Anja and I began to see each other frequently, and when I look back at this period it is at a succession of days of savage happiness, each bleeding into the other, an unfamiliar world full of burning light and painful beauty bursting out at me from every object in space. I soon became obsessed with her. I was like a collector with a mania for finding new things and cataloguing them; facts about her, minute alterations in her appearance, her moods shifting from day to day, how her skin looked against fabrics of different colours, her eyes in different lights, how she would look in the snow, or swimming in a lake, or ill with a fever.
My thoughts were full of her, and even when I was away from her I would see the world through her eyes, or look forward to the time I would next see her, or remember the last time that I did. Time changed its function, lost its objectivity, and was reduced to a measure of her proximity. I was like the addict who can think only of the drug, anxious and unseeing of the world before he imbibes it, but afterwards imbued with light, floating in the beauty of the world.
On most days I would collect Anja from the university after work and walk home with her, or meet her during the day if I could get away from the office. She would call on me, collecting me from my home or my workplace. Her appearance in my life did much to raise my status. I noticed that my father beheld me with a new respect, as did my colleagues at the post office. On Anja’s first visit to my workplace, it was Kröner, the head clerk, who greeted her in the central hall of the post office building, the part that was open to the public. He escorted her upstairs to my office and showed her inside. I was gratified by the look that he flashed at me when he opened the door and held it wide for her to walk through. Before this day he had never greeted me if I happened to pass him in the street, but now he would give me a slow nod and a quizzical stare, as if I kept some secret that he would have liked to know. At the post office he began to ask my advice on work matters and invite me to have lunch with him. Stephanie too changed her behaviour towards me. She became much friendlier, almost sisterly, and would loudly proclaim Anja’s loveliness whenever she had been in the office to visit me.
The kinds of things Anja and I would do together on our outings were quite ordinary; visits to parks and museums, attending concerts and theatrical performances, sitting in coffee houses and talking. Anja recounted all kinds of stories to me, speaking without reservation or calculation. She related stories of her childhood, told me of problems with her university subjects, and described the friends she had made among her fellow students.
When taking leave of her, usually at her front door, I would delay and delay the final moment of separation. I would stare at her face and use the whole of my concentration to try to fix it in my mind like a photograph. She would be smiling at me, perhaps she would blink, perhaps some strands of her hair would blow in the breeze, but the image of her would become like an object that I could carry away with me, to take out when I was alone and immerse myself in. I would leave Anja’s house already looking at the latest portrait I had taken, remembering the hours we had spent, not seeing the streets I passed along, sated and happy.
She occasionally mentioned Liška, but as week followed week the terror he had at first inspired faded into the background. After all, I was the one who was with her every day, and the way she spoke of him made it clear that the two knew each other only slightly. But as my worries about Liška dissipated, I found that their place was taken by worries about Franz. Before long I could not rid myself of the image of Franz’s face as he gazed at her that evening of the reading in the botanical gardens. The expression of his face that night spoke of a mastery and a longing with which I could never compete. His face began to appear to me at all times of the day, disturbing my hours of work and sleep. I obsessively replayed his conversation with Anja that evening, trying hopelessly to gauge their level of closeness. I would occasionally mention Franz in a casual way in my conversations with Anja, my eyes fixed sharply on her to detect the smallest sign of affection, but I could never discover anything. Many times I resolved to ask her how well she knew him, but I could never bring myself to do so, partly out of an unwillingness to have my worst fears proven, and partly out of a fear of exposing my own insecurity.
7.
DURING THIS TIME I NEGLECTED EVERYTHING BUT ANJA; MY friends, my writing, all of these fell into the background. I gave Schopenhauer not a single thought, and when Theodor wrote to reprimand me for missing a deadline, I just laughed and threw his letter into the fire. Theodor also sent other letters. He was clearly having great difficulty pinning Franz down, a situation which, I admit, gave me great pleasure. He had still never even met Franz. Though he scheduled appointment after appointment, Franz failed to attend. Theodor’s tenacity in this matter surprised me. I would have expected him to give up in the face of such rejection. At any other time I would have been prostrated with jealousy by Theodor’s pursuit of Franz, but Anja had made me feel so serene that the whole situation seemed only amusing. As the weeks passed, my frenzied determination to destroy Franz had faded and been replaced with a calm assurance that the problem he presented would resolve itself without any intervention on my part.
Another thing that failed to perturb me at that time was Theodor’s misapprehension of my relationship with Franz. Theodor appeared to be under the impression that Franz and I were particular friends, and that I had some great influence over him. I never replied to Theodor’s letters; not out of ill will, but only because with Anja in my life I hardly had time to give them a thought. In light of this I was not greatly surprised to receive a visit from Theodor at the post office one morning. To my relief, he seemed to have completely forgotten about Schopenhauer and my deadline. Instead, almost as soon as he had sat down, he asked me about Franz, talking as if the two of us were intimates. But I had not heard from Franz since the long-ago evening of the reading, and I told Theodor as much.
‘He’s probably left Prague for a holiday,’ I said. ‘Or perhaps he’s ill.’ Really, I did not care. I wondered whether Theodor would start pressing me about Schopenhauer.
‘No, no. That’s not it.’ Theodor shook his head. ‘I’ve sent messages to his work. I know he’s there; they just refuse to let me in.’
He sounded so much like a jilted lover that I almost felt sorry for him.
‘I’d like to invite you to dinner,’ Theodor said. ‘And Franz, of course. Actually, the dinner is for Franz. Your role would be to persuade him to attend.’
This was a ludicrous suggestion.
‘But I haven’t seen the man for weeks,’ I protested. ‘He could be dead for all we know.’
Theodor looked stricken at this suggestion.
‘I’m relying on you,’ he said.
A dinner with Theodor and Franz was the last thing I wanted.
‘I think you will find that, if you see to it that he is there, I might be inclined to extend the deadline on Schopenhauer—the one that you have repeatedly missed.’