Ivan Klima - No Saints or Angels

In the evening I phoned Kristýna.

I expect she was afraid I wanted to pay her a visit because she started to complain about her tiredness.

I asked her what her plans were for tomorrow.

She said she was driving down to see Jana.

'It's good that you'll get out.'

'You can come with me if you like,' she said to my amazement.

I wasn't sure I wanted to, but the fact is we've never been anywhere together and I'll have a chance to tell her what happened to me at work. It also occurred to me that she might be letting me know that we belong together after all, even though I'm beginning to think that we'll never belong together.

6

I am driving fast, as is my wont. Jan is sitting next to me and looking pleased. I don't know what came over me to invite him to come with me. I am afraid he'll misinterpret my invitation. But I'm not entirely sure myself how I intended it. As an act of

reconciliation or just as a joint trip to see Jana, since we took her to the detox centre together?

I can't say what I really want. I don't want to be cruel to the boy; I don't want to hurt him; I don't want to set off that chain reaction: you hurt me, now I'll hurt you. I don't want to hurt him, but I can't be sure that he won't hurt me. I don't know how he perceives me at this particular moment. I rather get the impression that he's wandering elsewhere in his thoughts and moving away from me.

We reach Sunnyside before midday.

They tell us that Jana is out in the forest with the rest and will be back in about two hours' time.

We could set off to find her in the forest, but instead we set off in the opposite direction. Half an hour later we come upon a group of isolated homesteads set around a picturesque fishpond and then we make our way up to a hilltop along a field track. There is a break in the mist and the autumn sun actually tries to warm us slightly. To the right of the path there is forest: the larches have already turned yellow and they seem to glow in the sunshine. To our left there is a freshly ploughed field with fragrant upturned soil.

Going uphill is a struggle for me and I find it increasingly hard to catch my breath, but I try not to let it show. Luckily he's in no hurry. He tells me that it looks as though he'll be given notice at work. He asks me whether he ought to fight it or whether he should quit the job now that he is beginning to feel it's a waste of time. One possibility would be to finish his university course, but he would also like to make use of what he found out over the years by writing it up and publishing it. Not on his own account, or not entirely so. He has the feeling that forgetting the past, as most people in this country do, is a dangerous phenomenon. But if he left his job, he probably wouldn't find anything as well paid. He could also try to work as a freelance for the press or the radio; he has some friends there and it is the sort of work that appeals to him.

It strikes me he's telling me this partly because he is still considering living with me and therefore feels a certain responsibility to me. I tell him that if one is given half a chance one should do something one feels like doing and what one regards as useful.

Maybe it suits him that I'm older; I know more about life than he could know; he needs someone to approve his life's decisions. His mother has probably fulfilled that role so far, but men who aren't able to free themselves from their mothers tend to feel humiliated.

You never know what you mean to other people, only they do, but usually even they aren't able to say for sure.

We finally reach the hilltop. A chapel stands a short distance from the footpath. It looks abandoned and the path to it is overgrown with untrodden grass.

We trample the grass slightly. The chapel is empty: in the place of a sacred painting or statue there is simply a mouldy patch on the wall, but on a small, battered table there stand two blue vases.

Two blue vases; I stand and stare at them in amazement, as if someone had deliberately placed them there on my account. What is the point of two empty vases in an empty chapel without even a painting on the wall?

One for blood, the other for tears: I can hear my old lament.

We stand there motionless for a moment. We don't pray; we don't speak; we listen. I don't know what this place says to him, but no doubt something different from what it says to me. I can suddenly hear the voice of my father, clear and hard, as I knew it when I was small and feared him, when I longed for his love. I hear him, but can't make out the words. Most likely he came to ask why I broke the vase that time. Or he came to save these two abandoned ones? But what if he came to let bygones be bygones?

You have to speak more distinctly, Dad.

But he has fallen silent and isn't coming or speaking any more.

I'd like to hear at least the voice of my once and only husband, whose love I also yearned for, but he won't be coming or saying anything any longer.

In fact all you yearn for is to hear that someone loves you, but generally you don't hear it; most likely they were just words intended to deceive you. When you realize that, you either despair or try to find something to bring comfort.

It doesn't, anyway.

So life comes to an end and time closes behind everyone and everything.

My ex-husband understood that and tried to escape by running away from it. I reminded him of time, being younger than he was, so he ran away from me too. Eventually he bowed down before Time as the Creator God. And he didn't even run away from me: I was the one who closed his eyes in the end. I recall how sad and lonely his death was and I feel like weeping over him at this lonely spot.

And I feel like weeping over Dad. It occurs to me that neither of them were happy; they didn't know how to live with what they had; they wanted something other than what life offered them. They lacked humility. I do too: I couldn't be reconciled with them, nor with my life, therefore. One ought to be capable of reconciling oneself with people, even if one can't reconcile oneself with their deeds.

I glance at the young man standing at my side. He came to me at a moment when I no longer expected anyone or anything new in my Ufe, and he told me over and over again that he loved me. He didn't act as if he did, or at least at one moment he didn't; he didn't even try to deny it, but I couldn't reconcile myself with his deed.

I don't know for what fraction of a divine blink he'll stay with me, it doesn't matter. I don't know how long I'll last, how long I'll be capable of loving; maybe my fatigue will defeat me; maybe I'm no longer capable of coming close enough to someone to live with them. But I won't torture myself with it now; I'm grateful for this moment, for the time he'll still stay with me maybe.

I suddenly hug him of my own accord; I kiss him in a chapel where there is nothing but two empty vases. I don't do or say anything else. And we rush away.

'We'll pick up Jana first thing this afternoon.' He looks pleased and looks forward to her going out to dinner with us.

That afternoon, we drive into town and Jana tells us, with an enthusiasm that I'm afraid to believe unreservedly, how she is beginning to understand that she was on the wrong track entirely and how it happened to her. Last week they took part in a discussion session at some school where they told the children what they had been through and how dreadful it was.

'What about the children?'

'They were totally knocked out,' my daughter says proudly. She is thrilled about learning to understand herself and everyone around her. And me too.

'Do you think you understand me?'

'Yes, I'm really beginning to understand you.'

'I wonder.'

'Understanding isn't the same as agreeing.'