Waiting for the Dark, Waiting for the Light

'The windows are all closed, and so are the doors.'

'Yes. But there's someone over in the corner, sitting under that little gable.'

'I believe you're right, Alina. He's wearing a black cape and has long, white hair. He's sitting on a throne.'

'That's not a throne, it's a trunk.'

'Do you think he can see us?'

'His eyes are closed. I think he's blind. But he knows we're here.'

'I have a strange feeling,' he says. 'It's as though I was expecting something, as though I was about to learn something vital.'

'It will be him. My teacher. The blind one.'

'The one who told you what the soul comes from?'

'Yes.'

'He taught you about the soul. What else did he teach you?'

'He taught me to exercise and breathe and concentrate and look into the setting sun. He also taught me how to disconnect from things around me and listen to myself, ask questions of myself and reply.'

'That's strange. I don't think we're getting any closer.'

'It's the air that does it. It's hard to judge distances, or… '

'What are you thinking?'

'Or perhaps we're not meant to meet him.'

'I'd like to know what he taught you. Would I understand?'

'I don't know. That would depend on you, wouldn't it?'

'I'll try, and you will help me. I'll be your pupil and you will be my teacher.'

'That's impossible. I can't be your teacher.'

'Why not?'

'Because I'm yours, but in another way.'

'But please, be my teacher, just for a moment.'

'All right. Shall we sit down here?'

'If that's what it takes.'

They sit down on the grass, which is dry and coarse. He watches the wind ruffle her hair. For a long time she says nothing. It makes him anxious. He also feels tired, close to exhaustion. Finally, he decides to speak: 'Why don't you say something?'

'Wait! You have to concentrate.'

'I see a bird of prey circling around the cloister.'

'Look at it but don't think about it. Don't think about anything. Slowly close your eyes.'

Silence. Her breath and the distant sighing of the wind. The whispering of the leaves. The rain.

'What are you thinking?' she asks.

'That you're near.'

'What is nearness?'

'There may be a definition of it, but I don't know what it is.'

'Try saying what comes into your mind.'

'I don't usually say what comes into my mind.'

'Say it now.'

'Alina, it's not easy for me to be intimate with someone.'

'That's exactly why I'm asking you this.'

'Nearness is the moment at which love climaxes.'

'And anything else?'

'I don't know. Perhaps the willingness to listen.'

'You're looking somewhere outside yourself again. What are you looking for?'

'I don't see that building.'

'Don't think about it.'

'It seems as though a fog has come in.'

'Don't think about it.'

'If the fog comes in, we might get lost.'

'Are you afraid?'

'Sometimes. Ever since they locked me up I'm afraid of falling into a place I can't climb back out of.'

'What is fear?'

'Fear is the touch of death, death reminding us of its existence.'

'Is death touching you now?'

'No, not now. It can't touch me when I'm with you, when I'm so near you.' And he feels something he never knew before — ecstasy, or perhaps true nearness.

The next evening he drops in at his regular bar. Little Ivan is here; he's obviously finished the job without being blown through the roof. The producer, Poštolka, is here too, and so is the crazy pensioner with the beak nose who used to teach history and natural science. He taught something he didn't believe for so long it befuddled his mind. Now he breeds exotic birds and is gradually coming to resemble one himself.

'I knew they were getting ready to shaft you,' says Little Ivan, looking indignant, though he had obviously not been indignant enough to turn down Fuka's job. 'I bet it's the police, because they confiscated your film. They put the word about, and now no one has the guts to let you work. You should definitely do something about it.'

It's the same advice he had heard yesterday from his woman. 'Actually, I couldn't care less.'

'What if they don't let you film any more?' Poštolka interjects; it sounds almost like a threat.

'But you brought it on yourself,' says Little Ivan suddenly.

'How did you work that out?'

'You made it too obvious you couldn't care less. You have a perfect right not to give a shit, but you don't need to tell everyone.'

'Or if you do, you've got to have the right piece of paper,' says the ex-teacher with the beak nose. 'Get certified or get a tame bird. My parrot can say the names of all our presidents, even the ones you don't have to say under your breath.'

'To hell with your parrot.' He takes a draught of beer. In his mind's eye, he sees a grove of mimosas populated by yellow-green parrots with coral beaks. Was he supposed to fly around in circles forever — condemned to live in an aviary from which only death could liberate him? He takes another draught of beer and waits in vain for relief.

Poštolka starts talking about a prediction he's heard about the impending end of the world. They say it will be the consequence of some cosmic catastrophe, but he believes the end will be brought about by people themselves. They will poison the earth and then, in a final gesture, blow it to smithereens.

As usual his opinions are second-hand and banal. The teacher with the beak nose pooh-poohs the predictions, then launches into a ridiculous account of the three possible attitudes a man who wants to remain free can take.

First, he can try to gain the confidence of those who have power over his career. He hides what he really wants to say in his most secret drawer, and puts his heart on ice. But he can never gain their trust, because those who have the power to decide his fate are untrusting as a matter of principle. Still, he may gradually make a career for himself; acquire a car; two women; and a cottage where he goes to make love, get drunk and forget. But the heart he has put on ice suffers, and the man will be prematurely struck down by a heart attack.

'Anyone who takes the opposite position,' the old man goes on, 'puts nothing off and gives no ground to those who have the power to decide his fate. So he keeps his integrity. But those above him never give him a chance, and he achieves nothing of what he had vowed to achieve.

Disappointed, he takes to drink, and will probably end up in a clinic.'

The third position is somewhere in between. He dissimulates, makes concessions to the powerful, while at the same time secretly trying to live and work in harmony with his beliefs. Yet he knows what he has done wrong, and because his heart is still in his body, he torments it with pangs of conscience for so long that he eventually breaks down. He will probably end up in an institute for nervous disorders. An Austrian writer has claimed that before you can do good, you must first impress people. The old man, however, claims — with the air of one offering him the flower of his wisdom — that man must first do evil in order to gain room in which to do good, if he is still capable of doing good.

The old man's ranting angers Fuka. 'Shut up!' he shouts. 'Save the advice for your budgies.'

The bar closes at eleven o'clock. The producer invites Fuka to go on drinking. The former teacher invites him to visit his aviary. Little Ivan promises to put in a good word for him. He certainly means it, at least until he sobers up.