No Saints or Angels

CHAPTER SEVEN

1

I am driving Jana home so that she can attend the funeral. She has got over her dad's death and I'm afraid she quite welcomed an excuse to get a break from the centre's military-style discipline for a little while at least. She's so besotted with herself that she hasn't the time to think about anyone else.

In the course of her psychotherapy sessions she has learnt to think and talk about herself without qualms. She tells me how terrible she used to be. She informs me that she first tried smoking cigarettes when she was twelve and grass when she was thirteen, and for almost the whole of last year she was injecting or sniffing everything there was. She also slept with boys and she can't even remember them all because they didn't mean anything to her.

'You really slept with them?'

'Of course, Mum.'

'Since when?'

'I don't recall any more.'

I feel a stab of pain in my head and then the pain spreads to my whole body. Everything ahead of me starts to wobble and the road becomes a blur. There goes my little girl; there she is lying and squirming. Just a little girl, not fourteen yet.

I pull up in front of some country pub in case I ran over my little girl.

We get out.

'Mum, you're white as a sheet. Are you all right?'

'It'll pass,' I say. I feel like screaming and demanding the names of those bastards, then I'd get hold of a pistol and shoot the lot! And I'd save the last bullet for myself for being such a rotten mother.

We are sitting in a bar-room that is already full of smoke at this time of the morning and drinking lousy coffee. I'd like her to give me a moment to get my breath back, but she is unstoppable.

'In the end nothing else mattered to me,' she says about her drug-taking. 'I was even prepared to steal. We systematically stole everything we could: from shops, from the market. I stole stuff from you too, but you know about that. And then I couldn't care less about anything, whether I went to school or whether they caught me and locked me up. I didn't think about anything that was going to happen on a particular day, just about getting my fix.'

I know about it from hearsay and films, and I've read about it, but the thought that my little girl went through all that and that I lived alongside her and suspected nothing and refused to entertain the possibility, that I even left her on her own so that I could be with my lover, hurts me as if someone were driving nails into me. I'm still the same as I always was. I wait here motionless and unprepared until someone places the nail against my chest, raises the hammer and strikes. In exactly the same way I refused to accept that my former — and as of now, late — husband was unfaithful to me. I tried to convince myself that nothing like that could happen to me, that such misfortunes only happen to other people.

My little girl goes on to describe to me the horrors of abstinence and how she was ready to run away the whole time. 'But now I can appreciate,' she says, using a word that is out of character for her, 'that I was only wanting to run away from life and escape everything that was bothering me. At home and at school. Everything. And also I'm beginning to understand Dad and you. I'll tell you both about it some time.'

'You won't be able to tell Dad any more.'

'But I can tell you. I'll analyse you. You're the person who matters most to me. When you appreciate what you're doing wrong and understand your weak points, you can live differently and be happy,' she says, repeating the lecture she has just heard.

When we arrive home she rushes into her bedroom, leaps on to the divan and shouts, 'My old bed, my old Bimba, my old drum kit — I've really missed you!'

'The times you could have been here,' I tell her, 'you couldn't leave the house fast enough.'

'Because I was unhappy here,' she explains.

I hug her. I hold her tight. My little girl, what made you do it all; I loved you so much, after all; I didn't have anyone else; I don't have anyone else but you.

While we're getting changed she assures me that only now will she be able to appreciate me for what I am and appreciate being at home. She talks quickly, as is her wont, and with the same earnestness as when she asked a moment ago whether she should take a red ribbon instead of a black one.

We call in for my mother on the way. She notices that my eyes are red from weeping and comments that the man isn't worth my tears after ruining my life.

We ruined our own lives, I don't say to her.

At the crematorium the master of ceremonies sits the three of us in the first row of benches. Alongside the coffin, which I chose, there lie three wreaths. One is on Jana's behalf and one was sent by his old school. The label on the third one has curled up and I can't read it. Maybe someone loved him after all towards the end of his life and sent him a wreath.

The principal of the school, where my former husband, now in a coffin, taught until recently, steps up to the lectern. He makes a bow to the catafalque and then with fervour starts to declaim about a man who loved his profession and sacrificed his spare time to his pupils, who was always reliable and never harmed anyone.

My mind goes back to the last conversation I had with the man I once loved and admired and who strangely is now lying in a coffin that I chose; now he knows nothing about those of us who have been left here a divine blink longer — out of the kindness of passing time.

Did he discover something important at the end of his life that he wanted to share with me, something I could even tell our daughter? Time in place of God, Time that is eternal, infinite and incomprehensible. Does that mean we ought to pray to Time?

Except that time is indifferent to our fate. Time is awful but it is also the only just thing in the world. It lets us reach places like this where we are finally levelled. But before we end up here we can experience something and do something with our lives and it leaves it up to us what we do. It lets us ruin what we like. Time or God, it makes no difference what we call it.

The organist now plays the opening passage of Ryba's Christmas Mass — I had to bring a copy of it, because it's not in the usual funeral repertoire. I close my eyes and lean against the white wall of the Rožmitál cemetery. My one and only husband is standing next to me, alive and smiling at me: 'Why so sad, Kristýna?'

I'm not sad, I'm just dreadfully tired.

2

I'm already in bed when the phone rings. Mum asks with a frail voice whether she's woken me up. 'Are you all right, Mum?'

'I don't know,' Mum says. 'I've got one of those heavy nosebleeds again and it won't stop.'

I panic and tell her I'll be right over and in the same frail voice Mum apologizes for bothering me.

Blood is waiting for me as I open the door. It is on the front hall floor and on the carpet in the bedroom where Mum is sitting on her bed, deathly pale.

One oughtn't to treat one's relatives. I place some ice on the nape of her neck and tell her I'm taking her to hospital. Mum tells me she's not going to any hospital; if she's going to die, she'd sooner die at home.

'What are you talking about, Mum? People don't die from nosebleeds.'

'You can die from anything.'

'If you have a mind to.'

She tells me she doesn't have a mind to and says she's feeling better already. The nosebleed came on when she was asleep and she just panicked a bit when she saw all the blood around her. She is sorry she bothered me.

I know it would be hard to persuade her and anyway it really does look as if the bleeding is stopping. So I go and make her a cup of tea at least, and stir in a few spoonfuls of honey. Then I wipe the blood off the floor, change Mum's bed linen and help her into a clean nightdress.

'I'm not keeping you, am I?' she frets.

'No, don't worry, I didn't have any other plans.' I sit down by her and take her hand.

'Not even a date?'

'Not even a date.'

'But I expect you're wanting to get on with some work.'

'I've had enough work during the day. Now I'm going to stay here with you.'

'You don't have to. I'm better now.'

'I'd be on my own at home anyway.'

'I know,' Mum says. 'But what sort of company am I for you?'

'The best, Mum.'

'You don't have to pretend anything to me. But you oughtn't to be on your own all the time. Not now that Karel's gone.'

'Mum, you've forgotten that we've been apart for years.'

'I haven't forgotten. But you waited for him all the same.'

I don't feel like talking about it. I don't feel like talking about anything.

'It's a long time since I did.'

'Exactly. You've been on your own too long. Everything's on your shoulders and it's wearing you out.'

'I'd sooner be on my own than have someone hanging round my neck.'

'Do you mean that young man you told me about?'

'I didn't mean anyone in particular.'

'And what about him? Does he love you?'

'I don't know.'

'Can't you tell?'

'I think he still loves me, or at least he fancies he does, but he doesn't always act as if he did,' I say. 'But, Mum, you should be getting some rest and not worrying about me.'

'I have to worry now. I don't know how long I'll be around, do I?'

'You'll be around for a long time yet.' I go over and plump up her duvet. 'Lie down now and don't think about anything. Rest, you've lost lots of blood.'

'No, wait a minute. But you don't want to get married, do you?'

'Mum, marriage is the last thing on my mind. It's enough that one bloke left me.'

'You can't get that man out of your mind. But someone else wouldn't leave you, or if he did, he'd come back again, like your father.'

'What do you mean, like Dad?'

'Before he died he asked me to forgive him all his mistresses.'

'He told you he'd had mistresses?'

'I knew anyway. I even knew about that son of his. People came and told me about it.'

I remain silent. I don't know what to say. Then I ask her, 'Why didn't you tell us about it?'

'It was his business to tell you. Maybe it s just as well you didn't know, seeing that he stayed with us and didn't leave the home.'

'Maybe you should have left home.'

'I thought about it, but I was afraid to. Dad was a powerful man; I thought he would protect me.'

'Who from?'

'In case the Germans came back again.'

'Mum! The Germans weren't a threat any more. It was the Russians who came.'

'I wasn't scared of them.'

'And that's why you didn't leave?'

'And because of the two of you. Besides, I loved him. He could be nice.'

It strikes me that my mother has never known a nice man. Have I? Maybe nice men are figments of our imagination.

'Besides, I didn't want a divorce after what happened to my mother.'

'But they were different times.'

'I know. But people ought to stay together. Anyway it was your grannie who suggested the divorce. Or at least that's how my father told it. She knew what his business meant to him. She only pretended to move out; she stayed with us.' Mum starts to reminisce: 'I remember at home how they used to make beautiful flowers out of leather, cloth and wire. I used to sit there with Mum and she would talk to me and tell me Bible stories, for instance. She guessed we wouldn't be together much longer. After all, she'd studied law, so she must have known about those Nuremberg Laws.'

I'm aware that Mum has never talked about her mother's life, only about Grandma's awful death.

'And she also talked to me about the Jewish festivals, such as the Day of Atonement. People are supposed to forgive even those who have done them wrong. You see, I can remember it after all these years. But I wasn't able to forgive my father as long as he was

alive. Then I had a bad conscience about it. You have to take people the way they are, with all their faults and their selfishness. If you don't you get left outside.'

'Outside what?' I ask, although I know what she means.

Maybe she doesn't even hear me; she's tired. We both are. She closes her eyes and says nothing for a while. I am still holding her hand. 'So I forgave your dad,' she adds, 'and you should too. You'll feel much better, you'll see.'

3

On the way home from Mum's I find myself in front of Capek's villa, although I wasn't conscious of taking that route. It is quiet and locked up as usual, but there are a few cars parked on the little square; drops of rain are starting to drum on their bonnets.

It crosses my mind that in a few weeks' time it will already be the sixtieth anniversary of my favourite author's death. He was a brave man and he suffered from ill health. When he was my age, he had less than four years left to live. When he was my age he wrote: People have a piece of crystal inside them, something smooth, pure and hard, that won't mix with anything and will allow everything to slide over it.

I'd love to have a piece of hard crystal inside me and let all my pain, my disappointments, my despair and my loneliness slide over it.

When I get home there is no one waiting for me. And no one will ever be waiting to take me in his arms and caress me. And if Jana comes home, how long will she stay? And what about my first and only husband? For all those years I subconsciously waited for him to ring the doorbell and say, Sorry, Kristýna, I've done you wrong, but I've found out that it is hard to live without you! But my first and only husband will never ring the doorbell now. And what about Jan, who says he loves me, but was unfaithful to me the first opportunity he had? Should I make it up with him

and simply accept that life is like that: betrayal, desertion and forgiveness, and those that don't accept it, suffer?

I pour myself some wine and put on Tchaikovsky's Pathétique. Let the music weep instead of me. Even though I'm on my own, I'm not the only one who found life hard to live.

I oughtn't to drink. It's ages since wine gave me a boost or improved my mood. It adds to my weariness, more likely. Instead of wine I ought to take Nortriptylin or some other antidepressant. It's just that I don't like the idea of Prozac euphoria.

I sit in the armchair and sleep overcomes me: now I'm lying in a meadow in tall, dry grass; above me there are clouds and beneath them a wisp of smoke, too late I catch sight of a flaming figure tearing towards me. And behind it there are flames. I won't escape them. The end at last. I feel no fear. I am paralysed, so totally alone, the way you feel at the moment when flames start to engulf you and you haven't the strength to run away.

The doorbell.

The ghost of that crazy incinerated aunt has come back to take me with her.

I'm afraid to answer the door and ask, 'Who's there?'

But it's Jan; he is standing outside with water streaming from his soaking hair. He is carrying a suitcase.

'What are you doing here?'

'Don't send me away,' he begs. 'I have to tell you something.'

'Is it still raining out?' I ask stupidly.

'I expect so,' he says. 'I didn't notice.'

'So what do you want to tell me?'

'I've moved out of Mum's place.'

He has moved out. His mother noticed that he was down in the dumps and in the end she managed to get out of him that he is in love with me and that all is not well between us. He also told her about Jana, and his mother made a scene and started to shout at him that he had no sense, so he packed a few things and walked out. He just wanted to let me know.

I don't know what to reply. He's had a row and tomorrow he'll regret it, but I don't want to send him out into the rain at midnight. I go and make some tea and tell him to take off his wet clothes. I even offer him my sweater, but he has his own clothes in the suitcase. I'm sorry for him. I'm touched. Maybe he really does love me and he won't repeat what he did. And I almost certainly love him still.

I make him up a bed in Jana's room. He looks disappointed but accepts it meekly.

I'm unable to get to sleep. I ought to think about the fact that I have my ex-lover in the flat. And whether 'ex' is still appropriate. All I need to do is give him a hug. Get up and join him in his bed — like his other 'ex' did. I ought to think about why he came and whether it isn't just another of his well-choreographed games — a way of finding his way in here. I ought to think about what I'll do when we get up in the morning. Instead I am simply aware of my weariness and helplessness, and my fear of betrayal.

I fall asleep towards morning. I dream that I'm at Grannie Marie's farm at Lipová. She has given me a cup of milk and some bread and butter to take to Auntie Venda. I took them to her, but when I wanted to leave I discovered that in place of a door, there was just a narrow opening in the wall. I realized I wouldn't be able to squeeze through it. I'd be stuck for ever in this room with my mad aunt, and she'll set light to herself and me. And I tried desperately to squeeze through the crack.

That dream is generally interpreted as a memory of one's own birth, but it was more a dream about my situation. I'm shut inside my solitude and I'd like to break out, but I've shrunk the exit and can't. And maybe it's an image of myself, I'm no longer as slim or supple as I used to be. I'm getting fat; I can't get into clothes I used to wear two years ago. How could anyone still enjoy looking at me, let alone make love to me?

In the morning Jan and I have breakfast together. He has to leave for work even before me.

'You don't want me here, do you?' he asks.

I don't know whether I want him here or not. I'm frightened of taking any decision. I'm afraid of the disappointment that might result. I wasn't able to hold on to a man who was a divine blink older than I was and with whom I had a child. However could I hold on to this young fellow with whom I haven't conceived a child — and won't now?

He waits for my reply, so I tell him he ought to go back home. I don't want us to regret in a few days' time that we acted hastily.

He points out that he isn't acting in haste. He knows he loves me and he believed, still believes that he can convince me of it, if I manage to forgive him.

I say nothing and he says he'll move in with a friend for the time being.

He picks up his case and as he is going out the door I give him a kiss after all.

Maybe he won't come back again. In any case, the day would come when he wouldn't come back, even if I told him I forgave him. Everything comes to an end one day, including life itself.

I briefly collapse into an armchair. From where I am sitting I can't see into the street; all I can see are the roofs of the houses opposite and the sky which is beginning to cloud over again. The clouds are splendid, like dolphins hurling themselves up out of grey water. Rain is on the way.

If it starts to rain, that boy and his suitcase will get soaked again.

4

At night I have oppressive dreams. In them I'm searching for Jana, who has run away somewhere in the middle of a blizzard. I am looking for her on skis and getting hopelessly lost in snowdrifts. I know I'll freeze to death but I don't care; the only thing that terrifies me is that I won't find my daughter. I dream

about my late husband; in the dream he is alive and in love with me; he holds me in his arms and assures me that he'd die without me, he loves me so much. In the dream, I'm happy to hear him say it, although I wake up feeling wretched. I'm even visited by the grandmother that I only know from photos, the one who was gassed: she is amazed that I don't recognize her. 'Just imagine,' she says, 'they took pity on me and let me come back again.'

Back again means back to life. I can understand that.

But the little messenger never lets anyone come back to life.

And where am I, in fact?

I've aged five years in the past six months.

I'm intolerant and don't like myself. I started snapping at Eva in the surgery because I had the feeling she was taking her time every time I needed something from her.

I feel like my ex-husband when he was stricken with a terminal illness. Maybe my soul is being eaten away by a tumour.

Maybe I'm my own illness.

I baked Jana some heart-shaped biscuits; I borrowed the mould from Mum and wrote my daughter a long letter in which I told her I was sure things would be fine between us when she came home. We have to discover together why it's good to be alive.

She called me two days later: 'Hi Mum, it's me.'

'I can tell.'

'How are you?'

'Not bad. And how about you?'

'Thanks for the biscuits, Mum. They took a rise out of me, saying they were better for me than purple hearts. But they were great, and they weren't even slightly burnt. We've already scoffed the lot.'

'I'm glad you liked them.'

'We shared them out. Slávek said you must be great. Most of the people here have parents who couldn't give a damn about them.'

'Thanks for the appreciation. What news do you have for me otherwise?'

'I'm fairly used to it here now, Mum. Sometimes we even have great fun. Really. There's something rather special about looking after a goat, for instance, and drinking its milk, even though it tastes horrible. And Radek said he was pleased with me too and said you could already come on a visit.' She talks a little while more about the merits of life at Sunnyside and then gets alarmed that her call has already cost a lot of money; so she quickly wishes me all the best and asks me again to come and visit her, and to my amazement suggests I bring 'that ginger man' of mine along.

I promise to come and ignore the reference to my ginger man.

I've also had a phone call from the man I had discovered to be my half-brother. He asked me whether he could come and see me; he had something for me. I told him he could and asked if I should drive over for him.

No, he would get here under his own steam. All he needed to know was what floor I live on and whether there is a lift in the building.

'I live on the third floor and there's a lift which works most of the time.'

So he turned up on Saturday afternoon. Some elderly lady brought him; I asked her in but she said she had something to attend to in the meantime.

My brother cruised around the flat as if he'd been doing it for years. 'You've got a nice place,' he said. 'Plenty of room. I like the rubber plant. I can tell you look after it. I expect the drum kit belongs to your girl, doesn't it?' He peeped into Jana's room. 'Where are you hiding her?' he asks.

'She's out of Prague.'

'A pity, I'd like to meet her. After all, she's my niece, isn't she? I don't have any relatives on my mother's side. I haven't met your sister yet either. When it comes down to it, I've never known what it is to have a family. Mum was almost always out and she scarcely said anything when she was home.'

I offered him some wine, but he said he'd sooner have tea with a drop of rum, or preferably a hot toddy.

I went into the kitchen to make the toddy and he followed me in. 'I've brought you something,' he announced. He rummaged in his wheelchair and drew out quite a large object wrapped in paper. 'I painted you a picture,' he explained. 'When you came to see me, I said some stupid things; I'm a bit strange sometimes. But I didn't want you thinking I'm like that all the time. Aren't you going to open it?'

The painting is a portrait of me; I can't tell what sort of a likeness it is; I'm not used to lip-reading my image in the language of colours. What caught my attention most was that in the picture I am surrounded by flames.

'You've committed me to the flames like a witch.'

'No,' he said, 'not at all. Those flames signify passion. You seemed passionate to me — full of energy that could burn up everything around you.'

Good gracious, I thought, this weary old woman?

I thanked him for the painting and told him it was interesting. I poured the hot water on the rum and then told him about the aunt who burnt herself to death. After all, she was his aunt too.

Afterwards he talked to me about his youth and how his mother was indomitable and went on loving my father and never lived with anyone else. My half-brother was once in love too. She was a student nurse. Then came his fateful dive. She used to visit him in hospital and afterwards, when he was back home. She stood by him for several years until eventually he told her not to waste her life.

My half-brother told me in a faltering voice the story of his accident, no doubt for the hundredth time: all about the single dive that changed his life for ever. Then he asked me if I had some photos of his father; his mother had just one, and it had been taken forty years ago.

I took out the box of photographs and selected some with Dad

on them, both alone and with us. Dad as a young man and in old age; Dad in a blue shirt and red scarf wielding a pickaxe on some socialist labour brigade; Dad at the rostrum; Dad at some celebration where the Comrade President pinned on him a medal for services to the Communists' betrayal; Dad just before his death.

I gazed at him, Dad's unacknowledged son, as he examined these static faces and I waited for some movement from his thin, severe lips. But my brother said nothing and returned me the final photo.

'So that's what he looked like,' I said. 'You needn't regret not knowing him. Life with him wasn't easy.'

'I can well imagine.'

'He left his mark on all of us. And lots of others too. You're not the only one he wronged.'

My brother finished his toddy and nodded. 'He hurt my mother most of all. But that's the way it goes: people hurt each other; that's something I discovered. It's a sort of chain reaction. You hurt me, so I'll hurt you back,' he said, sharing his personal philosophy with me. 'The people who don't are the ones who get hurt most.'

I recalled how he'd tried to hurt me, but since the day I visited him he hadn't sent me any threatening letters. It's easiest to hurt those we've never seen, although we most often hurt those who are nearest to us. But it isn't a chain reaction of tit for tat, simply the result of our selfishness, an expression of our bewilderment in the face of life.

The lady who brought my brother rang the downstairs bell. She refused to come up and asked me to wheel my brother into the lift; she'd be waiting for him downstairs.

I thanked him once more for the painting and for paying me a visit. When I opened the lift door for him, I leaned over and kissed him on the lips. His breath smelled of rum, but even so it reminded me of Dad's, although I couldn't recall when my father last kissed me.

5

I went back home to Mum's last week. Mum behaved triumphantly although she had no reason to. I hadn't come to eat humble pie, I simply had nowhere else to live. I had moved a few of my things to Jirka's and slept there for almost a month, but I knew it was no solution. I had hoped against hope that Kristýna would forgive me and I would move into her place, but when I saw how hesitant she was, I realized that that was no solution either. And I don't earn enough to rent a flat of my own.

Kristýna and I have met a few times and had dinner together: once it was a cold supper at her place, and on about three other occasions I invited her out to restaurants. Since the night I admitted to her that Věra came into my tent we haven't made love. I don't think it's just on account of my one stupid moment of vacillation. Kristýna seems to have changed; she seems to have lost the enthusiasm she once showed for everything, and which attracted me to her in the first place. She keeps on repeating that she is tired. I told her she needed to take it easy and take a holiday, but she said it was world-weariness and no holiday would rid her of it.

She ought to realize that it is weariness due to the sort of life she leads.

Not long ago we were walking up some stairs together and I noticed how breathless she was. 'Don't be surprised,' she told me. 'My lungs are full of tar.' She also drinks more than she should. When I was still sleeping at her place from time to time, she would pour herself a glass of wine first thing in the morning. No wonder she's tired.

I still pine for her, but our occasional meetings haven't seemed to be getting anywhere; they have lacked any climax: we don't embrace; we talk but we no longer touch each other, not even verbally. We are becoming cooler to each other, or at least I am, although I regret it.

Today was Friday the thirteenth; I went to work fearing the worst. My fears were vindicated. First thing this morning our new director called me in and told me they would have to dispense with my services. He had received an order to reduce staff levels and I was the youngest. I wouldn't be the only one anyway, so it would be a good idea to come to a gentleman's agreement before he drew up a dismissal notice.

As if youth could be a reason for dismissal anyway We both know the real reason, of course. I had tried too hard to do my job properly and unravel what could be unravelled.

I told him I'd have to think it over, but I don't think I feel like resigning voluntarily and going quietly. As I was saying it to him, I knew that on principle I wouldn't give in, even though I have no longing to spend the rest of my life in the place.

As soon as I left the director's office I got on the phone to Jirka at the radio.

He promised to send one of his female colleagues over to see me. She is apparently the most astute member of their political staff.

She called me straight after lunch.

We arranged to meet at five o'clock this evening at a restaurant near the radio building.

She was younger than she had sounded on the phone and her face seemed slightly familiar. I told her so as soon as we sat down in the restaurant and asked her whether she didn't also appear on television.

'No,' she said, 'you know me from somewhere else. If you remember, that time in November, nine years ago, we were both sent to Ostrava to win over the miners.'

Of course I remembered. But there were quite a few of us in the group, so we didn't really notice each other. I started to apologize for not recognizing her.

'But it's ages ago. I also have different-coloured hair, a different hairstyle, and I'm fatter and older.'

I told her the colour of her hair suited her, that she wasn't at all fat and she didn't look a day over twenty.

'You're a real gentleman,' she said and smiled at me as if I were an old friend from the good old days.

I was glad we had previously met under those circumstances; I felt I could be more open with her than if they had sent any old member of staff.

I tried to fill her in briefly on the job I am doing and explain that there must be a lot of people who would sooner I stopped delving into their pasts and revealing their past crimes.

She took notes and told me they would definitely invite me to the studio next week to take part in a interview about this business, although she was doubtful that it would help me keep my job. The opposite most likely.

'I'm not worried about my job. I always enjoy a change.'

'So do I,' she said. 'Life would be boring otherwise.'

So we started to chat about our lives since. She was surprised I was still single; she had already managed to get married and divorced.

Our conversation started to stray beyond the usual bounds of discretion. She complained about her bad experiences with men, whom she found selfish and boorish, while I spoke about the anxiety I feel about emptiness, which undermines my ability to get really close to people. I didn't mention Kristýna.

For the first time in ages I could hear the rumble of tom-toms in the distance and it set my blood racing. Several times during our conversation my hand touched hers and she didn't move hers away.

It occurred to me to ask her if there might be a job for me in the radio, in case I really was dismissed; I told her I wasn't an absolute beginner and had earned extra cash by writing articles on the side.

She was sure I'd find something there: she told me the radio was an enormous funnel for collecting people. It wasn't hard to get

in but it was hard to find a niche. She added that it would be nice if we were to become colleagues. She stood up; she unfortunately had a rendezvous to go to.

The mention of a rendezvous aroused an almost jealous curiosity in me, but all I said was that we would definitely see each other soon.

She asked for my telephone number and gave me hers, at work and also at home, in case I didn't catch her at the radio. She told me she was looking forward to meeting me again, so it was fine that we'd see each other the following week.

Most likely she says something similar to everyone she is about to make a programme with, but I was sure she also expected something more from our coming meeting than just an interview, so her comment thrilled me as if we'd just made a date.

In the evening I phoned Kristýna.

I expect she was afraid I wanted to pay her a visit because she started to complain about her tiredness.

I asked her what her plans were for tomorrow.

She said she was driving down to see Jana.

'It's good that you'll get out.'

'You can come with me if you like,' she said to my amazement.

I wasn't sure I wanted to, but the fact is we've never been anywhere together and I'll have a chance to tell her what happened to me at work. It also occurred to me that she might be letting me know that we belong together after all, even though I'm beginning to think that we'll never belong together.

6

I am driving fast, as is my wont. Jan is sitting next to me and looking pleased. I don't know what came over me to invite him to come with me. I am afraid he'll misinterpret my invitation. But I'm not entirely sure myself how I intended it. As an act of

reconciliation or just as a joint trip to see Jana, since we took her to the detox centre together?

I can't say what I really want. I don't want to be cruel to the boy; I don't want to hurt him; I don't want to set off that chain reaction: you hurt me, now I'll hurt you. I don't want to hurt him, but I can't be sure that he won't hurt me. I don't know how he perceives me at this particular moment. I rather get the impression that he's wandering elsewhere in his thoughts and moving away from me.

We reach Sunnyside before midday.

They tell us that Jana is out in the forest with the rest and will be back in about two hours' time.

We could set off to find her in the forest, but instead we set off in the opposite direction. Half an hour later we come upon a group of isolated homesteads set around a picturesque fishpond and then we make our way up to a hilltop along a field track. There is a break in the mist and the autumn sun actually tries to warm us slightly. To the right of the path there is forest: the larches have already turned yellow and they seem to glow in the sunshine. To our left there is a freshly ploughed field with fragrant upturned soil.

Going uphill is a struggle for me and I find it increasingly hard to catch my breath, but I try not to let it show. Luckily he's in no hurry. He tells me that it looks as though he'll be given notice at work. He asks me whether he ought to fight it or whether he should quit the job now that he is beginning to feel it's a waste of time. One possibility would be to finish his university course, but he would also like to make use of what he found out over the years by writing it up and publishing it. Not on his own account, or not entirely so. He has the feeling that forgetting the past, as most people in this country do, is a dangerous phenomenon. But if he left his job, he probably wouldn't find anything as well paid. He could also try to work as a freelance for the press or the radio; he has some friends there and it is the sort of work that appeals to him.

It strikes me he's telling me this partly because he is still considering living with me and therefore feels a certain responsibility to me. I tell him that if one is given half a chance one should do something one feels like doing and what one regards as useful.

Maybe it suits him that I'm older; I know more about life than he could know; he needs someone to approve his life's decisions. His mother has probably fulfilled that role so far, but men who aren't able to free themselves from their mothers tend to feel humiliated.

You never know what you mean to other people, only they do, but usually even they aren't able to say for sure.

We finally reach the hilltop. A chapel stands a short distance from the footpath. It looks abandoned and the path to it is overgrown with untrodden grass.

We trample the grass slightly. The chapel is empty: in the place of a sacred painting or statue there is simply a mouldy patch on the wall, but on a small, battered table there stand two blue vases.

Two blue vases; I stand and stare at them in amazement, as if someone had deliberately placed them there on my account. What is the point of two empty vases in an empty chapel without even a painting on the wall?

One for blood, the other for tears: I can hear my old lament.

We stand there motionless for a moment. We don't pray; we don't speak; we listen. I don't know what this place says to him, but no doubt something different from what it says to me. I can suddenly hear the voice of my father, clear and hard, as I knew it when I was small and feared him, when I longed for his love. I hear him, but can't make out the words. Most likely he came to ask why I broke the vase that time. Or he came to save these two abandoned ones? But what if he came to let bygones be bygones?

You have to speak more distinctly, Dad.

But he has fallen silent and isn't coming or speaking any more.

I'd like to hear at least the voice of my once and only husband, whose love I also yearned for, but he won't be coming or saying anything any longer.

In fact all you yearn for is to hear that someone loves you, but generally you don't hear it; most likely they were just words intended to deceive you. When you realize that, you either despair or try to find something to bring comfort.

It doesn't, anyway.

So life comes to an end and time closes behind everyone and everything.

My ex-husband understood that and tried to escape by running away from it. I reminded him of time, being younger than he was, so he ran away from me too. Eventually he bowed down before Time as the Creator God. And he didn't even run away from me: I was the one who closed his eyes in the end. I recall how sad and lonely his death was and I feel like weeping over him at this lonely spot.

And I feel like weeping over Dad. It occurs to me that neither of them were happy; they didn't know how to live with what they had; they wanted something other than what life offered them. They lacked humility. I do too: I couldn't be reconciled with them, nor with my life, therefore. One ought to be capable of reconciling oneself with people, even if one can't reconcile oneself with their deeds.

I glance at the young man standing at my side. He came to me at a moment when I no longer expected anyone or anything new in my Ufe, and he told me over and over again that he loved me. He didn't act as if he did, or at least at one moment he didn't; he didn't even try to deny it, but I couldn't reconcile myself with his deed.

I don't know for what fraction of a divine blink he'll stay with me, it doesn't matter. I don't know how long I'll last, how long I'll be capable of loving; maybe my fatigue will defeat me; maybe I'm no longer capable of coming close enough to someone to live with them. But I won't torture myself with it now; I'm grateful for this moment, for the time he'll still stay with me maybe.

I suddenly hug him of my own accord; I kiss him in a chapel where there is nothing but two empty vases. I don't do or say anything else. And we rush away.

'We'll pick up Jana first thing this afternoon.' He looks pleased and looks forward to her going out to dinner with us.

That afternoon, we drive into town and Jana tells us, with an enthusiasm that I'm afraid to believe unreservedly, how she is beginning to understand that she was on the wrong track entirely and how it happened to her. Last week they took part in a discussion session at some school where they told the children what they had been through and how dreadful it was.

'What about the children?'

'They were totally knocked out,' my daughter says proudly. She is thrilled about learning to understand herself and everyone around her. And me too.

'Do you think you understand me?'

'Yes, I'm really beginning to understand you.'

'I wonder.'

'Understanding isn't the same as agreeing.'

'I never thought it was.'

'I'll analyse you and teach you to have an opinion about yourself. You'll be surprised,' she promises and then starts to talk about her friends who, like her, are learning to understand themselves — 'and when they start to analyse themselves they suddenly end up this tiny!' and she indicates how tiny by a gap between the tips of her thumb and forefinger that a ladybird would scarcely squeeze through. Jan laughs at her, but I can recall her disobedience and stubbornness, so I have the feeling that she really is starting to get somewhere. I promise to let her explain to me how to acquire an opinion of myself.

We sit down to dinner in a fairly decent-looking pub. After lengthy consideration, Jana chooses some oriental dish with rice and some disgusting dark liquid in a narrow bottle. We also choose something and so as to show solidarity with the other two, I order

fizzy water instead of wine, for the first time in ages. But they don't notice anyway, they are having a great time together. They almost speak the same language. They like the Spice Girls and know some Varusa or Marusya May who plays the electric violin, and agree that Ms — or is it Mr — Bjôrk sings as if she or he had a mouth full of dried snot. They have even seen the same films and both despise television. Jan asks whether they play any games too, and Jana says they play chess, although she doesn't like the game, and they also play draughts and Ludo. Jan promises to come and teach them to play other games.

I look at the two of them and listen to them chatting away. They're relaxed and it's quite a different conversation from any I've ever had with Jan.

When Jan leaves the table for a moment, Jana quickly says, 'Mum, he really suits you.'

'What makes you think so?'

Well, you sort of complement each other. You're sad and he's cheerful. And you've got blue eyes and he's got brown.'

'I'm also old while he's young.'

'And you're both nuts.'

An unexpected commendation.

7

On Sunday Mum flew in like an early bird almost before it was light and we hadn't even had breakfast yet. I was surprised she came on her own, but she explained to me that Jan had had to leave the previous evening because he was going to do an interview with the radio about what happened to him. Mum said she was pleased we'd have a bit of time to ourselves. And she went to see Radek — to give me time to have breakfast in peace, she said. I'd love to hear all the guff that Radek gives her about me.

Monika started to yell from the yard that our pig had eaten my hen. The black one. 'Well, for a start, the hen isn't just mine but also ours and why shouldn't it eat it, seeing it's an omnivore,' I yelled back at her. But it was the marten anyway. All that was left of the hen that I had to look after was a few black feathers in the yard. Horrendous.

Then all of a sudden Mum appeared and looked cool so I figured that Radek must have sung my praises.

When she and I came out of our sunny Graveside, I suggested to Mum that we look in at the church.

'Do you people go to church here?'

We didn't go to church much, but the idea just occurred to me, seeing it was Sunday and Mum had come to see me. And Mum says, 'Why not? I haven't been to church for ages.'

So we went to the local church, which was fairly pathetic — almost no pictures, just some angels flying about on the ceiling chucking some poor devils out of heaven. Only heaven was full of rusty patches where water dripped from the leaky roof.

It was packed inside — at least seven old ladies and a gypsy family with a baby. In the church that Eva used to take me to sometimes I liked the singing, the ringing of bells, the incense and the servers, especially one who had great big ears. The servers here were totally normal, but the priest was ever so young and pale and really, really tiny; I bet they took the mickey out of him when he was at school. He was so touched that we'd come to his church he couldn't get over the shock and kept tripping over his words. When the singing started he sang really out of tune, but in the end you couldn't tell 'cos at least six out of the seven pensioners sang out of tune too. I quite liked the priest; I just felt sorry for him being stuck on his own in that empty church and not even being allowed to get married or have kids. And I imagined what he'd do if I came and told him I fancied him, if he'd like me to stay and keep him company.

Then he started preaching about some Saint Francis, saying he'd been really poor and humble and patient and when they

wouldn't let him into some pub or monastery when he was cold, wet and hungry he was ecstatic. I wouldn't be ecstatic about it, I was ecstatic from dope, and I'm really curious to know what I'll be ecstatic about when I get out of here, and if I'll actually manage to keep it up.

I hate preaching 'cos it's too clever-clever and a drag. So I just kept thinking about what was going to happen when I leave this place. I imagined rushing to school again every morning even though it doesn't do anything for me, and I couldn't imagine who I'd find to talk to if I never saw Ruda and the others any more, just because they're still on dope.

Then we all said Our Father who art in heaven and at that moment I thought of Dad and wondered if he was in heaven. But he didn't believe in it; he believed in the Big Bang, when there wasn't a heaven or an earth, nothing just that little marble that everything came out of. And how could the poor old guy be in heaven, seeing they'd put him in a furnace and burnt him?

It only hit me the night that Mum drove me back here after the funeral that maybe I behaved badly towards him, because I always thought it was vile the way he left us in the lurch. But maybe he didn't really want to. Sometimes Mum would really make him unhappy when she had her downers and didn't want to talk to anyone; she couldn't even work up a smile; and when she came home from the surgery she'd just sit in an armchair and smoke and drink her wine. He tried to talk it over with her and he'd do everything that needed doing at home. He'd say to her, Give us a little smile, Kristýna, but it was pointless and so in the end he ran away. And I also imagined the flames licking round him when they closed the curtains in the crematorium so we couldn't see, and all of a sudden I was so sorry for him that I started to cry. Monika woke up and when she saw I was crying she says to me, 'What are you bellowing like a cow for, you stupid cow?'

So I tell her my dad had died and they've cremated him and she immediately calms down and says, 'Oh, your old man died. Pity

we haven't got a fix.' But we didn't have anything and anyway I've decided it'll be better not to go back on it.

At the group session the next day Radek said it was good that I was sad and cried 'cos it's a way to make things up with Dad and I won't be tempted to do anything silly to spite him. And it also means I've made it up with Mum, because I hated her always thinking about Dad and blaming herself instead of accepting that that's the way life is.

Mum looked touched somehow in that church, even though she didn't sing or cross herself; but when the rest knelt down she did too and bowed her head. Mum's got a lovely head and neck. I'm not surprised that ginger bloke who's been going out with her since the spring is gone on her. I'd fancy her too. And he fancied me when we were chatting together last night; it was cool and from time to time he made eyes at me, but he always made sure Mum didn't notice.

As soon as the Mass was over we scarpered, but Mum said she was glad I'd taken her to church and that she was going to take me somewhere too and show me something. She drove me to the pond: actually it's more like a big dirty puddle and round here we know it as the Stink-hole. A footpath runs from there up a horrible steep hill. Mum must have been in a great mood or she'd have never climbed a hill like that. All the time she looked as if she was about to tell me something important, such as she was going to marry Jan, but she didn't say anything. So I just kept her amused by rabbiting on about what things are like here. Such as last week we had our first fall of snow and when I was already in bed the lads started yelling that they could see the aurora borealis outside and I must come out and see it before it disappears. So I ran out into the snow barefoot and they start taking the mick out of me like mad for falling for their crap about the aurora borealis. And I told Mum how I look after the hens and ducks, and how I'll happily go and work on a farm after Radek says I'm cured or, even better, go and help people in need — people like me, for instance,

when I almost ruined my life with dope. I also told her I realize now what a pain I was, but I really did hate school and there was nothing I enjoyed. Even at home it was horrendous sometimes.

Mum asked if I missed Dad that time, and I said I did at first but that she missed him more and for much longer, and that had really pissed me off.

We kept climbing upwards with the forest on our right. Two old lady mushroomers were coming out of it as we passed. There are loads of magic mushrooms around here and I never knew before you could trip on them, but Monika used to get stoned on them and she was so smashed on them that she thought she was a goner.

'Yes, I do admit,' Mum said, 'that I was fed up from time to time, but you have to realize that it's like an illness, sometimes I couldn't help it when I had a depression. And sometimes there was even a good reason.'

So I explained to her that she always saw the bad side of things most of all. Me and Radek talked about it. I said she probably didn't have positive thinking and before I started getting on her nerves, there was Dad and before him my granddad. And his opinion was that that explains lots of things to him, and he said she herself had told him that she was destroying herself, and how she had played up her father the way I'd played up Dad. It's really horrendous the way everything repeats itself, even the totally stupid things.

'You say really nice things about me, the two of you,' Mum says, 'but otherwise your analysis was very good.' She keeps looking as if she wants to tell me a secret, but in the end she just points to some old ruin in front of us and says, 'Do you see that chapel? I want you to see inside.'

When we reached it, the ruin looked even more pathetic. It was completely empty inside, even emptier than the church earlier; there was nothing inside at all except for a little table with crooked legs and on it two vases covered in bird crap or something. There

weren't even any flowers in them. I couldn't figure out what Mum wanted to show me there.

'Look,' says Mum. 'There are no saints or angels. Just two vases and nothing else.'

I could see that, but I still couldn't understand why she was showing it to me. Probably because it looked sad to her, all abandoned and ransacked.

But Mum said she was there the day before with Jan, and while she was there she realized that it isn't important what people built around themselves. In that place you could feel more than in some church full of pictures and sculptures. She said she now knew that it's up to people to learn how to hear everything that speaks to them and above all themselves; that was the most important thing. And she also said she knew she'd been awful and yelled at me, but in fact she wasn't yelling at me but at something inside her, because she couldn't come to terms with the fact that life is the way it is and she is the way she is.

That really knocked me out. Plus the fact she looked so cool. I wasn't used to that any more. I just wonder how long it's going to last.

We stood there for a few more moments and I remembered Dad. What would it be like if he was here with us too? Maybe he'd look cool too and be happy that he's here with us and not on his own, the way he was at the end, when he had nothing left, not even the little marble that made all things seen and unseen. It's really strange how people aren't able to stay together and are rotten to each other. I wanted to tell Mum I love her, but when I glanced at her she looked really moved and she was whispering something to herself, as if she was praying, only she never prays. Maybe she was singing something to herself, such as the song about the midge, which wasn't really about a midge at all but about how great it is to be alive. I didn't want to disturb her so I didn't say anything.