Wild Woman

by Marina Sur Puhlovski

  In school, it never occurs to me to lose weight, I have no idea that you can lose weight, not even theoretically, for some things I am just stupid, even when they are obvious, I just schlep around in dresses and knee-length skirts like some old bag. The boys in my class give me a “C” for my legs, those little idiots graded us, a “B” for my face, and an “A” for my body, so my average is a “B” and I feel doomed and unhappy; I drag myself through life like a downtrodden cat, casting morose looks at people right and left, which nobody finds attractive, and if somebody does, then I don’t find them attractive. Whatever happened to that attractive thirteen-year-old girl, I wonder miserably, when three lovelorn boys used to stand under my balcony, the fourth pining for me in the school corridors, tossing me little packets of foreign chocolates and sweets, hoping to impress me... I ate the sweets with the brazenness of a vamp who takes but gives nothing in return, and even laughs at him. So now you try being the one who is invisible when she walks by, despised in advance, looking enviously at the other girls’ long, slim legs, because even trousers don’t look good on you, watching them you smile at the magic encircling them but that locks you out a hundred times over. So you stop even smiling and all you can do is nurse your contempt for the girls who leaf through fashion magazines that offer pointers about clothes and make-up, colour-coordinated brand-name shoes and handbags, and, to make matters worse, the sluts are rich, which you are not, and they revel in the luxury of all that fashionable plumage whereas you have already opted for black, dark blue and dark brown, colours that make you look thinner and taller because they hide your shortcomings. Your superiority comes from the inside, you tell yourself, because you see how shallow it is to view fashion as fundamental to life, to prattle about hairstyles and eye shadow and mascara and shaping your brows to look arched, to admire skeletal women who five foot ten inches tall and weigh less than eight stone but since everybody is crazy about them then you have to be, too, and how much it will cost you to work on your body instead of your mind, which is the only thing worth the effort.

  And then I start uni, and the fashion changed, not by ditching the mini but by introducing the maxi, the skirt that goes down almost to your ankles; maxis had been in, then they disappeared, and then they had a comeback just at the right moment, as if somebody heard me secretly calling out for something that those of us with fuller figures could wear, and so I ran to my mother’s cousin Julia, a dressmaker who made all our clothes for us, with a fabric that I loved – dark brown, studded with details in the same colour – my eyebrows already plucked and pencilled into an arch, my mousy brown hair bleached, I just need that maxi to be trendy, too, rather than one of the herd taking the early morning tram to work, I think to myself, overjoyed.

  I even found a pattern for a dress, with an A-line skirt and a long-sleeved button-up top – I’ll have the buttons covered in the same brown fabric – and with a belt to emphasise the waist, I chatter away, telling poor Julia what I want. She does her sewing in the kitchen, which is crammed with all sorts of things, and where all six of them congregate – her husband, three daughters and son, the neighbours often joining them, all of them sitting around, huddling like birds, filling the room with their warmth. There is always a pot of coffee on the stove, not the real thing, chicory, a coffee substitute, with everybody helping out, chatting, joking, laughing, even the two older sisters’ boyfriends join in, and miraculously, with all the comings and goings, everyone manages to fit into that kitchen; I love all the babble, which I don’t have at home because I am an only child, always alone.

  I ask Julia when I can have the first fitting and she says the following week, but that is too long for me to wait because I want to wear the dress that minute, on the catwalk, in the street, at uni, my lectures have just started, and so has the flirting, and I want to present myself in the best possible light as soon as possible, because first impressions are crucial. So I ask for the fitting to be on Thursday, in two days' time, and I want to be able to wear the dress on Monday, because tomorrow I’m going to have the buttons covered. And I can come for the dress on Sunday, even if it’s in the evening, I say, pestering her, I don’t care that I’m making the woman work on a Sunday, not giving her a moment’s rest, even though I know she suffers from constant headaches because of all the pressure she has, from her family, from her clients, and that she always has a little packet of headache powder in her pocket, which she takes whenever she feels she needs it, as she’s doing now, while I’m pestering her; her childlike little hand dips into her pocket, takes out the packet, opens it and, using the paper like a funnel, she pours the powder into her mouth, while her son, already well trained in these matters, brings her a glass of water.

  Julia is almost a midget, she’s always been grey, with a face like a raisin, round and soft like a puff of cotton, placed on this earth as if she’s always been crushed, though maybe she hasn’t, maybe that’s just how I saw her; mind you, I would be crushed, too, if I had to deal with the pressure of the five of them, no matter how much I loved them. And when you are crushed you don’t know how to defend yourself, not even from a squirt who is barely nineteen, who is breathing down your neck, who is young and big and on your back – two of you can fit into one of her – because all she can see is Monday when she’ll be fitted into that brown fabric, the one she brought, and it will shape her figure, highlighting the difference between her and the rest of the world, launching her into the starry heights of beauty, or at least attractiveness, making her feel important, feel like somebody, because in her mind she is nobody. Who am I, nothing and nobody, the words keep reverberating in her head; she has no idea that she will remain nothing even when he tells her that she is something, because in his mind he is nothing as well, but she is supposed to reassure him that he is something; what a farce...

  We don’t live far from one another, our parents and us, it is a ten-minute leisurely walk under the autumn chestnut trees whose fruits, when they fall to the ground, burst open and little, shiny brown conkers roll out, inedible though, because these are wild chestnuts, but nice to look at, to hold in your hand, to make patterns with and then attach with toothpicks, or at least imagine what you can do with them if you keep them, since they are so lovely.

  It is Sunday, early evening, and I am running to pick up my maxi dress, I’m prepared to wait for it until midnight if it turns out it isn’t finished yet, even if it means Julia dropping dead; I’d soften up by the age of twenty-six, but at nineteen I am still hard-nosed, the only thing I’ve experienced is my father’s illness, with no tragic outcome so far, and though I can sense my own selfishness, I’m not fighting it because I haven’t yet dug myself a well into which I can toss in the truth and leave it there to die a slow death.

  Luckily, the dress is ready, there are just the buttons to sew on, and I’ve brought them, along with a pair of suede high heels, a nice brown to go with the dress, so that I can have a dress rehearsal in front of witnesses before my debut to the universe the next day, which is how I see this snippet of life I’ve plunged into. As soon as the buttons are sewn on, I disappear into Julia’s bedroom, where the fittings are done, and dive into the dress as if into a new life, which this remake will give me, because even Cinderella found her prince and became a queen only after she had her dress (and shoes and carriage), not before, that’s what the fairy tale taught me.

  Ah, that bedroom of Julia’s, with its jumble of fabrics, double beds and eiderdowns, all puffed up and white as if one sleeps in the clouds, and on the walls souvenirs of bygone faces in ornate gilded frames, ribbons, threads, fashion magazines and dress patterns tossed on the table and chairs, clothes hanging from the wardrobes waiting for fittings, skirts, blouses, dresses, coats, and then the dressing table with its triple mirror in which clients can look at themselves from all angles, from the front, in profile, left and right, and over their shoulder at the back.

  I put on the shoes and twirl in front of the mirror, posing like a model, fixing the expression on
my face as soon as I catch sight of myself in the mirror, something I do even in shop windows, I am always so surprised that what I see in the reflection is me, I mean you don’t live with your face, a face you can’t see, so of course it comes as a surprise. And I decide that I’m satisfied with what I see there, the dress is exactly what I wanted, striking, unique, because maxis are still new on the street, they aren’t seen everywhere and never will be because women like to show off their legs, as I’ll come to understand soon enough. I still have to try it out on the people behind that door, in the kitchen, especially on my younger and middle cousins and their brother, whose response to everything is to joke, so that when I’m with him I always feel I’ve been pecked by parrots – my eldest cousin left to meet up with her fiancé as soon as I walked in, because they are about to get married – so I throw open the door, stop, and say, What do you think?

  Oh, beautiful, it looks great on you, my cousins say in unison, both carbon copies of their mother, but prettier, in fact the younger one is gorgeous, they wanted her in the movies, but she wasn’t interested, their brother makes some crack that I’ve forgotten because it isn’t worth remembering, and laughs to himself; the middle cousin says I remind her of Marilyn Monroe, she’s exaggerating, of course, because I’m not pretty, I have an ordinary face, with a jutting chin and suspicious dip to my nose, thin hair, I have to tease it to give it volume, I have charm, not beauty, the only thing that breaks the mold of this perfect mediocrity are my eyes, big, heavy-lidded, piercing, I’m all about the eyes. But I enjoy being Marilyn Monroe for a second in that dingy kitchen with its Singer sewing machine and smell of chicory coffee; the whole point of that dress is to be who you’re not, to create an image, not be a person.

  Standing by the bed with the eiderdowns, I take off the dress, so that it doesn’t age by the time I get home, and can hardly wait for daybreak to put it back on again and walk to uni in my heels, my maxi billowing around my legs, straight-backed, fast, with a magnificent walk, as some people later said, my skirt probably carrying the smell of my little dog which was in heat. And what I want to happen happens, the skirt does its job, it sweeps, it collects, it drags some thoughts underneath it, adopts them, imprisons them. I have no idea that from then on I will be imprisoned myself, that the game is over.

  III.

  I’d already noticed him, he’d already caught my eye at the first lecture, in the huge lecture hall, the college amphitheatre, with its semicircular rows of benches, and down below, in the middle, a table called a lectern, and behind the lectern a green board to write on. I noticed him when I briefly turned around to see who was sitting behind me, I always turn around, because I can, and he was leaning against the wall by the door, tall, thin, all bones, nice looking but nothing special, I decided, glued to my bench as I turned back to face the lectern. The lecture hadn’t started yet, the students were still settling down in their seats. So I turned around again to get a better view, and he was still there, leaning against the wall by the door, exceedingly fair-skinned, which I didn’t like, his hair thin and lank, like mine, which I didn’t like either, the only thing I did like was that he had dark hair, but standing next to him now was another guy of the same height but much healthier-looking, he was more the athletic type, he didn’t look tired, or melancholic, or tubercular as they used to say before tuberculosis was eradicated, with thick fair hair that had no intention of falling out, but for who knows what reason I rated less attractive than the first one.

  They gave no sign of wanting to sit down, like the rest of us, they doggedly stood their ground by the door, as if intending to run off, because I could envisage them opening their mouths, waving their arms, nodding, laughing, as if they knew each other from before (and, as I was later to find out, they did, they went to the same high school, there was a two-year age difference), and I was slightly jealous that they had each other, compared to me, I knew nobody there, everybody was a stranger, and I was one of those people who didn’t know how to bridge the gulf between two bodies with the ease of a smile, I’d accept a smile but wouldn’t give one, and as a result I was the person always sitting on a chair in the corner whom nobody approached.

  Admittedly, one student did approach me, all fair and blond and bearded, he introduced himself as Adam, but two girls, smiling ear to ear, immediately dragged him away, as if they owned him, and as there was nothing for it, he shrugged his shoulders and disappeared.

  Meanwhile, the double act disappeared as well – I saw that when I turned around again, at the end of the lecture, and I decided that they were rude. That they had some nerve. That they had no respect. They had come to study something wonderful and lofty like literature, not technology, economics, medicine or law – so boring you wanted to die, just thinking of the syllabus was enough to make you go numb, but they had scuttled out like rats caught stealing. I wrote them off right away, but they reappeared on the evening of the same day, and stayed. And so I felt more kindly disposed. Amazingly, they kept coming regularly, in the morning and in the evening, with the other one taking notes, like me; but my guy didn’t, he didn’t even carry a notebook with him, ignoramus, I thought, but I didn’t hold it against him.

  I usually went to classes with Flora, my neighbour and childhood friend, who was studying English and History, and we often waited for each other after lectures; we talked about boys, and soon also about the double act, because she had noticed them, too, especially him. I also got to know two or three other girls, one of them, Petra from Kutina, ambushed me on the tram, I think you’re the most interesting person at uni, she said out of the blue, and would I like to hang out with her? Of course, I answered, what else could I say, flattered, but also surprised by her manner, by the way she belittled herself, I’d never do that, I thought to myself.

  I met the other one first; Filip: he introduced himself before a lecture, my guy wasn’t there and I was with Petra, who immediately glued herself to him, and I thought, never mind, I’m not interested in him anyway.

  ***

  For a while I vacillated, yes I do want him, no I don’t, some things attracted me, others put me off; his eyes were big and blue, like forget-me-nots, but when you looked into them they weren’t warm, they were cold, like blue ice; you’re going to melt that ice, I said to myself, always stupidly believing in my own power to change things, as I know now but didn’t then; his regular features gave him a beautiful profile, but when you looked at him en face, one side of his face seemed to overshadow the other, like bad over good, or the other way round; his legs were too short for his body, but at least he had no fat on him, I didn’t like them chubby, and then there was that odd walk, tottering, sluggish, he shuffled along like a sixty-year-old, his shoulders stooped, all he needed was a tail like the Pink Panther, I thought, checking him out in the university corridors, in the café, outside, on the way home, in those wonderful days before anything happened.

  Inwardly, I was attracted by the very things that put me off, the look that needed softening, the smile that needed coercing, and then the weariness, especially the weariness, with its hint of something tragic, of the predetermined downfall of the novel’s hero, he exuded an unhappiness that needed soothing, a pain that needed easing, a wound that needed healing, it was all written there in his eyes and on his brow, especially on his pale, high brow... Suddenly he became gorgeous.

  Outwardly, nothing had happened, except that our eyes would meet, collide, avoid each other, underestimate each other, overestimate each other, working surreptitiously, spinning a web that you’d be caught in, and weren’t counting on. That day I was powerful, prancing around in a new dress, a striking maxi, and offered a choice, which one do you want, this one or that one, but by tomorrow I’d be helpless, everything would be slipping out of my hands, as if the previous day had never happened.

  If you don’t want him, I do, Flora says as we walk home together one day, it’s so out of the blue that I’m startled, the kiss of death to my power, but I’m also stung, because, what
the hell, somebody is prepared to snatch him away, just waiting for you to take your paws off him so that she can pounce; so he has to be protected, and that from somebody who, when you were kids, became your blood sister as a proof of everlasting friendship; even if you hadn’t wanted him, you do now, you don’t want him snatched away from you, you’re not generous, you’re selfish, and that’s something you’ll have to pay for, starting with valuing him more than he deserves. And that immediately sharpens your senses, you see something you may not have noticed in your previous role as queen, which is that suddenly his mind is elsewhere, he’s in a hurry, ignoring you with a bleak look as he rushes off, he doesn’t even come to the lectures anymore... Disaster, horror; what’s happened, you ask your rival of only yesterday who shrugs her shoulders, no idea, she says; so it’s true, you tremble inwardly, because you were expecting her to try to persuade you otherwise. She finds it odd, too, she says, still cutting you with her knife; all that interest I showed in him and nothing, he never even approached me – she tells me indifferently, not realising that she’s hurting me – nothing except for that something in the corner of his departing eye, I say to myself, but not aloud, because it’s pathetic to grasp at such straws when somebody is ignoring you.