Names for Nothingness

by Georgia Blain

  ‘It is you who are threatened by us. You feel our way of life undermines the very structure of your own lives. You cannot withstand any questioning of the foundations on which you have built your existence. Because if these foundations crumble, then what do you have? It is terrifying for you. We are terrifying for you,’ and his voice was gentle, sweet, coaxing, but still she would not turn to look at him.

  ‘You know this, deep in your own heart. You think we have stolen your daughter, that she is here against her will, simply because you do not want to allow yourself to believe that she may actually have chosen this for herself. All you have struggled for, all you have fought for, has it really been worth it? Has it really brought you happiness? Do you really believe in what “the world” has to offer, and is it really so outrageous to turn your back on this, to say, “No, this is not for me, I refuse to participate”?

  ‘I think not. The outrage is outside these gates, not within. And I think you know this. Somewhere, deep inside, you know.’

  Sharn turned slowly, her eyes taking a moment to adjust from the brightness of the light beyond the window to the room. When she finally spoke, she believed her voice would be calm, but there was a tightness to each of the words she uttered.

  ‘Caitlin is young. She couldn’t know what she wants.’ She picked up her tea from the floor and drank it quickly, hoping to quench the dryness in her throat.

  ‘That is your perception.’

  She did not want to look at him. She did not want to see that smile.

  Later, she would wonder at her actions, at the moment when she turned. Because she could have been seduced by him. She could have stayed by the window and drunk her tea and listened, his words cool and enticing, soothing her with a possibility of escape from life. And she wanted to. There was a part of her that wanted nothing more than to stop, to hand herself over to another and say, ‘I can’t do this any longer. I can’t go on. Just take me and I will do as you say.’

  She dropped her cup as she stepped backwards. It was accidental. The china clattered as it fell against the boards, the last of the tea spilling out across the floor, a dark brown stain on the wood.

  And as he bent to retrieve the shattered pieces, she called out her name in the emptiness of that room, and again in the hall: ‘Caitlin. Caitlin.’ Her voice loud in the silence, shrill, piercing as she climbed the stairs, and there at the top of the landing she called out again and again, unwilling to stop until she saw Caitlin’s face, right there in front of her.

  ‘She is out the back,’ Kalyani said, and Sharn could see his panic. ‘I will take you to her.’

  She followed him down the stairs and along a maze of corridors until they reached a room, and he gestured for her to wait at the door.

  She could only presume it had once been a ballroom. Light streamed through the windows, illuminating all of them in its paleness, and they kneeled, about thirty young men and women, all in white, all with their heads bowed, all silent. Even if he had not asked her to stop, Sharn would have stayed where she was, stunned into immobility, each breath that she took loud and harsh in the quiet.

  She watched him as he made his way down a central aisle, no one looking up, no one giving any indication that his presence had been noticed.

  Caitlin.

  As a child she had embraced silence, and deep in her heart Sharn had been grateful for the one less demand that this choice had placed on her.

  With her hand holding the doorknob for support, Sharn watched her stand, tall, slight and pale. She did not even notice the child at Caitlin’s feet, until she bent down and lifted it, the white muslin wrapped around its body blending into the folds of her robes as she held it awkwardly, inches away from herself.

  Caitlin. She did not even look at Sharn as Kalyani led her to the door, as he whispered in her ear that they should go outside, that it would be best if they went to the garden, away from the others.

  ‘Caitlin.’ As Sharn said her name, Caitlin kept her eyes averted, her gaze fixed on the sweet green grass, that baby just lying there, too still, too quiet, tiny in the loose cloth that swathed her nakedness.

  ‘Is this your child?’ Still she did not answer.

  ‘Is it?’ and as Sharn reached to touch Caitlin’s arm, she pulled away.

  The baby cried, a small cry like a kitten mewing, weak in the silence, and Caitlin did not move towards it.

  A seed fell down from the tree above and landed on the child’s head. Her crying grew louder, but still Caitlin stayed just as she was, silent, staring straight ahead. A mosquito whined, landing on the muslin, and Sharn tried to brush it away, but the child seized her finger, sucking at it with a feebleness that alarmed her.

  ‘She’s hungry,’ Sharn said, but as she spoke she knew she did not know what she was talking about. She was no good at caring for a baby, at knowing what it wanted. She looked at the small child and she felt only fear, her own helplessness enormous in the face of the baby’s fragility. ‘Look at her,’ Sharn said, the panic rising in her throat, and as the baby cried again, Sharn reached forward to pick her up, her body light in her arms, her mouth latching on to her little finger with no strength.

  ‘Feed her,’ and Sharn held her out. ‘You have to feed her, Caitlin,’ and she wanted to shake her daughter, to make her look at her, to make her take her child.

  Across the lawn a young man walked towards them. In his hands Sharn could see the glint of metal, her car keys, and she stood up, the baby still in her arms as she moved to meet him. ‘Whose child is this?’ she asked.

  He just gave her the keys without a word, only his eyes indicating what she already knew as he glanced, briefly, in Caitlin’s direction.

  ‘For godsakes,’ Sharn shouted after him. ‘Will someone talk to me? Open your fucking mouths. Someone. Just tell me. Why are you doing this? Why are you here?’

  With her face close to Caitlin’s, she kept shouting.

  ‘Caitlin,’ and she wiped at the tears with her forearm, holding that baby clumsily as she looked at her daughter sitting immobile and silent on the grass. ‘Caitlin.’ Her voice was no more than a whisper now, as soft as the breeze that stirred the palms overhead. ‘Come with me. Please. Come with me.’

  But she did not move.

  And then, from the verandah, Sharn saw him again, Kalyani, standing at the top of the stairs and looking out towards them. He raised his arm and Caitlin stood. She neither looked at Sharn nor reached to take her child from her arms. She just walked, slowly, back towards the house.

  In the shade, the ground was still damp, boggy from the torrential rains, rich mud beneath Sharn’s feet. She looked back once, only once, as she headed towards that gate, and she saw her, Caitlin pale against the green, too far away for Sharn to know if she had turned to follow her with her gaze, as she stared at her, helpless in the face of her resolution.

  ‘Shh,’ Sharn whispered to the child. ‘It will be all right,’ she promised, and she kept on walking, the gate swinging open in front of her, and she did not even turn to close it as she stepped out onto the road, the child still crying in her arms.

  SHE DID NOT MOVE when Sharn left her. She just watched her walk away, slowly at first, as though she did not dare believe what she was doing, and then more rapidly, her feet sinking into the mud as she began to quicken her pace, stumbling as her shoe slipped off her heel, her whole body teetering out of balance as she stopped to slide her foot back into the leather, only turning once to look back in her hurry to get away.

  Where does it begin? she had once asked him, and he told her that each new day is just that, a new day, each minute a new minute. It is that simple, and he smiled the smile that holds all lightness.

  How can I? she asks with each new task he sets, and he tells her that she must turn her back on everything and nothing, that she must believe in nothing and everything, and that she must not be one in many but many in one, until she is no more.

  So there is no beginning.

  This is true.
r />   And there is no end.

  She is gone, and the way in which it happened, its very happening, is of no consequence. The moment has passed.

  She opens her eyes and she has no memory of how she came to be here. No memory of who she was and no desire for who she may become.

  She is who they told her she was.

  Your name is Nirav. Who you were, what you did, those you love; all of it is gone.

  All of it is gone.

  There is only Satya Deva.

  She repeats his name, and she feels the truth in what he says. This is what she is. Just now. Just these bare feet that she sits back on, these knees that she kneels on, these hands that rest upon these thighs, these arms – even this will soon have no existence. It will be no more than the thin skin that contains Nirav, dissolving as she repeats his name, as Nirav joins with each and everyone, right here, in the present, until Nirav, too, is no more.

  This is what she tries to do. And as the sun warms her back, she turns away, wanting only to know what nothing is, and in knowing that to want no longer.

  PART 5

  AT THE TIME OF LIAM’S JOURNEY NORTH, Essie is about eleven months, but neither Liam nor Sharn can be certain of her age. When they took her to a doctor shortly after Sharn brought her back to their flat, the doctor made a rough guess, and they took the guess as truth. What else did they have to hang on to?

  It has been almost five months since she has seen her mother, and in such a small part of a life, this is a long time. She has learnt to crawl; she has made her first tentative attempts to walk; she is trying to form words; she is eager to communicate, pointing at what she wants, pulling them in the direction she wants to head; she is eating, seizing food in her own hands, putting it into her mouth herself; she is sleeping all night, stirring only to fall back to sleep again: these are just some of the more obvious changes that have occurred. But there is so much more.

  As she has grown, her character has become more and more marked. She is shy and self-contained. When she is left on her own to amuse herself, she usually does so, exploring her environment with a certain measure of caution. She treats the world with respect, investigating it at a slow and careful pace.

  She is also quite a happy child, although this is not immediately obvious. She does not smile at anyone who looks at her, she does not laugh easily, and she generally appears somewhat watchful. But if you spend time with her, the humour begins to show; the slow grin that creases the corners of her mouth, the clapping of her hands in time to music, the giggle when you tickle the soles of her feet.

  In the months since she last saw Caitlin she has stopped being a baby. It is Liam and Sharn who have become her points of reference, their house is her home, and she turns to them for approval, love, comfort and food. They cannot even begin to guess whether she remembers Caitlin, or how she remembers her, and it is not something that they want to think about, but it settles, uneasy, into their thoughts each time they look at her, each time they talk to her, and each time they use the name they have given her.

  Essie. They say it with shame, and yet she responds, looking up at them each time they speak.

  Essie.

  It is not her name, but she reaches out, stretching up towards the voice, familiar to her now, safe and sure, because this is what she knows, and it has been a long time now since the life that she once knew changed.

  As Liam pulls up in front of the gates, Sharn is, at that moment, getting onto the train. She takes her seat, putting her luggage next to her in the hope she will be left alone. She looks out the window, wanting that moment of departure so that she will have no opportunity to change her mind, no possibility other than that of surrendering to the journey she has decided to make.

  It is autumn now. It was early summer when Sharn drove north to bring Caitlin home. Hot and still when she had left, the air heavy with rain when she had arrived. Now there are just clear days and a softness to the cool of the mornings.

  Standing alone under the stillness of the cloudless sky, Liam looks at the gates. They are locked as he had presumed they would be, and he feels helpless, aware that he cannot climb them and carry Essie over with him, so he calls out as Sharn also did: ‘Can someone let me in, please?’ His voice ringing out loud in the quiet. ‘Hello, is there anyone there?’

  As he is about to give up, he sees a group of people in the distance.

  ‘Hello,’ he calls out again, and they turn in his direction.

  He waves furiously as they make their way towards him.

  ‘I am sorry about this,’ he explains. ‘I don’t know how to get in.’

  The young woman just looks at him.

  ‘This is Caitlin’s child,’ and he holds Essie up as she continues to stare at him. ‘I wanted to see her,’ and he is about to add that he also wanted to bring her child back to her, but he cannot utter those words, because now that he is here, in this moment, he does not know what he will do.

  The woman smiles slightly. ‘I am sorry,’ she says, ‘but I don’t know who Caitlin is, or who this is,’ and she leans close to the cyclone fencing, sticking a finger through to stroke the side of Essie’s cheek. ‘But I am only new here.’

  ‘Can I come in?’ Liam asks.

  She looks to her companion, another young woman, and then back at Liam again. ‘I don’t see why not, but I’m not actually sure.’ She squints in the brightness of the glare. ‘Can I just go and ask?’

  Liam tells her he will wait, and he watches as she and her friend walk back towards the house.

  He puts Essie down on the grass and then picks her up again when she cries. Holding her close to his chest, he can feel her heart beating. He holds her closer in an attempt to still the nervousness he feels, and he is surprised at how anxious he is.

  When he woke this morning, he had been excited at the prospect of seeing Caitlin again. He had sung to Essie as he dressed her, told her that they were going back to her mother, and she just looked at him wide-eyed.

  ‘Good luck,’ Christian said when he had knocked on his door to let him know that they were on their way. ‘And thank you for the lift.’

  Liam had also wished him luck, ‘with your marriage, with love, you know what I mean’, and Christian just smiled.

  ‘If you’re ever in Denmark,’ he said, and they exchanged numbers knowing they would not contact each other.

  As he buckled Essie in to the car seat, he felt sure that the day would have a good outcome, that everything would roll into place. He would take Essie back, perhaps he would stay up here for a few days and spend some time with Caitlin, and then – he did not know what he would do. As the thought of Sharn crossed his mind, he knew he could not think about it. He could only concentrate on what he had to do now, and he kissed Essie on the top of her head and told her it was time they hit the road.

  Now, as he waits outside the gates with Essie in his arms, he can feel the beating of his own heart beneath the steadiness of hers, and it is a little too rapid.

  ‘Look,’ he says, and he points across the lawn towards the house. ‘Do you remember?’

  She just buries her head in his chest and puts her thumb in her mouth.

  MILES AWAY, SHARN ALSO WAITS, staring out as the last of the passengers find their way to the platform. They are mainly young kids, heading north for a holiday, backpacks stuffed with sarongs, suntan lotion and dog-eared paperbacks. Many of them are English or American, working their way around the country, heading from place to place in search of fun, sex and a few good tales to take home.

  She watches them board, and then closes her eyes as she breathes in sharply. She draws her whole being inwards, wanting only to be there at the end of her journey, and she is concentrating, willing it to be so, because she needs to convince herself that once she sees Liam, Caitlin and Essie, it will be all right. It has to be.

  She will tell him that they can fix it together. Forget the past and create a new future. She will tell him again that she loves him.

 
She remembers the first time she saw his face, the softness of his gaze, his open smile, and the memory is so sweet, she flinches.

  ‘Are you alone?’

  The voice comes from somewhere next to her, and Sharn jumps, eyes opening to find a young man standing in the aisle. She is about to tell him that no, she isn’t, alone, that is, when she realises that he is asking about the seat next to her.

  ‘It’s free,’ she says, and he swings his backpack into the rack overhead and sits, trying to find space for the length of his legs.

  ‘Holiday?’ he asks.

  She shakes her head.

  And then, aware that she doesn’t want to talk, he puts his headphones on and switches on his Walkman, the music loud enough to be heard by her, a faint tinny ring.

  With her eyes closed again, she tries to go back to where she was, to her image of Liam. He must be there by now, and she can almost see him, standing in that garden.

  But he is not there yet, he waits patiently outside, until the woman returns with a young man, who opens the gate for him.

  ‘I am Kalyani,’ he says, and Liam remembers the name, or at least he thinks he does, but he is not certain until Kalyani tells him that he met Sharn.

  Liam smiles, and then he realises that Kalyani may be trying to tell him that he cannot let him in, that as a result of this previous visit, he will have to stay here on the outside. But Kalyani steps back and beckons for him to follow.

  ‘She came at a bad time,’ he says, ‘in the midst of one of our retreats. Fortunately for you we are now at the end,’ and he stops mid-sentence as he suddenly notices Essie. ‘This is her?’ Kalyani leans closer, and Liam is taken aback by the delight on his face, the joy that dances like sunlight across his eyes as he reaches for the child. But Essie does not want to go to him. She buries her head in the crook of Liam’s shoulder.

  ‘She is shy,’ Liam explains, and Kalyani smiles.

  When they reach the verandah, Kalyani asks him to wait while he finds Caitlin.