Going uphill is a struggle for me and I find it increasingly hard to catch my breath, but I try not to let it show. Luckily he's in no hurry. He tells me that it looks as though he'll be given notice at work. He asks me whether he ought to fight it or whether he should quit the job now that he is beginning to feel it's a waste of time. One possibility would be to finish his university course, but he would also like to make use of what he found out over the years by writing it up and publishing it. Not on his own account, or not entirely so. He has the feeling that forgetting the past, as most people in this country do, is a dangerous phenomenon. But if he left his job, he probably wouldn't find anything as well paid. He could also try to work as a freelance for the press or the radio; he has some friends there and it is the sort of work that appeals to him.
It strikes me he's telling me this partly because he is still considering living with me and therefore feels a certain responsibility to me. I tell him that if one is given half a chance one should do something one feels like doing and what one regards as useful.
Maybe it suits him that I'm older; I know more about life than he could know; he needs someone to approve his life's decisions. His mother has probably fulfilled that role so far, but men who aren't able to free themselves from their mothers tend to feel humiliated.
You never know what you mean to other people, only they do, but usually even they aren't able to say for sure.
We finally reach the hilltop. A chapel stands a short distance from the footpath. It looks abandoned and the path to it is overgrown with untrodden grass.
We trample the grass slightly. The chapel is empty: in the place of a sacred painting or statue there is simply a mouldy patch on the wall, but on a small, battered table there stand two blue vases.
Two blue vases; I stand and stare at them in amazement, as if someone had deliberately placed them there on my account. What is the point of two empty vases in an empty chapel without even a painting on the wall?
One for blood, the other for tears: I can hear my old lament.
We stand there motionless for a moment. We don't pray; we don't speak; we listen. I don't know what this place says to him, but no doubt something different from what it says to me. I can suddenly hear the voice of my father, clear and hard, as I knew it when I was small and feared him, when I longed for his love. I hear him, but can't make out the words. Most likely he came to ask why I broke the vase that time. Or he came to save these two abandoned ones? But what if he came to let bygones be bygones?
You have to speak more distinctly, Dad.
But he has fallen silent and isn't coming or speaking any more.
I'd like to hear at least the voice of my once and only husband, whose love I also yearned for, but he won't be coming or saying anything any longer.
In fact all you yearn for is to hear that someone loves you, but generally you don't hear it; most likely they were just words intended to deceive you. When you realize that, you either despair or try to find something to bring comfort.
It doesn't, anyway.
So life comes to an end and time closes behind everyone and everything.
My ex-husband understood that and tried to escape by running away from it. I reminded him of time, being younger than he was, so he ran away from me too. Eventually he bowed down before Time as the Creator God. And he didn't even run away from me: I was the one who closed his eyes in the end. I recall how sad and lonely his death was and I feel like weeping over him at this lonely spot.
And I feel like weeping over Dad. It occurs to me that neither of them were happy; they didn't know how to live with what they had; they wanted something other than what life offered them. They lacked humility. I do too: I couldn't be reconciled with them, nor with my life, therefore. One ought to be capable of reconciling oneself with people, even if one can't reconcile oneself with their deeds.
I glance at the young man standing at my side. He came to me at a moment when I no longer expected anyone or anything new in my Ufe, and he told me over and over again that he loved me. He didn't act as if he did, or at least at one moment he didn't; he didn't even try to deny it, but I couldn't reconcile myself with his deed.
I don't know for what fraction of a divine blink he'll stay with me, it doesn't matter. I don't know how long I'll last, how long I'll be capable of loving; maybe my fatigue will defeat me; maybe I'm no longer capable of coming close enough to someone to live with them. But I won't torture myself with it now; I'm grateful for this moment, for the time he'll still stay with me maybe.
I suddenly hug him of my own accord; I kiss him in a chapel where there is nothing but two empty vases. I don't do or say anything else. And we rush away.
'We'll pick up Jana first thing this afternoon.' He looks pleased and looks forward to her going out to dinner with us.
That afternoon, we drive into town and Jana tells us, with an enthusiasm that I'm afraid to believe unreservedly, how she is beginning to understand that she was on the wrong track entirely and how it happened to her. Last week they took part in a discussion session at some school where they told the children what they had been through and how dreadful it was.
'What about the children?'
'They were totally knocked out,' my daughter says proudly. She is thrilled about learning to understand herself and everyone around her. And me too.
'Do you think you understand me?'
'Yes, I'm really beginning to understand you.'
'I wonder.'
'Understanding isn't the same as agreeing.'
'I never thought it was.'
'I'll analyse you and teach you to have an opinion about yourself. You'll be surprised,' she promises and then starts to talk about her friends who, like her, are learning to understand themselves — 'and when they start to analyse themselves they suddenly end up this tiny!' and she indicates how tiny by a gap between the tips of her thumb and forefinger that a ladybird would scarcely squeeze through. Jan laughs at her, but I can recall her disobedience and stubbornness, so I have the feeling that she really is starting to get somewhere. I promise to let her explain to me how to acquire an opinion of myself.
We sit down to dinner in a fairly decent-looking pub. After lengthy consideration, Jana chooses some oriental dish with rice and some disgusting dark liquid in a narrow bottle. We also choose something and so as to show solidarity with the other two, I order
fizzy water instead of wine, for the first time in ages. But they don't notice anyway, they are having a great time together. They almost speak the same language. They like the Spice Girls and know some Varusa or Marusya May who plays the electric violin, and agree that Ms — or is it Mr — Bjôrk sings as if she or he had a mouth full of dried snot. They have even seen the same films and both despise television. Jan asks whether they play any games too, and Jana says they play chess, although she doesn't like the game, and they also play draughts and Ludo. Jan promises to come and teach them to play other games.
I look at the two of them and listen to them chatting away. They're relaxed and it's quite a different conversation from any I've ever had with Jan.
When Jan leaves the table for a moment, Jana quickly says, 'Mum, he really suits you.'
'What makes you think so?'
Well, you sort of complement each other. You're sad and he's cheerful. And you've got blue eyes and he's got brown.'
'I'm also old while he's young.'
'And you're both nuts.'
An unexpected commendation.
7
On Sunday Mum flew in like an early bird almost before it was light and we hadn't even had breakfast yet. I was surprised she came on her own, but she explained to me that Jan had had to leave the previous evening because he was going to do an interview with the radio about what happened to him. Mum said she was pleased we'd have a bit of time to ourselves. And she went to see Radek — to give me time to have breakfast in peace, she said. I'd love to hear all the guff that Radek gives her about me.