Authors: Jelena Lengold
Baltimore (10 page)
Some things can never be forgotten. Certain scents. The morning you woke up feeling the perfection of life in your still very young body. My right profile in the bathroom mirror of our family home. When I stood up in the tub and leaned just a tiny bit forward, I was able to see my right profile and my wet hair clinging to my head, as well as a part of my right breast which, back then, stood firmly in an enviable position. I liked the shape of my nose. I felt like it embodied a kind of softness, which, no doubt, people find attractive.
I remember the small box of glue my grandfather used. A plastic box with a small round section for the plastic spatula. We don’t use things like that today. Now we have tubes, scotch tape, staplers. No one uses ordinary glue anymore to attach two pieces of paper. It takes too much time. I remember the smell of the glue and the firmness of the plastic spatula and the little lumps the glue made on the paper, which we then needed to spread around using the spatula. Back then, it seemed like we had our whole lives ahead of us. And everything was in a kind of a calm state of joyous anticipation. Now I know: that was it. That was the moment of beauty. Nothing this beautiful ever happened again.
My grandmother used to dry her own mint and basil on top of armoires. She would place newspapers on top of all the armoires, as well as the guest-room beds, and there she would spread the fragrant herbs. I remember the pleasant chill of those rooms and how the half-dried mint crackled between our fingers and crumbled on the newspapers when we touched it. I remember how opening doors made the newspapers rustle, and disturbed the dry herbs. We walked slowly through these rooms so as not to disturb the drying process. We spoke in hushed voices so that our breaths wouldn’t lift up the newspapers. To keep everything from flying to the floor, we would close the door before opening a window. We all waited until my grandmother slowly and very carefully gathered the herbs from the newspapers and stored them in linen bags, specially sewed for this purpose. Later, we would drink mint tea, which smelled better than anything ever before, and cured us of all ailments.
In another room, my aunt sometimes dried walnuts. While still green, she would place the walnuts on the floor and wait for the hull to dry and fall off.
Many years later, when we sold our house, this was the last thing I saw before leaving those rooms forever: a few green walnuts drying on the wood floor. No one wanted to take them. They were left there, a few walnuts in an empty room. This is also something I will never forget. Though I would prefer to forget because of the pain I feel every time I remember. Nice memories are better. And I always think: What did the people who came to live there do with the few walnuts they got with the house? Did they throw them away? Did they put them somewhere and wait for them to dry, and then eat them while thinking about us? It’s much more likely they simply swept them up with an ordinary broom and threw them away.
I remember the big cold pantry that led to the attic. Shelves. And hundreds of jars with labels on them. I remember my aunt’s handwriting - the sharp, slanted, almost masculine numbers she wrote on the labels, to mark the year, and then glued onto the jars. Such things don’t exist today, or maybe I don’t know they exist, those small jar labels with zigzag edges, similar to stamps. On the walls, pots and pans of various sizes used to hang from cords.
And then, there’s my first typewriter, which had its own cleaning kit under the lid. Cleaning the typewriter was a process filled with various pleasures. I would remove the black build-up from the small holes of every letter, and then clean the needle. Slowly, letter by letter. First the capital letters, then the small letters, and finally the numbers and punctuation. Then, it was time for the brush. It would remove everything the needle left behind. And then, the final moment of pleasure: putting in a sheet of paper and trying it out. The typed letters were clear, clean, and legible.
If you wanted to destroy me today, all you would have to do is place one of these items in front of me: a small box of glue, a typewriter cleaning kit, a drying walnut, jar labels…. If you really wanted to finish me off, this would be enough.
I was still angry with her when I went in for my session the following week. On the drive there, I practiced what I was going to say to her: the words I was going to use, and the tone. I tried to anticipate her reaction.
I brought up those three things.
The smile on my face when I talk about difficult matters.
The way I open up to others. And her question as to whether I opened up to her in my own natural pace.
And finally, the part about expecting a happy ending. I told her no one in his right mind expects to end up in an oncologist’s office or some ditch somewhere. We all somehow hope we’ll find peace and as much contentment as could be expected in our old age. But, we all also know that a fairy tale ending is just an illusion and nothing more.
“It’s not fair,” I said, “for you to label me as someone who naïvely expects a happy ending based only on the ending of a fairy tale I told you.”
However, she turned most of her attention to the other part. The part about opening up.
“Why did that comment upset you so much? I just asked you a question, a simple question: ‘Did you open up to me at your usual pace?’”
Why can’t she understand? This is not a natural situation and the natural pace cannot be applied here!
“Don’t you understand,” I asked, “how much this question can shake a person’s will? You may very likely discourage a person from ever coming back to therapy after a question like that! Therapy is, presumably, just that - a process through which a person is supposed to open up. You have witnessed the amount of humiliation I had to go through in order to completely expose my thoughts and feelings. And then, after all that, you tell me I opened up too much. And, what’s worse, that I might be doing the same thing in my everyday life!”
“I wasn’t judging you. I asked you so many different questions, why is this one such a problem?”
“Because it’s vital. You can’t all of a sudden say I turned out to be naïve because I trusted you. Not after this long process of establishing trust!”
I also wanted to remind her of the soft voice she used to relax my body, the way she made me draw stupid things from my childhood and then cry over them, as she assured me there was no reason to feel shame and that it was all perfectly normal. I wanted to tell her about how she tried to convince me to believe the pillow was, in fact, the baby from my dream and how I had to play the roles of the membrane and the big elephant and the small elephant, and that it was all her idea, not mine! And now, all of sudden, it turns out I opened up too much!
“That’s not what I said.”
“But that’s what it sounded like.”
“All right. I realize I hurt your feelings with my question. What I wanted to say was: Did you open up because you were following your nature or because you thought it was something you should do? I don’t want you to open up only because you think you should, if it’s something you don’t usually do.”
What is she trying to say? That I’m really an obedient child, a goody-goody who’d been told: “Now you’re in therapy and here you have to expose your feelings to the bone, no matter how much it hurts?” Could it be that all that crying earlier brought her to this conclusion?
“Okay,” I said, “but then you should have said so, instead of creating a misunderstanding.”
“What does that critic of yours say to all this, the one from our last session? What does he say about the way you’ve opened up?”
“He doesn’t say anything.”
“And about me?”
“Well… he says that you’re improvising. I disrupted your plan for today’s session by talking about this, and now we’re out of time, so you’re trying to come up with a way we can spend the remaining twenty minutes or so.”
She laughed:
“That’s partly true. But it’s also important that we discuss the feelings you came in with today. How do you usually express anger?”
Ha! Ask my husband, he’ll tell you. He can also show you the scar on his forehead, if you’re that curious.
“With explosive, short-lived outbursts. I get over it very quickly, unless it’s something really big. But the fact that I don’t know how to forgive someone who really hurt me is a much bigger problem. I realized some time ago that forgiveness is one big deception of Christianity. At least in my case.”
“Which person in your life couldn’t you forgive?”
“You already know. I told you about it. But this has nothing to do with that story.”
She made that face of hers, ‘I know everything and I can sympathize with anything,’ and said:
“This has nothing to do with me, this anger you’re feeling.”
Well, now she made me really angry!
“Of course it does. I can do you a favor, if that’ll make it easier for you, and tell you it’s really projected anger against my father, mother, a former lover, or whoever, but it wouldn’t be the truth. This is exclusively your doing. Don’t tell me you’re incapable of making a mistake?”
“What is on the other side of your anger?”
Sometimes, she really confuses me with her cross-examination. Really, what is the opposite of anger?
“Well, I guess some kind of passiveness, an inability to fight back.”
“May I say that you’re very sensitive?”
“Of course you may. I’d even feel better if you did.”
“Why?”
“I always thought of myself as being more sensitive than most people, but then it occurred to me that this kind of thinking might be overly narcissistic. Everyone is sensitive in their own way. But, if you also think I’m sensitive, in a way that confirms my assumption….”
“Well then, from now on, I’ll have to watch what I’m saying to avoid hurting your feelings.”
“No, you don’t. That would put a strain on you. You can say whatever you like, but allow me the right to react in accordance with my feelings. Like now, for example.”
“Of course you’re entitled to that. In fact, therapy is a combination of mutual understanding and confrontation. Going through these two processes leads to authenticity. But… you mentioned most people. How do you see yourself compared to most people?”
“With regard to what?”
“Anything.”
“You can’t generalize. I’m average in some things, in others above average, and still others below average. I really can’t answer that question.”
“Yes, that’s a fair and reasonable answer. But, if you observe yourself as a whole, couldn’t you say whether you were above or below average, or just average?”
“You’re forcing me again to say something I’ll feel bad about later. All right, if we’re talking about things that are important to me, if we’re talking about spiritual growth, I think I’m a little above average, but for God’s sake, people don’t say things like that out loud and why are you making me do it!?”
She clasped her hands in her lap. Here come the conclusions.
“You see, we’ve been talking about your anger for almost an hour and you can’t find it in yourself to forgive me.”
“That’s not true. There’s nothing to forgive here. I don’t doubt your good intentions. This is more of an intellectual problem, which I wanted to discuss with you, than anger. You called it anger.”
“Nevertheless, you can’t forgive me… and this sets a new boundary between us.”
Could it be that this was hard on her?
“What are you doing now?” I asked. “Am I supposed leave here with a guilty conscience as well?”
“Of course not,” she laughed. “However, if it bothers you that you have problems with forgiveness, we can work on that.”
“Well, it might be good to let go of some of my anger. It’s a little absurd to be angry with someone all your life because of something that happened long ago. It’s a heavy load to bear.”
“I agree.”
Then she said something and I got over my anger in an instant, if I ever really was angry with her:
“If I were your friend, I would now be able to engage in this conversation in a very different manner, meet you head-on and play the power game a little. However, since I’m your therapist, this confrontation is very precious to me.”
Aha! So I see! You could knock me down if it weren’t for the code of ethics. You could easily beat me if you wanted to.
“If your goal was to remove my mask of excessive politeness, then you have certainly succeeded,” I said on the way out.
“Do you think it’s off now?”
“Good God! I’ve taken off only one of them. This is only the beginning….”
Something truly incredible happened!
I tuned into Baltimore at 2:10 in the afternoon, like I do every day, expecting Edgar to show up. And he did, at 2:15 as usual. He stood at the bus stop with his briefcase in hand, like he always does. He was wearing the blue jacket I’ve grown accustomed to. Underneath it, I saw the dark blue pullover I also knew well.
Then suddenly, Edgar turned around for the first time, and looked straight at me! He was really looking at the camera, but it was just as if he was looking at me. First he turned around, but then, it appeared as though he realized there was a camera there, moved toward it a step or two and looked up. For an instant, our eyes met. Edgar smiled. He really smiled. He stood there for a while longer examining the object holding up the camera. This was the first time I was able to actually see his face. I had an uneasy feeling that he could see me as well, that he literally knew I was sitting here, watching him as he waited for the bus. Edgar was looking right at me and then, he scratched his head. He smiled into the camera again and then looked around worried, I guess, that somebody might see what he was doing. So, Edgar also does crazy things when he thinks nobody’s watching!? Aha!
At that moment, his bus arrived. Edgar moved toward the front door of the bus and, just when I thought it was over, when his figure was already in the bus, for only a split second, I saw Edgar secretly waving his fingers behind his back. And that was that. The bus was gone.
Edgar was probably just playing around. Or not. Or he assumed that there was a good chance someone was watching him at that moment, considering the enormous number of maniacs sitting at their computers. So he waved and smiled. To whoever. But why today? Why to me?
I stopped believing in coincidences long ago. I think there is a sequence of events that leads us from one point to another. In our inability to control this journey, we call it coincidence. But, of course, there is no such thing as a coincidence.
You could say it was nothing more than a coincidence when, one day, fifteen years ago, I lost my scarf on the 16e bus that ran from Zeleni Venac to Block 45. I got off before the last bus stop when I suddenly realized I didn’t have my scarf, and it wasn’t just any scarf. My mother bought it in Rome, and after having to talk her into loaning it to me, I lost it. No, that was unacceptable. I ran like crazy in-between the buildings to the last stop because I knew the bus would be parked there for a while before starting off again on its route. When I got there, the bus was already starting to leave and I threw myself in front of it, forcing it to stop. I ran in and the scarf was there. Meanwhile, I was completely out of breath so I sat down thinking, all right, I’ll just ride the bus for a while until I catch my breath and then I’ll get off. That’s when I realized there was a young man sitting in the seat next to me. Don’t worry. I won’t drag on. To cut the story short: the young man sitting there, is my husband. Now you tell me if there’s such a thing as a coincidence. Was it a coincidence that I ran the way I did, that the scarf slid off my shoulders as if, at some point, it came alive and decided to go a separate way; that it was the last stop, when the bus driver takes his break, giving me enough time to catch up? I don’t think so… there’s also the other part of the story, his part. He got on the wrong bus. He wasn’t familiar with this part of the city. So when he realized his mistake, he decided to ride the bus to the last stop and then go back and transfer onto the right bus in another part of the city. He says he saw me while I was still wearing the scarf. But I didn’t even look at him. Didn’t even notice him. Then, I got off the bus and he noticed the scarf lying on the floor next to my seat. He says that he just stared at the scarf in anticipation. He didn’t know what he was waiting for, but he waited. And when I rushed into the bus again, he knew he had been given a second chance. Or the first and only. Because there’s no such thing as a coincidence.
This is why I have to see what’s so important about this day, the day Edgar finally looked into the camera, smiled at me, and waved.
For breakfast, I had cheese and crackers with hot chocolate.
I started the car on the first try.
I stopped at a crosswalk to let an old woman cross the street and thought I was being not only civilized, but also generous. It wasn’t as if I had to stop. She looked at me, I gestured with my hand for her to go, she looked at me one more time, as if she wanted to make sure we were in agreement, and then started crossing the street apprehensively. Needless to say, another driver was already behind me, impatiently honking his horn. But I was enjoying the fact that the old woman was walking slowly and that I had a perfectly good reason for annoying him. I waited for her to step onto the other curb before I continued driving, slowly and without hurrying.
What else happened today, before 2:15? Did I tell you? I work in a travel agency. People come in, tell me where they would like to go, I check to see if there are any available seats and then sell them the plane tickets. Or I make reservations for them on flights of their choice. It’s mostly a pleasant job. All you have to do is search the computer. And answer the phone. Yes, it gets hectic at times. Most people travel during the holidays and in the summertime. That’s when it gets difficult to convince them that there are no more available seats on the flights going to the seaside. But, for the most part, it’s a laid-back job.
Anyway, a man came in today who happened to be looking for a plane ticket to Baltimore. I usually don’t even look up, and even if I do, I don’t think I could give you a description afterwards. If the police ever came to ask me to describe the man who came in that morning at 9:15 to buy a ticket to Paris, like in the movies, I wouldn’t be able to tell them if he was twenty or fifty years old, tall or short, bald or with a baseball cap on his head, if he was wearing glasses or had a mustache. They all look the same to me, if you know what I mean. They tell me what they want, and I check in the computer and write out the tickets.
But I looked at this man, because he said he was going to Baltimore. I paused and looked at him. He was a little over fifty, slightly overweight, wore an expensive suit, had grayish sideburns, and a sweaty forehead. He’s probably going there on business, I thought to myself. The only unusual thing about him was his eyes. Very dark and very focused.
“Baltimore?” I asked.
“Yes, Baltimore,” said the man, still gazing at me with those eyes.
“Why are going to Baltimore?”
“It’s my turn,” he said.
“Is it true that it’s always raining in Baltimore?”
“That’s a lie, of course. Just like everything else you’re going to hear about Baltimore from other people. Someone else’s impressions have nothing to do with the way you experience things.”
“Do you know Edgar?”
“As you well know, Edgar is a big loner. No one can say they really know Edgar. You probably have the best chance of getting to know him.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Nothing. I’m in a hurry. Sell me the ticket so I can go.”
No. We didn’t have this conversation. Or did we? I’m not completely sure anymore. We could have had this conversation had it not been for those two women hanging over my head and babbling about yesterday’s game show in which someone almost became rich. I just sold him the ticket to Baltimore, via Munich, and after neatly placing the change in his expensive crocodile leather wallet, he left.
It was after this that Edgar looked into the camera and smiled at me. Coincidence? I think not.
