly Titian red hue hangs halfway down her back. She stands alongside him, opens the hymnal and when she has found the hymn, joins in the chorus.

Matouš doesn't join in the singing; he doesn't know the melody and the text seems to him imbued with a belief in something he finds utterly foreign.

The pastor's wife is sitting right in the first row. He easily recognizes her plump figure and the slightly greying hair which, instead of being

hidden under a nurses cap, is combed up high into a bun. Matouš s mother wore her hair the same way.

The pastor is too tall and gaunt and it seems to Matouš that there is something ascetic about his appearance, or maybe something intense. He emphasizes each of the words he now reads from the Scripture as though wanting to attest that each word was a stone in a foundation or an unshakeable rock. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

It's interesting that even in those far-off times people didn't have anywhere to hide their treasures from thieves. Confucius also lived in a time of wars, discord and crime, but believed that in some earlier age harmony, justice and wisdom had reigned, and we must return to those values if we wish to remedy the way things are.

The pastor continues with his reading. The text emphasizes that people should not worry about their future or fear that they will have nothing to eat or wear. Then the minister starts to interpret the text. In his opinion, people have become plunderers, always wanting to own something. Nothing of what they already have seems enough to them and in a way they turn into bandits, taking where they can, plundering anything that cannot protect itself, whether it be someone weak and helpless, an animal, a tree, any living thing. They even plunder the dead resources of the earth and transform them into enormous quantities of things which soon turn into piles of waste.

Matouš senses agitation welling up from within him. It is a state he is familiar with. Sometimes he can engender it when he has drunk several pots of strong green tea. At such moments, objects start to become transparent; plants and all living things become surrounded with an aura of gentle colours and he is able to discern the traces of past contacts and the outline of imminent death, decay and putrefaction. And at that moment he realizes that the pastor's aura is fading; it appears and then disappears like the twinkling light of a distant star. The pastor has not long to live. Maybe he suspects as much; Matouš can detect nervous anxiety in his words. It is also odd that whenever the pastor looks towards the place where Matouš is standing, his speech seems to falter and it is as if he has lost his thread. Only when he turns away does he continue with possibly even greater emphasis.

During the last hymn, the pastor hurries out and so does the woman at Matouš s side. His agitation gradually recedes.

A middle-aged man stands outside the door shaking everyone by the hand. He also greets Matouš. 'You're here for the first time today, aren't you?'

He confirms this and explains that he was in hospital and the pastor s wife invited him.

'It's nice of you to have come,' the man says with pleasure. 'I hope you have enjoyed being with us.'

The pastor's wife also notices him. 'You really did come then, Mr Volek?'

'I said to myself it would do me no harm to go to church once. But actually I was only looking for an excuse to see you again.'

'There's not much to see,' she says. 'But my husband will be pleased if you come more frequendy.'

'I actually agreed with quite a lot of his sermon,' he says, chiefly to please her.

'Really? You ought to tell him. He'd be happy to hear it.'

'I don't know when I would have the opportunity.'

'If you like, and if you have no particular plans, you can join us now,' she suggests. 'You can have lunch with us. My husband will be back at noon; he has another service today. And our children will enjoy listening to you. I have spoken about you at home.'

Her invitation takes him aback. Could he really have captivated this woman? He protests that he could not be such an inconvenience. But the pastor's wife dismisses his protests. They are always having someone home for lunch.

And so he manages to enter the flat in the manse.

In fact, it is a very long time since anyone has invited him to lunch. He has no friends, only acquaintances, and he tends to meet them in pubs or wine bars.

Stepping into the front hall, he certainly does not have the impression of entering a manse. The walls of the front hall are hung with posters: Michael Jackson; alongside him some space rocket on course for Saturn; and below that the open jaws of an enormous salmon begging to be protected.

'Marek and Magda hung all of them there. The poster with the salmon was sent to us by my husband's sister. She lives in America,' the pastors nice little wife explains and leads him into the living room

where normal pictures hang on the walls. On the piano stands a vase of purple irises. 'You see? I have really nice patients who bring me flowers,' she says with approval. 'If you like you could take a seat here — there are lots of books on the shelves, or you could play the piano, unless you'd prefer to take a walk in the garden. I have to get on with the cooking.'

He follows her out, of course, and even suggests that if she had some French beans, dried mushrooms, soy sauce, pepper and something he could use to make a meat broth, he could cook a piquant Chinese soup.

To his surprise the pastor's wife accepts his offer and brings him everything he has requested and also lends him an apron. 'We are used to our guests making themselves at home,' she explains. 'If you didn't enjoy it, you wouldn't have offered. And you really will be helping me, as I still have my packing to do.'

So he prepares the meat broth while the good wife at his side scrapes the potatoes. He has no objection to such a division of labour here, he senses the relaxed, homely atmosphere — a good home. When they were still living together Klára would refuse to cook. He had to cook for himself or they would go to the pub. She said to him once: 'When you buy a car I'll cook you what the Queen of England has for dinner.' But he could never afford a car and she never even cooked him the handful of rice that the Chinese ricksaw driver has for supper.

A freckled little girl with glasses bursts into the kitchen. The pastor's wife says it's their Magda, and he loses his composure slightly, being unused to dealing with children and aware that it would be a good idea to entertain the little girl somehow. He recalls the fable of the giant leviathan that could appear in the form of fish or fowl and as a bird could rise to a height of ninety thousand miles, in other words higher than any satellite or rocket. The trouble is, the fable does not really have a plot and turns into a morality story, unsuitable for telling, least of all to children.

Happily, Magda ignores him and takes a banana from the fruit basket, asking whether she ought to pack Eva's old black swimming costume or take her own old one. When Mrs Vedra suggests they go out the next day to buy a new one, Magda exclaims that that would be super and dashes out again.

'You have a pretty daughter.'

'Except for the glasses. Her eyes are getting worse all the time.'

'I've worn glasses since I was ten. My eyes won't get any worse now.'

'The doctor promised me it will stop when she reaches puberty.'

'You said you had two children of your own and one step-child, Matron. If it's not too bold a question, was your husband divorced?'

'The very idea!' There was a note of amazement or even offence in her voice. 'His wife died when Eva was just a baby.'

'And did you always work in a hospital?'

'Yes. After the Charter they wouldn't let my husband remain in Prague. He was only allowed a little church in the highlands. It took me almost an hour to get to work from there.'

And did you have no option?'

'My husband had a really tiny salary. Admittedly people would make us gifts of food, but I realized the congregation was too small to support us.'

And now you wouldn't need to?'

She shrugs. Then she says, 'No, not any more. My husband got back an apartment house in Vinohrady in the restitution and sold it for a lot of money. But I wouldn't like to be stuck at home.'

And what would you like to do?'

The pastor's wife again shrugs, seemingly unsure of what she would like to do.

'You could find something nice to spend your time on.'

'What do you have in mind?'

'There are so many opportunities nowadays.'

The matron shakes her head and he quickly adds: 'I don't mean having fun, but doing something where you'd be your own boss.'

'I'm hardly going to start a business somewhere. I wouldn't know how, anyway'

'I could easily imagine you managing some trust to assist disabled children. Or lonely grandmothers.'

The pastor's wife ponders his words. She neither says anything, nor protests. Maybe she could make a contribution towards the publication of his poetry. And what plans do you have for your money?'

'I don't concern myself with it. We bought the children new clothes. And my husband bought himself a car. He needs it, since he also has. the charge of a congregation in the country'

'But it must be an interesting feeling to come into wealth all of a sudden.'

'No, I prefer not to think about it.'

He observes this woman. Her hair is already greying, but the skin on her arms is still smooth and her round face is almost free of wrinkles. If she were to dye her hair she would look younger. But it would seem she has no desire to, in the same way she has no desire for money. That is, if it were possible for a woman not to have any desire for money. How much could they have received from the house sale? How much is a lot of money? Money interests Matouš; it would help him lead an independent existence. But he had had nothing to demand back in the restitution, his forebears had been ordinary peasants or workers. One of his grandfathers had been a gamekeeper and he could have asked for his shotgun back if it had actually been his own.

And did returned property also belong equally to the spouse? Probably not — at least not during the life of the recipient. If this good wife were to divorce she'd remain poor, she'd only be rich when that preacher-sermonizer of hers died and returned to the Lord, which shouldn't be long by the look of it. Unless he divorced her first. But pastors probably don't divorce, and certainly not very often. But what about their wives? He hasn't any notion of how pastors' wives behave. Most probably just like any other woman in our part of the world; you can win their favour so long as you find the right way to their hearts. But that was an art he had never mastered.

When the soup is cooked, he mentions that he not only has oriental cookbooks at home but also Chinese and Japanese prints and a collection of interesting objects and some figurines, mostly of the Buddha. 'When you pay me a visit I'll be happy to show them to you.'

The matron remains silent for a moment, and then says, 'I'm sure my husband would find that interesting. He is a very good carver himself. Though not of Buddhas.'

And so, despite using her husbands interest as an excuse, she actually accepts his invitation.

7

Daniel was waiting at the Smíchov bus station to drive Eva home. He had always waited for her like this ever since she was small and would come home from different camps. He had waited for her even when there was no longer any real need for him to do so, and when in fact

it was no longer appropriate. But seeing that he always came to meet her half-brother and half-sister he was afraid his eldest child might feel neglected. Maybe — even though he didn't like to admit it — he wanted to make sure no one else was waiting for her. Also he was worried where she might go if he left her a free choice.

Eva was the very last to appear in the door of the bus. 'You've come to meet me, Daddy?'

'And why wouldn't I?'

'I thought you were cross with me.'

'What made you think so?'

'You know very well. Petr wrote and told me that he admitted to you I had asked him for speed. But he talked me out of it. It was given to me by some other people.'

'Given or sold?'

'They wanted something for it.'

'You talk about it as if you were buying a hot-dog.'

'But I only bought it a couple of times and then Petr talked me out of it.'

'We won't talk about it now.'

'I'm really sorry. I ought to have talked to you about it, but I was afraid you'd be upset.'

He felt he ought to point out that he was upset about what had happened and not about the fact she hadn't told him about it, but he'd first have to make the same comment about his own actions. It needs a lot of courage to admit to an action that one is ashamed of and knows to be wrong. One's reluctance to hurt someone else is just an excuse; in fact it is a lack of courage.

'What's new at home?' Eva asked.

'Mum has gone off to Grandma's with Magda and Marek. And Marek has started to read like mad. The last few days before they left he moved into the library and started to devour books. Mostly about astronomy and nature, but also my theological writings. And before I forget, we discovered that our daughter had started taking drugs!'

They reached the car. 'We've got a new car?' she said in surprise. And you didn't tell me in your letter.'

'Didn't I? Maybe I didn't think you'd be interested. The next time we buy a car I'll let you know.'

'I've been reading too,' Eva said. 'Grandad has an interesting book about Bach. And I played the piano a lot.'

'How much is a lot?'

'About three hours.'

'During the entire stay?'

'No, every day, of course!'

'That's good. One mustn't neglect one's talent.'

'Agreed,' she said, ' — if one has talent. Unlike me.'

'Listen,' he said, 'what about finding somewhere to sit down together, seeing that we haven't seen each other for so long and you've been practising the piano so diligently?'

'Like a pub, you mean?'

'If you like.'

'But we can just as easily go home.'

'At home there's always some disturbance or other — the phone or visitors, you know how it is.'

In the Small Quarter they found a garden restaurant. There were a few locals in the tap-room, but in the garden they found a free table beneath a red sunshade advertising Coca-Cola. In the shade of an old ash tree it seemed cool.

'What will you have?'

'Could I have a Coke?'

'You can have whatever you fancy.' His elder daughter was sitting opposite him, slightly red in the face. Like her mother, she didn't tan, just went red. Anyway they had stopped recommending sunbathing just recently. Why had he really invited his daughter to the pub? Certainly not because the telephone would disturb them at home. Most likely because that was how he invited the other one out. He'd spent more time with her these past weeks than with his own daughter, whom he had neglected to such an extent that he had failed to notice how far she had wandered off. Now he was trying to make up for it. As if he could get back the time that he had wasted so rashly, as if there were any way of rectifying what had happened.

And wine?' she asked.

'You can have wine too.'

He ordered them each a glass of wine. Not even her arms were tanned; they were just freshly covered in lots of freckles. He pictured to himself a hypodermic syringe and a needle puncturing that skin, heaven knows what kind of needle. The very thought was nightmarish — surely it couldn't happen to the little girl opposite, his little girl.

It was a fact that he seldom found the time to talk to his daughter,

to ask about her worries, her pals, to hear some of the things she thought about, what her concerns were, whether the poem she had shown him was her only one or whether she wrote verse more frequently, and who she showed it to. Admittedly he saw her every evening at the dinner table and at the Sunday service, and was endlessly giving her orders, making sure she prayed, taking note of the marks on her school reports and the names of her teachers, studying literary and general history with her, and even telling her about those things that were either deliberately omitted from the curriculum or lied about. But she herself was so unknown to him that at the moment when she clearly needed him, he sat here as if with a strange young woman. He was incapable of intimacy even with his own daughter.

'How are you planning to spend the rest of the holidays?'

'I expect I'll go and spend a week with Mum. And then Marek and I were thinking of going for a couple of days to protest against the Temelín nuclear power station.' She sat rather stiffly and answered him like a model pupil or a model daughter.

'I don't know whether that's a particularly good idea, whether Marek would be capable of protecting you if the need arose.'

'You keep on staring at me as if I've committed a terrible sin, Daddy.'

'It's not a question of sin, just the fact you could completely ruin yourself!' He knew about her failings, she didn't know about his. Which of them was ruining themselves more? What was more excusable, or understandable, at least? 'And I'd also like to know if you intend to give it up!' It was possible, or probable in fact, that if one deceived those around one, one influenced them even if they knew nothing about one's deceit. Because people who deceive behave differently from those who have nothing to hide.

'I wanted to tell you that it's not Petr's fault. He tried to talk me out of it.'

'Why are you always talking about Petr and not about yourself?'

'I don't want you to do Petr an injustice.'

'I don't intend to. But you must realize that I'm more concerned about you than about Petr. But while we're on the subject — am I supposed to be grateful to him for teaching you another bad habit?'

'He didn't start it. And he persuaded me not to inject anything. After I'd got hold of the hypo myself.'

'Where did you get it?'

'At school, of course.'

'But you haven't answered my question about whether you intend to give it up.'

'I already have, thanks to Petr.'

'Thanks to Petr, who in place of one bad habit taught you another?' He was having trouble suppressing his anger.

'Daddy, you don't know anything about it. Petr isn't wicked. On the contrary, he wants to help people. And he talked me out of speed because I might get hooked on it. Marijuana isn't addictive. And anyway I've given that up too. Down at Grandma's I only drank milk and ate vitamins.'

'What made you start it at all?'

'I just wanted to try it. I sold that sweater you gave me on account of it. Are you cross with me?'

'On account of the sweater?'

'It was a present from you.'

'To hell with the sweater,' he said, unable to control himself. "What made you go looking for the muck in school?'

'Because almost everyone in our class had tried it.'

'That's an exaggeration.'

And they also drink, smoke cigarettes and marijuana, and all of them have a steady. Almost all the girls have slept with someone,' she explained.

'But surely you don't have to do everything you see the others doing.'

'Not everything, but at least something. Particularly when. .' She checked herself.

'Particularly when your father is a pastor?'

'Everybody looks at me as if I was made from something else.'

'I regret that, but have you chosen the best way to prove you're made from the same stuff?'

'I chose the worst way — deliberately,' she said, with a sudden display of wilfulness.

'I have no doubt that it upset you the way the others looked at you, but I'm sure that they didn't all look at you that way. I'm sure that you had friends in your class too. So that probably wasn't the main reason.'

She raised the glass of wine and slowly sipped it. 'But I told you not long ago — the reason.'

'You did?'

'Emptiness.'

'Yes, I know. Emptiness at home with us.'

'And in myself.'

'I'm sorry. I'd hoped — I'd imagined that we were giving you something to fill that emptiness. More than some drug.'

That didn't fill it either. You just forgot about it for a while.'

'How?'

'You really want to know?'

'What do you forget about? The emptiness?'

'Everything. Yourself. That you're lonely, for instance. Speed becomes your friend. And I also felt stronger after it, that I could do all sorts of things.'

'What, for instance?'

'Be good at school. Be good to people. To love them. I had the feeling I'd be able to do anything I tried. Such as being able to carve a figure like you. Playing the piano the way you expect me to. And after grass, I had the feeling that time almost stood still, and that when time stands still you won't ever die. And I had this incredible urge to laugh at everything. I found that beautiful: that I could laugh. And I thought up tunes and poems. Really, fantastic poems.'

'Did you write them down?'

'No, that seemed totally pointless. Why write? I was just happy I had thought them up.'

'Happier than you'd feel normally?'

'Differently. But without it I never have felt very happy anyway'

'I'm sorry to hear that.'

'It's not your fault. It's no one's fault. It's just the way I am.'

'Evička, you know yourself that it won't make you happy. And there's an awful price to pay for that brief moment of happiness.'

'I know, Daddy. I've already given it up. I really have.'

8 Letters

Dear Dan,

I've arrived safely with Magda and Marek. As usual, we are occupying the little bedroom at the top of the house under the roof. It has a beautiful view

of the countryside with all three ponds clearly visible. Such splendid peace prevails everywhere. And then in the evening I was watching television and they showed the hospital where they had just admitted a little girl whose arm had been torn off and other people mutilated in the conflict and I began to be ashamed of indulging myself here, and of taking an extra month off, and it occurred to me that I could offer my services to them during this month. Apparently they have a shortage of doctors and medical staff of any kind. What do you think?

It would seem only right to me, but I was mentioning it to Mother and Magda overheard. She leapt on me and started to wail: Mummy, I'm not going to let you go anywhere. You'd get killed!

Magda is a good girl but she is incredibly lazy. When I ask her to pop to the shop for some yeast she looks at me as if I'd asked her to load a wagon with bricks. Today she slept in until ten thirty and was even astonished that I'd woken her. Yesterday a hornet flew into our room and she was so terrified she started to yell like a mad woman and crept under her bed. She stayed there until I had got rid of it. Marek, on the other hand, has mowed Mother's entire garden and whitewashed her pantry. Apart from that he has his head stuck in that thick book about the universe. When I happened to open it, I discovered some indecent pictures cut out from somewhere. I know there are nude pictures all over the place: on the television and on calendars, but even so, I'm disappointed in Marek. I haven't said anything to him, but perhaps you should have a talk with him and explain to him that it's not a good way to look at women. I know he argues with you sometimes, but you're the person he sets most store by. He'll be coming home in a few days' time as he wants to go with Eva to the protest camp near that nuclear power station. I don't know whether it's a sensible thing to do.

It's so difficult, Dan, to know what to make of today's world, to know what is right and what isn't, what is good for people and what is harmful. Mother finds it very hard to walk and her rheumatism is worse. How's your back? I left you some Brufen tablets — 400 mgs — in the medicine cupboard, just in case you get an attack.

Our young Pavel came and spent a day with us. As you know, he's bought himself a shop in the village and run himself into debt. Now he's worried and even opens up on Sundays. But what's the point, he won't sell more than people are able to buy from him. I also talked to him about Bosnia. His view is: They made their bed, now they've got to lie on it! I recalled where it

says in the Scriptures: Judge not lest ye be judged and also: Harden not your hearts lest misfortune befall ye — but my little brother just said that he has enough troubles of his own and can see no reason why he should also bother his head about people shooting at each other somewhere in foreign parts. Sorry for lumbering you with this chatter, I'd better finish.

Dan, please don't forget to water the house-plants — all of them, please! And if this dreadful heat wave continues (apparently you had 34 degrees in Prague), don't forget to spray the garden.

We still have more than a fortnight of our stay here left, but I'm already missing you terribly. I'm not accustomed to such long holidays, and I was a bit worried when we were leaving because I sensed you were having a hard time. Should you need me, just call and I'll come at once. You know you're the person I hold dearest.

Best wishes from Mother and me. With all my love, Hana

Dear Dad,

We're having a super time. We go swimming and for walks and muck about with the girls from the village. Grandma baked some curd and poppy-seed buns and they were the bestest and biggest in the whole world. Mum also said only Grandma knows how to bake buns like that. We've got five little angora bunnies, they look like fluffy tennis balls with red eyes. We say our prayers every night and we're all going to church on Sunday. I'm sending you a great big kiss, Love Magda.

P.S. Mum said she wrote and told you I'm lazy. Dad, I'm not lazy, I'm on holiday, that's all. You write too, please. I know you don't say bestest, but when I'm on holiday I can write what I like, can't I?

July 94

Dear Dan,

This is the beginning of my last week at this spa where Sam is being treated for one of his many conditions. I'm being a good wife and putting up with the boredom here, accompanying my husband to treatments, taking walks in

the colonnade, and talking to him about architecture and his health problems. When he takes his afternoon nap I slip away for a few moments to the little park in front of the hotel and yearn to be with you. I miss you so much, my darling, so very, very much!

You are a revelation for me, one that has grown from meeting to meeting. It has grown from nothing, by which I mean I never thought that someone like you could live among people. It would be bold of me to tell you who you nre, because I don't know you, but I fear that my boldness would only be the vanity of someone who never doubts her judgement. But I'll try anyway. You're kind, you're good-hearted and you're strong, even though you're a real man. You're generous. You don't hurt people. You place life above success, knowing that the only real success is to lead a good life. You think that it is your faith that guides you, but I think you're guided by your heart. I also think that you're not one to criticize or reprimand people over little things, what you want chiefly is for them to be kind and live in love, like you yourself. I agree with that, because love is the thing my heart demands, what my soul cries out for. I could be surrounded by the best people in the world but if my heart was cold nothing would happen. My need for love tomes from my fear that life has no meaning, that everything comes to an end, that nothing that I want to last ever lasts more than a few moments. It is a defence against the chilling universe. Sometimes when I'm falling asleep I can hear my heart suddenly start to thump wildly, because I abuse it even though I know it doesn't deserve it, that it's a good heart. You haven't abused yours, my darling, you've only refused to hear it. You've convinced it that a good life consists of being loyal to an old vow instead of to your own heart.

I'm thinking of you. After so many years of my life, I've started to like myself. That's a gift from you. I look at myself and tell myself I'm beautiful and desirable when someone like you can love me. When you can love me even when you try desperately not to. I can sense that, of course, my darling. I look at myself and know I'm a feeble, imperfect woman, that I'm impatient and selfish. Since you don't have me for your entire life there's no need for it to worry you.

But please keep me in your warm love for a few more days at least, no, a few more weeks, no, a few more months, please. Don't forsake me, even when I'm awful sometimes.

Love, Bára

My dear Hana,

Your long letter really cheered me up. I was moved and even shamed by your determination to go and lend your help in those places where people are murdering each other, misled by false prophets and criminal leaders.

I don't agree with your brother. However far away people may be, I think we must regard them as our neighbours, and therefore perceive their pain and suffering. The trouble is there are so many people. The people who suffer outnumber those who don't, and the weight of suffering, if it was all added together, would make a crater deeper than the deepest pit of the ocean, so it is too heavy for us to bear. I expect the most we can do is help in those places that we can see and reach.

But Magda is right to say she wouldn't let you go to a place where there is shooting. I don't think such places are made for children or their mothers — they should leave those places, not seek them out. And the children need you — even Eva, who I thought would be able to fend for herself by now. She does in fact, but in a way that terrifies me, and I firmly believe that your experience and wisdom will help us rescue her from that poisonous whirlpool before it drags her to the bottom.

Don't worry about having a peaceful time and a rest, you deserve both. You've done enough for others in your life and had enough of your own suffering.

And don't have any worries about me. I'm feeling fine and my work-load is somewhat less now, so I have a bit of time to do some reading and a spot of wood carving.

I'm thinking of you all and looking forward to seeing you.

Love, Dan

Hi Dad,

We're having a fantastic time and it's fantastic here, the people, I mean, because in other ways it's like in a sci-fi film, those cooling towers that stare down at you from high above. All that concrete. There's enough to build an entire enormous city. A dreadful concrete city, that is. We go to lectures and

have discussions in Czech and English and our meals here are cooked by Dutch vegetarians. They travel every summer to protest against nuclear power stations wherever they are being built. Except that they've almost stopped building them anywhere else, only here. Yesterday we projected on to the towers portraits of the politicians who dreamt up this place. It was stupendous. Now we're preparing a non-violent action. A blockade, in fact. Maybe we'll tie ourselves together and lie down in front of the gates. We're still discussing it. I like the fact that the people here are thinking about the future and are unwilling to let television pull the wool over their eyes. Eva has just gone off to the villages to persuade people to save energy and insulate their windows instead. I expect she won't be back till this evening.

Are Mum and Magda back yet? If they are, give them our love. And love to you too. We're both well.

Wouldn't you like to come and visit us? A few famous people have been here already, singers mostly. They share our views. You could talk to the people too and let them know you agree with us and that Jesus, if he only had the slightest idea about nuclear power stations, would be here with us too.

So write to us soon. And pay us a visit. You can sleep in our tent.

Marek

Dearest Bára,

Last night was unusually hot. I couldn't get to sleep, so I got dressed again and went out into the garden and looked at the stars. My son looks at them almost every evening whenever he's at home and then asks me questions to try and catch me out. You tried to do the same about the size of the universe. Yes, there are distances that are unimaginable and insuperable, but I was always more interested in the distances that separate people, distances that are infinitesimal compared to the universe but which often seem equally insuperable.

You write lovely things about me, I've told you not to more than once, and you write beautiful things about love. I agree with you, even though I am frightened of what has happened and is happening — between us. At the same time, I am grateful for what happened and is happening. I sense the possibility of a great love between us and through it the intimacy I have

yearned for, something I experienced or started to experience with my first wife, but which I only associated with her. I had stopped believing that I could ever experience anything similar ever again. Have I the right? Have we the right?

Even though I ask these questions, I am grateful to you for the short time you have been in my life. And that gratitude remains, though I shudder to say it. You write 'nothing that I want to last ever lasts more than a few moments'. It strikes me, on the contrary, that if people so desire there is no such thing as 'nothing ever', that it is something that only death can say, and not even death need say it precisely the way you feel it. But human folly is capable of anticipating death by entire decades. Often 'nothing ever' is something we create for ourselves, through our weakness, selfishness, or ignorance. Or our desperation.

What are we going to do?

I also want to let you know that you are a special, exceptional individual. You have a greater yearning for love and wholeness than I have ever encountered in another human being. I feel near despair because what there is between us can never be whole. Or can it? What would we have to abandon for it to be so? How many people would we have to hurt?

And so we lurch, you and I, between a yearning for completeness and the anxiety of 'never ever'. It's a very imperfect situation and therefore very human.

I feel an enormous love for you. I couldn't recant it at this moment, even if I tried.

Love, Dan

Dear Reverend,

I apologize deeply to you for all the bad things I have done. I only told you all those things the time I got drunk because I was miserable, because I had to move out of my sister's. It's not true that I could be a dealer. It's just that I need to earn more money because that's the way things are nowadays. I am now searching for the truth. About life and about the Lord Jesus, because I've found out that everyone sees him differently. Such as the Jehovah's Witnesses or the Roman Catholics. The way they honour the Virgin

Mary, for instance. The other day one of their priests gave me a leaflet with a prayer by St Louis which actually states: it is thy privilege to hold absolute sway over angels, men and demons; it is thy privilege to dispose of all the gifts of God, just as thou wiliest. What do you say about that, Reverend? Isn't it almost blasphemy against the Lord? Or take the Pentecostals. They maintain that everything of any importance comes from the Holy Spirit and we have to believe in its power and not yield to Satan. That seems to me right, because the Holy Spirit was poured out on the apostles, after all. I'd also like to ask your forgiveness, Reverend, over Eva. I didn't mean her any harm. I just wanted to get her out of the clutches of those rotten speed dealers. Marijuana doesn't do you any harm. Reverend. But I ought to have talked to you first, and so I now beg you for forgiveness.

I prayed that you and the Lord God will forgive me.

Yours, Petr

Darling Dan,

I don't know what I'm to do with you. A double life destroys one, unless one totally abandons the need to be a complete whole. Forgive me. Forgive me for destroying you. But unless one gives up the need for love, I suppose there is nothing for it, in certain situations, but to lead a double life. In today's world, at least, and with our morality. One can fool the brain, but not the heart. The heart is a compass, you know that, don't you? You know how to read it. From the very beginning, from the first moment I heard you, I knew I could trust you, that I could place my head in your jaws and be sure that you would not harm me. Taking a chance with you is not just placing my head in your jaws, it's also needing completeness without an escape route. But I'm leaving myself an escape route anyway: the way home, back to my husband and my sons. Except that my home is also a place of peril. I'm constantly on my guard here and there is no loving embrace for me. Instead there is a man who demands my embrace while keeping his arms behind his back. Admittedly I try to accommodate him. I look cheerful and smile, but deep down inside me something that can never be renewed is being burnt away. There is something dead inside me, somethjng I can't bring back to life. My cheerfulness here is awfully superficial, I feel it and so does Sam who is always complaining about me. He distrusts me and suffocates me. I can't get closer to him and I can't

leave him. I am stuck here and I'm unhappy. The atmosphere here is not one of blissful ignorance that conceals everything. It is an awareness of ruin. It destroys me because I need joy for my life to have meaning. I don't want to live without joy and without love. I'd sooner not live at all. I don't want my life to be merely a succession of duties. I don't want to save the world with duties but with joy. I long to leave, to disappear, to turn my back on everything, free myself, dissolve, be no longer. I talk about myself as if I didn't think about the others. In my daily life I constantly have to think about others, I have no time to remember myself. It's thinking about you that has made me remember myself. When I'm with you I feel that I may think about myself too. You are someone who doesn't intimidate me, or blackmail me, threaten me or ridicule my craziness. You're someone who really loves me, not because I'm particularly worthy of love but because you're overflowing with it. I feel an enormous gratitude towards you. I have never really encountered anything like you.

And now I feel like crying because you're somewhere far away, all too far away. I don't have you near me as my salvation, my dearest of all men, my real man, the one I trust, the one who won't let me perish, to whom I can admit to being weak, incapable and pathetic and yet he won't reject me.

And now I lament that I have found the kind-hearted man I longed for and he is not for me, won't ever be for me. I know it. I have found that man and can thank God that he let me know you at all.

It surprises you that I write about God and you think I'm doing it to ingratiate myself with you. But I don't want to go against the Ten Commandments. I understand them and respect them — apart from the one about not coveting my neighbour's husband. I understand that life requires order and that morality is good so long as it is not hypocrisy.

I really have made a proper mess of my life, but at this moment I'm happy, so happy in fact, I could easily die. But I don't want to, I want to be with you for a long, long, long time — at least one whole night.

I love you so terribly much, that I can't see how to survive it. We return in three days time, will I see you?

Bára (with love)

Dear Marek and Eva,

I'm glad you like it at the camp. It's splendid that we now live in a society in which people can say freely what they don't agree with. That was something I could hardly do when I was your age, and certainly not freely. Thank you also for the invitation but I won't be coming. The thing is, I'm not sure who is in the right in this argument. I do believe that people ought to live more frugally, and indeed I preach about it often enough. I believe they should show greater consideration towards nature and life and weigh the consequences of their actions. But it's not easy to convince them. That's something I've discovered. Most people are more attracted to wealth than to frugal living. In that respect, people nowadays would seem to be worse than in centuries past because it's easier to get rich and anybody who would voluntarily live in poverty risks ridicule. That's why electricity will be produced. After all, you use it too and life without it is difficult to conceive now. And whether it is better to obtain electricity from coal, oil or nuclear fission is something I am unable to judge. I don't understand it, in the same way I don't understand mathematical sets, and don't know what to make of black holes or quasars. And Marek, I'd only ask you not to fall prey too easily to over-simplified judgements, but instead to weigh up the pros and cons. Now and in the future. Because the moment you stop making up your own mind you risk being taken advantage of. I was taken by your idea that the Lord Jesus would be with you if he were on earth. Jesus would certainly be on the side of those who managed to live frugally, and whose actions were governed by love and humility before the majesty of God. Even so, I don't think we should draw Him into our own all too mundane — or even political — disputes. Instead, Jesus should open the gate to what is above us, what lends meaning to our lives and its values, what transcends our brief lives. Because without that, all that remains is the cold universe full of the galaxies that you so often speak about. In such a universe it matters little how electricity is made or what from.

Best wishes to both of you.

Love, Dad