Baltimore

by Jelena Lengold

  “Is there, someone who senses what the child is feeling?”

  “There is. My grandfather. And nobody else.”

  “And now? What’s the situation now? Who takes care of this child now?”

  I didn’t have to think twice.

  “My husband,” I said. “He’s the one who takes care of me.”

  “And do you think you do the same for him?”

  “No. I neglect him. My attention is directed towards other things and other people, least of all him. I sometimes feel guilty because of this.”

  “And in the meantime, life goes by,” she said, in a manner which wasn’t quite like her.

  It occurred to me that she might have recognized something from her own life.

  We both looked at the clock. My time was running out. It was time for me to wipe my tears and walk out of there all bloated from crying. Giving me time to slowly return to normal, she continued:

  “You have very strong abandonment issues. It’s as if you’re in constant fear of being abandoned. You know, I found the games I too played in my life very interesting and later, I analyzed them. Maybe your game is to compensate for your fear of abandonment by abandoning others….”

  If only you knew, I thought to myself, how appealing the idea of abandonment is! To leave everything behind and go live on a mountain. To leave everything and live in sin somewhere where it’s warm and where the wind is soft. To radically change your life, take a new name and live on some other continent. To abandon yourself. Above all, yourself. To be carefree, beautiful, new, and young in someone else’s skin! If you only knew….

  Luka? Let’s see what someone named Luka is doing in this chat room. I click on his name twice.

  “Hi, baby. Busy?”

  “Hi. No, not really.”

  “Quite a familiar name.”

  “Is it?”

  “Yeah. Very. Where are you from, Luka?”

  “Belgrade, Serbia.”

  “No kidding?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well, Luka, I think I have a surprise for you.”

  “Surprise me, baby….”

  “No need for your English anymore, sweetie.”

  “WOW!”

  “Wow is right! Belgrade online as well.”

  “Oh, great!!! I’ve never met anyone here before from our parts! Phenomenal! To be honest, I was getting tired of the English.”

  “How old are you Luka?”

  “Twenty-five.”

  “Oh, still a baby.”

  “What about you, Lucy?”

  “Hmmm, a little older than you, I’m afraid.”

  “Go ahead, tell me. I’m not into young girls anyway.”

  “No? What’s wrong with their tight asses and perky breasts?”

  “Listen, young girls usually have no idea what they want. It’s all an act. They’re immature.”

  “And you’re not like that? You’re not immature?”

  “I think I’m different from most of them.”

  “Oh, Luka, we all think that about ourselves. That we’re unique.”

  “Tell me how old you are, please.”

  “Forty-three.”

  “Wonderful! A real woman….”

  “You think?”

  “Oh, yeah. I watch them sometimes in the streets, or in the streetcars; they’re aware of their beauty, but they’re really good at hiding it. Know what I mean? They don’t need to look for their reflection in every store window like the girls.”

  “Are you sure you’re only twenty-five?”

  “I swear.”

  I take a quick glance at the corner of the screen. 5:24 p.m. He could come home at any minute. I should take the lasagna out of the freezer.

  “Luka, I’ve gotta get going soon….”

  “Oh… too bad. You visit this chat room often?”

  “Well, sometimes. When I find time.”

  “When will you find time again?”

  I think I hear the elevator. No. It’s going to another floor. It’s not him yet. But it will be soon.

  “Lucy? You still there?”

  “I’m here, Luka. Just thinking.”

  “Lucy, what about tonight?”

  “I really don’t know.”

  His cough syrup is sitting there, next to the keyboard. He’s been coughing for the last two weeks. Wheezing. I would get a scorching bristly ball in my throat every time I think about his cough. Or anything else that might happen to him.

  I get up to open the window. There’s too much smoke in here. Then I glance at the screen again. Luka isn’t writing anything. He’s waiting.

  “Luka?”

  “I’m here, Lucy.”

  “Luka, can you chat tomorrow night at 10:30?”

  “All right. I’ll be here.”

  “Okay. Bye. I’ve gotta run now.”

  “Wait! Just one more question! You married?”

  “Aha.”

  “Okay. Talk to you tomorrow. Be good.”

  “Get lost!”

  As I leave the chat room, a few ads for similar links pop up on the screen. Lick me – says a big-busted blonde with her finger in the right place. Eat my WET WET WET pussy – is written on the leg of an incredibly long-legged, dark-skinned beauty. My eyes linger a few moments longer on the area where those extremely long legs flow into the torso, take a deep breath and I turn off the computer.

  Lasagna. It’s time for me to finally heat up the lasagna. Do we have any ketchup? He won’t eat it without ketchup.

  No matter where we start, the two of us always go back to something that hurts. Or used to hurt. Or I’m afraid might hurt.

  “This is getting too humiliating for me,” I tell her. “I’m constantly whining. This can’t be. I’m not like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “It can’t be that I’m someone who constantly complains.”

  “I find that you have an unusual expression on your face when you talk about the things that hurt you….”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You smile. You’re constantly smiling.”

  “Unless I’m crying.”

  “Yes,” she says laughing, “unless you’re crying. Why do you smile when you talk about serious matters?”

  I can’t believe she’s asking me this! Did I wander into the wrong office?

  “A smile doesn’t always have to mean a person is in a good mood. A smile is also a matter of politeness. You can also smile at a funeral when someone is expressing their condolences.”

  She’s nodding her head, but she doesn’t seem quite convinced. I go on to prove my point:

  “Who knows why women smile. There can be so many reasons. They might want to charm the person they’re talking to and engage them in a conversation. By smiling, we let the other person know we’re willingly participating in the conversation. All right, I agree that a smile can also be a defense mechanism. But you smile as well!”

  She ignores this and says:

  “Can you try to pay attention to your facial expression while you speak, for a short time at least? To allow your face to express your true feelings?”

  “Are you trying to say that my face doesn’t show what I’m really feeling?”

  “I didn’t say that. I just said that sometimes you smile when you talk about very serious and painful matters. How can the person you’re talking to know what you’re really feeling if you’re smiling?”

  What is she doing? What is she trying to tell me? That I always hide my pain, or that my “pain” is, in fact, bogus and that my face is giving me away? Which of the two is she referring to? I don’t ask.

  In any case, she won’t be getting anymore of my smiles today. It seems best for all concerned if I just sit in my chair and cry. This way, I appear more like the patient, she appears more like the therapist, and everyone’s happy.

  That said, she goes on to another fabrication:

  “Do you remember a fairy tale which meant a lot to you as a child?”

 
Hey! I know this game! Now I’m supposed to say something based on which you’re going to interpret my perception of life! This all too typical question makes me want to scream. Besides, I wanted to tell her, all fairy tales are designed to make me look like an idiot. Which one should I choose? Cinderella? That won’t do, after all, I was an only child. Sleeping Beauty? Right, then I’d have to listen to her tell me how I’ve been waiting all my life for a prince to come and wake me from my everlasting dream with his kiss. Indeed, which fairy tale did I like?

  “This won’t work,” I say to her. “The problem is I know the reason why you’re asking me this and I can’t think of one.”

  “You don’t want to expose yourself?”

  And then the smile again. Aha! Go ahead, smile. Meanwhile, you’ve banned mine.

  “Truth be told, I know now, from this perspective, where this exercise is going. But back then, when I was just a child choosing a story I liked the most, I didn’t know this. So, I think it makes sense to mention the fairy tale my grandfather used to read to me at bedtime….”

  “So then, there is that one story?”

  “Yes, of course. But it’s almost pointless talking about it. It’s extremely obvious.”

  “Never mind. Tell me.”

  And then I told her the story about a boy who lost his parents and wandered around the world trying to find them again. Somewhere along the way, he came across an old man and they continued the journey together. They travelled halfway across the world, got into various predicaments and dangerous situations, and in the end, due to a lot of luck and practically a miracle, the boy managed to find his parents.

  “Is there any need for me to interpret this for you?” she asks.

  She’s finally beginning to understand.

  “No, really no. I told you it was obvious. But, nevertheless, this was a fairy tale from my childhood. And who knows how many times my grandfather had to read it to me….”

  “What does that story remind you of now?”

  Our two heads on an enormous down pillow. His soft voice. His irremediable Russian accent. I see him reading the story and falling asleep in the middle of a sentence. I’d nudge him a little with my hand and he would awake with a jerk and continue reading. This is how we would lull each other to sleep, only he never nudged me once I dozed off.

  “It reminds me of my grandfather,” I say.

  “What was your grandfather like with you?”

  How do I explain this to her? I wanted to say that he was the love of my life.

  “He always had time for me. Lots of patience. He would let me write on his typewriter. We would go to the Russian library together and read newspapers. We liked similar things. We would go on boats and tour the city from the river. We would go to the movies. We would tell each other all kinds of stories… basically, we had a wonderful time when we were together.”

  She’s going to make me cry again. And yet, I’ll feel bad about it when I get home. I even put mascara on, intentionally, to prevent myself from crying. But it looks like it’s not going to stop me.

  “So, what message was he sending through his actions? What was he letting you know by doing all these things with you?”

  The message was: “I love you,” that’s what he was letting me know.

  “Well… the message was probably: ‘I have all the time in the world for you, I enjoy your company.’”

  “We could also say the message was: ‘You matter.’ Right?”

  “I guess….”

  And here go the tears again. An outrageous amount of tears. She says:

  “Let it all out. Don’t keep anything back.”

  And I let it out, but only to a degree. She sits silently for a while, and then she asks me when my grandfather died and where I was when it happened.

  “I was twenty-five at the time, and I was by his side when he died. It was a solemn experience and it was a good thing I was with him at the time.”

  I told her everything, wiping my tears the whole time. I also told her I didn’t cry at all, not then, nor later at my grandfather’s funeral. The tears came later. I told her how I let go of my grandfather’s hand when I realized the end had come, so as not to disturb him in his passing. And how I looked up, thinking his soul was already somewhere on the ceiling, looking at me from above, suddenly confused and frightened, not knowing what was happening to it. And how in my mind I tried to comfort and calm the soul on the ceiling by whispering to it that it’s all right, and that now it will slowly go into the light.

  “So, you can accept other people’s weaknesses. You know how to conduct yourself with people, even during their most difficult moments. Why can’t you accept your own weakness? Why does it make you angry?”

  I’m silent. I have no more strength left to answer her questions.

  “What would your grandfather say about your occasional display of weakness?”

  “He would probably say I inherited it from all those Russians and that it’s something I should be proud of. That would be so like him….”

  “But still…?”

  “But still, whenever we talk like this, I can’t help but observe the two of us from the outside, from a different perspective, and to me, all this seems so dreadfully pitiful and pathetic. It’s like there’s always someone else sitting here, in this other chair, mocking everything I say.”

  “And what is this other person sitting here saying?”

  “They’re saying I’m pathetic. And immature.”

  “What would this critic’s message be?”

  “The message would be: ‘Grow up already, it’s high time!’”

  “If I asked you what star you were born under, what would your answer be?”

  “I wasn’t born under any star. I was born under the Moon.”

  “And what is the Moon like?”

  “Melancholic.”

  Her eyes were telling me: “There you go. There is no cure for you. It’s just the way you were born.”

  And then, who knows why, she brought up the question of trust. Do I trust her? I told her I entered into this with honest intentions and that, sometimes, I might be playing a kind of game, in which case I’m not purposely deceiving only her, I’m also deceiving myself.

  “Do you think I have any doubts concerning your honesty?” she asked.

  “No, not at all,” I said, and I truly meant it. “I think you know I’m being completely honest.”

  And then, out of the blue, she felt the need to state her conclusion. I liked her specifically because she didn’t make any big conclusions, and now, suddenly… just like that, she told me to think about whether I opened up to her in my own pace. Could it be that I opened up too much and too quickly? Is this something I usually do? Do I establish trust that quickly in other situations as well?

  No, no, no, I wanted to scream at her, don’t do this to me, you yourself asked me if I trusted you, and now this is turning into a nightmare. Why are you doing this? I don’t understand. And then, as if she wanted to finish me off, on my way out, she told me I had this need for a happy ending. Where did she get that idea? Oh yes, from the fairy tale I told her.

  “That’s not true at all,” I was picking up pieces of my self-respect, along with my purse, cigarettes, sunglasses. “It’s been a long time since I had any illusions about a happy ending. What sort of happy ending can one expect if everyone dies in the end anyway?”

  She was smiling, and I could tell she didn’t believe me. She had already placed me in a drawer where she keeps all those hopelessly waiting for a happy ending. And there was no changing her mind.

  It occurred to me later, because I always remember what I should have said after the fact, that absolutely every fairy tale had a happy ending. Besides, what’s so terrible about expecting a happy ending? A part of me knows I’ll die, sooner or later. Another part of me still hopes for the fairy tale happy ending. Is that any reason for her to knock me down on the way out!? Or am I supposed to learn something from this?

>   Even if that was the case, I still wasn’t getting it. I was just getting more and more angry with her.

  This is why this is the perfect time for me to tell you something I didn’t want to mention before because I didn’t want you to think I was a nit-picker, but now I don’t care anymore. After our second or third session, I forgot my sunglasses on the end table in her office. I realized this as soon as I left the building, but the next patient was already inside, and I couldn’t go back and interrupt them. So I decided to send her a text message. A very simple message: “I forgot my sunglasses in your office. Please keep them for me until next week.”

  So did she answer back?

  You’re right. She didn’t.

  What did she think? That she would get involved in something that goes outside the boundaries of a patient/therapist relationship if she replied to a simple text message? Or maybe she thought I intentionally forgot the sunglasses in order to take our relationship to a level that was not acceptable?

  There’s something demeaning about that, if you really think about it.

  Next week, my glasses were waiting for me exactly where I had left them, but I never forgave her for not replying to my message. And I never will. This doesn’t mean I didn’t consider the possibility that maybe, subconsciously, I did leave them there on purpose. See what they’re capable of doing to us.

  I’m at the door, leaving. My husband is touching my face.

  “Your cheeks are so hot!” he says.

  Then he slides his hand down to my neck.

  “And your neck is cold. That’s odd. A flushed face and a cold neck.”

  What do I tell him now? Nothing. A kiss. Quickly, a kiss. That always helps. And a smile. My best smile. Maybe I should caress his balls? Would that be too much? Of course it wouldn’t. I always do that. I’ll do it again now. Don’t be paranoid. Easy. Easy. A few more seconds and you’ll be out the door.

  “You better watch out when you get back,” he says as he places his hand over mine, while I gently stroke his balls through his pants.

  And he gives me a devilish smile.

  Some green monsters from outer space are scattering across the TV screen behind him.