Life Is Elsewhere Read Free Page A

eyes?) of the cruel world where bodies were divided into the beautiful and the ugly.
    Though the distinction was unseen by the eyes of the infant, the eyes of the husband, who had tried to make peace with his wife after Jaromil's birth, saw them all too well. After a very long interval, they began again to make love; but it was not what it had been: for their embraces they chose covert and ordinary moments, making love in darkness and with moderation. This surely suited Mama: she knew that her body had become ugly, and she feared that caresses too intense and passionate would quickly lose her the delectable inner peace her son gave her.
    No, no, she would never forget that her husband had given her pleasure filled with uncertainties and her son serenity filled with bliss; and so she continued to search nearby (he was already crawling, walking, talking) for comfort. He fell seriously ill, and for two weeks she barely closed her eyes while she tended the burning little body convulsed with pain; this period, too, passed for her in a kind of delirium; when the illness began to subside, she thought that she had crossed through the realm of the dead with her son's body in her arms and had brought him back; she also thought that after this ordeal together nothing could ever separate them.
    The husband's body, swathed in a suit or in pajamas, reserved and self-enclosed, was withdrawing from her and day by day losing its intimacy, but the son's body at every moment depended on her; she no longer suckled him, but she taught him to use the toilet, she dressed and undressed him, arranged his hair and his clothes, was in daily contact with his gut through the dishes she lovingly prepared. When he began, at the age of four, to suffer from a lack of appetite, she became strict; she forced him to eat and for the first time felt that she was not only the friend but also the sovereign of that body; that body rebelled, defended itself, refused to swallow, but it had to give in; with an odd satisfaction she watched this vain resistance, this capitulation, this slender neck through which one could follow the course of the reluctantly swallowed mouthful.
    Ah, her son's body, her home and her paradise, her realm . . .
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    And her son's soul? Was that not her realm? Oh, yes, yes! When Jaromil uttered his first word and the word was "Mama," she was wildly happy; she thought that her sons intellect, still consisting of only a single concept, was taken up with her alone, and that although his intellect would grow, branch out, and bloom, she would always remain its root. Pleasantly inspired, she meticulously followed all of her sons attempts to use words, and knowing that life is long and memory fragile, she bought a date book bound in dark red and recorded everything that came from her son's mouth.
    So if we were to look at Mama's diary we would notice that the word "Mama" was soon followed by other words, and that "Papa" was seventh, after "Grandma," "Grandpa," "Doggie," "You-you," "Wah-wah," and "Pee-pee." After these simple words (in Mama's diary the date and word were always accompanied by a brief commentary) we find the first tries at sentences. We learn that well before his second birthday he proclaimed: "Mama nice." A few weeks later he said: "Mama naughty." For this remark, made after Mama had refused to give him a raspberry drink before lunch, he was smacked on the behind, upon which he shouted, in tears: "I want other Mama!" A week later, however, he gave his mother great joy by proclaiming: "I have pretty Mama." Another time he said: "Mama, I give lollipop kiss," by which he meant that he would stick out his tongue and lick her entire face.
    Skipping a few pages, we come upon a remark that catches our attention with its rhythm. His grandmother had promised Jaromil a pear, but she forgot and ate it herself; Jaromil felt cheated, became angry, and kept repeating: "Grandmama not fair, ate my pear." In a certain sense, this phrase is like the