Jakub Trpiš

THE

CHOICE

2018

Publishing © 2018 Jakub Trpiš

Copyright © 2018 Jakub Trpiš

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

ISBN 978-80-907044-4-2 (print)

ISBN 978-80-907044-8-0 (ePub)

ISBN 978-80-907044-9-7 (mobi)

ISBN 978-80-907346-1-6 (PDF)

Contents

Part one: I

1/1 The car accident

1/2 Awakening

1/3 Problems

1/4 Difficult decision

1/5 Soul and ego

1/6 Open mind

1/7 Matěj

1/8 A fulfilled life

1/9 Freedom

1/10 Important news

1/11 Kohl’s family

Part two: We

2/12 The connector

2/13 The hooded boy

2/14 The team

2/15 In prison

2/16 Dream future

2/17 The miracle

2/18 What if?

2/19 Lost

2/20 All evil is for some good

2/21 A well-deserved holiday

2/22 The argument

Part three: The Choice

3/23 Between two worlds

3/24 Electoral system

3/25 Prime Minister

3/26 The interview

3/27 The key moment

3/28 Unquiet world

3/29 Bomb attacks

3/30 The final meeting

3/31 Escape from the shelter

3/32 The square

3/33 A new beginning

Prayer of the soul

Close your eyes. Stop perceiving the noise around,

And focus within.

Breathe in deep and slowly breathe out,

Like the ocean’s ebb and flow.

Perceive the vast oceans within.

Breathe in deep and slowly breathe out,

Like the wind rustling in the leaves.

Perceive the great mountains within.

Breathe in deep and slowly breathe out,

Like the sun’s aureola.

Perceive the endless universe.

Perceive the beauty here and now.

Savour this present moment.

Part one: I

1/1 The car accident

It came like a bolt from the blue. Quickly donning his jacket, Tomáš could think of only one thing: If I’d guessed I’d be seeing Eliška for the last time this morning, I wouldn’t have said good-bye that way at all. He hurried to the door and told the doorman what had happened.

‘My wife has been in an accident! I have to get to the hospital.’

Though he was trying to get a grip on his feelings, tears welled up in his eyes. He couldn’t find his staff card to open the door, but after an embarrassing silence that lasted some time the doorman let him through. Tomáš managed to thank the doorman, who called out after him sympathetically.

‘It’ll turn out all right, you’ll see!’

Outside it was raining. He turned up the collar of his brown leather jacket to at least cover up his bare neck a little. The small, cold droplets fell quietly on the chill earth.

‘Brrr, thank goodness I came to work in my car today. Otherwise I’d have to call a taxi,’ he muttered as he rummaged for his keys in his pocket. He dropped them a couple of times before he managed to unlock the door. He couldn’t recall how he got into the car, and he didn’t regain his presence of mind until he’d been driving for several minutes.

That was a mistake. Better keep my eyes on the road now, he thought. He tried to focus all his attention on his driving, but various memories kept getting the better of him. He recalled the day they had got to know each other, and another thought took him back to the home where he had grown up. It was a cold day like today, and he introduced her to his parents. She kept checking to make sure she was doing the right thing – she was really nervous.

‘Do you think they’re going to like me?’ she asked when they were on their own.

He just smiled and answered, ‘Definitely not as much as I do.’

He was half-way to the hospital when he stopped at a crossing for a red light. The rain pitter-pattered on the metal roof – and from time to time the wipers creaked lazily across the windscreen. Trickles of water streaked seamlessly across the side window, each droplet going its own way, regardless of the others. Or were they complying with some precise preordained plan? His attention shifted from the droplets to the people crossing in front of him. Their expressions were vacant, as if their bodies were on autopilot, and their minds were somewhere else entirely. When he saw two lovers he paradoxically recalled the day he had confided to her that he wasn‘t sure if he still loved her. If he’d only known what pain he would cause, he would never have let those words pass his lips. It flashed through his mind that he had to tell her what he felt about her and how much she mattered to him. This thought was rapidly overshadowed by all the others. His body filled with an unusually strong urge to tell her everything. His heart beat twice as fast. He was startled by a car hooting behind him: the lights were on green and he was standing at the crossroads holding up the traffic.

When he had spoken to a hospital nurse on the phone she didn’t tell him what had happened. He didn’t know how seriously his wife had been injured, or if her life was in danger. The uncertainty was the worst he had ever felt in his life. He wanted to immediately be with her and feel she was safe. It took him some time to find his bearings in the hospital complex. At the emergency reception he told the nearest nurse his wife’s name.

‘I’ll just ring my colleagues. Just take a seat for a moment please,’ she quietly said, disappearing through a nearby door. The section was full of people, but nobody took any notice of the distraught Tomáš, who was so on edge that he couldn’t even sit down. Is she all right? Or are the doctors fighting for her life at this very moment? Or perhaps...?! These thoughts kept going round in his head, as his mind taunted him with the darkest scenarios. Then it seemed to calm down and show him some far more optimistic possibilities. Perhaps they had just taken her to hospital for an examination, or maybe she just had concussion, he mused, letting his thoughts run their course. On the one hand he felt agitated and confused, while on the other he felt a sense of resignation. Eventually a senior nurse came up and asked him his name.

‘Come with me, Mr Jedlička,’ she said, heading towards a dimly lit corridor to the right. He followed her into a small, bright room that clearly served as a doctors’ office. A thickset, gray-haired doctor was sitting at a computer. Next to the monitor there was a photograph of a woman holding a small boy in her arms (they looked very happy). When the doctor noticed how distraught he was, he immediately put him at his ease.

‘Don’t worry. Your wife is going to be fine.’

His eyes moistened and he felt an enormous sense of joy. Suddenly he felt several years younger.

The doctor continued, ‘Your wife has had a severe shock, but fortunately there are no signs of any serious injury. Just to be certain we are going to perform some more tests on her to make sure she doesn’t have any internal injuries. We’ re going to keep her in for another couple of days. You can see her if you want. She’s in Ward C. Blanka here will tell you which room.’

Tomáš offered his hand and stammered, ‘Thank you very much.’

The doctor just smiled and walked into a side room, where his colleagues were evidently going over a diagnosis.

Tomáš asked Nurse Blanka how to get to Ward C and headed off for it at a swift pace. On the way he could not help but notice the unhappy scenes that were taking place in one of the waiting rooms. A young doctor was telling relatives that their loved one had died. A fair-haired woman went into hysterics, while the man nearby tried to comfort her, without much success. At this moment Tomáš realized just how awfully fortunate he had been. Suddenly it was of no importance that there was a leak behind the chimney flue, that he had not received a bonus at work and that he had problems with his car. He walked through the door into Ward C and asked a nurse where he could find Eliška Jedličková.

‘Room 7,’ the tall young blonde answered, smiling at him as she continued to pass out medicine. He practically ran to get to Eliška as quickly as possible. So agitated was he that he did not even knock on the door. Before he managed to reach her she had sat up in bed. They embraced, and it felt like the most beautiful feeling in the world.

She burst out crying and blurted out, ‘I didn’t see it. That car. There were children inside.’ And she began to sob again. He stroked her hair.

‘It’ll be all right, Eli. They’ll be okay, you’ll see.’

They kept hugging for a while without saying a word. After some time Eliška spoke.

‘Karolína at work was supposed to come with me, but she was late and didn’t answer my phone call, so I left on my own. When I eventually drove out, everything seemed okay.’

She then confusedly described the crossroads (while attempting to gesture, even though she could barely move her arms) where the collision happened. She should have given way, but she only spotted the other car at the last moment. At length she uttered:

‘It hit me from the right. I don’t know what would have happened if somebody had been sitting beside me.’

Tomáš listened to all this. It was extremely fortunate that Karolína had not gone with her that day. Then he told her everything he had been thinking about in the car.

‘I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to you.’

‘Just don’t think about that, dear,’ she answered, stroking his unshaven cheek. She loved the way he always put on a face when she did that. Then they carried on talking and talking. About important matters and silly things. They had not had such a good chat for a long time. Eventually a nurse appeared at the door with lunch, stating with a gruff expression:

‘Your wife must get some rest. You should be on your way now.’ She pointed at her watch. He kissed Eliška goodbye and disappeared through the doorway.

– • –

The next few days were of no great interest. It rained non-stop outside. Tomáš’s family and friends often asked him about Eliška, who was released from hospital two days later. The passengers from the other car were also all right. Perhaps it was because of the accident that they both decided to take off for the mountains that weekend. They were able to spend three days at their best friend Ondra’s chalet. Ondra always had a strange sense of humour. When he saw Tomáš’s wife (with the scar healing on her forehead) he immediately started ribbing her:

‘Why do you give us such worries, Eliška? Didn’t you see the car or something?’ and he started laughing. Tomáš now found this quite amusing.

On the Friday they headed off for the Jeseník Mountains. The chalet was quite high up with no road leading to it, so they parked the car in a parking lot below and they had to keep going on foot for another two hours.

Several rained-off days later the sky was cloudless, and it grew warmer. Having walked for about five minutes they met a young woman with an Alsatian dog running free without a muzzle.

‘Don‘t be afraid, she’s never bitten anyone,’ her mistress smiled proudly.

‘The fact she has never done it before doesn’t mean I won’t be the first,’ Tomáš retorted, smiling to cover up his fear.

They walked deeper and deeper into the forest. Not a living soul to be seen. The further they got from civilization, the better Tomáš felt. The trees around them seemed to light up. He left the path a little when he saw a young fir tree some three metres tall. The ends of its branches had beautiful green needles. This year’s growth, he thought, pulling one of the branches to his face. It had a magnificent smell, reminding him of his youth. He had spent a lot of time with his grandfather in the mountains.

He was naive in those days and thought he could change the world. He wanted to visit every single mountain, as well as places that were not even on the map. To be the first where no one had gone before. As he thought of his carefree childhood, he remembered the children he taught at school. He suddenly regretted the fact that he always removed their rose-tinted spectacles whenever they described what they wanted to be when they grew up. If I didn’t do it then somebody else most certainly would, he had tried telling himself. Somebody has to tell them how the world works. He looked at the trees again, but now they just looked ordinary again. One more time he sniffed the young fir and set off at a rapid pace along the path after Eliška. By the time they arrived back at the chalet the sun had already set behind the ridge and the air had grown chilly. Everywhere peace and quiet. The orange glow on the horizon gradually faded into grey and a frosty autumn night settled over the mountains.

When they opened the creaking door they first checked to see how clean and tidy it all was.

‘We mustn’t leave it any untidier than we first found it,’ she smiled.

‘It’s not that bad,’ he decided, having gone over the chest of drawers opposite the fireplace with his finger, while flashing his usual little-boy smile. He lit a fire in the fireplace, while Eliška prepared a modest supper.

‘Tomorrow we can go up to the lookout tower. What do you think?’ he suggested.

‘Do I have a choice?’

‘Ah, you and your fear of heights,’ he smiled slyly.

‘Ah, you and your fear of dogs,’ she retorted.

Tomáš rather enjoyed the evening. They reminisced about various incidents from the past.

‘And do you remember what your father said when you brought me home?’ she asked him.

‘How could I forget? He yelled, ‘‘Thank God. I thought you were gay!’’ Then he fell on his knees and gave you a hug.’ They both burst out laughing.

‘It was only later that I understood your dad’s really weird sense of humour.’

‘Just like you have got used to mine,’ and he stuck his finger up her nose.

‘Hey,’ Eliška laughed, as she defended herself. ‘You are a dummy.’

But then she grew serious and her voice quivered. ‘Whenever I close my eyes I see shards of glass flying everywhere, and my ears are shattered by the grating metal sound of those cars. I can’t get the noise out of my head.’

He stroked her chestnut hair and embraced her, placing her head on his chest. The beating of his heart soothed her, and she soon felt safe. Her memory of the crash slowly dissolved, like ice thawing in spring sunshine.

Outside it was really cold and dark. The windows had misted up. The wood in the fireplace crackled as it gave off a pleasant warmth. The fire lit up the cosy room’s walls with its hand-painted pictures of chalets and log cabins, which had hung there for over a century (each painting was dated). They chatted for a while and then made love. Over the last year their sexual life had not been all that passionate. They had tried to conceive. Recently his doctor had told him the worst: he couldn’t have his own children. Perhaps that was why over the last few months their relationship had cooled. Perhaps that was why they didn’t enjoy sex that much. They had tried so hard for a pregnancy that they’d forgotten what fun sex could be.

A thought passed throughTomáš’s mind as he fell asleep: It wasn’t that bad at all today.

1/2 Awakening

Tomáš awoke to a chilly morning. It was still dark. The lights in the shelter did not turn on until seven o‘ clock, enabling him to at least tell if it was daytime or not. A strange smell wafted through the air, stinging his eyes. Like every morning he ‘made himself’ a glass of water, pouring it from a jerrycan into a little cup with an engaging faded kitsch picture of a dog on it, and tossed a chlorine tablet into it. It didn’t go down very well, but he had become quite used to the peculiar taste, and it always made him think of the taste of clean drinking water. Of course, he was still a lot better off than on the surface, or even in an adaptation camp. Thousands of people that had been caught and successfully identified by the police and the army were taken off there every day. The civil war had been raging throughout Europe, and he had lost sight of who was fighting whom. He put his feet on the rough floor and shivered. It was cold and damp. He quickly put his shoes on and stood up.

He noticed his neighbour was not lying on his bed. It took him a while to realize he had perished in a roof-fall a couple of days earlier.

He walked out of a medium-sized dormitory, where some twenty of them were sleeping, and headed down a dark corridor towards the showers. The walls were dirty and wet. The hum of a giant ventilator pumping fresh air from the surface down to this part of the complex echoed along the empty corridor. It once used to be the underground Metro. During the war the underground tunnels had been used as shelters for hundreds of thousands of people. The fighting had rampaged all over the world. Dozens of atom bombs had fallen on China, the USA and Japan, while a new kind of virus, probably a biological weapon, raged across Africa. Europe had been ravaged by civil war, while Asia had seen a once-in-a-millennium famine and the continual waves of refugees could barely be contained in Australia, which as the only country that maintained neutral status was now struggling with huge overpopulation and pirate raids.

Nobody could now remember when the war had started. Nobody was sure which side this nation or that was on. Some countries changed sides during the conflict as often as their governments were replaced by various insurgent factions. People worldwide were plagued by fear and mistrust. Nobody could be sure if the next faction to seize power would find them inconvenient. The Czech Republic was now in a tug of war between movements made up of military personnel from Russia before its collapse.

People stopped saying what they thought and started parroting the opinions of those in power. Too many of their relatives had disappeared after they tried to change things. Tomáš’s thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a scream. Perhaps someone has been robbed again, he thought. Eventually he got to the showers. The queue was shorter than usual, so it was soon his turn. Alas a five-minute shower a week barely patched up his ailing, languishing body, and he took care in the shower not to touch anything much with his bare skin, as various skin diseases were rife throughout the shelter. After showering, he went off to the canteen for breakfast. He bent over the dirty, greasy hatch and muttered between clenched teeth: ‘Thirty-four.’ Of all the meals served there, this one was at least edible, even if it bore about as much resemblance to ordinary food as chess did to other sports. As he ate he looked around. Everyone was staring at their own plate in silence.

Again he became absorbed in his thoughts. It might well have been awful in the shelter, but he was still very lucky. He was a healthy man with a decent background and an outstanding teacher. They had found him a job at the central shelter. Originally it was the Prague Metro, but that had stopped running soon after the first bombing raids had become a regular part of life. His job was now to teach the children of the leading politicians (that is, the ones currently in power) at a local school. He glanced at his scuffed old watch, gulped down a last mouthful and hurried off to his lessons.

The children in his class wore careworn, grown-up expressions. They should have been enjoying a carefree childhood, but they barely smiled and only spoke among themselves when it was really necessary. One little girl in a blue dress looked at him differently. When he looked her over he noticed bruises on her hand, while her face was greasy and almost expressionless. She looked like a doll that had been thrown into the gutter years ago. He often had to give her a shake to bring her round. Apart from teaching the children he also had the task of providing his biological material for selected women. Here his thoughts returned to Eliška. She should have been in the shelter with him, but something had gone wrong. The transport hadn’t made it. Now she was almost certainly dead. He bowed his head and started to pound his forehead with his fist. Two children on the first row raised their heads for a moment, but then got back to their copying work.

Tomáš lost all hope when he found out about his wife’s death. He would never forget that day. Everywhere was dark, dank and terribly cold. The frost and despair crept into the marrow of his bones, as if iced water were being pumped into his veins. There was nothing on earth to console him. He used the last of his money to buy adulterated alcohol and a rope, but at the last moment he was rescued. Nobody said anything to him. Suicides were frequent here. No one wanted to live like a rat underground. Nobody wanted a life without hope any more. The world had become a dark place. This darkness could be felt at every step and could be seen in the eyes of everybody he looked at. The little girl in the blue dress, who he had just been watching, stood up from her desk. Her pitiful, greasy face leant over his shoulder so she could whisper to him:

End of excerpt