Havel by David Gilbreath Barton

Author:David Gilbreath Barton [Barton, David Gilbreath]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780822987420
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press

13

HOMECOMING

THE EVENTS LEADING TO HAVEL’S RELEASE FROM prison began on a Sunday afternoon in January 1983, when he came down with a dangerous case of influenza. By evening, he had the shakes and fell into a fugue, unable to talk. That night, with his heart racing, he quivered so violently that his bed shook. By dawn, the fever had dropped slightly, although it was still a dangerously high 104 degrees Fahrenheit when he was admitted to the clinic. Three days later, X-rays revealed lung complications, probably pneumonia complicated by pleurisy. Prison officials took him by ambulance back to the same hospital in Prague where he had been operated on the previous year.1

On Havel’s first full day in Pankrác hospital, he took advantage of the relaxed censorship to write Olga a shaky note, describing his symptoms and his fear that he might be dying.2 As soon as they got the note, Olga and Ivan Havel flew into action. They immediately drove to the hospital, but the staff refused to let them enter or confirm Havel’s condition. Olga responded by telephoning Pavel Kohout, who had been exiled to Vienna in 1976. Kohout loved a good drama, and he told Olga that he would move heaven and Europe to set Havel free. As a world-famous playwright, Kohout had connections within both the literary and political worlds, and he immediately began a telephone campaign, calling Czech exiles on two continents and, according to Havel’s later account, “various Chancellors of Western European states.”3

Kohout’s campaign made an immediate impact. Havel’s imprisonment had been a constant diplomatic problem, and the state had been under increasing pressure from the governments of Western Europe to release him from prison.4 On the night of February 7, Havel’s doctors told him that President Husák had indefinitely suspended his sentence for health reasons, and he was immediately transferred by ambulance to a nonprison hospital. Suddenly he found himself addressed as “Mr. Havel,” which disoriented him almost as much as trying to figure out why there was no guard next to his gurney in the ambulance to keep him from escaping.

After Havel was admitted to the Pod Petřínem Hospital as a civilian, news of his release was broadcast on Voice of America (presumably Ivan had sent them a quick note). Havel remained in the hospital for almost a month, scores of visitors pouring into his room each day, bringing gifts, flowers, bottles of gin, samizdat texts, and messages from Charter 77. The world, Havel later said, showed him “its kindest face.” For a brief period, he had a carefree existence with no responsibilities beyond entertaining his hospital guests, who treated him like a returning hero. The euphoria wouldn’t last long, however.

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