Ivan Klima - The Ultimate Intimacy

'And won't you be sorry to be dashing around somewhere with dishes when here you could be doing a job for which only you are qualified?'

'But they pay three times as much.'

Where will she find new nurses now, with nothing to offer them? For the time being they will just have to share out the duties among themselves and that could well cause others to leave. What will happen then she prefers not to contemplate. This is a ward where the slightest neglect or inattention means death; and it can happen that several post-operative incidents or complications can easily occur at the same time. Now she is left with only one nurse for the night shift and she won't manage everything even if she splits herself down the middle. And then there was the holiday; she probably shouldn't have listened to Daniel and taken four weeks extra leave.

It is already two thirty; Hana has finished taking stock of the medicines and is on her way to the changing room. She has not managed to account for all the analgesics and the ephedrine preparations; someone is stealing them for their own use or making some extra money by selling them. Everything comes down to money these days. Everyone wants to get rich quick and the essential things in life are ignored.

What are the essential things in life?

Faith, hope and love.

Except that faith is dying and hope is therefore also on the decline. And what people now regard as love has little in common with it. It tends to be no more than a mutual encounter of bodies and at best a few trite saccharine phrases. She doesn't know them from personal experience, but has picked them up from television serials or from listening to the girls in the nurses' station.

They often confide in Hana, perhaps on account of her motherly appearance, or because she's a pastor's wife, or simply because she's a

patient listener. She is unshockable, understanding and ready to give advice. She tends to advise patience and warn against excessive trustfulness and impulsive decisions guided by feelings rather than prudence.

Sometimes, when she sees that passion, that total surrender to expectations of love, or when she detects the unconcealable tremor in the voice, she realizes that deep down in her there is also a hidden longing or perhaps an anticipation of some vague change, some action that will carry her out of this current that sweeps her along monotonously between the same banks.

It could well be that when she is giving her young subordinates a talking-to and warning them against foolish outbursts, she is addressing and rebuking herself too. She warns others against imprudence, never having been aware of imprudence under her own roof. Thanks to her job, she has heard more about drug addiction than Daniel. In this country every other person is a drug addict without knowing it. Grandparents are used to swallowing a whole tube of tablets each day, unable to imagine life without them. They would die of anxiety at the emptiness. They don't have a god so they stuff themselves with anadin, Valium and anti-depressants. Maybe that's permissible at the end of a life, but what will happen to the ones who start it at age eighteen? Her step-daughter is at risk and Daniel is too good-hearted — naive, she'd say — to give Eva a proper talking-to, let alone punish her. He believes she'll come to her senses on her own. But how many drug addicts ever came to their senses on their own? The only outcome of such a kindly and understanding approach to child-rearing would be that Marek and Magda would end up being tempted too. Marek seems to be sensible enough but Magda is attracted by anything she sees as forbidden or sinful. Not long ago Hana found a box of matches in her school bag. 'What are you carrying matches around with you for?'

'No particular reason. In case I needed to see something when it gets dark.'

'So long as you're not thinking of smoking.'

'Oh, Mummy, whatever makes you say such a thing?'

Her astonishment did not sound in the least convincing.

Those two young criminals that Daniel was so proud of reforming, and that he spoiled more than his own children, wouldn't come into the house if Hana had her way Even if they have been baptized and they feign piety, there is no reason for them to be friendly with their children.

If only Daniel had more time for them to talk together. If only he would find a moment to tell her he loves her.

Hana leaves the hospital in a bad mood. Outside the front entrance she bumps into the journalist who has just given her a bunch of flowers and so reminded her of her first love. His name is Volek. He greets her with a rather unconventional bow. She had mentioned she was going on her holiday. It occurred to him he would probably not see her again so he would like to thank her for all the care he has received and invite her for a coffee, at least.

'No, thank you. I have to get home. My husband and children are expecting me.'

'How old are your children?'

'Twelve and fourteen.'

'You can't be serious, Matron!'

'I also have a step-daughter who is eighteen. Why do you ask?'

'I just wondered whether they might cope for a while without you.'

'That's not the point. You've already given me these flowers. It wouldn't be right for me to accept an invitation from you as well.'

'But I'm only inviting you for a coffee.'

Hana cannot understand the reason for the invitation but it will help take her mind off things. He is an entertaining man, and in spite of his profession he seems quite trustworthy.

The little bar is right next door to the hospital. There are only a few people seated at the small round tables, but the background music is a bit too loud. She doesn't feel at all at ease but she will have to put up with it, having accepted the invitation.

The journalist orders two Turkish coffees.

'That's not really the best thing for your stomach,' she scolds him.

'There you go; I didn't realize you knew my case notes.'

'People mostly take the advice we give them with a pinch of salt. We discharge them and they're back in a twinkling.'

'Actually I don't like coffee,' he admits. 'At home I only drink tea, but real tea, not the sort of thing they offer you in a pub here. When you go into a tea-house out east,' he says, indicating with his arm somewhere a long way off, 'it is not just a ceremony, but something else as well, something for you to taste and smell and see. For instance, they can drop in your teapot a small ball that some dear little Chinese ladies have woven from tea leaves up on some plantation in the

mountains. And that ball starts to swell and turn into a flower that unfolds while at the same time imparting to the water the taste and scent of tea, such as you'll never encounter here. Whenever I'm abroad I stock up on teas. Should you ever happen to have the time or inclination to call on me, I would make you Dragon's Fountain, say, or Snowflake.'

'And you make tea all by yourself?' Hana asks, disregarding his invitation and realizing that she has never seen his wife during visiting hours, though from his notes she saw he was married.

'Yes. I would never entrust anyone else with tea-making.' And for a while he describes the proper way to make tea. Water may be poured on the tea three times: the first time for strength, the second time for taste, the third time for thirst. But in China when you arrive in the evening for a tea session, they just sprinkle tea in the pot and then simply pour on hot water. 'You see, it's my conviction,' he adds, 'that the person who knows how to drink tea also knows how to forget the din and bustle of everyday life.'

Hana then asks about his wife and what she does, but the journalist brushes the question aside. Klára works in a bar, finishing quite late at night and sleeping through the day, so they scarcely see each other.