Ivan Klima - No Saints or Angels

We get on well together. I've never experienced with her the sense of emptiness that I've felt with other women. It struck me

that she experienced everything to the full, including each of our conversations, in a way I'd never encountered before. For her everything took place on the boundary between joy and grief, delight and suffering. She avoided the idle chatter enjoyed by most of the women I'd known.

Sometimes she would talk to me about her patients and the quirks of fate and reversals of fortune they experienced, but mostly we spoke about the quirks of fate and reversals of fortune of the people whose lives I researched.

I was more categorical in my judgements than she was. I told her about Dad. I also mentioned the encounter with the fellow in the old people's home, who I'm sure was his interrogator. I told her of our powerlessness in the face of criminals who pretended loss of memory. I asserted that nothing had really been done here to evaluate the guilt of those who helped to suppress the freedom of others, and told her I would therefore do everything in my power to ensure that their guilt was still assessed retrospectively and punished if possible.

Kristýna maintained that it would be to nobody's benefit to do so. Who was to judge, when almost everyone was entangled either willingly or otherwise. And in fact we keep on getting entangled. 'In the way that you're maybe getting entangled with me,' she said.

I didn't understand what she meant.

'My dad was a member of the militia and in charge of political screening,' she explained. 'He would have considered your father his enemy.'

'And would you have agreed with him?' I asked.

'I couldn't stand him. I couldn't stand my father,' she repeated. 'As soon as I started to understand anything, I didn't even want to see him or speak to him.'

'You see,' I said. 'You virtually lost your father while he was still alive. So what do you mean by entanglement.'

'In your father's eyes, mine was also unacceptable,' she said, 'and

now the two of us are lying here together. Neither of them would have approved. Your mother wouldn't either.'

'It's great we're lying here together, since we love each other,' I said. 'And don't drag our parents into it.'

Later, when I was leaving, I realized that her father was indeed one of those who had persecuted mine. It's not her fault, just as it's not my fault that my father was the persecuted one. Even so, I prefer not to think about our different backgrounds. I ignore them and intend to ignore them, just as I ignore Kristýna's cigarette smoke even though I can even smell it in her hair.

In fact, the only way to exist is by ignoring the things we don't like and the things about people and the world that could disturb us.

6

It's almost 8 p.m. and Jana isn't home from school yet. Today they received their school reports. My daughter made an effort to temper her insolence with appeasement and announced to me yesterday that she would fail maths and expected at least five Ds and a B for conduct. I made up my mind not to shout at her or reproach her in any way. But she didn't come home.

First I rang Mum, in case she'd gone there, and then Jana's best friend. I managed to catch her in, but she didn't know anything about Jana, or so she maintained, at least.

Shortly afterwards Mum called me and told me to do something.

'I know, but what?'

'You know how it is,' she presses me. 'Children get bad marks and out of bad conscience or fear they run away or even do something to themselves.'

'Who would Jana be afraid of, Mum?'

'You ought to know.'

'Jana isn't a child any more. Maybe she just went somewhere with her pals.'

'But she'd have phoned you, at least, wouldn't she? You ought to report it to the police right away.'

'I'll wait a little while longer.' I smoke one cigarette after another. I also call my ex-husband, even though I know it'll be pointless.

No, he hasn't seen Jana for at least three weeks. It grieves him because he feels lousy and doesn't know how much longer he has to live. He starts to give me a lengthy account of his ailments. He's only interested in himself now. I bring the pointless conversation to an end and light another cigarette. My fingers tremble and I want to cry. I have no one in the whole wide world apart from Mum, and she's already old. No, there is one person who loves me maybe, but how could he help me? He'd most likely think I'm being hysterical. I've told him almost nothing about Jana. I was embarrassed about her being nearer his age than I am.

I'll wait another half-hour and then go to the police. What we all have in the whole wide world is the police. Helplines and the police, who come and take a statement and that's that.

At last the phone rings. But it's only Lucie calling to tell me she's miserable and missing her swarthy lover. She is about to tell me all about it when I interrupt her with my present problem.

'But she'll come home,' my friend tries to reassure me.

When I hang up I'm convinced that Jana won't come home. She's sitting somewhere with her gang drinking — hopefully only drinking — and having a good time. I'm the one shaking with fear; she knows she has nothing to be afraid of. And as for her conscience, it didn't bother her when she stole my jewellery and that money and when she lied to me. So why would she do something desperate on account of a school report?

I shouldn't have let things come to this. The moment she comes in I'll drive her straight to the drug emergency unit at

Bohnice mental hospital! They'll give her a blood test and I'll finally find out what she's up to.

But what if she's had an accident? She could have got drunk or high and run under a car. She could have been attacked.

I really ought to go to the police, but I still hesitate. 1 don't want them putting her on some list and searching for her as if she was a prisoner on the run.

Jan, the master of the hero games and also someone who's had experience of detection, is my last hope. So I finally call him and share my fears with him, while apologizing for dragging him into my worries.

Without waiting for details, he tells me he'll be right over.

The waiting seems endless, even though he gets here in less than half an hour.

He wants to know what sort of report Jana was expecting, whether she is depressive, whether she drinks, what sort of crowd she hangs out with, and what pubs she goes to,

I dutifully tell him that she hangs out with punks, that I don't know what pubs she goes to — she told me she mostly sits around in the park.

He asks me if I've ever looked for her there.

I never have, because she has always come in earlier than me; three times a week my surgery lasts till six.

My replies surely can't satisfy him; I expect he thinks I'm a careless and irresponsible mother.

He ponders for a moment and then says that the punks often congregate on Kampa island. 'Even if we don't find Jana there, at least we might discover something.'

I'd agree with whatever he suggested, just so long as we're doing something. I take him down to my car, but ask him to drive because I'm too distraught.

At this time of the evening the streets are half-deserted and soon we're driving through Smíchov. He manages to park in one of the side streets and we walk down the steps to Kampa. The

sound of guitars already reaches our ears; it is getting dark but I can still make out punk haircuts. These are the ones we're looking for: I recognize my daughter even from behind. I run up to her. 'Jana!'

She turns to me. 'Is that you, Mum? What are you doing here?' She is painted as gaudily as a Papuan beauty queen.

'What are you doing here?' But I'm still relieved that I've found her and that she's alive.