No Saints or Angels

'Do you think one can fly to freedom?'

'People can't, only geese can.'

'If you were a goose, where would you fly to?'

'To you, of course!'

I love him for all of that. But at the same time I can't understand why he should love me — there is nothing unusual about me: an ageing woman who messes around in people's mouths, who has an almost adult daughter and suffers from early-morning depressions that she exorcizes with nicotine and a glass of wine. What have I to offer him? Maybe I resemble his mother or correspond to some other subconscious notion of his. Feelings are kindled in people without their being able to explain why and these feelings fizzle out just as inexplicably.

I search for an explanation and persuade myself that the lad next to me is different from other men — less selfish: kind and

accommodating. But even if he's like that, nothing will efface the fact that one day, maybe tomorrow, maybe in a months time, maybe in a year, his feelings will fizzle out. What will he do then?

He'll leave, of course.

And if he didn't we'd only have a hard time, both of us. My beloved Karel Capek wrote a novel about a woman who has a young lover. It's a tragic story that ends in a senseless murder. How will my story end?

Jan stirs and opens his eyes, which are completely dark in the gloom. 'You're not asleep?' he asks.

'I woke up and started to think about my worries.'

'What worries do you have?'

I was thinking about how you'll leave me one day, I don't tell him. 'Jana s playing up. She doesn't study properly, she plays truant, and she smokes marijuana.'

'You've never even shown her to me.'

'She doesn't know about you.'

'Are you ashamed of me?'

'You know I'm not.'

'I could maybe help you with her. Although I don't have any experience of marijuana.' He snuggles up to me for a moment. Then he realizes how little space he has left me and offers to sleep on the floor.

I tell him I want him to stay by me and it occurs to him that we could shift Jana's bed in here.

'Now, in the middle of the night?'

'I only ever shift beds in the middle of the night.'

At two o'clock in the morning we carry in Jana's divan. The two divans standing here side by side after such a long time are reminiscent of a marriage bed.

'That's given me a thirst,' he says. A half-empty bottle of wine stands on the table. But he doesn't want wine. He didn't even have any with me during the evening. Instead he goes to the kitchen to run himself a glass of the vile liquid from the tap.

'You're not hungry?' I ask him.

'I'm always hungry, because I almost never have time to have a proper meal.' And he adds that it seems to him like a waste of time to bother with food. I now know at least, why he's so slim.

I offer to butter him some bread, but he says he'd like to make some soup. So at two-fifteen in the morning I start to cook. He insists on cooking the potato soup himself. All I need to do is prepare the necessary ingredients.

I'm not accustomed to someone cooking for me at any hour of the day or night. I'm not used to sitting and simply looking on. 'Why are you so nice?'

'I'm not nice at all. When we get together to play hero games, I generally choose the role of the villain.'

'But there's no way you can tell what you're really like.'

'So why do you ask?'

We are eating the soup and he is telling me how in some game, whose rules are a mystery to me, he played a Chinese cook who was supposed to poison his emperor.

'And did you poison him?'

'Of course I did. I had high levels of skill and intelligence.'

'You haven't mixed anything into my soup, have you?'

'Why else do you think I cooked it?'

'So that's why you stayed in Prague. You don't mind too much that you weren't able to deliver your paper?'

At three in the morning, the only thing I mind is that it will soon be dawn.'

His reply disappoints me a little. He notices and says, 'I'll find an opportunity; give it some time,' thus consoling himself too.

When at last we lie down on our widened bed, he takes me in his arms. He caresses me again and says more tender things to me.

My little boy. What are you doing here with me at three in the morning? 'Don't go,' I whisper. 'Stay in me. You don't have to leave; I won't have any more children anyway.'

Silence. Lovemaking is over. 'You don't mind that I can't have children any more?'

He doesn't reply. Instead he says he loves me.

'But I asked you a question.'

'I answered you.'

'That wasn't an answer.'

'If you love someone, you love them just as they are.'

'And you'd like to have children?' I don't ask whether he'd like to have children with me.

'I don't know,' he says. 'I think my mother's the one who wants them. But it's not important.'

I oughtn't to have broached the subject. I don't want some other woman getting involved in what there is between us.

'Your mother called me Miss,' I recall.

'Mum thinks all the women who call me are Misses.'

'Do lots of Misses call you?'

'It depends what you mean by lots.'

'In this particular case, lots is more than one.'

'Well lots' then.'

'I should have known.' I laugh while, outside, dawn is breaking. I laugh while jealousy and sadness well up inside me.

He lays his head on my breasts. After making love he wants to sleep.

And when they ask for you, your mother replies, Hold the line, please, I'll call him.' Because they're to her liking: they're young and she wants grandchildren, I don't add.

'What else is she supposed to say?'

'She's only supposed to say it when I call. She's to tell the others not to bother you.'

'I'll put her straight.' He laughs because he can't take my words seriously. Even I can't, although I wish that she'd do precisely that.

'Have you told her about me yet?'

'No, I don't talk to her about such things. I don't want her interfering in my life.'

'What's she like?' I ask.

'What do you think? She's a teacher. At her age, she had to learn how to deal with computers. But she's great, she coped with it.'

'Has she ever interfered in your life?'

'She's tried. She's my mother. What mothers don't try to?'

It crosses my mind that I've not told my mother about him either. Except that he hasn't because he's most likely ashamed of me, an ageing divorcee, whereas I haven't because I'm ashamed of myself.

7

We were lying on the grass chewing the fat. Everyone was chewing the fat but I was fed up that Katya isn't here. She's the only one who's really ace. We did everything together: we went to the flicks, borrowed each other's CDs, we went shopping together for threads and ornaments, preferably the same so we could be like two sisters. But when we were together at her cottage last weekend she came home as high as a kite. Her dad could tell she was high and gave her such a belting she couldn't go to school the next day. She told him it was a violation of human rights and that she'd totally clear out, but her dad put her nose out of joint by saying they'd totally kick her out if she tried the stuff again. And now she's not allowed to go anywhere, only to school and back, and when we're going home there's always someone from her family: her older brother, her mum, her dad or even her wrinkly grandma waiting for her at the school gates. A real bummer.

Sometimes Ruda is really ace, but sometimes he couldn't give a fuck about me. I really like the fact he's got a nose like Bono, or even a yard longer, and not a pug nose like mine. And also he's got really big, strong hands.

He just noticed I was pissed off and so he jacked me up with something, I didn't even ask what it was but it was stronger than usual, probably a mixture of piko and smack, but I started to feel great. I felt like a fuck but I also didn't feel like moving. I stared at the sky where horses cantered and flamingos were flying. It was an ace trip.