Shortly after his own arrival, another woman enters. She is strikingly attired and her long hair with its faintly Titian red hue hangs halfway down her back. She stands alongside him, opens the hymnal and when she has found the hymn, joins in the chorus.
Matouš doesn't join in the singing; he doesn't know the melody and the text seems to him imbued with a belief in something he finds utterly foreign.
The pastor's wife is sitting right in the first row. He easily recognizes her plump figure and the slightly greying hair which, instead of being
hidden under a nurses cap, is combed up high into a bun. Matouš s mother wore her hair the same way.
The pastor is too tall and gaunt and it seems to Matouš that there is something ascetic about his appearance, or maybe something intense. He emphasizes each of the words he now reads from the Scripture as though wanting to attest that each word was a stone in a foundation or an unshakeable rock. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
It's interesting that even in those far-off times people didn't have anywhere to hide their treasures from thieves. Confucius also lived in a time of wars, discord and crime, but believed that in some earlier age harmony, justice and wisdom had reigned, and we must return to those values if we wish to remedy the way things are.
The pastor continues with his reading. The text emphasizes that people should not worry about their future or fear that they will have nothing to eat or wear. Then the minister starts to interpret the text. In his opinion, people have become plunderers, always wanting to own something. Nothing of what they already have seems enough to them and in a way they turn into bandits, taking where they can, plundering anything that cannot protect itself, whether it be someone weak and helpless, an animal, a tree, any living thing. They even plunder the dead resources of the earth and transform them into enormous quantities of things which soon turn into piles of waste.
Matouš senses agitation welling up from within him. It is a state he is familiar with. Sometimes he can engender it when he has drunk several pots of strong green tea. At such moments, objects start to become transparent; plants and all living things become surrounded with an aura of gentle colours and he is able to discern the traces of past contacts and the outline of imminent death, decay and putrefaction. And at that moment he realizes that the pastor's aura is fading; it appears and then disappears like the twinkling light of a distant star. The pastor has not long to live. Maybe he suspects as much; Matouš can detect nervous anxiety in his words. It is also odd that whenever the pastor looks towards the place where Matouš is standing, his speech seems to falter and it is as if he has lost his thread. Only when he turns away does he continue with possibly even greater emphasis.
During the last hymn, the pastor hurries out and so does the woman at Matouš s side. His agitation gradually recedes.
A middle-aged man stands outside the door shaking everyone by the hand. He also greets Matouš. 'You're here for the first time today, aren't you?'
He confirms this and explains that he was in hospital and the pastor s wife invited him.
'It's nice of you to have come,' the man says with pleasure. 'I hope you have enjoyed being with us.'
The pastor's wife also notices him. 'You really did come then, Mr Volek?'
'I said to myself it would do me no harm to go to church once. But actually I was only looking for an excuse to see you again.'
'There's not much to see,' she says. 'But my husband will be pleased if you come more frequendy.'
'I actually agreed with quite a lot of his sermon,' he says, chiefly to please her.
'Really? You ought to tell him. He'd be happy to hear it.'
'I don't know when I would have the opportunity.'
'If you like, and if you have no particular plans, you can join us now,' she suggests. 'You can have lunch with us. My husband will be back at noon; he has another service today. And our children will enjoy listening to you. I have spoken about you at home.'
Her invitation takes him aback. Could he really have captivated this woman? He protests that he could not be such an inconvenience. But the pastor's wife dismisses his protests. They are always having someone home for lunch.
And so he manages to enter the flat in the manse.
In fact, it is a very long time since anyone has invited him to lunch. He has no friends, only acquaintances, and he tends to meet them in pubs or wine bars.
Stepping into the front hall, he certainly does not have the impression of entering a manse. The walls of the front hall are hung with posters: Michael Jackson; alongside him some space rocket on course for Saturn; and below that the open jaws of an enormous salmon begging to be protected.
'Marek and Magda hung all of them there. The poster with the salmon was sent to us by my husband's sister. She lives in America,' the pastors nice little wife explains and leads him into the living room
where normal pictures hang on the walls. On the piano stands a vase of purple irises. 'You see? I have really nice patients who bring me flowers,' she says with approval. 'If you like you could take a seat here — there are lots of books on the shelves, or you could play the piano, unless you'd prefer to take a walk in the garden. I have to get on with the cooking.'
He follows her out, of course, and even suggests that if she had some French beans, dried mushrooms, soy sauce, pepper and something he could use to make a meat broth, he could cook a piquant Chinese soup.
To his surprise the pastor's wife accepts his offer and brings him everything he has requested and also lends him an apron. 'We are used to our guests making themselves at home,' she explains. 'If you didn't enjoy it, you wouldn't have offered. And you really will be helping me, as I still have my packing to do.'
So he prepares the meat broth while the good wife at his side scrapes the potatoes. He has no objection to such a division of labour here, he senses the relaxed, homely atmosphere — a good home. When they were still living together Klára would refuse to cook. He had to cook for himself or they would go to the pub. She said to him once: 'When you buy a car I'll cook you what the Queen of England has for dinner.' But he could never afford a car and she never even cooked him the handful of rice that the Chinese ricksaw driver has for supper.
A freckled little girl with glasses bursts into the kitchen. The pastor's wife says it's their Magda, and he loses his composure slightly, being unused to dealing with children and aware that it would be a good idea to entertain the little girl somehow. He recalls the fable of the giant leviathan that could appear in the form of fish or fowl and as a bird could rise to a height of ninety thousand miles, in other words higher than any satellite or rocket. The trouble is, the fable does not really have a plot and turns into a morality story, unsuitable for telling, least of all to children.
Happily, Magda ignores him and takes a banana from the fruit basket, asking whether she ought to pack Eva's old black swimming costume or take her own old one. When Mrs Vedra suggests they go out the next day to buy a new one, Magda exclaims that that would be super and dashes out again.
'You have a pretty daughter.'
'Except for the glasses. Her eyes are getting worse all the time.'
'I've worn glasses since I was ten. My eyes won't get any worse now.'