Of course, I wasn’t the only mail carrier. I saw only to writers’ consignments. During my postal activities, I was never caught, and I cannot say if the sentinels of the regime knew about what Wolfgang and other diplomats were hauling into and out of the country. Or perhaps they just told themselves that if I were not doing it, someone else would.
It’s also possible that they were gradually beginning to realize that they had no idea what was going on.
*
Since Helena and I were in the position of persecuted dissidents against the reigning societal order, our children didn’t feel the need to rebel against us. On the contrary, they shared our fate and sympathized with us. At the same time, of course, they led their own lives.
Nanda had barely turned eighteen when she got engaged. Unlike us, her fiancé was an Orthodox Jew. In 1981, for the first time in our family, a genuine Jewish wedding took place (including a ritual bath in the chilly Vltava). Michal constructed for them a hi-fi record player as a wedding gift. Our son-in-law had a small apartment in a housing development in the same quarter in which we lived (also near the forest). But as soon as Nanda moved out, our home suddenly felt empty. I missed her voice, her joy, her messy artsy room, her drawings and sketches strewn about. There was one fewer listener and narrator of everyday events, and one empty chair at the dining table. Suddenly I remembered all those times she used to sit beneath my desk and play while I was writing. Later — she might have been ten — we took a skiing trip to the Giant Mountains, something she had been excited about for a long time, and on the very first day Nanda came down with a sore throat. There was also our trip wandering around the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands and her almost nightly request that I tell her another installment of the unending story of the kitten and the puppy. Once she decided to give me a birthday present of my choosing, and we went to the stationery store, where I selected a magnifying glass to better examine the old maps that I collected. She poured from her purse all her coins and spent almost everything she’d saved up. I was touched by the love that lay behind the gesture. And there were the times I sat patiently while she drew my portrait.
Michal was less communicative. He had no need to confide in us, or, if he did, he could never overcome his inhibitions. I was surprised to see him cry at Nanda’s wedding, even though her departure meant he would have their room to himself — something he’d been looking forward to. Unlike me, Michal was manually dexterous and was interested in contrivances he could fix or improve. He read a lot and was curious about politics, perhaps excessively so, considering his age (but understandably in view of the circumstances in which he grew up). Ever since childhood he had been a member of the water brigade, an organization that became popular after the scouts were banned. They tried to preserve something of the values and traditions of scouting. The brigade was governed very strictly with a semimilitary or, rather, seminaval hierarchy. Each member began as a seaman and received tasks that were often extremely difficult, and if they were not fulfilled, he could expect punishments. But everyone who was persistent and diligent advanced until the most dogged made it to the rank of captain, who saw to all the activities and made sure the age-old traditions were upheld. Michal was dedicated to his brigade and did indeed achieve the rank of captain.
One of their traditions was that members would get together years after they had left the organization and help each other out in our society, which had been founded on oppression, self-criticism, and injustice.
When Michal graduated from high school, he applied to study at the Czech Technical University in a new field to train executives (Socialist, of course). At the entrance interview, they did not even take into consideration his family’s doubtful history or the fact that he had not joined the Union of Socialist Youth.
We saw him less and less at home now too, and soon after Nanda moved out, he managed to acquire the mansard above us. Our apartment had become orphaned.
At the beginning of 1982, Nanda gave birth to a daughter, and they named her Anna. Naturally, she was beautiful.
And so we became grandparents, and after a while, our home, at least from time to time, was brought back to life by the sobbing or prattling of a child.
*
Early in the morning, Radio Free Europe mentioned that a rumor was circulating in Moscow about the death of someone important. Then the television program changed, and the announcers were all wearing black. About an hour later, in the middle of the news, the station repeated the same thing, but then around 9:05, the announcer said, “Dear listeners, Radio Moscow has just announced that the chairman of the Highest Soviet and the general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev, has just passed away.” Except for the “dear listeners,” the news was read absolutely dispassionately (they must have thrust the report at him in the middle of his broadcast), and then he continued like a consummate professional, making me hesitate for a moment and wonder if my ears had deceived me.
I called Father, who was surprised: “Really? Are you sure?” Then he added, “God knows what villain is going to come next. They’ve got warehouses of them over there.”
From my diary, November 11, 1982
*
Why did they announce Brezhnev’s death a day late? They were waiting for Ilya Muromets whom they had sent to the West for magic water. But he didn’t come back.
From my diary, November 13, 1982
*
Father went to see his sister for a few weeks in Canada, and when he came back, he was a little gaunt and had no appetite. We made him go see a doctor. He was told he had a tumor in his intestines and had to undergo an operation immediately. At this time, surgery, if undertaken in time, was the only chance of survival, albeit a small one. I accompanied Father when he went to receive the diagnosis. He told me about it as if he were informing me he had a cold. He was seventy-seven years old, but with his thick and only slightly graying hair, he looked at least ten years younger and was full of life. I couldn’t imagine he would soon be vanquished by death.
They operated on him a few days later. The doctor said the tumor had been almost as big as a child’s head, but he hoped he’d managed to extract it all.
When I spoke with Father, he was glad it was over with. The doctor had assured him everything had turned out fine. Then he added, “The main thing is that it wasn’t cancer.” I don’t know if this statement concealed anxiety, a conscious self-deception, or the successful suppression of grim reality, but I expressed my agreement. When Father was released from the hospital, he seemed once again to be full of energy. But his condition continued to weigh on me. My personal hardships paled in significance before the anticipated approach of death.
I was at least somewhat distracted from my worries by a letter from Markéta Goetz-Stankiewicz, a professor of Germanic studies and translator from Czech. She was one of the fortunate ones who had managed to escape Hitler’s claws at the last moment. Although she had emigrated as a child, she never lost her connection with her native land, and now, since a new occupation had befallen Czechoslovakia, she was prepared to be of service. She wrote that the University of British Columbia was preparing a conference for the hundredth anniversary of Franz Kafka’s birth and wanted to know if I could contribute a talk.
After I had written my Castle, I was considered to have an affinity for Kafka. This was not true: In addition to other things, I didn’t know much about him, and his works didn’t especially speak to me. Except for the title, my Castle had nothing in common with Kafka’s. I wrote back that I wouldn’t be able to attend the conference, even though I would have liked to, but I would try to prepare a contribution. I added that, unfortunately, few of Kafka’s works were available here and nothing at all about the writer himself. I gave the letter to Wolfgang, and soon thereafter he brought me a package from Markéta with the latest studies on Kafka in English and his recently published letters to Felice Bauer with an excellent and extensive introduction by Elias Canetti.