No Saints or Angels, page 21
Every moment I’m here I feel that I’m getting further and further away from the life I usually lead. These last few days I’ve had the feeling that my head is cleared somehow; at last I’ve been able to see in clear outline everything I’ve ever set eyes on in my life. I’ve even been able to see in clear outline what is yet to come.
I have come to realize that the work I do is poisoning my soul. It forces me to concern myself with the despicable dealings of the past to such an extent that I end up not seeing anything else. Each of us has some connection with them, either personally or via our fathers or mothers. I got the impression that – like in Sodom – there wouldn’t be ten just men to be found in our city.
Before I left Prague I tried to compile the city’s horoscope for the next century. It predicted the city’s downfall in the year 2006. I tried to work out whether this downfall would be due to war or flood, or to something from on high – although water also comes from above. But now it strikes me that it needn’t be the sort of catastrophe that destroys buildings, it could equally be a moral downfall.
When I went to bed in my tent on the fifth day of our wanderings I couldn’t get to sleep. I seemed to be seized by an inexplicable agitation, a foreboding that something inevitable was going to happen.
Suddenly my tent flap was lifted and I caught sight of Vera in the dim light of the moon.
‘Is that you?’ I asked, the way I used to ask her not so long ago when we made love, but now the question took on a new meaning.
‘It’s me,’ she whispered. ‘If Mickey Mouse won’t come to the mountain, the mountain will have to come to Mickey Mouse.’
‘I have plenty of mountains here,’ I said. But she quickly slipped out of her tracksuit and lay down next to me.
The moon was shining, so a ray of pallid light fell on us through the fabric of the tent. I could hear the murmur of the stream, and close by, maybe right above us, a bird shrieked. We made love and she moaned more than she had ever done in the past; I don’t know if it was due to ecstasy, a sense of victory or sadness.
‘Do you love me?’ she wanted to know. ‘Tell me you still love me.’
But I remained silent.
Suddenly she pushed me away and started to get dressed. I went out of the tent with her. Above us the stars shone and seemed to me unusually bright.
’I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘But there would be no sense starting again. It wouldn’t go anywhere.’
‘Who told you I wanted to start something?’ she hurled at me. ‘I needed to find out if you’d come crawling if I wanted.’
‘But I didn’t come crawling to you, did I?’
‘Oh no? And you dare to say that to my face after what you’ve just done. You’re a vile, disgusting, lying beast.’
Maybe she was right. It struck me that all the time I’ve been waiting for her to come to me and for us to make love.
At the time when I was striving to become an interpreter of history I once read some medieval legends that dealt with physical abstinence. They decried property, food, drink and also, of course, what is called sexual love – which for their authors was the result of original sin. They went so far in their condemnation of physical desire that the best married couples in their view were those who remained virgins to the end of their days. The hypocrisy of those authors disgusted me. They sneered at the desires of the body without which they themselves would never have been born. But there was one thing I had to grant them: the realization that you have to fix your gaze on something that is above those desires and be responsible for how you behave and the things you do.
I turned away and went back into my tent. I lay down again and tried to think of something nice that had happened to me in the past or something I still looked forward to, but nothing occurred to me.
The next morning we stopped in the town of Rožňava. Soon we split up and we each set off as the fancy took us. I wandered through the sweltering streets and alleyways, where there was little sign of life in the heat of the late morning, apart from the occasional half-naked child running past or a dog with its tongue lolling out. An out-of-the-way sweet shop offered Italian icecream but I was more attracted by a nearby shop sign that advertised the services of a fortune-teller.
As I opened the door, I set several bells ringing at once, but the only living creature to appear was a cinnamon-coloured Persian cat. It jumped up on the counter and gazed at me with its yellow, fiendish eyes. A posy of dried herbs hanging from the ceiling filled the shop with a spicy scent.
At last a door at the back of the shop creaked and a smiling woman in a long purple dressing gown appeared. Even if it hadn’t been written above the shop, I’d have suspected her of engaging in some kind of witchcraft. ‘You wish to have your fortune told, young sir?’ she asked.
She had long unkempt black hair and dark Indian eyes, and around her neck she wore a heavy chain that seemed to be gold, as did the bracelets on her brown wrists.
I asked her what she used to tell fortunes, and she told me it was inspiration from God. She could take a look at my palm but it wasn’t necessary. Anyway she had to look at my aura first before she could raise the blinds that concealed my future. She gestured me to follow her into an alcove where there stood two faded armchairs and a small table with a few scattered dried flowers on it. Amazingly enough the place was pleasantly cool.
She pointed me to one of the armchairs and sat down opposite. She asked me to place my hands on the table palms upwards, to stop thinking about anything else, and to look in her direction. She took my hand for a moment, but she didn’t seem to be concentrating on it. She asked me whether I wanted to know both the good and the bad things about myself and I nodded. She let go of my hand, stared at me and then mumbled something incomprehensible. Then she told me my aura was gradually becoming clearer and I was emerging from it and floating upwards. She could see that I was a good man with many abilities, but I had experienced great pain. She could see me crying over a coffin and snakes winding themselves round my legs, but I wasn’t to be afraid as they didn’t bite.
‘You will have a long life, young sir, and the illnesses you will have won’t be any threat to you. I can see sparks flying from your fingertips; you must have touched lots of people with them. Take care, take great care or the sparks from your hands will burn you.’
The cat quietly crept into the room and jumped on to the woman’s lap, but the fortune-teller didn’t seem to notice, her attention apparently fixed on the images that appeared before her eyes, images that she reported to me. Her concentration impressed me, as well as the fact that she didn’t try to baffle me with external aids such as cards or a crystal ball.
In the near future, she continued, she could see many obstacles in my path: they are solid and powerful, but I wouldn’t vanquish them, I’d go round them. I would climb into a vehicle that would take me to the royal heights, and no enemies that stood in my way would get the better of me. She told me I had lots of friends, and one friend in particular, who was strong and kind, would stand by me. The disaster that was going to overthrow all the cities around me would pass me by.
I wanted to ask her what disaster she was referring to, but I was afraid of interrupting the flow of her visions.
‘I also see a woman,’ she went on. ‘She is older than you. She is far away and she is waiting for you. But it isn’t your mother. Yes, she is looking for you because she is in danger. A great danger that you can save her from. You will be richly rewarded.’ She fell silent and raised her hands as if about to give me a blessing. Then she stood up.
I gave her two hundred crowns and went back out into the hot day whose brightness blinded me.
In sudden anxiety I tried to phone Kristýna from the post office but I couldn’t get through. When I met up with the others I told them I had to return to Prague by the next train. Vera no doubt thought I was running away from her, but I didn’t care what she thought.
In the train my anxiety grew. I knew that someone had been sending Kristýna anonymous threats. Another possibility was that someone who was afraid to attack me directly might attack her as a way of intimidating me. I thought of how delicate Kristýna was, or not delicate so much as vulnerable. Anyone could hurt her. There were people who, as soon as they detected someone’s vulnerability, couldn’t wait to hurt them.
There was a time when victims were revered as martyrs, these days it is the torturer who tends to be revered.
In Prague I called her immediately from the first call box in front of the station and asked her if everything was OK.
She said it was and was glad I hadn’t forgotten about her yet. She would like to see me but she and Jana were just on their way out. She was driving her to another treatment centre a long distance from Prague. She wasn’t sure whether she would manage to get back by evening. But she would definitely be home the following day. I could come there and stay with her now that she was on her own.
I asked her if I oughtn’t to travel with her. She hesitated for a moment and then said it wouldn’t be necessary.
I ought to have made it more obvious that she was in danger and demand that she take me with her. But I don’t know whether the danger is immediate or not. As the celebrated Nostradamus put it: Quod de futuris non est determinata omnio veritas.
I felt regret that I had come back from my holiday on her account while she seemed in no great hurry to see me, and I told her that I probably wouldn’t be able to make it the next day, but that I’d definitely call her.
6
Summer is slowly drawing to a close; the lime trees in the street in front of Mum’s house have already finished flowering, and autumnal melancholy has descended on me prematurely, as well as weariness. I drove Jana to that distant spot where I am not to visit her for a whole month and it wouldn’t even be a good idea to write to her.
Now I could take a holiday but suddenly I don’t feel like going anywhere on my own. Jan talked about us going somewhere together, but we’ve never even been out for the day. I have the feeling there’s something on his mind; he’s less communicative. He says he has lots of work on; he wants to go through as many files as possible before they kick him out of his job or he is refused access to top-secret materials. I don’t try to talk him round: I’m a bit afraid of us being together all the time; he is full of vigour and I’m a tired middle-aged woman. And besides I’ve got used to not having a man around full time.
And yet one night it occurs to me to ask him who were the people who went to Slovakia with him and why he has told me so little about them. I ask him in exactly the same way I ask him how he spent the day, what he has read of interest lately or if he knows any new jokes. But I notice that my question doesn’t please him. He wants to know why I ask.
‘Because I’m interested in you, of course.’
He says he was there with the crowd I’d met at the game he invited me to that time. And he hasn’t told me about the trip because he didn’t think it made any sense to talk about travelling. It’s impossible to describe nature, except in poems, and he is no poet. There is also little point in talking about people I don’t know. Where something interesting happened, such as the prophecy at the fortune-teller’s, he’s told me everything she foretold, and since he’s been back the unimportant things have already slipped out of his memory. I recall him once describing to me how people with bad consciences behave when questioned by his colleagues. How they go into lengthy explanations about why they can’t remember anything.
I feel a sudden anxiety. ‘So that leggy girl – the one you used to go out with – she was there too then?’
He hesitates a moment before replying, as if considering what answer to give me, or even whether I know or suspect something.
Then he replies that she was there too.
It’s late and time we were asleep. A little while ago we made love; he was tender to me. I ought to keep quiet and not keep asking questions. But I’m unable to dispel the anxiety that has seized me.
‘She didn’t even try to seduce you?’ I ask.
He remains silent and then replies with a question: ‘Why would she try to seduce me? We’d broken it off, hadn’t we?’ He sits up and gets out of bed.
‘Where are you going?’
‘I’m thirsty.’
He goes off to the kitchen. I can’t bear to wait. I put on my dressing gown and follow him. He is pouring wine into two glasses.
‘Are you going to have some wine with me?’
‘Yes, I feel like some.’
‘But you still haven’t answered my question.’
‘I don’t understand why you want to know now, all of a sudden.’
‘Now or some other time.’
‘But I asked you at the time whether you’d like to come with me,’ he reminds me.
‘But I wasn’t able to. You wanted me to go with you to protect you from your ex-girlfriend?’ It dawns on me.
‘I don’t need protecting. I love you, don’t I. That’s why I wanted you to come with me.’
He is still avoiding the question.
‘But it was night, everyone around was asleep, and she crept into your tent,’ I answer for him.
I can see I have rattled him. ‘If she’s called you and put ideas in your head, don’t believe her.’
‘She hasn’t called me,’ I say. ‘Nobody has put ideas in my head. It’s how I imagine it. If it didn’t happen, you’d have told me long ago that she went with you too.’
He says nothing; he doesn’t try to contradict me. He admits nothing and denies nothing. He’s not a liar and he doesn’t know how to be faithful, just like every other man.
‘There you are,’ I say. ‘I don’t need a fortune-teller to tell me what happened and what danger I’m in.’
‘I love you,’ he tells me. ‘I didn’t stop loving you for a moment.’
‘Not even when the other one was in your arms?’
He says nothing. Then he tries to explain it to me: they were going out for almost two years. He didn’t want to hurt her. And anyway he hurt her because he told her he didn’t want to have anything to do with her any more.
‘Because now you’ve got me.’ I complete his thought. ‘You don’t need to explain anything to me. I’m glad you have consideration for your old girlfriend. It means I can hope you’ll show me the same consideration.’
He repeats that he loves me and has never loved anyone else. He tries to explain to me that there are situations when you do something you didn’t intend to, and you are immediately sorry. He asks me to understand that.
I tell him I am able to have understanding for anything – life had taught me that. But that doesn’t mean I can accept everything and come to terms with it. I hate betrayal. I once got divorced on account of it and deprived Jana of a home with a father.
He asks me in umbrage whether he ought to kneel down and ask my forgiveness.
I tell him that I don’t like fellows who kneel, and I like even less those who ask if they ought to.
I have the feeling my little boy is at a loss – whether to be offended or to burst into tears. He’s not a liar and he doesn’t know how to be faithful. Most likely he is regretting that he didn’t lie. But he’ll soon learn how. Maybe I should be pleased that he doesn’t yet know how to lie, but at this moment all I feel is disappointment – and weariness.
’Kristýna,’ he begs, ‘nothing happened, nothing of any importance. Surely you’ll forgive me.’
‘I don’t know what you expect,’ I tell him. ‘That I’ll advise you? Or that I’ll go back to bed with you?’
He hesitates. Then he asks if he ought to go.
I tell him I’d appreciate it if he did.
7
My new nick was called Sunnyside and it immediately struck me that Graveside might be a better name, because the nearest thing was an old abandoned graveyard. Though I have to admit that the sun really did beat down all the time – I got quite a tan during the first few days of my nonenforced stay. You see I had to declare that I’d chosen that nick voluntarily. I played up a bit at first but I knew I’d go anywhere to get rid of those vampire witches and where I wouldn’t have to listen to the crap from that platinum blonde cow who meant it all for our good. But I said I wasn’t going to any loony bin in the middle of a forest; I’d sooner hang myself. Mum tried to persuade me it was for my own good and told me what a fantastic place it was. Dad was born not far from there and lived there at my age, and apparently some of his great-great-great-aunts still live around there somewhere, though I couldn’t have given a toss. Mum went on to tell me I wouldn’t be there long and it wasn’t the end of the world because they had electricity there. I told her that was really something: electricity – I was trembling all over in anticipation. And I asked Mum if they had any fantastic things such as electric chairs, or whether they gave themselves electric shocks after breakfast for fun. Mum got pissed off and said there was no talking to me and told me if I wanted to stay where I was, I could. I started to panic that she might just leave me in that nuthouse and so I told her OK she could send me by rocket to the moon for my own good if she liked.
There were eight of us detoxers at the Graveside by my reckoning – that’s including me. Some of them had already been stuck there for six months. Monika was the only one who was just starting her second month and she was planning to split. She told me that before she came there, she’d worked in a hospital. It had been heaven, she said: there were drugs everywhere you looked. They used to nick Rohypnol, for instance, and give the sick old ladies a placebo instead, and then they’d have great trips. From time to time they even managed to get hold of morphine; that was super because then they didn’t have to buy expensive muck from Arab dealers. She was screwing some married doctor that she was in love with, but when it got out, the nerd packed her in and all she had left was the dope. She’s come to realize that life without drugs has no point anyway and that people are vile by nature.
