In the area in which Jesus lived, worked and was crucified, people had been sacrificing their king for thousands of years in the conviction that he would be resurrected. Before killing him, they used to hang him between heaven and earth. They then ate his body and drank his
blood in order to achieve their own rebirth through his resurrection.
Jesus, above whose cross was said to have been fixed the mocking label 'King of the Jews', died hanging between heaven and earth. His death was to open the gates to the Kingdom of Heaven, which he entered, reborn — or as we say, resurrected. To this very day we symbolically consume his body and blood in order to share in his resurrection.
But anyone who lets such comparisons enter his thoughts risks being accused of one of the age-old or more recent heresies.
How could God create the universe and time and transform Himself into a baby who then grew up and aged until one day, in totally human time, He allowed Himself to be executed by some imperial bureaucrat?
On that occasion, he had not replied to Bára that God is capable of everything. Had he declined to give her that answer because he himself was in doubt, or because it was an answer that could be used to dispose of any question? Or was it perhaps because the order which had governed his life was beginning to crumble?
As usual in the past weeks, his mind somehow strayed to that other woman, the woman who had appeared because the order in his life was beginning to crumble. Or had it started to crumble because she had appeared in his life?
He got up and switched off the computer. He couldn't concentrate anyway. From inside the flat came the strains of the piano. Eva was playing Bach's Prelude and Fugue in G major.
The idea that God who created the universe and time probably did not take upon Himself the form of a Jewish infant was an idea, Bára, defended from the very beginning of the church by the proponents of poor Christology. For them, Christ was simply a prophet, a mere human. And some of the first bishops were excommunicated from the church for those very same doubts about Jesus's divinity. They were outvoted at the councils and thereby became eternal heretics. There were countless heretics: some did not accept Jesus's divinity, others did not recognize the Holy Spirit, the immaculate conception or the assumption of the mother of Jesus. Later there were those who rejected the sale of indulgences and demanded communion of both kinds at the Lord's Supper. At first, the church used to excommunicate them, later it tortured them and turned them over to the secular authorities to be burned alive.
Perhaps it would have taken very little for the dogmas to be completely different, or for the Gospels to be different, for that matter. But the person who defended the present version happened to be more eloquent or had more supporters, and everything turned out the way it is accepted today. Even such transcendental issues as the essence of God or the resurrection were decided by vote.
I have never voiced this opinion to anyone before, Bára. It would be difficult to hold it and go on working as a preacher. And it's going to be difficult if I go on thinking the way I do and living the way I am now.
So I don't know how I'm going to live. No, I'm not thinking about supporting the family; in fact, I wouldn't have to work at all any more, I could simply live from what I made on the sale of the house. It's the meaning of my life that concerns me. What meaning will I give to my last few years on earth? Will I bring some work or project to completion or, on the contrary, abandon everything, cancel it, and stand in no man's land; in other words, at the end of my days will I find myself back at the beginning? And with whom, my love? With you? With my family? Alone? At the end you always stand alone.
That's what Dad always used to say to me: Dan, in death you're always left on your own, whether you believe or not. And he saw lots of people die: during the war in that concentration camp and after the war in prison, and in fact for the entire remainder of his life — being present at death is part of a doctor's job.
Daniel flinched at the memory of his father. He had not finished the job of clearing his name. He had not found out anything; in fact he had stopped searching.
He entered the room without Eva noticing him. He observed her mutely for a moment. His daughter, Jitka's only child. She played faultlessly, her head slightly inclined, her thoughts in heaven.
She called Hana 'Mummy', but she knew from her childhood that her real mother was not on earth but in heaven. When she started to learn the piano, she asked him if Mummy could hear her up there. 'Of course she can hear you,' he had assured her. Since then she had played to her. Once she said to him, 'Mummy told me I played well.' He had thought she was referring to Hana, but when he asked Hana she told him she hadn't praised her. The praise had come from her mother in heaven.
'How about us playing a duet?' he now suggested.
Eva gave a start. 'That would be lovely. It's ages since we played together.'
He brought another stool and Eva made room for him.
Music had always brought him relief. The awareness that whatever happened in life, there existed something that was so elevated and elevating above the mundane filled him with calm and gave him hope.
He had still not been to a concert with Bára nor had the opportunity to play anything to her; he had only heard her sing, and could only sing with her during the service.
'Did you know they called Bach the fifth evangelist?'
'You told me that before, some time!'
'Really? I'm starting to get old and repeat myself.'
'Maybe you're just absent-minded. You've got too many worries.'
'What do you think I'm worried about?'
'Me, for instance,' said Eva. 'But my piano teacher complimented me yesterday,' she added quickly, 'on my technique.'
'I'm glad she complimented you.' He suspected that he worried more about the fate of his eldest child than about the fate of her brother and sister. As if he felt accountable for her to her late mother. Or maybe he wanted Eva to achieve what her mother had not had time to achieve.
'She wants me to practise at least three hours each day,' Eva went on to inform him. 'At least. Four hours would be better and five hours best of all. That's pretty tough, don't you think?'
'It requires effort to learn anything. And to learn anything well requires even more effort. It's just that in some fields it's possible to cheat a bit. That's not possible in music because it's immediately noticeable.'
When they finished playing he went downstairs to his workshop. He had a new carving half-completed there. He ought to finish it. And prepare that exhibition the gallery owner had asked him for.
The wood was fragrant in spite of being dried out, just as it was in his grandfather's long-defunct workshop. From the dead material familiar features emerged. Instead of a violin shape a woman's face.
Most of the time he managed to concentrate on this work, but otherwise he really was absent-minded and worried. About himself.
In the corner of the room, there still lay the boxes of correspondence, just as he had brought them from his mother's flat. He ought at
least to take a look at them, sort out what he would keep and take the rest to the recycling depot. Maybe he would find among the correspondence some clue as to whether his father had really committed something dishonourable. He had probably not looked in the boxes out of a subconscious fear of what he might find there.
He hesitated a moment and then brought out a box of his father s letters. It was stuffed with large envelopes on each of which his mother had written a description: Pre-wedding. Letters from prison. From the camp. From the tart. He stared in amazement at the last inscription. He took the envelope and opened it. There were only a few sheets of paper inside and a card on which his mother had written: I found these letters in Richard's desk at the hospital after his death.