'Yes. Thank you. I'll call her.'
Four o'clock in the morning, which means it's ten in the morning at home, no, eleven.
Still half asleep, Sokol asked, 'Is something wrong?'
'I'm going to have to go back.'
'Back where?'
'Back home.'
'What — are you crazy? Was that production calling? They agreed that we could extend our stay.'
'It wasn't production. You can go back to sleep.'
'How can I sleep when you've just gone off your rocker?'
'I'll explain in the morning.'
He should call the hospital right away but he didn't have anything definite to tell her. Besides, he was confused. The first thing he had to do was reserve a flight. Before that he had to sort things out with Sokol. He couldn't just get up and fly away when the work was barely half finished. So the first thing he had to do was call the hospital and find out if it still made any sense to fly back now. But before that he had to know something definite. And the day after tomorrow they were supposed to fly to Merida, and he couldn't get out of that because the shooting had all been arranged. .
When morning came everything seemed far less urgent than it had in the dead of night. The telephone conversation had become an unreal nightmare.
'Too bad you never introduced me to her,' said Sokol. 'I'd like to see the woman you're willing to drop everything for. You can't help her anyway,' he went on. 'Her mother's a doctor. She'll look after her. You've got responsibilities here. You can't just pack up and leave. She has to understand that.'
It sounded convincing. Besides, he would probably never get to this part of the world again, and there was still so much he wanted to see and film.
The next morning he called the hospital from the airport. He left a message for Albina saying he would return as soon as he could. He flew off to Merida, but he was now in a rush. In a single day, he tried to accomplish what they had to do in a week. Then the Indian chauffeur that they had hired gently remonstrated with him. Why were these white men always in such a hurry? If you are in too much of a hurry, he explained, your spirit won't be able to keep
up with you. If you don't wait for it, it will never catch up.
His mother opened her eyes again. 'Where am I, anyway?'
'You were asleep,' he said. 'You were lucky not to be burnt to death.'
His mother laughed. 'I was lucky. I used to be lucky, once. And what are you doing, Pavel? Are you lucky too?'
'We're all lucky now, Mrs Fuková,' interrupted the neighbour. 'We're all ecstatic.'
'Yes,' said his mother. 'We're delighted you came, Pavel, that you're here with me, that you'll stay with me.'
His mother closed her eyes again. He ought to stay here with her, not rush away. He ought to stay here with her till the very end.
3
He finished work in the editing room earlier then he expected, and an empty stretch of time loomed before him. He saw a small group of strangers in the corridor, conversing with great animation. The building was now full of unfamiliar faces, some of whom might have been returning after years of absence — not to this building, which was practically new, but to jobs they had once held. These people made him uneasy. He walked by them as quickly as he could. The porter in the lodge acknowledged him with a nod on his way out. At least they hadn't replaced him. Not yet.
It was a cold evening outside. The paving-stones were greasy with layers of soot, dust and mist, and the air was acrid with smoke. He got into his sports car and drove the short distance to the city centre. He realized he was close to the store where Eva worked, and could drop in. He hadn't seen her for several days. Somehow, there never seemed to be enough time.
With Sokol, he had driven around the towns and the cities, mostly in the north of the country. Out of the fog that shrouded the countryside, softening the outlines of people and things, demonstrators emerged, flags waved and
speakers rose spontaneously to address spontaneous gatherings. Mostly they were people who had not been allowed to speak for years. They clambered on to piles of rock, balanced on the rims of fountains and on pedestals of statues whose removal they demanded, just as they demanded the removal of those who had bowed down before these statues. They spun visions of how everyone's life, including Pavel's own, would quickly be transformed and rise above the poverty in which it had for so long been mired. Others, who preferred actions to words, climbed on to rooftops to remove the snow-covered symbols of yesterday's power. They pulled down street signs and fastened in their place new plaques scrawled with names that until recently had been unmentionable, and they sometimes gathered threateningly under the windows of abandoned Party secretariats, ready to break in and begin, or rather complete, the purging. In every face he saw a kind of ecstasy that looked almost sexual.
When he had last seen Eva, he had noticed this same look on her face. In strangers, it seemed to make their faces more attractive, or at least more interesting, but Eva's ecstasy had repelled him. What was she hoping for, what did she expect the altered circumstances would bring her, and him? What could she possibly understand of these events? Perhaps he was simply repelled by an emotion in her which was not occasioned by him.
He parked in a side-street right in front of the entrance to a bar.
It was packed inside, as it always was in all the bars at that time of day. He stood by the taps and ordered a large vodka. On the wall, along with posters of half-naked models and advertisements for beer, was a picture of the new president. An American pop song playing softly from a set of speakers was drowned out in the din of voices. A massive man standing beside him was trying to communicate his opinion of the situation to the barman. 'We're being far too soft on them. It's going to backfire.'
'Their turn will come,' said the barman. 'Everything takes time.'
'The way I see it, either we beat the shit out of them or
they're going to beat the shit out of us again tomorrow. It's like rats. They leave sinking ships, and if you don't beat them to death they'll just crawl on board another ship and go on eating everything in sight.'
Where do I belong? he thought. With those who'll do the beating or with those who'll get beaten to death? He didn't know anybody here, but he wondered if someone might recognize him. His picture sometimes appeared in the television guide. He felt uneasy. He ordered another vodka, tossed it back and left the bar.
Eva was rearranging something on a shelf when he walked in. She turned around as soon as she heard the door creak. 'So it's you? What are you doing here?'
'I just got back to town and I've come straight to see you.'
'That's nice of you. I'm closing up soon. Will you come home with me tonight?'
'Where else would I go?'
'I don't know. I don't know where you go when you're not with me.'
'You can close up right away,' he said. 'People have other things to think about now, besides buying handkerchiefs or socks.'
'Business is always slack after Christmas.' She got up, went to the door, locked it and hung up a sign that said: gone to the post office. 'I'm here on my own today. I still have some accounts to do, and then I should take the money to the post office. You can wait in the back and I'll make you some coffee.'
The room behind the shop was partly like an office and partly reminiscent of a women's powder-room, with a basin, a mirror, a shelf crammed with little bottles and vials and creams, a table and two armchairs, one of which unfolded into a bed. On top of a metal filing cabinet stood a hotplate with a kettle on it in which water was apparently always on the boil. The room was hot. He took off his sweater, sat down on the chair and lit a cigarette. She made coffee for him and for herself, then sat down opposite him. She had spent all day in the shop, yet her hair and makeup were flawless, and her white blouse seemed so clean it might have come straight off a hanger.