At first I used to try to say something interesting. I even told him I missed him. But then I realized he'd been really vile to Mum and me and I'd try to do a bunk as soon as I could. That beanpole left him last year too. It struck me he might come back to us, but he didn't.
So now he's been ill. Mum reckons he's in a bad way. He doesn't stare as much as he used to, but he still scares me. That's why I dolled myself up like Pippie Longstocking and didn't put any eyeliner round my puffy eyes. I was so sober I almost staggered climbing the stairs up to his flat; I was chewing some mint gum so he wouldn't know I'd had a last ciggie in front of the house.
I hadn't bought him any roses or even stolen any for him in the park. Why should I?
'Hi, Dad,' I said when he opened the door. 'I've come to make you pancakes.'
CHAPTER THREE
1
I won't be with my daughter this evening anyway. Lucie called me this afternoon to say she's just back from the other side of the globe and wants to see me.
I call Jana, who is surprisingly at home, and mention warily that I'll be home a bit later this evening. She wants to know where I'm going but I don't go into details; I simply tell her to get on with her maths homework and warn her that I'll test her when I come in.
I have a rendezvous with Lucie at a wine restaurant just below the Castle. It's an expensive place, but Lady Bountiful is treating me. She's tanned because she's spent almost a month in California and seen the Pacific Ocean, which I'll never see. She says it's so cold that in those hot regions a cloud of mist rises from the surface and covers the sea and the shore. She takes a box of photographs out of the shoulder bag she always carries. They really do show houses and even the Golden Gate Bridge emerging in fairytale fashion out of the mist. The suspension cables of the bridge glisten with drops of condensed water like the threads of some monstrous spider's web. My friend has also been in the desert and warmed herself up at the hottest spot on the planet; she has brought back for her own benefit and mine pictures of coloured rocks and flowers that brighten the dunes for a single day and then perish in the heat. There are also photos of giant cacti, but they are from the botanical gardens at Berkeley, which I'll never see either.
I ask her what sort of a time she has had.
Fantastic. It's a fantastic country for a short stay, because of the entertainment. That's something that people there definitely worship more than what they go to church for, and entertainers have the best-paid jobs.
That's something I know without having to travel halfway round the world. I don't have to look too far, for that matter: my sister sings a couple of tear-jerkers a month and she's a rich woman compared to me, whose only job is to help rid people of pain.
'What about your poison-penfriend?' Lucie recalls.
'Mr Anonymous is about the only one who is at all faithful to me.'
Lucie wants to know if I suspect anyone in particular. I ought to be careful, she warns me, and report the letters to the police. And I should definitely carry Mace.
I don't intend to report it to the police. They'd just waste my time with typing up some statement. There's no chance they'll go looking for an unknown person who hasn't even attacked me yet. And I don't think I'd be likely to spray poison in someone's eyes.
I ask her whether she was on her own all the time. This is the question my friend has been waiting for. She pulls out a few photos showing her in a luxury convertible with some swarthy fellow with black curly hair, a Latin mostly likely. He's holding her round the waist, flashing his pearl-white teeth and displaying his biceps. He must be at least two divine blinks younger than her. But I'm sure that that didn't bother her. She has lots of other photos in the box. These don't feature the dark Romeo; instead they show skeletons with dark skin stretched over them, children with large eyes and swollen bellies who reach out for a hand holding a bowl with some kind of soup.
'Those are from Rwanda. They must have got mixed up with these,' she explains. She takes back the photos and stuffs them back in her bag. 'And how about you?' she asks.
In my mind's eye I immediately see a small book-filled room, a young man "who brings me roses running naked and barefoot for an ashtray after making tender love to me. I could mention him. I'd enjoy talking about him; but Lucie would certainly want to hear all the juicy details, of course. That was what we always used to talk about, and we'd make fun of the fellows who play the he-man and when it comes to displaying their virility they wilt, and all that's left of their pride is a little worm. But I don't feel like going into details; I'm ashamed that I succumbed and that my feelings are still getting the better of me.
I say nothing and she says, 'You wait, when that Indian-summer romance hits you.' And she goes on to tell me about the young dark fellow's sensuality. I listen to her and think of my own young man, who doesn't have biceps or curly black hair, but who loves me perhaps more than for just a short stay. He promised he'd be waiting for me tomorrow. Where will we go? I can hardly invite him home. Most likely we'll find a wine bar somewhere. And then what? We could go somewhere to a park — Petřín or Sarka, if it's fine. Twenty years ago I thought nothing of making love in the parks and woods around Prague. In those days I didn't stop to think whether it would be fine or not, but made love in the rain and even the snow. Interestingly enough, the snow didn't feel cold; my back was scorching, in fact. These days I'd be worried about my ovaries and kidneys. And I no longer feel like making love somewhere on grass covered in dog shit or having the feeling that someone's getting turned on by peeping at us from the bushes. We could go to my surgery, of course, and make love in the dentist s chair or on the bench in the waiting room.
The wine we are drinking is nice and heavy. It goes to my head and drives out all my worries.
I notice a man gesturing at me from the far corner of the restaurant. A familiar face that I'm unable to place — he's almost entirely bald, with just a bit of greying stubble at the sides. It could be one of my patients. Then the fellow stands up and walks
tipsily over to our table. 'Hello, Kristýna! You haven't changed in the least.'
I can't address him by name or tell him he hasn't changed either, as I don't recognize him. I simply say hello.
'I won't disturb you,' he promises. 'I simply wanted to say hello to my great love of long ago.'
'It's impolite to tell a lady that something was long ago,' Lucie chides him.
'No, it really was long ago,' I say, remembering now the man who first forced me to have an abortion. He's lost his black pigtail, as well as the rest of his hair, but on the other hand he's made a career for himself. I occasionally read something about him. He's a drugs specialist dealing with young people. But since the time he drove me to take an innocent life I've lost all interest in him.
He tells me once more that I'm still beautiful, even more beautiful than then, in fact. He moves a chair over to our table and, as was his wont, starts to undress me with his eyes, while announcing that he works at the ministry and lectures on the new anti-drugs legislation. He is against making drug possession a criminal offence; he's a liberal and wants to influence the young through education. As he blabbers on, my 'educationalist' strips me bare with his eyes.