Breathing Into Marble

by Laura Sintija Cerniauskaite

  ‘I’ll call you.’

  ‘Call tomorrow.’

  ‘I will call.’

  ‘In the morning, Isabel.’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Or I’ll call you tomorrow.’

  ‘Fine, okay.’

  Carefully, quietly she closed the window, drew the net curtains, and with her finger still against her lips, walked backwards until she disappeared into the dusk of the room.

  Liudas felt a knot in his throat. At first the thought struck him that he should go to town for help. Standing next to his car, he gazed for a long time at the empty windows of the house, behind which Isabel flamed. He couldn’t make up his mind what to do. It was getting dark and he didn’t dare leave Isabel alone. He couldn’t imagine who he could bring without scaring her. Who he could entrust her to.

  He steered out of the yard, hid his car in the thick of the woods and checked if the sleeping bag was still in the boot. From the ferns, fifty metres from the car, he could see the house and the yard up to the barn. The door, it was true, was on the other side of the house, towards the fields, but there was no place to hide there.

  He sprayed himself with anti-mosquito liquid, placed the sleeping bag on the groundsheet in the ferns, in the woods, his binoculars strung around his neck.

  It was calm for a couple of hours. At dusk the tune on his mobile phone suddenly played. Liudas hissed and hastily pressed the button. It was Beatrice.

  ‘Hi,’ she said. Her voice suggested nothing good.

  ‘Good evening.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Why are you bothered?

  ‘I wondered if you were still standing guard on the orphanage.’

  Liudas was silent.

  ‘They saw your car outside our building today.’

  ‘Really? They might have been mistaken.’

  ‘What are you up to, Liudas?’

  ‘What do you want, Beatrice?’

  ‘Are you trying to catch Ilya? Don’t you understand – you won’t catch him. He didn’t do anything, I talked to him. That night he was with another group, more of the hopeless cases. They get cigarettes from somewhere and play cards for them. He never left, do you understand?’

  ‘You got confused yourself.’

  ‘I won’t testify otherwise, if necessary.’

  They were quiet. He couldn’t hear her breathing, only a stiff silence on her end of the line.

  ‘Leave Ilya alone. Do you hear?’

  ‘Bye, Beatrice!’ Liudas cut off the connection and switched the phone to silent, so that he could still check the time on its screen.

  The wind died down towards the evening, only the birds trilled gently. The house sank into the dusk. The three windows of the large room which were visible to Liudas from the ferns were dark – Isabel was probably in the kitchen, as she had been on his last visit, or perhaps in the smaller room. Or perhaps she had self-combusted from the fire in her deranged eyes.

  It grew cooler. Liudas fetched a jumper and a coat from the car. He smoked, shielding the tip of the cigarette in case Isabel glanced through the window.

  Somehow he fell asleep. It seemed as though he had slept for only a moment.

  He was woken by the sound of crackling and a restless light on the other side of his eye lids.

  A strong smell of disaster filled his lungs – he jumped up, his eyes not yet fully open, disorientated.

  The end of the yard was shining. The crown of the fire reached up into the sky.

  Only then did it occur to him; the barn was burning. In the firelight the reddish bones of the planks crackled and roared. They broke loudly, eaten away by the fire.

  The sparks, lifted by the hot air, rose into the black sky, then descended further way, on the grass,

  on Isabel.

  Liudas did not notice her until he was in the yard.

  Isabel stood on the path, leaning forwards, her arms pressed to her sides. She wore a light cotton dress with a tiny flower-pattern that shone white in the darkness, like a veil. Beneath her short cropped hair the bones of her spine protruded like rosary beads. She stood too close to the fire, as if she had been created of the very same substance. With her eyes wide open, she stared at the flames’ wild tongues. She didn’t hear Liudas. Only when he grabbed her by the hand and pulled her away from the fire, did she jump, staring at him with empty eyes.

  Isabel scrutinized Liudas from deep within her feverish eyes. Curiously, leisurely, she shifted her attention from the fire to him. It was as if she were looking at him for the first time, like the fire. A ghastly, deranged interest.

  Suddenly Liudas remembered the petrol canister in the veranda.

  Isabel’s pupils widened, her face wrinkled like smouldering paper and she began to cry. ‘Mama.’ Her mouth moved without making a sound. ’Ma-ma.’ She trembled. She looked at Liudas, begging him to cover her eyes, to cover her and help her sleep.

  Some people appeared from the side of the field, behind the alder trees, their clothes pale against the darkness.

  Furiously, Liudas pulled Isabel to himself and pressed her hot face against his chest, probably too hard – he could feel her nose pressed through his jumper, but Isabel didn’t resist.

  Fortunately, there was no wind.

  There were people approaching. Liudas recognised Juozas Garnys and Pranciska; behind them another couple of people from Kurpiskiai were rushing towards them. They jumped from the darkness into the yard, golden from the fire, their faces orange, their eyes glowing beneath furrowed foreheads. Liudas waved to them.

  His other hand still pressed Isabel to his chest to prevent her from seeing and thinking; then there would be no fear, no heartache, no questions – just the pure, wound-cleansing flame. Liudas would do anything for her. Liudas would be the cover Isabel longed for, under which she could hide safely from her troubles.

  He listened to Isabel’s breathing grow calmer.

  She did not resist.

  WHEN SHE entered Liudas’ flat, Isabel went straight to the window. On the opposite bank of the river, the windows in the skyscraper sparkled like sharpened knives.

  Liudas pointed to the windows of his travel agency and she nodded. The play of the sunlight was different in the city to how it had been in the woods; the large, sharp shadows that fell from the buildings looked like still pools of tar. The occasional tree shed a rounded, familiar shadow onto the asphalt. It was true there was a river in the city too, wide and fast and unsuitable for swimming, but you could go down the steps to it and sit on the concrete paving and dangle your feet into the water.

  Liudas suggested that Isabel did just that, but it took her a couple of weeks to pluck up the courage. So far she had only asked for some water. She drank it all.

  While Liudas was pulling Isabel’s rucksack from the car, her eyes half closed and her features sharpened – as they did when something drew her interest. Instinctively, he looked in the direction in which her gaze fell – a grey, bearded man was digging through the rubbish bin, his head in the container.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Liudas said.

  Later he could not pull Isabel from the window. She was not hungry; she drank some mineral water thirstily and then quietly placed the glass next to the sink.

  ‘So this is where you live,’ she said, absentmindedly, having looked round the living room.

  Suddenly her eye caught the glass door. She moved towards it, but Liudas, having expected this, stood in the way.

  ‘No, not in there, Isabel.’

  Gently, as if apologetically, he took her elbow – Isabel’s skin was cool and waxy, as if it had been polished – and turned her towards the small room with the arch.

  After the funeral Liudas had scrubbed the floor and placed the books in the corner and covered them with an old sheet. He had also pushed in there the artificial leather sofa he had used to sleep on in the living room and a three legged coffee table from the room with the glass door.

  ‘Here.’ Liudas led Isabel through the arch and g
ently propelled her towards the sofa where her rucksack was – a sign that it would be her space. Obediently she sat down; her leg fell into a patch of sunlight that trembled on her sun tanned foot which was as narrow as the petal of a clematis. On her ankle was a black spot from a mosquito bite. Liudas’ heart lurched; he looked round trying to remember where he had placed the woman’s slippers he had bought.

  ‘Is this your room?’ she asked, when she had put the slippers on.

  ‘This is your room,’ Liudas answered.

  While he was making coffee, Isabel slumbered on the sofa. Liudas jumped when she appeared behind him and asked where the bathroom was. He accompanied her. He heard the lock click. The flush followed but Isabel didn’t come out. Ten minutes later Liudas quietly knocked on the door.

  ‘Isabel… Is-a-bel…’

  ‘Eh –’ she called.

  ‘What are you doing in there?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘I can’t unlock the door…I can’t do it,’ she said.

  Liudas pushed the door and it opened – she hadn’t even locked it properly. She was sat on the edge of the bath looking hazy; the straps of her dress had fallen off her shoulders, the pink, fake-fur slippers were under the bath.

  Liudas showed her how to use the lock.

  ‘There’s no need to lock it,’ he added.

  Isabel didn’t seem to hear.

  At dusk it grew gloomy. The shadows got longer; they distorted and spilled across the apartment as if they were ink. The street lights didn’t come on for a long time and Liudas had to switch on the lamp above the cooker. The meagre light it threw from the corner of the kitchen wasn’t enough to illuminate the spacious living room and the far end drowned in the darkness.

  The gipsy was not around and Liudas, watching the orange tip of his cigarette as it fell towards the street, was flooded once more with pain.

  In Isabel’s room he heard the rucksack being unzipped, the crackle of a plastic bag and then all went quiet again. Soon, from the darkness came a soft yawning, sounding like a squashed gasp.

  ‘Switch on the light,’ Liudas called.

  Without leaving the cooker, he explained where the switch was.

  An amber light licked across the floor through the arch.

  Liudas took a clean set of bed linen and made Isabel’s bed. Had she brought her nightie? Isabel became thoughtful as if he had posed an impossibly complex question. She seemed alarmed that she had to do something with all these foreign objects – to switch them on, to lift them up, to put them on, to open, to push to another place. Her eyes shuttled back and forth, feverishly looking for an escape, hoping to avoid the activities, to hide between the gaps of the parquet, to fuse with the dust raised by the blankets.

  Liudas put a shirt on the pillow.

  Isabel changed with the lights off as there was no door to her room.

  In the living room Liudas turned to the window – the gipsy still hadn’t arrived and he was suddenly worried something might have happened to her.

  Then he heard the sheets rustle. He put the TV on with the volume low and asked Isabel if she wanted to watch a film. She didn’t. Was the sound too loud? No. As the sofa had been pushed into Isabel’s room for her bed, he settled on the floor in front of the screen. The chair, in the lamp-lit corner, seemed too far away; it was out of reach.

  When the film ended, Liudas, on his way to the bathroom, could see Isabel lying on her bed with her eyes wide open, arms stretched out over the covers, lit by the blue street light. He stopped in the arch.

  ‘Don’t come close to me.’ Isabel’s lips barely moved.

  Liudas waited for a long time for her to fall asleep. At two in the morning her eyelids finally closed, and from the archway he could hear her breathing, slow and deep.

  Liudas went into his son’s room. It was the first time he had opened the door since his son had left.

  He had been dreading that moment, but he barely felt anything at all. Nothing particularly sharp. Only the familiar scent in his nostrils. Liudas sat on the chair at the door and began to cry quietly.

  How strange that things don’t disappear with their owners, Liudas thought gazing at the child’s pencil holder he had made out of twigs. An object is more durable than a person. A person creates something in order to somehow prolong himself and then he dies. How unfair.

  Later he brushed various small things from the desk; some toys, some drawings and then some books from the shelf and put everything into a strong, blue rubbish bag and hid it in the bed linen box under the bed. The bag rustled as if unhappy at being used for that purpose. Anxiously, Liudas told it to quieten down. Often he froze and listened for any sound from behind the wall. He threw the rubber slippers and a striped jumper left on the chair into the wardrobe and hastily closed the door to stop the wave of familiar scent rising from there. He took a framed family photo from the wall and placed it in the desk drawer. On the desk, on top of a pile of exercise books, was one with pictures of wild animals on the cover. A rectangular piece of white paper was glued to its cover. ‘Tragi-comical reflections on daily life,’ was scribbled on the label in a child’s hand. Without much thought, Liudas put it under his arm.

  The room seemed to have withdrawn into itself. He ran a wet sponge over the furniture and the empty surfaces shone. They were cold and soulless; they belonged to nobody, as they had been when, with his son, he had chosen them at the shop.

  Liudas switched off the light and closed the door.

  Behind the wall, in the blue street light, Isabel was breathing softly.

  In the morning, having showed Isabel where the most important things were, Liudas left for the travel agency. When he lifted his head from the computer he could see a small dot in his living room window across the river – Isabel would approach the window and suddenly retreat back into the depths of the room, as if she were accustomising herself to the day light.

  ‘Did you see me waving to you?’ Liudas asked at lunch time, having brought her some soup and a chicken roll from the café.

  ‘No I didn’t,’ Isabel said.

  She didn’t touch the food he brought. She ate a bit of cheese from the fridge and took a sip of coffee.

  When Liudas came back from the office in the evening, he noticed immediately that the glass door was open slightly. Isabel was lying on the child’s bed, curled up like a caterpillar, Gailius’ shirt pressed to her chest. Her knuckles were white, as if the bones had rubbed through the skin.

  ‘Isabel,’ he whispered.

  ‘Get out.’

  But the next day she waved to Liudas from the window. She raised her hand clumsily, as if it were too heavy, like a station officer instructing a train to pass. Between them the river sparkled painfully. For some reason Liudas worried Isabel wouldn’t be able to lower her arm and he sighed with relief when her hand slid down towards her side and hid itself among the folds of her clothes. She was wearing something brightly patterned and Liudas, coming home for lunch, recognised his old shirt with red and purple diamonds.

  The smell of cleaning fluid filled the living room.

  ‘You cleaned the floor?’ Liudas was surprised.

  ‘Don’t give me away to anybody,’ Isabel said, suddenly, looking straight into his eyes.

  She sat at the table with her bare legs folded under her, the bright diamonds of the shirt reflecting in her hollow cheeks.

  The previous evening her cousin had called. For a quarter of an hour Liudas had to reassure her that he would be able to deal with Isabel himself. In the end, ignoring Liudas’ arguments, she mentioned that she knew a doctor at the psychiatric hospital. She paused then and stopped. Annoyed, he listened for a couple of seconds to the silence, making no attempt to make it easier for her. Then he said good bye and put down the phone.

  The silence in Isabel’s room buzzed.

  ‘I won’t give you away,’ Liudas said carelessly. ‘Would you like an orange?’

  Isabel glanced at
the orange. She played with it in her hand, as if unsure what to do with it, but did not put it down. For the whole evening she did not let go of it; it was only later, when she dropped off watching a film, that the orange slid out of her hand and bumped against Liudas’ thigh. It was warm from Isabel’s hand and scented. Liudas put the orange aside, but Isabel moved and opened her eyes.

  ‘Where’s the orange?’ she asked.

  Liudas placed the orange back in her hand.

  One Saturday morning Liudas asked, ‘Would you like to go for a walk?’

  Isabel shook her head. But after dinner Liudas took her chamois jacket off the hook, brought her shoes and said he would wait in the car.

  They drove slowly through sun-lit fields. Imperceptibly, above them, an autumnal heaviness gathered like invisible tears. The trees knitted themselves into a dense necklace on either side of the road. The tops of the trees flashed bloodily. Light seeped through the baroque ornamentation of cloud. Above the miserable plains clusters of the cloud hovered like the broken sculptures of enormous angels – slivers of marble with light blue seams gleamed in the September sun.

  Gazing out through the open sun roof of the car, Isabel described the scene so quietly that Liudas had to slow down in order to be able to hear her.

  Finally she asked him to stop.

  The clouds stirred. It was so calm you could almost hear how the wind polished them, how they rolled across the sky their shapes shifting slightly, how they passed each other, seeped through each other and parted, leaving a feathery trail behind them. Without a word Isabel got out of the car and walked into the tall grass.

  For some time she stood there, frozen.

  ‘Isabel,’ Liudas shouted, stubbing out his cigarette.

  She didn’t seem to hear him. Slamming the door he walked across to Isabel. She covered her face and turned away, as always when she didn’t want Liudas to see her tears. He took her by her shoulders and shook her as if to wake her up, and the eyes that she turned on him were brimming with questions. At first they were cold and foreign, but then they began to brighten.

  ‘Let’s go home,’ she whispered.

  On the way back they didn’t speak. Mesmerised, Isabel observed how the road unfolded like a dirty bandage beneath the car. When they got back into town she could barely hold back her smile; its reflection spilled out like silk waving in the wind.