The JOKE (38 page)

"What's the matter?" I asked, and she turned without a word and made her way back to the outhouse; I'll never forget the way she walked: the slow, irregular, jerky steps of her fettered feet; she had only a few yards to cover, but more than once she was forced to stop, and in those intervals I could see (from the way her body cramped) the battle she was waging with her outraged entrails; finally she reached the outhouse, took hold of the door (which had remained wide open), and pulled it shut behind her.

I stayed in the spot where I had picked her up from the grass; and when a loud plaintive moan came from the outhouse, I retreated even farther. Only then did I realize that the youth was standing beside me. "Stay here," I told him. "I'll go find a doctor."

I went into the office; I spotted the telephone right away; it was on the nearest desk.

Finding the telephone book was harder, I couldn't see it anywhere. I tried to open the middle drawer of the desk, but it was locked, as were all the smaller side drawers; the second desk was locked as well. I went into the other room; the desk there had only one drawer; it was open, though there was nothing in it but a few photographs and a paper knife. I didn't know what to do, and (now that I knew that Helena was alive and hardly in mortal danger) I was overcome with fatigue; I stood there for a while, staring dumbly at the clothes tree (that lanky metal clothes tree with its arms raised like a soldier ready to surrender); then (not knowing what to do) I opened the cabinet; there on a pile of documents was a blue-green telephone book. I took it over to the telephone and looked up the hospital. I had dialed the number and was listening to the ringing when the youth burst into the room.

"Don't phone anybody! There's no need to!" he shouted. I didn't understand.

He tore the receiver from my hand and put it back on the hook. "I
told you, don't bother!"

I asked him to explain what was happening.

"It's not poison at all!" he said, and went over to the clothes tree; he put his hand into the pocket of the trenchcoat and took out a small bottle, which he opened and turned upside down; it was empty.

"Is that what she took?" I asked.

He nodded.

"How do you know?"

"She told me."

"Is it yours?"

He nodded. I took it from him. It had algena printed on the label.

"Don't you know that analgesics are harmful in large doses like that?" I shouted at him.

"There were no analgesics in it," he said.

"What was, then?"

"Laxative tablets," he snapped.

I yelled at him, told him to stop trying to make a monkey of me, that I had to know what had happened and that I wouldn't stand for any more of his insolence. I wanted a straight answer immediately.

Hearing me shout, he shouted back: "I've told you. There were laxatives in the bottle.

Does everybody have to know my guts are messed up?" And I understood then that what I'd taken for a stupid joke was the truth.

I looked at him, at his ruddy face and snub nose (small, but large enough to accommodate a considerable quantity of freckles), and the meaning of the whole thing became clear to me: the Algena bottle was a disguise for the ludicrousness of his ailment, just as the jeans and leather jacket were a disguise for the ludicrousness of his childish features; he was ashamed of himself, and he carried his adolescent's lot through life with great difficulty; in that moment I loved him; with his bashfulness (that nobility of adolescence) he had saved Helena's life and spared me years of sleepless nights. In dazed gratitude I looked at his protruding ears. Yes, he had saved Helena's life; but at the price of her immense humiliation; I knew that, and I also knew that it was a

humiliation without purpose, a humiliation without meaning, utterly unjust; I knew that it was only another irredressible link in the chain of irredressible links; I felt a guilty and urgent (if vague) need to run after her, to raise her up out of this humiliation, to humiliate myself before her, to assume all the blame and all the responsibility for the senselessly cruel incident.

"What are you staring at?" barked the youth. I walked past him into the hallway without answering; I turned towards the door into the courtyard.

"What are you going out there for?" He caught me from behind by the shoulder of my jacket and tried to pull me towards him; for a second we looked into each other's eyes; then I gripped his wrist and removed his hand from my shoulder. He shoved past me and stood blocking my way. When I went up to him, intending to push him aside, he swung and punched me in the chest.

It was a feeble blow, but he jumped away and stood in front of me in a naive boxer's stance; his expression was a blend of apprehension and rash courage.

"She doesn't need you out there!" he shouted. I stayed where I was. I thought that maybe he was right: there was nothing I could do to redress the irredressible. And the youth, seeing me standing there not putting up any defense, went on shouting: "She detests you!

She doesn't give a shit what happens to you! She said so! She doesn't give a shit what happens to you!"

Nervous tension makes one defenseless not only against tears, but also against laughter; the literal sense of the youth's last words made the corners of my mouth twitch. That maddened him: this time he hit me in the mouth. Then he stood back and again put his fists in front of his face like a boxer, so that only his protruding pink ears were visible behind them.

"That's enough!" I said. "I'm going now."

He shouted after me: "You bastard! You bastard! I know you had something to do with this! I'll get you! You swine!"

I went out into the street. By now it was empty as streets are empty after a festival. A gentle breeze raised the dust, driving it over the flat

ground that was as vacant as my own empty, stunned head, in which not a single thought occurred for quite a while.

It was only later that I suddenly found I had the empty Algena bottle still in my hand; I looked at it; it was badly scratched; evidently it had served for a long time as a disguise for laxatives.

After still another long moment, the bottle reminded me of two other bottles, the two bottles of Alexej's barbiturates; they made me realize that the youth had not really saved Helena's life after all: even if there had been analgesics in the bottle, they could hardly have given her more than an upset stomach, especially with the youth and myself so close at hand; Helena's desperation had settled its account with life at a safe distance from the threshold of death.

18

She was standing in the kitchen over the stove. Standing with her back to me. As if nothing had happened. "Vladimir?" she replied without turning. "You saw him yourself, didn't you? Why ask?" "You're lying," I said. "Vladimir went off this morning with Koutecky's grandson on his motorcycle. I've come to tell you that I know it. I know why you were pleased when that silly radio lady came this morning. I know why I wasn't supposed to be there for the robing of the king. I know why the king kept silent even before the Ride began. It was all very well thought out."

My certainty confused Vlasta. But she soon regained her presence of mind and tried to defend herself by attacking. It was a strange attack. Strange because the opponents didn't stand face to face. She was standing with her back to me, her face turned towards the gurgling soup. Her voice was not raised. It was almost indifferent. As if what she was saying were some ancient self-evident truth that only my eccentricity and lack of understanding obliged her to repeat. If I wanted to hear it, then this was it. From the beginning, Vladimir had not wanted to be king. And Vlasta was not surprised. There was a time when the boys used to do the Ride of the Kings by themselves. Now it was run by a dozen organizations and even the Party District Committee had a meeting about it.

Nowadays people couldn't move a finger on their own. Everything was arranged from above. Before, the boys used to elect the king themselves. Now, Vladimir had been suggested to them from above to please his father, and everyone had to obey. Vladimir was ashamed to be a privileged child. Nobody likes people who rely on pull.

"Do you mean Vladimir is ashamed of me?" "He doesn't want to rely on your pull," Vlasta repeated. "Is that why he made friends with those narrow-minded Kouteckys? Those petty bourgeois?" I asked. "Yes, that's why," said Vlasta. "Milos isn't allowed to go to the university because of his grandfather. Just because his grandfather owned a construction company. Vladimir had his way paved with roses. Just because you're his father. Vladimir finds it hard to take. Can't you see that?"

For the first time in my life I was angry with her. They'd tricked me. All the time they'd been coolly observing how I looked forward to the Ride of the Kings. How sentimental, how excited I was. They had calmly deceived me and calmly watched me being deceived.

"Was there really any need to deceive me like that?"

Vlasta salted the noodles and said I made things difficult. I was living in another world. I was a dreamer. They didn't want to take my ideals from me, but Vladimir was different.

He had no use for my singing and whooping. He got no pleasure from it. He was bored by it. I'd just have to accept it. Vladimir was a modern person. He took after her father.

Her father was always a great one for progress. He was the first farmer in the village to have a tractor before the war. Then he had everything taken from him. But from the time the fields went to the cooperative they'd never yielded half as much.

"I'm not interested in your fields. What I want to know is where Vladimir went. He went to the motorcycle races in Brno. Admit it."

She had her back to me, stirring the noodles, and calmly went on talking. Vladimir took after his grandfather. He had his chin and eyes. Vladimir isn't interested in the Ride of the Kings. Yes, if I really wanted to know, he did go to the races. He went to watch the races.

Why shouldn't he? He's more interested in motorcycles than in horses in streamers. What of it? Vladimir is a modern person.

Motorcycles, guitars, motorcycles, guitars. A stupid, alien world. I asked: "Just tell me, what does it mean, a modern person?"

She had her back to me, stirring the noodles, and said that even our home couldn't be furnished in a modern way. What a fuss I'd made about that modern floor lamp! Even the modern chandelier I hadn't liked. And yet anyone could see that the modern floor lamp was beautiful. Lamps like that were being bought everywhere these days.

"Shut up," I said. But there was no stopping her. She was all wound up. With her back to me. With her small, spiteful, bony back. This was what irritated me most of all. Her back.

That back without eyes. That back so stupidly sure of itself. The back I couldn't come to terms with. I wanted to make her shut up. Turn her around to face me. But I felt such distaste for her that I didn't even want to touch her. I'll make her turn around some other way. I opened the cabinet and took out a plate. I dropped it on the floor. She was silent for a moment. But she didn't turn around. Another plate, more plates. She still had her back to me. Huddled up within herself. I could see from her back that she was afraid.

Yes, she was afraid, but she was defiant and wouldn't give in. She stopped stirring and stood motionless, gripping the wooden spoon in her hand. She was hanging on to it as if it could save her. I hated her and she hated me. She didn't move and I never took my eyes off her as I threw more and more china from the shelves onto the floor. I hated her and I hated the whole of her kitchen. Her modern standard kitchen with its modern cabinets, modern plates, and modern glasses.

I felt no excitement. I looked calmly, sadly, almost wearily at the floor covered with fragments of broken china, with pots and pans strewn over it. I was throwing my home on the floor. The home that I'd loved, the home, my refuge. The home in which I'd felt the gentle domination of my poor servant girl. The home I'd peopled with fairy tales and songs about guardian spirits. Over there on those three chairs we'd sat and eaten our dinners. Oh, those peaceful dinners when the silly trusting breadwinner was appeased and bamboozled. I picked up one chair after another and broke their legs off. I put the crippled chairs down on the floor with the pots and broken china. I turned the kitchen table upside down. Vlasta was still standing motionless by the stove with her back to me.

I went out of the kitchen into my own room. There was a red globe hanging from the ceiling, a modern floor lamp, and a hideous modern couch. My violin lay in its black case on the harmonium. I picked it up. At four o'clock we had our concert in the restaurant garden. It was still only one. Where could I go?

I heard sobbing from the kitchen. Vlasta was crying. Her sobs were heartrending, and somewhere deep inside me I felt a painful regret.

Why hadn't she started crying ten minutes ago? I could have let myself be taken in by the old self-delusion and seen her again as the poor servant girl. But it was too late now.

I left the house. The calls could still be heard across the village roofs. We have a pauper king, a righteous one. Where could I go? The streets belonged to the Ride of the Kings, home belonged to Vlasta, the taverns belonged to the drunks. Where do I belong? I am the old king, abandoned and banished. A righteous pauper king without heirs. The last king.

Luckily there are fields beyond the village. A road. And ten minutes away the river Morava. I lay down on the bank. I put the violin case under my head. I lay there for a long time. An hour, maybe two. And I thought of how I'd come to the end. So suddenly and unexpectedly. And it was here. I could not imagine any continuation. I had always lived in two worlds at once. I believed in their mutual harmony. It had been a delusion.

Now I had been ousted from one of those worlds. From the real world. Only the other one, the imaginary world, is left to me now. But I can't live only in the imaginary world.

Even though I am expected there. Even though the deserter is calling for me and has a horse ready and a red veil for my face. Now I knew! Now I understood why he forbade me to take off the veil and wanted me to know only what he related to me! Now I understood why the king's face must be veiled! Not that he should not be seen, but that he should not see!