26 September 2005
Smoke and Mirrors
There are dead people in cupboards in the house, and I am too scared to walk past them because they are inside so well preserved and lifelike that they might be disturbed from their slumber even if I tiptoe softly past. They are everywhere – all the dead ancestors of my husband - hidden in closets I didn’t know existed, hidden beneath the floorboards, hidden behind mirrors, grinning behind my reflection.
An echo reverberates in a still room, blue and black in the moonlit background as my eye cracks open. My scream still hangs in the air, but gradually a heated thumping climbs from my heart to my ears, obscuring the hollow sound. My eyes shut and when I open them again, a soft light seeps into the room.
The bedroom door slides open, and my silent child tiptoes into the room, glancing down at the soft carpet pushing through her toes. The silver bell around her ankle tinkles softly as she approaches my bed and dolefully stares at me.
It’s just the two of us here.
My husband took some samples and has gone to the city to see a colleague, another doctor. All day my child’s eyes glisten strangely and move as though she is following flying dust in the air. Her mouth is mute and refuses to curl into the slightest smile as I run my fingers through her fine black hair and pinch her sides playfully.
Even the house, although it stands like a solid fortress, cannot bear his absence. It sighs throughout the day, dreaming of his return, and moans as though taken by a chill. The cracks in the walls run through the house, along the walls, and on the floor, making spidery lines in the cool tiles in the bathroom and kitchen, loosening dark teak floorboards. By the evening, lamps flicker and glow in sullen moods, resenting his absence.
A massive furnace stands alone in the centre of a white-walled temple compound. I walk up the stairs with a white lotus in my hand, to throw into the flames. I wonder whose funeral it is. At the top of the stairs I see that the way to the furnace is lined with sepia portraits of men who look like my husband, but some are older, and some are younger. They are the paintings in the living room. A pile of dolls lies in front of the furnace, and one by one, the men step from the paintings and each of them pick up a doll and throw it in the fire. A stream of blood runs down my legs, and I throw the white flower in the red that spreads at my feet.
It is the second day he is gone. At the break of dawn, my child stands so close I can hear her fast breath. Her hair hangs straight down, unruffled by sleep. Her eyes are wide, accusing and red-rimmed. She pierces my head, looking for an answer to a question she cannot form.
Today the rain falls in loud walls that crash against the roof. I try to leave my child napping in the afternoon, but the lights flicker on and off in the living room where she sleeps and her scared wails come scampering after me. Sepia prints of her forefathers drop off walls, and the sounds echo through the house, accompanied by thunder. I straddle her mass from a white sling around my neck, and she is silent throughout the day, but I can see her eyes are open through every reflection. I’ve never seen them so wide before, and so focused – she follows something with her eyes.
I am stepping into an elevator with my husband, the white crowns of our marriage still joined together with rope, our hands still dripping with holy water.
-We’ll have a son, he says. A smile on his lips, he kisses me.
But the elevator doesn’t go up. It shakes turbulently, and I can see that it’s made of glass and that a giant shakes it from the outside, listening to the sound I make as my white heels click against the walls. Then it stops, and I’m standing outside the elevator next to my husband as the door opens. I look at myself on steely ground. My white gown is streaked in red and a little doll with long black hair – sprawled next to my head - stares at me with sullen eyes.
It’s the morning now and there is my daughter, standing next to my pillow. The pillow is wet with tears, saliva, and drops of blood. I must have bitten my tongue in my sleep.
I drift to sleep, slumber having evaded me through the night. I wake wondering of my daughter’s whereabouts. The house makes sure I stay far from her – cups fly off shelves. Plates fall from the table. Shelves in bookcases collapse when I hear the silver bell tinkling from room to room in the halls of the house.
I can’t find her. I sit in the living room, defeated. The forefathers smirk down at me from their frames.
I look down at my belly. To my left a silver line of smoke, sharp as a knife, curves into the room from a hole behind a portrait. It runs down the wall, advancing to the floor, climbing over a table leg, then ducking behind the sofa I lie on. To my right, a black-haired doll enters the room, suspended in the air by strings. My husband follows, emerging from the darkness of the next room, and I see it is he who holds the strings. They move toward me until the puppet is suspended in front of me. Her wooden eyes spin wildly around my head, and all I see is a grey haze around my eyes. I shut them. When I open them, my husband has let the puppet collapse to the ground.
I hear a silver bell. My little girl stares at my belly, her eyes wet.
-I can’t stay. Daddy says there’s a boy inside.
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