Spell of Blindness

by Lori Tiron-Pandit

  “No, it’s not. You are troubled. We all are, at times. I can prescribe you some Xanax, if you’d like.”

  “Thanks. I’d rather not.”

  No expression on his face. The perfect head does not move at all. All the good television dramas need a still on a pretty face. There is no meaning in it. Just a recipe. We go to therapists and talk. We need someone to listen without judgment. We crave the fleeting illusion of a breakthrough that will solve it all, like an unveiling of a reality that we always hoped was there but never could actually reach.

  “I would also suggest that you start keeping a diary. It can be very helpful.”

  Very helpful, indeed. “Thank you. Excellent advice.”

  “Look.” He finally moves, bending forward, bringing his hands together, elbows propped on his knees. “I would recommend that you take the pills. They will help you. There is no magical, immediate solution for anxiety and depression. Your case is not exceptional. I meet twenty patients every week who go through the same thing. It’s becoming increasingly common. You have to fight it day by day. And you are not helping yourself by indulging in fantasies that don’t allow you to deal with reality and embrace healing. It is great that you sought help because you cannot do this all by yourself. I know this is a common misconception, but now, depression is fully treatable. There are wonderful drugs out there that help, and there are no reasons for you to continue to suffer.”

  I thank him and take the prescription. Promise to consider making this a regular visit. Come out of the office and allow myself a good chuckle behind the cameras. And a few tears, because I’ll never be back, of course, but I wish I could.

  .

  Spring is so beautiful. I have a tree inside of me. In reaction to the spring outside, it starts to bloom, too, with the first signs of buds, crude green grass, and the rays of sun jumping in the corners of the eye. I feel the urge to go out and walk in the light.

  Spring is like an enlightening experience that lasts only a few seconds at a time. I can never stay longer than that in the awareness of the tree inside.

  .

  Zina hasn’t been able to find Laura in Japan. Sometimes people don’t want to be found, she tells me.

  I don’t know if I should call Laura’s mother to tell her the little that I know. Will it only worry her more, as it does me? I’ll tell her what I can, no background details. Laura is perfectly fine in Japan. It’s only a trip and she’ll be back soon, all happy and healthy, laughing at our worries. She will tell us amazing stories and show us photographs of unbelievable places. And we’ll all forget that this ever happened, that we ever felt this darkness. All right. I’ll dial as soon as I can start breathing again.

  .

  Inspection in school today. The inspector wanted to discuss next year’s curriculum. She is a new one. I was alone in the teacher’s room when she came in, so I went to welcome her, but she didn’t say anything for what seemed like at least five minutes. She kept staring at me and frowning. It frightened me for a while. Slowly her face relaxed, though, and she started laughing.

  “I am so sorry, dear. For a moment there, I thought you were a student and I didn’t know how to react. You are not a student, right? See, I still have some doubts.” She kept talking, without pause. “You have to forgive me. You look so small and thin. You need to put some flesh on those bones, if I may be so blunt. How do you expect children to respect you, look up to you, when you present yourself like this, smaller and weaker than them? Aren’t you eating anything? Forgive me for taking the liberty of talking to you like this, but I could be your mother. You should come to my house for dinner. I bet you eat like a kitten. I have two sons, you know? My youngest is a priest. You should meet him. Are you married? You aren’t, are you?”

  She went on and on for a while. The director came in and saved me. I had to hide from that woman all day. It angers me when people mention it, but the truth is that I have been indeed feeling weak lately. I don’t know if it’s just the eating. This morning, when I reached school, I stood in front of the stairs at the entrance, and they seemed like an impossible feat. I felt that the effort to climb those stairs would eventually kill me. There are also days when I am very energetic. Days like that are less and less frequent, though, and the high energy is short lived.

  .

  Ella called. She sounds good. She feels stronger physically and mentally. Again, she asked me to visit her in Saina. The house they are renting seems to make her very happy.

  “You won’t be able to believe this place. I thought it would be a small cabin, but it’s an actual mansion, with gardens, stables, and the most adorable romantic architecture. There are actual stained glass windows everywhere, and the furniture is mahogany. It’s a palace, basically, and I feel like a fairy tale queen here.”

  She spends her time reading and riding horses. Calin has been an “angel of benevolence.” It all sounds very good. I promised her that I would take the train this weekend and visit her. Apparently Calin will be away for the weekend, so we can spend it together shopping, picnicking, and visiting the old monastery in town. Maybe I should go. I don’t know. Do I have the energy for a trip? I know I do need the break.

  .

  The most intense nightmare I’ve had since childhood.

  I was looking for you, Amon, in this enormous room with gigantic iron doors. There was very little light, mostly from the moon, but I knew you were there, and confidently, I walked around until another room opened up before me.

  This one was smaller and had stuff that I couldn’t see clearly hanging on the walls. I thought they were human heads. I started to panic and wanted to wake up from the dream. Then you showed up. You looked strange. You had very long hair and a sword in your hands. You were not smiling your loving smile. You started to walk slowly in my direction, looking straight into my eyes. Calmly. Hypnotizing.

  I wanted so badly to stay and to feel the cold blade through my body, but my legs took me outside the building, just to discover that we were surrounded by a tall rock wall. You were coming slowly after me. I started to climb the wall, grabbing onto the stones and bricks. I could feel you behind me, coming silently, peacefully, to adoringly slice me in half and eat my heart.

  I woke up barely able to breathe.

  What does it all mean? Are you out to get me?

  .

  Mistake after mistake. Because I am desperate. Because I don’t want to be alone anymore. That is my only obsession, my biggest fear, my torture, and, in the end, it looks like my fate.

  It is surprising that I am still alive, that nothing happened to me, considering how careless I have been with the men I allowed in my life. In a way, you could say that I’m lucky.

  But you know what is the worst part? I gave each one of these men a piece of me as a souvenir. There is very little left here, and I am not sure what to do with these leftovers.

  . .

  Written on the computer, the entries are printed on A4 paper with the last breath of a dying black ink cartridge. Some of the pages are stapled together, but several are just folded in half and tucked into the plastic file folder on which there is a bright yellow label with the word “Seven” written on it in thick black marker.

  AN ENTIRELY NEW UNIVERSE opened for me now that I have an Internet connection in this old house. Dating sites could be the perfect answer for me. This is how I might find him. Once I edit out all the weirdoes, I might find a handful of real men too, right? I am real, after all—some of them might be, too. Right? I don’t know.

  One is a construction worker by day and stripper by night. Another one is a college professor. One is looking for the ultimate love, in this world or a parallel one. Another is filling in his time of unemployment. A few are there for the fun, some for marriage and children. One only for children. The thrill! The mystery!

  I do know of somebody who met her husband online. Who was that? Somebody close. Was it a dream? I was sure of it.

  .

  March. First day
of spring. It’s snowing.

  I am enjoying Internet dating. I dress in my comfortable pajamas and wool socks, I put up my hair in a messy bun, take my mug of tea close by, and I am ready to meet men.

  Many are in a hurry. They chat for a few minutes, and then ask for phone numbers and real life encounters. People don’t have time to waste, it seems. I don’t let myself be dragged into their unnecessary urgency. I allow myself time to create stories behind each of them. At night, I dream of Amon with a slightly different face and life each time.

  The computer people help me feel less lonely. I know most of them are not real, but they don’t need to be. I am happy to make them up in my head. I don’t even think I would want to deal with their realities. What they can give me is the dream. And they are doing that beautifully.

  .

  Today, I chatted with three different men. One of them is interesting. He doesn’t look bad, either.

  His name is Victor. In the photos, he has enormous eyes and a very tall forehead. He seems to be very taken with his Webcam, which he uses to take a strangely large number of bizarre self-portraits: ghostly colored, head-dangling, eyes popping, lips shriveling. They are unnatural and even scary at first sight, but the more I look at them, the more I find myself completely fascinated by his pictures.

  I am trying to find out more about him, but what do you ask a person you’ve never met? What do you ask a person when you know they’ll probably lie anyway? I suppose it is important what they choose to lie about.

  This is what he writes in his profile description: I know the world is not black and white, and yet I find myself repeatedly trying to reconstruct it that way. I want people to be passionate or evil, food to be fried or inedible, women to be fascinating or invisible. A little too much, I know. But it’s not boring.

  .

  I should not allow myself to hope. I get involved too quickly and give birth to too many dreams. But if I don’t get involved, doesn’t it mean that I am cheating my dream?

  So I put myself out there in the open to be hurt and wounded by anybody, and then I come home and cry and bleed, only so that the next day, I go out there again. Let’s hear a cheer for hope.

  .

  The sun is brighter these days, even through the clouds and the fog. As I ride in the subway, people seem to be smiling more, and even when they aren’t, their sadness doesn’t touch me.

  I don’t see any future ahead, but I am not looking for it, either. The present is luminous and sufficient. I am happy.

  I wished I could distill the secret of this new perspective and write it down here on paper, like a math formula, so when all this is over I could just read these pages and recreate the miracle.

  .

  We chatted four hours today. He wants to meet. On my own terms, he proposed, wherever I want, whenever I want. But do I want it? For some reason, I have been enjoying this adventure as it is—with plenty of space for imagination. It can never be wrong when I make up half of it.

  In my story, Victor is the man who I’ve been loving through centuries. He is a lonely spirit, because our encounter has been delayed too long. He has lost faith and trust in the meaning of life, the rotation of the Earth, and the journey of the soul. I am his only salvation, and he is mine. In my story, we meet and the meanings are revealed and obvious, the laws of physics untouched and pure, and the spiritual path is spread in front of us, covered in soft grass and bordered with wild flowers.

  When I meet him, everything might collapse and smash me. I might find myself limbless and blind in an apocalyptic world not of my own creation.

  .

  We’re talking daily on the phone.

  He’s sweet and insightful, and he talks like a politician. I cannot but admire people with such eloquence, because I suffer so badly from being able to talk only on paper.

  We’ve made definitive plans to meet. It will be on neutral territory, in Brasov. Over there, in the heart of the mountains, we’ll face the truth. It will be far from home, so a failure would be easier to leave behind.

  His voice was a little disappointing. Weak. He seemed out of breath after each sentence. The vitality from his e-mails and chats is missing. What else will be missing in real life?

  .

  I just woke up, and I am a little drowsy. I think I had too much to drink yesterday. I also slept for only three hours.

  Brasov is cold and muddy. You cannot see any faces on the street. Bundles of thick coats and wool scarves pass by you in the street without smiling. You can quickly tell the tourists from the locals: only ignorant visitors go around without the obligatory boots and hat, and they live to regret it.

  For three hours on the train, I shivered. Not because of the cold but because of fear. I was not prepared. I tried to tell myself that it doesn’t make a difference, whatever happens.

  Victor was waiting for me. I saw him as the train advanced slowly into the station. My eyes found him in the sea of people with no effort. Hands in his pockets, he was not moving, not tapping his feet on the pavement, not turning around to keep warm. When he saw me, he smiled, though, and that smile melted the cold.

  He kissed me on the lips as soon as we embraced. It felt natural and not a moment too early.

  We went to a restaurant for lunch. Tuna salad for me.

  After lunch, we took the trolley until somewhere, at the outskirts of the city, where we have a room in a postcard-pretty log cabin, surrounded by green valleys and dwarf fir trees. The sun seemed to have found the place where it wanted to be.

  We drank hot chocolate and had sex. For the first time in my life, I found it simpler to just live in the moment.

  In the evening, we went to a club, in the basement of an old art exhibition building. It was small, maybe eight or ten tables, all crowded in the center of a large room, with deep, dark, empty space all around. Things kept coming up from that darkness: music, poetry, or dramatic monologues.

  The conversation was spilling over from one table to another. Complete strangers were becoming entangled in violent discussions about philosophy and politics. A man at the table right in front of the small stage seemed to conduct all the motions.

  Victor got involved in the game, and he was brilliant at it. For most of the night, I, the eternal observer, just sat in my chair quietly, fixing it all in my mind for later. A more inspired introvert had a large notebook and wrote in it the whole night.

  I danced with Victor and two other men who took me in their arms and swung around with me. I laughed and drank until I broke free from my mind.

  Back at the cabin, we had sex again, then slept. It’s quiet now. And the train is leaving in one hour.

  .

  “I need to be straight with you. Now that I’ve met you, I realize that you are that kind of girl,” he said from the other side of the small railway café table.

  “What kind would that be? Please enlighten me, why don’t you?” This is not happening.

  “The good kind, I would say, but not the kind I should be involved with right now. You are serious. You take this as a potential solid relationship, looking into the future. You don’t get involved just for fun. In the depths of that beautiful head, you are already making plans, scenarios for the future. I am not a serious guy. I’ve never been. I’m an adventurer, seeking the excitement, the novelty. You are not the novelty woman, but the forever, eternal, unforgettable one. I am afraid of you. Men like me are afraid of women like you.”

  The unforgettable and the adventurer. It only lasted for two days. Afterward, the eternal woman had a train to take back to Bucharest. For three hours, on the train, the unforgettable woman would blankly look out the window, dreaming of a nice, solid wall at home, where she could bang her beautiful head in private.

  .

  It’s been too much. How many men have been through my life? The list is too long. Maybe nine? Ten? I’m a slut.

  Deep in my soul, I am just a little provincial girl who cares very much about what people think, who wants to go
to church and be able to confess all the sins burdening her soul. But I am not looking for the forgiveness of the church anymore. Mama can find her answers in the church. She doesn’t question them. She kneels and cries while the mighty priests refuse to give her absolution but offer her penance. I don’t know what sins she is confessing that they find so unforgivable.

  I understand her, though. She is trying to find peace. She accepts the penance, and she accepts the guilt because this gives her a clear path to follow. She doesn’t have to think for herself, to blame herself, or to choose all by herself. And she is more at peace like this. I cannot tell her that what she is doing is not right because it is right for her. I wish I could find something as right for myself.

  8.

  ANA STARTED TO ACCOMPANY Vica to the monastery every Sunday. She sat on the cement bench in front of the monastery’s church while the old woman was attending the sermon inside and could not spend more than a few minutes in the church: inside the narthex, the nauseating smell of burnt paraffin paralyzed her. She was unable to go farther. She never went out, however, before lighting a candle for the dead and one for the living, because there are habits that cannot be shed.

  Outside, on the cold bench, she breathed in the day, so bright and light on her soul, yet so heavy with memory.

  Her grandmother used to take her to church on Easter or Christmas. There was a graveyard right in front of that church. To get to God, people had to first walk among the dead. The dead and Ana were not on very good terms, and that trip to the church was the horror flick of her childhood. In the most gruesome scene, she had to go at night to put flowers on her great-aunt’s grave (who had died at age five from an unknown childhood disease). It was the Easter tradition of participating in the midnight Mass and placing candles on the graves of long-gone loved ones, and Ana couldn’t stop but imagine the disturbed dead walking among the living, unseen, yet not forgotten.