Waiting for the Dark, Waiting for the Light

Yes, he will make a grand gesture, but it won't accomplish anything. Everyone is just waiting for him to trip up so

they can push him out. That's the way people are: envious, only out for themselves. Given half a chance, they would raze their houses to the ground, reduce bridges to nuts and bolts, roads to cobblestones, machines to gearwheels; they would grind bones into dust. They would burn everything down, for fire is their passion. From his study of history, he knows that people are arsonists at heart. They look at churches, castles and palaces and dream of seeing them go up in flames.

And against all of these forces, he now stands alone. All he has left are chauffeurs, gardeners, valets and doctors, and he cannot be certain that they really are chauffeurs, gardeners, valets and doctors.

The old man weeps. Then he makes a decision and presses a button. The valet enters almost at once, as though he had been poised in readiness just outside the door.

'I'd like a drink,' he commands. 'Do we have a drop of that good cognac left?'

'Of course, Comrade President.'

'Bring me two glasses, comrade,' he orders and then watches the valet open the door of a small refrigerator concealed among the bookshelves and remove an onion-shaped bottle containing golden-brown liquid. The two enormous glasses have stems of unequal length. He will receive the taller one. The valet pours the liquid into both glasses and waits.

'Sit down,' he commands.

Thank you, Comrade President.' The valet sits stiffly on a leather seat, ready to leap to his feet again at any moment.

'What's your name again?'

'Karel Houska, Comrade President.'

The president nods. The name sounds familiar, and no doubt he's asked about it before. 'Well, drink up then.'

The valet grasps his glass and says ceremoniously: 'If you will allow me, Comrade President, to toast your health.'

The valet takes a sip, but the president downs the entire glass in a single gulp. He knows it is inappropriate to drink this way and doesn't do so when taking part in official toasts, but here there is no need to stand on ceremony. 'Powerful stuff, eh!'

'Powerful, Comrade President.' The valet refills his glass.

'Pour yourself some too,' the president orders, and then asks, 'Are you married?'

'I am, Comrade President.'

'Doesn't she mind it when you're on duty like this?'

'She's used to it by now.'

'And what did you do before? Were you in service then too?'

'I was a waiter. It was less responsible, but the work was harder.'

'You're happy here, I take it?'

'I'm very honoured, Comrade President, to have this position.'

And what do people say?' he asks, thinking he may learn something. 'Do they ask you a lot of questions?'

'Perhaps they would, but no one knows I work here.'

'What about your wife?'

'If you tell anything to a woman, Comrade President, it's like putting it in the papers.' The valet's face remains expressionless.

'Go on, drink!' he urges.

The valet ceremoniously raises the glass, holds it for a moment at eye-level and then takes a sip.

'Do you have any children?'

'Yes, I do, Comrade President. Two.'

'Are they at school?'

'They've finished school, Comrade President. One's a soldier, the other's an engineer.'

'Very good,' he praises him. 'We need soldiers and we need engineers. Do they have good positions?'

'They can't complain.'

The old man nods. This valet seems like quite a nice fellow. He knows that one of his valets is a nice, sincere, steady fellow, and perhaps this is the one. The other one probably has two children too. Everyone seems to have two children, or at least they claim to. 'Do you have their pictures with you?'

'As a matter of fact, I do, Comrade President.'

He takes a wallet from the breast pocket of his perfectly tailored jacket and removes two pictures.

The president looks blankly at the unfamiliar faces. 'Fine-looking lads,' he says. 'You can be proud of them.'

He hears a faint creaking behind him and turns his head slightly as if to reassure himself that all the books are in place.

They are, of course. But there, in front of the bookshelf, the ends of its legs buried in the thick nap of the carpet, is that thing again, standing there as it does almost every evening: a bier holding an open coffin. Tonight there's only one, but some evenings there are so many, packed so closely together, that you can scarcely get by them. Today they only managed to get one of them in. His wife is lying in the coffin. He can almost see her features under the immaculate white sheet. They never want him to raise the sheet. They say the sight of her would be too awful. Her body was damaged beyond recognition in the fall, they say. He always obeys them, though their only aim is to torment him and gradually hound him to death. This is why they push her in here every evening, and all those others too, most of whom he doesn't know and for whose death he bears no guilt. Like those nine miners they brought in last Sunday. Some of them hadn't even had their disfigured faces properly covered. Was he to blame for their deaths? Was it he who ordered the Sunday shifts? And even if he had, wasn't everyone complaining that they weren't getting enough coal? There was always something unavailable, something forgotten, something neglected, and then people died, poisoned by bad water, smothered by toxic exhalations, blown to smithereens, exposed to radiation — although experts assured him that no one had been exposed to radiation — killed by impurities in the medicine, or by the lack of any medicine at all. And then they parade the bodies in here to haunt him. Once, he'd slipped out of a reception for some generals to find that they had filled the whole corridor with stretchers and, because there were so many, had stacked them along the walls four deep, like bunk-beds. It was hideous and it was disgraceful. And he had no choice but to squeeze past them and pretend not to see anything.

The valet refilled the president's glass.

'Take some yourself, lad.' He should ask the valet to

have her taken away, but God knows who the valet really is. Maybe he's with them. 'What did you do before you came here?'

'I was a waiter, Comrade President,' replies the valet and he thrusts his chest forward like a soldier about to receive a medal.

'Yes, a waiter. . good, good. And your wife? You do have a wife?'

'I do, Comrade President. She used to be a train conductor.' The valet shifts forward in his chair and something shows in his expressionless face. Memories, perhaps, or embarrassment?

'Yes, a conductor, a conductor,' he repeats. 'She must have travelled a good bit of the world. That's what I've always wanted to do, travel a good bit of the world.'

'And your wish came true, Comrade President,' replies the valet, thrusting his chest forward again, as though he were responsible.

'We could have a look at what's going on in the world,' says the president. And while the valet glides cautiously towards the television, he sneaks a look at the bookshelves. The books are pretending to rest in their proper places, but he knows very well that nothing is easier than insinuating among those thousands of volumes one or two books equipped with a small peep-hole and a hidden device to bombard him with radiation. Sometimes, when he can concentrate perfectly, he can see rays of greenish poison molecules pouring out of the spines of these specious volumes and penetrating his head where they detonate, destroying his brain cells.

The television screen lights up, and the familiar voice of a familiar announcer intones: '. . and it's the correct way, the only way that will lead us forward…' Someone applauds. Two men embrace each other, then one of them boards an aeroplane, turning and waving before disappearing through the door. But he is not one of those men, so he loses interest.