The Ultimate Intimacy

'Except who helped you in those days? Nowadays if they catch a guy there's always someone who'll see to it they let him off.'

'How do they "see to it"?'

'Reverend, you're such a saintly man; you know very, very little about life. Everything can be seen to, everything's for sale if the money's high enough.'

'I'm not saintly. The opposite, more likely. And as far as big money is concerned, that's definitely not your case, Petr.'

'Exactly. And if I go on pushing a wheelbarrow I'll spend my life paying off debts, and I'll achieve… I won't achieve anything.'

'I'll tell you something, Petr. To manage to lead a decent life is quite an achievement, believe me. And that applies to you and me alike.'

'Reverend, I haven't made any decision yet. But you know full well that I have to pay the bill for the time I was inside and I have just a month to clear out of my sister's place. And even if you let me stay here, I can't stay here for ever. I want to lead a decent and useful life. I'd like to see something of the world and help people who are in a bad spot like I was. Advise me, then, if you know of some other way of earning some money.'

All of a sudden he was struck with alarm by a connection that hadn't even occurred to him before. 'Haven't you in fact already started in a small way?'

'What do you mean?'

'I mean selling drugs.'

Petr gave a diplomatic answer: 'Virtually no.'

'And in reality?'

'I don't get what you mean?'

'Eva, for instance. Did you sell her something?'

'Oh, come on, Reverend, it'd be like selling something to you.'

'And would you sell me it?'

'No, never!'

'Not even give it?'

'That would depend on whether you wanted it.'

And Eva did?'

Petr hesitated a moment. Then he said, 'No, she didn't.'

'She didn't even want to try it?'

'But everyone wants to try it at least once.'

'You louse.' Daniel took a step forward and raised his fist. Petr flinched and shielded his face with his arm. 'No, Reverend, don't ever think that of me. I talked her out of it!'

Daniel's fist remained clenched but he did not strike him.

'I really did talk her out of it, Reverend. I warned her off shooting speed. I gave her a bit of grass; that's less harmful than an ordinary ciggy.'

And did you give any to Marek and Alois?'

'No, no one else. I swear, Reverend. I didn't offer it to anyone here. Eva asked me for it. She told me she'd already tripped on speed twice but she didn't have any money to buy herself another trip. I told her to quit messing about with speed and I gave her the grass just so she'd have something at least. I reckon I did the right thing.'

'Yes, a really good deed, Petr!'

'Reverend, if I hadn't given it her, someone else would have got it for her. They'd get her something harder that she'd end up hooked on, like me that time. You've no idea, Reverend, how quickly it takes a hold on you, and Eva doesn't know yet.'

'What a Good Samaritan you are, Petr.' The world was full of deceit: big words and shameful deeds. He felt an unexpected pain in his chest and his breathing seemed to falter. 'You'd better go, you louse. I don't want to talk to you any more!'

Petr got up and wished him good-night, but he stopped in the doorway and turned towards Daniel. 'The room you mentioned — I don't suppose the offer stands any more, does it?'

'It still stands,' he replied, resisting the temptation to agree with him, 'even though I'd sooner see you a million miles away.'

'Thank you, Reverend.'

'It stands on condition, of course, that you don't turn the manse into an opium den.'

'You can count on me, Reverend. And I genuinely did talk Eva out of it.'

4

Hana

The journalist who is being discharged that Friday brings Hana a bunch of purple irises. 'Whatever possessed you? Besides, I won't get a chance to enjoy them,' she protests. 'I'm off on holiday next week.'

'So you can leave them at home, or give them to someone. Flowers are not for returning!'

So Hana thanks him, and all of a sudden she realizes who the journalist reminds her of: a pity she has no photo. Little Joe has already been dead for thirty-five years but he too was a trifle stunted just like this journalist and would also tell her enthusiastically about far-off lands and their inhabitants. And he once picked her the same purple flowers: in those days they were most likely stolen, as they didn't grow them in the garden at home.

Past times rise up in front of Hana's eyes: her first kiss, the people she would never see alive again. She puts the flowers in a vase, but she hasn't time to enjoy them. Before she can leave she has a vast number of duties to perform, including drawing up the rotas for several weeks ahead and doing an inventory of the linen and medicines. Every year, at the beginning of the school holidays, she takes the children off to her mother's, although in previous years she would only go for a few days, saving up her leave in order to spend some of it together with Daniel. She never did use it all up anyway, preferring to take payment in lieu. Times had been hard and every crown used to come in handy. This year, Daniel had persuaded her to take an extra four weeks unpaid leave; after all, they didn't need the money and she needed a rest.

However, it was he more than anyone who could do with a rest. He

seemed somehow changed to Hana these past few weeks: frail, taciturn and preoccupied. She put this down to his not yet having got over his mother's death, but maybe the work-load he has taken on himself is wearing him out: running his church, preaching every Sunday, travelling to visit prisoners, speaking on radio and television, writing newspaper articles, organizing special days for the congregation and on top of it all preparing for an exhibition of his carvings. It is a fact that he has had to wait till now to do all the things they wouldn't let him do before.

She'd love to help in some way, but doesn't know how. She can never think of anything to talk to him about without delaying him, something to please him or interest him even. She suggested to him that he should take a holiday and make the trip with them. He admitted that he would like to go but didn't have the time at the moment.

Maybe he really didn't have the time, or maybe it was just that he didn't relish the thought of travelling with her. Hana has the impression that he has been avoiding her recently. Maybe he's stopped loving her. Every love grows weary in time, that's something she knows all too well. Besides, Daniel never did love her the way he did his first wife. It's true he still washes the dishes or takes care of the shopping and urges her to buy herself new clothes. In the evening he sits and chats for a while with her and the children, but Hana senses that even at those moments his thoughts are partly elsewhere. Sometimes it seems to her that although she was definitely a support for Daniel in the bad old days, he no longer has any need of her now, or if he does then it is only to cook his dinner or massage his aching back.

The irises in the vase smell sweetly and she conjures up the day she returned from the maternity hospital with Marek. The whole manse was decked out in flowers. Daniel said to her that day: 'I'll never ever repay you for this.' But that was a long time ago now. Much water had flowed under the bridge since Marek was a little boy and they moved from one manse to another, since the days when Daniel used to be called in for interrogations, and he was under permanent threat of losing his permit to preach, so that they would be shunted off to goodness knows where. Since then the bad times had become the good times but what did it mean as far as her life was concerned? It is possible to feel better in bad times than in the good kind. Tyranny binds people together whereas freedom distracts them by holding out opportunities to them.