"Why?"
This was a trick he had used successfully for years in telephone banter: "I want to know how you're dressed right now. I want to be able to imagine you."
"I'm wearing a red dress."
"Red must suit you very well."
"Could be," she said.
"And under your dress?"
She laughed.
Yes, they all laughed when they were asked this.
"What color are your underpants?"
"Also red."
"I'm looking forward to seeing you in them," he said, hanging up. He thought he had used the right tone. For a moment he felt better. But only for a moment. He quickly realized that he was actually incapable of thinking about anything but Ruzena, and that he would have to keep conversation with his wife this
evening to the barest minimum. He stopped at the box office of a movie theater showing an American Western and bought two tickets.
8
Although she was much more beautiful than she was unhealthy, Kamila Klima was nonetheless unhealthy. Because of her fragile health she had been forced, some years before, to give up the singing career that had led her into the arms of the man who was now her husband.
The beautiful young woman who had been accustomed to admiration suddenly had a head filled with the smell of hospital disinfectant. It seemed to her that between her husbands world and her own a mountain range had sprung up.
At that time, when Klima saw her sad face, he felt his heart break and (across that imaginary mountain range) he held loving hands out to her. Kamila realized that in her sadness there was a hitherto unsuspected force that attracted Klima, softened him, brought tears to his eyes. It was no surprise that she began to make use (perhaps unconsciously, but all the more often) of this unexpectedly discovered tool. For it was only when he was gazing at her sorrowful face that she could be