When he met Bára, his first daughter had just married and the daughter from his second marriage was sixteen. By that time he had achieved recognition as a prominent architect who would be commissioned to design arts centres, Communist Party secretariats, experimental schools, and luxury holiday centres, or for the reconstruction of important historical buildings, rather than housing estates. At the age of only forty-three, he had already received a number of awards and even a state prize.
Although working within the regime, he never identified with it in spirit. Disillusioned with a government that had fulfilled so little of what it had once promised, he would read with unconcealed satisfaction articles in the foreign press unmasking its deceit and above all criticizing the government's uncreative and mostly hideous architecture. He skilfully contrived to avoid taking any post of political responsibility — not only because he was not sure how long the regime would survive, but also because he was afraid it might take him away from his work.
He was rich but lived abstemiously, not smoking and only taking the occasional drink, always remaining sober, since to get drunk would affect his competence at work the next day. He played tennis, and in the summer he would take a seaside holiday with his wife and daughter — in earlier years with both his daughters. Though of smallish build, he gave the impression of being bulky and even at the age of forty his hair had not started to go grey. His eyes were his most interesting feature: deep-set beneath thick eyebrows, and with golden-brown foxy irises. He had the ability to gaze at an interlocutor fixedly, so that he seemed to be listening intently, even when his mind was
elsewhere. As a result, women who found him attractive, or who wanted to appeal to him, could be given the impression that he found them so captivating that he couldn't take his eyes off them, that his look actually betrayed his feelings for them. In reality nothing of the sort occurred to him.
Whereas he felt himself to be at the peak of his powers, his wife had aged prematurely. She had never shone intellectually, but as time went by she started to lose interest in anything that interested him or the society in which he moved. Whenever she spoke he felt ashamed of her. He preferred not to take her to social occasions where the majority of his colleagues and contemporaries had much younger and more interesting wives. And she genuinely made no objection.
But it was not he who first made a play for Bára. Bára herself was aroused by the thrill of the chase when she first chanced to meet him at the Architects' Club. And as she was interesting, beautiful and young, as well as game for anything, Samuel yielded. He exchanged a wife-mother for a wife-daughter in a move that was so radical it must have been the only significant change in his life that he never managed to come to terms with.
7
Daniel bought Hana a gold bracelet for her fiftieth birthday.
'But there's no way I can wear it,' she said when she opened its case.
'Why not?'
'So much gold. It doesn't suit me and I don't have any occasion to wear it.'
'You can wear it this evening. You know I've booked a table at the Chinese restaurant.'
'So you said, but it wasn't necessary. We could have had a lovely dinner at home.'
'We have dinner at home every evening.'
'Precisely, and restaurants are so expensive now.'
Hana refused to take their new-found wealth into account. He liked that about her, but at the same time he found her reluctance to accept change irritating.
'I'm looking forward to the restaurant,' Marek piped up.
'I don't want to go anywhere,' Magda grumbled. 'I've got to study. We've got a maths test tomorrow.'
'You're stupid. They give you fortune cookies after the meal.'
'Marek, fortune cookies are superstitious and stupid,' he rebuked his son.
'And now on top of everything else we're doing algorithms. If somebody doesn't explain them to me I won't be able to calculate a single row.'
'Algorithms? What are they?' Daniel asked, expressing interest.
'That's just what I'd like to know.'
'An algorithm is a procedure for solving specific problems by carrying out a precisely determined sequence of steps,' Marek quoted the definition. 'It's what computer programs are all based on,' he added. 'And you've got a computer in your office, Dad.'
'Indeed I do have a computer, but I haven't the foggiest idea what goes on inside it.'
'That's your loss.'
In the meantime Magda had rummaged out her textbook. 'That's what I have to calculate: make an algorithm to determine the numerical sum of the given natural number a. In determining each of the numerals you may use only arithmetical operations and whole-number division to determine the share and remainder.'
'I don't understand that at all.'
'You see, Daddy. Not even you understand it.'
'I don't have to, I don't go to school any more. It's curious that Eva never needed anyone to explain things to her. Not even now that she's about to take her final exams.'
'Because Eva's clever. Because Eva's always the best. Because her mother was
'Magda!' he snapped at her.
'I'll work through it with her,' Marek suggested. 'Even someone so utterly thick is bound to grasp it in half an hour.'
Hana had got changed in the meantime. She had put on the black dress she had last worn at his mother's funeral. It was plain and very old. She wore no make-up. She never did wear make-up, not even lipstick. Her shoes were carefully polished, that was true, but there was no hiding the fact that they pre-dated the Velvet Revolution. It struck him that gold genuinely didn't suit what his wife was wearing, maybe it
didn't suit her at all. Hed wanted to please her, but had only disconcerted her.
'Isn't that dress a bit funereal?' he wondered.
'Everyone wears black nowadays,' she said. 'Even very young girls go around in black. Haven't you noticed?'
'No, I expect I don't look at the girls enough.'
He was left alone in the room. He realized that he did not feel at all pleased with himself. He had neglected his children, he didn't know what algorithms were and Magda had the feeling that he favoured Eva. He gave his wife jewellery instead of giving her love. And even his attempt to restore the health of some unknown Russian displeased him. It struck him that the action had not come from the heart, that there had been something ostentatious about it: a gesture intended to convince an unknown doctor about Christian love, or more likely it had been a gesture intended for himself, to prove how he disdained money and how easily he could part with it.
Was it possible for one to uphold order in a world that was so disordered?
The telephone rang. He picked up the receiver reluctantly.
'Good afternoon, Reverend, this is Bára.' The woman's voice was slightly harsher on the phone than in real life. 'I'm not sure whether you'll remember me.'
'My memory's not that bad, even at my age.'
'Age is an awful thing. It horrifies me when I realize which year I was born in and I'm pleased when everyone immediately forgets it. I hope you're not offended that I didn't come last Sunday.'
'Church attendance is not compulsory for anyone. Besides, as you said, you are not of our faith.'
'Did I put it as stupidly as that? I apologize. At this time of year my husband is raring to go down to our country house. I don't know when I'll next manage to escape on a Sunday.'
'Is there no local church near your country place?'
'I've no idea. I've never enquired.' Then she said, 'There are plenty of churches everywhere, but it's your sermons that interest me.'