'It's you I like. I like you a lot. You're extremely beautiful.'
He was surprised to hear himself say this, and then it came to him that he had the right to tell her everything because he would be leaving in a few hours and his words could have no consequences either for him or for her. This suddenly discovered freedom intoxicated him.
'I've been living like a blind man. A blind man. Now, for the first time, I realize that beauty exists. And that I went right by it.'
She merged in his mind with music and paintings, with a realm in which he had never set foot, she merged with the multicolored foliage around him, and all of a sudden he no longer saw in it any messages or significance (images of fire or incineration) but only the ecstasy of beauty mysteriously awakened by the
beat of her footsteps, by the touch of her voice.
'I'd do anything to win you. I'd abandon everything and live my whole life differently, only for you and because of you. But I can't, because at this moment I'm no longer really here. I should have left yesterday, and I'm only here now through my own delay.'
Ah yes! Now he understood why it had been given him to meet her. This meeting was taking place outside his life, somewhere on the hidden side of his destiny, on the reverse of his biography. But he spoke to her all the more freely, until he suddenly felt that, even so, he would be unable to say everything he wanted to say.
He touched her arm: 'This is where Doctor Skreta has his office. On the second floor.'
Mrs. Klima gave him a long look, and Jakub plunged into that look, tender and misty like a distance. He touched her arm again, turned, and went off.
A bit later he turned around and saw that Mrs. Klima was still standing in the same spot, following him with her eyes. He turned around several more times; she was still looking at him.
7
About twenty anxious women were sitting in the waiting room; Ruzena and Klima could find no seats. On
the wall facing them hung the obligatory big posters aiming to dissuade women from having abortions.
MAMA, WHY DON'T YOU WANT ME? read the large letters on a poster showing a smiling baby in a crib; below the baby, in heavy letters, was a poem in which an embryo implores its mama not to scrape it away and promises boundless joy in return: '…
Other posters displayed big photos of smiling mothers pushing baby carriages and photos of little boys peeing. (Klima thought that a little boy peeing was an irrefutable argument for childbearing. He remembered once seeing a film in which a little boy was peeing, and the whole theater quivered with blissful female sighs.)
After waiting a while, Klima knocked on the door; a nurse came out and Klima dropped Dr. Skreta's name. In a moment the doctor arrived and handed Klima a form, asking him to fill it out and wait patiently a while longer.
Klima held the form against the wall and started to fill it out: name, date of birth, place of birth. Ruzena whispered her responses. Then he came to FATHER'S NAME, and he hesitated. It was horrifying to see this infamous title in black and white, and to put his name next to it.
Ruzena noticed that Klima's hand was trembling. That gave her great satisfaction: 'Go on, write!' she said.
'What name should I put down?' Klima whispered.
She found him spineless and cowardly, and she was filled with contempt for him. He was afraid of everything, afraid of responsibility, afraid of his own signature on an official form.
'Come on! I think you know who the father is!' she said.
'I thought it wasn't important,' said Klima.
She no longer cared about him, but deep down she was convinced that this spineless fellow was guilty of doing her harm; it delighted her to punish him: 'If you're going to keep on lying, we're not going to get along.' After he had written his name in the space, she added with a sigh: 'Anyway, I still don't know what I'm going to do…'
'What?'
She looked at his terrified face: 'Until they take it away from me, I can still change my mind.'
8
She was sitting in an armchair with her legs extended on the table, and she was skimming the detective novel she had bought for all the dreary days in the spa town. But she could not concentrate because the situations and words of the evening before kept coming to mind. Everything had pleased her yesterday, particu-
larly she herself. At last she was what she had always wished to be: no longer the victim of male intentions but the author of her own adventure. She had definitively rejected the role of innocent ward which Jakub had made her play, and, on the contrary, she had remodeled him in accord with her own wishes.
She now felt elegant, independent, and bold. She looked at her legs up on the table, sheathed in tight white jeans, and when she heard a knock on the door she shouted cheerfully: 'Come in, I'm waiting for you!
Jakub entered, looking distressed.
'Hello!' she said, keeping her legs on the table for a moment. Jakub seemed perplexed, and that pleased her. She got up, went over to him, and lightly kissed him on the cheek: 'Will you stay a while?'
'No,' said Jakub sadly. 'This time I've come to say goodbye for good. I'm leaving very soon. I thought I'd take you to the baths one last time.'
'Sure!' said Olga cheerfully. 'Let's go for a walk.'
9
Jakub was filled to overflowing with the image of the beautiful Mrs. Klima, and he needed to overcome a kind of aversion to come and say goodbye to Olga,
who the day before had left his soul uneasy and blemished. But not for anything would he let her see this. He enjoined himself to behave with extraordinary tact, that she must not suspect how little pleasure and joy their lovemaking had brought him, that her memory of him should remain unspoiled. He put on a serious air, uttered insignificant phrases in a melancholy tone, vaguely touched her hand and caressed her hair, and, when she looked into his eyes, tried to appear sad.
On the way she suggested that they stop for a glass of wine, but Jakub wanted to keep their last meeting, which he found difficult, as brief as possible. 'Saying farewell hurts too much. I don't want to prolong it,' he said.
In front of the thermal building he took both of her hands and looked into her eyes for a long while.
Olga said: 'Jakub, it was very good of you to have come here. I spent a delightful evening yesterday. I'm glad that you've finally stopped playing papa and become Jakub. Yesterday was fantastic. Wasn't it fantastic?'
Jakub understood that he understood nothing. Did this sensitive girl see last evening's lovemaking simply as entertainment? Was she driven toward him by a sensuality free from all feelings? Did the pleasant memory of a single night of love outweigh for her the sadness of final separation?
He gave her a kiss. She wished him a pleasant journey and vanished through the building's grand entrance.
