scrutinizing it.
Then she left for work. When, some years earlier, her illness had deprived her of her place in front of the
footlights, Klima found her a job at the theater as a secretary. It was not unpleasant, she met interesting people every day, and she was fairly free to arrange her own work schedule. Now she sat down in her office to write several official letters, but she could not manage to concentrate.
Nothing absorbs a human being more completely than jealousy. When Kamila lost her mother a year earlier, it was certainly an event more tragic than one of the trumpeter's escapades. And yet the death of her mother, whom she loved immensely, caused her less pain. The pain of her grief was benignly multicolored: there was sadness in it, and longing, emotion, regret (had Kamila taken sufficient care of her mother? had she neglected her?), even a serene smile. That pain was benignly dispersed in all directions: Kamila's thoughts rebounded from her mother's coffin and flew off toward memories, toward her own childhood and, still further, toward her mother's childhood, they flew off toward dozens of practical concerns, they flew off toward the future, which was wide open and where, as consolation (yes, in those exceptional days her husband was her consolation), Klima's figure stood outlined.
The pain of jealousy, on the contrary, did not move about in space, it turned like a drill on a single point. There was no dispersal. If her mother's death had opened the door to a future (different, more lonely, and also more adult), the suffering caused by her husband's infidelity opened no future at all. Everything was concentrated on a single (and perpetually present) image
of an unfaithful body, on a single (and perpetually present) reproach. When she lost her mother, Kamila could listen to music, she could even read; when she was jealous she could do nothing at all.
The day before, she had already gotten the idea of going to the spa town so as to check on the existence of the suspect concert, but she immediately gave it up because she knew that her jealousy would horrify Klima and that she must not overtly reveal it to him. But jealousy ran inside her like a racing engine, and she was unable to resist picking up the telephone and dialing the railroad station. In self-justification she told herself that she was phoning absentmindedly, with no particular intent, because she was unable to concentrate on administrative correspondence.
When she learned that the train departed at eleven, she imagined herself going up and down unfamiliar streets in search of a poster with Klima's name on it, asking at the tourist bureau if they knew about a concert to be given by her husband, being told there is no such concert, and then wandering, wretched and betrayed, through a strange and deserted town. And then she imagined Klima talking about the concert the next day and questioning him about the details. She would look him in the face, listen to his inventions, and drink the poisonous brew of his lies with bitter pleasure.
But she immediately told herself that she should not behave this way. No, she could not spend whole days and weeks spying and nurturing the images of her jeal-
ousy. She dreaded losing him, and because of this fear she would end up losing him!
But another voice immediately replied with cunning naivete: No, she was not going to spy on him! Klima had asserted that he was going to give a concert, and she believed him! It was just because she did not wish to be jealous that she took him seriously, that she accepted his assertions without suspicion! He had said that he was going unhappily, that he was afraid he would be spending a dreary day and evening there! It was thus only to prepare a pleasant surprise for him that she decided to go and join him! When Klima, at the end of the concert, was disgustedly taking his bows and thinking of the exhausting trip home, she would slip onto the foot of the stage, he would see her, and they would both laugh!
She handed the manager the letters she had written with difficulty. They thought well of her at the theater. They appreciated the modesty and friendliness of a famous musicians wife. The sadness that sometimes emanated from her had something disarming about it. The manager could not refuse her anything. She promised to return Friday afternoon and stay late at the theater that day to make up the lost time.
2
It was ten o'clock, and, as she did each day, Olga had just received a large white sheet and a key from Ruzena. She went into a cubicle, took off her clothes, hung them on a hanger, slung the sheet around her like a toga, locked the cubicle, returned the key to Ruzena, and headed for the adjoining room with the pool. She threw the sheet onto the railing and went down the steps into the water, where there were already many women bathing. The pool was not big, but Olga was convinced that swimming was necessary for her health, and so she tried a few strokes. That splashed water into the talkative mouth of one of the ladies. 'Are you crazy?' she cried out at Olga testily. 'This pool isn't for swimming!'
Women were squatting in the shallow water, huddled up along the wall of the pool like big frogs. Olga was afraid of them. They were all older than she, they were more robust, they had more fat and skin. She thus sat down among them humbled, and stayed motionless and frowning.
Then she suddenly caught sight of a young man at the door; he was short and wore blue jeans and a torn sweater.
'What's that fellow doing here?' she exclaimed.
All the women turned in the direction Olga was looking and started to snicker and squeal.
Just then Ruzena came into the room and shouted:
'We've got visitors. They're going to film you for the news.''
The women greeted this with great laughter.
Olga protested: 'What is all this?'
'The management gave them permission,' said Ruzena.
'I don't care about the management, nobody consulted me!' Olga exclaimed.
The young man in the torn sweater (he had a light meter dangling from his neck) approached the pool and looked at Olga with a grin she found obscene: 'Miss, thousands of viewers will go mad for you when they see you on the screen!'
The women responded with a new burst of laughter, and Olga hid her chest with her hands (it was not difficult, for, as we know, her breasts looked like two plums) and huddled behind the others.
Two more fellows in blue jeans moved toward the pool, and the taller one declared: 'Please behave just as naturally as you would if we weren't here.'
Olga reached out to the railing where her sheet was hanging. Still in the water, she wrapped the sheet around her and then climbed the steps and stood on the tiled floor; the sheet was dripping wet.
'Oh, shit! Don't go yet!' shouted the young man in the torn sweater.
'You have to stay in the pool fifteen minutes more!' Ruzena then shouted.
'She's shy!' came with guffaws from the pool behind Olga's back.
'She's afraid somebody'll steal her beauty!' said Ruzena.
'Look at her, the princess!' said a voice from the pool.
'Those who don't wish to be filmed of course may go,' the tall fellow calmly said.
'The rest of us aren't ashamed! We're beautiful women!' a fat woman said stridently, and the laughter rippled the surface of the water.
'But that young lady can't go! She has to stay in the pool fifteen minutes more!' protested Ruzena as her eyes followed Olga stubbornly heading toward the changing room.
3
No one could blame Ruzena for being in a bad mood. But why was she so irritated by Olga's refusal to let herself be filmed? Why did she identify herself so totally with the mob of fat women who had welcomed the men's arrival with joyful squeals?
