Farewell Waltz

But Jakub was quicker and grabbed it first.

'Give me that!' said Ruzena.

'I want to ask you a favor,' said Jakub. 'May I have one of those tablets?'

'Sorry! I haven't got time!'

'I'm taking the same drug, and…'

'I'm not a walking pharmacy,' said Ruzena.

Jakub tried to remove the cap, but Ruzena prevented him by abruptly reaching for it. Jakub instantly grasped the tube in his fist.

'What's this all about? Give me those tablets!' the young woman shouted at him.

Jakub looked her in the eye; slowly he opened his hand.

11

Over the rhythmic clatter of the wheels, the futility of her trip seemed clear. She was sure at any rate that her husband was not in the spa town. Then why was she going there? Was she taking a four-hour train trip only to find out what she already knew? She was not acting on a rational intention. It was an engine within her, which had taken to turning and turning and which there was no way of stopping.

(Yes, at this moment Frantisek and Kamila are being propelled into the space of the story like two rockets guided from a distance by blind jealousy-but what guidance can blindness provide?)

Rail connections between the capital and the spa town were not the simplest, and Mrs. Klima had to change trains three times before she got off, exhausted, at an idyllic station filled with display advertisements recommending the locality's healing springs and miraculous muds. She took the poplar-lined avenue that led from the station to the thermal baths, and, arriving at the colonnades, she was struck by a hand-painted poster on which her husband's name appeared

in red. Surprised, she stopped and under her husband's name read two other men's names. She couldn't believe it: Klima hadn't lied to her! It was exactly what he had told her. In these first few seconds she experienced great joy, feeling again the trust she had lost long ago.

But her joy didn't last long, for she immediately realized that the existence of the concert was no proof of her husband's fidelity. He certainly must have agreed to perform in this isolated spa town in order to revisit a woman. And suddenly she became aware that the situation was actually worse than she had imagined, that she had fallen into a trap:

She had come here to make sure that her husband was elsewhere, and thus indirectly to prove him guilty (yet again, for the umpteenth time!) of infidelity. But now things had changed: She was not going to catch him in a blatant lie but catch him (directly, with her own eyes) in an act of infidelity. Whether she wanted to or not, she was going to see the woman with whom Klima had spent the day. This thought nearly staggered her. Of course she had long been certain that she knew everything, but until now she had never seen anything (any of his mistresses). To tell the truth, she knew nothing at all, she only believed she knew, and she gave this conjecture the weight of certainty. She believed in her husband's infidelity the way a Christian believes in God's existence. But the Christian believes in God with the absolute certainty that He will remain unseen. The thought that today she was going to see Klima with a

woman made her feel the terror a Christian would feel on receiving a phone call from God announcing that He was coming over for lunch.

Her entire body was overwhelmed by anxiety. Then she heard someone call her name. She turned around and saw three young men standing under the colonnades. They wore sweaters and jeans, and their bohemian style contrasted sharply with the dreary tidiness of the other spa clientele strolling by. They greeted her with laughter.

'What a surprise!' she exclaimed. They were film people, friends from her days onstage with a microphone.

The tallest one, a director, quickly took her by the arm: 'How pleasant it would be to know that you came because of us…'

'But you came here because of your husband…' the assistant director said sadly.

'Just our lousy luck!' said the director. 'The most beautiful woman in the capital, and that lout of a trumpeter keeps her in a cage so you don't get to see her for years.'

'Shit!' said the cameraman (the short young man in the torn sweater), 'we have to celebrate this!'

They thought they were devoting their effusive admiration to a radiant queen who was absentmind-edly hastening to throw it into a wicker basket filled with disdained gifts. And Kamila meanwhile was receiving their words with the gratitude of a lame girl leaning on a kindly arm.

12

While Olga talked, Jakub was thinking that he had just given poison to a stranger, a young woman who was in danger of swallowing it at any moment.

It had happened suddenly, happened so quickly that he had not even had time to become aware of it. It had happened without his knowledge.

Olga kept talking, and Jakub was searching his mind for justification, telling himself that he had not wanted to give the young woman the tube, that she and she alone had forced him to do it.

But he quickly realized that this was a glib excuse. There were a thousand possible ways he could have disobeyed her. He could have opposed the young woman's insolence with his own insolence, could calmly have shaken the first tablet into the hollow of his hand and put it in his pocket.

And since he had lacked the presence of mind to do this, he could have rushed after the young woman and confessed that there was poison in the tube. It was not too hard to explain to her how it had happened.

But rather than do anything, he remains sitting in his chair and looking at Olga while she is telling him something. He should be getting up, running to catch the nurse. There is still time. And it is his duty to do everything he can to save her life. Why then is he sitting in his chair, why doesn't he move?

Olga was talking, and he was amazed that he stayed sitting, immobile in his chair.

He decided that he must get up right now and look for the nurse. He wondered how he was going to explain to Olga that he must leave. Should he confess to her what had happened? He concluded that he could not confess it to her. What if the nurse swallowed the tablet before he could get to her? Should Olga know that Jakub was a murderer? And even if he got to the nurse in time, how could he justify his long hesitation to Olga and make her understand it? How could he explain to her why he had given the woman the tube? From now on, because of these moments of doing nothing, of remaining rooted to his chair, any observer would have to see him as a murderer!

No, he could not confess to Olga, but what could he say to her? How could he explain abruptly getting up and running God knows where?

But what did it matter what he might say to her? How could he still be occupying himself with such foolishness? How could he, when it was a matter of life and death, care about what Olga was going to think?

He knew that his reflections were quite uncalled for and that every second of hesitation increased the danger threatening the nurse. Actually, it was already too late. While he had been hesitating, she and her friend had already gotten so far from the brasserie that Jakub would not even know in what direction to look for her. If only he knew where they had gone! Where could he find them?

But he soon reproached himself that this argument was just another excuse. It would certainly be hard to find them quickly, but it was not impossible. It was not too late to act, but he had to act immediately, or else it would be too late!

'I started the day badly,' Olga was saying. 'I overslept, I was late for breakfast and they refused to serve me