pened (these were miraculous moments) that he could suddenly grasp, in a single one of her gestures or movements, the entire history of her body and soul. These were moments of absolute clairvoyance but also of absolute emotion; for the woman who had loved him when he was still a nobody, who had been ready to sacrifice everything for him, who so understood his thoughts that he could talk to her about Armstrong or Stravinsky, about trivial and serious things, she was closer to him than any other human being… Then he imagined that this lovely body, this lovely face, was dead, and he felt he would be unable to survive her by a single day. He knew that he was capable of protecting her to his last breath, that he was capable of giving his life for her.

But this stifling sensation of love was merely a feeble fleeting glimmer, because his mind was wholly preoccupied by anxiety and fear. He lay beside Kamila, he knew he loved her boundlessly, but he was absent mentally. He caressed her face as if he were caressing it from an immeasurable distance some hundreds of kilometers away.

Second Day

1

It was about nine in the morning in the spa town when an elegant white sedan pulled up in the parking lot at the edge of the spa proper (automobiles were not permitted any farther) and Klima stepped out of it.

Running through the spa was a long, narrow park with scattered clusters of trees, sand paths, and colorful benches on the lawn. Along both sides of the park stood the thermal center's buildings, among them Karl Marx House, where the trumpeter had spent a couple of fateful hours one night in Nurse Ruzena's little room. Facing Karl Marx House on the other side of the park was the spa's most handsome structure, a building in the turn-of-the-century art nouveau style covered with stucco embellishments and with broad steps leading up to the entrance and a mosaic over it. It alone had been accorded the privilege of keeping its original name: Hotel Richmond.