by Ella Hansing
were at the bottom of a giant void, hidden far from the sun. Fully defeated, I was ready now to accept that the winds wouldn’t be changing for me as I’d imagined they might. It seemed they would always blow the same way – full against me. My mother was as unchanging as was our shared predicament. We were alone. It was just the two of us – if even that, since she was now somewhere else far away, where she couldn’t be reached.
And what of this suitor she was obsessed with? I had seen him only once – scarce able to recall even his face, as he had been walking out our door when I laid eyes on him. The encounter had been too fleeting for me to distinguish with any certainty what his intentions were or what his level of interest in my mother might actually be. Likewise, there was no way of telling how farfetched my mother’s desires or expectations really were. From what I’d seen, he hadn’t seemed the type to be unsure of himself – neither ashamed nor apologetic at being spotted standing in our doorway. Perhaps indeed my mother deceived herself once more. Perhaps he had no actual desire to return, having spun a handful of stories for her in order to more smoothly escape her clutches. Was it possible for him to have grown disinterested? Though I knew each of her relationships ebbed and flowed at different paces, I knew of none that had dissolved for reasons of abrupt dissatisfaction.
All these things hopelessly unanswerable, I rallied enough strength only to lift myself from the floor, shuffling waywardly to the front of the house. With my questions and fears quickly becoming more than I could combat, I hoped to find distraction, at least momentarily, in gazing on my mother at rest – motionless but for the rise and heavy fall of her chest. In arriving a short distance from her bed, I once more was surprised to see how swollen she appeared. Perhaps it was only the angle which I stood at – had she always been that way? Eyes closing tight, I rested tiredly against the wall to my right, knowing it wasn’t just my imagination. Lately she’d become undeniably fatter, seeming less and less inclined to move. Even her neck had thickened, seemingly overnight – her ankles more round as well as her fingers, which had remained ring-less for the past week, if not longer. Running my nails across the top of my scalp, I did my best to alleviate the mounting pressure in my head. Beauty never lasted; though seldom acknowledged by my mother, it was a truth I had always stored quietly at the back of my mind.
If this man, this lover she so adored, had indeed forsaken her out of disinterest, it would be the first I’d seen of it. Drawing my heavy lids open, my gaze settled on her quiet face. Though she sincerely believed him to be merely confused, amid my hopelessness I resisted trusting anything she had faith in, and besides this, he hadn’t impressed me as someone who might cow to the demands of others so easily. He had seemed like the sort to take exactly what he pleased, whenever he wished and without any sort of apology. Forcing myself to look away, I struggled to end my thinking – knowing I was much too depressed to reach any sort of rational conclusion in that hour. Indulging in sadness had a way of fueling only further melancholy.
Since I hadn’t been there, I would perhaps never know the reason her lover had forsaken her – or whether or not it was due to the decline of her beauty. All I could be sure of for the time being was that she had yet to entertain any guests, for over a week, and that we would be out of coins in half that time. Ninharrissi had been sent away as if a stranger – as if her contributions over the past years hadn’t at more desperate times kept us alive. Witnessing my mother’s reckless degree of waste that day over a romantic whim had once more struck fear in my heart – the knowledge of hunger now lingering closely overhead, laughing at each breath I took.
Curling up at the opposite end of the room from my mother, I wrapped my thin arms around my bended knees, knowing we would have to sit and wait, perhaps for many hours, before making any sort of move. There was no way I could open our door, either the front or the back, before darkness fell – not after such an exhibition on the steps of our house, after one of her lovers – a woman no less, drunk out of her mind, had beat her fists on our door and shouted my mother’s name aloud for all to hear. I didn’t care if we ran out of food or water. There was nothing I’d risk seeing any of the disdainful gazes outside for – the contempt of our neighbors or any passers in the street that had seen and heard the commotion – not so soon, at least. I needed time to become calm, for my mind to become rational.
It had always been difficult to watch my mother fall asleep so easy, whereas I often stayed awake late into the night, tossing and turning as I searched for comfort. She slept as if entranced – as if nothing could wake her, both her mind and eyes alike closing the moment her head rested on its cushion. I realized now in watching her that though I found this ability bewildering, I wasn’t necessarily envious of it. More than ever now I worried that her apparent ease in falling asleep could be attributed merely to her oblivion – a type of carefreeness derived only from delusional thinking. Though it must surely be nice – sleeping as sound as she did, it could also be dangerous if you were unable to hear a predator approach, and wake in enough time. In the grainy light of our small home, I now felt surer than ever that she teetered unknowingly near her demise – likewise threatening to pull me down with her.
As the hours of day inched by, at last beginning to yield to the prospects of encroaching dusk, I made no move to light any oil. I welcomed the darkness – breathing easier as the shadows crept across the empty front room, reaching out with long arms to hold me. I could hear the ringing of laugher and voices beyond our walls as others began to set aside their work and venture outside – off to the central market in search of food, drink and entertainment. No one stopped at our door; no one knocked or called out to us as I waited. Before much longer the light cutting through the cracks in our wooden shutters faded altogether – leaving the space inside our home as dark as a tomb. Throughout all this – through the passing of time and commotion in the streets outside, my mother refused to wake, only rolling over once so that she faced away from me, her breathing loud enough for me to hear from across the room.
It wasn’t like her to sleep at dusk – a time when usually she became playful and awake, normally fully painted and dressed by such a time as this. I knew there was no way of telling what she might do next, no way of predicting her behavior now that she had confessed her obsession with this man. I found myself alone once more, surprised only by the feelings of disappointment hovering over me – alluding to how foolish I’d allowed myself to become, imagining that my mother had sought an end to something old and a start to something new, that she’d wanted something different for herself – or even me. Such notions seemed laughable now, especially in light of the spectacle we’d been made that day.
Running my hands up the sides of my legs to warm myself, I lifted my gaze to look once more at her. At least now I had a clearer idea of where we both were, despite the darkness – clearer perhaps than in a long time.
Muscles stiff at having remained motionless for so long, I struggled to lift myself from the ground. Pausing to watch her pull her blanket up over her bare shoulders, I ventured in silence to the shelves beneath the window, both hands extended to feel my way. Though scarce able to see, I knew well enough where to find what I looked for – my fingers gliding familiarly over her assorted earrings, perfumes and makeup bottles.
Noiseless, I lifted a small bronze broach from the back of her jewelry stash. Rudimentary in design, with a single, dull stone in the center, it was without question one of her simplest pieces – one she’d seldom wore. Confident she would scarce remember owning it, I slipped it into my pocket and moved seamlessly back – turning to enter the kitchen where there I stooped to collect our new water jar. Exiting through the back of the house, I sealed the door softly shut behind me, feet carrying me up and out of the alley onto the street in just enough time to glimpse the last of the sun – the moon having already risen at the tail end of my gaze.
Unlike other times where I would become instantly elated at escaping our home, my departure that night manage
d only to fill me with a sense of further gloom – my mind feeling as equally burdened as before. In drawing nearer the market, I pulled my scarf over my head – my chin dropping instinctively so that my face became less distinguishable. Loud voices up ahead drew my attention, the sound of so many people out enjoying themselves pulling me forward, like a harness pulls an ox with a heavy load. By no means was it an ideal time to be out and about. There was too much going on in Arrapha for me to expect an easy passage. Still, I knew if I stayed in our home any longer, if I had waited there in the dark, knowing we had no money left, my anxiety would crush me completely. Ducking out from under the path of a group of drinkers, I flattened myself against a stack of crates – waiting until they’d passed before moving.
Stepping out when the moment became right, I made my way bravely to the far end of the swollen market, weaving my way through clustered groups and tiny booths, the pavement beneath my walk now littered with the refuse of a day’s worth of sales and festivities. With one arm wrapped securely around our water jar, I
