Spell of Blindness

by Lori Tiron-Pandit

  I couldn’t look at her anymore. My body was burning from the inside, and the smoke was blurring my vision. There is no safe place for the spirit. All prophets are misunderstood, all faiths are used with Machiavellian determination, and all spiritual leaders are part of the machine. How do you escape that? How do you see through the hypocrisy, when they cut cogs into the perfect circle of your soul and make it move eternally on the same trajectory they choose, without escape? The soul is pure and perfect and waiting for something to move it. The soul is always insecure and always happy to be cut and reshaped, to be aligned and synchronized with other souls, to be assured that it is on the right path, in the right motion, going toward the right ending. Laura’s soul, mine, Ella’s, my mother’s. The souls of everyone I know are caught inescapably in various mechanical movements. The power button is not in sight because the power is not ours. But the scariest thing is that, even if you find the button, even if, let’s say, it is within your reach, and you manage to let yourself free, you don’t know what to do with that freedom. Where do you go from there? On the lookout for another, more sophisticated machine.

  Zina has connections in Japan. They’ll find Laura. She’ll come home and be safe. For a while.

  .

  I haven’t seen Amon in a very long time. I woke up this morning missing him. The man without a face has never failed me before. Now he is gone. The one who betrayed me, the guilty one, the only one I blame is gone.

  .

  When I lifted my eyes from the book, I saw him smiling.

  He was sitting on the armchair across the living room. He looked different: thinner, older, more beautiful than ever.

  He looked uncomfortable and in pain. He smiled at me and tears flooded my eyes, my mouth, and my throat. I felt lighter, disembodied, as usual unable to move, to run to him, to put my head on his shoulder and my heart in his ribcage.

  He didn’t speak, as he never does. I didn’t need words, as we never do.

  Then he pressed his palms on his stomach and vanished.

  .

  This damn house is so cold. It will never feel like home. As hard as I’ve tried, I could not reinvent it into something comfortable for my soul. When I moved back here after leaving Traian, I had big dreams of transforming it. It was supposed to be my haven, my sanctuary. I was going to remake it in my image. I couldn’t. Instead, I grew frightened of it again. I’ve never been able to defeat this house. Or maybe it’s this whole city?

  . .

  The pages of this notebook are embellished with intricate flower garlands, drawn by hand in gold and silver ink. The covers, made of orange cotton heavily embroidered with pink beading, are sewn by hand over the handmade paper pages with raw edges.

  I AM IN MY OLD BEDROOM, in Marta’s house. I didn’t even get a chance to call Ilinca because my tenants announced that they were ready to leave before the lease was up. Coincidence? Is the universe saying that I was right to leave Traian?

  I left, regardless. I am alone here, and I feel happy. I’m shaking. I’m free. The world is full of light. Amon is still here. It has been a long trip back to you, my darling. It’s been hard. I have been mesmerized by the illusions. I’m human. I run toward the illusion of happiness, the illusion of feeling complete and being content. I fell victim to all the trappings of a fake world, so well-disguised that most people cannot tell it’s just a big lie. Many people never see the truth. I feel so bad for all these happy people.

  .

  I want to redecorate the house entirely, to make it mine. Make it suit my soul.

  I will turn the small dining room across from the kitchen into a bedroom for myself. I always loved that room, with the big French windows that open into the garden. It is the sunniest room in the house. I think I am going to use only the back side of the house, with the entrance through the kitchen. It is very convenient that way. This house is much too big for me. But I won’t be alone forever, right?

  The attic room is my storage now. The Block Boys are watching over my boxes from their paper world.

  .

  Am I in love? This is nothing short of a miracle.

  Andrei is wonderful. He loves me, and life suddenly has developed new dimensions. I wake up in the morning and I smile at the ray of sun warming my cheeks. I see the poplar out the window, in its shimmering yellow, and feel the urge to run and touch it, smell it, wear its skin.

  I met Andrei two weeks back at school. He teaches gym. He accompanies me home from school every evening, although he lives on the opposite part of the town and he doesn’t have a car. I don’t even know how he gets back to his apartment every night, because sometimes he leaves as late as eleven at night, when there are no more buses.

  He’s very cute, I have to say. He is also two years younger. Should it matter? He tells me that I look at least five years younger than I am. I enjoy spending time with him. It’s very easy.

  .

  Andrei is turning into the midnight monster. I am scared he might snap any moment and eat my head. He’s jealous. I am not allowed to talk or think about another man. He doesn’t take me home every night because he is the perfect gentleman.

  Yesterday, he called me at midnight, and I was not in because I went out for a drink with Ilinca. Today, we had a big fight. He screamed that he needs to trust me, and that we are a couple now, and even though we don’t live together, we should all the time know where the other is and what each of us is doing. During this argument, he found it suitable to say that he wants to marry me and have children with me. Indeed.

  I have been so wrong about him. I wanted so much to fall in love.

  I have to end it. He’s calling on my mobile right now. I’m not picking that up.

  Maybe he is too young for me. Men at his age are not sure of what they want. Or maybe he knows too well what he wants: marriage, children, and complete control.

  .

  I haven’t heard from Andrei for two weeks now. We don’t meet at school, either. Somebody told me that he has taken some classes at a secondary school across town, and he is very rarely around anymore.

  I didn’t feel any pain. Nice, clean cut.

  I am lonely, though. Now that Ilinca is married, she has other things to do than spend her time with sad, pathetic me. I cannot have her only for myself anymore.

  .

  Horrible day yesterday. They tried to play the matchmakers with me.

  Elena, the Latin teacher has a brother who is one year younger than me, and the old ladies decided that we would be a good match. So he came along yesterday, and he made my day unbearable.

  “You have to try driving a Maserati. I can promise an experience you’ll never forget.” Cars. His favorite subject, apparently. I don’t even have a driver’s license.

  He is a trolley driver, wears too much cologne, and a tight pair of jeans paired with a V-neck, white, almost transparent, tee shirt.

  “My best friend has an awesome vacation house on the beach. I could take you there. I can use it whenever I want. We are very tight. It has seven bedrooms, a game room, and an indoor pool. We go there every weekend in the summer and party like there is no tomorrow.” His other favorite subjects: rich friends and partying.

  At the end of our date—which took place in a sports bar over cocktails that he ordered for me without even thinking to ask what I wanted—he escorted me to the door and asked if he could call me next week.

  “Sure, I would like that.”

  I’m so stupid. Now I have to break it up with him over the phone. Elena won’t talk to me anymore.

  Maybe I can try to be very nice about this. Listen, I am glad to have met you. I enjoyed the time we spent together yesterday, and I would love to know you better. But I am still trying to work things out with my boyfriend.

  Maybe.

  Or, I cannot tell you in how much pain and confusion I find myself at the moment. I meet you, a wonderful man, and yet I cannot take this relationship farther because my life at the moment is too overwhelming. I am tak
ing care of an old aunt who has many health problems and I cannot find time for dating.

  A possibility.

  Or, at this time, I cannot possibly find the inner resources to start a new relationship.

  Or, my therapist advised me not to get involved with anyone until I resolve my intimacy issues.

  Or, I was heavily medicated for depression the other day. Who are you and what are you doing here?

  .

  The same dream for the past week. This time, everything was in place, as always. I could see very clearly the small room, the green curtains, the coffee cup on the table. I walked toward the cupboard and opened a drawer. Inside, as usual, there was the pack of cigarettes, the wristwatch, and the photo. I wanted to run, open the door, and look inside the bedroom, where I knew you were waiting, but I could barely move. Too many sensations and thoughts avalanched upon me.

  I was able to feel your presence behind that door. I could hear your breathing. I could feel the despair of your being. I entered the room, and you were there, hands folded over your stomach, watching me, smiling, as always. I sat on the floor, next to you. You leaned over and kissed the crown of my head. I was flooded with you, and there was no more movement. Just us. Immobile twisted sculpture of love.

  It all lasted a very short time.

  How can I live with you, in my dreams? I want to move out of reality, please. I am refusing to pay my rent to this place anymore.

  7.

  GARDEN WORK MADE ANA feel ravenous. It was a new, exhilarating feeling. She had never experienced that kind of physical exhaustion and hunger before. Her lunch of cheese, bread, and onions seemed to have come from the kitchens of heaven.

  After lunch, she lay down on the wooden bench under the shade of the walnut tree. Tradition said that one should fear falling asleep under the shade of walnut trees, for one might slide unexpectedly into a deeper and permanent slumber. That afternoon, however, the shadow was calling Ana’s name, and she couldn’t resist. She had only a few moments for rest. In the evening, a cousin of Gabi’s was coming to help Ana with the well: the pulley needed oiling and the old tin buckets had to be replaced with the enameled ones that Ana had bought from the village store.

  That general store brought back memories of the grandfather taking a little girl to the magical place of salty and sweet crackers, hard and chewy candy, colorful handkerchiefs and socks, yellow pencils and lined notebooks. He would buy her one small thing each time, and the little girl walked happily the long way back home, proudly holding in her hand the precious perfumed eraser or rare lollipop. She had had a similar feeling the other day, returning with the new buckets on the bicycle. Only this time, Buna was not waiting at home to witness the arrival of Ana’s treasures.

  “When did she empty her life of all meaning?,” she asked herself before falling into a deep sleep.

  .

  “Your grandmother was a very skilled woman. She could knit so fast, I was not able to keep up with her. She also embroidered the most beautiful flowers. And she knew her way around the sewing machine. Your mother and aunt were the best-dressed little girls in our village. How is your aunt Marta? I heard she was in the hospital? No, keep the yarn on the needle you leave behind. Like this.”

  Vica was showing Ana how to knit wool socks. Vica had a high-pitched voice that scratched Ana’s ears, but as she got deeper into a story, her voice became rhythmic, moved with the air, and bloomed with subtlety and nuance.

  “Your poor Aunt Marta. Such a beautiful girl, such a cursed fate. I told her, go to church, Marta, confess, pray, God will help you. But she was not one to listen. She was such a happy bride. Nobody thought it could turn out so bad for her. She was always stubborn and independent. Why didn’t she leave him when he first raised his hand at her?”

  Vica was making socks for her grandchildren. Yellow and brown yarn, for more thickness.

  “Marta never listened to your grandfather. He argued with her, tried to change her mind. But no, she wanted to marry the rich boy from the city. So what if he didn’t have a job or college education? He had a house in Bucharest. A house in Bucharest—can you imagine? She was going to be a great lady and never step back into this godforsaken place. Now, knit those ten stitches that you left aside. Don’t do it so tight. Yes. That’s good. I don’t know why you want to work with that ugly grey wool.”

  Vica always wore black clothes: black skirt that ended at the middle of her shins, black socks, black blouse, and black head scarf. She would sometimes put on an apron that was black with white polka dots or black with small white flower vines and, on Sundays or other holidays, the good one: black with large red roses. She made up for it when it came to her grandchildren’s clothes, for whom she amassed in her knitting sack a good assortment of yarn in bright, eye-hurting colors.

  “Ambitious girl, Marta. Look where it got her—beaten up by that drunkard for thirteen years. At least God has mercy on her and took him young. He was only thirty-five when he died in ‘84, wasn’t he?”

  It was strange, Ana thought, how old people could remember with such precision dates and ages. Maybe they are just making up the numbers, she considered, for storytelling effect, aware that nobody would ever check. Ana had times when she could barely remember her own age.

  “Everybody thought Marta would be married again in less than a year,” Vica continued. “She had money, the house in Bucharest, and she was still beautiful. Such a pity.”

  “I know, Tanti Vica.” Ana didn’t feel like she had anything to add to the portrait painted by Vica. She just tried to envision Marta the victim.

  “At least she was busy. She had you to raise. She helped your poor mother. God bless her. “

  Everybody was a poor somebody in Vica’s stories. Everybody had a hard life. And God blessed and forgave them all.

  “I don’t know why she didn’t have her own children. People say this was why he would beat her black and blue. Is it a woman’s fault if she cannot bear children? Only God in heavens knows.”

  “She was not such a saint, Tanti Vica. Sometimes I think that Uncle Leo’s tormented soul never left her after his death. She started to drink too, you know?” Ana didn’t know why she spoke. The words were coming from her mouth, but her brain felt disconnected from them.

  “She used to throw swear words at me instead of ‘good morning’; or ‘how was your day’. I was the devil’s offspring, the cursed child, the fat, the stupid, the ungrateful. I didn’t deserve my clothes, my food, the roof over my head. I didn’t even deserve my mother’s love.” It was all pouring out, and Ana didn’t have the power to stop it.

  “Oh, poor child, growing up without a father,” said Vica without lifting her eyes from the sock that was growing under her fingers like a work of magic. “You and your mother have been paying for it dearly.”

  Through the tears, Ana could barely see the needles anymore, but she kept working, as if a big tragedy would happen if she stopped. Maybe she would even have to think of her father and the father he had never been.

  “They had it hard, your mother and Marta,” Vica continued mercifully. “Your grandfather was not rich. He might have been more hard working than others and not a drinker, which is not a common sight in these parts, but times were hard for everyone after the war. And the girls were both so smart, but only your mother could go to college, because she received that scholarship. There was no money for Marta. Marta had to stay at home to help with the house and the crops. She was always angry. She wanted to get out of this place. She couldn’t get over the unfairness. She made mistakes, but you have to forgive her, child.”

  Ana didn’t know if she was ready for forgiveness. She knew she wanted to be.

  . .

  The Year Before

  HE IS THIRTY SOMETHING, a few years younger than me maybe, and very handsome, with his strong jawline and full lips—your regular prime-time drama therapist.

  I tell him whatever comes to my mind. “I don’t want to wake up in the mornings anymore. The wor
ld is an enormous dark cloud that is going to devour me. There is no hope, no goodness, no God.”

  “I understand. I might be able to help you. What do you think is at the root of your discontent? When did you first start to feel this way?” He is ready to listen to all my stories.

  “I don’t know. I’ve always felt abandoned. I lived with an aunt who tortured me. Only psychologically, though. I felt misunderstood and found only one way to evade.”

  He sits relaxed, in his crisp shirt and silk tie, arms opened wide over the back of the chair, looking beautiful and motionless on the background of olive walls. “One way?”

  “You know, the match made in heaven thing. The love-conquers-all theory.”

  He nods and looks straight into in my eyes. “I understand.”

  “My mother never remarried, and my father is non-existent. No father figure for me. No trustworthy man in my life.”

  “Right. That is traumatic for any child.”

  Won’t he say anything more? Won’t he give me any clue? Help me have a revelation? Make me cry? Waste of time. My head is booming.

  He finally speaks again, however. “That’s all that’s bothering you? Why did you come here today?”

  There is always more. “I am never hungry,” I continue. “I don’t understand people, and I am having an ongoing fight with God. I have been having visions of a man ever since I was little. I have been unable to sustain any fulfilling real-life, long-term relationship. I’ve lost all my friends because I am too loony. I’m afraid I will die alone. I’m afraid this is it for me.”