(Short story, December 2016)
"No matter how much you feed the wolf, he keeps looking at the forest."
– Ilse Lehiste
We need to prepare well in advance. For months nothing else matters but the party of the year. I will be introduced to all those important people, ambassadors, politicians, artists, socialites, business men and women from the windy heights of society. He reminds me every day how lucky I am to be taken there in his arm. I will be photographed to death, and such an event can't be taken lightly like any kind of mundane task.
Early summer is moist heat dribbling from the maw of the sky. The windows need to be kept shut till afternoon and outside the asphalt melts and sizzles underneath the shoes. The ocean might offer a relief but I need to stay inside and study the art of speaking eloquently.
When he comes home in the evening I need to show him I'm more than the messy child straight out of the concrete wombs of harsh nothern towns without sunlight. Before him I streched my limbs like a newborn and babbled in a language no one seemed to quite get. I wore jeans to a night club full of coctail dresses. Women looked at me with gentle amusement as I was not considered a rival, and men asked if I was a lesbian. It's quite flattering, to be honest. I look like your average Walmart person at best, and at worst like Nick Nolte in his mugshot.
It might be a mystery how I managed to bag myself a handsome classy man like him. If you think of me as a human it makes absolutely no sense. If you imagine me as a dog it all falls into place. Everybody loves dogs, and I certainly fit the childlike role of a cute little puppy you benevolently laugh at.
At first he kissed me with his eyes open, like afraid I'd bite his face off. I don't blame him. My mouth is a dangerous dark cave. Little kids shouldn't enter without a guardian. That probably sounds something a pedophile might say but I mean it in a metaphorical way. And because of misunderstandings like this I need to be trained a bit. By teaching me some manners he is only doing what any careful dog owner would do. You leash the little beast, you tame it. It's an act of love towards the animal as well, and when you're dealing with a girl with verbally sharp and therefore socially lethal fangs you should pratise being more safe than sorry. Beyoncé was almost right; If you liked it then you should've put a muzzle on it.
He has adopted Cesar Millan's holy trinity when it comes to training me: exercise, discipline and affection. He has bought me a library of etiquette books and introductions to groomed behaviour. I walk a straight line with heavy book piles on top of my hide. "Good girl", he praises me when I perform my world-class air kisses I've been studying the whole day in front of the mirror. I make him laugh often but he forbids me to unleash my hilarious (if you ask me) political incorrectness on a public place.
He is good to me. He feeds me and takes me out regularly. He brings me flowers and chocolate. I have no need to bite the hand that feeds - as the hand that feeds doesn't belong to one of those creeps trying to turn me into a bead-ridden meatball and future star of my 600 lbs life. He is just making me a bit more presentable, and that kind of controlling is enjoys a collective acceptance. Sure there are films like Titanic where the wolf-hearted girl wants to runaway with Leonardo DiCaprio but who wouldn't?
In bed the good girls get to scream but not too loud that the neighbours won't hear. The bed is an alternative reality inside of a metaphorical soap bubble that bursts way too easily. I can feel it splinter when he comes, his body so stiff and then relaxed. Like death throes of a small universe whose lifespan of 23 seconds are nothing but a bittersweet memory of almost there, honey, almost there. Almost home.
Almost is a big word for me. I'm almost there and almost done with my studies when he knocks on the door after a long day in a tailor-made suit. It's so hard to be decent when he's not around. Alone I fall into my bad habits of neglecting my basic need, gobbling down an excessive amount of useless information, rationalizing away my feelings, procrastinating, plotting world domination and escape, daydreaming too much and then having troubles falling asleep in the night and trying to ignore the crazy moon stalking me like a pervert behind the curtains. Call me a philantrophist for the pervs but that gloomy stare makes me want to take of all my clothes and bask in the cold light of lonely hours. It's certainly not an urban legend that freaks dance naked in the moonlight.
I lie through my muzzle that my day has been very productive. I smile like Hannibal Lecter and he agrees to take me out tonight. He changes his suit to something more comfortable yet still classy and asks me to comb my hair. When we leave the apartment I look like a doll still in its package but ruin it all by rolling down the window down as we drive through the darkling highway of the steadily beating city. Such an exemplary pulse would make any doctor proud whereas my petulant heart is like Hamlet on loop, forever asking whether to beat or not to beat.
Summer has softened the streets so tenderhearted it feels like walking on clouds instead of concrete. Everybody has gathered to the streets, smiling and socializing with each other. People here sure know how to come together and make the best out of their days. Their being doesn't scream survival but actual enjoyment of life. I sure am envious of people of the South, their eternal summer that hosts daily parties on the streets, its tender hands that greets you so softly. Those hands certainly have some manners I so desperately try to practise, unlike the cold winds of the North that slap you in the face when you get so depressed looking at the walls that you just have to leave the house to go to the local supermarket to buy some rope.
He smiles at me as we stroll along the beach boulevard. It feels good to have someone be so proud of me that they actually want to hold my hand in public, unlike in the North where the worst crime is to sit next to someone in public transport. When I tell these stories of social retardness he just laughs how we lack character and ardour. People of the South sure are portrayed so passionate and fiery but still, there's nothing quite like the passion that survives in the brutal coldness of the North.
Everything is so tender and conveniently close here, you can just strech out your arm and take the fruit staight from the tree. The days are so light they barely leave a mark; it makes me miss the harshness that carves all the bad bits out of me. Corny as I am, I confess to needing a good beating every once in a while.
I miss the purity of that feeling when icy water hits me like a thousand small knives; it's like cupping, taking the bad blood out. That harshness is a reality that doesn't leave you like the summers in my land where it's debatable if they even arrive every year. Summers I'm not used to having, only losing. They're like a man who doesn't love you enough to stay. Summer days are full of melancholy and false hope but winter you can trust. The impossible distances between people, the darkness like a canvas for your steaming breath, the icy fields where nothing but loneliness grows, the pitch black mornings and evenings when I can't see ahead but still swear something is moving in the dark, the cold bed where the sheets hunt me like snakes and the gloomy light penetrating through venetian blinds. I even miss that insomnia so advanced it works like a skilled carpenter carving crescents underneath my eyes, the longing for a touch that is at least a bit human-like and the relief when you encounter that rare pair of eyes not looking down but straight at you, the crazy moon glistening above it all.
I feel I'm zoning out again but his hand is warm and the sea is full of golden drops of sunset.
The awaited night arrives like an annoying guest when you're still in your underwear and have make up only on the other eye.
I'm wearing a satin dress that matches my muzzle keeping all my racial slurs and offensive jokes at bay. Compared to other women I could lose a few but I feel like it was a better investement to shed some dirt of my personality instead of kilos of my body. I'm still slim enough to fit through the doors but with by bad mouth the guard would have stopped me already at the entrance. A more industrious woman would have of course studied the etiquette books on the treadmill but I didn't yet get rid of all my excuses.
We circle around designer dresses and suits, shiny shoes and heels as high as your average college drop-out, endless dance floors and huge windows behind which expensive cars are waiting and probably Cinderella's pumpkin carriage.
He nonchalantly strikes a conversation with a couple that radiates warmth like the sun. I feel my cheeks blushing and armpits sweating, praying to the deodorant god to not fail me now. The conversation flows so effortlessly, main reason for that being that I stay almost completely mute.
The woman looks around 8 months pregnant or like me after my nightly binges. He congratulates them on the baby and keeps the conversation nice and short. I nod along and try my best not to give birth to a rambling I feel is kicking inside of me harder than that surely cute baby in her womb. He puts his arm softly around me when I scream a bit too loud how extraordinarily happy I am that these strangers managed to produce yet another baby to this overpopulated world.
I smile and wish for an epidural to numb all my inner monologues that at the moment focus on the awkward pains of being a woman: menstrual cycles, contraceptive pills, sky-high libido during ovulation, pregnancy tests burning in the top drawer and human chorionic gonadotropin, motherhood, childhood, average age of first-time mothers, sexuality, gender roles, expectations and models, bra size charts and left breast bigger than the right ones, the perfect foundation and eye brows shaped like bird's wings, the 20-year cycle of fashion trends, mothers, daughters, sisters, the heavy chains of generations like chackles, daddy issues and disturbed self-image, flattering angles, red pigment ruining that perfect hydrogen peroxide blonde and silver shampoo, hair removal cremes, waxing, ingrown hair, razor blades and zebra hands, bodies destroyed by eating disorders, broken nails and hair falling out in clumps, amenorrhoea and the cry of relief when your periods return after years of absence, multiple orgasms and female ejaculation, clitoris, U, A and G spots some men find as easy to find as you average American locating Iraq.
Ramblings are a definitive no-no and you should always wrap up your monologues if people are staring at you for too long. You should never make people stare at you, only glance. Freaks are stared at, elegant people are the ones who make you turn your head imperceptibly only after they passed you.
I'm borderline stared at. It almost feels as if there's a competition to spot the odd one out and you'll win an extravagant price at the end of the evening. I want to hide in the ladies' room again but after so many visits I'm already afraid people think I have a diarrhea. All those heavy and expensive books have failed me, or I have failed them. I don't howl or bite but I am not singing like a nightingale either. I am mute and awkward. Despite my failings he remains so wonderful and reminds me that first times are always hard. The frustrating distance between theory and practice is something you only catch up by living.
I want to dive into icy water, get the bad feelings out, but there's a paradise outside. When I step out the the summer instantly wraps its arms around me like an old friend. I feel like an angsty teenager and push its arms away without saying a word. Summer still smiles like a patient mother waiting for me to come back when I run back inside and desperately scan for a place to hide.
In the fear of the possible diarrhea suspicions I decide to sneak upstairs. The cheery but still elegant music follows me for a while and then leaves me alone as I hastily climb the stairs. The halls upstairs are long and quiet, and the walls are painted with a baby blue color that soothes my panicky mind. The night is getting darker behind the windows and I decide to sit on a huge windowsill to catch my breath.
I listen to the broken melody of my heart that jumps like a moody gramophone. The songs are full of melancholic longing that echoes there in the background of all the cheery tracks of this world. I can't go downstairs yet. It's too hard to focus on a new rhythm when the old one still beats so loud.
I am not leaving either to follow the sad songs of my heart. I'm offered a place in the sun but so far I'm settling for the one by the window. It's not an unusual place for women, the windowsill. I think of the prostitutes in the neon light windows of Amsterdam waiting for another customer or maybe just a better tomorrow, Stepford wives looking out the kitchen window to be ready to greet their husbands, princesses in their castles waiting for their knights in shining armours, teenage girls who are told the windowsill is a far as they could get.
I don't think I'm waiting for anyone as much as I'm trying to forget my roots. The longing makes me weird at parties and hurts my heart but I'm not ready to give up yet. Maybe I'm born with this nature, or maybe it's something like Maybelline that I can just wipe away with the right sanitary towels. At least I read that by transforming our habits we can change the patterns inside of our brain. Habits aren't our destiny. I just need more persistance to grow up to be the elegant woman he wants by his side, not by his window. He sees so much potential in me but I remind him that he still needs to live with who I am now. He might know how to train an animal but Mother Nature holds a leash stonger than any man-made one.
I'm deep in my thoughts when I suddenly hear approaching steps behind me. I turn around from the window and see a waiter walking towards me with a tray half full of glasses. I want to explain to him that I will not bite, just get close, no need to be shy, it's perfectly safe. But I don't need to. He keeps walking towards me as if I wasn't some kind of a wolf by the window, howling after the woods.
"Madam", he nods and smiles. "Thank you", I reply like a real lady and take one glass in my hand. The waiter exits the scene and I sigh out of relief. I made it, I think I fooled him of my normality. I should probably address my thank yous to the make up team that upgraded me from Walmart to Wall Street but I still consider this my small victory. First the waiters, then the rest of the world. And eventually I will even fool myself into believing that I belong here.
I take a sip of the champagne and look out of the window. The cold waters and dark woods are beating somewhere behind the endless summer. There so much in this world it would be crazy to miss the old one. Just a few more minutes to calm my heart and I will join the rest of the party.
There is food and love and shelter downstairs. Just a few more minutes and I'll forget about the world behind the window. And, as I read from the etiquette guide books, it would be so ungrateful not to.
Ei kommentteja:
Lähetä kommentti