Ivan Klima - No Saints or Angels

That's something I know without having to travel halfway round the world. I don't have to look too far, for that matter: my sister sings a couple of tear-jerkers a month and she's a rich woman compared to me, whose only job is to help rid people of pain.

'What about your poison-penfriend?' Lucie recalls.

'Mr Anonymous is about the only one who is at all faithful to me.'

Lucie wants to know if I suspect anyone in particular. I ought to be careful, she warns me, and report the letters to the police. And I should definitely carry Mace.

I don't intend to report it to the police. They'd just waste my time with typing up some statement. There's no chance they'll go looking for an unknown person who hasn't even attacked me yet. And I don't think I'd be likely to spray poison in someone's eyes.

I ask her whether she was on her own all the time. This is the question my friend has been waiting for. She pulls out a few photos showing her in a luxury convertible with some swarthy fellow with black curly hair, a Latin mostly likely. He's holding her round the waist, flashing his pearl-white teeth and displaying his biceps. He must be at least two divine blinks younger than her. But I'm sure that that didn't bother her. She has lots of other photos in the box. These don't feature the dark Romeo; instead they show skeletons with dark skin stretched over them, children with large eyes and swollen bellies who reach out for a hand holding a bowl with some kind of soup.

'Those are from Rwanda. They must have got mixed up with these,' she explains. She takes back the photos and stuffs them back in her bag. 'And how about you?' she asks.

In my mind's eye I immediately see a small book-filled room, a young man "who brings me roses running naked and barefoot for an ashtray after making tender love to me. I could mention him. I'd enjoy talking about him; but Lucie would certainly want to hear all the juicy details, of course. That was what we always used to talk about, and we'd make fun of the fellows who play the he-man and when it comes to displaying their virility they wilt, and all that's left of their pride is a little worm. But I don't feel like going into details; I'm ashamed that I succumbed and that my feelings are still getting the better of me.

I say nothing and she says, 'You wait, when that Indian-summer romance hits you.' And she goes on to tell me about the young dark fellow's sensuality. I listen to her and think of my own young man, who doesn't have biceps or curly black hair, but who loves me perhaps more than for just a short stay. He promised he'd be waiting for me tomorrow. Where will we go? I can hardly invite him home. Most likely we'll find a wine bar somewhere. And then what? We could go somewhere to a park — Petřín or Sarka, if it's fine. Twenty years ago I thought nothing of making love in the parks and woods around Prague. In those days I didn't stop to think whether it would be fine or not, but made love in the rain and even the snow. Interestingly enough, the snow didn't feel cold; my back was scorching, in fact. These days I'd be worried about my ovaries and kidneys. And I no longer feel like making love somewhere on grass covered in dog shit or having the feeling that someone's getting turned on by peeping at us from the bushes. We could go to my surgery, of course, and make love in the dentist s chair or on the bench in the waiting room.

The wine we are drinking is nice and heavy. It goes to my head and drives out all my worries.

I notice a man gesturing at me from the far corner of the restaurant. A familiar face that I'm unable to place — he's almost entirely bald, with just a bit of greying stubble at the sides. It could be one of my patients. Then the fellow stands up and walks

tipsily over to our table. 'Hello, Kristýna! You haven't changed in the least.'

I can't address him by name or tell him he hasn't changed either, as I don't recognize him. I simply say hello.

'I won't disturb you,' he promises. 'I simply wanted to say hello to my great love of long ago.'

'It's impolite to tell a lady that something was long ago,' Lucie chides him.

'No, it really was long ago,' I say, remembering now the man who first forced me to have an abortion. He's lost his black pigtail, as well as the rest of his hair, but on the other hand he's made a career for himself. I occasionally read something about him. He's a drugs specialist dealing with young people. But since the time he drove me to take an innocent life I've lost all interest in him.

He tells me once more that I'm still beautiful, even more beautiful than then, in fact. He moves a chair over to our table and, as was his wont, starts to undress me with his eyes, while announcing that he works at the ministry and lectures on the new anti-drugs legislation. He is against making drug possession a criminal offence; he's a liberal and wants to influence the young through education. As he blabbers on, my 'educationalist' strips me bare with his eyes.

'Do you have any children?' I interrupt him.

He nods. 'Why do you ask?'

The prat. He asks me why I ask. Some other girl didn't let him force her to go before the board, so he became a father.

'I've got two boys,' he declares, almost proudly. 'How about you?'

'I've a daughter,' I tell him. 'I could have had two, but the criminal who fathered the first didn't want me to have her.'

Offended, he gets up, says he had no intention of disturbing us and staggers off. But my mood is ruined anyway

'Men, they're all disgusting,' Lucie says in a show of solidarity. 'Spiders and men. Except that spiders are harmless.'

It is almost midnight when I emerge from the metro. I'm dreadful, abandoning my little girl again. I almost break into a run.

At the corner of our street a man emerges from the dim entrance to a block of flats and stands in my path, thrusting an arm towards me as if to throttle me. I freeze. 'Give us ten crowns, missus. I've got nowhere to sleep.' He is staggering so much he has to hold on to the wall. He's either drunk or high, but surprisingly I feel a sense of relief. This isn't my anonymous letter-writer wanting to kill me, but just some homeless bloke. I take out my purse and tip all my loose change into his palm.

He closes his palm and staggers off without a word of thanks.

When I reach the door of our block and try to unlock it, my hands are shaking and I'm unable to get the key into the lock. I fancy I can hear footsteps behind me and even someone breathing wheezily, but when I turn round there is no one there.

The flat is already dark and silent. I lock the door behind me and put on the safety chain, something I never do otherwise.

I open the door of Jana's room and hear noisy breathing. There's an odd smell: a mixture of joss sticks, eau de cologne and insect repellent. I don't know since when my daughter has been a fan of joss sticks, but that sweet, penetrating scent is more likely intended to cover some other smell. I'm familiar with that trick. I used to use it when I smoked a cigarette at home and didn't have time to ventilate the room and get rid of the smell before Dad got home. I feel like giving my daughter a good shake and asking her what she was up to here and what she was trying to conceal. But she'd only deny everything. There is a sheet of paper with writing on it lying on the table. I read the first sentence: 'A triangle is the plane figure formed by connecting three points not in a straight line by straight line segments.' It's not a message for me. Or maybe it is: see what a lousy mother you are; I sat here working diligently while you were living it up in a pub.

That's something Dad forgot in that dream of mine. A rotten daughter, a lousy wife and a useless mother.

2

I fell asleep quickly, but my ex-husband wormed his way into my dream again. We were travelling together to some mountains where our accommodation was a wooden chalet. We were still young and had Jana with us, but we left her in the chalet and set off up a narrow track cut out of the rocks. At a certain moment we had to hold on to big loops of rope that hung above our heads in order to cross a ravine. I was afraid as I passed from one loop to another because the ropes were rotten. And then one of the loops broke and I was suspended above the chasm, only holding on by my right hand. I called to my husband for help. I called to him by name, but he had disappeared; he was no longer with me and I watched in horror as the screws that held the end of the rope gradually worked themselves loose from the rock. I kept on screaming, while thinking about Jana and wondering what would happen to her, who would take care of her when I plunged into the abyss.