Breathing Into Marble

by Laura Sintija Cerniauskaite

  Suddenly glittery tears began to pour from its slanted eye-holes. Liudas flinched and it was a moment before he realised it was he who was crying and not the mask.

  He stood in the doorway, examining Isabel’s bloodless profile, the small, upward tilt to her nose and her regular, beautiful chin with a black mole which looked like a bread crumb dropped in milk. He decided to wait until she turned round so that he didn’t scare her. But Isabel didn’t move; under half lowered eye lids her irises looked as if they were covered in dust – she didn’t blink nor did she see anything. The only thing that gave any hint that she was alive was the slightly visible pulsing above her collarbone where the dress ended.

  Liudas lit a cigarette, opened the kitchen window and blew out the smoke. Immediately he felt uneasy because of the noise he had caused. It was a brutal invasion of Isabel’s silence, but he couldn’t turn back. The sound awoke Isabel and she moved, inhaled and blinked.

  ‘The grass needs cutting,’ Liudas said looking out through the window.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ she replied.

  Isabel’s voice was calm, but there was something different in its tone. Liudas flicked the ash through the window and, sensing Isabel’s gaze, turned round quickly.

  ‘So how are you?’ Liudas asked, annoyed that his voice trembled.

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Does anybody visit you?’

  She was silent. The silence was like the shell of an egg; if it was broken she would die like a premature chick, but Liudas couldn’t stop himself.

  ‘What?’ she asked, her eyes still lowered, her voice a pulse beneath her neck.

  ‘How are you doing here, on your own?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  He put out the cigarette in the bowl of soapy water and stuck his head into porch, then turned round.

  ‘Where’s the scythe?

  ‘Don’t touch it. I’ll do it.’

  ‘Make me some coffee, I’ll just…’

  ‘Don’t touch anything, do you understood?’ Though she didn’t raise her voice, it was an unequivocal edict. Liudas’ enthusiasm was dampened immediately; he sat down on the out-of-use tiled stove and, to give himself something to do with his hands, lit another cigarette.

  Isabel moved again. Remembering suddenly that she was the hostess, she gathered up all of her strength and rose from the table. Liudas watched with growing horror as she sluggishly brought three cups from the stove to the table, one by one, moving as if through sticky resin. She lined them up in an insanely accurate line and leisurely cleaned them with her apron.

  Her features had faded. In place of her face there was left only a naked, half-dead surface, like a mirror obscured by dust, standing in front of which you could see no reflection.

  ‘It was you who told me to leave. If you hadn’t...’

  ‘Don’t.’

  ‘If I had been with you…’

  Isabel inspected the cups. Then she took them back to the stove, one by one. The way she moved was horrible; it was as if she were trapped inside a tight coffin. There was no openness in her movements; the old, graceful Isabel who had trembled in the slightest breeze was gone, leaving only hard granite and death. Liudas closed his eyes and shrank away from her. Ignoring him, Isabel settled back at the table and lowered her gaze to somewhere between her palms, as if they were somehow useless now.

  ‘What happened here? Who was here?’ Liudas asked, pulling himself together.

  She didn’t reply.

  ‘Did you see him?’

  ‘Who?’ Her lips barely moved. She didn’t turn, though she seemed to have expected the question.

  ‘Who did it?’

  Being behind her, he saw how Isabel’s shoulders tensed.

  ‘Beatrice said that Ilya ran away that night.’

  ‘Do you live with her?’

  ‘No. Isabel…’

  ‘Why?’

  Was she worried only about that? ‘Was it Ilya?’

  She was silent.

  ‘It was Ilya, Isabel, wasn’t it? What did you say to police? You saw him, didn’t you? Why don’t you say so?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What, “no”?’

  ‘I didn’t see him,’ she said then, coldly. And that was it.

  They sat together for a long time, not looking at each other; it was as if they were unable to break their pointless, depressing dependence on each other. It was as if they were waiting for something, but dared not confess it. Liudas gave in first.

  ‘I’ll stay.’

  ‘Go, Liudas. Go. Leave,’ Isabel repeated in an indifferent tone. It was as if she were referring to the life of some other woman. Only a tearful impatience sharpened her words.

  Liudas put his head in his hands and swayed gently as if he was trying to calm himself, or to lull himself like an idiot. Nothing helped. He grabbed a cup from the stove, one of those Isabel had just placed with the others and threw it on the floor.

  The cup didn’t shatter. Only the handle bluntly clattered as it fell off and slipped down between the floorboards.

  ‘Come with me,’ Liudas said as calmly as he could.

  ‘No.’

  ‘You can’t stay here on your own. I’ll bring you back when you want me to.’

  ‘Leave me. Please. Leave,’ Isabel whispered.

  Losing his patience, Liudas went out to the yard. It was quiet and calm and hushed. The soft fleece of the woods seemed to be waiting to see what Liudas would do next. The woods belonged to Isabel. Liudas lit a cigarette and circled the car looking for a place to stand. He threw down the cigarette and ran back into the kitchen. Isabel hadn’t moved.

  ‘Can I at least visit you from time to time?’ he asked nervously.

  ‘It’s you who are afraid of being on your own.’

  ‘Just to check how you’re doing?’

  It seemed to Liudas that the corner of Isabel’s lip turned up in a smile.

  ‘To talk, well…’

  ‘What do we have to talk about, Liudas?’ For the first time she lifted her eyes to him. It so frightened him that he stepped backwards and collided with the doorframe. That hadn’t happened for many years. Recovering himself, he put his hand to his throat and mumbled, ‘I’ll come again.’

  That night Liudas had a lot to drink. He called some women and then went to a bar to meet somebody and, having drunk himself half to death, had a fight with a bouncer.

  The next morning he had some more to drink and then crushed the Venetian mask. It had no right to hang on his wall and smirk as if it had seen more than him. Nobody had the right to look at Liudas and ask him how he was doing.

  You had to ask before you could look into somebody’s eyes.

  He didn’t set foot in the boy’s room.

  At the office he told the girls he was going away for a couple of weeks.

  A FOX used to come onto the orphanage grounds. It didn’t come through the hole in the lattice fence but through the gate like everybody else. Its fur, which was the colour of mountain ash, would flash among the tree trunks like a brush dipped in paint. At first they were afraid the fox might be rabid and forbade the children from approaching it. The guard set traps. But the fox began coming every day, avoiding the traps and it soon became clear that, despite the prohibition, the older children were taming it. When she found out about this, Beatrice allowed them to feed the fox with the leftovers from the kitchen.

  Not long after, the fox disappeared. The smaller children were upset; they had been taking out treats for the fox and leaving them at the gates – if it was in a good mood, it would stick its nose out of the nut wood and wait until they were gone.

  About a week later the guard found it near the road. The fox’s fur no longer flamed, it lay in a heap in the moss, like a small mound of leaves. The guard kicked it and turned it over. The light fur on its chest was sticky with blood, at its throat there was a black wound. He hid the carcass in the undergrowth; in the evening he went back with a spade and buried it.

  They told the
children the fox had had babies and would not come back any more. When they have a litter, they explained, they have to forget about fun and games and look after their little ones. Animals often understand that better than people, they told the children.

  Ilya, however, already knew that all fairy-tale beginnings ended sooner or later when reality set in. Every day they took something from you; if you were given a present it was only so they could take it away again. The Evil One who played cruelly with you, did so for his own pleasure, Ilya felt; he knew that he existed. He throbbed on the outskirts of Ilya’s imagination. Sometimes he crept into his dreams, but he could never picture him. He would spill like ink behind Ilya and breathe on the back of his neck – the icy breath would make his hair stand on end.

  Ilya was not afraid of him. He hated him.

  When he was sent back to the orphanage from Puskai, he would hit anybody who dared to approach him or look him in the eyes. Nobody had the right to ask him any questions.

  He swapped some chewing gum with one of the boys for a knife.

  The fox didn’t manage to bear its litter.

  He hid the knife, wrapped in a cellophane film, in the park next to the lattice fence. He had thought of this himself; secrets should be kept in the ground. They needed to be saved for rainy days and then taken out at the right time. Nobody knew when they would be needed or for whom, but they were necessary.

  Another thing he knew was that secrets were a terrible thing.

  Four years later everybody had forgotten about the fox. A young deer came to the woods behind the orphanage fence. She was trusting and, so long as they didn’t get too close, would let the children watch her. Seeing her took Ilya’s breath away. She had wide eyes and her fur was patterned beautifully with small leaf-like shapes, her slim legs were graceful and would quiver with a wild, impatient, mercurial force. The slightest unexpected sound disturbed the deer. She would tilt her elegant neck and then she was gone; leaving nothing more than a faint stirring among the branches of the trees.

  She was so quiet and sad and so incredibly pretty it touched Ilya’s heart, so that involuntarily he squeezed his fist as if clenching a knife. He stood at the fence and waited for the deer to appear among the glistening leaves of the lime trees and gazed into her melancholy eyes. He knew at what times she would appear, as if they had agreed upon them. But he would grow weak as he stood waiting, and when he saw her his heart would contract so painfully that it was clear it had to end.

  He could not afford to be weak.

  One day Ilya dug up the knife and left the orphanage. He returned the next morning delirious and with empty hands from which he tried to rinse a frightening feeling of stickiness. The river water couldn’t wash it away, even though he scrubbed his hands thoroughly, even under the nails.

  Ilya never touched the knife again. Neither the one at the bottom of the river nor any other.

  When, a couple of days later, the deer poked her nose among the leaves of the lime tree, Ilya cried – at first silently and then, later, painfully, louder. But only for her. The deer was not surprised; it sniffed at the air sympathetically, as if it wished to taste the boy’s tears.

  From that night on Ilya waited for them to come for him.

  LIUDAS ARRIVED in the afternoon when the smaller children were having a nap. The older children went out to play, away from the buildings, so as not to wake up the sleeping ones. The nurses would leave them on their own and while the girls would scatter around the park the boys would kick the ball around in the stadium.

  Ilya was not the type to hang around with the others. He had his friends and with them he would slip, unobserved, out of the orphanage territory into the woods; sometimes he even went as far as the river beyond the road. Most often he went alone.

  Liudas left his car in the woods and strolled to the orphanage on foot. In the yard a group of fifteen children were kicking up a racket. Two elderly nurses shouted at them to line up in twos. Liudas stopped by the fence, hidden by the rosehip bush and pulled out a pair of binoculars.

  The children were about to go on an outing. In the summer they would take the children to a small creek. Sand would be dumped there in the summer to make a beach and lemon-yellow buoys marked the area where they were allowed to swim. That day it was too cool for swimming, but on a sunny September morning it was a nice place for an outing, with rugs, balls and badminton racquets. ‘E-ve-li-ne, where’s your cap?’ shouted the plump head nurse. ‘Modestas! Mo-des-tas, I’m speaking to you. I won’t say it again! Ilya, Ilya! You’re the last one; we’re waiting for you!’

  Liudas listened, searching with his binoculars until he caught site of the sullen face with the dark almond eyes. Ilya kept a distance from others. He was flicking stones with a stick and seemed hesitant. Liudas recognised immediately the expression which would invariably distort Ilya’s face when he was about to get into trouble.

  Before the children reached the gate Liudas rushed back through the woods to the car.

  Liudas was first to reach the creek. He hid the car further away, on a track with low bushes obscuring it, then settled himself on a cliff overgrown with pine trees. From there the beach could be seen clearly.

  The procession appeared after a good half hour. Their colourful coats flashed between the pine trunks, disappeared and then reappeared again at the bottom of the cliff close to the water. Liudas lifted the binoculars to his eyes.

  He could see that Ilya was up to something and was looking for the opportunity to get away from the crowd. At one end of the beach the girls put down some rugs and placed on them the bags with food and their coats. The nurses organised a ball game. The red head clapped her hands to get their attention and urged the children to come closer.

  It was then that Ilya dived into the bulrushes.

  Liudas ran, following him along the cliff, crossing the path to the beach along which the children had just descended. Soon the cover of bushes along the bank was gone; the water glittered down below and Liudas again saw the runner moving quickly. Without thinking he jumped and slid down the cliff.

  Ilya stopped and turned, startled.

  Liudas grabbed him by his elbow, locked it in his grip. And that gave him away.

  ‘Hi, Illya,’ Liudas said, out of breath.

  ‘Uh, hi…’

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Listen, we need to talk.’

  Without explaining further, he dragged the child along the bank to where the brushwood began, where there were thick bulrushes growing in the water. They dove into the thick of the woods like birds looking for a place for a nest. Liudas did not let go of the child for a second. His face hovered over Ilya’s as if over a crystal ball – as if searching for an answer in his face before even asking a question.

  Ilya lifted his eyes to Liudas and blinked; the silver grains glistened in his irises.

  ‘I know you ran away one night, recently.’ Liudas spoke slowly and clearly, keeping his sharp gaze on Ilya. Ilya did not move. His eyes were black and opaque, like packed earth.

  ‘Is it true?’ Liudas said. ‘Don’t deny it, I know.’

  ‘So why are you asking?’ Ilya snapped. He grinned with the false sincerity of an experienced orphan.

  Liudas, struggling to hold himself back, squeezed the child’s pointed chin.

  ‘Don’t give me those innocent eyes…tell me where you were that night,’ he hissed.

  ‘Nowhere,’ Ilya answered calmly. ‘I was asleep.’

  It was possible that there were secrets, treasures, nightmares hidden in the black soil of his eyes, but Liudas had no idea how to dig them out. He squeezed Ilya’s cheekbones harder, as if threatening to force out the right answer.

  ‘You’re a lying, little animal…There’s no way you were sleeping.’

  ‘Ask the headmistress if you don’t believe me,’ Ilya shot back.

  Suddenly Liudas understood.

  Understood who was behind him, who encouraged his arrogance.


  Liudas squeezed the child’s face with both palms and shook it with contempt, as if he were trying to crush it.

  ‘If I found out that you ran away – I would grind you into dust. Understood? Do you understand?’

  He let him go suddenly and Ilya stepped back almost losing his balance.

  ‘Get back to the rest. Quickly!’

  The black soil in Ilya’s irises smouldered; his contempt mirrored that in Liudas’ distorted face. For a couple of seconds their gazes clashed, as if they were testing who was stronger. Ilya gave in first – or perhaps postponed the fight for a better time. He turned his back on Liudas and, with his hands stuck in his pockets, strolled hastily through the tall grass back to the children.

  Returning to the car, Liudas headed straight to Puskai.

  Wind ruffled the high grass in the yard. A bowl filled with soapy water and several dirty plates stood near the well. A flock of starlings exploded from the grass and flew towards the woods.

  The door was locked from the inside. Liudas knocked at each of the windows, but nothing happened. He couldn’t get rid of the feeling that Isabel was inside.

  ‘Isabel, open up, or I’ll break the door!’ Liudas shouted, losing his patience.

  There was no response. The grass blew in the wind and then was still. Once again Liudas walked round the house, going up into the veranda beneath the apple tree. In the veranda, next to an empty three litre jar, stood a canister of petrol. Without thinking, Liudas leant forward and glued his face to the glass door. Isabel’s face, pale and flat with large, feverish eyes, swam into focus in the window looking out onto the garden. Her eyes dominated her other features; even her small body sagged under the wrinkles of her dress – as if the fire in her eyes had consumed Isabel from the inside. Liudas opened his mouth to say something, but Isabel put a finger to her lips and shook her head conspiratorially. He gestured for her to open the window. She opened it a fraction.

  ‘Wrong time. Come another day,’ she whispered.

  ‘When, Isabel?’