I know that everything has to end one day, but don't forsake me yet, don't forsake me now, my darling.
Your sad and loving Bára
Prague, 20 March 1995
Dear Brother Vedra,
The board of Diakonia has discussed your proposal for setting up a centre connected to your congregation.
The Diakonia organization is a great gift from Our Lord and gives us an opportunity to make our church, our principles and our work more visible.
Even though the work of the Diakonia receives a partial subsidy from the state we are always fighting to make ends meet, among other reasons because the wealthier churches in the democratic countries which generously supported our activity after the revolution have now found recipients in other parts of the world, those who have greater need of their gifts than we do. The board therefore particularly values your commitment to finance part of the costs of converting rooms for diaconal activity and for the purchase of necessary equipment from your own private funds. This
is a further reason why we chiefly leave it up to you whom you wish to employ in the centre and what area of handicap you wish to focus on. For your information, however, we would like to tell you that the greatest need at the moment is for the care of young paraplegics and people with a hearing disability.
We all have a high regard for your work and regard your decision as further evidence of the goodness of your heart and the intensity of your faith, that you so readily confirm in your actions.
May the Lord assist you in your work.
On behalf of the Board.
Bárta
Dear Daddy,
I've decided to write to you, because when I speak, the right words never come to me quickly enough and I am no match for your eloquence.
I know you wanted me to become a pianist and perform for people because you consider music to be the first step towards a better and more spiritual life. And apart from that you hoped I'd continue what Mum scarcely had time to begin.
Dad, there have been times when I also wished very much for all that on account of you, on account of Mum's memory, and also on account of myself. The trouble is that I, unlike you, lack the will. I'm unable to do the real groundwork in order to achieve what I want. Or I only manage it sometimes. Then there are other moments when everything seems pointless to me. I just feel like lying about, looking up at the sky, or not looking anywhere at all. But I did show a bit of willpower though: when I gave up speed in time. You won't want to believe this, but it was Petr who helped me with that most of all. He explained to me the horrible situation I would be rushing into. He also helped me with his love. Or rather it was not so much his love as my love for him. And that's something you taught me, after all, that love is the most important thing in life. That to believe in Jesus means taking the path of love, compassion and sacrifice. That's the way you have lived, after all, and so has Mum — by whom I mean Hana.
I know you're cross with me, as if I've betrayed something, and you refuse to accept that Petr and I could live in love. But I can't abandon him just because he's slipped up.
I thought you might have understanding for me in this, or that at least you wouldn't condemn me.
Something else I wanted to write to you about is the feeling I have that things have changed at home somehow. It started some time ago when we had so little time for each other, but now it's as if we're almost strangers. Since when? Could it be since the time you sold that house? We live differently. You'd say we think less about the spirit and more about material things.
But maybe it's not to do with that house, or any of you. Maybe it's just me. Maybe the fact I'm dissatisfied with myself gets projected on to you.
Daddy, the only thing I feel I could be a little bit pleased with myself over is precisely the fact that I didn't abandon Petr when he needed me. And after all I haven't abandoned the piano either. As soon as the baby is born and gets a bit bigger, I'll go back to playing again, God willing.
Please understand me and don't condemn me. I believe that Our Lord won't condemn me for the decision I've taken.
Forgive me for this letter too.
Love, Eva
Dear Dan,
I've received your letter about Eva. I can understand you're unhappy about what has happened, but now that something like that has happened, perhaps some good can come of it. That would be my view, anyway, because you can't see inside other people and what looks like a misfortune to one person can look like good fortune to another. Don't think these are just empty words, in my own experience that's the way things are generally.
I also read into your letter that you blame yourself for neglecting your daughter because of me as well, and that you're wondering whether you oughtn't to expel me from your life as soon as possible.
My darling, I can assure you that I will never be a burden for you. You're important to me only as a loving person not as a self-constraining one.
If you feel that our love is in some way an obstacle in your life and prevents you from fulfilling what you see as your duties, you just need to say: go away! And I'll disappear from your life and you won't hear of me again.
Your loving and understanding Bára
Dear Dan,
Marie and I have discussed what we spoke about in Zlín. If you really need someone to stand in for you, and providing you obtain the agreement of the Elders, Marie could take it on. (Our children are already big enough to do without her fussing over them.) So come to some agreement with Marie about how long you'd need her assistance, and whether it's only to be assistance or if you want to divest yourself of all responsibilities. I think that Marie would prefer the former. After all, it's ten years since she worked with a congregation and she is afraid that by now she might not cope with it all.
The way I understood it, what led you to request help were various matters connected with 'work'. None of us can avoid crises in our lives, nor moments when we are at a loss as to where to turn, when we question everything we do and the way we live. Dan, I've always been fond of you and respected you precisely because you never made any secret of your anxieties and misgivings, and yet you managed to live the way you have lived. I believe you'll manage to cope with things the way you have coped with them in the past. And may the Lord help you in this.
Yours, Martin
Dear Bára,
Don't go away, don't go away, don't go away!
Dan
Chapter Eight
l
Spring is only just beginning. It is raining and a cold wind is blowing; and there are reports of snow in the mountains.
An ex-minister and his daughter have been killed in an avalanche in the Tatras. The billboards display an advertisement of a crucified naked woman. A poll has shown that four-fifths of the country's citizens want euthanasia, and skinheads have been demonstrating for the return of capital punishment. Is a new multi-storey hotel to be built on the embankment and transform the panorama of Old Prague?
Daniel and Bára are sitting together in the bedsitter at Červený vrch and discussing events that are extraneous or at least have no direct bearing on themselves. Until very recently, their favourite topic of conversation was love, but now they each have their own worries and they try to mask them with talk. In a few days' time it will be a year since Daniel's mother died, a year since the day he first set eyes on the woman now sitting opposite him.
They both try not to think about the bad things or about the difficulties that they face in the world outside this incubator they have created for their meetings.
Daniel has brought Bára a bunch of roses and an art nouveau glass from which she is now sipping wine.