explosive with no taste and no smell. They haggle over the price, of course, not like in the souk, but for millions. They stick envelopes into each other's pockets with cheques for amounts you can't even begin to imagine. .
'Where's your husband now?'
'With some slut. Where else? He can buy any woman he feels like. He's thrown me off even though he pretends that he can't live without me. But he knows that he has to be careful, because if I wanted to talk about those business deals of his, nothing could save him, not even the fact that he's politically reliable. . ' 'Have you ever been afraid?'
'Afraid of what?'
'Of what you know.'
She shrugged her shoulders. 'The worst they could do is kill me. I have to die some day anyhow.'
But she didn't seem afraid to him. She was probably politically reliable too', enough at least to go on the record.
'Would you like to talk about this?'
'Maybe some day, maybe to someone, but not now, not to you.'
She knew the house well even in her drunken state. She found an empty room with a key on the inside, so they could lock themselves in. There were no couches, not even a bed, so they made love on the floor. She probably did it to get back at her husband who was big, powerful and rich enough to buy any whore he wanted.
Why did he do it? Because she was pretty and a little sad, because she had tried so hard to persuade him how exceptional she was, how far her experiences were beyond the reach of his imagination. And because he didn't know her name and because he thought he would never see her again.
He drove out of the wood and emerged on one side of a deep valley with a river winding through it. For a second, it flashed through his mind that instead of turning the wheel to follow the asphalt, he could drive straight on, and the car would fly off the road, Hollywood style, turn slowly over in the air and then plunge down into the rocks, the roar and crashing of metal on stone, the explosion and fire. The end at last. Going nowhere, expecting nothing, meeting no one,
listening to no one, knowing nothing, bowing to no one.
From a distance, rising out of the autumn mists, he saw the castle where Peter was in his tenth year as caretaker.
For the first few years after serving their sentences, they saw each other often. They took advantage of a political thaw and started studying for their degrees by correspondence. When they got their diplomas, Peter, unlike him, refused to accept a position from which someone had just been dismissed. His religious convictions had something to do with his decision, and so did Alice, who shared Peter's faith. So Peter worked for several years as a linoleum layer, then he took a job as caretaker of a castle. The castle was not far from the place where they had both once tried to cross the border.
Peter could certainly have found more demanding work than looking after a nationalized, aristocratic country seat. But he wasn't complaining. He let it be known that his work gave him intellectual independence, at least. Neither baroque art nor the ideas of that period excited anyone any more. He could have had complete peace and quiet had he not taken up activities that the current legal system had placed outside the law. Both Peter and Alice wanted to remain independent: to associate with people, read books and live as they saw fit.
In a small village grocery below the castle he bought five bottles of red wine (they only had one kind) and three bars of chocolate for the children. He would have liked to buy something nice for Alice, but there was nothing here he could give her as a present.
Approaching the castle gate, he was stopped by a sudden, constricting pain in his chest. He had to lean against the wall. He should drink less, stop smoking, try to live his life differently. His job in television was wearing him down — not the work itself, but the conditions in which he worked. But what would he do if he decided to quit? He could probably make a living as a street photographer, but the right time for that had long since passed. He should at least take a rest. But where, with whom and, in fact, why?
He rang the bell. A window over the vestibule opened, and dogs began barking inside. A surprised female voice
called out, 'Is that you, Pavel?'
'It's me, Alice, I was just passing by.'
The barking rapidly grew louder, then a key turned creakily in the lock. Two boxers burst through the door, jumped up on him and tried to lick his face.
'I just happened to be driving by,' he said.
'Where are you heading?' She was wearing a short skirt of printed cotton.
'I was on a shoot not far from here, in the chemical factory.'
'Way into the night?' she said, 'or right through till morning?'
'I suppose I do look pretty awful,' he admitted. 'I've been working like a dog recently, and I went on a bit of a bender.' He noticed that she too looked tired, perhaps even unhappy.
They walked together along a cold, gloomy corridor. Rust-stained engravings were hanging on the walls. She walked ahead of him. Her long legs had excited him the first time they met, and even after three children she remained slim, almost delicate. Her fair hair reached almost to her waist. Peter and he had met her together twenty years ago, when they were demonstrating against the invasion of their country by a foreign army. The foreign power had hypocritically presented its incursion as an act of assistance to help quell a non-existent enemy. They were standing near the radio building when they saw her, a girl in a short denim skirt and a boy's shirt, waving an enormous flag and shouting, along with others, the vain demand that the soldiers leave. Her eyes were dark blue. He'd never seen eyes of that colour before.
'They could start shooting any minute,' he had said to her.
'Why're you telling me this?' she said, 'I know it better than you do. They brought eight casualties in yesterday.'
They talked about those who had been shot, and about what would happen next. It went without saying that they were all prepared to take a stand, and even to die, but not a single shot was fired that day, and nothing happened to them.
Peter and he walked with Alice through the crowd and
down the square where years later, when he had learned to keep his own behaviour in close check, the demonstrators would gather again.
Strangers offered them refreshments, and they felt a special closeness that lifted them above the despair of the moment. That evening, they walked her home together. She lived in a hostel in the grounds of the hospital where she worked. They both kissed her goodnight. The kiss meant nothing, promised nothing. Still, he remembered it and he remembered her. He liked her looks and her personality. There was a warm-hearted openness in her behaviour, but beneath it he sensed hidden, impenetrable depths that drew him to her.
For a while they went out together, and he believed he loved her as much as she loved him. He was certain of this until something happened which, at the time, he thought far less a turning-point than she did. He preferred not to remember it now.
When they were going out together, Peter would often join them. They attended plays in small theatres or went to private screenings, which were a pleasure for Alice to watch and a duty for him.
He never stopped believing that Alice was more suited to him than to Peter, but later it became clear that she didn't think so. Or perhaps she sensed that Peter was more constant, more faithful and, most of all, more genuine. He missed his chance. Who might he have become had he been able to live by her side?
'Whether it was by accident or by design, I'm glad you stopped,' she said, smiling. She was always sweet to him, as though nothing had happened to sour their relationship.