MILAN KUNDERA

"The Unbearable Lightness Of Being" By Milan Kundera 83
In the first year of her love, Tereza would cry out during intercourse. Screaming, as I
have pointed out, was meant to blind and deafen the senses. With time she screamed
less, but her soul was still blinded by love, and saw nothing. Making love with the
engineer in the absence of love was what finally restored her soul's sight.
During her next visit to the sauna, she stood before the mirror again and, looking at
herself, reviewed the scene of physical love that had taken place in the engineer's flat.
It was not her lover she remembered. In fact, she would have been hard put to describe
him. She may not even have noticed what he looked like naked. What she did
remember (and what she now observed, aroused, in the mirror) was her own body: her
pubic triangle and the circular blotch located just above it. The blotch, which until then
she had regarded as the most prosaic of skin blemishes, had become an obsession.
She longed to see it again and again in that implausible proximity to an alien penis.
Here I must stress again: She had no desire to see another man's organs. She wished
to see her own private parts in close proximity to an alien penis. She did not desire her
lover's body. She desired her own body, newly discovered, intimate and alien beyond
all others, incomparably exciting.
Looking at her body speckled with droplets of shower water, she imagined the engineer
dropping in at the bar. Oh, how she longed for him to come, longed for him to invite her
back! Oh, how she yearned for it!
Every day she feared that the engineer would make his appearance and she would be
unable to say no. But the days passed, and the fear that he would come merged
gradually into the dread that he would not.
A month had gone by, and still the engineer stayed away. Tereza found it inexplicable.
Her frustrated desire receded and turned into a troublesome question: Why did he fail
to come?
Waiting on customers one day, she came upon the bald-headed man who had attacked
her for serving alcohol to a minor. He was telling a dirty joke in a loud voice. It was a
joke she had heard a hundred times before from the drunks in the small town where
she had once served beer. Once more, she had the feeling that her mother's world was
intruding on her. She curtly interrupted the bald man.
I don't take orders from you, the man responded in a huff. You ought to thank your
lucky stars we let you stay here in the bar.
We? Who do you mean by we?
Us, said the man, holding up his glass for another vodka. I won't have any more insults
out of you, is that clear? Oh, and by the way, he added, pointing to Tereza's neck,
which was wound round with a strand of cheap pearls, where did you get those from?
You can't tell me your husband gave them to you. A window washer! He can't afford
gifts like that. It's your customers, isn't it? I wonder what you give them in exchange?
You shut your mouth this instant! she hissed.