The Ultimate Intimacy

'What makes you think so?'

'The way I see it, the kind who rule don't ask people who they should release and who they should hang.'

'Crucify.'

'Whatever. But Pilate was in charge there. If he really did ask, it'd look as if he was frightened of the ones who were shouting.'

'Maybe he was. There was always the threat of an uprising in Judah at that time. But otherwise its an interesting comment.'

Petr said, 'But everything's different these days compared to what it was then. Maybe Pilate suspected that it wasn't a man standing in front of him but the Saviour. These days they try villains and nobody cares about them so why should anyone ask people who they should release. And, besides, they don't hang people any more, they just lock them up until they go off their heads. But if anyone did ask the people, they'd say the best thing to do would be to hang all convicts straight off.'

'You're oversimplifying things a bit there, Petr,' Daniel said, unhappy with the direction the conversation was heading in.

'No way, Reverend. It's very cunningly thought out. Everyone thinks that it's all humane nowadays, but it could well be that things were better when they executed people straight off, than now when they just throw them in a dark hole to rot like old spuds or turnips.'

'But surely where there's life there's hope,' Eva spoke up.

Petr acknowledged that, but began to explain that bars weren't the worst things about prison, and it was even possible to get on with the warders sometimes. What destroyed you was constantly being surrounded by the same nutcases and perverts that there was no escape from. The same cons and the same talk: who had done what before they were sent down; the stupid mistakes they had made to end up inside; where money and pills could be obtained without trouble; where they could get women and how many they had had. Everyone would boast about all the things they would pull off when they eventually got out. But of course they never did those things and anyway they would be back inside before long. 'Thanks to you, my eyes were opened to that horror,' Petr said, turning to Daniel. 'I realized I was living in a world created by Satan.' He got more and more worked up as he spoke. Nobody could imagine what people were capable of. They tied a man, while still alive, to a metal beam and threw him in a lake. They would catch a girl, rape her and then cut off her breasts. And the money that circulated down there where people couldn't see! And when someone wanted to get rid of a guy they owed money to, they would just find a killer who would do him in for a couple of grand.

Petr was waving his hands as if trying to ward off the evil and shouting. His face underwent mild spasms and the scar on his cheek became livid. The lad felt a need to draw attention to himself and for that, like so many people, he needed evil. Either to practise it or to exorcise it. Daniel realized that the faces of his own children were unmarked in comparison — pure and childlike. As if the difference between Petr and Eva was not just a few years. If Petr was going to be coming here, and that would be desirable, there was going to be a new kind of authority in the house — certainly as far as Alois was concerned, and for his own children too, most likely. How could their life experiences compare with Petr's? Darkness was always tempting. The abyss, infidelity and sin were more attractive than the heights of fidelity and good works.

The best thing would be not to talk too much about Petr and let things return to their usual patterns as quickly as possible.

'Have you played yet today?' he asked Marek as soon as Petr left.

'How could I when we had visitors?' Marek said, shaking his head in astonishment at this question until his long blond hair hung over his face.

'Well, go and play now then!'

'Anyway my G string broke yesterday.'

'Paganini was capable of finishing a concerto on a single string.'

'I'm not Paganini, Dad.'

'But you've got three strings left.'

'Dad, we were told in physics today,' Marek said, changing the subject, 'that they recently discovered a quasar that shines like a thousand galaxies. And each of those has a hundred billion stars.'

And you believe that?'

Marek shrugged. 'That's what the principal told us. He believes it. And each time he says "Just try to grasp how tiny we are!"'

And you know what quasars are?'

Marek was very interested in astronomy. Maybe he also liked to be posed questions he couldn't answer. So that he could search in that infinite space for another God in place of the one who assumed human form.

'They are quasi-stellar radio sources,' his son informed him. 'They are moving away from us at almost the speed of light.'

'They must be a long way away already.'

At least twelve billion light years.'

Are you able to imagine that?'

'There are loads of things that people are unable to imagine,' Eva rose to her half-brother s defence.

'Is there anything else you want to know about quasars, Dad?'

'No, thank you. I don't know what use I'd have for the information.' Perhaps Marek was indeed interested in something that seemed unimportant or — more accurately — inconceivable to Daniel, something one simply had to take on faith, and he already had his faith. 'Or maybe some other time,' he added.

'Alois and I are going to make a telescope,' Marek went on to inform him.

'Where will you put it?'

'In the attic, of course!'

'Anyway, we haven't got a mirror,' Alois pointed out. 'We haven't got anything. Just two lenses and a plan of how to put it together.'

Then Eva wanted to know for her part whether Petr would be living with them like Alois, but Daniel said he had already arranged for Petr to stay at his older sister's.

'He'd be better off here,' Eva objected. 'His old gang could find him there.'

'Evička, if he takes it into his head to return to his former associates, nothing will stop him.'

Eva merely shrugged and he registered a kind of subconscious anxiety. No, it would be better not to have that lad in the house.

That evening, Daniel and his wife went for a walk.

The street was deserted. The cars by the kerb shone dully in the light of the street lamps and the clusters of forsythia glowed yellow in people's gardens. Hana linked her arm in his. 'I was dying for some fresh air. I feel I'm constantly indoors somewhere, like that lad who was in prison. And it's one problem after another at the hospital these days. There's no money for medicines, or blood, or even for bandages.' And then, as if she suddenly felt ashamed of complaining, she started to tell him again about the journalist who had a habit of visiting the nurses' station and telling them stories about China and other exotic countries he had lived in. In spite of her years in the city, Hana had remained a country woman. She loved stories. She would watch television sometimes, but she would get upset at the cruelty of almost everything that was broadcast. 'It must be interesting to see so many totally different countries and customs.'

'Would you like to see them too?'

'No, not really. No, it just crossed my mind when I was listening to those stories in the nurses' station.'

'We could take a trip together as a family.'

'Somewhere far away, you mean?'

'Why not? You said yourself that it must be interesting.'

'You're talking about it because now we can afford it?'

'And we've also the freedom to.'

'We'd better not. It wouldn't be deserved.'

'What makes you think you wouldn't have deserved it?'

'I wouldn't have done anything for it.'

'It could be instead of a present, say. Your birthday's coming up. And Eva's sitting her leaving exams in a few days' time. It would be an experience for the children too.'

'But the children don't even know their own country yet.'