Breathing Into Marble

by Laura Sintija Cerniauskaite

  Isabel lifted these objects up, one after another; she found that there were things hidden beneath, stuck together because of length of time they had been lying there, reluctant to separate.

  In a cellophane bag there was a folder with some images of a young woman drawn in charcoal. It was the same woman in all of them – with narrow hips, her breasts tiny knots, her eyes, under a high forehead, far away from each other. In some pictures she squatted with her arms around her knees, in others she lay with her knees bent and her arm up in an uncomfortable position, her hair all over her face. Then she sat on the windowsill, sideways, looking, almost, in the opposite direction, her shamelessness mingled with an unhealthy sense of insecurity. It seemed like she was somehow begging for help, begging for her anxieties to be eased.

  Isabel hadn’t thought of her mother in that way for a long time.

  She recognised her from her posture – her mother looked suspicious, her head tilted on one side. And from her bitten lip rippled a mood Isabel was all too familiar with. The expression annoyed Isabel. She was about to put the drawings down, to quash the mixture of emotions which she had carried in the archives of her memory like old, dangerous letters.

  But she was too late.

  She was caught in a fresh, summer shower. Through the wide open door of the veranda the gusts of rain threw their damp scent inside. Her mother had just come in; water dripped from her long, dark hair and her imitation silk Sunday dress was stuck to her shivering body. Rain dripped rhythmically into the three bowls on the veranda steps. Her mother smiled at somebody only she could see, her eyes closed, beating a barefoot rhythm on the floor, as Isabel tiptoed behind her. They both had thin, sun tanned thighs, bitten by mosquitos and scratched by raspberry bushes. Isabel kept her eyes on her mother’s face, from which rose frightening waves of what could only be described as happiness - Isabel was on her guard – if her mother opened her eyes suddenly, she might catch her gaze. Her mother would understand what it was that Isabel wanted to tell her – that she was her daughter and did everything like she did.

  And she did not care what other people might think.

  Her mother opened her eyes, stretched out her arms to Isabel, and Isabel ran towards the hug. They laughed, drowning out the sound of the rain. Her mother swung her hips, rhythmically; Isabel grew dizzy and allowed herself to close her eyes, just for a moment. She could smell the dampness of her clothes, the camomile cream and, when her mother laughed, loud and birdlike, she could smell something else, too sharp for a child.

  Her mother took Isabel into the garden and hugging her hard, ran along the path. The rain splashed against them heavily and the sharp leaves from the apple tree hacked at their skin. Her mother stopped laughing; her chest was rising and falling and Isabel stopped too and looked into her face.

  She could feel that something bad was going to happen.

  Her mother was hugging her too hard.

  Leaving the garden, they turned in the direction of the river; Isabel noticed, over her shoulder, how her father burst from the kitchen window looking in their direction. Isabel grew calmer – her father would drop what he was doing and run after them, he would grab her mother by the hand, would say something to her in his quiet, but firm voice – as if he were talking to a child- and her mother would give Isabel to him.

  Her father’s hands were strong but gentle - he never squeezed Isabel painfully and if she started squirming he put her down on the floor, she didn’t even have to ask.

  ON MONDAY Isabel went to the school in Kurpiskiai and asked the head teacher when she could start.

  The children were quiet – five girls and two boys. She had been so worried about the first class that she had run all the way from Puskai, holding her skirt, so that her fears would not have time to take root inside her. Instead, she scattered them into the wind behind her.

  Isabel stopped in front of the wooden school, out of breath. It was an overcast November day. She could see through the windows that the children had stayed behind in the art classroom waiting for her. They stood around one table talking together in a lively manner – their mouths opening and closing, their heads close together, like little bubbles. When Isabel stamped her feet on the wet doormat and pushed open the door, the children quickly moved to their places.

  Seven pairs of eyes fixed upon Isabel. She had forgotten what it was like to have a child scrutinise her. The whites of their eyes were almost blue, like ice, and in the centre their irises glistened warmly, stippled like a quail’s egg. All of them. She had also forgotten how their hands were small and bitten by cold, interlocked obediently now on the desks.

  ‘Hello, here I am.’ Isabel smiled.

  She held the class twice a week at first and in that time the children’s gaze began to change, it started to show trust; the icy blue warmed up and their freckled, quail-egg eyes, cracked happily, as if the chicks were hatching.

  That autumn seemed to last forever, like a wound that would not heal – as slow as only autumn could be. But gradually the fading copper in the trees coagulated like old blood and one morning frost glittered on the grass.

  Isabel managed to negotiate with the headmistress to move her art class to Puskai.

  Then suddenly it snowed. It was as if somebody had drawn a sparkling white boundary in the year. It snowed and didn’t thaw. Winter had come. The children slid along the path that Isabel had walked so many years before.

  They would stay until it grew dark in her father’s workshop. Having explained something new, Isabel would give the children an art book to pass round – she had collected lots of them, some in different languages. The small hands, smudged with ink, could barely hold them, they were so heavy. And not just because they were so thick, with hard covers, and as massive as gravestones. They had come from a different, distant world, a world it would have been difficult to believe in if they didn’t have the evidence in their hands. Those radiant books swayed in their hands, hesitantly, as if ready at any moment to slip out and escape back to where-ever it was they had come from. Though the people in them looked realistic, they led a life that was interesting and different. The light and shadows in the painted faces hid the mystical drama which simple, everyday people didn’t suspect that they might have when they trudged across snow bound fields in the dusk carrying bread and vodka, or when, dog-tired, they rested their forehead against the cow’s flank while milking. These were people the children knew, these were the houses they had grown up in; the light of their souls penetrated so very faintly through the poverty and the tiredness that you had to learn how to recognise it. These souls-transformed-into-pictures kindled in the children an anxious presentiment that some wonderful meaning was hidden behind the grey routine of work, of eating and sleep. And that significance awaited them somewhere close, beyond the turning of the year, beyond winter, beyond the mended gloves and the constant hunger that they felt in their growing, vitamin deficient bodies.

  The children were always hungry. While they painted Isabel would make a pie from curd, or some sandwiches. They wouldn’t hurry home, even after they had eaten everything and discussed everything and their eyes could hardly stay open from tiredness, they would move slowly around the kitchen, irritating each other and leaving paint marks everywhere.

  After taking them back to Kurpiskiai, Isabel would be startled by her own steps as she returned across the frosty fields. The creaking of the snow reminded her that she was alive and that her feet touched the ground, but how meaningless it seemed, to come back to a house with only one window lit. The loud ticking of the clock hurt her and the sound of the things she stumbled into was like the short, unhealthy cough of an asthmatic. Place the kettle on the stove, fetch the cup with the forget-me-not pattern, the tinkle of a tea spoon on the sugar bowl. And this repeated several times a day, as if something might be changed by the ritual.

  Gailius’ room was the quietest. Its silence was a dead nerve in the heart of the house. And that quietness was still too heavy for Isabel. She
would leave the door open slightly so that she could get used to the cold light that emanated from his room, and to the contours of the desk that loomed in its depths. When she was cleaning, she would enter that room as well. And while running the sponge over the dim, polished surfaces she would fool herself, for a moment, that it was necessary.

  One evening, while her art class were making a noise over their drawings, she switched on the light in Gailius’ room and scooped books and toys randomly from the shelves and took them into the kitchen.

  From that point on, Gailius’ room grew emptier and emptier.

  Isabel’s heart hurt with every piece of clothing she gave away, as if she were burying her son once more, item by item. But on their new owners the clothes immediately lost their memory, taking root anew and Isabel didn’t have to remember how they had been worn by a boy now dead.

  Perhaps that was how it was supposed to be.

  Like shedding old, ill-fitting skin.

  At night Isabel would leave the door unlocked.

  She would lie on her bed, having switched off the lamp decorated with flying cranes, and listen. After listening intently for a long while, the frost-locked ground would gift her - the creak of footsteps. She would hold her breath and wait for the squeak of the opening door. But it never happened. The door did not open; only the warm sparks in the stove crackled.

  Sometimes she would wake in the night crying, desperately searching for a warm body among the folds of the sheets. The chill on the other side of the bed would sting her hands. She would press cold fingers between her thighs, curl into a ball and pray for somebody breathing, for somebody alive next to her. Nut would come to the bed and lick her ear and smell her face anxiously as if he understood.

  On Christmas Eve Isabel answered a couple of telephone calls and, in a voice as joyful as she could manage, refused the invitations. Later, she gazed for a long time at the screen of her mobile where Liudas’ name shone. She didn’t answer.

  She didn’t cook anything, she didn’t prepare anything, and she didn’t think. At dusk she lit the stove, sat on the chair and gazed into the flames. Her cheeks warmed up and her knees burned. When she stood up quickly, her head spun and a heat flamed at the back of her throat.

  She swallowed an aspirin and went to bed.

  During the night somebody walked quietly around the cottage – she heard the soft crackling of the snow over the throbbing heat at her temples, but she was too weak to lift her head from the pillow. She sank into a scorching sleep and then rose to the surface for a while. She could barely open her heavy eyelids in order to check whether it was still dark. Then she fell asleep again as if pressed down by a hot stone.

  Her temperature had dropped by morning. The window was grey with frost. Feeling lighter, her night gown wet with sweat, Isabel turned over and went back to sleep.

  She woke feeling bright. She felt like jumping out of bed and opening the curtains so that they fluttered and sang. She ran barefoot to the kitchen to put the kettle on. Outside the window a blinding whiteness hurt her eyes, which were still sensitive from sleep; it had snowed again during the night.

  On the even, cottony surface of the snow there were fresh footprints. Isabel felt numb.

  From the window she could see clearly that the footprints were those of an adult.

  But he could have worn shoes too big for him.

  She pulled on her fur coat and, barefoot, put on old winter shoes and opened the door to the cold porch.

  In the corner there was a bundle wrapped in green and red checked paper. Isabel took it to the kitchen and, with trembling hands, ripped open the package; six large oranges rolled out like juggling balls. At that moment somebody knocked shyly on the door. Isabel ran her hand through her tussled curls, pulled the fur coat tightly around her, hiding the forget-me-nots on her nighty and involuntarily bit her lip – if she had seen herself from the side it would have reminded her of her mother.

  Outside, clutching a basket to her coat, stood Mortele Luksyte, Pranciska’s niece. Her face was as small as a berry under a woollen hat.

  ‘Merry Christmas,’ the girl said, each syllable of the greeting growing quieter and quieter. She handed over food wrapped in cling film.

  ‘Come in,’ Isabel invited.

  Mortele, who lived with her grandma, was a second year pupil at the school in Kurpiskiai and the most enthusiastic, if not the most gifted artist in Isabel’s class. Her mother had once again failed to come to visit her on Christmas Eve. Mortele explained that she expected her to arrive the next day, and her father too – her father had sent her a card from Norway with reindeers on it which played a tune. Mortele furtively opened her fur coat – glitter was falling off the reindeers’ horns, the front of her green jumper looked as if it had been decorated. The reindeers were still young and naughty – they had run away, leaving Father Christmas napping in his sledge, with a bag full of presents. They peeped mischievously from their hiding place behind the snowy fir trees. That meant somebody might not receive their Christmas presents, some naughty children like those two reindeers.

  Something reindeer-like flashed in Mortele’s eyes.

  They listened to the music which would begin to play when you opened the card. They drank Kissel with Pranciska’s pastries, and then mint tea with the carrot cake Isabel had made. Then they curled up on the double bed with the TV on and watched a Christmas programme. On the screen the snow glittered and some dressed-up, famous people congratulated one another and toasted each other tilting their champagne glasses towards the screen as if offering Isabel and Mortele the chance to take part. Mortele watched their jokes with wide-eyes and a serious face, offering her own imaginary glass clutched tightly in her fist every time the champagne glasses approached the screen.

  ‘Are they drunk?’ she asked.

  ‘They’re not drinking real champagne,’ Isabel explained.

  ‘Like us.’

  Soon after the girl rubbed her eyes and fell asleep, her nose tucked into Isabel’s shoulder. Isabel moved the girl’s head carefully onto the pillow and covered her with her jumper.

  Just before four it grew dark, only the green light from the TV danced on the carpet. Isabel brought Mortele an orange – its cold, porous skin stuck to her fingers and made her feel strangely sad. The girl was already awake, her eyes open. She was looking at the ceiling with the dull gaze of a child just woken; there was no sign of any reindeers. Nor of Christmas glitter. Careful not to startle the girl, she put the fruit down next to her. Its strong, Christmassy scent felt almost painful. But Mortele blinked, washing away the cloudy film from her eyes and squeezed the orange. Her palm was tiny, too tiny for such a thing.

  They dressed up warmly and whistled for Nut to join them. From under a rug in the porch Isabel pulled out a sledge – its rusty blades left brown marks in the snow. Without telling the girl, she followed the footmarks she had discovered that morning. They took her to the narrow road in the woods and ended by some car tracks.

  The woods were tangled in silence. Snow weighed down the branches of the fir trees; they fell to the ground in white and green folds, like curtains. The secret niches of the fir trees, where, when the snow melted, a warm green light would shine and the birds would make nests, were empty.

  They turned off the road and headed deep into the thick woods. Nut barked crazily in the painfully clear air and their steps and half whispered words bounced from the snow.

  Blood pounded noisily at Isabel’s temples. Hot and bright. If she turned her head suddenly, red circles spread before her eyes.

  They stopped, tired. The noise stilled; the silence of the woods buzzed in their temples.

  ‘Look,’ the girl said.

  While Isabel had stood quietly, as if asleep with her eyes open, the girl had made a burrow in the snow and, lying down, had curled up in it. Only her head stuck out of the burrow with a strand of dark hair sticking out of the cap and her eyes were as blue as blueberries, set too close to each other.

  ‘
I’ve made a house.’

  Isabel made a similar one under another tree.

  The snow was warm and friendly, like a living body, but formed of a different material. When touched, it would mould into shapes, like angels – which she could feel rather than see.

  The snow breathed. It glowed in the dark like phosphorous over the bones of the dead.

  Isabel lay in the snow cocoon with only her head and shoulders out; she felt the snow’s cool hardness against her cheek. The world above her was like a Christmas card tilted on its side.

  Then silently, like an unexpected greeting, the occasional large snowflake began to fall from the sky. Settling on her forehead, her eyes and lips.

  ‘Oh, you have a house too,’ the girl giggled from her burrow.

  EARLY IN spring a new photographer joined the editorial team; a fair haired student who wore a stylish leather cap and had a feminine nose, with sensual nostrils which flared when he spoke. His eyebrows, though, were masculine, as was his high, intelligent forehead. His habit of turning his sharp gaze on the strangest aspects of the world had given his features a maturity beyond his years. He looked like the kind of serious student that listened to his lecturers’ advice and was restrained in his ridicule of authority. He valued style. Because he was creatively searching for his own style, he constantly scrutinised other people’s faces, their postures and moods, in what seemed like a slightly arrogantly manner. He had been taught to always be on the lookout for ‘characters’ and to capture them in an original way.