He also managed to get as far as New Zealand, where he was able to
hear the Maori tongue and to experience more than the average citizen of the free world, let alone of a country like Czechoslovakia where every foreign journey was a privilege, or at least an exception. His attitude to life's problems and to people was particularly influenced by his experiences in those countries where neither modern civilization nor Communist dictatorship had managed to wipe out traditional relationships and rituals.
From his travels he would send back stories to the illustrated magazines. In them he would argue that when civilization reached as far as the little islands in the South China Sea, it broke down traditional values without offering anything new in their place. Oriental thinking had always stressed that man was part of nature and was distrustful of theories that sought to separate man from the natural cycle. Christianity and Islam were seen to be retrograde steps in that respect, particularly since what vanquished the local traditions were not the values of the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount or the Sura of the Nocturnal Path, but the false values of consumerism. While missionaries, whether Christian or Muslim, arguably brought a spiritual message (though often they would have done better to accept it themselves rather than force it on others), the traders who came with them, or even preceded them, offered more attractive commodities — strictly for this life not the hereafter: transistor radios, televisions, cars and medicines that cured people the witch doctors or traditional medicine couldn't help. Admittedly all that was available only to a few, but the possibility was open to everyone. And the people paid for it with their countries' natural wealth and the traditions by which they had lived for thousands of years. Superficially it looked as if prosperity had come to those parts, whereas in fact they had been overrun by poverty, both material and spiritual.
His articles were cut and sentences were added, changing the sense of his message. He wrote about civilization violating old cultures but the editors substituted 'colonialism' and 'imperialist interests' for 'civilization'.
His hospitalization and stomach operation (his doctor had told him he had stomach ulcers but he suspected they were concealing the true diagnosis from him) had alarmed him. He had previously regarded death as part of life; dying was a force within us heading towards its goal. A person who died was simply someone who had returned. True life fulfilment could only be achieved by returning to
the beginning. The living would never discover, Lao Tzu conjectured, what it was to be dead, and the dead would never know what it was to be alive. We had not known the thousands of generations who went before us, nor would we know those who came after. So what was the point of getting worked up about something we could not know?
So long as one has health and strength, it was possible to pride oneself on achieving discernment and peace of mind and self-knowledge. But when illness came, one realized one's mistake and saw that one was still wedded to the physical self. Anyway, Matouš had never achieved the equanimity he sometimes wrote about in his poems. In reality, he fluctuated between a state in which he possibly came close to seeing what was concealed from others, and one of hectic activity. In the first of them, which would sometimes last several days, he would abandon himself to inactivity or write his short poems, then he would throw himself into activity — travelling, writing articles and dreaming more about physical than spiritual pleasures.
What was bad about death, whichever way he looked at it, was that it would extinguish his self, the very thing that mattered most to him. Death would thereby deprive him of the chance to discover what direction the world would take subsequently, what the future would bring.
The thought of returning home filled him with desolation. Where was he to find someone who would chat to him in the evening and have a hot meal ready for him so he wouldn't have to traipse around pubs, or hold his hand when he was gripped by the fear that a malignant tumour was spreading in his stomach? There was nothing waiting for him at home that in the least resembled a living being, apart from the stuffed canary that his mother had left him.
The matron in the surgical ward where they had removed three-eighths of his stomach reminded him at least slightly of his mother on account of her kindness. On one occasion — it was when he had a particular attack of anxiety — she had appeared in the ward at his bedside and said to him: 'Don't be afraid, you'll be as right as rain again in a few days.' She had actually leant over and stroked his thinning hair. That touch remained fixed in his memory and it occurred to him that he would like to spend some time with such a woman occasionally, or at least converse with her.
7
Brother Kodet, who owned a real-estate company and was an elder of the church, shook Daniel vigorously by the hand. 'Please accept once more my deepest sympathy, Reverend.'
'Thank you for coming to pay your respects to my mother.'
'It was the least I could do. After all she was known and loved by everyone here. And she didn't have an easy life. I just regret she didn't live to see what we managed to obtain,' the real-estate agent said, coming to the point.
'Mother didn't want it. But you know that anyway.'
'She would have been pleased all the same, if only on your account.' He went to the filing cabinet and took out a file bearing the name of the street and the number of the house. He leafed through it for several moments and then began to discuss the situation and the offer. For a house that wasn't in the best condition and, furthermore, was full of tenants paying fixed rents — not enough, in other words, to cover the most essential costs — a German company was willing to pay him five and a half million crowns. While it was true that the price of apartment houses would rise when rents were deregulated, that moment was still far off, so it might be better to assume that prices would fall slightly for some time. But even if they remained unchanged, the condition of the house would deteriorate because repairs would require a lot of money, which Daniel did not have, and a house in disrepair would naturally fall in value.
Daniel listened in silence and could not bring himself to believe that it was his property and his money that was being discussed. Throughout his adult life he had been used to having to decide whether he could afford a new pair of shoes or to have his old pair resoled for the third time. He wore darned socks and grew his own lettuces, tomatoes and even mangolds in the manse garden. From early spring he and Hana would pick nettles which made an excellent soup. A million crowns had always been beyond his imagination, just like a million light years.
'So what do you say, Reverend?'
He had no yearning for property but it was true that his father had been attached to the house and the fact that he was a house-owner was one of the reasons why he had been regarded as a class enemy and fit for a show trial. He should hold on to the house on his father's
account, but what would he do with it? On the other hand, what would he do with the money? 'And what about my sister, are you sure she has no right to it?'
'Not from the legal point of view. She is now a foreign national and has permanent residence abroad. But should you wish to compensate her in some way, no one can stop you.'
'Yes, of course.' He wanted to add that he didn't need it for himself, not even a fraction of that sum, but it struck him that it would be tactless to say it to this man, who was clearly proud of having found him a good buyer.