Baltimore

by Jelena Lengold

  It wasn’t the same after that. And I was no longer in the place I wanted to be, but more and more in a hazy hospital room in which the silence was constantly interrupted by someone’s screams, sobs, the sound of tapping heels, screeching wheels, sirens outside the windows, early morning chatter of cleaning ladies who displayed their conviction that I was but a mere object, even more than that doctor. While changing my sheets, puffing my pillow, pulling me up, they would continue the conversation they began in the previous room, then open the windows and leave without even glancing at me, happy there was only one more room left at the end of the corridor.

  This no longer resembled what I wanted. I didn’t like the solutions they were offering. I could have stayed in this room and let them give me those injections. I could have gotten up and tried to escape, but then I would no longer be just a woman who didn’t talk, but a fugitive from the hospital. And finally, I started talking again.

  “I’m so happy,” my mother said, her eyes filled with tears. “I’m so happy you’re well again.”

  “I’m happy too,” I said.

  Happiness. So, from now on, this is what we’re going to call the deception we would continue to live in. We’ll end my sick leave and start from the beginning.

  As we all hugged with excitement and while they were telling me how much they missed me, their eyes were sending me a message: Don’t you try to escape from all the shit or we’ll drown you in it. We talked and talked and talked, like people who hadn’t seen each other in a long time.

  Even prior to this, I wasn’t really in the habit of talking to anyone about the thoughts that sometimes come over me. But after this experience, which my family euphemistically calls “my episode,” I have absolutely no intention of sharing any of it with anyone. People simply don’t want to hear about such things, no matter how much you think they love you. In reality, they love what they believe you to be or what you should be. And if sometimes you point out to them, even in a subtle way, that you might be something else, maybe just a little different from the way they perceive you, they become disappointed, frightened, worried, and angry. They feel that what you want to be is not safe for you. Only they know which way of life is safe for you. And your safety is much more important to them than your wish to exist in your own authentic form. Who today can allow themselves the luxury of being completely unique and completely relaxed? And so, if you’re well-mannered, or if you don’t have the strength to quarrel, you simply give up. Just like I gave up.

  This is why they will never get to know anything about my thoughts. And for this, they’ll be secretly grateful to me because they simply wouldn’t know what to do with them.

  I’m convinced that the people who love you are the last people in the world who would want to know your true feelings and thoughts. If you don’t believe me, try letting them know some of these things, and you’ll see. You’ll be faced with unbelievable problems.

  The more they love you, the less they want to know the true you. It goes so far that they don’t even want to know what you did during the day. They want you to tell them a pleasant and carefree lie. If you love them, you will do just that. After all, why would you upset them, why would you dissuade them from believing that you’re finally safe? What would be the benefit of that?

  Honesty is entirely overrated. People swear by their honesty as if they were talking about some special kind of honor. Thereby forgetting that honesty equals cowardice, unless it’s a form of aggression.

  If I were honest, everyone who loves me would have to leave me. Or I would have to leave them. So tell me, what’s so great about honesty? And who among you has only good thoughts, those that wouldn’t bring any of your loved ones into a state of absolute panic?

  Suppose my husband asks me how my day was. And suppose I start my story with what happened that morning. I was crossing the street and when, in the midst of a crowd of people racing to make the green light, I suddenly thought that I was going to start screaming for no apparent reason. I could barely resist the urge. I could easily picture myself: I’m crossing the street, only halfway, and then suddenly I come to a halt, take my sunglasses off (don’t ask me to give you a rational explanation for these details because I haven’t one) and as I stand there bare-faced, gazing up towards the sky, I begin to scream. I scream and scream, and the people stop in astonishment, looking around, a crowd begins to form on the crosswalk, the traffic light turns red, but the street is still filled with people, looking at me, frightened or shocked, the drivers are honking their horns, some are even trying to make their way through the crowd who is listening to my screaming in disbelief.

  Sometimes I think I won’t be able to resist the urge. And the bigger the crowd, the stronger my urge becomes – to do something completely inappropriate.

  So, I tell him about that morning. And then I continue to tell him about how I was going down the stairs and how, like numerous times before, I imagined myself falling down those stairs and somewhere along the way, breaking my front teeth. Not my back, not my head, arms or legs, not any of that, only my front teeth. They all get chipped and look horrifyingly hideous, while I lie at the bottom of the stairs, contorted and beaten up.

  Why would anyone want to listen to such things? People want you to tell them about things that are interesting, to give them a recap of a movie you had seen, they want to hear a piece of juicy gossip or how good they look and how they’ve lost weight.

  Imagine if I then tell him how at 2:15 p.m., as usual, I watched Edgar as he went to work. Edgar looked sluggish, as if he didn’t get enough sleep. Something was stuck to his shoe and he shook it off. Edgar’s bus came on time.

  After I see Edgar off to work, I have another half an hour or so and then I head for home.

  On the way, I fantasize about how handy it would be to have a lover somewhere halfway between work and home. I would tell the cabdriver to wait for me outside the apartment building. All right, he can turn the motor off, but leave the meter running. I think I’d even like knowing the meter was running while I’m committing adultery. This somehow illustrates the true state of things. Your meter is always running anyway.

  I take my panties off while still in the elevator.

  There, in that apartment, the blinds are half drawn, it’s quiet and everything is ready for my arrival. He’s sitting in a chair, naked. Everything is ready for me, get it? I throw one shoe off in the hallway and the other in the room. By the time I get to him, I’ve taken off the necessary items. We don’t say anything; I straddle him in his chair. At first, we don’t move very much. It’s more like we’re feeling each other from the inside. He nibbles at my shoulder. Takes me with both hands. Rocks me back and forth. I squeeze him from within….

  If now you tell me that this seems detached, I could agree with you and advocate the theory that sex in general is a category of alienation, or if I decide to be really stubborn, I could defend the argument that two united bodies can never be detached because the connection is the point of the union. How much you draw from this connection, these two energies, is another matter. Don’t blame it on the silence in the room of my imaginary lover. In any case, I can get carried away defending either one of these theories, no matter how different they are. No matter what you think about it, it’s all the same to me. And because I don’t have a firm opinion on the matter. Sometimes I honestly believe sex cannot be detached. Other times, I think it’s always like that. But most of all, I think such discussions are totally stupid.

  Let’s go back to my lover and me; we are now really going at it in the chair. He lives on one of the top floors, because as I’m hugging him around the shoulders, behind him, through the blinds, I can catch a glimpse of the contours of other high-story buildings, and over there, in the distance, I can also see a river. The only sound in the room is the occasional clanking of streetcars. And the sound of us breathing. There is no music to sweeten or jazz up the event. Music is forbidden. As well as smiles. Or a comfortable bed. Anything that mig
ht soften this image is strictly forbidden.

  His face is mature and tense. His cheek is scratching my shoulders. Occasionally he bites hard into my shoulder. If it hurts too much, I clench my teeth. We’re both in a hurry. We know the meter is running and that I have to get home soon. And so we pick up the pace. One strong clench at the end, a tiny cry from me or from him, a moment of silence and stillness, and then I’m already getting up and gathering my clothes off the floor.

  As I’m putting on my shoes and leaving, he slowly gets up, lights up a cigarette, and goes to the window. Maybe he’s watching me leave, or not. I’ve never stood at any of his windows and I don’t know where they’re facing. And that’s why I don’t know if he can see me as I get into the cab and continue my ride. I always have a feeling he can, but it’s also very likely I’m wrong. In fact, he might be looking in a completely different direction, forgetting about me as soon as I close the door. Which is okay in a way.

  The cab driver is waiting for me downstairs. He’s reading the newspaper, smoking a cigarette, not suspecting a thing. He says: All done, madam, finished? I say: Finished. He asks: Where to now? And I give him my address.

  We drive on. That good feeling between my legs lasts a long time after.

  It would be nice to have a lover like that. And then to come home and lie back in your tub, your sofa chair, your bed. Wash up, change into something comfortable, heat up some soup. And talk about the insignificant things that happened that day. I think this would make the usual everyday house chores even more pleasant. I can distance myself enough to see this scene played out. My husband and I are sitting at the table and blowing into our spoons of hot soup, I’m smiling at him the way every woman should smile at her husband during dinner, making the usual chit-chat like please-hand-me-the-salt and would-you-like-some-more-soup and what’s-on-TV-tonight and I-could-really-use-a-nap-now-what-about-you and here’s-half-the-newspaper, and everyone is happy.

  Later, I felt like she already knew so much about me that it was becoming unbearable. I wanted to never see her again. I wanted to crawl into a hole and hide somewhere far from everyone. Most of all, I wanted to hide from her.

  It started out harmlessly enough: By relaxing my body, from the tip of my head, down my neck, then through my lungs… the light that was supposed to pass through me and nurture me. That’s what she said. “Observe the thing that is your life… find the vulnerable, painful places and nurture yourself….”

  All I could see was endless space, very similar to the photographs of the universe. Everything I wanted to touch seemed too far to reach. Standing between me and everything else was an immense, never-ending darkness. For some reason, this was what my life looked like at that moment, and it slid from the top of my head towards my feet in this exact form. Millions of tons of darkness, remoteness, implosions, and black holes descended through me. And when she said my feet should sprout roots, it was quite unnecessary. The black holes had already riveted me to the ground with a force more powerful than anything she could possibly say. And so I sat there, with roots coming out of my shoes, eyes closed, and hands crossed in my lap.

  “Go back to your earliest childhood,” she said. “Imagine you’re watching an unedited movie. Various images appear. They’re not in chronological order. Some images are nice and others not so much. There are both happy and sad images. Some linger, while others just fly by. Try to see yourself in all these images….”

  One image appeared immediately, but it wasn’t important. Many other images followed. Shadows on curtains, at night. My grandfather reading me a bed-time story. Grass. Worms under a rock, and their bodies wriggling on a little branch. Screams of other children as I fling a worm at them. A well in the middle of an orchard. My grandmother yelling at me not to go near the well. Me, going there anyway, as soon as no one is looking. A look down. The coldness it emanates. The taste of the water in the bucket. Water that makes your teeth go numb. The smell of the fence. Grandfather’s tools for painting the fence. Cans. Brushes. Paint thinner. Garage. Old court documents grandfather refused to throw out. My mother is brushing her hair in front of a mirror. Her underskirt, showing a little under her dress because that was the fashion. The two of us are watering flowers. We’re adding a little ink to the water to make the hydrangea blue. We’re shaking a tree and apricots are falling down on us. They’re very ripe and unbelievably sweet.

  “…now, out of all the images, try singling out only one and then focus on it.”

  For no apparent reason, the image that wasn’t important at all kept coming back to me.

  “If one of the images keeps popping up persistently while you’re chasing it away, then maybe you need to devote your attention to it….”

  How the hell does she know exactly what’s happening? Where did she learn to do this?

  I gave in. All the other images were disappearing anyway, like in a whirlwind, before this one image. Small, meaningless, insignificant.

  “When the image becomes clear and when you come to see yourself in it, along with all the other important elements, you may slowly open your eyes. When you’re ready….”

  I’m not ready. But, sooner or later, I have to open my eyes. That’s when I’ll start crying. This was becoming increasingly absurd.

  “Welcome,” she said with a little smile when I opened my eyes and looked at her.

  And then she gave me some paper and coloring pencils, just like she would a child. So, we’re going to draw again. I was long pass the tolerable limit of self-humiliation, and so I simply began to draw the scene, as my tears fell on the paper and turned my drawing into some sort of an infantile aquarelle.

  “All right,” she said when I completed my idiotic drawing. “Give the picture a name. And take a good look at it. Go inside of it.”

  I’m in the picture, damn it. What else do you want from me? She didn’t have any tissues. She brought me a roll of toilet paper. So, there I was, sitting, with a roll of toilet paper in one hand and the drawing in the other. Can a grown person be in a more humiliating position?

  “Tell me what’s in the drawing.”

  “This is our hallway. There’s only one suitcase in it. Here, on the right, is the door. That’s it.”

  “Where are you in the drawing?”

  “I’m not in it. I’m everywhere and nowhere. I’m like some kind of a ghost.”

  “Draw it.”

  I drew myself in a cloud, like in one of those comic strips.

  “Whose suitcase is it?”

  “My mother packed the suitcase, she’s a school teacher and she has to take her students on a field trip. I’m six or seven years old and I’m devastated because she’s leaving.”

  “What’s the small red thing on the suitcase?”

  “It’s a poem I wrote. I put it on my mother’s suitcase and I’m hoping she’ll notice it when she goes to leave.”

  “What’s the poem about?”

  “Some sad children,” I said.

  But I lied. I remember only too well that the poem was about some dead children. I couldn’t say it out loud. I thought it would sound too insane.

  “So, you’re in this house like some ghost and you’re looking at the suitcase which is making it very clear what is to follow.”

  “Yes, the suitcase doesn’t leave any room for hope. There’s nothing to be done.”

  “There’s nothing to be done,” she repeated after me, nodding her head.

  As if she wanted me to hear some of my sentences again. As if sometimes she wanted to make sure she heard me right.

  “So, you’re looking at the suitcase and… What does it look like? If it could talk, what would it say?”

  Whatever, if the elephants and the membrane around the baby could talk, why wouldn’t the suitcase? Nothing seemed strange to me anymore.

  “The suitcase is a bit uneasy and annoyed, and it says: ‘Why is this kid circling around me? I’m here on a sacred mission to protect the ironed dresses. I can’t be a responsible suitcase wh
ile kids stomp on me. There’s no way. You can’t expect that much from a suitcase, even if it is the strongest suitcase of all, like me! Besides, this kid is getting on my nerves.’”

  “So, the suitcase feels no compassion whatsoever for the child?”

  “Well… it does, actually, but its duty comes first. The suitcase can’t allow its emotions to get the better of it because this would have a negative effect on its performance. To the suitcase, the dresses it holds inside are the most important things in the world. When it reaches its destination, everything must look perfect.”

  “Does anyone in the house notice what the child is feeling?”

  “No, no one. Maybe just the door.”

  “What is the door like?”

  “Old and wise. It has seen so much, but it’s powerless to do anything. The door has seen things no one else has.”

  She was silent for a while. She was thinking, I guess, whether or not to ask.

  “What has the door seen?”

  I took a few more strips from the roll of toilet paper. Everything was so surreal. The spring afternoon, the voices in the street, me sitting in a nice wicker chair, the woman sitting across from me, listening to me talk about what the suitcase and the door were saying as if it was the most normal thing in the world. I couldn’t help but observe this scene from the outside as well, the entire time. This made me feel even sadder. I saw myself, a pathetic, desperate, middle-aged woman, sitting there and crying over something that was meaningless, something that happened ages ago.

  “The door saw this child kneeling a few times on the door mat, out of fear.”

  “Did the child kneel anywhere else, or was it just in that one place?”

  “Just there. In front of the door. Several times.”