Milan kundera

American kitsch
and have noth-
ing to do with the kitsch of the Grand March. 
The next morning, they all boarded buses and rode through Thailand to the Cambodian 
border. In the evening, they pulled into a small village where they had rented several 
houses on stilts. The regularly flooding river forced the villagers to live above ground 
level, while their pigs huddled down below. Franz slept in a room with four other 
professors. From afar came the oinking of the swine, from up close the snores of a 
famous mathematician. 
In the morning, they climbed back into the buses. At a point about a mile from the 
border, all vehicular traffic was prohibited. The border crossing could be reached only 
by means of a narrow, heavily guarded road. The buses stopped. The French 
contingent poured out of them only to find that again the Americans had beaten them 
and formed the vanguard of the parade. The crucial moment had come. The interpreter 
was recalled and a long quarrel ensued. At last everyone assented to the following: the 
parade would be headed by one American, one Frenchman, and the Cambodian 
interpreter; next would come the doctors, and only then the rest of the crowd. The 
American actress brought up the rear. 

---

"The Unbearable Lightness Of Being" By Milan Kundera
 
138
The road was narrow and lined with minefields. Every so often it was narrowed even 
more by a barrier—two cement blocks wound round with barbed wire—passable only in 
single file. 
About fifteen feet ahead of Franz was a famous German poet and pop singer who had 
already written nine hundred thirty songs for peace and against war. He was carrying a 
long pole topped by a white flag that set off his full black beard and set him apart from 
the others. 
All up and down the long parade, photographers and cameramen were snapping and 
whirring their equipment, dashing up to the front, pausing, inching back, dropping to 
their knees, then straightening up and running even farther ahead. Now and then they 
would call out the name of some celebrity, who would then unwittingly turn in their 
direction just long enough to let them trigger their shutters. 
Something was in the air. People were slowing down and looking back. 
The American actress, who had ended up in the rear, could no longer stand the 
disgrace of it and, determined to take the offensive, was sprinting to the head of the 
parade. It was as if a runner in a five-kilometer race, who had been saving his strength 
by hanging back with the pack, had suddenly sprung forward and started overtaking his 
opponents one by one. 
The men stepped back with embarrassed smiles, not wishing to spoil the famous 
runner's bid for victory, but the women yelled, Get back in line! This is no star parade!
Undaunted, the actress pushed on, a suite of five photographers and two cameramen 
in tow. 
Suddenly a Frenchwoman, a professor of linguistics, grabbed the actress by the wrist 
and said (in terrible-sounding English), This is a parade for doctors who have come to 
care for mortally ill Cambodians, not a publicity stunt for movie stars!
The actress's wrist was locked in the linguistics professor's grip; she could do nothing to 
pry it loose. What the hell do you think you're doing? she said (in perfect English). I've 
been in a hundred parades like this! You won't get anywhere without stars! It's our job! 
Our moral obligation!
Merde 
said the linguistics professor (in perfect French). 
The American actress understood and burst into tears. 
Hold it, please, a cameraman called out and knelt at her feet. The actress gave a long 
look into his lens, the tears flowing down her cheeks. 
When at last the linguistics professor let go of the American actress's wrist, the German 
pop singer with the black beard and white flag called out her name. 

---

"The Unbearable Lightness Of Being" By Milan Kundera
 
139
The American actress had never heard of him, but after being humiliated she was more 
receptive to sympathy than usual and ran over to him. The singer switched the pole to 
his left hand and put his right arm around her shoulders. 
They were immediately surrounded by new photographers and cameramen. A well-
known American photographer, having trouble squeezing both their faces and the flag 
into his viewfinder because the pole was so long, moved back a few steps into the 
ricefield. And so it happened that he stepped on a mine. An explosion rang out, and his 
body, ripped to pieces, went flying through the air, raining a shower of blood on the 
European intellectuals. 
The singer and the actress were horrified and could not budge. They lifted their eyes to 
the flag. It was spattered with blood. Once more they were horrified. Then they timidly 
ventured a few more looks upward and began to smile slightly. They were filled with a 
strange pride, a pride they had never known before: the flag they were carrying had 
been consecrated by blood. Once more they joined the march. 
The border was formed by a small river, but because a long wall, six feet high and lined 
with sandbags to protect Thai sharpshooters, ran alongside it, it was invisible. There 
was only one breach in the wall, at the point where a bridge spanned the river. 
Vietnamese forces lay in wait on the other side, but they, too, were invisible, their 
positions perfectly camouflaged. It was clear, however, that the moment anyone set 
foot on the bridge, the invisible Vietnamese would open fire. 
The parade participants went up to the wall and stood on tiptoe. Franz peered into the 
gap between two sandbags, trying to see what was going on. He saw nothing. Then he 
was shoved away by a photographer, who felt that he had more right to the space. 
Franz looked back. Seven photographers were perching in the mighty crown of an 
isolated tree like a flock of overgrown crows, their eyes fixed on the opposite bank. 
Just then the interpreter, at the head of the parade, raised a large megaphone to her 
lips and called out in Khmer to the other side: These people are doctors; they request 
permission to enter the territory of Cambodia and offer medical assistance; they have 
no political designs whatsoever and are guided solely by a concern for human life. 
The response from the other side was a stunning silence. A silence so absolute that 
everyone's spirits sank. Only the cameras clicked on, sounding in the silence like the 
song of an exotic insect. 
Franz had the sudden feeling that the Grand March was coming to an end. Europe was 
surrounded by borders of silence, and the space where the Grand March was occurring 
was now no more than a small platform in the middle of the planet. The crowds that had 
once pressed eagerly up to the platform had long since departed, and the Grand March 
went on in solitude, without spectators. Yes, said Franz to himself, the Grand March 
goes on, the world's indifference notwithstanding, but it is growing nervous and hectic: 
yesterday against the American occupation of Vietnam, today against the Vietnamese 
occupation of Cambodia; yesterday for Israel, today for the Palestinians; yesterday for 

---

"The Unbearable Lightness Of Being" By Milan Kundera
 
140
Cuba, tomorrow against Cuba— and always against America; at times against 
massacres and at times in support of other massacres; Europe marches on, and to 
keep up with events, to leave none of them out, its pace grows faster and faster, until 
finally the Grand March is a procession of rushing, galloping people and the platform is 
shrinking and shrinking until one day it will be reduced to a mere dimension-less dot. 
Once more the interpreter shouted her challenge into the megaphone. And again the 
response was a boundless and endlessly indifferent silence. 
Franz looked in all directions. The silence on the other side of the river had hit them all 
like a slap in the face. Even the singer with the white flag and the American actress 
were depressed, hesitant about what to do next. 
In a flash of insight Franz saw how laughable they all were, but instead of cutting him 
off from them or flooding him with irony, the thought made him feel the kind of infinite 
love we feel for the condemned. Yes, the Grand March was coming to an end, but was 
that any reason for Franz to betray it? Wasn't his own life coming to an end as well? 
Who was he to jeer at the exhibitionism of the people accompanying the courageous 
doctors to the border? What could they all do but put on a show? Had they any choice? 
Franz was right. I can't help thinking about the editor in Prague who organized the 
petition for the amnesty of political prisoners. He knew perfectly well that his petition 
would not help the prisoners. His true goal was not to free the prisoners; it was to show 
that people without fear still exist. That, too, was playacting. But he had no other 
possibility. His choice was not between playacting and action. His choice was between 
playacting and no action at all. There are situations in which people are