EDA KRISEOV
A
617
"I met one man," Gabina was saying, "he was rolling around with two
women, until they got together and turned against him. Now he's old and
sick, living in a maid's room with a tile floor and oil paint on the walls, no
bigger than a pantry. He has only an iron bed and over it hangs the cross
that he was given for repentance. His wife won't bring him so much as a
glass of water and his lover emigrated to Australia. She's found herself
some kangaroo there and they have a drugstore together."
Gabina let go of Hilda, who had stopped crying. She wiped her eyes
with a handkerchief and turned to Jana, who was sitting across from her
on a couch covered with a blue-green plush cloth. She handed her the
pack of cards.
"Now it's time to eat," said Gabina, and she stood up and shook out
her skirt, which had stuck to the back of her legs. There were dark spots
on the material where Gabina had been sweating in her anxiety over Hilda.
Fragile Hilda, who hovers like a moth around the light of her love and
wants to burn her wings, would happily burn them off even, so that she
could no longer fly and would instead have to crawl over the earth on her
belly.
"Jana, please, have a look at my cards," Hilda begged.Jana shuffled the
cards and laid them out in a fan, from which Hilda was to pick thirteen
cards for love.
"He's kind," Jana began in a tired voice. "He's up to his ears in it, he
lies to her in order to have peace. Men want to have peace and quiet at
home, darling. She doesn't know about you and she won't find out."
"But he promised he'd tell her. He said himself that he couldn't live a
lie anymore and that he loves me so much that he can't sleep with her any–
how."
"He sleeps with her," Jana said.
"That's impossible," Hilda moaned.
"He doesn't want to have a fight at home and he 's afraid of scenes."
"But he said he'd only be with me, because he's never loved anyone
like he loves me and I am the light of his life."
"They all say that. But in reality they don't want to move, because
they're tired. Or they think they might do it, imagining a better life, but in
the end they stay where they are. Am I wrong?" she asked, turning to me.
" I don't know," I answered, and I really didn't know. At sixteen I fell
in love with my husband and since that time I've only been with him. Am
I really a woman if I've only had one man? And am I already so old that
my daughter, washing the dishes in the kitchen, wails into the sink:
"Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?"
"You have too much faith in him, Hilda, and that's the source of your
unhappiness. I've been telling you from the beginning: skim off the cream
