Ivan Klima - No Saints or Angels

'I'm here, that's all. School holidays started today, didn't they?' She acts arrogantly, not wanting to lose face with her friends. They have noticed me, but most of them look unconcerned.

'Why didn't you call me?'

'My card ran out.'

'Didn't it occur to you that I'd be worried about you?'

'Spare us the scene, Mum.'

'OK, I won't say any more. Just get your things, you're coming with me.'

By way of reply, she turns her back on me.

'Jana, get up and come with me!'

She doesn't look at me. She doesn't even budge. However Jan leans over her and says: 'Didn't you hear?'

'Who are you? Did you bring some cop with you, Mum?'

For a moment, my blood runs cold at the thought that the word 'cop' will incite the rest of them and they'll start to attack us.

'No,' he says, 'you're wrong. I just happen to like your mother and won't stand by while you torment her.'

'I don't torment her,' she replies; but she is so dumbfounded by what she has heard that she gets up, turns to the others and says, 'Bye then, see you tomorrow. I have to go with them now.'

'Where's your school report?' I ask, because all she is carrying is a little canvas bag.

'There,' she says, pointing towards the river.

'You threw it away?'

'Yeah. It was disgusting!' And she laughs a strange, alien laugh.

I say nothing.

jan seats the two of us in the back of the car and then turns to my daughter. 'You're high as a kite, aren't you?'

She looks at him. 'It's none of your business.' Then she yells, 'You're not my dad!'

'Jana!'

But she's laughing in that alien voice again. 'I feel great,' she informs us. 'I don't care what you think about it.'

'But I do care what's in your bloodstream and I intend to find out.'

She laughs. Then she starts to yell that she won't let anyone take her blood. She's not going anywhere with us and I'm to let her out of the car right away.

I don't intend to argue with her. I simply tell Jan where he is to drive to.

'You want me locked up with loonies?'

'I just want to find out what's up with you.'

'I won't go with you!' She tries to open the door as we are going along. I grab her, get my arms round her waist and hold her with all my strength. We struggle. She manages to open the window slightly and shout for help. When she realizes no one will hear her she tries to strangle me and lunges at Jan, jolting his seat and yelling that she doesn't care if we all get killed. 'I'll kill you. I hate you. You're vile! I'll kill you!'

I manage to drag her back into the seat. I'm lying on top of my daughter; I can smell her breath, which gives off an odd stench. I'm lying on my little girl, who is scratching me, biting my hand and kneeing me in the stomach. She is younger and stronger, and her brain is addled by some poison or other. I know I won't be able to hold her down, maybe she'll manage to jump out or throw me out of the car; then she'll leap on Jan from behind and wrench the wheel out of his hands. She really will kill us all.

Then suddenly she gives in. She is silent. I notice that her face is covered in blood. I have a moment of panic, but it is only blood from the scratches on my hand.

The long wall of the mental hospital looms out of the darkness ahead and Jan pulls up in front of the gates.

'You want to leave me here?' Jana asks me. Then she starts to snivel. 'Mummy, you aren't going to leave me here, are you?'

But the gates are already opening and I know I have to leave her.

7

Everything here is white and horrible: the walls, the beds, the lamps and the people. Except for the black bats that hang from the lights from time to time. The head doctor was completely out of his mind when I first saw him, I thought he was a loony in disguise or a junkie. When they dragged me off to the detox unit, which was the name they gave the clink on the first floor, I fought with them as hard as I could but they were well trained and used hypos instead of manacles and whips. They shot something into me and after that I slept for about a month like Sleeping Beauty. When I woke up I was in a foul mood and told them all to piss off. That loony in disguise told me cheerfully that I had classic withdrawal symptoms. He also told me that my blood had been full of all sorts of crap and I ought to be happy that I'm alive.

I didn't mix them, it was Ruda.

I'm going to do a bunk anyway.

There were nine of us in the detox — horrendous! There were some winos, too. We told each other about our lives. Renata was already twenty-five but she looked more like fifty, she said she'd been at it for eight years. This was her third time here and she said she'd kill herself anyway. She said she'd already tried to lots of times but someone had always spoilt it. The last time she lay down on the tracks, but the train stopped about half a yard from her. Then the engine driver jumped down and picked her up and

because he was in a state of shock he thumped her and yelled at her that he'd kill her. So why did the cretin stop, then?

Renata told me I should be grateful to Mum for dragging me here. 'Nobody could ever give a fuck about me, and just look at the state I'm in.'

There was also one pro. Her name was Romana and when she told her stories it was great. She said she'd once had eight guys in a night and earned as much as a government minister did in a month. She said she was born in Sicily where half the inhabitants had actually come from India and when she was born, Kali was reincarnated in her. Kali was the fiercest of the Indian goddesses. She even defeated her husband, who was a god too, and then danced a victory dance on his chest. In Sicily, Romana learned witchcraft and how to destroy men.

She said it took her only two weeks to turn any man into a zombie who believed he couldn't live without her. There was a son of a Catholic priest who wanted to reform her, and in two weeks he had aged a hundred years and not even junk could help him afterwards. Another guy, some businessman, started going round graveyards digging up skeletons and bashing himself on the head with the bones until he clubbed himself to death. Then there was this professor who taught magic at university: after he got to know her he had to climb up to the roof naked every night and sit there in all weathers. She said he sat there until one night he froze to the chimney and firemen had to fetch him down. About a dozen of her lovers jumped out of windows. And she'd beaten up a heavyweight wrestler and tossed him off the balcony straight into an enormous cement mixer.

It was obvious she was bullshitting, either that or had amazing trips, but she was great fun.

The worst thing was that they locked me up with an old bag who was actually the reincarnation of Dad's beanpole. She looked like a human being but she had turned into a vampire ages ago

and she went for me. I expect she went for everyone, but I hated it that she was out for my blood. I told the nurse about it — she's a bit like Mum's Eva — and she told me not to be afraid, she'd keep an eye on me when I was asleep. So I could only sleep when she was on duty and even then I was frightened and tied a scarf round my neck when I went to bed.

It was lovely outside — outside the window, I mean, because we weren't allowed out. That's what pissed me off most: the fact that outside it was the holidays and the rest of them were lounging on Kampa and I was rotting in here like a squashed tomato.

I'm going to do a bunk anyway.

And we also had therapy all the time. There was this peroxide blonde in a white coat who came and started to go on at us about how it was really stupid to take drugs, even though the rest of us knew it was great. The cow told us that what she was saying was for our own good and she told us to repeat after her, just like Dad, that it's stupid and we won't do it again. And she also asked us about our circumstances. She was really chuffed about Mum being a dentist. 'A mother like that and there you are causing her distress. But you don't want to distress her any more. So try saying it out loud, or at least to yourself.'