Ivan Klima - No Saints or Angels

'You feel like being stuck here the whole summer?'

'Either here or around here.'

'But I don't. I spend the whole year looking forward to some rest.'

'But there's nothing to stop you going to the seaside.'

Her arrogant replies irritate me but I try to stay cool. 'And leaving you at home?'

'Why not?'

'Because I don't intend to leave you here on your own.'

'Mum, you have to realize I'm not a little girl any more.'

'I don't have to do anything. And you just bear in mind that you're not entirely grown-up.'

'I hate lounging around at the seaside. It's a waste of money.'

'The money's not your concern. What would you like to do?'

'Stay here.'

'And come home at midnight every night.'

Yeah.'

'Stoned out of your mind.'

'I want to spend my holidays with people I like being with.'

'I appreciate that.'

She looks at me in surprise.

'Everyone prefers to be with people they like being with. Do you think I don't?'

'There you go.'

'But you're coming with me because I won't leave you here to wander around at night with a crowd of punks that you think you like being with. Just because they let you do what you like and because they spend their time lazing around like you.'

'Mum, this is pointless. I won't go to the seaside with you anyway.'

'All right, we won't go to the seaside.'

'But I don't want to go anywhere.' Her expression is defiant. This is no longer the little girl who used to come and snuggle up with me in bed on a Sunday morning. I know I'm partly to blame. I ignored for too long the fact that things were going wrong with her. I wanted her childhood to be different from mine; I wanted her to have more freedom.

But what is freedom? The gateway to an unknown space that even adults get lost in, and my little girl isn't sixteen yet. She's lost in a landscape that lures her, but in fact it's a swamp that she'll go on sinking into until one day she'll disappear altogether.

I'm aware of tears falling from my eyes. I quickly wipe my face, but I can't stop myself from crying.

And this creature looks at me for a moment and then all of a sudden she shoves her aching head into my lap. 'Don't cry, Mummy. I didn't mean it. We'll go together if you like.'

5

I invited Kristýna to take part in a game I had thought up. It wasn't too crazy, or childish even. It was a game without monsters. I invited her because I wanted her to meet my friends. No, I wanted to prove to myself that she was mine not only in private but also in front of people. I wanted Věra to see her with me.

But I shouldn't have done it. Kristýna didn't feel right during the game, or rather she disliked it. I should have realized that she's

down-to-earth and not the playful type. She made an effort to please me, but I could tell she was uncomfortable. I didn't try to stop her when she decided to leave after two hours.

We went on playing almost the whole night. Věra acted as disdainfully as she was able. When we were saying goodbye she couldn't control herself any longer and asked, 'Wherever did you pick up that old relic?'

'I didn't pick up her, I discovered her in the archives,' I riposted. 'She has royal forebears.'

'I don't know about forebears, but she certainly has a large backside.'

I told her she was pathetic and that I pitied her.

She replied that she didn't know who was more to be pitied, but I was definitely the bigger dupe.

Dawn was breaking when I reached home. I had the feeling something crucial had happened in my life.

When Kristýna left that evening and we went on with the game, I suddenly realized that it no longer gave me any pleasure and I was simply wasting time. As if I saw myself with her eyes: a little boy still playing games instead of completing my studies, for instance.

People can have a passion for gambling, but that's not my case. In hero games you have no hope of a financial reward that would change your life. Pretending to be surrounded by fairytale creatures naturally required a certain amount of imagination but also a childishness that was inappropriate at my age and in my line of employment.

People often play games to escape the tediousness of their jobs. There was nothing tedious about mine. There was nothing boring about investigating one file after another that reflected nobility of spirit, paltriness and wickedness in varying proportions. Sometimes I felt like a voyeur, like a vulture circling above the desert looking for further carrion. Sometimes I would dream at night of people I'd never set eyes on, although their private lives

had been tossed to me, and moreover in a distorted form. Compared to that it was a relief to move around in a make-believe world full of spirits, wizards or even vampires and many-headed dragons. There was something magical about entering an artificial world where you could draw up the rules yourself and influence the course of events. Some of the informers whose files I read plainly did what they had pledged to do for the same reason: a yearning to influence the course of events that the rest had no knowledge of. They believed themselves to possess magical powers to hold sway over human destinies, whereas most of them were just tools, mere puppets in the hands of others who believed the same. And so on ad infinitum.

What was important for me was that I was able to bring the game to an auspicious or at least acceptable conclusion, which was something I never managed to do in my private life or at work. But it was high time I started to bring affairs in my own life to an acceptable conclusion too. But it looks as if I'm not fated to do so.

Mr Rukavička — Hádek, who had the job of suppressing those who espoused the ideas of Scouting, naturally failed to turn up for questioning. He sent his excuses and included a medical certificate saying that his state of health did not allow him to travel. When he was the interrogator, medical certificates like that were of no help. If he needed someone, his henchmen would haul them out of a hospital bed if need be.

So we went to find him ourselves.

The old people's home at Městec was located in a neo-Gothic mansion surrounded by an extensive English park. A carefree and comfortable place for someone who robbed people of their freedom to finish his days.

The superintendent told us she was happy for us to use her office for a short while for our business. She even made available her ageing typewriter. My superior asked her how satisfied they were with Mr Rukavička, and the superintendent again obligingly

replied, saying that he was a pleasant and quiet old man who had brought his canary here with him. The bird was apparently his only pleasure. His wife had already passed away andhis children didn't visit him. He didn't have too many friends here, but he behaved in a friendly manner to everyone and the nurses spoke well of him.

One of the nurses then led in the man who in the past had used at least two names. He stood there supported by two crutches: an inconspicuous, plump old man with a wrinkled face and a pale skull showing through his remaining grey hairs. He leant his crutches against the wall, sat down in an armchair and asked what he could do for us.

Ondřej introduced us both and said that we had no intention of keeping him long. Ondřej told him he would like to put a number of questions to him as a witness; no doubt he was aware what it was in connection with.

The old man had no idea, or at least he maintained he hadn't a clue. None the less he lent me his identity card so that I could enter the necessary details in the statement.

'Mr Rukavička, you worked from 1949 under the name of Hádek as an interrogator for the State Security,' my superior opened the interrogation.

The old man assumed an injured expression. There must be some absurd mistake.