by Amina Cain
Myself, alone, in my bed, is a story.
What direction did you head in when we scattered from that house, like the bits of dry grass that we were?
I read books now to bring myself to a feeling. When I walk down the street I’m never sure if I interact with others, or if they interact with me.
I eat warm food, things other people wouldn’t consider eating. Even in winter the waves unfreeze, falling upon the cold beach. I wear one color to signify something. It’s been said that you can signal many things in this way, like the words you’re most likely to write down, and even your education.
My bookshelves reach from the floor to the ceiling, towering over my small apartment. A table sits in front of the shelves. This is where I prepare my food. The kitchen and the living room are practically the same. I want you to know where I am, what I look like when I am here. I want you to see what I look like when I eat.
Another time I was beaten, I was sick with the flu. Our mistress held me down while our master whipped me with his belt. This happened on the porch because she wanted their neighbors to see us. It was December and I was shivering magnificently. Later, our master spoke to me in hushed tones.
He said, “Next week I’ll take you out again, when you’re better. Would you like to listen to music? We can go to the mountains.”
He always played music with banjos in it. He was always trying to soothe me. The only one who could was another servant.
Only once did I see you being beaten. It was because you had tried to leave the house without permission. Our mistress asked a male servant to beat you, and he did. What else could he have done? Bloody, you sat on the back steps while a kitten tried to crawl up your leg. You let it, but you didn’t acknowledge its presence. I stood in the window looking out at you for a long time. Finally it got dark, and then I couldn’t see you anymore.
Those years hardly resemble this one, or the ones in which I was a child, but all of it equals my life, making one ragged crawl across time.
Now it’s morning. Here I am on a walk to the lake. This is real. I wear headphones to clear out the feeling I had in the night, and to change the lake to a softer place. I listen to music that helps me understand something about myself and about the lake. I want to understand the food I eat. And why I like antiques and snow.
Someone told me that writers are more important to me than they are to other people. Oddly, they were important to the people who owned that house, and I’m still trying to reconcile that. Once, in their winter, our mistress hung a laurel wreath on the front door. I had always found that door beautiful, with its wood and glass, its richness. With the wreath its beauty deepened and this made me feel sick.
I’ll buy something simple for my own door, from the floral shop that is warmer and brighter than any house I’ve been in.
I am trying to show the mind.
I cannot write anything else except sentences.
QUEEN
Marguerite, cleaning a room. Me, falling on the ice, taking some kind of mild drug, being separated by a rope. Sometimes I feel like I am being held back by this rope, as if everywhere I go I am separated from what I see. Cleaning next to Marguerite, a strange excitement. We go into different rooms. I get bored. The next morning walking to work again, an ice storm. It’s six o’clock. Everything separated by ice, for everyone, separated, not just for me. I wish you didn’t have to work so hard. I like being a maid. Though I am collecting dirt, I feel like I am being washed all the time. This hotel. Something inside me.
I strip the sheets off the bed, throw them on the floor. In the next room she says, once in a while I have to take this. I want to know why I am like that. The ice displays branches, wires, pieces of grass, even the beak of a bird. I am looking at the beak of a bird. Did it die in the storm? Objects. The tiny cameo necklace my grandmother gave me. Something Marguerite gives me, on paper. Keep it in your pocket, she says. I touch a wall. Make dinner for Marguerite. Eat quietly. A lamp on the wooden table. An album with sounds of geese, and then wolves howling. Eight o’clock. Dinner long over, but Marguerite won’t go home.
Let me read to you. Let me wash your feet. I stiffen up; then I let her. It doesn’t stop snowing. The water sends a chill up my spine. I start to cry. Why are you crying? Is it time for spring? Not quite. Still winter. Cut my stomach, accidentally. Wave after wave of pleasure. The warm water. My feet. Painting of one hundred women. Their heads are missing. How do you know what they are? Put dishes away. Wipe off the table. Thank you, Marguerite. You’re welcome. Keep this. You’ll need it. I like to think I don’t need anything. It’s not true. Take this black ribbon. Wrap it around my eyes. Marguerite plays the sound of a storm. Next to it is the storm outside. I sit next to the heating vent.
I feel comfortable. But I know someone is making tracks outside. If something changes, I’ll beg for it to stay the same. Last week at the library I just stood there, witnessing myself and another, shamed. You don’t have to work again until Monday. You can go home and hide yourself. I always thought you’d do something else with your life. But it’s this. I don’t mind. Channeling, I think about my grandmother. We always knew we were the same person. Are we? One maid turns into another. Exchanges form. Night. Ten o’clock. Wave after wave washes over us. Someone is making tracks. Monday comes more quickly than I thought it would. Five o’clock. I wake up, it’s still dark, put on my clothes, start walking. Something clean in the air.
At the hotel, flapping the towels. Collecting laundry for the linen service. I slide down the wall and sit on the floor. What are you doing, asks Marguerite. It’s not time for a break yet. The boss is gone. No one will see me. I vacuumed right when I got here. What does vacuuming have to do with it? Today everything is normal. I could shame Marguerite, and I wouldn’t care. I don’t understand, she says. The empty hallways of the hotel become crowded. So many people are staying here. From behind his newspaper, a man watches me. Overcast sky. Painting of a river scene, children with kites. I still don’t understand. Everything is frozen. It’s winter. Tramps everywhere.
Night to myself. Read. Walk. I managed to get a book. And always, cleaning to be done. Play music. The woman’s voice. Scrub the bathtub. Mop the floor. Fall into bed. Stay still. Queen. How many are walking around out there? Like people. Like ghosts. Try to find a pencil. Draw all over my arm. Read again. Nine o’clock. “Forgive me if I add something more about myself since my identity is not very clear, and when I write I am surprised to find that I possess a destiny. Who has not asked himself at some time or other: am I a monster or is this what it means to be a person?”
TRAMPS EVERYWHERE
A woman walks through bright lights.
The same woman limps down a road.
It is Mary Lebyatkin.
A horse-drawn carriage thunders down another dusty road. Mary stops and listens.
INT. Night. A drawing room. There is an oval mirror on the wall, and under it a table. The other walls are smudged. In the middle of the room are a sofa and two chairs. Mary sits in one of the chairs, soaking her feet in a small tub. She massages them.
Bedroom. A single oil lamp on a table next to a bed. Mary reads a book. Another woman lies in bed with Mary, also reading. White legs. Brown legs.
One of Mary’s feet is propped up. It is huge.
The camera focuses in on the windowpane, to the night.
The next shot is identical to the first, but the other woman isn’t there.
The camera stays and watches Mary.
Mary blows out the oil lamp. Darkness.
EXT. Morning. Strong sun. Short and long shots of a swamp. A closeup of a frog. It sits on the bank then jumps into the water, making circles on the surface. The camera stays, looking at the swamp.
Voiceover: I walked into the day.
INT. Night. Mary is dressed for the opera. A black bodice and a colorful feather in her hair. We can’t see her foot, but it seems to pulse. Beside her is a man. It is Nikolai Stavrogin. Both watch the stage.
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br /> Flashback: Mary and Nikolai in the drawing room. The music is still audible. Mary and Nikolai scream at each other, but it is the opera we hear. Nikolai sweeps the things on a table onto the floor. Mary limps toward the camera.
INT. Night. The opera house. The same scene as before. No trace of the fight between Mary and Nikolai.
EXT. Night.
Voiceover: The day like a mouth, and me in it.
The screen is quiet and dark.
Nikolai: Do you want to know why I married you?
Mary: No.
Nikolai: I lost a bet.
Gradually the screen lightens, just enough to see the two of them sitting near the swamp. Nikolai reaches for Mary, but she pulls away. As the viewer, you barely see this. It is still too dark. Mary does something else, but it is still too hard to see.
Mary: I want some food.
This scene is longer than it seems.
EXT. Day. A crowded market.
Voiceover: Here, I find what I need to exist.
The camera zooms in on various vegetables. A zucchini, an ear of corn, squash.
Voiceover: All of this food, who is it for? Why has no one given it to me?
Mary is seen limping next to the stalls of vegetables. We see her look at and want what she sees. We see a close-up of her face. It is dirty.
Voiceover: When Nikolai said “we will be married now,” I was confused. He is rich, and sometimes I fall down when I walk. My foot is bigger than everyone else’s. But I know things other people don’t.
The camera follows Mary as she pays a woman for a small basket of apples. We hear her conversation with the woman, blended into the sounds of the market.
The film flashes back to a scene of a violent thunderstorm, to an oil lamp flickering inside a window. A horse whinnies in terror.
Voiceover: I know the sound of the wind knocking down a ravaged animal.
We see Mary running out into a field. A horse falls down. Mary holds onto its neck and falls with it.
We see her again at the market. She is limping down the street.
Voiceover: I know how to bring the animal back to life.
INT. Night. Drawing room. Mary and the woman who was in bed with her are sewing. They sit in the two chairs. They sew together old pieces of scrap. It is everywhere.
Woman: What will you do if Nikolai tries to kill you?
Mary doesn’t stop. She continues sewing. She seems determined to sew.
Voiceover: I’ve been pricked by a needle many times. And if I had all of those pricks at once?
Woman: What’s wrong, Mary?
Mary: I don’t want to die.
Outside the window, we see a horse-drawn carriage drive past. It moves slowly, almost like it is floating. The camera stays with the carriage; one part, and then another. A horse’s head, and then a man’s hand holding the reins, and then a wheel, and then the back of the carriage that is moving out of view.
Voiceover: I’ll take anything life has to give me, even if it’s been trampled and crushed.
INT. Night. Drawing room. The soundtrack is silent while Mary is beaten. It is Nikolai who is beating her. He beats her for a long time.
INT. Bedroom. Mary inside an armoire, crying. She strokes her foot. There is still no sound.
Voiceover: I’ll take anything.
EXT. Day. Mary and Nikolai in the back of a carriage. They stare ahead. Mary’s hair is messed up. Nikolai holds onto a balloon. He kills her.
Voiceover: Is this what it means?
EXT. Evening. Short and long shots of chickens in a yard. We watch them walk around, pecking at pieces of sewn-together cloth. The camera focuses in on a chicken’s bright pink comb.
We see Mary, sitting on the ground. She crawls to a water trough. She puts her hand in it. She starts yelling. Then she drinks.
INT. Evening. A crowded inn. Mary sits alone at a table, eating. There is corn on her plate. The camera zooms in on it, focuses on Mary, then on the other people and objects in the room. A man’s shoe, a woman’s hat, a huge piece of bread. The scene becomes blurry. From across the room Mary’s only friend walks toward her. Mary stands up and limps into the night.
THE BEATING OF MY HEART
She is lame because one of her legs is shorter than the other. It is noticeably so. She hobbles around. She has no money for food. She begs for food. Someone gives her a head of lettuce, but it has bugs in it. It takes a long time to rinse the bugs out of the lettuce. She eats the lettuce. She feels grateful.
They make a play about her life, though when it is finally performed she is dead. She died because one of her feet got infected. Every night, gingerly, she had tried to clean it. An actress sits in the middle of the stage. Her foot is huge. Her dress is all torn up and there are smudges on her face. A faint smile too.
His parents gave him everything they had, and then he gave most of it to an orphanage. When he arrived at the orphanage, the children beat pots and pans. The rest of his money he burned up in a desert wash. He wanted to be a tramp. He wanted to never know where he was. Everything else felt wrong.
She decided to go out walking, even though it would take her a long time. A buggy passed. When it passed, she watched the muscles moving in the horses’ legs. She listened to the clopping sounds of their feet on the ground. She listened to her own clopping sounds as she walked. She looked down at her muddy shoes. This is who I am, she thought. It doesn’t matter what I’m wearing or what my feet sound like. What matters is this dusty road, and me on it. I’m hungry, but I’m sure that by the end of the day I’ll find food.
I don’t want this money anymore. I want to see if I can feed myself from what I find on the ground. I want to eat plants and wild mushrooms, but I’ll have to learn about mushrooms to make sure I don’t eat poison. I’ll have to figure out which plants are safe. With the little money I have left I’ll buy a book. From now on this book will help me find food.
In a play I am a poor woman. I have smudges on my face. My foot is huge. I walk home, wiping makeup off my face. I study everything around me. I don’t take off the foot, for it is the meaning of my life. I fall down, and then I stay down, laughing hysterically. I don’t want this to end.
If I do a thing I don’t want to do, will I have enough money to pay for a room? Will I be a different person, a person who does something like this? Will my insides change? When you look at me what will you see? And what will I see when I look at you?
What will you do with your life, with your money? Where will you go? There is almost nothing to stop you now. If you want this, you should live it.
She walks through the dark city and there are lights everywhere. She is almost blinded by them. Is this what it means to absorb and be absorbed by the night? If I am myself, am I also a dog who is dying? Am I a person being shot in the head? Am I making love to my own shadow? What is this place?
This is the place where your life unfolds. You push something back so the other thing can come forward. This thing is anything, or it is nothing, and you see it be nothing.
I am the reflection of someone who is dying. When I am looked at, it’s not me that is seen. I am a giant mirror. You are too. See that woman lying down in the road? When you are in front of her, she is reflected in your eyes.
To become a giant mirror, to stand in the middle of the wind knowing that’s all you are.
The lame one hobbles to her destiny.
Time opens up and you don’t know what you’re seeing. Or how anyone feels.
I want someone to love me. I want someone to take care of my feet. I want someone to wash my feet in rosewater and wrap them in warm towels. I work hard and every part of me is stiff. I want everyone to remember that I had feet and they carried me everywhere. I want everyone to remember that when I was with the rich, I kissed their hands and laughed hysterically.
He is the only one in his family who has seen this place and its creatures. From the light of his lantern he crosses the land that rises in front of him. In a small town someo
ne gives him a gold watch he would like to refuse, but he takes it. Now he has two things to hold. I’m hungry because I haven’t eaten in weeks. Something inside me is doubling over. I’m all alone now, but this is the way I wanted it.
Time opens up and something is wrong. The wind blows in the opposite direction. The sky is a strange color. Even my voice sounds like someone who hasn’t spoken in a long time.
When I rehearse, I don’t have to memorize my lines. The auditorium holds my thoughts and all I have to do is step into them. I am getting closer and closer to something, but I don’t know what it is. Only that it is here. On my dress. In the air. When it is not my turn to be on stage I sit in the wings, and think, and sew.
Tonight I’ll eat bugs. I won’t complain because it’s all I have. The days are getting longer. Someone said hello to me on my walk. Soon, I’ll only feel pleasure.
GENTLE NIGHTS
When people look at me they sometimes think of the word “decadence,” but I only have the face and body of a decadent person, not the experience. I am someone who enjoys getting rid of things, even if it seems like I should be sitting down in a jewelry store surrounded by gold.
Something has brought me here. Violent paintings. Almost all of them are religious. Here, in the middle of the gallery, is that famous one of St. John the Baptist’s head on a platter. See the shadows on Salome’s face and neck? When I see too many paintings like this, I emerge into something softer, allowed the pleasure of arriving from a museum into a warm winter night. This is why I look. Snow blankets the ground, but not coldly. I could take off my coat if I wanted to. I don’t have to wear gloves.