Lovers for a Day Read online

  ‘So you’re determined to fly in spite of the warning?’

  ‘Of course. I’ve already got my ticket.’

  ‘But something’s going to happen to you, for God’s sake!’

  ‘Forget about it.’

  Then they made love as usual. When he woke up in the night he noticed she was sitting on the bed looking at him. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘I’m looking at you.’ Then she put her arms around him. ‘Darling, you mustn’t go, you really mustn’t. Something will happen to you. Something terrible!’ And she burst into tears.

  Then they sat together on the divan until morning while he tried to explain to her that there was either no connection at all between the position of the planets in the heavens and the fate of people on earth, or that it was so insignificant it was outweighed by thousands of other, more important considerations. Besides – it occurred to him – if the position of the planets really was crucial, then all those people born at the same moment would have to have virtually the same fate. And that was clearly nonsense. Or was she trying to tell him that everyone boarding that aircraft had Uranus in their house of death?

  She told him she wasn’t saying anything about the plane, only about him.

  But if some calamity was awaiting him, he would be just as likely to encounter it here as in the antipodes.

  No, she was here to protect him. Besides, the astrologer had told her he definitely shouldn’t fly.

  It struck Michal that Leona simply didn’t want to let him go, that she was jealous of his trip and it so incensed him he started to shout at her.

  She started to weep hysterically. The way actresses know how to.

  At that afternoon’s rehearsal (they were preparing a programme of Tibetan poetry), she had recited the verses: You can tell wise men from fools because they see things that have not yet come, although come they surely must. She said the words with such emphasis that there could be no doubting who the message was intended for. Most likely all the company already knew that Uranus resided in his house of death and that in spite of it he was determined to fly to his doom. He certainly had the impression that they were looking at him as if seeing him alive for the last time.

  He had to change in London to catch the Australian airline’s plane. When he first caught sight of the enormous jumbo jet through the glass of the terminal (he had never even set eyes before on such a colossus, let alone flown in one), it struck him as unbelievable that such a gigantic heap of metal could fly at all. And if it did (as it undoubtedly could) then it must be particularly vulnerable. This thought about its vulnerability naturally had nothing to do with any ridiculous astrological superstitions, it was something that must inevitably strike anyone boarding a transoceanic plane of that size. Even so it was statistically proven that air travel is by far the safest form of transport, and since tens of millions of passengers travelled that way every year, a good few thousand of them were bound to have Uranus or some other planet in their house of death. Although it was also a fact that planes did crash from time to time - due to some technical fault, of course, not because some of the passengers had Uranus or Saturn …He decided he would quite simply stop thinking about Uranus in his death house and joined the queue of those waiting to expose their luggage and themselves to the all-seeing rays. He noticed that the man in front of him had his hat pulled down low over his eyes and that he had dark glasses and a broad criminal chin. He looked just like a screen or stage gangster (Michal must have encountered real live gangsters on many occasions in the past, but their criminal nature had remained hidden from him). When the man placed his bag on the conveyor belt, the uniformed attendant seated at the screen happened to be looking away and exchanging a few words with a passing air hostess. Had there been a bomb hidden in the bag it would have gone undetected. Anyway, as far as he knew, X-rays weren’t able to detect Semtex. There was nothing for it but to put his faith in Providence and trust blindly that the 350 or so passengers did not include even one suicidal maniac.

  What percentage of the world’s population was suicidal maniacs? And the percentage of ordinary suicidal individuals? If someone is intent on killing himself why shouldn’t he take along a few dozen others who would prefer to survive?

  As he was leaving, Leona gave him a letter, asking him to open it before he boarded the plane. He had been determined not to open it until he was in the plane, but because he was obliged to wait in the terminal building he pulled the envelope out of his pocket and opened it.

  My one and only darling,

  Don’t get on the plane. Don’t fly anywhere. Australia is a country like any other. You can see kangaroos at the zoo and you wouldn’t learn anything about the theatre even if you did arrive. But I’m afraid you won’t. I know you won’t. I want you. I need you alive.

  The call for the first batch of passengers came over the PA. He folded up the letter, which he actually found quite touching, and put it back in his pocket. For a moment he toyed with the idea of not boarding. He’d simply announce that he was not going aboard because he was afraid.

  Afraid of what?

  He had received a serious warning. However, it concerned only him.

  Fine, that’s your business. But your tickets will no longer be valid.

  Tickets, tickets, what did tickets matter compared to his own life?

  He would still be sitting here in the terminal when the first news of the tragic accident came on the television. They would put his survival down to miraculous good fortune. He could actually visualize the headlines, Another Triumph for Astrology! And how would he get home? Or was he going to stay sitting here in the terminal until Uranus slipped out of his house of death? Meanwhile the festival would be over and he would never get a chance to cross the equator, see the Southern Cross or set his face to the cold southern breeze bringing with it the scent of the Antarctic.

  Now they were calling his row, so he stood up and joined the crowd swarming onto the plane.

  He did not catch sight of the gangster on board, but that did not reassure him. In fact it had the opposite effect. The aircraft was a double-decker so he hadn’t the faintest idea who was on the lower floor.

  On one side of him sat a man with protruding ears and a Mafia-style moustache who greeted him with a ‘Buona sera’ and then mumbled something unintelligible. On the other side, there was quite an interesting-looking blonde who immediately started reading an English-language booklet.

  He had also brought some books with him but instead he took the letter out of his pocket. He was moved by the fact that Leona was so afraid for him. As soon as he stepped off the plane onto Australian soil he would call her. Assuming he ever found himself on Australian soil.

  The aircraft slowly and quietly started to move. Its enormous bulk rolled along the concrete runway. A map flashed onto the television screen in front of him with the route of the flight. Height zero, speed 1 knot.

  Then the aircraft came to a halt and the jet engines suddenly roared into life. The stewardess was demonstrating how to attach the safety belt and how to put on the oxygen mask and lifebelt.

  Did any of the stewardesses have their stars read before a flight? What would happen to a stewardess who refused to go on duty because she discovered Uranus was entering her house of death?

  He took his notebook and pencil out of his pocket and started to write.

  Sweetheart,

  We’ve just taken off. The flight takes about sixteen hours with a stopover in Singapore. Til send you a postcard from Singapore. Just so you know I was there and was thinking of you. If I don’t write it will mean I didn’t arrive as you prophesied but that I crashed thinking of you.

  He suddenly realized that if he didn’t arrive this piece of paper would never reach his lover, so he stuffed his notebook back in his pocket.

  The stewardesses started bringing round drinks. Many stewardesses, many drinks. They also handed out headphones to listen to any of five radio programmes or the soundtrack for the films.

&n
bsp; The blonde at his side closed her book, put on her headphones and listened intently to something for a while. Two little Indian girls chased each other up and down the aisle between the seats. Figures flashed onto the screen with the map. They were 400 kilometres from London at a height of 10,580 metres. Outside the window it was 47 degrees below zero.

  He shut his eyes. He felt extremely lonely in this overcrowded space.

  He didn‘t tend to think about death, but of all deaths the most horrible to his mind was death by drowning. One lacked nothing, one just needed to breathe and instead there was ‘water, water everywhere’.

  In the middle of the ocean in a life jacket. As if anyone could ever free themselves from this enormous structure if it crashed into the sea. It suddenly struck him that the entire trip was pointless. He had no need to fly to Australia. It was gratuitous pride, the pride of the modern man, who doesn’t even know the neighbours in his block of flats yet can boast he has been to the antipodes. How many of the people here really needed to travel from one end of the world to the other? Pride comes before a fall. People invented that saying before they had any inkling that they would proudly fly and also fall.

  It was interesting how many famous and presumably otherwise sensible people believed in astrology.

  Australia – Austrology.

  People wanted to believe in something, naturally. The thought of our journeys being unpredictable, solely dependent on chance circumstances, was too disheartening. Just like the thought that we came from nothing and would disappear into nothing.

  The weakest return to nothingness was via water. When the water-logged lungs could no longer take in a single gasp of air. Water, water everywhere.

  He wiped the sweat from his forehead.

  The Mafioso at his side was muttering something under his breath. He was praying most likely. It struck him that everyone in this particular space was acting as if everything was all right when in fact they were gripped by fear. He could feel it; the atoms of panic were floating in the air: silent, sticky and oppressive.

  The fair-haired woman at his side took off her headphones and turned to ask him where he was flying to. As if he could fly anywhere else apart from the plane’s destination.

  But she was flying on to New Zealand. She was a physics teacher from Dunedin.

  No, he’d never been there.

  Almost no one had been there apart from those who were born there or who had emigrated there. But it was a beautiful place at the southern tip of South Island. A rugged coastline, picturesque with cliffs, seals and cormorants.

  It struck him that as a physics teacher she was bound to know something about the laws which allowed such a colossus to hold itself up at this frosty height. She would also know something about the planets, and even astrology. But he was too shy to ask.

  Food was brought round. They were already 1,080 kilometres from London and nearing the coast of Africa. But the surrounding air temperature had dropped another three degrees. The aircraft was travelling at a speed of 970 kilometres per hour.

  He finished his meal. The stewardesses gave out lightweight slippers, pillows, blankets and black eye-masks.

  He had hardly slept a wink the night before his departure. First he had taken leave of his friends and then of Leona. She hadn’t tried to dissuade him any more but had simply given him the letter as they parted. He suppressed the urge to read the dismal prophecy once more. No, it would be pointless by now. He ought to sleep instead. Or at least think about something cheerful, such as the antipodean theatre festival, a land full of strange plants and animals, or a sky full of stars that he had never set eyes on before.

  He tipped his seat back, placed a pillow under his head and covered his eyes with the black band.

  All of a sudden he realized that within that constantly roaring blend of noises he could make out the regular ticking – albeit very quiet – of some kind of clock.

  A time bomb. Somewhere right under his seat. He had an urge to leap up and call over a stewardess straight away. But instead he slowly raised himself and leaned far enough over to look under the seat. To all appearances a neatly packed life jacket was stowed there. And anyway the ticking had stopped. He sat up. Scarcely was he upright than the ticking resumed. It seemed to come from the side where the blonde teacher from Dunedin was sitting. She was still reading.

  Maybe he was raving.

  Even so he plucked up courage and asked her if she could hear the ticking too.

  Of course. She took a small alarm clock out of her handbag. She always took it with her because sometimes she needed to get up particularly early. But he certainly had extremely sharp ears to have noticed the ticking amidst all that din.

  The Italian at his side was still muttering something. Behind him a child was crying. On the map spread out beneath them the coastline of a continent was visible. How many miles were there still to go? How many hours of uncertainty? But when, where and how could one find certainty? He shut his eyes.

  Uranus in his house of death. Such nonsense. My one and only darling, I’m afraid you won’t arrive. I know you won’t.

  He screwed up his courage once more and asked his neighbour whether she was interested in astrology?

  Of course, she replied and smiled delightedly. It’s my hobby. I know how to draw up horoscopes, both radical and progressive charts. I have a whole bundle of star charts at home. Our fates are predetermined, you know. Our only problem is not knowing how to read them properly yet.

  Do you really think so? Sorry, I’m Michal.

  I’m Jane. Yes, I really do. I know so.

  May I ask you something, Jane?

  Of course, ask away, Michal, ask away, darling.

  In which house is your Uranus, Jane?

  In the house of death. And yours?

  Mine is too, Jane. So how come you risked taking this flight?

  Because there’s no escaping your fate. Only foolish people think they will manage to. The foolish are always on the run. Or on the attack. Or building towers. They think they are building towers when in point of fact they are building labyrinths in which they will die anyway.

  You’re not afraid of dying?

  Why should I be, seeing that we are going to die together? But darling, this is me, didn’t you recognize me? I disguised myself so that I could be with you. Far better to end it for good in the ocean waves than spend a holiday just outside Prague. Your house of death will be mine too!

  Leona!

  At that moment a deafening explosion shot him into the air and then there began a long, terrifying final descent into the depths. He saw the rapidly approaching surface of the water and in paralysing terror he opened his eyes. The young woman alongside him was asleep. The lights in the plane were dimmed. On the screen in front of him the dark spot of the aircraft moved across the Indian Ocean.

  When at last he disembarked at Sydney airport and found out how many dollars a three-minute phone call to Prague cost, he decided to call Leona. He announced triumphantly that he had landed in the antipodes in spite of her astrologer’s forecast.

  ‘I know you landed safely,’ she said.

  ‘You know?’ he marvelled. ‘But you prophesied …’

  ‘I miscalculated,’ she quickly interrupted him. ‘I was counting September as the tenth month, when in fact it’s the ninth, of course. I gave my astrologer faulty information. I only realized my mistake after you’d taken off. You’re a Virgo, of course, not a Libra. I don’t know how I could have made that mistake. Your Uranus wasn’t in the house of death, but in the house of love instead.’

  ‘I don’t believe this. Just imagine what would have happened if I’d let myself be dissuaded and stayed at home!’

  ‘What would have happened? You’d be with me,’ she said. ‘You ought to be with me now anyway, seeing you’ve got Uranus in your house of love.’

  (1994)

  IT’S RAINING OUT

  It was true that Judge Martin Vacek had dealt with a number of political cas
es under the old regime, but as he was only five years off retirement age, it was suggested to him that from now on he should deal exclusively with divorce cases (which, anyway, is what he used to do when he first came to the bench). He considered this to be an acceptable, even sensible proposal. He could, of course, have left the bench altogether, as several of his colleagues had done, and set up privately as a barrister, which was far more lucrative. But he was conservative by nature and had no wish to alter his daily routine and his regular journey to work, let alone have to start looking for and equipping private chambers. None the less, he consulted his wife about what he should do.

  He had been married for thirty years and had stopped loving his wife Marie long ago; in fact he could no longer remember a time when he did actually love her. Nevertheless they got on fairly well together and he had been accustomed to consult her about career decisions, and even about some of the more complicated cases he had to try. His wife, who was a year older, came from the country and had no more than elementary schooling; she had spent her life working at the post office for paltry wages. She did, however, have a natural wisdom, which was fortunately unspoilt by a legal training. Marie had plainly stopped loving him years ago too, but she looked after him almost like a mother, cooking him good meals and making sure not only that his shirts were ironed but also that he had a suitable tie to wear with them. In the course of their life together she was bound to have influenced if not his character then at least his appearance, and since they both favoured the colour grey, their very features gradually began to take on a grey hue too. In recent years they had come to regard each other as an indispensable part of the household, particularly now that their two sons had grown up and moved away and the apartment felt empty, although crammed with all sorts of essentially useless objects and knick-knacks. They barely spoke any more, although there was a time when they used to go out together to the cinema or a concert (it was the done thing for someone in his position to have a season ticket for the philharmonic concerts), or Marie would relate to him the plots of novels she had read as he didn’t have the time to. Nowadays, though, they didn’t go to the cinema and simply exchanged a few words about food, shopping, their sons or the weather, or they simply watched the television together in silence. Marie no longer told him anything about what she read, if she read anything at all these days. It therefore came as a surprise to her when he asked her whether he should remain on the bench or start something completely fresh. It was not her custom to contradict her husband and when in the past he had asked her opinion on something, she had always tried to guess the reply he was wanting to hear. ‘Divorce suits -’ she now said, that could be fairly interesting work. You’ll get to hear lots of stories.’