That force, Director, is the story. A story from the real world. You can toss a hundred requests into the wastebasket, but you will not silence a hundred stories. These stories, whatever they may tell, whether of love, suffering, or tenderness, will always be pointing a finger at your contemptible work. Finally they will smite you, and you will tumble from your seemingly unassailable heights, from your impregnable world, back to the void from which you arose. I want you to understand, at least during your fall, that these stories will outlive you.
Sincerely,
Surveyor’s Assistant Klíma
The end of our surveying job was symbolic in a way that I couldn’t have imagined. In the enormous barn in which we’d been assigned to sleep, there was nothing when we got there except a sink and two coiled flags: the Czechoslovak flag and the one with the hammer and sickle.
We gradually acquired two bunks and two chairs (which served as night tables), and my engineer got a small table that served as his worktable in the evenings.
At the end of October, when we were preparing to leave our transient abode, we received an order from the city to hang out the flags because the anniversary of nationalization was approaching and, for all decent people, it was the birth of our not overly cheerful republic.
The next day we were awakened by a curious clatter above our heads. When we went out to investigate, we saw roofers gradually removing the roof. They explained that this shack was going to be torn down. This shack was our country.
*
We grow old, and even if we’re still full of energy (at least that’s what we tell ourselves) we start to remember the children. Our granddaughter, Andula, just like our own children, demanded that I tell her stories of the kitten and the puppy. Michal started fixing up his mansard apartment above us because he was getting ready to marry. His intended was delicate, shy, and almost unsuitably bashful. Unlike Michal, who had graduated in enterprise management, his Jana graduated in the field of aesthetics in the school of humanities, which meant that their interests could be antithetical or, on the other hand, that they could be complementary. Fortunately, Michal was not a one-sided technocrat. He read a lot; loved music, especially folk music (he was acquainted with perhaps every folksinger in the country); and was also becoming more and more interested in political events. Certainly this was influenced not only by our fate but also by that of our friends whom he considered his friends, despite the difference in age. When Vlasta Chramostová decided to turn her apartment into a theater, Michal worked as the soundman as they privately filmed a performance of Shakespeare’s Macbeth.
To our surprise, Michal received an exit permit for a business trip to Sweden. There he met with the publisher Adam Bromberg. Michal explained to him that I had recently lost my agent and was therefore “available.”
Mr. Bromberg immediately telephoned and asked if I had any interest in accepting his services. I was overwhelmed by his interest and said of course I was interested. He said he had been counting on that and had reserved a plane ticket to Prague for tomorrow so we could agree on a contract.
We negotiated for half a day. He assured me that he was connected with the best publishing houses in the entire cultured world; he represented two Nobel laureates, and I could be certain that in a few years, and owing to his services, I would become a world-famous author. I didn’t understand at the time how great a role a literary agent played in the life (and celebrity) of an author, and I attributed even less significance to such avowals, which seemed implausible. But it was high time; my fiftieth birthday had passed some time ago.
*
At our meeting on the first summer day of 1987, we argued at length over what should be done now. Should we too invoke Gorbachev’s democratizing socialism or aspire for a democracy in our own tradition, that is, should we strive for a society entirely free of the dogmas of Soviet socialism as created by the single ruling and irrevocable party? Finally we agreed that our country had a future only if it succeeded in linking up with our prewar democracy. This would most likely be achieved through small steps; for us, the most natural step would be to work for the freedom of art and speech in general.
Most of my friends and colleagues had signed Charter 77, which demanded the same thing, but the government still refused to deal with its representatives. Although I had no illusions that they would behave differently with me (my letters were always either ignored or passed on to the secret police, who called me in for interrogation), I offered to write a letter to the prime minister and then give it to the others for their signature. Among other things, I wrote:
Dear Mr. Prime Minister,
It was with satisfaction that we received the recent announcement by our institutional functionaries calling for changes that should be under way in our country. We expect that these changes will also affect policies in the area of culture. After all, the number of artists, thinkers, researchers, and journalists who have been silenced and are prohibited from carrying out their jobs totals several hundred. .
For seventeen years, the practice has continued whereby any writer who participated in (or was influenced by) the reform movement is not allowed to publish. More than half of Czech writers have been affected by this prohibition, which is in contravention of constitutional laws and with international conventions our republic has entered, not to mention the entirety of our cultural tradition. During this period, nearly a thousand books, poems, essays, memoirs, and theater plays have come into being, many of which have achieved world renown. In our country, however, they may not be made public. With every passing year, this state of affairs is becoming more and more unjustifiable. It currently persists only because it brings personal advantage to several official writers who have been relieved of all literary competition.
I went on to say that the perpetuation of the current state of affairs would have tragic consequences for the morality of society and would harm the reputation of our country abroad. I also noted that a great number of our colleagues had been expelled and that not only were Czech authors on this list but so were the best foreign authors.
We demand that this list be destroyed and that readers here be given back the opportunity of acquainting themselves with the values of world literature as well as Czech and Slovak.
I wrote the letter, insofar as I was able, if not in a respectful at least in a decorous tone. My friends corrected a few things and improved others. Finally, the letter was signed by twenty-nine writers and journalists.
I received not a single sentence in reply and wasn’t even called into interrogation for it.
But slowly there began to appear signs of change. The secretary of the Central Committee’s ideological department — a boozy, half-educated man beneath whose auspices the destruction of Czech culture had proceeded — was replaced, as was the secretary of the official Writers’ Union. Both were replaced by younger functionaries who had the reputation of being more moderate.
Several of my silenced colleagues began something heretofore unthinkable. They decided to publish Lidové noviny (for now as a monthly), and not as a samizdat journal but as a legal periodical with a print run of a thousand copies. The two editors in chief endorsed the newspaper and approached the Federal Press and Information Office to request a publisher (this was a requirement in order to publish any periodical). Although they were refused, more and more authors began to contribute to Lidové noviny, and the circle of readers became much wider than it would have been for any typewritten journals. Meanwhile, the names of the editorial board were published, and most authors signed their articles. All along, they also managed to conceal the location where the journal was reproduced.