I tell him that maybe what he said is what I needed to hear. From him, at least. I could find plenty of would-be scientific advice in any old psychology textbook.
When he is gone, it strikes me that I didn't ask him where one is to find hope and how to care for love so that it lasts, how to support my child without pampering her. But that's something I have to discover for myself.
I go straight from the surgery to see Jana at the drug treatment clinic.
They bring her to me. She is pale and looks puffy, somehow. 'Hi, Mum!'
I look at her and feel searing remorse. It's awful that I feel at fault — more than she does, even. I ask her how she is and she
understandably starts to reproach me for leaving her here in this 'nick'. However she admits that there was some point in it, as the therapy sessions had opened her eyes to a few things. 'Even though sometimes they're totally moronic,' she adds quickly, not wanting to make too many concessions to me.
Then we go for a walk, but it's not easy to converse on the move, so we sit down on a bench. A short distance from us some schizophrenics or alcoholics are weeding a flowerbed. I unwrap an apricot tart I baked her, and my daughter tucks into it with relish. I ask her about the people she's now living with and she says dis-missively that they're all loonies and junkies. She doesn't know what there is to say about them or what she's doing there with them.
'Jana, do you remember what I told you about my grandmother?' I ask her.
'Which one?'
'My mother's mother. The one I didn't even know.'
'Oh, yeah. She died in some concentration camp.'
'They killed her with poison gas.'
'Yeah, so you told me.'
'When I told you about it, you said how awful it must have been. And now here you are slowly poisoning yourself
She gives me a pitying look, as if to let me know how little I know about real life. 'But that's something totally different.'
I try to explain to her that the only possible difference is that in those days someone held the lives of other people in contempt, while in her case, she held her own life in contempt.
She shakes her head angrily; this doesn't fit in with the performance she had been preparing for me. She starts trying to persuade me that what I said might be true if she'd ever committed anything like that, but she had never taken any poisons, and I wasn't to leave her there any more, that the conditions were dreadful and they wouldn't cure her anyway, as there was nothing to cure.
'Oh, but there is, Jana. Don't forget I know what they found in your blood.'
'That was a total one-off.'
'You can try that one on someone who knows nothing about it, but it won't wash with me.'
'It was a one-off and I'll never try it again. I've realized it was stupid.'
'Am I supposed to believe you?'
She promises me she'll never do anything of the sort again. She even swears it.
I say nothing. I don't want to make light of her pledge, but I know how little store I can set by her determination.
'Mummy, you can't leave me here! I'll go out of my mind.'
'You're more likely to go out of your mind from what you've pumped into yourself. You'll stay here until you're cured. And that takes more than two or three weeks, I'm afraid.'
'Do you really mean it?'
I nod. She picks up the rest of the tart and hurls it to the ground. Then she stands up and runs off.
I have an urge to run after her, but I know I mustn't.
In the evening my sister Lida calls me long-distance to ask for news of Jana. 'Mum told me you'd put her in the loony bin.'
I reply that she is naturally not locked up with mental patients.
My sister didn't think she was, but even so I hadn't chosen the best place for her.
'It's not the best place for anyone', I say.
'We won't argue about that,' she says. 'But I heard they don't get very good results. You can't risk your daughter falling back into her old ways when she comes out.' Then she proceeds to tell me about the guitarist in her band who underwent treatment in a community near Blatná. They managed to cure him. She knows the therapist who runs the community. He's a great guy, she says, and she could persuade him to take Jana.
I'm not sure. I'm not used to my sister helping me, and certainly not of her own accord. 'But I don't know anything about the place.'
'Well naturally you'd go and see it first!'
'I'll have to think about it.'
'Kristýna,' she says, 'you can think about it, but you won't come up with anything better.' She dictates me the therapist's name and address and urges me to do something about it straightaway. 'You can drop by and pick me up,' she offers. 'I'm free on Wednesday; I'll go down there with you.'
Maybe my sister really is sorry for me, or for Jana at least. I'm afraid to believe it, but even so I'm grateful for her concern. I tell her I'll cancel my Wednesday surgery and drive down.
2
My boyfriend called from Slovakia. He told me it was beautiful there and that they would like to go on to Velký Sokol and Biela Dolina.
I told him I knew how beautiful it was there and said I was glad he was having a good time. But I didn't ask him how could he be having a good time without me, if he loved me as he said he did.
He went on to say that he was sorry he couldn't be with me, but he couldn't wait to see me again.
He wasn't looking forward to me enough to come back, but why shouldn't he climb Velký Sokol just because I'm missing him?
I don't know what to do on Saturday afternoon.
I'll visit Mum, at least. Mum's always been my comforter, not because she says words of comfort but because she's always managed to put my troubles into a proper perspective. Or at least she's always heard me out and consoled me with some story from her own life when she hadn't despaired even when she'd been worse off than me.
She has come to terms with Dad's death, but visits the nearby cemetery at least twice a month and puts fresh flowers in the vase I bought. She also needlessly cleans the untarnished marble headstone. On the other hand she has started socializing with old pals of hers she didn't have time for before; she even goes to the theatre with them, something she never did in the past.
I offered to buy her a dog, a cat, or at least a parrot, so that she wouldn't have to be totally without any living soul in the flat, but she refused. She doesn't want a live companion; she would find it a burden to have to look after anyone now. On the other hand, she has bought herself loads of indoor plants — cacti and perennials — to fill every empty space in her room.
And she's laughing again, usually at herself. She even laughs in situations where other people would get annoyed or lose heart. She loves telling me stories about the absent-minded old codgers and grannies that live around there.
But I'm concerned about her physical state. Sometimes she gets nosebleeds that are hard to stop, and recently I had to take her to hospital. She is supposed to take a heart tonic and something for hypertension but she is always 'forgetting' to take her daily dose. And when I tell her off, she says she doesn't need any medicine; she feels fit and I'm making unnecessary fuss about a few drops of blood.
I have scarcely sat down before she is putting the kettle on for coffee and bringing me a piece of marble cake still hot from the oven. Then she shows me some new purple-flowering plant which she expertly describes as a cycad and wants to know the latest news of Jana.
We chat for a while about my naughty daughter and the prospects for a cure, and my mother surprises me by wanting to accept part of the responsibility or even the blame. 'You never wanted to accept your father's convictions,' she tells me, 'and I had nothing better to offer you.'