ENT HOME ALWAYS BEGAN on Thursday and Friday. The residents would start preparing to look forward to someone coming to visit, someone from the family, usually children who had children of their own, and so the pensioners would spend what little money they had on boxes of chocolates and truffles. On those days some of the pensioners seemed to perk up a bit, as if they had awakened from a deep melancholy, and were feeling better again. But the ones who made the most preparations for those Sunday visits were those who never had any visitors. And so on Sunday morning, bright and early, small groups of pensioners would be gathered here and there in the courtyard, when it rained they sat in the Count’s great vestibule, but some couldn’t bear it and kept going out in the rain to see if anyone was driving up the avenue of old chestnuts that starts at the chapel and goes uphill, they’d peer all the way down to the bottom of the road, and sooner or later a car always came driving up the hill toward the gate, and the pensioners would hurry back to the vestibule, settle themselves into an armchair and put on their best smile, they watched the door, but those same pensioners who had run outside so impatiently to await the arrival of their beloved family were the ones whom hardly anyone ever came to see. More likely, someone would come whom no one had expected, or had even had time to expect, this was often the case with the five little groups of pensioners who sat and played cards all day, and when the nurses came to tell them that their relatives had arrived, that they had visitors, they had to quickly finish up their game of Mariáš and then, sulking, they left the card table and went downstairs to the reception hall, if it was a nice day they took their relatives to a bench in the park or in the courtyard, and still sulking, told them to have a seat, and then the relatives, when they saw that they hadn’t been expected the way one expects to be expected, actually felt better, they were glad to see that their father or father-in-law was much too busy with other things, they were glad that the pensioner was making their visit easier, that he was still a person who didn’t sit around waiting for members of his family to rescue him, to brighten up his Sunday, but who without even trying to hide his impatience kept looking at his watch, continually pushing back his sleeve to keep an eye on the time, which passed inexorably, while upstairs his friends sat waiting for him to return so they could resume their game of Mariáš, that eternally moveable feast, that perennial Sunday that was always marked in red on the calendar, because playing cards is much more fun than telling all those pointless stories that had been told and retold in the family while there still was time. I never expected anyone, and if someone did stop by I made it clear that I was happy to see them, but that I’d be even happier when they left, because I’ve come to realize that there is a time for everything, I’ve even discovered, here in the retirement home, that this is the first time I’ve ever been able to take a good look at what is going on around me, and on the faces of all these people I could see and read their fate, I could write a book about it, I saw their fate like those old gypsy women who can read palms or see human destiny in a cup of coffee grounds, I saw in each of them that everything was written not just on their faces, but also in the way they walked, on their whole body. That’s why all I did was walk and look around, I tried to assess the relationships between people, and that wasn’t too hard, because all people, even though they may try to pretend, are easy to read, easy to assess. So on sunny Sunday mornings when the visitors poured in and sat down next to the pensioners on chairs and benches and brought cakes and gifts and flowers, I saw that most of them looked rather gloomy, as if life outside the retirement home was almost unbearable, when I walked around and listened to snatches of conversation, all I could hear was people complaining, about how they’d had to stand in line for vegetables and meat, and that if they wanted to buy fresh rolls and bread in the morning, very often the baked goods weren’t delivered till noon, or even later in the day, I heard them complaining that the streets were all dug up, that their houses had to be torn down, that it was no longer safe to walk through Prague after dark because you might fall into a trench, some visitors claimed, even though it was a beautiful day, that they’d been caught in a terrible storm along the way, a hurricane, there had been several accidents, which meant they’d had to take a roundabout route through the countryside in order to get here, to say hello to their mama or papa, and that they’d also had to order the cake ahead of time, because if they didn’t buy it on Friday, by Saturday there wouldn’t be so much as a cream puff left on the bakery shelves. And so I walked around and saw all the relatives trying to suggest that here, in the retirement home, in this castle, while it wasn’t exactly paradise, it was certainly a haven of tranquility, some took a tour of the place, they walked around looking at the corridors full of flowers, they peeked into the dining hall, where that enormous fresco raged across the ceiling, and when they returned, they were bursting with enthusiasm and said that if they could, they’d retire tomorrow, there was no place they’d rather live than here, in Count Špork’s castle. And the pensioners smiled quietly, most of the women had spruced themselves up, they had put on their very best dresses, they smiled, and when they tried to explain that things weren’t quite the way the relatives said they were, that being here on your own and condemned to live in a room with eight others, while those who had money and could afford it, like me, were allowed to live in twos, when they tried to explain all that, the relatives would throw up their hands and implore them not to speak such blasphemy, and once again they described to them in abundant detail those lovely walks around the castle grounds, those lovely roads to the little town, which was the loveliest little town they’d ever seen, once again they grabbed their mothers and fathers under the arm, and while the grandchildren stuffed themselves with cake, they took them for a stroll through the castle park, where the rows of Baroque sandstone statues stood along the footpaths among the pruned old beeches, the visitors pretended to take great interest in the statues, which they surely never would have noticed if these statues of the months carved from sandstone by Braun and his pupils hadn’t given them the perfect opportunity to point out to the pensioners certain details, the lovely heads and breasts, and when the pensioner now tried to tell them that things weren’t nearly as lovely inside, that when night came and everyone wanted to sleep, they kept each other awake with all their coughing, with their tossing and turning and digestive troubles, that even though they never lacked for company here, well, that was terrible too, because they could never be alone anymore, alone in their own home, the way they used to be, the way the young people who came to visit still could. But as soon as a pensioner indicated that he wanted to let them know there was another side to these splendid surroundings, the relatives quickly got down on their knees and tried to make out the German inscriptions on the plinth, they took great pains to decipher and read out syllable by syllable the names of the months carved into the stone and weather-beaten and blurred by moss, because the statues had stood there for more than two hundred years … And then all of a sudden those who had come to visit, and this was always at the very moment the pensioner was about to pour out his heart, not so much because he had to live here with all those others, but because old age was terrible, there was nothing one could do about it, of course, but young people should be grateful they were still young, because every pensioner would be more than glad to stand in line for vegetables, or bread, he’d be more than glad to walk through the broken-up streets of Prague and other cities, more than glad to go to his butcher and order meat for a certain hour, more than glad to do anything, if only he could be young again, younger than he was, so he could take care of himself when his time had come, when he was bedridden and powerless, and the nurses had to bring him the chamber pot and wipe his bottom the way you do with little children … I saw how, whenever the situation arose that a pensioner wanted to say something truthful to his children, let them know they should appreciate the fact that they were young, each of the relatives, whose responsibility it was to prevent such outpourings of emotion, would glance at his watch and gasp, he’d even clap his hand to his forehead and wail, hurry, we’ve got to get back, and suddenly everything seemed to be over, like a market or a festival or an outdoor picture show hit by a cloudburst, the relatives hurriedly said their good-byes, snatched up their bags, grabbed their children by the hand and pulled them so hard they practically flew through the air, because in less than half an hour the train or bus would be leaving, and if they had come by car, they suddenly all had to be home on time, where an important visitor was waiting for them who would decide whether something could be arranged concerning admission to a high school, or where something important had to be finished, even if it was a nice day the relatives suddenly looked up at the sky, inhaled deeply and could smell that a storm was brewing, that the skies would roar and the rain would pour and the tires on their car were worn and would skid on a wet road … And the pensioners pretended to be even more dismayed by all this, they made a great show of concern, and then the relatives went away, turning back to wave their handkerchiefs and hands until they reached the gate … and when they were standing at the Count’s elaborately forged wrought-iron gate with its doors open like the gigantic wings of the angel Gabriel, they turned back one last time, wept, and then waved slowly, as if this were the very last time they would ever see each other and that they would never, never meet again … And I just wandered around, I pretended to be watching the tips of my shoes as they slid out alternately from under my long skirt, or listening to the sand crunching under my shoe soles, but from the corner of my eye I could clearly see the pensioners standing there in the middle of the courtyard, next to a small table, leaning on the tabletop and waving with their free hand, like someone waving from his sickbed at departing relatives as they back away to the door, for the very last time, because his days and hours are numbered. And when the relatives were gone, the smiles always fell from the pensioners’ faces, they came unstuck like the sole of an old shoe, and there was silence, everything that had taken place on visiting day, the whole show, was played back on the inside of closed eyelids. And late in the afternoon, after the visitors had left, all the vases were filled with flowers, I always had the feeling when I saw those visitors arriving with bouquets of flowers, when I saw them making their festive entrance, that it was as if they were coming to visit a grave on the name day or birthday of the deceased, or at Christmas, I came to the conclusion that these visits were actually a kind of preparation for the funeral, every visiting relative wanted to convince himself of this, but was afraid to look at anyone directly, so instead each visitor stole a searching glance at his or her parent, or grandparent, or uncle, or aunt, whenever they bent over, whenever they turned around, to try to see from the scrawny neck, the shaking hand, whether that relative was ripe for the coffin, whether he was preparing himself for man’s final resting place, the graveyard. The only pensioners who always looked good were the ones who waited faithfully, even though nobody ever came to see them. Every few minutes they walked to the gate, each time they heard the sound of a car their faces lit up with excitement, but each time they realized that the visitor had come for someone else, they went pale, closed their eyes and walked away, only to return moments later, with that same sense of excitement, to the gate, whose doors were open wide to the town, and look from there to the bottom of the road to see if anyone else was coming. And their Sunday lunch was very much like that of the pensioners who hurried through their meal so they could get back to their never-ending game of Mariáš, they even wrapped their dessert in a napkin and went back out into the courtyard or, if it was raining, to the front door, they stood in the doorway and stared out at the rainy courtyard and rubbed their eyes so they could see if anyone came running through the downpour. Those were the pensioners I was most fond of, because early in the evening, when the gate was shut, these pensioners headed straight for bed, not only was their temperature above normal, but with all that waiting they had developed a real fever, because they had been waiting for no one, not really hoping, just waiting for the sake of waiting, so that they had spent their lovely or rainy but always lovely Sunday waiting for the arrival of someone they knew, like the relatives or friends who came to visit the others. When Uncle Pepin began to have trouble seeing and walking, in order for him to get more exercise, we used to take him mushroom hunting, the day before, Francin would go to the market and buy three wild mushrooms, he always went to the market because he could tell by the quantity and price of the mushrooms on sale there how many mushrooms were growing in the forest. If they cost twenty crowns per kilo, they were plentiful, if they were forty crowns, they’d be scarce. And he always asked the vendor where he’d gotten them and that’s where we’d go looking for mushrooms. If we set out at dawn for the station in our little town and there were a hundred other mushroomers waiting with their baskets for the morning train to Dymokury, we knew right away there would be plenty of mushrooms, but if there were only five mushroomers, that meant mushrooms would be hard to find. And so sometimes there would be a few hundred mushroomers swarming out of the station in Dymokury and if any of those mushroomers got ahead of us, Francin would run up behind them and hold up one of the three ceps he’d been hiding in his basket and call out to the mushroomers … Are you sure you’re looking hard enough? And he’d show them the cep and cut off the stem and put it back in his basket, and then he’d go up behind the next mushroomer and hold up the second cep and show it to him … Have you ever seen such beauties? and he’d cut off the stem and hand it to Uncle Pepin, who sniffed enthusiastically at the cep and cried … Damn, that’s a fine-looking fungus! And by the time he’d held up the third cep behind the third mushroomer the other mushroomers were in such a state of turmoil that from then on they couldn’t function properly … But there were always a few hundred mushroomers in the forest who lost and couldn’t find each other again, and then the forest was so full of shouting and swearing, whistling and yelling that we said to each other that next time we’d go mushroom hunting in the afternoon, because if there were any mushrooms growing at all, they’d be growing after twelve, too. Unfortunately that’s what all the other mushroomers said to each other, so that at the station waiting to board the afternoon train there would again be a hundred mushroomers, all giving each other dirty looks, even the ones who always greeted each other in the little town didn’t do so now, and just as we’d feared, all those mushroomers who had boarded the train in our little town spilled out again in Dymokury and we all ran to the forest and in the forest we all got in each other’s way, so Francin and Pepin and I gathered our mushrooms at the edge of the forest, we even found a whole basket of boletes in a nearby field, and once again our basket was full, and when all the mushroomers were reassembled on the platform to wait for the evening train, they looked enviously at our basket, which Uncle Pepin was carrying. After that we decided that next time it would be better to go by car or bicycle. So when we arrived in Dymokury at daybr