Улбойтпчбойе: солп умбчб (вйвмйпфелб fort / Da)
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18Toilets in modern water closets rise up from the floor like white water lilies. The architect does all he can to make the body forget how paltry it is, and to make man ignore what happens to his intestinal wastes after the water from the tank flushes them down the drain. Even though the sewer pipelines reach far into our houses with their tentacles, they are carefully hidden from view, and we are happily ignorant of the invisible Venice of shit underlying our bathrooms, bedrooms, dance halls, and parliaments. The bathroom in the old working-class flat on the outskirts of Prague was less hypocritical: the floor was covered with gray tile and the toilet rising up from it was broad, squat, and pitiful. It did not look like a white water lily; it looked like what it was: the enlarged end of a sewer pipe. And since it lacked even a wooden seat, Tereza had to perch on the cold enamel rim. She was sitting there on the toilet, and her sudden desire to void her bowels was in fact a desire to go to the extreme of 157 humiliation, to become only and utterly a body, the body her mother used to say was good for nothing but digesting and excreting. And as she voided her bowels, Tereza was overcome by a feeling of infinite grief and loneliness. Nothing could be more miserable than her naked body perched on the enlarged end of a sewer pipe. Her soul had lost its onlooker's curiosity, its malice and pride; it had retreated deep into the body again, to the farthest gut, waiting desperately for someone to call it out. 19She stood up from the toilet, flushed it, and went into the anteroom. The soul trembled in her body, her naked, spurned body. She still felt on her anus the touch of the paper she had used to wipe herself. And suddenly something unforgettable occurred: suddenly she felt a desire to go in to him and hear his voice, his words. If he spoke to her in a soft, deep voice, her soul would take courage and rise to the surface of her body, and she would burst out crying. She would put her arms around him the way she had put her arms around the chestnut tree's thick trunk in her dream. Standing there in the anteroom, she tried to withstand the strong desire to burst out crying in his presence. She knew that her failure to withstand it would have ruinous consequences. She would fall in love with him. Just then, his voice called to her from the inner room. Now 158 that she heard that voice by itself (divorced from the engineer's tall stature), it amazed her: it was high-pitched and thin. How could she have ignored it all this time? Perhaps the surprise of that unpleasant voice was what saved her from temptation. She went inside, picked up her clothes from the floor, threw them on, and left. 20She had done her shopping and was on her way home. Karenin had the usual roll in his mouth. It was a cold morning; there was a slight frost. They were passing a housing development, where in the spaces between buildings the tenants maintained small flower and vegetable gardens, when Karenin suddenly stood stock still and riveted his eyes on something. She looked over, but could see nothing out of the ordinary. Karenin gave a tug, and she followed along behind. Only then did she notice the black head and large beak of a crow lying on the cold dirt of a barren plot. The bodiless head bobbed slowly up and down, and the beak gave out an occasional hoarse and mournful croak. Karenin was so excited he dropped his roll. Tereza tied him to a tree to prevent him from hurting the crow. Then she knelt down and tried to dig up the soil that had been stamped down around the bird to bury it alive. It was not easy. She broke a nail. The blood began to flow. All at once a rock landed nearby. She turned and caught sight of two nine- or ten-year-old boys peeking out from behind 159
a wall. She stood up. They saw her move, saw the dog by the tree, and ran off. Once more she knelt down and scratched away at the dirt. At last she succeeded in pulling the crow out of its grave. But the crow was lame and could neither walk nor fly. She wrapped it up in the red scarf she had been wearing around her neck, and pressed it to her body with her left hand. With her right hand she untied Karenin from the tree. It took all the strength she could muster to quiet him down and make him heel. She rang the doorbell, not having a free hand for the key. Tomas opened the door. She handed him the leash, and with the words "Hold him!" took the crow into the bathroom. She laid it on the floor under the washbasin. It flapped its wings a little, but could move no more than that. There was a thick yellow liquid oozing from it. She made a bed of old rags to protect it from the cold tiles. From time to time the bird would give a hopeless flap of its lame wing and raise its beak as a reproach. 21 She sat transfixed on the edge of the bath, unable to take her eyes off the dying crow. In its solitude and desolation she saw a reflection of her own fate, and she repeated several times to herself, I have no one left in the world but Tomas. Did her adventure with the engineer teach her that casual sex has nothing to do with love? That it is light, weightless? Was she calmer now? 160
Not in the least. She kept picturing the following scene: She had come out of the toilet and her body was standing in the anteroom naked and spurned. Her soul was trembling, terrified, buried in the depths of her bowels. If at that moment the man in the inner room had addressed her soul, she would have burst out crying and fallen into his arms. She imagined what it would have been like if the woman standing in the anteroom had been one of Tomas's mistresses and if the man inside had been Tomas. All he would have had to do was say one word, a single word, and the girl would have thrown her arms around him and wept. Tereza knew what happens during the moment love is born: the woman cannot resist the voice calling forth her terrified soul; the man cannot resist the woman whose soul thus responds to his voice. Tomas had no defense against the lure of love, and Tereza feared for him every minute of every hour. What weapons did she have at her disposal? None but her fidelity. And she offered him that at the very outset, the very first day, as if aware she had nothing more to give. Their love was an oddly asymmetrical construction: it was supported by the absolute certainty of her fidelity like a gigantic edifice supported by a single column. Before long, the crow stopped flapping its wings, and gave no more than the twitch of a broken, mangled leg. Tereza refused to be separated from it. She could have been keeping vigil over a dying sister. In the end, however, she did step into the kitchen for a bite to eat. When she returned, the crow was dead.
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