Spell of Blindness

by Lori Tiron-Pandit

  Laura is my only friend. And I don’t think she has other friends, either. Nobody else can understand her. She is too complicated and too dark. Even for me. I have read a few of her poems, and they scared me: graves, rain, fog, funeral processions, and gray. How can she live in such a world?

  I wish she were here with me now. I am feeling strange in this room. It suddenly looks very gloomy, in spite of my Block Boys posters that are covering all the walls. I need to turn on the lights now.

  I can’t stop thinking about the old woman who kept her cats here. The very first time I opened this door, three months ago, the floor was covered with rotten food, cat feces, newspapers, magazines, and broken furniture. I couldn’t step inside. But at least this was not her bedroom, and she didn’t die here.

  I have to admit that it’s lonely up here. There is no other room on this floor, and it can get a little scary. The mirror on top of the stairs made Laura shriek in terror when she first came up. I don’t know what trick the light plays in this corner, but the mirror shows back green, ghostly faces. The old wooden stairs come from another horror movie: very narrow and spiraling, they screech on every step. I like that, though; that’s how I know when the evil witch is coming.

  There is nothing here to be afraid of. Mama called the priest to bless the place with holy water before I moved in.

  I should probably do my math homework now, but it is late, and I don’t feel like it. I’ll put my favorite new Block Boys song, “This Night,” to play on a loop on the cassette player, and I’ll read. Laura is not allowed to read whatever she wants. Her parents are monitoring her reading strictly. I am lucky; nobody cares what I do. Mama has no idea what I read. She is not around enough to have time for such things. All she does is make sure I have food and clothes. She wants to make sure I survive. But what am I surviving for?

  I know she is trying very hard to keep me happy. But how much can she do from the distance? Life would have been so much better if I lived with my mother. I don’t want to go back to Vulturi, though. I love it here in Bucharest. I have some friends now. I’m doing fine.

  .

  It is eight in the morning and I am writing on the kitchen table. I am the only one awake in the house. Tired from talking continuously until long after midnight, Laura is still deep in dream world.

  I don’t know what possessed Marta to allow me to have Laura over. I don’t care. I am happy Laura is here. Happy and very tired. Laura is an energy vampire. I don’t know how she sucks it all out of me—I’ve never seen her fangs. I don’t really mind, though. She is the only one to whom I can tell everything. She knows how to listen to me, and she can understand it all. Unfortunately, too often she also offers answers for everything.

  Last night, she told me that she never expects to fall in love and be happy the way it happens in books. She says that men are not necessary. We tried to imagine a world where women rule the world by themselves and men are only used for procreation. It was not a fun world.

  I don’t agree with Laura. I believe that we are born to find love and change in it. Love is the only thing that can transform our lives and bring us happiness. It’s what makes us into artists and saints. Without love, we’d all be just a crowd of depressed beasts with too much intelligence that we wouldn’t know how to put to good use.

  I told Laura about my dreams. Yes, I told her about you, Amon. About your dark hair and your painful smile. About the way you keep your hands on your stomach and vanish in seconds. Laura says I am the biggest dreamer she has ever met. She says that if love happens to anyone, it will happen to me. I know.

  .

  The history teacher caught me writing in the diary earlier. I was able to answer all the questions he asked from today’s lesson, so I’m good. Now, history class is over. I am writing this through Latin. Why anyone would have any interest in this Cicero person, I don’t know.

  My life is weird. I feel shaky and out of control. I sleep a lot and eat all the time. I cannot concentrate in school no matter how hard I try. I need more structure. I need to eat well, exercise more, listen to classical music, and read more philosophy. I need to be beautiful, interesting, and irresistible. I need to make sure I deserve him to happen to me.

  .

  When I lie down in bed, I have in front of my eyes this poster of Jason in concert, wearing a red tee shirt. The other Block Boys are faded in the background. Jason is singing, his eyes closed, and he looks like an angel from another world. My angel of love.

  I wonder what you’re doing right this moment, Jason, who you are with, what your thoughts are, what is in your heart. Who do you love? Will you ever love me? I feel blessed that you exist, that I can listen to your voice singing to me every day, that I can love you, and that I can dream about the day when you’ll love me back.

  This winter has been very hard on my soul. I have been feeling sad too much. Every day when I come from school frozen and tired, Marta yells at me that I am late, that the food is already cold, that I am very difficult, that there is something wrong with me. When she is done with me, I run up to my room, which is most of the time as cold as outside for a few hours before my tiny wood stove manages to warm it up. So I lie down on my bed, under the covers, make the sign of the cross over the pillows to keep bad dreams away like Buna taught me, and try to dream of a different life.

  I am so grateful I can have dreams. At least I can close my eyes in the dark room, think about Jason, and how it would be if we were together. I imagine going to one of their concerts where he sings only for me. I imagine us getting married and having the most beautiful children together. In my favorite dream, he comes to Romania, we stumble into each other on the street, he looks at me, and he knows right at that moment that we are meant to be together, and another love like ours has never been.

  Oh, somebody told me in school today that there is a new Block Boys album that I don’t have. It will be so good to listen to some new songs again, to feel connected to them again. Listening to their music is the sole happiness of my life.

  .

  Laura doesn’t believe in God. Well, at least not in the Christian god who lives in the church down the street. She says that Christianity is just a political creation with the purpose of keeping the masses under control. Even the communists kept the churches open and used to their advantage the god they never believed in. They allowed people to go to the priest, kneel, and pray for their salvation, waiting patiently for God to dispatch salvation to them. Denied of their churches, people might have risen and gone after salvation with weapons in their hands instead of prayers.

  Laura also knows for a fact that the priest from our church was arrested for stealing from the general store. Isn’t that terrible?

  I do believe in God, though. I think I do. I can’t imagine what God is like at all, but something must be out there. Otherwise, it would be too sad. Besides, faith is the only reasonable choice. If God doesn’t exist, then it really doesn’t make a difference what you believe. But if God exists and you don’t have faith, then you will be severely punished for your wrong ways, while if you believe, your faith will be richly rewarded. So yeah, I choose to have faith because it can’t harm me. It can’t, right?

  .

  He’s here again. Father Enache, Marta’s priest. They are laughing and drinking in the kitchen. His wife and kids are probably waiting for him at home. Old ladies probably just left the church, cherishing the moment they kissed his hand and received his blessings.

  Marta makes me go to church every Sunday, but I cannot even look at the priest. In those gaudy garments, he looks menacing. He keeps his eyes half closed as he sings, and recites the prayers as if he is communing with God right then and there. But I know better. I know he is not the saint he pretends to be. I hate him and his hypocrisy.

  I am sorry. I don’t want to be hateful like this. But he comes here and says in that trained voice, “May God protect you, my child,” forgetting that he is wearing jeans, not black robes, and his god couldn’t be m
ore different from mine.

  He might impress the old women from church, with his baritone voice and his regal attire, with the frankincense fumes that he blows in their faces, but I have seen him for the real little man that he is.

  Marta makes me kiss his hand and call him Father. Then they go together in the kitchen, and they drink until they forget who they are. I can see their shadows through the kitchen glass door: deformed, dark shapes of the subterranean creatures they become.

  All this time, I have to stay put in my room so that she can pretend I don’t exist. If I make any noise, she comes screaming at me like an unleashed madwoman who just freed herself from the straight jacket. Whenever I can, I leave the house quietly and walk to the park.

  .

  I think they must be in love. I’ve never seen them kissing or anything, but then I never know what they do behind the closed doors.

  She’s another person when she’s with him. The best time is when she’s expecting him to come. While she gets ready, she always lets me have chocolates from the stash of beautiful boxes that she keeps on the shelf in her closet. The raspberry cream ones are my favorites. She combs her hair and pins it up in her signature half chignon, and then she puts on three shades of lipstick, one on top of the other. The last thing she does is to slather Magie Noire on her neck and wrists. I love this part. Sometimes she lets me have some, too. It smells like the essence of some other world, a world that I am not sure I would like to live in.

  .

  They are fighting. I can hear them shouting. His voice makes the walls vibrate. Her screams move through the air like spears. This has been happening a lot. I’m in the middle of hell. What am I going to do when he leaves? I need to stay away from her.

  “I am tired of you,” she shouts. “I need more freedom. I am no longer going to wait for you day after day. See if you find a pretense to leave your wife and come here. It’s over.”

  “It cannot be over. You belong to me. You cannot get away. We all need to bear our crosses with patience and restraint.”

  Is he serious?

  “I have sacrificed a lot in my life,” he goes on. “My marriage and my kids are sacred, but I don’t love my wife. I had to marry to be appointed to this parish. I didn’t have the luxury to wait and find the right woman for me. Now I have to walk this path that God laid before me. I might not be a perfect man, but I try. God help me, I try.”

  He sounds like a cat in heat. Is he crying? I guess he is serious. But Marta is not impressed.

  “Oh, leave the preaching for church! Get out of my house. Get out of my life.”

  Loud bang. Pot to head? Stumble to floor? I need to leave.

  .

  We skipped chemistry and music to go watch The High Schoolers at the Garden Cinema. Decebal put his arm around my shoulders during the movie. I felt electrocuted. Weird. After the movie we went for a walk in the park. It was getting dark and cold already. He suddenly stopped walking, and he turned to kiss me. I was not expecting it, and I pushed him away. I told him that I couldn’t do that to Jason. He looked puzzled, but he said he understood. He never held my hand again after that.

  It’s crazy. I know I’m crazy. But accepting Decebal would be admitting that Jason is only a dream that will never come true. I can’t do that. Faith is all I have.

  .

  I cannot stop crying. Since morning, I have been writing poems for Jason in English. I am writing my diary in English too, to keep Marta from reading.

  She found the Block Boys notebook today, and she became mad that she was not able to understand. She could tell what it was about from all the cut out magazine pages. She told me that I am crazy and that I am not acting like a normal girl. She said my infatuation with this boy band is sickening. She said she would tell Mama to take away all my posters and my cassettes, to force me to return to reality. She said that I would never meet Jason. “Even if you met him, you think he would look at a chubby Romanian girl who is unable to hold a proper conversation?” She said to stop dreaming and face the cruel life as it is. She said many things.

  Will I never meet you, Jason? I cannot believe that. It would kill me. I don’t care what they all say. I’ll keep dreaming. I will dream of you. My life is nothing but my dream.

  2.

  THE HOUSE WAS VERY COLD that morning. She pulled the heavy wool comforter to her neck and looked around the room. The walls looked freshly painted, although nobody had lived in the house since her grandmother’s death. On the windowsill, under the cross-stitch floral valance, stood a clay milk jug and the old clock that needed winding at exactly eight o’clock each evening.

  Ana considered for a moment staying under the comforter until the sun warmed up the day, but there was no way to know if that would happen at all, considering what a cold and rainy month that August had been. She felt unusually elated on that first morning of her new self, and there were many things to be done if she was going to live here for a while. She put on her heavy sweater, pulled the old rubber boots over her long socks, and smiled to herself while heading out the door toward what looked like a chilly but sunny morning. Life in the country. She will never be able to do this, she thought, and her smile widened.

  .

  “Come with me, Ana. Put on some good clothes and take me to the monastery. That good-for-nothing boy has left on his bicycle in the morning and forgot to come back home.” Tanti Vica was the neighbor who had been taking care of Ana’s grandparents’ house and gardens. Ana had known her since childhood, when her grandmother was still alive, and she had Vica over for a “cup of gossip” every Sunday afternoon.

  Vica was festively wearing her good head scarf and no apron that day. She had even put on a brand new pair of black clogs.

  Ana changed the old jeans for a long jersey skirt, put a light cardigan over her white tee shirt, and wrapped a scarf around her neck. When she came out of the house, Vica had dozed off on the bench, her head hanging on the side, the bouquet of garden flowers held tightly on her lap. She was the same age Ana’s grandmother would have been had she lived.

  Ana got her camera from the windowsill and took a photo. Vica woke up, startled by the clicking noise. “Why don’t you take a good picture of me so I can send it to my sister in Iasi?” she asked, standing up next the bench with the bouquet of flowers held tightly with both hands. She didn’t smile. The camera clicked and the woman in the picture froze. Time never flies away.

  . .

  The Year Before

  “HAVE YOU EVER DONE IT?”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  “You know it’s the day of Sf. Andrei today, don’t you?”

  “So?”

  “The mirror spell. I’m talking about the mirror spell. On the night of Sf. Andrei, you can see in the mirror the face of the man you’re destined to be with.”

  “Oh, seriously? Are we thirteen now? Please.”

  But Ilinca is not to be stopped. “Listen to me. It’s real. I’ve done it before.”

  “Great. No need then to do it again.” But I cannot help being curious. “So what did you see? Was it George?”

  “Well, it was more complicated than that.”

  Ilinca’s silence intrigues me. She is never at a loss for words. Ilinca embodies the extroverted, well-adjusted personality that I aspire to. She manages to always seem calm, rooted, and present, always dressed appropriately for the occasion, always bringing the right gift, always prepared with the suitable words to say in every situation. There doesn’t seem to be any dark side to her: it is all out in the open, the good— joyful and wholeheartedly shared with all—and the bad—with the appropriate apologies. Ilinca is my measure of normalcy, and when she starts speaking of spells, I don’t take it seriously. But when she indicates that there is something in her past that she cannot be upfront about, that makes me pay attention.

  “What was complicated?”

  Ilinca presses her lips together and pulls a few loose strands of hair behind her ears. She lets her he
ad rest in her hands, elbows strongly planted on the kitchen table. “You know, every time I think of that experience, I am reminded of you. It was something that would happen to you, not me.

  “Okay. It was in high school. My best friend was sleeping over while my parents were out for a wedding. At midnight, we took two mirrors off the walls and walked in the dining room, where we had lit two candles in the middle of the table. Each of us held in her hands one of the mirrors, facing outside. We stood on opposite sides of the dinner table, holding the mirrors so that we could see our own mirror reflected in the other one because it is in your own mirror that the image appears. I was afraid to look at first, but I heard my friend giggling, so I opened my eyes.

  “I’m sorry. Would you like another tea? It’s getting chilly in here.”

  I watch Ilinca move quickly and expertly throughout her kitchen and apartment. She fills the kettle with water and turns on the gas stove. Before putting the kettle on, she warms her hands above the steady, blue flame. She is wearing a pair of jeans with a white tee shirt and a red sweater, and her thick curls are gathered in a low ponytail. She looks exactly like the eighteen year old with whom I shared a dorm room in my first years of college.

  “So tell me. What did you see?” I ask, losing my patience.

  “Well, it was nothing, actually,” she says, still looking at the flame. “My friend couldn’t see anything, but I thought I saw a figure in my mirror. It was the back of a man. Didn’t seem like much at first, but then I had the impression that he turned around suddenly, and his hand reached out from the mirror. It was a very pale hand that seemed to move toward my neck. I dropped the mirror and screamed, causing permanent trauma to my poor friend, who up to this day still covers at night all the mirrors in her house.”

  Ilinca shakes her head as if to shed unwanted thoughts. “I had completely forgotten about that night until today. Isn’t it weird?”