Ignorance Read Online Free PDF Page B

solemnly on the altar of the homeland and set fire to it. Twenty years of my life spent abroad would go up in smoke, in a sacrificial ceremony. And the women would sing and dance with me around the fire, with beer mugs raised high in their hands. That's the price I'd have to pay to be pardoned. To be accepted. To become one of them again.
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    One day at the Paris airport, she moved through the police checkpoint and sat down to wait for the Prague flight. On the facing bench she saw a man and, after a few moments of uncertainty and sur-
    prise, she recognized him. In excitement she waited till their glances met, and then she smiled. He smiled back and nodded slightly. She rose and crossed to him as he rose in turn.
    "Didn't we know each other in Prague?" she said in Czech. "Do you still remember me?"
    "Of course."
    "I recognized you right away. You haven't changed."
    "Oh, that's an exaggeration."
    "No, no. You look just the same. Good Lord, it's all so long ago." Then, laughing: "I'm grateful to you for recognizing me!" And then: "You've stayed there all that time?"
    "No."
    "You emigrated?"
    "Yes."
    "And where've you been living? In France?"
    "No."
    She sighed: "Ah, if you'd been living in France and we're only running into each other now ..."
    "It's pure chance that I'm going through Paris. I live in Denmark. What about you?"
    "Here. In Paris. Good Lord. I can hardly believe my eyes. What have you been doing all
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    this time? Have you been able to carry on with your work?"
    "Yes. What about you?"
    "I must have done about seven different things."
    "I won't ask you how many men you've been with."
    "No, don't. And I promise not to ask you that kind of question either."
    "And now? You've gone back?"
    "Not completely. I still have my apartment in Paris. What about you?"
    "Neither have I."
    "But you do return often."
    "No. This is the first time," he said.
    "Oh, so late! You were in no big rush!"
    "No."
    "You have no obligations in Bohemia?"
    "I'm a completely free man."
    His tone was even, and she noted some melancholy as well.
    Aboard the airplane her seat was forward on the aisle, and several times she turned to look back at him. She had never forgotten their long-ago encounter. It was in Prague, she was with a
    bunch of friends in a bar, and he, a friend of one of them, never took his eyes off her. Their love story stopped before it could start. She still felt regret over it, a wound that never healed.
    Twice she went to lean against his seat and continue their conversation. She learned that he would be in Bohemia for only three or four days, and at that in a provincial city to see his family. She was sad to hear it. Wouldn't he be in Prague for even a day? Well, yes, actually, on his way back to Denmark, maybe a day or two. Could she see him? It would be such a pleasure to get together again! He gave her the name of his hotel in the provinces.
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    He enjoyed the encounter, too; she was friendly, charming, and agreeable; forty-something and pretty; and he hadn't the faintest idea who she was. It's awkward to tell someone you don't remember her, but doubly awkward in this case because maybe it wasn't that he'd forgotten her
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    but just that she didn't look the same. And to tell a woman that is too boorish for him. Besides, he saw right away that this unknown woman was not going to make an issue of whether or not he remembered her, and that it was the easiest thing in the world to chat with her. But when they agreed to meet again and she offered to give him her telephone number, he was flustered: how could he phone a person whose name he didn't know? Without explaining, he said he would rather she call him, and asked her to take down the number at his provincial hotel.
    At the Prague airport they separated. He rented a car, took the expressway and then a local highway. When he reached the city, he looked for the cemetery. But in vain. He found himself in a new neighborhood of tall identical buildings that threw him off. He