Ivan Klima has been acclaimed by The Boston Globe as "a literary gem who is too little appreciated in the West" and a "Czech master at the top of his game." In No Saints or Angels, a Washington Post Best Book of 2001, Klima takes us into the heart of contemporary Prague, where the Communist People's Militia of the Stalinist era marches headlong into the drug culture of the present. Kristyna is in her forties, the divorced mother of a rebellious fifteen-year-old daughter, Jana. She is beginning to love a man fifteen years her junior, but her joy is clouded by worry -- Jana has been cutting school, and perhaps using heroin. Meanwhile Kristyna's mother has forced on her a huge box of personal papers left by her dead father, a tyrant whose Stalinist ideals she despised. No Saints or Angels is a powerful book in which "Mr. Klima's keen sense of history, his deep compassion for the ordinary people caught up in its toils, and his abiding awareness of the fragility and resilience of human life shine through.... Like Anton Chekhov, Mr. Klima is a writer able to show us what's extraordinary about ordinary life." (The Washington Times). "Ultimately, it's Prague, with its centuries of glory and misery, that gives No Saints or Angels its humane power." -- Melvin Jules Bukiet, The Washington Post Book World" A compassionate realist, [Klima] unflinchingly presents the problems facing modern Prague and civilization in general ... [and] fills it with mercy." -- Jennie Yabroff, San Francisco Chronicle "Stirring and valuable." -- Jules Verdone, The Hartford Courant

No Saints or Angels

By Ivan Klima

Grove Press

Copyright © 2002 Ivan Klima
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780802139238

Chapter One

1

I killed my husband last night. I used a dental drill to bore a holein his skull. I waited to see if a dove would fly out but out camea big black crow instead.

    I woke up tired, or more exactly without any appetite for life.My will to live diminishes as I get older. Did I ever have a greatlust for life? I'm not sure, but I certainly used to have more energy.And expectations too. And you live so long as you have somethingto expect.

    It's Saturday. I have time to dream and grieve.

    I crawl off my lonely divan. Jana and I carried its twin down tothe cellar ages ago. The cellar is still full of junk belonging to myex-husband, Karel: bright red skis, a bag of worn-out tennis balls,and a bundle of old school textbooks. I should have thrown it allout long ago, but I couldn't bring myself to. I stood a rubber plantwhere the other divan used to be. You can't hug a rubber plantand it won't caress you, but it won't two-time you either.

    It's half past seven. I ought to spend a bit of time with myteenage daughter. She needs me. Then I must dash off to myMum's. I promised to help her sort out Dad's things. The thingsdon't matter, but she's all on her own and spends her time fretting.She needs to talk about Dad but has no one to talk about himwith. You'd think he was a saint, the way she talks about him, butfrom what I remember, he only ordered her around or ignored her.

    As my friend Lucie says, you even miss tyranny once you'reused to it. And that doesn't only apply to private life.

    I don't miss tyranny. I killed my ex-husband with a dental drilllast night even though I feel no hatred towards him. I'm sorry forhim more than anything else. He's lonelier than I am and hisbody is riddled with a fatal disease. But then, aren't we all beinggnawed at inside? Life is sad apart from the odd moments whenlove turns up.

    I always used to ask why I was alive. Mum and Dad wouldnever give me a straight answer. I expect they didn't know themselves.But who does?

    You have to live once you've been born. No, that's not true.You can take your life any time, like my grandfather Antonín, ormy Aunt Venda, or Virginia Woolf or Marilyn Monroe. Marilyndidn't kill herself, though; they only said she did in order to coverthe tracks of her killer. She apparently took fifty pills of some barbiturateor other even though a quarter of that amount wouldhave been enough. Her murderers were thorough. I myself carrya tube of painkillers; not to kill myself with though, but in case Iget a migraine. I'd be capable of taking my life, except that I hatecorpses. It was always an awful strain for me in the autopsy room,and I preferred not to eat the day before.

    Why should I make the people I love deal with my corpse?

    They'll have to one day anyway. Who will it be? Janinka, mostlikely, poor thing.

    I oughtn't to call her Janinka, she doesn't like it. It sounds toochildish to her ears. I called my ex-husband Kajnek when I visitedhim recently on the oncology ward. I thought it might be acomfort to him in his pain to hear the name I used to call himyears ago. But he objected, saying it was the name of a hired killerwho recently got a life sentence.

    We've all got life sentences, I didn't say to him.

    I can feel my early-morning depression taking hold of me. Ihad one glass of wine too many yesterday. I won't try to count thecigarettes. Lucie maintains I don't have depressions ? I'm just`moody'.

    Lucie and I got to know each other at medical school, butwhereas I passed anatomy at the second attempt, she never masteredit. She dropped out and took up photography and was soonbetter off than those of us who stayed the course. She and I alwayshit it off together, most likely because we differ in almost everyconceivable way. She's a tiny little thing and her legs are so thinyou'd think they'd snap in a breeze. I've never known her to besad.

    What do photographers know about depression? Mind you, sheadvises me quite rightly to give up smoking and restrict myself tothree small glasses of wine a day, though she drinks as much as shelikes. I'll give everything up the day I reach fifty. It's awful tothink that I'm less than five years away from that fateful day, thatdreadful age. That's if I'll still be alive in four years and elevenmonths' time. Or tomorrow for that matter.

    The best cure for depression is activity. At the surgery I have notime to be depressed. I have no time to think about myself. Buttoday's Saturday: an open day for dreams and grief.

    I peek into Jana's room and see she is peacefully asleep. Last yearshe still had long hair, longer than mine, and mine reaches a thirdof the way down my back. Now she's had it cut short and looksalmost like a boy. The stud in her ear twinkles, but on the pillowalongside her head lies a rag doll by the name of Bimba that she'shad since she was seven and always carries around with her. Aftershe'd wriggled out of her jeans last night she left them lying on thefloor, and her denim jacket lies in a crumpled heap on the armchair,one sleeve inside out. She hangs out with punks of bothsexes because she says they don't give a damn about property orcareers. The last time we went to the theatre she insisted we takethe tram. She wants to do her own thing, but what does it meanto do your own thing in a world of billions of people? In the endyou always end up getting attached to something or someone.

    There's an open book on the chair by her bed. It's not longsince she read fairy stories and she loved to hear all about foreigncountries, animals and the stars. She was lovely to talk to. Shealways seemed to me wise for her age and to have a particularunderstanding of other people. She'd generally sense when I wasfeeling sad and why, and do her best to comfort me. Now I get thefeeling she hardly notices me or simply regards me as someonewho feeds and minds her. I tell myself it's because of her age, butI'm frightened for her all the same. We were watching a TV programmeabout drugs and I asked her whether she'd beenapproached by pushers on the street. `Of course,' she answered,almost in amazement. Naturally she had told them to get lost. Itold her that if I ever found out she was taking anything of the sortI'd kill her. `Of course, Mum, and you'd feed me to the vultures!'We both laughed, although the laughter stuck in my throat.

    I close her door and go into the bathroom.

    For a moment I look at myself in the hostile mirror. No, themirror's not hostile, it's dispassionately objective; it's time that'shostile.

    My former and so far only husband once tried to explain to methat time is as old as the universe. I told him I didn't understand.Time couldn't be old, could it? For one thing it was a masculineword.

    Time was feminine in German and Latin, and neuter inEnglish, he told me. He was simply trying to explain that timebegan along with the universe. It hadn't existed before. Therehad been nothing at all, not even time.

    I told him how awfully clever and learned he was, instead oftelling him he should get a sense of humour.

    I couldn't care less what happened billions of years ago andwhether time began or not. I only care about my lifetime, and sofar time has taken love away and given me wrinkles. It lies in waitfor me on every corner. It rushes ahead and heeds none of mypleas.

    It heeds no one's pleas. Time alone is fair and just.

    Justice is often cruel.

    Still, time has been fairly good to me. So far. My hair is notquite as thick as when I was twenty, and I have to use chemicals tostop the world seeing that I'm going grey. My golden locks ? onetime I wove them in a braid that reached below my waist. But Istill carry myself as well as I did then. My breasts have sagged a bitbut they're still large. Not that there is much point in humpingthem around with me any more ? apart from men's enjoyment.Selfish bastards. But nothing will save me from time. They say thatinjections of subcutaneous fat can get rid of wrinkles round themouth, but I don't like the idea of it. I don't have too many wrinklesyet. Just around the eyes. My former husband used to callthem sky blue, but what colour is the sky? The sky is changeableand its colour depends on the place, the wind and the time of day,whereas my eyes are permanently blue, morning and night, happyor sad.

    When I step out of the shower I'm shivering all over and it's notfrom cold. Even though it is already April, I still have the heatingon in the flat. I am shivering from loneliness - what shakes me isthe weeping I conceal, weeping over another day when time willsimply drain away, a river without water, just a dried riverbed fullof sharp stones ? and I'm barefoot and naked, my dressing gownlies on the floor and no one looks at my breasts. Abandoned anduncaressed, milk will never flow from them again.

    From the bedroom behind me comes a roar of what is nowregarded as music and what my little girl idolizes: Nirvana orAlice in Chains or Screaming Trees, heavy metal, hard rock,grunge, I can't keep track of it any more. The time when musiclike that excited me is past. It's true that when the chair in the surgeryhappens to fall vacant, Eva dispels the quiet by tuning intosome radio station, but I don't notice it. My assistant is scared ofsilence, like almost everyone these days. But I like peace and quiet,I yearn for a moment of silence within myself, the sort of silencein which I might hear the rush of my own blood, hear the tearsroll down my cheeks, and hear the flames when they suddenlycome close.

    But that sort of silence is to be found only in the depths of thegrave, such as in the wall of the village cemetery on the edge ofRozmitál where they buried Jan Jakub Ryba. He cut his throatwhen he could no longer support his seven children. His poorwife! But in that sort of silence you don't hear anything becausethe blood and tears have stopped and Master Ryba was never tohear again from the nearby church the words of his folkishChristmas Mass: `Master, hey! Rise I say! Look out at the sky ? splendourshines on high ...'

    For me blood, unlike tears, means life, and when I bleed froma wound in my gum I try to stop it as quickly as possible.

2

I've given my daughter her breakfast and I've reminded her shehas homework to do. I'm dashing out to see Mum. Jana wantsto know when I'll be home, and when I tell her I'll be backaround noon, she seems happy enough.

    The street is chock-a-block with cars on weekdays but it's notso hard to cross on a Saturday morning. And there's not such astench in the air. I actually think I can smell the elderflower fromthe garden in front of the house.

    The houses in our street are sexless, having been built at theend of the thirties. They lack any particular style. It was the timewhen they started building these rabbit hutches, except that inthose days they were built of bricks instead of precast concrete, andmost of them had five or six floors instead of thirteen. Mum usedto tell me how in summer before the war people would takechairs out in front of the house and sit and chat. In those days thiswas the city limits and people had more time to talk. Little did

Continues...

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