Oneiron

  When her son was in prison, Wlibgis gradually worked up the courage to go out in the yard to smoke. The move from the corner of the stove, out from under the range hood, first to the kitchen window, then to the balcony, and finally out under the maple, took time. But in the spring, when she finally stood under the nearly leafless branches, under bursting flower clusters, utterly ignorant of the exceptional versatility of this noble tree, she felt a wondrous triumph. (Everyone knows about maple syrup, but how many have tried maple soap? This palmatisect deciduous tree is now considered, for good reason, to belong to the family Sapindaceae, the soapberry trees. So in addition to sweet latex, or sap, the maple also produces bitter, frothing sponids, which in accordance with their name are excellent saponificants, soaping reaction agents.) Although unfortunately her son didn’t receive a life sentence, she would have at least half a year to puff away out in the fresh air.

  So Wlibgis stood under the maple and smoked her menthol cigarette with pleasure. The skin around her lips had turned into a wrinkled meat pie, and her mouth had tapered to match the kiss of a cigarette filter; without a cigarette her mouth was utterly orphaned.

  And then a deadly cancer grew in her throat. She had one operation, then another, and yet a third. First they destroyed her salivary glands, then she lost her vocal chords, and finally most of her larynx was taken out. They made a repulsive hole in her throat, and Wlibgis was given a speech prosthetic, a big black tube that resembled a giant dog whistle. The prosthesis was connected to a black cotton string that slid around her neck, and then supposedly she would be able to talk again just so long as she took the time to practice patiently with the device.

  At first Wlibgis thought she wouldn’t bother. She didn’t want to speak another word. Was she going to talk to Lisbet next door? Lisbet often imposed herself on Wlibgis under the maple tree, coming to “trade news” as the saying went. But they never traded anything, because without exception Lisbet always just launched into the same long, meandering sentence about her own wonderful son and Wlibgis’s terrible one. Let’s call them “Nicholas” and “Petrus”. When Lisbet opened her mouth, Nicholas and Petrus seemed to neutralize each other, so dreadful was the former, so marvelous was the latter. Once Lisbet had squeezed out her sentence, nothing was left for Wlibgis to say. She completely agreed with Lisbet about her own son. But what of it? She already knew that Petrus, who had the same appealing good looks as the late politician Pim Fortuyn, never made a ruckus in the stairwell and never screamed through the mail slot so loud that the whole corridor echoed.

  “My son is in prison now,” Wlibgis once tried to say, but Lisbet, unsurprisingly, took this in a different direction than Wlibgis had hoped. “When your son comes back, he’ll be even more dangerous than before,” Lisbet said with a sigh and then sucked on her cigarette. “I’ll have to talk to Petrus about this. He can come help us.” And what would Petrus do? Run Nicholas off with his belt? Slam the junkie up against the wall of the building by his collar? Drag him down to the cellar and kill him?

  They stubbed out their cigarettes, turned around, walked to the stairwell, and squeezed into the same small lift. No, Lisbet was no reason for Wlibgis to want to learn to use the speech prosthesis.

  But there was little Melinda. Lovely, bright-eyed Melinda with her hare-brained imagination and her W’s she said in place of R’s. Melinda’s stories could always make Wlibgis’s wrinkled meat-pie mouth spread in a smile, and she would shed tears of joy as she laughed hoarsely. Then Melinda would giggle too since Grandmama had blessed her silly idea with her laugh. Perky ears, tiny pink glasses absurdly askew, freckled pug nose, face so plump you could eat it up. To her, Wlibgis still wanted to be able to say, “Oh, you dear silly sugarplum,” and all the love-filled variations of this theme: “bitsyboo”, “doodlekins”, “honey giggle-bunny”.

  Really, if you looked at the situation from the perspective of Fate, the girl was her real child. Melinda was meant just for her in every way. The girl’s mother had to give birth to her, of course, and Wlibgis’s son was a necessary intermediary as well, whose gene map carried Melinda’s assembly instructions from the start. Without him, there would be no Melinda, and so Wlibgis could more or less tolerate his existence. Fortunately he had the good sense to stay far away from Melinda. In his typical traitorous style, he left the girl to her mother, who at least tried to stay clean. And because of Melinda, Wlibgis wanted to help her mother. Wasn’t this enough reason to fight? Wasn’t this sufficient grounds to practice with that stupid dog whistle?

  Thank God she could still sputter through that hole in her throat, through the speech prosthesis, syllable by syllable, letter by letter, her reedy, wavering, jerky robot sentence, G-r-a-n-d-m-a-m-m-a. l-o-v-e-s. y-o-u. s-o. m-u-c-h. l-i-t-t-l-e. M-e-l-i-n-d-a. It came out misshapen, interrupted by phlegmy intakes of breath, and completely exhausted Wlibgis, but regardless of the technical performance, it was as true as true could be.

  Nina finishes arranging the objects. The fireguard is handsome, with all manner of shapes. There is a ball, a ring, and a cylinder. There are rectangles, creases, and shapelessness. Nina shoots upright and begins resolutely to undress. The women obediently follow her example, all except Wlibgis, who believes that the order to disrobe does not apply to her.

  Showing no shyness at all, Maimuna simply pulls her yellow dress off in one motion. The dress has frills on the bodice and the hem, and under the breast is a beautiful series of pleats; but at the waist and seat the fabric is too loose, almost shapeless, until it falls with its flowing frills toward the ankles. Then slender Maimuna is in her underwear. Suddenly she places her hands modestly over her vulva, although it isn’t even bare, and waits for the others.

  Shlomith slithers out of her caftan in a series of complicated motions. First she pulls both arms inside the dress and then begins to scrape the garment off from within. She crouches and disappears completely, including her head, into the recesses of the fabric, but her limbs continue their work. The fabric bulges here and there, quite ominously, as she moves. No one can help wondering what will appear from the black sack once she is done. The wizened wrists that peeked through the sleeves and the thin neck that protruded from the top didn’t bode well, not to mention the legs, a withered horse collar.

  Finally Shlomith slowly begins to roll up the caftan from the hem. Everyone stares. No hint of discretion. There are the hip bones protruding, the bottom like a serving tray, no buttocks at all. The genital region under the panties is sunken. The kneecaps form two asymmetric lumps, from which the stick-like thighs grow diagonally up like stalks from a tuber, leaving between them a gap a throwing hammer could pass through. The shins fall straight down like boiled spaghetti.

  Now, when the whole body is visible, the feet look like enormous caricatures, just like the large fingers and shovel hands that straighten the dress. On the left wrist is an amorphous, black tattoo. Blue veins marble the entirety of the delicate, white skin, and fuzz covers it like the chick of a sandwich tern. All bones out, on display like an educational model, Mrs. Skin & Bones constructed with anatomical precision.

  Shlomith is only a hanging display that has stayed upright through sheer strength of will. Or stayed and stayed. And now she is here too. She probably dieted her heart away. In the hospital, Wlibgis had seen other carcasses like this. In ward six, and in the hospital cafe. Tremulous specters, all owl eyes and wispy hair. A fleshless nose, two gaping nostrils, dried craters under cheek bones. But the mouth was the most dreadful. It was disproportionately large compared to the rest of the face, a brazenly useless hole. It was ghastly to watch as they tried to gnaw the pieces of bread they bought to accompany their coffee, as they rolled the crumbs around endlessly in their mouths, and finally, after losing the battle once again, spat the dough plug into a serviette.

  Hunger might go away but not the need for nourishment. When the women (they were usually women) stopped eating, their bodies ate away at their muscles, brains, and thoughts. And what was left of them? A
n empty gaze. Slow, lethargic movements and careful sitting (since they easily broke themselves on benches, tables, and even their own bones). That was what was left of them. If they didn’t know how to stop, they finally broke down under the breast and to the left. So it goes: the resting pulse slows, the heart sometimes pumping below fifty beats per minute: bradycardia. Blood flow decreases, blood pressure falls, the heart muscles contract. Starvation and dehydration lowers mineral levels in the body and decreases body fluid flows, which has a devastating effect on blood sodium values. Vital minerals—calcium, magnesium, potassium, and phosphate—dissolve poorly, leading to an electrolyte imbalance. The body’s internal electrical currents go wrong, disturbing the heart’s normal rhythm. The heart stops. Death arrives.

  Heart, oh heart! You are the last to betray us, but when you do, we’ve reached the end!

  According to all logic, Shlomith has now reached paradise, a place where she can never gain a gram. So is she happy? She doesn’t look that way. There she is straightening her caftan, buried in her big cloud of curls, folded like a pocketknife, occasionally glancing around suspiciously as if to ensure that the other women are concentrating on their own clothing, not her disfigured body.

  Wlibgis, who has been staring at Shlomith greedily, quickly averts her eyes, slightly embarrassed. She sweeps from her mind the skeletal princesses of ward six and the incomprehensibility that some maniac would put herself in that state on purpose. Instead she looks to Nina and lets her gaze rest there for a turn.

  Nina has already been undressed once when her enormous, supposedly babyless stomach and lower half were inspected. Now she is almost naked, in her Mamabel Basic Maxi panties and sturdy, but not at all marmish bra. At first Nina had thought the bra and panties could stay on, but because Shlomith doesn’t have a bra (or breasts), along with Maimuna and presumably Wlibgis (who still stands sullenly in her hospital clothing; why doesn’t she begin undressing like the others?), having everyone go without begins to seem like the more equitable option. And besides, the bras will provide more building material, 70–85 cm of wall depending on the bust measurement, Nina calculated in her head, and because three of them appear to have bras, that will give them approximately . . . 240 cm!

  Reassuringly Nina lowers her bra, black smocked maternity shirt and turquoise cotton satin trousers next to Shlomith’s clothing pile. And socks (high quality, thin) and trainers (meant more for walking than running). The shoes could be door hinges, if nothing else, or room corners. Shlomith had come here with soft, fuzzy slippers, Wlibgis has loose, white hospital socks covering her feet (merde, start undressing already!), and Maimuna has sandals, no socks. Polina has, as noted, only one shoe, a heavy, knee-length winter boot, worn, bright-red woolen socks, thick brown tights, black form-fitting slacks, a snappy, expensive, pink polo shirt, and instead of a suit coat to match the slacks, a dark blue cashmere jacket that is much too big for her and buttoned askew, and—where did she come from, Siberia?!—then the ankle-length sable fur, which has just become the couch. (Ulrike refuses to sit on it, don’t you know: FUR? I’d rather go naked!)

  Ulrike and Polina are also almost naked. Ulrike has on a charming sunshine-yellow A-cup lace bra and Polina, somewhat surprisingly, a red satin bra, which doesn’t at all match her large, powder-colored underpants. They modestly cover her ample backside, coming up almost apologetically over her round belly all the way to her navel. But what about Wlibgis? She doesn’t show any intention of casting off her hospital pajamas. Is she shy? What is the problem? There are all sorts of bodies here—she can see that. This is no beauty contest!

  Nina, who has taken on the role of supervisor, encourages Wlibgis in a friendly tone to disrobe. Wlibgis looks at Nina as if she were an idiot and points at the wig lying at her feet. No one makes a move.

  Generally when a person can’t get her message across in the normal way—that is by speaking, by stating her business out loud to the other person, the person from whom she wants something—she begins to gesticulate. She raises her voice. Then she tenses, goes momentarily mute, and then suddenly releases an uncontrollable stream that collects whatever words happen to be there in the way of the stream, in the crevices of her teeth and on her tongue. Those words are hard. It can also happen that the other person, the one from whom something is wanted, can’t answer. That the other person can do nothing but cower, raise his arms to shield his head, and retreat into the corner of the room, then slip out of the door to disappear down a dark alleyway or into another’s arms, from where he may never return again.

  Wlibgis has abundant experience with running out of options. But what do you do if your son uses the final resort, his fist, as his first resort? Talking to a fist is inordinately difficult. A fist is deaf, dumb, and blind, but it can find its target easily enough, because it smells fear.

  Her son wasn’t the only one. There were many who wanted to prod Wlibgis a bit, although using more delicate methods. Lisbet (“Petrus is a TEETOTALER . . .”), her doctor (“Listen, we’ve reached the end . . .”), her boss at the cleaning company when she used to work (“ . . . you of all people going behind my back . . .”). In the face of these assaults, Wlibgis crumbled time after time, because she didn’t know how to fight even when she really tried.

  When Wlibgis lost her ability to speak, she also lost the last of her rights. People talked over her. Sometimes they expected nods or shakes of her head, sometimes not. Sometimes they didn’t even look at her. Sometimes they pretended to look deep into her eyes, but they didn’t want to know anything about how she felt and even less about her thoughts. They just drilled in deep to make sure that if they stared long enough it would come, that nod, that gentle approval, whether they were offering bland porridge or a needle in the arm.

  Now Wlibgis attempts to utilize the tool that had been taken from her in the operation. And why not? If Shlomith is alive, even though she is obviously dead, if Nina’s babies have disappeared even though they are obviously in her womb, why can’t she, who lost her power of speech, begin to talk again? Why can’t she use that confident voice she practiced so many times in front of the mirror to say that giving up the wig is enough? That she has already given her all!

  Wlibgis lowers her clenched fists and straightens her throat like a rooster preparing to crow. From the bottom muck of her memory she dredges up the English equivalents of her thoughts. What is “clothing”? And what about the word for “wig”? How about fake hair . . . Quickly now, with a finger raised in emphasis, say: My fake hair is there. I give you no more!

  And then Wlibgis opens her mouth.

  Not even a hiss comes from her mutilated throat. Wlibgis opens her mouth like a fish tossed ashore: nothing, nothing. Putting her hands under the scarf tied around her neck, she feels for the hole and presses it with her first two fingers. Nothing. Not a single scrap of sound!

  Can’t Wlibgis imagine the current of air that in normal situations forces through the vocal chords to make them vibrate? She can imagine moving and can travel about in whichever direction she wants, just like everyone else here. But what kind of crazy person thinks about air currents when she talks? No one. Speech seems to come from the other women with ease; they just move their lips and the words are at the ready in their mouths. Sound comes out. The empty space gives the words a metallic tinge, but each voice is still recognizable. Why didn’t speaking work for this one woman?

  Shlomith is becoming impatient with Wlibgis’s dithering. Just like on a nudist beach, the rules are the same for everyone here. Either you lose your clothes or you take a hike!

  Wlibgis understands. Shlomith’s gaze is compelling. There is no point resisting. Everyone else is already in their underwear, and when she thinks about it for a moment—and Wlibgis does think; for a fleeting moment she thinks so hard her brain hurts: take the injury, fight, or give up?—it is clear that she also has to undress. In her hospital pajamas she would be different. Someone the others wouldn’t be able to stand being with. She would be isolated in the s
ame way a strike agitator is isolated when the plans go awry and a scapegoat becomes necessary. She would become air again. She would cease to exist. Wlibgis humbles herself and begins to take off her clothes.

  As it happens, Wlibgis does it with style. Theatrically she takes off her light-green silk scarf, ceremoniously revealing the opening in her throat: Look and be horrified! The other women watch the performance in satisfaction, taking in the totality, but Ulrike stares at the red hole as if hypnotized. The edges of it are ragged. Ulrike looks unblinking into the hole, at the interior of the trachea. Then she moves her gaze back to the ragged red edges, from there to the waxen, wrinkled neck, and finally past the jaw to the thin, almost gray lips, which part and form a word. Did Wlibgis whisper cigarette? Is that the short story of this hole?

  Wlibgis has dropped the scarf. She begins undoing the flat buttons of the pajamas from the top and pulls her arms through the sleeves. She stands before them shirtless. Her upper body is a hunched sack, breasts hanging empty. On her gray skin there is something yellow and violet, splotchy, a runny sort of smudging, bruises with indistinct boundaries, like in a small child’s watercolor painting where the edges of the paper have come too soon. By squatting clumsily, Wlibgis throws off her trousers. In her enormous underpants is a large diaper. Wlibgis points between her legs and raises her eyebrows in a question. Nina quickly shakes her head: No-no-no, keep your diaper on, we don’t need that as building materials!

  Thus peace returns again to the land.

  Nina looks in satisfaction at the pile of clothes. Picking up the topmost piece, she spreads it out flat and then takes the next, spreading it and smoothing it. Then she signals for the others to help. And so they get to work on their togs, building a long, straight line. Nina walks behind, perfectionist that she is, straightening corners and patting crinkles flat.

  Finally Nina takes the measuring tape that came from Shlomith’s pocket and measures: yellow lace bra (70 cm), red satin bra (85 cm), white maternity bra (80 cm); long black caftan dress (132 cm), hospital shirt (55 cm), black smocked maternity blouse (65 cm), pink polo shirt (68 cm), black-and-white Scott Walker T-shirt (56 cm), large dark-blue cardigan (75 cm; also with belt, 100 cm); suit trousers (85 cm; spread in the “splits” 158 cm), turquoise cotton satin trousers with stretch jersey front panel (93 cm; spread in the “splits” 159 cm), hospital trousers (78 cm; spread in the “splits” 141 cm), brown corduroys (95 cm; spread in the “splits” 178 cm), yellow dress (135 cm); thin black socks (34 cm x 2), thin white hospital socks (30 cm x 2), bright-red woolen socks (40 cm x 2), furry slippers (38 cm x 2), thick brown tights (73 cm; spread in the “splits” 110 cm); light green scarf (70 cm); green trainers (size 41, 27 cm x 2), brown sandals (size 40, 25 cm x 2), blue trainers (size 36, 21 cm x 2), and one winter boot (size 37, laid flat 40 cm).