Ivan Klima - Lovers for a Day

'That's only an excuse. Just to make you look magnanimous in your own eyes.'

'I don't need to look magnanimous in my own eyes. Or in anyone else's, for that matter. But you can hardly deny that I look after you.'

'That's not the point.'

'I'm not really sure what the point is.'

'The point is that it's ages since we spent a proper evening together.'

'And don't you think I might just like one too? It's not my fault I have so little spare time.'

'Whose fault is it, then?'

'I don't know. It's just the way things are. If you hesitate for a second, there's someone stealing a march on you.'

At 'work, you mean?'

'Yes, at work. In research.'

And elsewhere?'

'What do you mean by elsewhere?'

'At home, for instance.'

'Here, do you mean?'

'I wasn't aware you had a home somewhere else.'

'That's an interesting thought.'

'It's never occurred to you before, then?'

'That someone might steal a march on me here? Who, for instance?'

'It wouldn't be too hard to find someone.'

'And you have someone in mind?'

'No, I used to think I had you.'

'And you don't any more?'

'I'm not sure now. I don't know whether I've got you. I've got the money you bring home and the dishes you make dirty, and the shirts that I wash for you.'

'I thought the washing machine did that.'

'I don't want to talk about shirts, I want to talk about us.'

'You're the one who mentioned the shirts.'

'I was only asking what we get from you, the children and me.'

'The children don't wash shirts.'

'The children don't even get dirty shirts from you.'

'You act as if I ignored the children.'

'Would you mind telling me, then, when we last spent a family evening together?'

'And what's this "family evening" supposed to consist of, for heaven's sake?'

'Sitting around the table for a meal and chatting together.'

'Chatting about what?'

'What we've been doing during the day, for instance. Or what we've been reading.'

'Economic analyses and statistics are what I read most of the time. I shouldn't think they'd interest you.'

'You could hear about what the children or I have been reading. If you're at all interested.'

'Your idea of a family evening sounds a bit like school. Questions about what you read for homework.'

'We wouldn't have to talk about books. You could explain to us what your work's about. Or what you want from life. Or what we are doing here.'

'You really think that would interest them? The boy's into model-making and the girl's into clothes and the absurd pop songs she stares at on television.'

'You didn't teach them anything better, did you?'

'So I'm to blame for that too, am I?'

'It's not a question of blame.'

'Why don't you find them something better to do, then?'

'Perhaps I've tried, but it's been too much for me on my own.'

'In other words, you're all on your own.'

'It feels like that sometimes. I've always been left to deal with things like that on my own. The most you were ever up to was helping the boy stick his models together.'

'I'd sooner have him sticking models than trailing round the pubs in a gang.'

'But one day they'll want to start their own families and they'll look back on their childhood.'

'Do you think it'll strike them as so awful? What have they lacked?'

'Nothing apart from the fact they won't be able to recall a single proper family evening.'

'Not one? What about Christmas?'

'Christmas in our home is an orgy of present-giving. You always try and make up for what we don't get from you at other times.'

'It never occurred to me that I should regard myself as the one who owed anything on that score. And I never got the impression things like that bothered you particularly. Think of all the time you spend at that dressmaker's every month.'

'I haven't been to see my dressmaker for at least six months. But I'm not complaining about what I have to wear. We're not

talking about material things, are we? We're talking about the time we spend together as a family?'

'Why the "we"? I'm fairly happy with my evenings. And I think the children can look back on lots of nice evenings.'

'Can you really recall a single one? When we were all here together? Just one?'

'Stop interrogating me. You're not in the classroom now. And stop looking as if you were on the verge of tears.'

'How am I supposed to look when I am on the verge of tears?'

'You're the last person to have a reason to cry. Tell me what's missing from your life.'

'I'm sorry you can't sense it.'

'You're right. I'm insensitive. It's a pity you didn't pick someone more sensitive. Someone who'd lay on nice evenings for you. Some poet or other who'd recite his work to you. Stop crying. For my part, I'm sorry you don't realize that everything I do, I do so we can live half decently.'

'But we're not talking about that at all.'

'No, we're talking about nice evenings chatting together. Like now, for instance. This evening strikes me as going really well. We'll look back on this as a really successful one.'

'What's up? Why don't you come to bed?'

'Wait a second. I'll be right there. I have to wash, don't I?' 'You always take ages. Sometimes I think you deliberately

drag it out because you know I'm tired. You hope I'll fall asleep

in the meantime.'

'Don't you think I'm tired as well? These few minutes in the

bathroom is the only time I have to myself all day. And no

sooner am I out than you pounce on me like a vulture.'

'That's not a very apt comparison.'

'Why not?'

'Because vultures pounce on corpses.'

'Are you trying to say I'm like a corpse?'

'It was your idea. The vulture.'

'You're disgusting.'

'Don't keep me waiting any more, then.'

'After what you just called me? No one could blame me if I did act like a corpse.'

'I know you've had a hard day of it.'

'It's not so much what I have to do during the day as the fact that you ignore me the whole day and then want me to make love to you.'

'What do you mean I ignore you the whole day? I'm at the university the whole day.'

'There was a time when you'd phone me, at least.'

'You mean I don't phone you now?'

'Only when you need something.'

'Fine. Tomorrow I'll make a point of calling you. First thing. But at this moment I happen to be here.'

'I couldn't care less about the telephone. But at least if you'd hold me a bit first. Or say something loving to me.'

'Don't I ever say loving things to you?'

'Most of the time you don't say anything. When we were going out together — do you remember? In those days you used to say all sorts of nice things. You used to call me your little pussy cat.'

'Yes, I liked the pussy cat one. I thought it had a nice ambiguity.'

'That never occurred to me, I must say. And there was I thinking you meant I had claws.'

'You never struck me as having claws.'

'A woman is what a man makes her. Anyway you used to jump on me wherever we went. In the woods or the park. And once, out in the yard behind the bins, remember? I told you you were off your head, that someone would see us.'

'But it was pitch dark.'

'It may have been dark, but it stank of garbage. That didn't worry you, though, your mind was on one thing.'

'I wanted you. I was crazy about you.'

'Yes. And each time you'd tell me you loved me over and over again. You never stopped saying it in those days, and now you grab me without a word. You act like an animal.'

'I can hardly go on telling you I love you for fifteen years, can I?'

'Why not, if you love me?'

'I'd feel like a parrot. Or a robot. Repeating the same sentence over and over again.'