The Girl at the Door

by Veronica Raimo

  ‘I’ll never be able to forgive myself,’ my girlfriend said.

  Before she could stop me – and I don’t even know if she really would have – I squashed the creatures under the heel of my shoe. They didn’t crunch. Not even their death made a noise. I removed the scraps of their bodies from the sole of my shoe with a stick; then, with the spade, I made a small pile of that organic mass and tossed it into the hole she had dug.

  Her

  It dawned on me that what the girl had felt was similar to what I experienced in the forest: she may not have heard the blow, but the echo wouldn’t give her peace. She had woken up one morning under the impassible Miden sky and an image came from her memory to disintegrate everything she thought she loved. I suspected that the whole process of raising awareness outlined by the Commission had to spring from a specific memory that would slip out of the file: a high-fever illumination, a distorted drawing on the wall, I don’t know. Perhaps that memory hadn’t even been mentioned, perhaps it was a secret she kept within her, just as I would keep the secret of the forest massacre. I was complicit. When she came to the house that day, I took her gaze as an accusation, a sophisticated artifice of hostility, which I tried to reflect back at her. Now I wondered whether it was my gaze upon opening the door that had dictated the rules of the encounter, whether I was the hostile one from the beginning. She seemed smug, distant. It hadn’t occurred to me that she may simply have been uncomfortable. We both were. It must not have been easy for her to enter our house. I’d set up my tea ceremony in order to study her. Who knows, maybe she would have preferred a beer. I didn’t even ask her. I imposed the slow torture of tea on her, watering down the tension with boredom, like in a meditation course. After she told me she’d been raped, I rushed to put on some music. I couldn’t figure out the motives behind my gestures. I didn’t trust her, and I didn’t trust myself.

  In the questionnaire, they asked me if I had ever been subjected to violence by my boyfriend. He didn’t want to read my answers when the questionnaires came back. Part of me was grateful because I was disappointed with my answers and I thought he would be able to tell, my sentences rolling like marbles, then petering out. But I also felt humiliated. He knew writing was my ambition, and in the past his attempts at encouragement – like anyone else’s – made me even stiffer, more fearful. People still think that having talent is better than having none, but I’ve never seen any proof of that. I told myself that one day, when everyone stopped spurring me on, I might be able to put something together. That day never came, but I didn’t wait for it any more than I would wait for happy hour to have a drink. I remember a whole afternoon as a teenager spent burning myself under the sun because I was unable to dive. I knew how to swim, but the idea of leaping from a rock paralysed me. There was no other way to get into the water. Everyone urged me to jump, adults and friends, they held my hand or made playful gestures to dive in, but all I felt was my skin searing and the terror of jumping. ‘There are jellyfish,’ I said. And fortunately, there were jellyfish, but it was a lame excuse considering that even children climbed and dived from the rock, swimming amid the little jellyfish in the water.

  I always looked for jellyfish in my life and always found them. I realised how ridiculous it was to consider that questionnaire a test of my writerly ambitions, but that’s how I felt, and even my boyfriend knew. That’s why he decided not to read it, though he said it was a form of respect, which made it even more humiliating, an exemplary punishment. I wondered if he behaved that way with his students too, if he avoided judging an assignment when he assumed that it wouldn’t be up to his expectations. I couldn’t imagine him as a strict professor, nor could I imagine him as a kindly, affectionate man. Surely he had his strategies for not hurting his students’ feelings, but I hated it when he used that same measured condescension on me. In any case, when I was asked if I had ever been subjected to violence by my boyfriend, I said no. All I wrote – all I claimed – was that we’d had violent sex. The claim had nothing to do with consensuality; it was about narcissism. I wanted to make it known that we fucked well. That I was satisfied. That my boyfriend made me come. That I knew how to reach orgasm. That was my talent! I didn’t think the question could refer to other forms of violence. Why should it? I had a kind man beside me. The same man who had squashed those newborn creatures in cold blood. I had proof that could alter the verdict. I felt powerful with that explosive in my hands, so powerful as to be vile. It meant bearing witness to my faults as well: the fatal blow of the spade, my inability to hold a spade, or to respond to simple but embarrassing questions. What exactly were we doing in the forest? We were there to pollute the Miden soil. We were there to hide my inadequacy. We made things worse, like an oil stain that spreads as you try to clean it. My mother always used some such example. Or maybe it wasn’t oil, it was milk. Whatever, that was the sense. The problem was me. The problem was getting all the way to Miden with that wheelie suitcase, the problem was leaving my country to meet a man, any man. The problem was spending entire days preparing tea. The best thing I did in those last days was to scream in the middle of the forest.

  Him

  I was sorry to leave behind the cradle I’d built, partly because I knew I’d never build another one. The cradle I’d used as a baby was still in my parents’ basement. First it had belonged to my cousin; then it was passed on to me and finally to my brother. ‘Don’t make them like they used to …’ my father would say. I couldn’t argue with him. That unassuming cradle had survived the restless nights of at least three kids and was ready to welcome new generations. It was more than just good craftsmanship or durable materials, it was about objects created to last through time, with no pretence of being remembered. The way it passed from hand to hand created simple bonds, a sharing without the urge to possess. We’re always obsessed by the idea that someone can take our place. Wouldn’t it be much easier to think about human relations in the same way? For example, in one photo I’m in the cradle, in another photo my brother is. Neither one of us would want to be in a photo hugging a woman if she had already been hugging the other in a previous photo. Likewise, no woman I have ever been with would be happy to see me at ease in the arms of another. What a pity. In any event, I thought about how happy my parents would be to pull out the cradle in the basement. They would exchange one of those knowing smiles capable of bringing a little spice back into a relationship. We did well to hold on to that thing, they would say. And I, who had built a cradle with my own hands, wouldn’t be able to enjoy my son’s admiration when he reached the age to become aware of what his father had done. Just the thought of it made me nervous. I felt judged by a person who in most respects was still not a person. I would have liked to tear that yellow cradle apart with the same fervour I’d built it. Or maybe my son would grow up ignoring his father for years, just as I’d ignored mine. Then one day the thought of his father would come back to betray him, like an unassuming serpent slithering into his mind. He would think about foolish things, about the little magazines his father had bought him after school, the meat broth he’d made for him when he had a fever. I don’t know why, but my father was convinced it could cure all childhood ailments. He had faith in iron and believed that distilled meat would make me a stronger man. The memory of the broth came back to me in a moment of weakness, and I called him to ask how to make it. Instead of curing myself, I prepared the concoction for my girlfriend. When she allowed me to take care of her, I felt like a better man. My father spent all his life taking care of his family, preserving that cradle in the basement, treating it against termites and airing out the space. I would have liked for my son, years from now and far away, to think of me in the same way. I would have liked to see him smile, his heart full of gratitude. I would have liked to hear his hesitant voice asking me for the meat broth recipe.

  Her

  My boyfriend bought me a nice sporty backpack, one you could travel the world with. But I was just going back home. We hadn’
t thought about what to tell people back in our country. Usually you’d go home only if a parent was ill, and even then people look at you suspiciously; they welcome you but smell the odour of defeat. Our defeat – if you want to call it that – would also give us some satisfaction. When we had the courage to tell the whole story, there would be material for many evenings. It was the perfect tale for entertaining people; there was room for moral intervention, which would invite people to give their opinion: If I were you … But that’s absurd … In my book … They could identify bloodlessly with the lives of others. Then someone would take me aside and ask: So how are you?

  I thought about how I would react to hearing our story as an outside observer. What would I have thought about the girl? Well, she’s a girl … What would I have thought about myself and my angry indolence? My time wasted. Hours spent at home. The grimaces of boredom. The inane rituals: tea, the market, walks on the beach. I wasn’t a very likeable person, never mind charming. Even the ghosts that haunted me were piddling little animals.

  So how are you?

  You have a sad look in your eyes.

  You look beautiful, but you have a sad look in your eyes.

  I’d decided to wear that look, and I wasn’t beautiful. One morning, in a fit of madness, I covered all the mirrors in the house. By that point my boyfriend would let me do anything. She’ll get over it, I heard him say in his head. Maybe he’d read some of the manuals – prepartum depression wasn’t so rare. The book would advise some sort of remedy, and he’d surprise me, buy me fish and grill it in the garden. Cleaning up was a drag, and I didn’t lift a finger. He chose that beautiful backpack. In order to shave, he had to pull aside a sheet draped over the mirror, but he did it without complaint. Then he put it back over the mirror. I wanted to fuck, but my body didn’t react. I told myself it was because of those animals buried in the earth. But I didn’t tell him.

  So how are you?

  I’d written to my mother to let her know about my return.

  ‘What great news!’ she said. ‘We’re so happy.’

  ‘You’re supposed to say I’m so happy, Mum.’

  ‘I don’t understand. How long are you staying?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mum. Why not enjoy the good news?’

  I could hear it from a distance, her terror.

  ‘I never get to see you.’

  I’d covered the camera on the computer with a piece of tape. I told her it was broken.

  Him

  When I started to empty the drawers, I reconsidered the girl’s dirty knickers I’d kept for months. It seemed absurd that I could have done something like that. If my girlfriend was nearby, I’d close the drawer quickly, afraid that the smell might contaminate the air between us. Up until that moment I hadn’t yet realised the degree to which rationality had long abandoned us, how all our actions were nothing but responses to the fear of contagion. She wandered around the house like a black ghost, convinced that her body was getting wider every second. She draped herself with a sheet that had a hole for her head. When she went out, she wore a raincoat over the sheet. But she rarely went out, only to go for a walk on the beach, and she came back with the edges of the sheet soaked with water and sand. She even asked me to prepare her things, to fill her backpack with what would fit. She didn’t care about what was left out. When I tried to get her to participate, she swaddled herself under that ratty mantle and stared at me, expressionless. She watched me without saying anything as I folded the little blouses that wouldn’t fit anymore and slipped them into the backpack. There was a sweater of hers that I’d never liked much, a long, grey, professorly cardigan. ‘Should I leave it out?’ I asked her. Total silence. Then she came up to me and pounced on it, as if I were a baby and she had to free me from a rabid mastiff. She tried to tear the cardigan to pieces, which wasn’t easy with just her bare hands and no scissors. All she could do was stretch it out, use her teeth to tear the yarn, then throw it to the floor, exhausted. I picked it up because I suddenly found that woollen heap endearing.

  ‘I begged you not to ask me anything,’ she said. ‘But you just can’t help it, you’re still looking for approval. Why don’t you do what you want and leave me in peace? I don’t want to decide anything, okay?’

  ‘I thought we’d decided together to go away.’

  She looked at me as if the words had come to her several minutes ago, and she was unnerved by their useless echo. The room seemed colonised by our words. They rooted themselves in the furniture, climbed up the walls, and her silence was a fragile screen, just like that sheet she wore.

  ‘If yes, then how do you judge this decision?’ she said scornfully. Then she conceded a smile. ‘Okay, let’s say that’s how it is. We made this great decision together, but I don’t want to decide anything anymore. So go and finish packing and stop hassling me.’

  She sank into the couch, and the black sheet slid like a graceful wave revealing her nude body. She tried to calm the wave and cover herself again in a hurry.

  ‘I don’t want to leave in these conditions,’ I said.

  ‘What would those conditions be? They’re kicking you out of here. I don’t know if you understand. You’re no longer the one dictating the conditions.’

  ‘I’m talking about us two, not the others.’

  She burst out laughing.

  ‘And who would the others be? Do you want to wage war with the whole world? Have you thought about when we return? The others will be waiting for us. There will always be others. What’s your plan? Do you think we’ll always be holding hands and playing footsie under the table? Is that your idea? There they are, they’re coming. Look at how beautiful they are! A parade of faces all curious about our arrival. The peanut gallery getting together to tell us how good we were together. What elegance, look at her dress! You putting your hand on my bare neck … Me tilting my head towards your shoulder. Is that how you imagine it? Do you think anyone will give a shit about us? Just us two? “I’m so proud of my boyfriend!” No, maybe at that point you’ll be my husband – sounds better, no? “I’m so proud of my husband!” You’ll have your little story to tell, for a while it’ll keep you at the centre of attention, so take good care of it. Maybe it will help you pick up another girl. And then that, too, will end. And the girl will find someone else more interesting. And we’ll both be parents, and our child will be someone else too. So I don’t know what you’re talking about. Enjoy this novelty for as long as it lasts. They’re kicking you out of here, they won’t do it again.’

  I smiled at her. More silence.

  ‘And you?’ I finally asked.

  ‘And me what?’

  ‘You’re not being kicked out of here.’

  ‘I know. It’s frustrating. I should have thought about it first, but by now … all I did was kill an animal in the woods.’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s not enough.’

  ‘No, that’s not enough. And I buried a wheelie suitcase.’

  ‘Not enough.’

  ‘I’m too pregnant and depressed to think about seducing a young guy.’

  ‘You want to seduce me?’

  ‘I couldn’t handle it now.’

  ‘But do you want to leave with me?’

  ‘I don’t want anything anymore.’

  ‘That’s fine. So have you decided to leave with me?’

  ‘Yeah, okay, yeah.’

  ‘And you’ll help me pack?’

  ‘No.’

  Her

  At four in the morning I slid out of bed because I couldn’t sleep. The house was shadowed by a greyish, uncertain darkness. Little birds were already awake, busy with their morning song. The scent of a new season came in through the window with the insistence of someone who considers himself welcome until proven otherwise. I closed the window: that was the proof otherwise. The luggage left half packed in the living room reminded me of when I’d a
rrived. There was even more disorder now, like the mess of an adolescent slacker committed only to fucking all day. There were clothes scattered on the floor, little accumulations of sand carried back from the beach, books piled on top of each other as they waited for a final destination. It didn’t look to me like a house that was alive, not even when I first set foot in it. It was welcoming, according to the Miden directives, but now even the sense of hospitality seemed corrupted, like a nice tablecloth that reveals a pattern of stains from meals consumed in solitude. I would wake up in the middle of the night with hunger pangs after dreaming that I’d taken a bite out of a whale calf. In the dream I had no compassion for the calf. It was an ugly animal, deformed, with hard, hostile skin; taking a bite out of it not only sated my oneiric appetite, but even proved my vigour. The fridge contained nothing like whale meat, so I made myself a sad sandwich with cheese and lettuce, then wandered around the house. In one of the last questionnaires to arrive, my boyfriend’s hairstylist – who was also mine – described me as an introverted woman when it came to her own desires. Whereas most people saw me as socially inept, he was one of the few to articulate a deeper understanding of my personality. He could describe in minute detail my hesitation – or rather, my ‘ambiguity’ – every time I went for a haircut. He said I always came with a photo; then I would listen with scant conviction to his advice and stare at myself in the mirror as he proceeded to cut. I’d limit my reaction to grimaces of impatience, after which I would remove the towel from my shoulders and run away from the salon with my hair wet, before he could blow-dry it, pretending I was satisfied and making any excuse to get away as soon as possible. The hairstylist admitted that he’d never managed to conform to the photo, he’d never managed to establish enough trust with me to get me to open up, to discover my real (italics are his) desires with regard to how I saw myself in the photo of another. He didn’t consider me socially inept as much as a person incapable of accessing her real desires and just as incapable of communicating them, so I wound up presenting the image of someone else (‘the photo of a woman with a stylish cut’) in order not to reveal myself. I would never have imagined such attention on his part, and I appreciated it, even though his observations weren’t complimentary. What he wrote was true. I knew the anxiety of the hairstylist’s chair well, looking at myself in the mirror in a paradoxical effort to not look at myself, to dim the lights so I wouldn’t have to confront whatever figure might be blossoming in the reflection. I wouldn’t have known how to judge it, wouldn’t even have wanted to. My sense of dissatisfaction in that chair was always too tenacious, and I needed it, I was terrified by the prospect of looking at myself and being content with my image, reconciled with that image. Those were my real desires, to always keep their fulfilment at a distance, so far away that the desires themselves stopped taking shape.