Wild Woman

by Marina Sur Puhlovski

  We’re going to “Lagvić” for dinner, he says, hitting me where it hurts because I don’t want to go to dinner, who cares about food, I want to get to know him, I want us to scintillate, far above the material world, which for me means wine and delighting in things that aren’t food. The first thing I’m not going to do, surely, is masticate in front of him, wipe my mouth and worry about bits of food getting caught between my teeth, not to mention the smell of it, no, that is for the future, if there is one, but the present, at least, has to be clean and fragrant, like now in the car, where our perfumes mingle, because he’s wearing some as well. He’s in a dark green suit, an ochre-coloured shirt, no tie, the first two shirt buttons casually undone, you can just catch a glimpse of some dark chest hair and smooth, clear, unblemished skin, it’s more than exciting, it’s the kind of silky skin you want to sink yourself into, die in.

  “Lagvić”, with its beautiful view of Zagreb, is an expensive restaurant in the north of town, near the village of Šestine, where we used to go as a family to visit our washerwoman, as we called the peasant woman who came into town to wash the laundry, before the arrival of washing machines; actually we came to see my beloved Buco, the shepherd dog we had given to her when our flat became too cramped. When my father first brought him home – somebody had foisted the dog on him when he was drunk – he could fit in the palm of my hand, but then he grew and became this big animal that we used to hitch onto a sled in winter, and he needed a garden, not a small flat, we cried our eyes out.

  And now it’s getting all mixed up in my mind, my excitement, Buco, his perfect skin and the perfect profile that I keep furtively admiring, the blondish sheen of his maybe brilliantined hair, the unnecessary dinner, my wrong-headed dress choice, at least I’m wearing red high heels on my bare feet, I hope he noticed them, and the old questions of where am I, who am I, the whirlwind of life, and whirlwinds are dangerous, I sense rather than know, danger lurks everywhere.

  At the dinner table I tell him with a tight throat that I won’t be having anything to eat, it’s out of the question, I’ll just drink, I say, and smoke, he can eat, I tell him, and he looks at me surprised, as if he has never heard anything like that – a girl turning down a dinner – surely you don’t buy off your dates with a dinner, I think, feeling crushed. I need some wine right away, to recover, to start chatting, to amaze him with words, to captivate him with my wit, because I’ve wrapped myself up like a cocooned silkworm and there’s nothing for him to look at, and he’d obviously been hoping to have something to look at, rather than a not very pretty face, though it’s got its charm and there’s no accounting for taste, as the Latin saying we learned in high school goes.

  And so, while he’s slicing the grilled meat on his plate, served with potatoes and onions, not touching any of it though, I go on the offensive, talking about myself, my studies and marriage, a student marriage that broke down, but I do it off-handedly, with humour, because I am a woman of conversation and imagination, well-versed in literature, and philosophers have taught me to think, I don’t complicate, I clear paths that one can take with a smile, like me, if only he could see them, if only he understood anything, if only he had something other than schnitzels in his head, I realise, astonished. Because I can’t believe that the person behind that perfect face, that perfect skin, that perfect body, the object of my desire, is the same thing as what is on the plate, a piece of dead meat. And since I still can’t believe it, I keep drinking, a second bottle of wine is already on the table; well, if you want to pay, then pay, I’d give myself to you for nothing but that’s something you don’t understand, so, fine, I think to myself, already tipsy. And I’m tipsy, though not stumbling, when I return to the car, disappointed to the core, and I let him drive me to near my house, where he stops in Primorska Street, by the church, turns off the engine and for the first time looks into my eyes, piercing into my very being. Into my nakedness.

  I can’t see what you’re like with all those clothes on, he says ruefully, and without hesitation he lifts up my skirt, it’s tight but doable, it’s already above my thighs, and squeezes my waist, it was doubly stupid to dress like this, it dawns on me, and now my panties are rolled down and slipped over my shoes, my blouse is unbuttoned, my bra undone and around my neck, and he squeezes my breasts and penetrates me in the front seat of his car which, being the gentleman that he is, he has reclined. Because I belonged to him the minute he grabbed me, I came while he was still undressing me, I came again and again, it was like when I masturbate and imagine some anonymous person touching me, only infinitely better, it was cosmic, it lasted and lasted, I’d never experienced anything like it, I wanted to faint with pleasure, it was utter surrender.

  You’re nice, he said after I put my clothes back on, annoyed that the sweat had made it slow progress, and finally lit a cigarette, staying in the car a bit longer before leaving and walking home. I didn’t want him to drive me to my building, I didn’t want anybody to see me, though I wasn’t hiding from anybody, except for the phantoms in my head, and they were obviously alive. I sat there sweaty, my hair a mess, and it bothered me, as if my flat hair was depriving me of my power, because power lies in the hair, according to myth, and that’s something that should be believed, and I waited for him to ask me out on another date. But nothing. He didn’t even ask for my phone number. A smile and a vague “see you around” (while I’m walking the dog, probably, I said to myself miserably) was all I got for a night of ecstasy, which I wanted to repeat, I wanted more of this most gorgeous of men, dumb as could be but he pleasured me, yet it was to be once and never again, as if he realised what I thought of him and was making me pay for it; though I knew that wasn’t true, because everybody thinks of themselves as clever, the cleverest even, without exception. He was simply done with me.

  Feeling utterly humiliated, for a month I was careful not to leave the house unless I was sure that I wouldn’t run into him, and if it did happen, I’d tremble for hours afterwards, tremble with desire, with happiness, with anger, with despair, lying in bed on my tummy, hugging my body, which still remembered his touch.

  And then, just before winter, my husband appeared at the door to repay me the money he’d scrounged off me over the summer and autumn, whenever he ran into me in town – which we were now both roaming like stray dogs – and I’d always given him something, beaten down by his pleading, by the obsequious expression on his face when he asked for a loan, by the whispering into my ear, with me unwilling to accept that he had fallen so low.

  It’s early evening, I am getting ready to go out, my make-up’s on, my hair is done, I’m wearing my grey suit, with the skirt above the knee, there’s just my raincoat and heels to put on, I’m still in my felt slippers, they’re grey as well. Tanga, unlike me, is all happy to see him, she jumps around, paws him and moans, thrilled by the return of a member of her pack, now reduced to a seemingly disastrous two. I bring him into the hall, it’s always gloomy, it needs the artificial light of the wrought iron lamp with its light bulbs directed at the ceiling, the TV is on to cheer up the atmosphere and create a warm feeling, which is missing, to give a sense of company, which is missing, except for the dog, consumed with illness, which always makes it look miserable.

  We’re both smoking Filter 57, in the green soft-pack, flicking the ashes into the big white ashtray, you’ve still got that ashtray, he says, as if he’d expected it to disappear in the meantime, like when he walked out of the house twenty years ago and everything changed. I don’t offer him a drink, I’m in a hurry, I say, but I don’t tell him where I’m going because it’s none of his business, not anymore. As usual, he’s sitting with his legs crossed, swinging his top leg, nodding his head, red in the face, as if stung by nettles. He’s about to say something, but he stammers and I realise that it’s the strain of the unsaid that is making him red in the face; once he says what he’s got to say, there will be a decision, so he hesitates.

  I ask him how he’s doing at his parents, what do you think
, he answers with a question that is also an answer, and clenches his teeth, making the veins on his neck pop out, then he looks at me wistfully, his eyes, the colour of forget-me-nots, glazed, the expression on his face pleading, his shoulders drooping.

  See how miserable I am, his demeanour is saying more powerfully than any words, the meaning of words can always be twisted, but a facial expression is unambiguous, I’m yours, is his message, do what you want with me, he’s saying, and he draws up his chair and lays his heavy head of lank straight hair on my lap, signifying total surrender.

  Now what, I start panicking, my hands automatically dropping to his heavy, sick head, it could explode right here in my lap, I fret, so I let it stay where it is, I don’t push it away, I don’t get up, my hands take in the warmth of his head, a feeling from the days when this still meant something to me, along with the times when I was happy and unhappy, unlike now, when I’m just unhappy.

  Poor man, my mother whispers in my ear, my mother for whom everybody is always poor except me, even my father was poor although he used to beat me, I resist that voice because, like the head lying in my lap, it wants me to acquiesce, not by resorting to force but by appealing to fragility, because I would fight force, whereas fragility keeps me rooted to the spot like the child who the other day, at the door to a café, grabbed my jacket from behind, hid under it and stayed there like that, so that I didn’t dare move.

  He’ll start studying and he’ll graduate, and he’ll write for the radio and will stop disappearing from the house, he’s come to his senses, he promises, all contrite, and then he stands up, kisses the palm of my hand, strokes my face, as he used to, at the beginning, and his forget-me-not-coloured eyes glaze over again, and all the while, the dog is looking up at us longingly, waiting for us to stroke her back. I remember the day we brought her home, this little golden ball, she was so cute, with her big ears and trusting eyes, it was enough to make your heart burst with joy, and we both cuddled her. And when she was sick, we spent the whole night by her basket, and in the morning, when she stood up and stretched, we cried with relief.

  So much effort invested, so many years together, my mother whispers in my ear as I take out a bottle, still in my suit because I’m still determined to go out, it will just be later. When we finish the bottle, having evoked happier times, which moved us both, I finally say, OK, you can come back, but this is the last time, the next time you leave there’s no coming back, and I send him home to get his things and bring them back in the morning because I want to sleep on my decision alone.

  The dog and I walk him to the tram stop and on the way back I see the car of the man who had rejected me parked in front of my window, and I muse how I had saved myself the pain of humiliation, the man whose memory still makes me tremble, I’m still not over him, but then again I hadn’t wanted you either, I say to him in my mind; I’ve reconciled with my husband, don’t approach, don’t hope for anything, you have lost me forever. Eat your heart out!

  XXIII.

  In my last year at secondary school, just before the final exams, I changed schools, because my form mistress, who was also my Croatian teacher, had given me a C for the previous year, an injustice beyond belief, because what else did I do except read day and night, books for breakfast, lunch and dinner, books in the toilet, and I became a raging force of nature, unstoppable, so, with the fury of a witch on a broom (as I imagined it from the pictures), I decided to leave my school in the city centre – it was old, venerable and highly regarded, like most things of the past – and when the form mistress ran into me in the corridor one day and asked why I was leaving, I said, without blinking an eye: because of you, and I threw her a sharp look that gouged out her perfidious eyes.

  To no effect.

  I enrolled in Dora’s high school, it was new, on the outskirts of town, neither here nor there, I’d heard, and thank God, I thought, at least I’ll get a break from being nagged every day, and though I couldn’t join Dora’s class because she was taking English and I was taking German, I did meet Irena in my new class.

  Irena later recounted how I entered the classroom in a two-toned suit, red and blue against a Burgundy red imprinted with little blue leaves, designed by my mother’s cousin, poor Julia, and wearing patent leather heels the colour of sour cherries, as if I was about to step onto the catwalk, and stood in front of the badly erased blackboard, surveyed the rows of heads in front of me, all staring at me, and when I introduced myself everybody’s jaw dropped, Irena said. Because it was bold and brave to walk into the classroom like that, where everybody knew each other, and my arrival consolidated them into a group that could accept or reject you, extol or crush you, and it took guts just to stand in front of them, let alone impose yourself like that from the front of the classroom – look at me, remember, you’re there and I’m here – it could have made them hate me, but it didn’t. Maybe they sensed the truth behind my performance, that I was unsure of myself, that it wasn’t me, it was fury that had brought me to that school, the medieval witch on a broom, and it was now receding.

  The only person who disapproved was Irena, who would have never dared to do something like that, she would have quietly crept into the classroom, as invisible as a spider, and sat down somewhere in the back, where nobody could see her. Her way of punishing me was to ignore me, not say a word to me, just look daggers at me, who do you think you are, and then turn her back on me, which was as broad as mine, with straight shoulders. But, unlike me, she was thin, scrawny even, with long skinny legs, knobbly knees, big boobs, a long face, thin lips and a slightly crooked, ski-slope nose. And her chin was too small.

  She didn’t like herself, she thought she was ugly, I learned later, she couldn’t see her own knees, though in a way she was attractive, being tall and thin she was modern-looking, she had nice long, thick golden hair and she was popular with the boys, which was the most important thing, because it gave her prestige. Studying came only second, and talents third, especially in sport, followed by art. That’s how the system worked, and the system defined our lives, which we both did and didn’t know; we knew because we could feel ourselves resisting, as if something was being imposed on us, but we didn’t know because we didn’t know that it was being imposed on us, because we had agreed to everything in advance.

  While waiting together at the tram stop, she gazed around sulkily, but, as before, without saying a word to me; I was standing there looking miserable, when her sister happened to pass by, she was older and at first glance awesome, with eyes like a hawk, and seeing me standing next to her sister she stopped and asked her, who’s this, the new girl in school, was the reply, where are your manners, her sister said, you haven’t even introduced us. Irena pursed her mouth and pulled a face, which did nothing for her looks, she wanted to kill me for prompting that broadside from her sister, because, as later became evident, she felt like a nobody in front of her. But that was exactly her magnetic attraction for me, I didn’t want to give up on her, so, in the second half of September, only two weeks into my new school, when I was making a list of which people to invite to my eighteenth birthday party, I added her name, knowing she’d come because, of course, she didn’t want to miss out on it.

  And here she was, in a white mohair top, her slim legs sheathed in white trousers, and we were all gobsmacked by her top because we’d never seen anything so beautiful before, so diaphanous, it made her face look unreal, we’d never touched anything so soft, but by ten in the evening, when they left, that top was dirty, sticky, blotched with all sorts of stains, like my two sofas where she’d vomited the cocktails that Edo had mixed for us (he was a lanky, freckled boy from our class). He declared himself an expert at making cocktails when he saw all the different bottles of alcohol I’d placed on the table – along with appetizing sandwiches with salami, cheese, pickles, ajvar, mayonnaise and olives on top, and a chocolate walnut cake the neighbour had made – rum, cherry brandy, two liqueurs, one yellow from the egg and the other brown from the chocolate, home
-made, using brandy and a store-bought mixture of ingredients, as well as beer and wine. Great, he said, mixing it all together and giving it to us to drink and it was nice and fun until it hit us and we all got wasted, especially Irena. She practically had to be carried out, pale and limp, she looked like a ghost.

  They’d already all left by the time my parents came home, and my mother and I worked until eleven o’clock cleaning the sofas with water and vinegar, using a fan to dry them and remove the stink of puke, while my father was drinking in the kitchen, waiting for us to finish, full of understanding for what had happened, a situation all too familiar to him.

  Irena didn’t come to school the next day, and the day after that she showed up all penitent, apologising to me, almost dropping to her knees, deaf to my assurances that neither I nor my parents were angry at her, because we’d seen it all before, lots of times, we’d already forgotten about it, I said. I asked her about her mohair top, had she managed to wash it clean; no, she said, it’s ruined. What a shame! She kept on apologising, day after day, she was constantly by my side, we’d head home from school together, she’d walk me half the way because I lived far away, and we’d talk about our favourite subject, boys, and continued to hang out together.

  She married young, a chemical engineer who seemed attractive at first glance, but awful at second, like a goldfish that’s turned into a piranha and revealed itself by suddenly flashing its menacing pointed white teeth, an impression I kept to myself because it wasn’t for sharing. I was responsible for bringing them together because I gave him my ticket at the cinema, she already had her eye on him, and this was a way for them to meet. They walked into the cinema as strangers and walked out as a couple – sitting next to each other in the dark, elbows and fingers touching, imagining what could be, shortened all the paths to getting together, led to a brief involvement, then marriage and a daughter; I’m glad I gave him my cinema ticket, I’d say sometimes, laughing. And she agreed, though not wholeheartedly, because something was wrong from the very outset, though it wasn’t clear what, it was still hidden in the shadows, on the outside everything was shiny and bright, like his teeth, but on the inside the darkness grew and soon she began complaining. And then the darkness spilled out, like an erupting volcano – the little girl had barely learned to say “Daddy” when she discovered that her husband was seeing another woman, Irena found the letters the woman had written to him when she had just given birth.