Life Is Elsewhere by Kundera Milan & Asher Aaron

Author:Kundera, Milan & Asher, Aaron [Kundera, Milan & Asher, Aaron]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Classics, Fiction, Literary, Philosophy, Contemporary
ISBN: 9780060997021
Amazon: 0060997028
Goodreads: 44559
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Published: 1973-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

26

Mama read the poems Jaromil silently put on her table and tried to read the life of her son between the lines. If only the poems were written in plain language! Their sincerity was deceptive; they were full of puzzles and hints; Mama knew that her son's head was full of women, but she knew nothing about what he did with them.

So she ended up opening Jaromil's desk drawer and rummaging in it for his diary. She knelt on the floor and leafed through it emotionally; the entries were terse, but even so she could discern that her son was in love; because he designated his beloved only with an initial, Mama was unable to tell who the woman was; on the other hand, with a passion for detail Mama found repugnant, he gave the date of their first kiss and the dates when he first touched her breasts and her buttocks.

Then she came to a date written in red and decorated with numerous exclamation marks; the entry read: "Tomorrow! Tomorrow! Ah, dear bald-headed old Jaromil, when you read this many years from now, remember that on this day began the real history of your life!"

Thinking quickly, she recalled that this was the day she had left Prague with Grandmama; and she recalled that on her return she had found her precious little perfume bottle unstoppered in the bathroom; she had asked Jaromil what he had been doing with her perfume, and he answered, embarrassed: "I was playing with ..." Oh, how stupid she had been! She remembered that when Jaromil was small he wanted to be an inventor of perfumes, and this memory was touching. Therefore she merely said: "You're a bit too big to be playing such games!" But now everything was clear: a woman had been in the bathroom, the woman with whom Jaromil had spent that night in the villa and with whom he had lost his virginity.

She imagined his naked body; she imagined next to this body the naked body of a woman, she imagined that this female body was perfumed with her perfume and that therefore the woman's odor was the same as her own; that disgusted her. She looked again at the diary and noticed that the entries ceased after the date with the exclamation marks. There it is, it's all over for a man after he goes to bed with a woman for the first time, she thought bitterly, and her son seemed contemptible to her.

For a few days she avoided him. Then she observed that he was pale and had lost weight; because of too much lovemaking, she was sure.

A few days later she noticed not only fatigue but also sadness in her son's dejection. That reconciled her somewhat with him and gave her hope: she told herself that girlfriends wound and mothers comfort; she told herself that girlfriends are many and a mother is one and only. I must fight for him, I must fight for him, she repeated, and from that moment on she began circling him like a vigilant, compassionate tigress.

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