Breathing Into Marble

by Laura Sintija Cerniauskaite

  ‘You mean illusions?’ Isabel glanced at Gailius vaguely. ‘Aren’t you clever? A fox, did you say? A fox came into the yard?’

  ‘Mama, I think you’re all tired of me,’ Gailius said suddenly.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  She heard Liudas enter the porch and stamp the mud from his feet.

  ‘I don’t understand – why did you bring him here?’

  Liudas wasn’t in a hurry. There was no sound of his coat being unbuttoned. Just the hum of the thoughts he had brought home with him.

  ‘He’s like your spare child. You won’t have me for long.’

  ‘A fox, did you say?’ Isabel touched her neck; it felt as if it were growing tight, so tight, as if there were somebody standing behind her pulling her gold chain around her throat.

  Liudas was standing in the doorway, very still.

  ‘My teacher is afraid of me. When I make a mistake, she explains what I’ve done wrong as if she felt guilty for having noticed it. She does it because she knows I will not solve problems for much longer.’

  ‘Gailius… I’ll talk to her. Don’t be afraid of the fox. Dad will shoot it.’

  Isabel didn’t notice when the boy put his spoon down on the table and walked out of the kitchen.

  Her legs, silent and light as feathers carried her across to the doorway. Liudas flinched and leaned away from her. He still had his coat on.

  ‘Liudas,’ she whispered against his iciness. She suddenly understood what it was that had slipped away into the twilight.

  He saw that she had hit the wall of ice. He felt it, but did nothing.

  They stood opposite each other in the darkness. She fingered Liudas’ secret. They stood on opposite sides of his coat and held it at the corners as if it were a black flag, wavering for a painful moment.

  ‘Why don’t you switch on the light?’ he said suddenly, calmly.

  ‘It seems to have blown.’

  Isabel pressed the switch and the light burned their eyes reproachfully. They leaned away from each other and, blinking, their eyes returned to normal.

  And the dampness between her thighs froze into icy needles, poking painfully at her skin.

  There was a scream. It sliced Isabel’s throat, flashing like lightning in the darkness over her bed. She woke with a start. The six year old child stood at her bedside gazing down at her.

  Isabel switched on the wall light and it flashed like a second silent scream; Ilya ran out through the door as if he had been scolded.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Liudas rubbed his eyes.

  ‘Nothing. Go back to sleep. It’s Ilya, the lunatic.’

  Ilya was crouched in the kitchen, next to the fridge. The look on his face had changed.

  She recognised the gaze.

  One morning, having taken Gailius to school, she asked Ilya to fetch some wood from the barn. It was the beginning of April and they still needed to light the stove occasionally. Having knelt down by it, she was feeding kindling into the flames when she heard the child’s footsteps behind her. She heard the sound of the wood being dropped onto the floor and then suddenly – a sullen silence - and a chill ran down her spine. ‘If I had hesitated a moment longer, he could have killed me with his look,’ she thought later.

  ‘Ilya,’ she had said loudly, not turning around.

  He moved, creaked.

  ‘What are you thinking when you stand like that, behind my back?’

  ‘Your jumper has a hole in it,’ he said.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Here.’ He put his finger into the ripped seam on her shoulder.

  Isabel used to take him to Kurpiskiai and gradually he stopped grumbling and even began to look forward to these outings. The people would talk to him as if he were one of their own, because Isabel was one of their own and he was hers. But that secret gaze, when he thought she didn’t see him, when, hypnotised by her daily chores she was inattentive, would cause her to shudder and turn round quizzically, not even trying to pretend she hadn’t felt it. Ilya’s gaze would flash like a knife hidden in its sheath.

  What is he doing to me? She would ask herself, secretly watching him while he ate, or while he was drawing shapes on the windowpane with his finger, or when he would suddenly freeze while fastening his shoelaces as if sinking into the depths of himself. No, it’s not his fault, it’s me… But the next day, on her way to Kurpiskiai, she didn’t let him walk behind her. ‘Come on, you’re my friend.’ She slapped her thigh, inviting the child to come closer. Reluctantly Ilya caught up with her, but still he walked along the side of the road leaving her the middle.

  She tried to talk about it to Liudas, but he just placed his palm on Isabel’s forehead as if she had a fever and looked into her face silently. And then once again she smelled the fragrance which made her want to close her eyes and scream.

  The fragrance on his palm.

  May was stuffy. The air blossomed and the clouds were like translucent petals scorched by the sun which was as ruthlessly hot as a stone hissing in hell. Isabel would get up in the morning already heavy and slide towards evening like a shadow cast by her own swollen body.

  Having taken Gailius to school, she stopped by the side of the road above which the dust swirls kicked up by Liudas’ car still hung. And the stones inside her grew red with the heat.

  Liudas would leave and she would stay, searching the whole day long for somewhere to hide from the monstrous heat.

  She would be alone with the drowsy boy sipping milk in the kitchen. He wouldn’t wipe the white drips from the oilcloth patterned with pears, nor would he put his cup back into its place when he had rinsed it in the bowl. Later he would slip into the yard or would disappear into the pine woods near the river across the bridge. And moments later she would hear the splash of the stones being thrown into the water.

  Isabel preferred to go to the river bank that was at the bottom of the garden, closer to the house. She would descend the slope through the lilac bushes and stop in the shade. In the sun over on the other bank the air would roil slowly and heavily like hot oil. The blossom of the lilac gave off a strong fragrance under the blistering sun. Isabel would pull her old cotton dress off over her head and, keeping to the shade of the bushes, slide into the water. The river would hug her waist tightly at first, then push and pull at her with its mischievous current. The stones within Isabel would hiss and blacken.

  The river lashed her skin like a cold wind; it washed away the ashes and rinsed away the names. Isabel would stretch in the water like she was in bed, while the current washed her clean.

  On the 22nd of May a fresh wind blew; the grass whispered and the pine forest hummed like a bee hive. Isabel, having gone to put the washing out shuddered and folded her arms across her chest – as if to protect herself from the raging of the trees. But the wind was quicker – it sliced open the old wound and the ache of her heart poured out from her like blood.

  She took the boys into the woods.

  But with each step her despair grew, sending out branches, an increasingly intricate polyphony of emotions. She would have wept were it not for the boys who pushed each other and ran around. In the clearing Isabel said she needed a rest; she sat on a tree stump and closed her eyes. Through her closed eye lids she watched the wind driven shadows that scuttled around like ghosts. She thought that she would burst into tears but the tough bark around her heart resisted. She dug her nails into her heart as if trying to scratch it out.

  She felt no pain - she listened to the crackle of the thawing ice and to the bubble of the coming storm.

  It was then that she heard Gailius greet someone. Opening her eyes it took some moments for her to notice a tall, shapely woman – from a distance she looked lighter and softer than the pine trunks. The woman’s face was thin and suntanned and her gaze was sharp and pierced Isabel. As Gailius greeted her, she plunged the birch stick she was leaning on into the moss, tossed her knotted grey hair and suddenly a smile lit the dense, quivering network of wrinkles
on her face.

  ‘It’s my birthday today,’ Gailius boasted.

  ‘Oh, I can’t ignore such an occasion… Give me your palm, I’ll tell you your fortune.’

  The woman stepped towards Gailius, knelt down and stretched out her hand. Gailius instinctively mirrored her movement. They knelt opposite each other, forehead to forehead, intuitively shielding the fate which rose like steam from the lines on the palms of his hands.

  Isabel rose from the tree stump and approached them.

  ‘Gailius, don’t do it.’ Her whisper was addressed to the woman. The grey-haired crone lifted her eyes, scorching Isabel with a dark gaze.

  ‘Your mother doesn’t want us to,’ she relented. ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Eight.’

  The woman was silent. Standing up she smiled at Isabel with the same penetrating smile and strolled across the moss to collect her stick – there was no need for it though; her steps were as firm as her smile.

  ‘I gather herbs,’ she explained, turning back suddenly, tapping her canvas bag. She headed back into the depths of the woods and disappeared among the tree trunks as if she had turned into one of them.

  ‘Mama, who was she?’ Gailius asked.

  ‘We’re going home,’ Isabel whispered. Her tone stopped any argument from the boys.

  In the evening Liudas brought a cake from town and they all gathered in the garden for a cup of coffee. Gailius had made a card on which he had written his wishes for everybody on the occasion of his birthday. ‘Father - I wish that you never run out of petrol half way’, or ‘Mama - I wish for lots of silk ribbons for your hair’. For Ilya, having drawn a watercolour black bird, he wished, ’Don’t be afraid of the light, it only bites at first’.

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ Liudas asked.

  Gailius shrugged.

  They laughed a lot that night; it even seemed to Isabel that she could put up with almost anything – that she could live each day without any expectations and laugh each night without disrupting the daily rhythms of their life, listening to the stories Liudas brought home from town. And she could even believe them. She could stay away from it all, keeping a careless distance.

  The moon arose above the woods, a narrow, elegant comma, an eye lash, a tiara. Liudas followed Isabel’s look and flashed her a bored smile. And that was it. Immediately everything returned to the way it had been. An owl called in the woods, its dark, velvet sound spread a mournful cape across the heavy, damp soil and the grass which was wet with dew.

  On the kitchen table there was a box wrapped with orange paper awaiting Gailius – Isabel stopped short, not knowing what Liudas had chosen and having forgotten, herself, that you were supposed to give presents on birthdays. Gailius blinked and paused. Only once he had run his finger over its shiny surface and it had not turned into anything else did Gailius finally believe that the box was real and belonged to him. He wrapped both arms around it and lifted it carefully from the table – the present wasn’t heavy and that disappointed him slightly.

  ‘I want to be on my own when I open it,’ Gailius whispered. ‘Ilyusha, only you can come with me.’

  Ilya loped after him. He opened their bedroom door and let his stepbrother in; Gailius could barely control his excitement. The door slammed and from behind it, moments later, came the sound of paper being ripped. Liudas smiled absent-mindedly. Isabel turned her eyes away.

  At that moment there was a scream.

  The door opened with a crash and Ilya shot like a bullet into the kitchen. For a moment he hung in the air, his feet barely touching the floor, as if thrown out by an angry gust of wind, then he dashed into the porch and out into the yard, so that only the black back of his head was visible through the kitchen window. The opened box lay on the floor, its glittery glamour gone and though the present was still in it, Gailius seemed to have lost all interest in it. He turned towards the door and hid something behind his back.

  ‘What happened?’ Liudas asked.

  ‘Nothing, father…’

  ‘What have you got there?’

  ‘Nothing…’

  Liudas jumped over to Gailius and prised open his fist.

  ‘Something happened to him,’ Gailius whispered, holding back the tears.

  A wound swelled on his wrist and blood seeped through the bitten skin.

  ‘Ilya!’ Liudas howled. ‘Ilya!’

  Feverishly he turned to Isabel who was frozen in the doorway. She was so pale it looked as if it were her blood that had gathered in the wound on Gailius’ wrist.

  ‘Please forgive me,’ Isabel whispered and stuffed her fist into her mouth in an attempt to staunch her tears.

  ‘He doesn’t get enough attention,’ she said, switching off the light.

  ‘I don’t give a damn what he doesn’t get enough of,’ Liudas snapped. ‘The child is dangerous.’

  ‘I can’t, anymore…’ Isabel whispered. She wanted to say so much more. She paused hoping he would help her, would start speaking first. But instead he shrank away, as always when she cried.

  ‘Isabel…’

  ‘I’m afraid of him. I’m scared to stay with him…’

  ‘I told you it would be too difficult,’ Liudas mumbled, as if in apology. The darkness above the bed grew softer; it seemed that he was about to touch her. With his palm.

  ‘I wish you could help more…’ she said suddenly. And his hand moved away.

  ‘I do what I can,’ he said.

  The palm, cool now, lay between them, carrying its scent.

  The sky above the woods shone like pearl, a reproach to the heavy darkness of the earth. The painfully empty space attracted her. At night, half sleeping in bed, as heavy as a bag of gravel, her body would begin to grow lighter and soon Isabel would feel that if she just rid herself of one last small stone she would rise up into the air.

  In the morning, having forgotten where she was going, she stopped half way across the yard and plunged into the pure, sun-filled infinity. Her being seemed to fuse with the sky above her – there was so little left of her within the cage of her skeleton that she seemed merely a smudge in the air. The breeze blew as if it were her own scent, flooding across the land to the woods, to the river, and rising up high – a joyful unravelling of her being.

  In the afternoon, while washing the dishes by the well, Isabel froze and gazed at her hands immersed in water.

  ‘I’m going mad.’

  Something inside pressed against her temples. It felt as if sharp stones were sizzling in her blood, pressing against her nerves, as if they were moving like parasites towards her heart. They burned and pushed from the inside, as if attempting to push Isabel out of her body. While the stones grew and became more aggressive, Isabel shrivelled and melted. The thought of them obsessed her; she felt how, with an angry hissing, they multiplied inside her. It was unbearable how they took over her will, her very thoughts.

  She grabbed at her throat.

  It was cool in the house; it smelt of dry wood. A breeze blew through the open windows. The boys were in the front room. Gailius was writing while Ilya was frozen against the window – dark and hard, as if he might disappear out through the glass into the fields like an invisible kite. It was dangerous for him to stay like that for too long, she thought. One day he’ll fly away to where ever it was that his gaze wandered and he won’t come back, his body will dry out and crumble to pieces. It will have to be swept up. And that will be that.

  It’ll have to be swept up, Isabel whispered to herself. ‘Ilyusha, come here. Sweep up the crumbs from under the table. And somebody is going to have to peel the potatoes as well.’

  Neither of the boys replied.

  ‘Aren’t either of you listening to me?’ Isabel repeated, louder. ‘Ilyusha…’

  ‘Leave me alone,’ Ilya snapped, quietly.

  And then the horror of the stones that had built up inside Isabel was transformed suddenly into rage. She leapt over to the child and hit him across the back of his head.

&nb
sp; ‘What is the matter with you? Why do you hate me? What have I done to you?’

  She hit and punched and slapped. She cried in pity and then she was enraged. Her blows stoked up her anger - as if she were trying to hurt herself.

  ‘Mama…’ Gailius stuttered, lifting his head from his papers.

  Ilya cowered and covered his head. He gave in to her aggression as if it didn’t surprise him. He did not fight back.

  ‘Daddy!’ Gailius shouted through the window. ‘Daddy!’

  Liudas was cleaning the Opel; he could fiddle with it for ages as if it were some kind of secret door into another world, a magic mirror or crystal ball which revealed a different reality. He had been expecting the shout sooner or later. Preoccupied, he hurried inside, mechanically ripping the dripping rubber gloves from his hands. Isabel was in the same distraught state she had been in six year before when Gailius had his first seizure. It was rare that he saw her like that, but on this occasion he wasn’t surprised, or scared, or disgusted. He felt only a lukewarm indifference, like silt moving and rising from the bottom of a pond and settling back down again. He pulled Isabel off Ilya.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘He answered mama in a rude way,’ Gailius explained.

  ‘What did you say to her?’ Liudas asked Ilya.

  ‘I told her to leave me alone,’ Ilya murmured.

  ‘You’ll be punished for this.’

  Liudas dragged Isabel out to the kitchen.

  ‘You can’t do it like this. It’s like you’re begging the child to love you.’

  ‘That’s because you don’t love me,’ she whispered.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘You know what I’m talking about.’

  He let go of Isabel without a word and went back out to the car.

  Isabel stayed inside until evening, when the darkness had fallen, not allowing the stones to take over her.

  Liudas pottered around in the yard at the edge of the woods, down by the river. He did some work in the barn, fixed a wheelbarrow that they didn’t use any more, then went to the local shop to buy coffee, and then later – for cigarettes. The boys, on their own, huddled in the corner, or darted from one place to another like shadows. At dusk the air grew cool and hung like moist, healing silk over the skin. The evening shadows blended with the earth like beautiful, smudged paint.