A melancholy alcoholic who didn't know whether he was crying for joy or grief or anger, or simply because he had drunk himself into a state in which his eyes produced tears by themselves.
Peter looked tired. He was sitting in Halama's huge office, where nothing had changed but the picture of the president and the books on the shelves. Halama had either taken his books away or, more likely, thrown them out. He never read them anyway. One of the two television sets in the room was on, but the sound was down.
Peter got up and walked over to meet him. In the few months since they had last seen each other he had aged, and his face was sallow and wan.
'Have I kept you waiting long?'
'You've kept yourself waiting too.' Pavel's stomach was in a knot.
'I didn't want to talk to you for any particular reason, but it occurred to me that we're working under the same roof and haven't seen each other yet.'
'People who work here sometimes don't see each other for months at a time. '
'I have no intention of sounding you out about anyone.'
'I couldn't tell you much anyway. In my line of work, you make sure the lighting's right and you look through the viewfinder, not at the people around you.'
'That's a little hard to believe,' said Peter, 'but that's not the point. I know people are nervous.'
'Some are, some aren't.'
'They shouldn't be.'
'You don't think so?'
'It seems to me they haven't understood that this is different from the changes they've experienced in the past. No one is going to start any purges.'
'A couple of people have been sacked already.'
'That's different. They weren't real professionals, or else they broke the journalistic code of ethics. I mean, you can't expect people to accept an announcer beating the drum for democracy when the same person was beating the drum
for the old regime a month ago. And you can't expect new programmes to be produced by old censors.' He was beginning to sound preachy.
'Most people here weren't beating the drum for anything. And it was us who argued with the censors, not you.'
Almost all of us argued in one way or another. And how about you? Are you happy with your work?'
'No, I'm not. I can't concentrate the way I'd like to.'
'Why not?'
He shrugged. 'The atmosphere around here isn't very good.'
'It was good before?'
'No, but that was different. I'm sorry. You ask me, I answer. You said yourself there were people who were unethical. Who's doing the judging here? Who decides who's guilty? And what about me? What are they going to think about me?'
'I've already told you enough times what I think about you.'
'It was hardly flattering.'
'You know very well that I've never thought of myself as your judge. I know you too well for that.'
'You don't have to apologize. If you want me out of here, just say so.'
'I don't want you out of here, but if you don't feel comfortable here, I can't force you to stay.'
'I'm glad to hear you won't force me to stay.' He should have stood up now and brought this embarrassing conversation to a close.
But Peter began to talk about himself. He said he thought it was his responsibility to take the position when it was offered but now he felt like an interloper. Some hated him, some tried to suck up to him and others tried to curry favour with him by informing on their colleagues. Yet he had neither the inclination nor the desire to play the judge. We all lived in this country. Given the conditions that existed here, every one of us came out of it scarred in some way. And who can establish a borderline between guilt and innocence, when that borderline runs somewhere right down the middle of each and every person? People
overthrew the old regime in the hope that they would finally see justice done. There would have to be an attempt at some kind of judgement. 'Someone can probably be found who can establish that borderline,' Peter said, 'but it won't be me. The job will probably be done by someone who will use it to cover up his own guilt.'
What was justice?
Justice was revenge wrapping itself in a cloak of high principle.
On television, the minister was now cutting the border wires. People behind him were cheering noiselessly. Peter looked at the screen for a moment: 'We tried to run away together once, remember?'
'That was a long time ago,' Pavel said.
'Was that really us? People meet, drift apart, and maybe they meet again, but by then they're someone else.'
Pavel nodded. 'Even so, they can still ride in the same car. That is if you're leaving too.'
When they got into his car, he said to Peter, 'I don't even know where you live now.'
'For the time being I'm living at my sister's.'
'What about Alice and the children?'
'She stayed in the country. I thought you knew.' He was silent for a long time as though wondering whether to come out with it. 'I got involved with someone else, a girl who writes poetry and sings. Alice was badly hurt. We separated.'
'I didn't know.'
It was a long time since he'd made that movie about children who had lost their fathers.
'I'm sorry,' he said. For the first time in days, he felt the unexpected touch of hope.
FILM
I
The reception takes place in the small house which also serves as his private dwelling. Tables spread with white cloths are positioned throughout five rooms. There are tables outside as well, in the parts of the garden adjacent to the house, but it still seems crowded in here. He has invited too many spongers. All those cheap suits, black faces and slant-eyed devils milling about. Wherever he looks he sees freeloaders, tinpot attachés in toy uniforms, overdressed cannibals, decorated warriors, retired admirals and failed generals, ambassadors from postage-stamp, godforsaken kingdoms and hordes of would-be artists: actors, musicians and hacks. They brought him a guest list, but he was exhausted before he finished reading the first page, so he signed it, just as he'd signed hundreds of other documents. He knows there are people here who were not on the list, people disguised in tuxedos and waiters' frock-coats, dressed up as gardeners, cooks, lighting experts and television cameramen spread out on all sides of him, creating an impenetrable circle around him.
He's sitting in a small salon off the main rooms. They wedge him in among his special black guests on tiny rococo chairs and ply him with caviar, alcohol, delicious salads, crab meat, stuffed artichokes, shrimps. An ugly, bespectacled interpreter is standing just behind him, droning
on and on in her high, wheezing voice. As soon as that cannibal to his left flaps her thick painted lips three times and utters a few incomprehensible sounds, the woman behind him dumps a load of words on him so rapidly he can't concentrate on a single thought of his own. Fortunately, they've trained him how to behave in situations like this. Every once in a while he throws out a 'How interesting!' and smiles. Then he turns to her spouse, recommends that he try a sip of his favourite drink, then raises his glass and proposes that they drink to the struggle against capitalism, colonialism, neocolonialism, Zionism, racism, apartheid; to the war against poverty, hunger, illiteracy, corruption, crime, disease and exploitation. And when his guest, a huge man who lounges in the imperial chair as if to the manner born, as if, not so long ago, he hadn't lounged about on the banks of the Nile, or whatever river it was, among the hippopotamuses and the crocodiles, nods patronizingly to indicate that yes, he approves of such toasts, the president empties his glass and then announces that to add spark to the programme he has prepared something a little unorthodox. Given his guest's legal training, he might perhaps be interested in the case of a terrorist, who, with a second terrorist, hijacked a bus full of children. He's already been sentenced and has naturally been given the greatest punishment, but before he makes a decision on the man's request for clemency, he wants to hear him out personally. A thousand years ago his predecessors did things the same way. He had intended to have the hijacker brought to him some time in the next few days, but because of his guest, he has decided to do it right here and now.