Vyhľadávanie
1.
The ambulance entered the long passageway slowly, almost hesitantly. There were two families living in the house: Miss Cusster with her sick, elderly sister in the front part, nearer to the road, and Philip Rappay, his wife and two daughters in the back.
The ambulance drew up at the back of the hall, outside Philip Rappay’s door. The driver and his assistant jumped out of the vehicle, opened the rear doors and pulled out the dead body of Philip Rappay, wrapped up in a sheet.
Just at that moment the door in the front part of the house opened and Miss Cusster peered out. When she realised what was happening, she went back inside, only to appear again after a short while. This time, however, she left the door open and the amplified tones of light music wafted through it. Miss Cusster had put her gramophone on and her face was so flushed and radiant, you could see she was elated about something and this something was that they had just brought the deceased Philip Rappay home.
Miss Cusster stepped out into the road, where several people had gathered; she went over to them and, when asked what had happened, she said cheerfully: “Cancer, Philip has died of cancer, it’s got him, too, though the Lord could have let him suffer a bit longer... But today is a great day for me, because my worst enemy has died...
People stared in amazement at Miss Cusster, who made no attempt to disguise the gleeful expression on her face.
2.
What had in fact happened?
Philip Rappay had had a long-standing feud with Miss Cusster.
He had wanted to buy a plot of land from his neighbour to build a little house. One day he had gone to see her. Miss Cusster was at home, she had backache and was sitting with a book open on her lap. When Rappay came in, she laid aside the book and stood up.
“Come in, Philip,” she said.
“Good afternoon,” he greeted her.
“Have you come alone?” asked Miss Cusster and Philip looked round to see if there was anyone behind him. “Then sit down” the woman went on, “this one’s sturdier,” she said, pushing a chair towards him.
Miss Cusster knew why Philip had come, but she didn’t want to be the one to start.
Philip lit a cigarette, hesitated as he wondered where to put the match, but when she handed him an ash tray, he plucked up courage.
“Berta,” he said, “I want to build a house for my children.”
“I know,” was Miss Cusster’s response and she clicked her tongue.
“I want to build it next to here. We’d still be neighbours,” he went on. “But I need to buy a bit of your land, a bit of your garden…”
“I don’t know whether we’ll still be neighbours,” Miss Cusster said almost dreamily and turned off the radio.
“That’s just why I’m here,” said Philip, “so we can come to some agreement. You’re a widow and the money could come in handy…”
“I don’t need money, Philip, I don’t need anything apart from what I’ve already got. And I won’t sell you any land! I’d rather give it to the school next door…”
“You won’t sell?”
“I won’t, Philip, and that’s that!”
“That’s your last word?”
“It is,” said Miss Cusster, turning her back on Philip, as if she was no longer concerned.
“Then I’ll have to wait for you to die,” said Philip sadly. “The only person who’ll inherit from you is your sister and she’s promised to sell me the land… Or if not to me, then at least to my children…”
“Ha, you should be ashamed of yourself, trying to blackmail me like that,” she shouted. “I hope something terrible happens to you!”
3.
And indeed, a week later Philip was carried off to hospital.
He was in a ward with three other men.
Every day he saw their sallow faces, full of fear and dread. Suddenly he felt scared.
His conscience pricked him.
Not only because, in his own way, he believed in God.
He was old enough, he told himself, to think about death.
He asked himself: isn’t the Lord punishing me for being bad, for wanting to get my hands on Cusster’s land? Maybe she really had been thinking of giving it to the school next door. And I wanted to stop her doing it.
I stopped her from doing a good deed and so in fact I did a bad one… But that isn’t true, he began to defend himself, so far I haven’t done that woman any wrong and I’m reproaching myself without reason… Or I’m afraid to confess my real guilt and sins…
His conscience troubled him.
When the pains got worse and the doctors didn’t even tell him what illness he’d got, he was convinced that God was punishing him for everything bad he’d done.
Sometimes he felt like asking the man lying in the bed next to him who often groaned with pain, whether he, too, had done something wrong if he was suffering so much.
One day he couldn’t stop himself.
“What have you done?” he asked, convinced that the man must be a murderer at the very least.
His neighbour turned towards him or, in fact, turned just his head to look at him and without any sign of surprise, said: “I fell off a roof.”
Philip felt relieved, because he thought, aha, he was going to burgle someone.
“And what were you doing on the roof?” he asked suspiciously.
His neighbour was quiet for a while and that only convinced Philip that he was right and that his neighbour was feeling shy out of shame.
However, his neighbour replied: “Some pigeons fell out of their nest into the gutter and I wanted to save them, they were such tiny little things. I fell and damaged my spine.”
Philip felt ashamed and retreated into himself.
He pondered.
The man next to him had wanted to do good and he’d slipped and fallen.
And then it occurred to him…
Maybe what I did was good, too?
And he went on.
Could the worst and the best be here?
God makes the bad ones ill to punish them.
And the good ones, because He loves them.
My neighbour is probably good and he’s here because God loves him and wants to put him to the test.
I’m bad and God is punishing me with pain.
God must hate me.
But can God hate if He is good? Can God hate if He is God?
After all, God knows how to forgive.
So he asked his neighbour.
“Can God hate?”
His neighbour laughed.
“I don’t believe in God,” he said and Philip shuddered.
He was thrown off his balance.
How’s that, he wondered. My neighbour doesn’t believe in God and he acted nobly, I on the contrary believe in God, but I’ve done a lot of bad things too… And both of us are sick and suffering.
But why does someone who believes in God also behave badly and someone who doesn’t believe in Him behave well.
And can there be anyone at all who believes in God and only behaves well, or does not believe in God and only behaves badly?
The first would then be better, the second worse.
And does God exist anyway...?
And who am I, what kind of person am I?
He asked his neighbour: “What kind of person am I?”
“You are what you do, you can judge a person by their deeds,” said his neighbour.
Yes, he could agree with that, a person is what he makes of himself.
But why then do all people suffer? Both the good and the bad?
Could it be that God does not know what we are like?
Doesn’t God know us at all?
Doesn’t He care about us?
“Why do we all suffer alike, believers and non-believers, good and bad…?” he asked his neighbour.
“We must all die some time,” said his neighbour. “That’s the only justice in the world…”
“And what about immortality?” he asked.
“The only immortal thing is the electron,” his neighbour replied.
Philip Rappay died before morning came, but it was only after his death that he smiled a contented smile.
Translated by Heather Trebatická
