624
PARTISAN REVIEW
"I envy you," Sonya said when we were outside on the balcony.
I stopped and gaped at her face, in which shone a nose and one croc–
odile-eye, bulging on the surface of a gray-green muddy river.
"That you want a man to love. That you love anyone at all. That you
are reconciled to waiting and have hope."
"I've got problems," I said.
"Problems are great," Sonya said. "I look around me, but I don't see
anything that interests me. I envy them because they believe in love. They
constantly want something, they desire someone. I can't idealize anyone,
can't see anyone through rose-colored glasses the way
YOll
can. I always see
through them right away. I'm suspicious and wary. Can you see what's
missing in me?"
"Will they sit there until morning?" I asked.
"They're in love. They don't have to sleep or eat, they have plenty of
energy. I'm always exhausted. I go to sleep early and wake up late and feel
that I'm withering and dying. Do you understand me at all? They all tell
fortunes all night long about men, and mine are always about work. But
how am I supposed to work, to create, when I've got no inner span from
love to hate, one joy to the next. Why and how? From what source?"
"But we suffer," I insisted.
"I would take it any day," Sonya said and waved a white claw at a taxi.
I dropped Sonya off at home and she gave me ten crowns to pay for the
cab. In the elevator I saw reflected before me two Queens of Hearts. One
facing up, and one facing down-identical, cut in half at the waist. Why is
there not one, but two? Why, in the game of Marias, is there a King of
Hearts, but no Queen? Is my husband still my King of Hearts, or is it
already that other one, who will appear in a few years? The one who is
waiting somewhere. I am already afraid.
Translated from the Czech
by
Andree Collier
