'Do you really believe no pain lasts for ever?' she asked.
'Of course.'
'Did you ever have a pain that went away in the end?'
He was not accustomed to being cross-examined and was taken unawares. He had to stop and think for a moment
whether anything had happened in his life that had caused him a pain that had gone away. On the contrary, things in his life had tended to die gradually. Then he recalled the death of his parents. 'Even the pain of death eventually goes away,' he said evasively.
'That's true,' she conceded, 'though death is a rather special category.'
'What makes you think so?'
'Death is like the law. There is no escape from it. Whereas love. .' She seemed to be searching for a word to express the meaning of love, but instead burst into tears once again.
He helped her to her feet and saw her to the door and down the stairs. He then invited her to a nearby wine bar. He wasn't sure why, with this young woman, he was behaving in this way. There must be something about her that touched him, or that he found attractive. Or maybe there was some other reason that he was unable to put his finger on. He ordered a bottle of wine and let the woman relate her recent tribulations, although he only took in a few details; he was gazing at her hands, her fingers involuntarily toying with the napkin. They were so beautiful he wanted to clasp them or stroke them. So from time to time he would interrupt her and tell her some of the incidents he had heard about in the course of his work to reassure her that she was far from alone in her suffering.
When they parted an hour later, she invited him to a concert to be performed by the orchestra she played in. She also, naturally, invited his wife, but in the end he went to it alone. He found it impossible to concentrate on the music; his attention was focused on a single member of the orchestra — the flickering movements of her fingers and her fine bowing — and he felt an unwonted emotion. He was astounded at himself and at his
feelings, which struck him as inappropriate for someone of his age. But then it occurred to him that he had simply written off feelings from his life too soon.
He found her address and telephone number in the file.
They started to meet twice a week, initially in a café or a wine bar, fairly typically. He was aware that because of his profession she regarded him as an expert on matters of love, or rather on those cases where love was foundering, and indeed when questioned he sought to draw more general lessons from the cases that lay hidden in his memory. Even though he had little belief in the possibility of people living together in love, he realized how cautious he was in his comments, and how he could speak about something he had been unable to achieve in his own life: a relationship of mutual admiration and respect out of which tenderness grew. She listened to him with interest and even a sort of growing hopefulness. 'I expect you're good at love,' she said and gave his hand a momentary squeeze. 'You strike me as someone who can be tolerant and allow the other person some space for themselves.'
He nodded, pleased that she should think of him in that way.
Then she invited him home.
She lived in a tiny attic room and as he walked up the many stairs (the house had no lift) his legs were buckling under him from excitement or maybe anxiety at what was certainly about to happen.
The little room had sloping walls and almost no furniture, just a wardrobe, a music stand, two chairs and a large divan beneath a skylight. They made love underneath that window.
She seemed slim and finely built compared to his wife and her skin was smooth, without a single fold or wrinkle. To his surprise, he found tender words for her. She listened to him
and he had barely stopped speaking when she said, 'More please. I want more of those words.' As he was leaving she asked, 'Will we see each other again some time?' And he assured her that he would certainly be back soon.
And so he would visit her, bringing her flowers, wine and words of tenderness. They never spoke about her former marriage, and he mentioned his wife only occasionally, and always in a way that let her assume that his marriage was not particularly happy. As usually happens when information comes from one side only, she would conclude, had she made the effort, that the fault lay with his wife.
On one occasion, when they were again lying beneath the skylight onto which the heavy drops of a spring downpour were falling, she asked him, 'Do you love your wife at all?'
He said he didn't, that he hadn't loved her for many years.
Then for a long time neither of them said anything. She cuddled up to him as he stroked her flanks and her belly, the softness of her skin exciting him as always.
'What's the point of such a marriage, Martin?' she asked abruptly.
The question caught him unprepared. It had never occurred to him that he might leave his wife after thirty years of living together, not even now, as he lay at the side of a woman he had just made love to. He had long ceased wondering what bound him to his wife Marie. Habit perhaps. So many shared days and nights. Memories that now felt like stories about someone else. Maybe the chairs they sat on, or the familiar odour that wafted towards him the moment he opened the door of their flat. Maybe the sons they had reared.
'You don't have to tell me if you don't want to,' she said.
'Maybe,' it occurred to him, 'so that when I come home in foul weather like this I can say to someone, "It's raining out".'
'Yes, that's a good reason,' she said, drawing away from him slightly.
As he was leaving she didn't ask, as she usually did, when they 'would see each other again. So he asked instead.
'Maybe never,' she said. Even so she leaned towards him and kissed him.
On his way downstairs it occurred him that she had been expecting a different response, that he had mistaken the meaning of her question. She had been wanting to hear whether he was prepared to leave his wife for her.
He was overcome by an almost weary dejection. He could still turn back, ring her doorbell and give her a different answer. But what answer should he give?
So Judge Martin Vacek went on home.
When he opened the door of his own flat the familiar odour wafted towards him. Marie came out of the living room and greeted him as usual with the words: 'I'll have your dinner ready straight away'
He sat down at the table and stared silently ahead of him. He saw nothing. On the radio which his wife had switched on in the adjoining room someone was playing the violin. He found the sound of it so distressing he could hardly move. His wife placed a bowl of hot soup in front of him.
He knew he ought to say something, but he was filled with an emptiness that engulfed all speech. 'It's raining out,' he said eventually.
His wife looked out of the window in surprise. It had stopped raining long ago and the room was suffused with the dark red glow of the setting sun.
It was her custom not to contradict her husband, even though he had seemed to her more and more absent-minded just lately; perhaps old age was beginning to affect his mind.
'That's good,' she said, 'the farmers' fields could do with a bit of moisture.'
(1994)
A BAFFLING CHOICE
Marie Anna Pavlů was almost twenty-six years old and worked as a nurse in a crèche. There was nothing striking about her appearance or behaviour. She had a pleasant face, a petite figure and a slight, almost deferential, stoop. She used no make-up and dressed simply, choosing darker shades of green and blue. Her most colourful feature was her hair which had a coppery sheen in the sun. Her expression was enlivened with a smile, particularly when dealing with children. The more attentive parents noticed that children tended to cry less when Marie welcomed them.