9
Bringing her roses this evening did not necessarily imply he was going to be away tomorrow. But her distrustful antennae, eternally vigilant, eternally jealous, could pick up her husband's slightest secret intention well in advance. Whenever Klima noticed those terrible antennae spying on him, unmasking him, stripping him naked, he was overcome by a hopeless sensation of fatigue. He hated those antennae, and he was sure that if his marriage was under threat, it was from them. He had always been convinced (and on this point with a belligerently clear conscience) that he deceived his wife only because he wanted to spare her, to shelter her from any anxiety, and that her own suspicions were what made her suffer.
He gazed at her face, reading on it suspicion, sadness, and a bad mood. He felt like throwing the bouquet of roses on the floor, but he controlled himself. He knew that in the next few days he would have to con-trol himself in much more difficult situations.
'Does it bother you that I brought you flowers this evening?' he said. Sensing the irritation in his voice, his wife thanked him and went to fill a vase with water.
'That damned socialism!' Klima said next.
'What now?'
'Listen! They're always making us play for nothing. One time it's for the struggle against imperialism, another time it's to commemorate the revolution, still
another time it's for some big shot's birthday, and if I want to keep the band going, I have to agree to everything. You can't imagine how they got to me today.'
'What was it?' she asked indifferently.
'The president of the Municipal Council turned up at rehearsal and she started telling us what we should play and what we shouldn't play and finally forced us to schedule a free concert for the Youth League. But the worst part is I'll have to spend all day tomorrow at a ridiculous conference where they're going to talk to us about the role of music in building socialism. One more day wasted, totally wasted! And right on your birthday!'
'They won't really keep you there all evening!'
'Probably not. But you can see what a state I'll be in when I come home! So I thought we could spend some quiet time together this evening,' he said, taking hold of his wife's hands.
'That's nice of you,' said Mrs. Klima, and Klima realized from her tone of voice that she didn't believe a word of what he had said about tomorrow's conference. Of course she didn't dare show him she didn't believe him. She knew her distrust would infuriate him. But Klima had long ago stopped believing in his wife's credulity. Whether he told the truth or lied, he always suspected her of suspecting him. Yet the die was cast; he had to keep on pretending to believe she believed him, and she (with a sad, strange face) asked questions about tomorrow's conference to show him she had no doubt of its reality.
Then she went to the kitchen to prepare dinner. She used too much salt. She liked to cook and was very good at it (life had not spoiled her, she had not lost the habit of housekeeping), and Klima knew that the cause of the evenings unsuccessful meal could only have been her distress. He saw her in his mind's eye making the pained, violent movement of pouring an excessive amount of salt into the food, and it wrung his heart. It seemed to him that with every oversalted mouthful he was tasting Kamila's tears, and it was his own guilt that he was swallowing. He knew Kamila was tormented by jealousy, he knew she would spend still another sleepless night, and he wanted to caress her, embrace her, soothe her, but he instantly realized it would be useless, because in this tenderness his wife's antennae would only pick up proof of his bad conscience.
Finally they went to the movie theater. Klima drew some comfort from the sight of the hero on the screen escaping treacherous dangers with infectious self-assurance. He imagined himself in the hero's shoes and now and then felt that persuading Ruzena to have an abortion would be a trifle that could be accomplished in a flash, thanks to his charm and his lucky star.
Later they lay side by side in the big bed. He looked at her. She was on her back, her head sunk into the pillow, her chin slightly raised, her eyes fixed on the ceiling, and in her body's extreme tension (it had always made him think of a violin, and he would tell her she had 'the soul of a taut string') he suddenly experienced, in a single instant, her entire essence. Yes, it sometimes hap-
pened (these were miraculous moments) that he could suddenly grasp, in a single one of her gestures or movements, the entire history of her body and soul. These were moments of absolute clairvoyance but also of absolute emotion; for the woman who had loved him when he was still a nobody, who had been ready to sacrifice everything for him, who so understood his thoughts that he could talk to her about Armstrong or Stravinsky, about trivial and serious things, she was closer to him than any other human being… Then he imagined that this lovely body, this lovely face, was dead, and he felt he would be unable to survive her by a single day. He knew that he was capable of protecting her to his last breath, that he was capable of giving his life for her.
But this stifling sensation of love was merely a feeble fleeting glimmer, because his mind was wholly preoccupied by anxiety and fear. He lay beside Kamila, he knew he loved her boundlessly, but he was absent mentally. He caressed her face as if he were caressing it from an immeasurable distance some hundreds of kilometers away.
Second Day
1
It was about nine in the morning in the spa town when an elegant white sedan pulled up in the parking lot at the edge of the spa proper (automobiles were not permitted any farther) and Klima stepped out of it.
Running through the spa was a long, narrow park with scattered clusters of trees, sand paths, and colorful benches on the lawn. Along both sides of the park stood the thermal center's buildings, among them Karl Marx House, where the trumpeter had spent a couple of fateful hours one night in Nurse Ruzena's little room. Facing Karl Marx House on the other side of the park was the spa's most handsome structure, a building in the turn-of- the-century art nouveau style covered with stucco embellishments and with broad steps leading up to the entrance and a mosaic over it. It alone had been accorded the privilege of keeping its original name: Hotel Richmond.
'Is Mister Rertlef still staying here?' Klima asked at the desk, and, receiving an affirmative reply, he ran up the red-carpeted stairs to the second floor and knocked at a door.
Upon entering he saw Bertlef, who came to meet him in his pajamas. Embarrassed, Klima started to apolo-
gize for his unexpected visit, but Bertlef interrupted: 'My friend! Don't apologize! You are giving me the greatest pleasure I have ever had here so early in the day.'
He gripped Klima's hand and went on: 'In this country people don't respect the morning. An alarm clock violently wakes them up, shatters their sleep like the blow of an ax, and they immediately surrender themselves to deadly haste. Can you tell me what kind of day can follow a beginning of such violence? What happens to people whose alarm clock daily gives them a small electric shock? Each day they become more used to violence and less used to pleasure. Believe me, it is the mornings that determine a man's character.'
Bertlef took Klima gently by the shoulder, steered him to an armchair, and went on: 'And to think that I so love those morning hours of idleness when, as if over a bridge lined with statues, I slowly go across from night to day, from sleep to awakened life. This is the time of day when I would be so very grateful for a small miracle, for an unexpected encounter that would convince me that my nocturnal dreams are continuing, that no chasm separates the adventures of sleep from the adventures of the day.'
As the trumpeter watched Bertlef pacing up and down the room in his pajamas and smoothing his graying hair
