The Ultimate Intimacy

runs out of the room. Samuel hears her lock her bedroom door. That is followed by several hysterical sobs and silence.

The very thought. Taking the cup of tea to the police. Hed done all sorts of things in his life, but he had never denounced anyone.

Samuel lays the pistol down next to the cup of tea and hesitates for a moment. But if its to happen, then let it happen. He picks up the tea cup and drains it to the bottom.

7

The trial was held in a small court room. There were only three benches for visitors but two remained empty.

The State Prosecutor's Office was represented by a woman, perhaps slightly younger than Hana, and there was nothing strict about her rather maternal appearance. If he were to meet her without her gown Daniel would never guess her profession. But then, if anyone were to meet him without his gown, they would hardly guess he was a pastor either. The chairman of the court was an older man. Petr's lawyer, Dr Kacíř, maintained that he had been a judge under the Communists, but had apparently behaved decently.

The prosecuting counsel accused Petr of obtaining and selling the drug pervitin, chiefly to minors. He had admitted the offence but refused to say who had supplied him with the drug, saying that he used to meet the person regularly on Republic Square in Prague but did not know their identity. Likewise, he didn't know the people he sold the drug to. The accused maintained that he sold only very small quantities of the drug, but no credit could be given to this assertion, as he had already had a previous conviction for the same offence. The prosecutor then went on to talk less about Petr than about the danger of drugs, how young people's lives were damaged or even destroyed; according to certain estimates, as many as 300,000 young people had tried drugs and about 13 per cent of young people were addicts. In such circumstances the behaviour of the accused represented a particular danger to society and the motives for his actions were entirely despicable. The profit motive had dominated his behaviour to such an extent that he had not been deterred from his activity either by the previous punishment or the care of those who had acted as his social

guarantors. Although the accused denied it, it was obvious that he acted as part of an organized gang involved in the manufacture and sale of drugs. Society and particularly minors had to be protected from these people. The prosecutor asked for a sentence at the upper end of the scale.

Daniel felt as though he was in the dock. His throat was dry and his forehead burned as if he had a fever. Eva sat next to him motionless, her gaze fixed on the prosecuting counsel. What was she going through as she heard such negative judgements about the father of her baby?

Daniel was unable to come to terms with the fact that his daughter was expecting a baby out of wedlock, let alone the fact that the father was a criminal who had betrayed her trust and his. He had tried to persuade her that it was better to live as a single parent than to bind herself to someone who repeatedly demonstrated that he was incapable of leading a decent life. But Eva stuck to her guns. Petr wasn't bad, he had just had a hard childhood and suffered from insufficient love. 'Haven't you always preached the importance of love for people's lives, Daddy?'

'Yes, real love.'

'What is real love? How do you recognize it?' And she answered herself: 'Real love never abandons others even when they fall short.'

At least he had persuaded Dr Wagner to undertake Petr s defence. He based his case on the fact that Petr was not a normal dealer who sells for personal gain but was a dreamer who was incapable of distinguishing between reality and his own fantasy. He assured Daniel that he would manage to get Petr a 'first paragraph, in other words, a fairly short sentence, although probation would be out of the question because of the previous offence.

Petr's examination began. Petr admitted that he felt guilty about selling drugs on several occasions to random customers, but he had never sold them to 'beginners'.

How could he tell, maintaining as he did that he did not know the people who bought from him?

'You can just tell, can't you?'

'So you have plenty of experience in this field!'

'Even if I have, I didn't get it through dealing.'

'So how did you get it?'

'On my own or from friends.'

'Have you been using drugs for a long time?'

Dr Wagner objected that drugs use wasn't part of the charge.

The judge considered that it helped none the less to give a fuller picture of the defendants character.

Petr declared that he could not remember. He just knew that when he was in a bad way, drugs helped him to survive.

'Why were you in a bad way?'

'I didn't have a dad and my stepfather hated my guts. He used to beat me and Mum. So I ran away and lived as best I could.'

'In a gang?'

'I had pals who would let me sleep in their pads.'

'What did you live on?'

Petr could not recall. Then he said: 'But I never stole.'

'Or you didn't happen to get caught,' the judge commented. 'Did you know how to make the drug yourself?'

'Manufacture it, you mean?'

Dr Wagner objected once more.

'I never tried,' Petr said.

'How old were you at the time?'

'It depends. When I first ran away I was thirteen.'

'Did you first use a drug at that time?'

Petr could not remember.

'Surely you can recall something as important as that in your life?'

'I don't know whether it was then, but it was fairly early on. Everyone was popping it then.'

'Who was everyone?'

'My pals.'

'The members of your gang! Do you still mix with them?'

'No.'

'So who were you mixing with when they arrested you?'

'I'd found new friends and acquaintances.'

'Where?'

'At the place I was working, and in the church.'

'I assume that they didn't incite you to crime.'

'No, on the contrary.'

'Did they know about it?'

'No, definitely not!'

'And what would they say about it?'

Petr said they would definitely try to talk him out of it.

'So you deny selling drugs to minors?'

Petr said he had never sold anything to beginners.

'We'll see what the witnesses have to say. You have testified that you did not know the person who supplied you with the drug, is that not so?'

Petr repeated that he did not know the person.

'Doesn't that strike you as rather implausible?'

'In that trade it's best not to know anyone by name,' Petr explained.

'You weren't interested where he got it from or when you were to come for a new supply?'

'We'd reach an agreement.'

'What did you call him?'

'We didn't use names.'

'Did he know yours?'

'No.'

'And you'd never met him before — on some trip, I mean?'

'No.'

'Did you know any other dealers who got supplies from him?'

'No.'

'When you were interviewed,' the judge said, 'you stated that you wanted to get money to publish a magazine. What kind of magazine was it supposed to be?'

'I wanted people to understand the importance of the Holy Spirit for their lives.'

The judge was taken aback by the answer and said nothing for some moments. Daniel was gripped by an almost suffocating sense of shame. That lad was misusing terms that would be better left unsaid. People should avoid words whose meaning was still a mystery to them. But who respected that principle? We live in a world of empty words. He glanced at Eva once more. She had reacted differently to Petr's statement: there were tears in her eyes.