Observation.
Justice.
Or something else. Defeat turns into assault, structure into debris. And the characters, they’re the same ones you see in your dreams. Now that she’s in love again, she asks the book and the book answers: Swan. It’s the truth. But unfortunately, she’s not a swan when she’s in love. She’s a cat. And the swan never reaches shore. She laughs at herself—look! She’s in love. But does she need it again, she’s so tired and knows all the horrors of it from start to end, like she knows her multiplication tables, so why, and for what? Again with this sighing feeling of existence, this diploma of life. This stream that pulls her forward and makes the pit of her stomach flutter.
She catches cold so she has time to weigh her options. So she can sit motionless by her kitchen window for hours and watch the landlady, the pigeons, the veins in her hands, the creases at the corners of her mouth in her reflection in the window, her thoughts and feelings, all before she jumps to her feet, calls him, runs and throws her arms around him. Because… is there value in anything without love? Woman has always been and always will be the strength in what’s weak and the great in what’s small, but of her own volition—don’t forget that.
Outside, coincidentally, is the harsh Baltic seaside climate. When she was little she believed it was the only world that existed. There, by the sea, three months of sun and nine months of darkness seemed as natural as being in her own skin. The change of the seasons, the velvety tips of budding flowers, drawing sap from birch, or the patter of green, wet leaves against the roof of the house in fall—she was so close to it all, though her head was no higher than the ferns and her fingertips could just reach Gran’s knobby knees. Granddad Roberts sometimes brought his wrinkled face down to hers, coming into view like a piece of brown driftwood the wind had slowly unrolled from a skein of waves. He’d sing:
Over the fields sweeps
a low spring wind,
a violin cries sadly along.
The violinist plays,
he once was young,
the heart in his chest was once full of love…
And then he’d play the same melody on his silver harmonica.
Back then Ieva had asked:
“Granddad, does that mean your heart isn’t full of love anymore?”
“Always,” he laughed, “my heart is always full of love.”
Roberts smoked by the stove and told Ieva that the glowing rolls of paper he always held between his fingers were also lit by the flame in his heart. Pipes are for those who like breathing in fire, he’d laugh. Then Gran would scold him, call Roberts a smokestack and to stop feeding the child nonsense. But there was no real reason to scold, Ieva had eyes enough to see that Granddad lit them by picking out an ember from the grate.
Ieva hadn’t yet learned to read when Roberts told her all about the nature of clouds. How clouds, this everlasting gloom from fall to spring, were a second sea above the real sea. That up there where birds live, above people’s heads, was another lead-grey surface, which the wind constantly swirled about and chased into waves. It was lit by the sun and the sky above it was just as clear and blue as in the summer. Now, many years later, she’s been to the desert and has already felt that the door is open—she could escape from the swamp to the equator by myriad paths. She just doesn’t want to. She wants to feel like a child again—to be in the depths of the clouds. To be at ease in the depths around her heart.
The screenplay she’s just started is sitting on the table, but right now, as far as she’s concerned, it could be on the surface of the moon.
And what is she looking for? Can she ask anything more of life than the privilege to trust a single living person, and him alone?
And what can she ask of everyone, of the one and only God, of outer space, the Universe, but the desire and basic hope to never betray or hurt another?
On a shelf she finds letters she wrote to her brother as a teenager. And sends her brother a text message—an entire forest of exclamation marks. He responds with a single question mark.
Turns out—we’ve lived, she answers.
There’s proof, you can touch it. A little black notebook filled with words. If you have one free week, an unpaid vacation, or are part of a stay-at-home clinical trial during which you can afford to spend time in a dusty closet, digging through ink-stained, aging pieces of paper, or to look through photographs of the deceased that still retain some kind of discernable contours—you can touch it, this feeling.
Turns out—we’ve lived.
Mother
Mother tries to remember where she’s seen it before.
Faces peering at her from a glaring brightness.
Big eyes. Lips that are saying something, smiling, cooing, scolding. Faces that pull her from the comforting darkness and into the light.
An avenue.
For a moment she sees her father; he points out the leaves overhead. She is a child in her stroller, a child absorbing every single detail. She sees the leaves and becomes them, submerges herself in them and their silky movement.
The faces in this narrow room are like the leaves. They form a canopy high overhead, full of rustling movement and a teasing wind. The faces look at her as she lies there like a dried-up worm, wedged between the body pillow and the wall. A pair of hands throw open the curtains—a window fills with light.
“Good morning! Time to get up,” a light voice says.
The face leans in very close—it’s a woman’s face.
Mother opens an eye. The other is crusted over with pus. She looks at the faces and her toothless mouth whispers a few syllables in greeting. Mother is afraid of the daytime, afraid of the daily routine. She’ll be rolled over, picked up, moved, washed—it hurts and it makes her uneasy. Mother wants to tell them she doesn’t understand why she needs to get up anymore. She’s tired, but they won’t leave her alone.
“And the worst is she somehow gets in there with her left hand. She grabs and tears at the diaper and then smears shit all over the place. She’s out of her mind. I’ve got to change the bedding twice a day—all of it.”
Mother closes the one eye and pretends this talk isn’t about her. For several years now her good eye has been covered by a film, a rapidly swirling fog with tiny black spots.
“You have to figure something out. You can probably do something like tie a shirt over her chest,” says a second voice that’s lower, infused with darkness.
Mother likes that voice better.
“She doesn’t get in from the top, but from the bottom along her thigh. The entire bed is flooded by morning. She pees so, so much. And if there’s shit I can’t even come in here without gagging. You wouldn’t believe the smell,” the first voice complains, white and clear as a ray of light.
You can’t hide from that voice, so Mother just shuts her eye tighter.
“Maybe like something for a baby. A onesie that buttons up the sides.”
“Won’t work. Since the last treatment she’s completely lost it. Look at how small she is—but she’s heavy, as heavy as a rock. She’s dead weight, ten times heavier than me. I make her stand up so her legs won’t totally atrophy. A few minutes a day. When I come home from work I have her sit up. You can’t believe how hard it is. I’ve sprained my back—it hurts. No, no, no. No onesies, no pants. She can’t even lift her legs. It would just mean extra clothes for me to wash. No, no, no. I had an idea yesterday—I’ll