8
Klima had never managed to identify entirely with his role of a famous and popular artist, and particularly now, with his private worries, he felt it as a flaw and a handicap. When he entered the brasserie with Ruzena and, opposite the checkroom, saw his enlarged photo on a poster left over from the last concert, he was gripped by a sensation of anxiety. He crossed the room with the young woman, automatically trying to guess which of the customers recognized him. He was afraid of their gaze, thought he saw eyes everywhere observing him, spying on him, dictating his expressions and behavior to him. He felt several curious looks fixed on him. He tried to ignore them and headed for a small table in the back, near a bay window with a view of the park's foliage.
When they were seated he smiled at Ruzena, caressed her hand, and said that her dress became her. She demurred modestly, but he insisted and tried to talk for a while on the topic of the nurse's charms. He was surprised, he said, by her good looks. He had been thinking about her so much for two months that the pictorial efforts of his memory had fashioned an image of her that was remote from the reality. What was extraordinary about it, he said, was that her real appearance, although he had very much desired it as he thought of her, nonetheless topped the imaginary one.
Ruzena pointed out that she had not heard from the trumpeter for two months, and from that she gathered that he had not thought of her very much.
This was an objection he had carefully prepared for. He sighed wearily and told the young woman she could have no idea of the terrible two months he had just spent. Ruzena asked him what had happened, but the trumpeter didn't want to go into the details. He merely replied that he had been the victim of great ingratitude and had suddenly found himself all alone in the world, without friends, without anyone.
He was a little afraid that Ruzena would start questioning him in detail about his worries, with the risk of his becoming entangled in lies. His fears were excessive. Ruzena was of course very interested to learn that the trumpeter had gone through a difficult time, and she readily accepted this excuse for his two-month silence. But she was completely indifferent to the exact nature of his troubles. About those sad months he had just lived through, only the sadness interested her.
'I thought a lot about you, and it would have made me so happy to help you.'
'I was so disgusted I was even afraid to see people. Sad company is bad company.'
'I was sad too.'
'I know,' he said, caressing her hand.
'I've known for quite a while that I'm carrying your child. And you gave no sign of life. But I'd have kept the child even if you never wanted to see me again. I told myself that even if I'm left all alone, I'll at least
have your child. I'd never get rid of it. No, never…'
Klima was speechless; mute terror took hold of his mind.
Fortunately for him the waiter, who was casual about serving the customers, now stopped at their table for their order.
'A brandy,' said the trumpeter, and immediately corrected himself: 'Two brandies.'
There was another pause, and Ruzena repeated in an undertone: 'No, not for anything in the world would I ever get rid of it.'
'Don't say that,' Klima replied, regaining his wits. 'You're not the only one involved. A child is not only the woman's business. It's the couple's business. Both of them have to agree, or else things could end very badly.'
When he finished he realized he had just indirectly admitted that he was the child's father. From now on any conversation with Ruzena would be based on that admission. He was well aware that he was acting according to plan and that this concession was part of it, yet he was terrified of his own words.
The waiter brought them the two brandies: 'Are you really Mister Klima, the trumpet player?'
'Yes,' said Klima.
'The girls in the kitchen recognized you. That's really you on the poster?'
'Yes,' said Klima.
'It seems you're the idol of all the women between twelve and seventy!' said the waiter, adding for
Ruzena's benefit: 'All the women are so envious they want to scratch your eyes out!' As he left he turned around several times to smile at them with impertinent familiarity.
'No, I'll never agree to get rid of it,' Ruzena repeated. 'And you too, someday, you'll be happy to have it. Because, you understand, I'm not asking you for anything at all. I hope you don't imagine I want something from you. You can absolutely set your mind at rest. This concerns only me, and if you wish, you don't have to deal with any of it.'
Nothing makes a man more anxious than such reassurances. Klima suddenly felt that he had no strength left to salvage anything at all and that he had better give up the game. He was silent and Ruzena was silent too, and the words she had just spoken became so rooted in the silence that the trumpeter felt more and more miserable and helpless in their presence.
But the image of his wife suddenly came to mind. He realized that he must not give up. He moved his hand on the marble tabletop until it touched Ruzena's fingers. He gripped them and said: 'Forget about the child for a minute. The child is not at all the most important thing. Do you think we don't have anything to say to each other about the two of us? Do you think I came to see you only because of the child?'
Ruzena shrugged.
'The most important thing is that I feel sad without you. We saw each other only for a brief moment. And yet there wasn't a single day that I didn't think of you.'
He paused, and Ruzena remarked: 'I never heard from you for two months, and I wrote to you twice.'
'Don't hold it against me,' said the trumpeter. 'It was on purpose that you didn't hear from me. I didn't want to be in touch with you. I was afraid of what was happening inside me. I was resisting love. I wished to write you a long letter, I actually filled pages and pages, but I finally threw them all away. I was never so in love before, and it scared me. And why not admit it? I also wanted to make sure that my feelings were something other than a passing enchantment. I told myself: If I go on being like this for another month, what I'm feeling for her isn't an illusion, it's a reality.'
Ruzena said softly: 'And what do you think now? Is it only an illusion?'
When Ruzena said this, the trumpeter realized that his plan was beginning to work. So he kept holding her hand and went on talking, the words coming more and more easily to him: Now that he was here looking at her, he said, he realized it wouldn't be necessary to submit his feelings to any more tests because everything was clear. And he didn't wish to speak of the child because most important to him was not the child but Ruzena. The significance of the child she was carrying was precisely that of having called him, Klima, to Ruzena's side. Yes, the child she was carrying inside her had called him here to this small spa and made him see how much he loved Ruzena, and that was why (he raised his glass of brandy) they were going to drink to the child's health.
Of course he was instantly frightened by the appalling toast to which his verbal exhilaration had brought him. But the words had been uttered. Ruzena raised her glass and whispered: 'Yes, to our child,' and downed her brandy in one gulp.
The trumpeter quickly did his best to make her forget this inept toast by changing the subject, asserting yet again that he had been thinking of Ruzena every hour of every day.
She said that in the capital the trumpeter was surely surrounded by women more interesting than she.
He responded that he was fed up with their refinement and pretentiousness. He preferred Ruzena to all other women, regretting only that he lived so far from her. Didn't she want to come to work in the capital?
She replied that she would like to live in the capital. But it was not easy to find a job there.
He smiled condescendingly and said that he had many connections in the hospitals there and could with no difficulty get her a job.
He talked to her this way for a long time, continuing to hold her hand, and thus didn't notice when a girl approached them. Unafraid of intruding, she said enthusiastically: 'You're Mister Klima! I recognized you right away! I just want your autograph!''
Klima blushed. He was holding Ruzena's hand and had made a declaration of love to her in a public place in front of everyone present. He thought that it was as if he were in an ancient arena and that the whole world had been transformed into amused spectators observ-
