Ivan Klima - No Saints or Angels

go.

The day before yesterday I got my first letter from Mum. She

says she's missing me and has talked to Radek on the phone; he says he's fairly pleased with me. Would you believe it: after me forgetting to order the spaghetti and smashing those plates. He knew very well they didn't just slip out of my fingers and that I was putting it all on. Mum also sent me two hundred crowns for when I get a leave pass, and she said she'd drive down and was looking forward to seeing me. Not a word about that ginger bloke of hers; she didn't even give him the letter to sign. Maybe he's already chucked her over like Dad; I'd be really sorry for her if he did. And I've started to miss her a lot too and Ruda — I remembered what a great time we had, but most of all I miss my little room where no one came poking their nose in and no one yelled 'Wakey wakey!' at me at six in the morning.

Yesterday when Monika went shopping she swigged a bottle of beer in the supermarket and one of the cows that works there grassed on her to Radek. So Monika was immediately 'confined to barracks' and on top of that she had to wipe all the passages and stairs. Horrendous! She told me in the evening that she'd had enough of being hassled. She was going to do a runner and asked me if I wanted to come too. I told her I'd been thinking about it since the first day and if she was going I'd go with her, except I didn't know where I'd make for.

She suggested an aunt of hers near Písek. She wouldn't kick us out and we could even help her on the farm until we decide what next. I've got an aunt in Tábor, but she knows Radek so I expect she'd tell us to get lost.

Radek happened to be at some therapists' meeting or something so the only person in charge was Madla, a girl not much older than us who was only starting her training. She used to prat around with us in the evenings and sing songs and play the guitar. Then we'd have to wake her up in the morning. I was a bit sorry for her that she'd be in the shit on account of us, but Radek wasn't that sort. He'll say it was fate and if someone doesn't want

to stay in his heavenly Sunny Graveside they are welcome to leave.

So in the afternoon when we were all supposed to go somewhere to the forest for firewood I pretended I had a terrible headache. Monika was on kitchen rota and had to do the washing-up. As soon as the rest of them were gone we packed our rucksacks and left too, but in the opposite direction.

It was a glorious day and neither of us could understand how we'd managed to put up with it for so long: feeding the goat, mucking out, licking the lino and having to rabbit on about ourselves. When we got out of the forest we managed to thumb down a Trabant with some local dumbo at the wheel who was taking his wife to the dentist's in Blatná.

That's a coincidence, I said, my mum's a dentist too, but in Prague.

They were tickled pink that my mum was a dentist too and wanted to know whether we were going back to Prague and where from. 4 told them we were on a tour because it's so beautiful round here we can hardly get over it.

They were really chuffed and told us to help ourselves to the apples they were bringing with them.

I started on about Sunnyside, saying I'd heard there was some farm up in the woods where there were junkies. Had they heard about it? They said they had and that it was really dreadful how many young people have got hooked on that stuff and the ones up there are the worst of all: they nick things, get drunk and they were all shacked up there together.

'That really must be awful for all the people round there,' I said. 'Luckily we didn't go anywhere near there, otherwise we'd have spoilt all the happy memories we have from the rest of our trip.'

They dropped us in Blatná in front of the castle and even told us how happy they were to have met such nice young girls and how nice it was that there were still some young people who appreciated natural beauty.

Afterwards Monika told me I was a gas. As she knew about the money I got from Mum she dragged me into the nearest supermarket and we bought a bottle of vodka, though I'm not much into booze. But we didn't have enough money for anything we could really trip out on.

1

I miss Jana. When I'm finished at the surgery, I don't even feel like going back to the empty flat. Jan called me a few times. I talk to him but I don't feel like seeing him. Or so I tell him and myself. But then when I hang up I feel so wretched and lonely that I burst into tears.

Sometimes I get together with Lucie, and almost every day I drop in on Mum. I also visit my ex-husband. I get him something from the shops and cook him an evening meal, the way I did years ago. But he eats almost nothing. He is quickly going to seed: he's already an old man.

Life is sad. Almost everyone ends up on their own. Maybe in the past people still had God with them, but he wasn't really with them, at most they had him in their mind.

I don't mind being on my own, what I mind is that I've failed in my life and the people around me failed too. I reproach myself for handing my daughter over to the care of strangers, for not being able to cope with her on my own. I'm annoyed with myself that when she needed me most I squandered the little time I had left for her on a vain and conceited love affair.

Maybe I understand teeth, but I've never managed to understand the hearts of even those who are closest to me.

The waiting room has been full since morning but I've an urge to get away from here and be alone in the forest, the

thickest one possible. The trouble is I won't escape myself anyway.

I work in silence. I don't even talk to Eva. And it would be just the day when I have one serious case after another. Periostitis and three extractions, and to cap it all the last one was a number eight. And as if out of spite the phone hasn't stopped ringing.

I even cope with the number eight. I dictate the details to Eva for the patient's record and the phone is already ringing again. I can hear Eva saying, 'I'm afraid Mrs Pilná can't come to the phone now; she is in the middle of an extraction.' Then she listens for a moment and tells me, 'Apparently it's important. It's to do with Jana.'

'Rinse out, please.' I take the receiver and some girl's voice informs me that Jana is lost. She has run away with Monika. Who's Monika? Oh, yes, now I remember. The new one who didn't want to go on living. 'If she doesn't return by evening,' the girl informs me, 'we'll have to ask the police to look for her. Should she turn up at home, please call us.'

'Do you think she'll come home?'

'Probably not.'

'So what am I supposed to do?'

'I don't know,' the voice says. 'I'm new to this and Radek doesn't get back until the early evening.' She promises they'll call me if Jana turns up.

'She's run away?' Eva cottons on.

I nod.

'What are you going to do? Shall we call it a day here?'

I call Mum and let her know what has happened and ask her to go over to the flat and stay there until I get home. There's no point in sending patients away when they have appointments — anyway I don't know what I could do at home except wait. And being stuck at home would be even more intolerable.

'She's bound to turn up.' Eva tries to cheer me up. 'They'll call you soon, you'll see.'

But nobody calls and so I go on working. My fingers go through the routine motions, inserting the correct drill and using the right pressure. I even talk: asking things and giving orders, and all the while I imagine some dimly lit den full of junkies, a car driven by some pervert or a pimp, all of them taking my little girl away from me.

'That doesn't hurt?'

'No, doctor. You really have a way with your hands.'

I have a way with my hands, but nothing has ever turned out right for me.