Underwoman

 

“Man is condemned to be free…” 

              Admit a thing like fate exists — admit there is no chance. As it is, am I closer to the stars, or farther away? Cannot tell if they sparkle “meritocracy” or burn “martyrdom”; cannot tell the difference. Should the stars know of me at all?

I tried, didn’t I try? And the proof is in the salt I’ve tasted on my tongue; every Tuesday — a hundred open wounds. I have been waking up to scramble to either lumps in my knees or in the mattress, to breakfast of carbohydrates that kept me as lumpy as that mattress, as boring as the whitewashed walls.

Why did the body perpetuate such cruelty? Like every piece of furniture in that shabby flat, it kept secret dust and yuck in its seams: impossible to remove with vacuum cleaner or regurgitation. I longed to part with it and with that flat. Now I know it was impossible, but, please, just read that word out loud — “flat”. How cruel! “I live in a flat”, so to say “flatly”.

I left it gladly; plunged backward, sideward, forward with all the strength I could muster, empty head first into the groaning salon, bumping aching sides along other martyrs.

‘One ticket, please.’

Terrible occupation. To stand on one's feet all day in that rancid convulsing can. But I guess, if there was no other choice, I could have done it too. Knowing what I’ve been doing on that bus, heading to a place of servitude I’ve chosen myself. Should I have the choice at all?

Coffee, copies, calls, corporate culture — crap.

But I cherished the dream that soon I'll have a new route, a new destination. 

Every day was built on that promise, every second roped together by it; pull one string and it’ll all untangle and plop backward, sideward…

Have a “day off” in that flat, you’ll be squashed flat by that ‘Why?’, quickly answer ‘Because!’,  hurry off. Don’t fall flat on your face!

So, I was present, I was pleasant, I sat neat and upright through headaches, toothaches, heartaches, backaches, bellyaches, knee-aches, toe-aches.
I arrived first, left last. Hacked at the chains ruthlessly. 'Soon, it’ll be over, I’ll be free'. Efforts – useless. Frustration – unending. And I had spent 21 years, or 252.17 months, or 1095 weeks, or 7670.25 days, or 183,960 hours, or 662,256,000 seconds. Or all I have ever had. I gave all I had for a chance, a chance to have a home — a synonym for love and warmth. An antonym of “flat”.

I should have instead eaten ice cream every day till my yellow belly turned ice-transparent, coldly close to the floor.

I should have lured passionate love out of somebody, and after a while, when we both could stomach it no longer, put a dagger in their palm, saving poison in mine.

I should have had 20 children and released them into the world, praying that stars over their heads stood straight, unyielding. And when life finally pained them, I could have smothered them, certain that life is unfair in equality.

There is no one to reassure me, to explain. There is only me, or rather a part of me, the only part of me that is truly me. I saw the body carried out; a stiff suit. Painfully inconsequential. Should there be consequences at all?

Now they live in my high-ceilinged dream made of breathy red oak, with such dark teal tiles in the bathroom, I could weep. If I could, of course. 

Even if I ended up up there, I'd never forget the little fairy-tale door on the third floor that leads into the triangular attic with a stained glass window — a bullfinch on a rowan tree branch.

 “They live”, but I should rather say “it lives”, a Hydra — I see the faces in myriad heads. The little one with pigtails is glued to the old head with drooping wrinkles and shawls, giggling and cackling together over dolls and jams. The head with glasses is always close to the head with curlers, dry palms intertwined, a thin string of spittle connects them. And nothing is heavy for them or unbearable ever; how effortless everything seems to them, especially the touch…

I start slow, I lay my head down in the smallest bed. I pout my lips, I tug at my pigtails, I clench my fists in the air: “Hold me!”, and “mum and dad” is here. But their gentle caresses slip right through —  a warmed up knife through morning butter.  “See me!”, and the forehead kiss, with the eyes closed, is left hanging in the air. Untucked, on the smallest bed, hugged only by the draft.

I never had a grandma. Or had one but don’t remember anymore. Same thing. To forget is to lose forever. I wonder about my might-have-been grey hair, and cover my head with shawls. As “the glasses” thanks me for his life, he’s comical in my eyes —  a tall child. A life? I don’t understand the way she carries his forms through time, like Russian dolls, but she stacks them one on top of each — she doesn’t hide them. As he hugs me, the smallest doll buckles and gives up, I am trapped in a corner, and the forms one by one fall on my empty head. Thump, thump, thump. The bruise on the floor beats like a heart.

My floor... The floor I rubbed with beeswax because I wanted, so badly, to soothe those wild splinters and cracks in its dry skin…

“The curlers” threw my citron and bergamot soap away, and she kept everything else. The soap was in its packaging. I was saving it for the moment, for the body that at last deserved it. I wish I could visit this tiny grave sometime. I don’t think I despise her choice, but I guess she despised my indecision. I want to tell her that when I am let to decide, I choose wrong.
 

‘Hello, honey, how was your day?’
 

Is it enough?
 

‘I think I've prepared dinner. What can I serve you?’
 

I stand where I’m supposed to, by his side.
 

‘Are you tired? How can I serve you?’
 

I lay where I’ve been told.
 

Past my heart and past my body, the whispers, and the sighs, and the heat. I’m up, up, up there again, untouched…

The father shuts the door in the hall, it shudders in its hinges. The mother bangs the cupboards in the kitchen, they wail synchronically with the door. I join their woe.

‘Darling, there is a draft caught in the attic! I hear the wind wail,’ the mother says.

‘Honey, I've checked, not a single gap,’ the father cleans his glasses on his shirt. 

‘Bun-bun, is it you who keeps throwing sachets on the floor?’

Abhorring sachets she tucks in every corner. Lavender only looks good; it smells of mourning.

‘No, pa, I can’t even open it, look!’ and the child reaches towards the copper handle of my gran’s chiffonnier, which nobody ever polishes. It looks groped, disrespected.

‘Of course, kiddo, pa was just kidding,’ and he picks her up, and they twirl, and his black shoes leave blacker marks.

The mother shakes the tray with cups and a kettle into the room. They wish to drink tea out of my perfect bone china set; the one with little blue fish. They sit in my plush violet velvet chairs. I fed slosh and rainwater to the rictus of my right shoe for three years to get those chairs.

They never put their cups on coasters. They draw the map of the solar system with sticky rim traces. And crumbs are dehydrated stars scattered across the lacquered surface of the table.

‘Mama, look what I can do!’ 

And with a crimson swish, the air is ripped. It’s on the floor, and it’s in the air again — my silk scarf. The girl giggles and twirls. The scarf stretches and trembles like a wound. I can’t touch her. The heads laugh and clap, the echo scratches the paint from the walls in the attic. “Stop!”

‘Oh no, fishie!’

In her pantomime, the girl brushes the cup off the table. The little “c” handle flies under the couch. The Azerbaijanian rug drinks deep. I brought it home on the bus. I carried it on my left shoulder all the way from the stop.

‘Don’t worry, baby, go fetch the broom.’

The mother drags the fragments against the fibres of the carpet, it cracks with static and inanimate pain.
 

‘That poor lady had such beautiful things.’
 

Yes, I did.
 

‘Pity she died young!’
 

Yes, it is.
 

‘And she was so lonely…’
 

I come up to the attic. It’s quiet here. Windless, not a single gap. I’m the cold. The paint on the walls is not chipped, yet I sense flaking. I feel it. The string has been pulled. I’m on my eternal “day off”, nowhere to run. I am face to face with the question ‘Why?’. I won’t answer; pressed flat on my face I can’t speak. Should I admit, I still don’t know the answer? And this feeling is closer to pain than anything else I can feel. I never had it and I will never have it. I will never understand.

Some lives are flats; some lives are homes. Some lives are observing homes through flats, never getting close.

I look at the night sky through the bullfinch's belly. Heavy stars are strung close and low — celestial grapes bursting with light. I wonder , what the electricity bill will be this month?