Farewell Waltz

excuse. There were a thousand possible ways he could have disobeyed her. He could have opposed the young woman’s insolence with his own insolence, could calmly have shaken the first tablet into the hollow of his hand and put it in his pocket.
And since he had lacked the presence of mind to do this, he could have rushed after the young woman and confessed that there was poison in the tube. It was not too hard to explain to her how it had happened.
But rather than do anything, he remains sitting in his chair and looking at Olga while she is telling him something. He should be getting up, running to catch the nurse. There is still time. And it is his duty to do everything he can to save her life. Why then is he sitting in his chair, why doesn’t he move?
Olga was talking, and he was amazed that he stayed sitting, immobile in his chair.
He decided that he must get up right now and look for the nurse. He wondered how he was going to explain to Olga that he must leave. Should he confess to her what had happened? He concluded that he could not confess it to her. What if the nurse swallowed the tablet before he could get to her? Should Olga know that Jakub was a murderer? And even if he got to the nurse in time, how could he justify his long hesitation to Olga and make her understand it? How could he explain to her why he had given the woman the tube? From now on, because of these moments of doing nothing, of remaining rooted to his chair, any observer would have to see him as a murderer!
No, he could not confess to Olga, but what could he say to her? How could he explain abruptly getting up and running God knows where?
But what did it matter what he might say to her? How could he still be occupying himself with such foolishness? How could he, when it was a matter of life and death, care about what Olga was going to think?
He knew that his reflections were quite uncalled for and that every second of hesitation increased the danger threatening the nurse. Actually, it was already too late. While he had been hesitating, she and her friend had already gotten so far from the brasserie that Jakub would not even know in what direction to look for her. If only he knew where they had gone! Where could he find them?
But he soon reproached himself that this argument was just another excuse. It would certainly be hard to find them quickly, but it was not impossible. It was not too late to act, but he had to act immediately, or else it would be too late!
“I started the day badly,” Olga was saying. “I overslept, I was late for breakfast and they refused to serve me any, and at the baths there were those stupid film people. To think that I was longing so to have a beautiful day, since it’s the last one I’ll be spending here with you. It’s so important to me. Do you have any idea, Jakub, how important it is to me?”
She leaned across the table and grasped his hands.
“Don’t worry, there’s no reason for you to spend a bad day,” he said with an effort, for he was unable to fix his attention on her. A voice was constantly reminding him that the nurse had poison in her handbag and that her life and death depended on him. It was an intrusive, insistent voice, but at the same time strangely weak, as if it were coming to him from far too distant depths.
13
Klima was driving with Ruzena along a forest road, noting that this time a ride in his luxurious sedan would not at all be working in his favor. Nothing could distract Ruzena from her stubborn silence, and the trumpeter himself stopped talking for quite a while. When the silence had become too heavy, he said: “Are you coming to the concert?”
“I don’t know,” she answered.
“Please come,” he said, and that evening’s concert provided the pretext for a conversation that momentarily diverted them from their quarrel. Klima made an effort to speak amusingly about the drum-playing physician, and decided to postpone the conclusive encounter with Ruzena until the evening.
“I hope you’ll be waiting for me after the concert,” he said. “Like the last time I played here.” As soon as he said these words he realized their significance. “Like the last time” meant that they would make love after the concert. My God, why hadn’t he considered that possibility?
It was odd, but until that moment the idea that he might go to bed with her had never even crossed his mind. Ruzena’s pregnancy had gently and imperceptibly pushed her away into the asexual terrain of anxiety. Of course he had urged himself to show tenderness toward her, to kiss and caress her, and he made a point of doing so, but these were only gestures, empty signs, without any corporeal interest.
Reflecting on it now, he realized that this indifference to Ruzena’s body was the most serious mistake he had made in the last few days. Yes, it was now absolutely clear to him (and he was indignant that the friends he had consulted had not brought it to his attention): he absolutely had to go to bed with her! Because the remoteness the young woman had suddenly assumed, and he was unable to break through, came precisely from the continuing estrangement of their bodies. Rejecting the child, the flower of Ruzena’s womb, was at the same time a wounding rejection of her gravid body. He thus had to show all the more interest in her nongravid body. He had to oppose the fertile body with the infertile body as his ally.
This analysis gave him a feeling of renewed hope. He put his arm around Ruzena’s shoulder and leaned toward her: “It