Vyhľadávanie
FOOTSTEPS IN THE ROOMS
1
In the most difficult days, when he no longer knew what to do, he used to whisper: Mother, Mother! And yet he knew that she was no longer alive, though he did feel that she was around and helping him. And how was his Mother? Well, as all mothers are. Good and sweet like honey. His tribute to her will sound moving even to us.
His Mother? Ever since her youth, she used to work in the Jewish families, those childishly resistant members of the Body of Christ, and she served them until her death, in order to support them and cultivate them and prepare them for the longed for meeting with the Lord Jesus, whom they longed for ever since the times of Abraham, Jacob, and Isaac and whom they found in the concentration camps, torture rooms, and gas chambers. He will never be able to express sufficient gratitude to his Mother even though he had attempted to build for her an excellent monument in his elegy Requiem for Mother. She brought him and his siblings up with the donations she had received for her washing.
Oh, what didn't he thank his Mother for every time! But above all, he was grateful for the touching songs of her young soul, as he imbibed them daily like his milk. As she was saintly, she had to die young so that he could promise over her grave as a child that he would become a priest, as a sacrifice for all, whether it would make them happy, or move them to beat him up. He was faithful to his promise and became a priest. But what an impossible priest, since he would offer his services to anyone he would meet and offer them in vain, for ever drunken with pain for not being needed. Nobody needed him. “He came to his own and his own people did not accept him.” (John I:11) That was why he, ever since his childhood, had no home. And even these five rooms, where he used to live alone in constant loneliness, would not replace his Mother and would not conjure up the magic of his home.
That was why he would so instinctively cling to the homeless, the beggars, the Gypsies, the Jews; that was how the sacrifice of his own Mother dazzled him. The fruit of this mysterious orientation was that a Jewish doctor prophesied to him right after the war: “Have no fear. Nothing bad will happen to you, since you are a poet and as such, you love birds of passage most of all, and your desire pulls you towards God. You will experience unpleasantness, since unconsciously you exaggerate and make light of everything. You should rejoice even though you are strangely sad as you stand and look at the river flowing majestically and now roaring, now silently passing and that roar and silence is both within you. They fear that silence most of all...”
He entered that house of loneliness fourteen years ago and he did not go mad only because he liked to meditate over the words of Our Lord Jesus to Peter: “when you were young you put on your own belt and walked where you liked; but when you grow old you will stretch out your hands, and somebody else will put a belt round you and take you where you would rather not go.” (John XXI: 18)
2
Mornings! Long and sad like mountain wells to which the cold dew falls so silently that they are not disturbed in their deep contemplation. During such mornings, he preferred to be alone, washing his soul with prayers, psalms, and hymns and in concentration and attention blessing all those who were leaving their houses to earn their daily bread “to labour till evening falls.” (Psalms XXIV:23) He glorified them and raised them into the height. They were unaware of it, but felt it in their hearts when they later heard the subtle voices of the bell rang by their priest himself and they felt so good that he was walking with them. In the sacrifice he walks with them and joins with them and they with his spirit so that this truth really enters their blood and nurtures them according to the words he had told them when preaching to them for the first time: “You are mine and I am yours and we all belong to God, so let us always praise the Lord Jesus!” None of the flowers are sweet for themselves; the bees fly over, the flowers open up to the sun, for how could one resist such music? When the dandelions bent down their little heads and moved to and fro as the bees sat on them, his heart trembled with new songs and silence, above all by silence, with that extreme sweetness that oozed from his soul and radiated all around. And the higher the sun ascended, the more his hope for the everlasting glory increased in him. He felt ready to give it to anyone, in order to re-conquer it without comfort and sweating blood to get a more beautiful and sure hope from the miraculous depths of inexhaustible life—and in this state of mind a letter from Bratislava reached him: “Why did I leave religion?” It was a cutting from a newspaper.
Underneath was a typed comment: “When will you follow, Mr. Poet?
Look, your colleague has done it already. He knows in whom he put his trust...”
It was slap, a gobble of spit in his face, but he did not become sad. It just brought him to his knees, paralysed his members and who knows how long he had spent lying on the floor until he recovered from the faint because of sudden and persistent cramps. Like a bound little lamb he was only waiting in resignation and without complaint and even with an open indifference if his sacrifice will become realized the same day or tomorrow. He knew only one thing: that he will have to undergo this sacrifice as there was no escape and no need for one either.
The sun was setting, but not his love that the letter so insensitively ridiculed. On the contrary. His love was smiling, threatened by all sorts of monsters of hellish dominions. Was it not a miracle that his love was not afraid? His love was singing.
3
How disappointed he was by this parish, it seemed like a desert. When his Father visited him for the first time, the priest said: “You know, Father, this is what happened: I asked for a proper parish last year, in Oravský Podzámok. But the Bishop has returned my request. I also returned my request. I can read from my letter.
There, you see, I came only because of obedience.
And maybe this is for the best, when we agree with what God wants. Your will be done!”
4
If I were to believe what one of my lady friends told me, that I was a descendant of some Egyptian Princess, then it would explain my apparent and constant interest in poetry, in sun, in Nephretete, the greatest beauty of the Earth. There is just one thing that does not seem to fit: the lady could not explain how it is possible that I still love the Jews if I come from Egypt. (What followed could not be deciphered, unless one wanted to create from individual words or syllables a surrealist still life. What probably happened was that the priest ended up crying for a long time over a page in the diary penned in a grade one student's hand.)
5
And so this priest on his way to die said the following: “In this Communism we also don't know who we are, and for the Church it would not be too bad either, since we live, worry, while the soul is praying and rejoicing, if only they left the priests alone and stopped imprisoning them.” Really, this was his last sigh. A silent and persevering one.
I am writing it down like an evangelist. He who believes me, praises God. I am writing it like this because it was followed by a banal sentence: I have a little dog. His name is Lux. I am a smoker and I reflexively thought about cigarettes. And cigars: “Havana Lux—aromatisch, würzig, naturrein.” Only then did it hit me that in Slovak Lux means light.
And this was followed by a unique sentence about the dog who was always faithful: And he is smarter than five people. Not even Abraham had sank so low in classifying when arguing with God how many just men were in the world.
Then there were some ten illegible lines, maybe they were consumed by alcohol, but what I did manage to decipher I offer without a comment as a gossip, as a song that surely contains some truth: Magellan. Even though Magellan was a great conqueror, he died a stupid death by the hands of the natives. How else can I die when everyone around me surrendered and nobody is protecting me? Except for God. And God likes to crucify his beloved. “For this is how God loved the world...” (John III:16)
6
Unwelcome visitors often visited the priest. He commented this way about them to please the welcome visitors: “How tired is the lonely heart day by day! “ Today, when I was sitting by the smaller door in the garden, in my garden, where there is silence and greenery, bright and healing greenery, I was feeding the ducklings and behind the fence was a little boy, just a little stripling, maybe a four-grader, shouting at me: 'Father, three cops are coming for you. You better hide from them!' I did not react. Then he shouted the same. I shouted back: 'Be quiet!' And my tone was clear and calm and communicated the fact that I was no longer young and that little boy should have some respect for my age. But he replied even more capriciously, so certain that I could not catch him even if I jumped right over the fence: 'I won't be quiet, I won't!' I don't know why I heard in my ears the song 'I'm not going to be good, I won't!' when the snot-nose went on shouting: 'Cops are after you! How afraid you are, what a shame! You are afraid of everything!' and so on. He was shouting, yelling, really and he did not quit until I went into the rectory. What else could I do, but hide, even though I wanted to enjoy the magical day in May, at the silent and warm approach of the evening? And I had felt so very good when I thought for how many years I have been breathing in this lonely house. I particularly stress the word “breathing.” Inhaling is inspiration and that connects it to spirit. But how hard it is for the spirit to really live. Here everything weakens it, making it dead, and abandoned. How pathetic it is when it can no longer bear to hear insults. But it still lives in me and I can even sing:
A precious day of May.
Same as every time.
I'm sad like you, I say,
When it kills this soul of mine.
All that's breathing in us,
That calls for dear God.
Enemy? I'm priest, alas.
May death get its nod!
No more defence for me
Have no more power
Loved ones left me,
There is no other.
7
And when I read through these thirty pages a policeman came. There was a regular interrogation. “A priest has died. What do you know about his death?” I heard that he was killed at night. We are before the elections. How will it sound with rumours that he was killed by the Communists?
“I beg your pardon? Why do you have to blame the Communists for all the bad things that happen? Some time ago, when they shot a priest in Dolný Liptov, I was told by a man that it was done by some underground Catholic organization. And why could this thing here not be done by some hooligans? Same as the case with the grave of Mr. Vitališ in Podturňa?”
Boys and girls gathered there. The deceased was visited by odd company, the police must have known about it, as he reported that church money was stolen during the daytime robbery and they even took his linen, so don't tell me there were no criminals. There were, and had I known that during that critical night there was somebody in there and he fought with someone to protect his life, then I would be the first one to report that. Whoever would keep quiet would be an accomplice to murder. Then he asked: “And where are his manuscripts? His historical writings? We know that he wrote critically about the State.” I answered: You should have confronted him when he was alive and deal with it; why did you neglect it ?
Now it looks like every priest, according to you, is writing against the State when he writes. But seriously: this dead man, even though he was not quite a friend of mine, and I did not agree with him, still, I would defend this dead man till the last drop of my blood. When he wrote, he wrote truth. His manuscripts were taken by his brother. You can verify that. (I did not confess that I had copies of his diary, it was such a pious lie on my side, for I liked them very much and would not let them out of my hands. I think that everyone will gladly pardon me this transgression against the police.) And when this gentleman left and after I had formally complained to his superiors about his improper behaviour, I continued reading the diary of the dead man. That dear diary, that astonishing diary.
An Evening at the Big Franciscan Wine Cellar
Excursions and trips are really great. One forgets how lonely one is and that one is most lonely not at home, when alone, but on the main promenade of the capital city with its hustle and bustle with no regard for rules and you could ask: Well good, this is all very nice and it is a distraction to walk and walk aimlessly, but is there some refreshment around here, too? And this was how the priest came into the cosy wine cellar of the Franciscans where they offered a good wine from the barrel.
There were three people sitting there: a priest and his two friends: an Editor and a Professor. Nomina sunt odiosa—no need to name them. The music was playing and actually disturbing, too. But in those longed for breaks, in the sweet silence, that we least respect, with a good meal and wine that we respect very much, one could have a good talk. And so the Editor asked: “How was it with the trial? We heard that they've tried you in Žilina on account of literature.” The priest answered: “Nothing special. I thought it would be more terrible. And I was properly prepared for the terrible possibility. I took it as any peasant would. The Court is a Court and when you are tried, devil knows if and when you come back. The main thing is to keep your honour, even if you lose everything else.
And so I prepared a little suitcase with all the necessities when one is not sure of returning home. And so I set out without telling anyone. Only a good neighbour of mine saw me off. At the Court ,seven of us were gathered. First we prayed. Then they took us in one by one. Those who were after the interrogation could listen to the other interrogations. I was the third to go, as in the game of third man. I stepped in and put my little suitcase down at the door. Nobody noticed it. And why should they, being only interested in words. So I stood there as one is supposed to at the Court. There were questions and answers and after the introduction, the most piquant was the following:
Judge: “They seized from you a book entitled: Inside the Soviet Prisons. Is that the kind of books they made you read in the seminary?”
I: “Not quite. In the seminary we learned about the faith and morals and other things of use to a priest in his work. The book in question came out in 1933, published by Vilímek in Prague and I bought it while still a secondary school student. I was interested in any kind of literature, Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, and you can check out my library to see what sort of things I read. Why are you asking me? Is it in order to find out whether they praise or condemn Soviet Union?
Of course they do. But in my library I not only have anticommunist books, but also Communist ones. You don't want me to list them all...”
Judge: “They seized from you a manuscript of Let Us Glorify. Were you planning to publish it in case the regime collapsed?”
I: “I beg your pardon? That's my book that has already been published in 1941 in Trnava and this manuscript with illustrations remained in my archive, since the second edition planned for 1947 was not published.”
The last question of the judge: “What was your father's occupation in 1933, when this anti-Soviet book came out?”
I: “Labourer.”
Judge: “What was his situation?”
I: (instructed by my friends to speak briefly and wisely at Court) “He didn't do well.”
Judge: “And how does he do now?”
I: “He is on a disability, as he was hurt in Vienna, where he worked, and now gets 500 crowns. He's not complaining.”
After this interrogation, almost ecstatic that I was let go and wouldn't have to answer every one of their questions, and even though I did not know how things stood with me, I started to run towards my little suitcase that I had left at the door, so that I have it with me when I sit down and listen, but I hurried so fast that I woke up the Prosecutor and he stopped me on my way just when I was about to sit down and said: “What's going on? You came here with a little suitcase?”
I: “Mr. Prosecutor, when a person from a village goes to Court for the first time in his life, he counts with everything.”
Prosecutor: “And what do you have in that little suitcase?”
I: “Well, a breviary, a little piece of bacon and a towel and other little things...”
And the Court laughed at it and in this case it had a hearty laugh. But I became sad when my friend, who was interrogated before me, whispered to me as soon as I sat down:
'You idiot, do you think they would let you keep the suitcase had they arrested you?'
I was back home in the evening. And very glad of it.”
And when I finished this story—so that we could silently laugh over our destiny—we ordered another litre of wine from the barrel.
Conclusion: “Everybody has his own fate,” said the Professor. Yes, I agreed, but we usually accept this fate from the hands of our neighbours. We have to pray for them to be good, to be good also to us...
In Poprad
After my shopping, I was sitting in the station restaurant, having a glass of red wine. My coat was on the chair, my cane in my hand, my bag at my feet, and my hat on the table, tuned upside down (I was perspiring when I arrived and did not want to mess up the table with the wetness). I was reading Slovak Views smoking, a drinking the red wine. The restaurant was packed. On my right, female students were giggling. On my left, behind a narrow passage through which flew girl waitresses in miniskirts, sat men with long hair. Suddenly one of them got up and dropped four white coins, that is, four ten- haller coins into my hat. Without uttering a word. In a flash, I gathered that he considered me a beggar, whether he was joking or serious. And I have spilled the coins out on the table and put the hat back where it was before. So it was like a bowl and i was wondering if the other man would also date to give me alms. But my reaction, not saying a word, not approaching them to start an argument or telling them to observe at least the elementary decency in a restaurant, was so effective that the two just sat there dumbfounded and wordless. Finally, even their eyes looked embarrassed. And I looked around normally as if nothing had happened and if they consider me a beggar, then it was all right with me. Those coins belonged to me and I left them lying there, having overcome the temptation to get up, take out a hundred-crown bill and put it on the young man's table. I would have done that if I knew that he will not slap my face for it. I was not strong enough for a fist fight any more. And so I got up and went over to the platform, as the train was already due, only to learn that it was delayed by an hour. So I stood there, reading a news magazine, continued smoking and enjoying the spring weather that was approaching already. I don't feel like offending the place where I have spent 21 years working. But I can a question: Wasn't that man with long hair my close neighbour?
And when I safely returned home (thanks to God) an old beggar knocked at my rear door and came to wish me Happy Easter. He told me that he was getting only 400 crowns for his pension and that he would need a nice hat and then? Well, then he would need a better bag where to put the bread and other necessary things to keep his body going. And I told him: We are all beggars. I, too am alone like you and I, too, come from Martin. Here is twenty crowns. I don't have anything else for you, since I, too , am alone and poor like you...
Razor's Work
What can one expect from people who do not yet, or no longer believe in Christ when even a Christian, the more sinful he is, the more objectionably he behaves towards his own priest. Of course, he who sins crucifies our Lord again, so how can he be nice to another Christ? So that one, too, has to be crucified, unconditionally. This, exactly this, was clear to the priest like the slaps that he daily received from all those who were supposed to kiss his hands and, indeed, even to wash his feet according to the example of Mary Magdalene. In his loneliness he only longed for her, the sinful Mary Magdalene, only to her was he able to tell about his troubles, about his loves and suffering, but she never came to him. And so he was sinking deeper and deeper into his loneliness and daily sighed: “they repay my kindness with cruelty” (Psalms XXXV:12). He felt so useless and unneeded! This was a loneliness that was not a question imperfection or ridicule (see: why are you like that? Nobody takes you seriously!), but simply a clinical case.
His nerves failed him. During a night when his sleep did not come, he wanted to summon it by force, so that it would last longer than usually. He ate some powders, kept eating them, but the sleep was still far away. And nearby was only anxiety and emptiness. He suffered, the poor man, cried out, moaned, that is reflected while sweating blood until he made his decision (nobody actually knows whether he wanted it this way: others suffer for Christ's sake in prisons, they are tortured, tormented and only death liberates them, the death unites them with Lord Jesus in a most beautiful wedding of souls—and I should be so cowardly and passive? No, no, no! Dear Lord Jesus, I really love you, and repeat after Peter: You know everything and you know that I love you , even when I call out with Peter: Get away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man). Lord Jesus, I long for you—and as soon as he blabbered that out unconsciously (his head was heavy and enormous, like the Tatra Mountains) as if in the fever sighing of his highest love, the razor began to do its work: that blue, foreign, razor of real steel, one that levels everything so there is peace and quiet like in a cemetery, a shiny razor that he probably discovered in the night table cowering in the corner of a drawer and he looked kind if apathetic and only kept silent and was right to keep silent as he moved from up down, from the heaven to the earth, cutting, cutting in resignation his veins on his arms. Both of them. The blood was already foaming, he was drowning in his love and it foamed even more beautifully to welcome the peace. He fainted. He recovered consciousness only in the hospital, when the young female doctor told him: “You know how to cut, but not too professionally. You were cutting vertically, not horizontally, to make it work.” And his eyes opened and one could see in his stare how angry and sad he was, very sad after the most difficult test of his life that he failed and that natural anger, the one that is the least controllable one was aimed at his Guardian Angel. He felt like beating him up. And yet, the angel was helping him faithfully but now the priest became certain that the angel, too, failed and stepped back. Stepped back from him the same way as others have done during his entire lonely life. He would probably never realize until his death what they just told him, since the truth is that he wanted to do it professionally, in the most professional manner and come directly to God.
That the verticality, the way he cut himself with the razor. The wounds were cured by the doctors quite easily and his body was healed so that he could bear in his soul his abandonment in all humility like a standard of his greatest love:
Thrushes were singing
But he no longer understood
He only stood and stood and stood
in the darkness of despairing.
How could he know that life
is simple as he embraced it
as tight with his virtues as he might
that he became afraid
and ran away from himself
only to find himself in distress
a dedicated slave of truth
a king of humility
Now sadness imprisons him
For his conceit
of loving God excessively
to the point of dying improperly.
As the thrushes were singing
while he, uncomprehending, stood?
Good will overcome evil
and love will overcome death and grief.
How will he build, he sighed,
new bridges to the eternity?
O, privations, o, fasts...
Again he bitterly cried.
And from on high
God looked at him and smiled.
Translated by Peter Petro
