The Ultimate Intimacy

'You're not part of that world either,' Matouš goes on to say. 'That's why you are in low spirits. People like us ought to get together and live in mutual trust, so as to bear our burden more easily.'

Hana makes no response to his challenge, to his declaration. She looks at her watch and says, 'I'm sorry, but I have to dash to the hospital to see my husband.'

Matouš is taken aback. He starts to apologize for holding her up and heaping his own troubles on her when she has plenty of her own.

'Don't worry, I'm used to it. People often used to come to me like this; I am a minister's wife after all.'

Matouš suddenly collapses inside and can scarcely find the strength to get up. He doesn't even offer to accompany Hana to the hospital or take her there by taxi, seeing that he has delayed her.

No sooner does he reach the street than he realizes he has forgotten to give Hana his poems. Now he is unlikely ever to show them to her. In fact he is unlikely to show them to anyone at all. His poems will remain hidden like many other people's verses and, like many other people, he will end his days in loneliness.

7

Two days after Daniel was first permitted visitors, Eva appeared in his ward. The dress she was wearing was new to Daniel; it was loose fitting to conceal her condition. 'Hi, Dad, how are you?'

'It's getting better every day, thanks. And how about you?'

'There's nothing wrong with me, is there?' She leans over to kiss him. 'Well, maybe there is, but at least my life's not at stake.'

'Life is always at stake.'

'I've brought you some peaches.' She took out a large paper bag. 'I know what you mean.' She drags one of the free chairs over to his bedside. 'I wanted to come yesterday with Marek, but I had two full days at college. And I couldn't manage it before.'

'Don't apologize, I'm glad you're here now.'

'Daddy, I've been thinking about you all that time. An awful lot. And apart from that, I was wanting to tell you something. I haven't told you. Shall I wash you a peach?'

'No thanks. I'd sooner hear what you were wanting to tell me.'

'Right away?'

'It's best not to put things off.'

'OK. I didn't tell you that when I discovered what had happened to me with Petr, I felt I just couldn't leave it like that and I went to the doctor to see about a termination. The waiting-room was full of women and they were almost all talking about the same thing. It made me feel dreadful. I recalled a Scottish ballad about a mother who stabs her baby through the heart and then she meets it and it blames her for laying it in the grave instead of in its cradle. And I also realized that the doctor had known Grandad and most likely knows you too, and that as soon as he saw me he'd say to himself: a fat lot she's achieved. Or he'll ask: What does your dad have to say about it?'

'What I'd have to say is hardly the most important thing.'

'I know. I'm just telling you what I felt. I knew you'd be terribly disappointed in me when you discovered what had happened, but there in that waiting-room it occurred to me that you'd have been even sorrier to hear that I had had it killed, that you'd tell me my mother would never have done such a thing. So I got up and left.'

'You did the right thing, Eva. But why do you keep talking about what I'd think or say? It was a question of you and your child!'

'I simply wanted to tell you that I was thinking about you even at that moment. Because I blame myself, Daddy, that I might have been the cause of what went wrong with your heart!'

'I could just as easily blame myself for being the cause of you and Petr going out together.'

'Exactly. I know you expected something else from me. That I disappointed you.'

'No. If anyone disappointed me, it was myself. Remember, you must live in such a way so as not to disappoint yourself

'I know, Daddy. But you always wanted me not to be like me but like Mummy.'

'I don't know what you mean.'

'You saw her in me, Daddy. But I couldn't be her because I was me.'

'That's perfectly in order. I'm fully aware of that.'

'But you used to compare me with her more and more. And I couldn't help but lose every time, because no one can be as good as someone who is already dead, that you only remember the beautiful things about.'

'I must say that never occurred to me. I didn't realize. If that's the way you felt, I'm really sorry.'

'I've been thinking a lot about everything. Ever since they brought you here and we've been worrying about you so much. Daddy, when I told you and also wrote to you that I might marry Petr straight away, that was the reason. I wanted to demonstrate that I was someone else. That I wasn't like Mum, that I was me. But at the same time I knew you were right, and that I ought to wait, that there was a chance I would be making up for a stupidity by committing an even worse one.'

'It's good you realized.'

'I'm not going to marry Petr. Not for the time being anyway. Not until I can be sure he'll change.'

'And you're doing it on your own account, not mine?'

'On my own account.'

'I'm glad. I wouldn't want you to be blackmailed by my illness.' He reached out to his daughter and squeezed her hand. 'I'm glad. Glad that you've taken that decision and glad you told me those things.'

'I'd like to help you get better.'

There was a knock at the door. Then Bára entered with a big bunch of roses. 'I've just brought you a few roses, Reverend. I don't want to disturb you.'

His heart gave a painful jolt.

'You can stay if you like,' Eva said. 'Dad will be glad of a visit, and I was going anyway.'

'Your daughter looks very well on it,' Bára said when they were on their own. 'You're not cross with me for coming?'

He took the bunch of roses from her and placed them in the vase on his bedside table.

'I just wanted to come and say hello. To see you and ask how you were. Please don't be cross with me, I couldn't bear not being able to see you.'

'For the last time?'

'For the last time, if that's what you want.'

'I didn't mean it that way.'

'I wanted to see for myself that you were getting better.'

'I'm feeling better. I am already up on my feet and I took a walk in the corridor yesterday. Today I'm allowed out into the garden. We could go out there together if you like. Thanks for the beautiful roses and for coming.' He took an envelope out of his bedside table and put it in his dressing-gown pocket. Even though they were now alone, it was better not to stay here.

'I'm not going to take up your time, Dan,' she said when they came out into the corridor. 'I really did just want to see you.'

'How did you find out?'

'At church, of course. From Ivana.'

They walked down the steps. Behind the building there were a number of benches on which the sun was now shining. They sat down. 'What have you gone and done to me, Dan?' she asked.

'I don't know. I once read that shortly before his death Kafka wrote: My brain and my lungs have ganged up on me behind my back. It looks as if my heart and brain have ganged up behind my back.'

'On me?'

'No, on me.'

'The sun doesn't bother you?'

'No, it doesn't.'

'Does it bother you that we can be seen here?'

'I didn't say anything was bothering me.'

'I've been missing you, Dan. Awfully. And I was so afraid for you, from the moment you didn't come that Monday.'

'It's the first time I didn't turn up when I promised. I thought about it when I came round, how you must have waited in vain.'

'Dan, that wasn't important, was it? Nothing was important but your life and ever since Ivana gave me the news I've thought about nothing else.'

He had the impression Bára was holding back tears. 'I didn't want to burden you with extra worries on top of all the ones you had already. I never wanted that.'