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The Invisible Woman
ASK ME WHAT DISTURBED ME THIS MUCH. How could I describe it…? The other day in my apartment I met a person I didn’t know. I headed out and stopped. There was a grey-haired, blue-eyed woman in front of me. She was watching me, stunned, without a blink. A strange woman, and yet somehow familiar, surrounded by greyish mist. I thought I saw a ghost. I didn’t recognise myself at first. First of all, my hair is not grey, look. I dye it every month with L’Oréal’s light blonde. And there are many other hues too, some sounding crazily appealing: champagne, strawberry, cognac, like something you’d eat or drink, but I prefer this one, I’ve been using it since forever. I dye my hair alone, I got used to it all these years since retirement. But it’s not so much about the hair, this colour is light enough to look grey in the gloom. It was the face that scared me. You see, this face was wrinkled like an old woman’s. It was as though I saw my older sister, who’s been dead for at least ten years. We were very much alike. I couldn’t have seen my dead sister! It took me a moment or two to get a grip and realise that this woman staring at me was not a spectre, but my own reflection in the mirror. And the realisation that this was me shocked me even more. Why did I think I was standing before an apparition?
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Well, it was already late, it was dark, I could only see this person’s contours. She somehow seemed to be… dispersing? Like when you look at yourself in a very old mirror, corroded by brown stains. The stains spread and entire parts become blurry, the rest of the image floats, the edges are dissipated, evanescent. A bit frightening. It’s easy to say that this is not the real image of a person, and yet, somehow it is. That is how the others see you, or don’t see you. Like a ghost. And the very person too, I saw that, somehow seems to wane, become transparent. I thought this unknown person, this strange woman, somehow entered my apartment because I forgot to lock the door. This happens, more and more often, I simply forget to lock. And then it dawned on me that this was me, the way the others see me. My own image. The mirror has always been there, in the hallway, right by the front door. A big, old mirror, it belonged to my late mother, from their old apartment. With a worm-eaten baroque frame. I had already forgotten it was there, so many useless things have piled up over the years. I keep planning to clean up thoroughly, throw out the junk, but I haven’t got the strength. I am tired. I might have removed the coat from the hanger or the curtain from the window and uncovered the hidden mirror. But I noticed it only when I saw in it this strange person – myself. After this encounter, all mirrors became a real nightmare. I’m looking at this person standing before me always anew. I wonder how it is possible not to see, not to recognise oneself immediately. Is it possible to see oneself so differently? True, my glance in the direction of this person is usually casual, quick, nonchalant, superficial, like glancing at a passer-by. But, for the love of God, I almost crashed into myself! I was walking straight ahead to the
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woman approaching me without showing the slightest intention of moving aside. I stopped only a few feet away and it was only then that in this woman I saw myself. The way others see me. If they see me at all. This encounter with myself, the way others see me, disturbed me over another reason, too. It reminded me of something I haven’t seen in a while. Of the gaze of a man. No, not a particular man! Something similar happens when I walk the streets and see an unknown man walking towards me. The sidewalk is narrow and you must inevitably pass each other by. When two people pass by, they usually instinctively look into each other’s eyes. Unless they really want to avoid it, but why should they? Their glances meet, it’s inevitable, so I believed. Perhaps because I was used to this. Say, he is middle-aged, his sideburns are already grey, but still he couldn’t be your son, although he is younger. And then you catch his eye. He’s looking at you, and you can tell he doesn’t see you. He is looking through you, like you’re made of glass. You can feel his gaze piercing through you. Of course, your first thought is that he must be some sort of a madman, a somnambulist crashing into you. He is moving like you’re not even there, like his whole body will run you over, not just his gaze. Still, at the very last moment he passes you by as though an indefinite object came in his way, a disturbance, a living obstacle. I didn’t recognise myself, which is terrible enough, and now others cannot see me as well! I became an obstacle, that’s it. And this is only the beginning.
The beginning of what?
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Well, of people looking through me. Or, if their gaze does stop on me, of feeling their pity, sometimes I might even say disgust. I feel more and more invisible, disappearing. Yes, of course I exist, but what does this mean if I’m not receiving acknowledgment of my existence from others? If they act like they don’t even see me? I live by a big crossroads. Sometimes, if the traffic is light and in daylight, I dare cross the street without waiting for the green light. I shouldn’t be doing this because the cars drive fast and they could easily run someone over if they are crossing the street with the red light on for pedestrians. It happened, the drivers just didn’t see me, they didn’t slow down. This experience frightened me. Naturally, I can’t run anymore, nor I want to. Sometimes I’m standing at this crossroads and watching drivers braking when they see a mother with a stroller crossing the street, a woman with a baby, young people. I am the same weight as the girl who crossed the street with the red light, right on the same spot. But still, the driver acted as though I wasn’t there. He was driving so fast that I had to step back on the curb. Of course, it was not the same driver that pulled over for the girl. But still…
Ask me how I explain this to myself. I seem to be discovering a new dimension of existence. I exist and I don’t exist at the same time because I’m… fading. Maybe there is some sort of custom of not telling older women that they are in fact turning into glass?
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First the blurred one, and then the one completely transparent. Their size means nothing, their height and weight are insignificant. Clothes too. It is not exactly like not existing, more like living in another dimension. Everything is the same, and yet – it is not. People treat you differently, and you, the invisible woman, are supposed to adapt. It’s just that I can’t seem to do it. Moreover, it took me quite some time to even realise I’m becoming invisible. In the shop, in the bank, at any counter, in the street… It took me a lot of time to notice I’m disappearing, I first saw this in other people’s eyes. In fact, somehow the hardest part was that I saw myself just as clearly as before. I am aware of the change, but I’m still a visible and real, living person, although I’ve grown old. I thought to myself, if I now exist in this invisible form, maybe this transparent thing I’m turning into is – pure spirit? Yes, I’m asking, even though I know you don’t have the answer. You might have noticed that I don’t use the word “aging”. This is a process, at first quite a slow and imperceptible one. At some point it becomes faster, you only notice it then, perhaps because someone else is already noticing it, and all of a sudden – you are old. You say I’m fostering a negative image of myself? No, no! The problem is that I don’t have such a negative image, I simply don’t see myself the way others see me. Definitely not like some unknown woman in the mirror. Or an apparition. Or a transparent ghost. It’s the
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others, it’s their perception. When other people stop noticing you, soon you stop seeing yourself anymore.
Do you want to know when I started feeling that I was changing, that I was growing old? First it was my body that changed. I noticed it first when I was buying new clothes. All of a sudden nothing seemed to fit. Or better yet, I felt as though I was trying on someone else’s clothes. And it was only yesterday that flattering, body-conscious dresses and T-shirts fit me quite well. How come there is nothing left anymore that might suit me? Everything became somehow too tight and too short, somehow inappropriate. I no longer had the strength to try anything on. It became boring, pointless. Spending hours going through stacks of clothes to get to something you like. Furthermore, I dreaded the changing rooms, the neon light and the tight space to take off your clothes while trying to avoid looking at your tired, languished body, at the weight you gained, at the saggy skin. No, no, this was not my current mood. On the contrary, I was unnerved by the fact that nothing seemed to fit me. I started hesitating before entering the shops whose employees until yesterday used to greet me friendly, since I spent a lot on myself and it showed. Now, if I do dare to come in, the young saleswoman scans me to see if I’m only going to take her time. These beautiful girls are not kind. They are arrogant, they make me painfully aware of my age. At my age I’m supposed to be more confident, I say to myself. Don’t let some cheeky kid prevent you
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from shopping. As long as you have money, you’re the queen. But it doesn’t help. I feel bad, I no longer shop. I used to indulge myself in a beautiful pair of shoes. But when I could no longer walk in high heels, I realised that elegant low-heel pumps are quite a rarity. I never noticed it before, I felt like there were all sorts of shoes and they were all stylish. When my feet started to hurt – madam, your arches are falling, said the orthopaedist – I started wearing trainers. I remember when a friend of mine showed me her bunions one summer. Back then she was only 56. Your arches are falling, I told her, and she looked at me in bewilderment. It’ll pass, she just waved her hand. It didn’t pass, the pain became stronger and stronger, all until she also started wearing comfortable flats. But you asked when my invisibility, how I call it, began. All until recently I’d say it began with the encounter with the unknown woman in the mirror, with not recognising myself. Thinking about it today, I’d say it was a longer process. It would call this process the disappearance chronicles. It is strange how particular parts of a person seem to gradually disappear.
It the face the first to disappear? No way, it’s not the face! From today’s point of view I know the face is the last to disappear. You don’t peer into it, but you see it, you meet it on a daily basis. And the people around you, they still look only at your face.
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The first invisibility symptoms begin in bed, not on the street. In your master bedroom. My husband and my invisibility are close-knit. It began on my 63rd birthday. He had a few. Later, in the bedroom, while I was undressing, he said I was fat. That was the word he used, fat! He had never said this before, never used the word. It was not like he himself was skinny. He said this like he just then – after a while – looked at my body, my aging body. And it seemed unfamiliar. When he did recognise it after all, as though with these words he both acknowledged and forsook it. Rejected, that is how I felt then. I still remember the horrific feeling of shame that overwhelmed me as I was standing naked before him who saw me that way. I remember, I was in my menopause and I got a little gut I could easily camouflage with clothes. It happens to all women. I couldn’t have had more than 10 pounds extra, but I looked a lot better than him, with that huge potbelly. I know, I should have been on a diet, lose the damn weight. Taken gym classes or yoga… I should have taken better care of myself. But I didn’t have the time back then, I was still working, I had an interesting job and friends. Furthermore, was he taking care of himself? No. He found it normal that I was taking care of myself and he wasn’t. It felt like a slap in the face, although he never actually slapped me.
I felt more and more like a piece of furniture, a useful piece, which only occasionally speaks, and more often listens, cooks, saves him from loneliness
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and depression. My husband was a good man, but mostly interested in books rather than people. He didn’t quite keep his feet on the ground. I was his only link with reality until he died, suffering from dementia. And so, that dreadful night I withdrew to my side of the bed. He stretched out his arm to draw me close and embrace me like he always did before sleep. He knew he had said something bad. I didn’t mean it, he whispered. He didn’t mean it, but he said it because that was how he saw me. I remained on my side of the bed. Don’t despair over him, it’s no use, I said to myself. But also a time comes when we are too old and too intelligent to suffer over such words. At that point I was very rational and composed. But the pain I felt remained, it’s still here, I can almost feel it, like a small lump in my chest. On my left side, of course. Here, in the heart area. Like a pebble in the shoe. I no longer wished to be intimate with him. Yes, we tried, several times. He occasionally showed a slight interest, more like a habit of sorts. And I responded, also out of habit. But I no longer changed in the bedroom, but in the bathroom, I traded lace and silk underpants for high-waist cotton ones, to me this sort of intimacy was over. Roughly around the age of sixtyfive. Also, it no longer felt comfortable. At a certain point, intercourse became painful. When my gynaecologist gave me a lubricant (“the epithelia seems very dry”), it was already late, I no longer needed it. We lived together out of love which turned into solidarity, out of habit which became an obligation and out of fear of being alone. But the fact that
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we didn’t know how to help each other better bothers me. He could no longer protect me from fear, from pain. Can anyone? No one touches me anymore, except the hands of doctors, hairdressers, dentists, but their touch is not gentle, they are only here to fix things.
Recently I waited for hours for a hospital examination, an ordinary eye check-up because of my cataract. I remember, I was sitting completely hopeless among an equally hopeless crowd. Our charts were in doctors’ offices, in the hands of nurses who came out every now and then and called out people loudly. I was already glued to the seat when my turn came. The check-up was short and only confirmed what I felt anyway, some sort of crawling blindness. After so much sitting and waiting and the outspoken confirmation that a part of my body was failing me, I felt half-dead. I could hardly wait to get home. I need more and more time to shake off depression and I sometimes cannot do it alone. I need a human being to whom I can tell that I’m afraid of blindness, that I’m tired and that I can no longer waste time in waiting rooms to hear what I already know, that there is no cure. I called a friend. She listened to my not too long lament, my attempt at describing this feeling of sinking, suffocating, vanishing… After that I felt even worse. What did I expect? What was someone supposed to tell me to make me feel better? I thought a tub full of hot water with scented bubbled might relieve the spasm I was feeling in the lower part of my body, but opening the tap and waiting for the tub to fill was simply too exhausting.
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Instead I lay down on the couch, covered my head and cried. There was no one to at least hold my hand, even though I know there’s no consolation. The experience of choking in fear is not transferrable anyway.
When my husband died, I spent days washing the curtains. Not only washing, but starching and ironing them as well. I had never done that before. Never washed curtains in my life! It was like a purification ritual. I was burying my past, my youth. I slowly crossed the thin cotton fabric with lace trimmings with the iron. But I never hanged them back. It has been a while that watching TV in the evening replaced going out with friends at a café or a theatre. No, I don’t read like I used to. My sight is deteriorating. I don’t go out, especially at night, the darkness bothers me. I’m somehow more interested in the lives of others, but not the real people, but those in TV shows or films. When I wake up from the slumbering gaze at the screen, I feel hollow and this hollowness in my head is filled with beneficial gauzy contents which lull me to sleep and stop me from thinking. I wonder why I’m saying all this to you. I was disturbed by this encounter with myself in the mirror. My friend took me to you, for you to calm me down, I guess. But how could you even help me at all? Yes, only by listening… Or could you perhaps prescribe me some pills?
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Cleaning Up
Mother died on Monday, 4 March, early in the morning. She died in the hospital, exactly where she didn’t want to die. Please, don’t let me die in the hospital, she used to say. Promise me. I promised, of course. She hated this hospital and tried to avoid it as much as she could. Because her whole lot died there, her father, mother, husband and son. It was the only hospital in town. I let her down, but there was no way I could stop it. On Friday evening the ambulance took her from the nursing home to the hospital. She had trouble breathing, a nurse later told me, but she was fully conscious. They probably didn’t want her to die in the hospice of the nursing home where she lived the past few weeks. My cousin, who lives hear the hospital, came to see her straight away. A doctor, a young woman, told her that the test results were fine for her age and condition and that they would probably send her back to the nursing home the following day. But they still kept her in the pulmonary ward for a specialist examination. On Saturday she said that Mum looked exhausted and barely spoke. A nurse told her that she had soup for lunch, which seemed comforting. We spoke on the phone. Mum murmured indistinct words. Later I found out that she had an oxygen mask on her face. I was nervous, as always when we spoke. I can’t understand you! – I said angrily. It was the last thing I ever said to her. On Sunday my cousin again informed me of her condition – Mum was weak, she couldn’t get out of the bed, but she was conscious. A specialist should come and see her on Monday. She had a fruit yoghurt and a bit of juice. No,
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the nurse on call whom I spoke with that day told me, the situation is not alarming, you don’t need to travel over, everything will be fine. Everything will be fine? With a patient with chronic lung emphysema, on oxygen and with a barely beating heart? Weren’t these very words supposed to sound alarming? Why, instead of believing a nurse who wanted to get rid of me as soon as possible to sit before a TV screen and watch her favourite show, didn’t I pack straight away and go the distance to see my Mum? I had to know the end was near. But I didn’t want to admit it. On Monday the phone rang at about 7.30 in the morning. My cousin again. I no longer remember what exactly she said, how she said it, how do you even tell someone their mother died? Although it was too early in the morning for a phone call, I didn’t even doubt it for a second, I didn’t freeze, I didn’t see death coming. Was it just my defence mechanism? The hospital had just called to tell her that “madam died”. I remember these words only because, coming from her, even though she was obviously quoting the doctor, they sounded too formal. I didn’t react. The full meaning of these words at that moment somehow missed me. I lived in another city, in another country. I saw my Mum every few months. I didn’t immediately realise I would never see her again. I didn’t cry. I had dreams about her almost every night. Only a few nights since her death I had a dream about her lying on a couch. She slept on her hip, uncovered. She was naked. I remembered how it astonished me, even in my sleep. I touched her, her skin was warm and unbelievably gentle, like a
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child’s. I must have remembered it because my Mum was already dead and still felt warm. I travelled, although I don’t remember how. These few days before the funeral seem as though erased from my memory. In the morgue my cousin placed on the bier a black and white photograph of Mum I haven’t seen a long time. In it she is about thirty, it could have been 1960. Her hair is up and her face is symmetric, open, smiling. She is wearing a pearl necklace. Her head is slightly leaning on one side, the way they used to take portraits in photo studios. I remember the dress she is wearing, dark blue silk with three buttons on the collar you couldn’t find in shops those days – gilded, with an inserted crystal that shone like a diamond. In the picture Mum looked classy and elegant. I felt grateful that she chose this very photo, because if there ever was a photo that was supposed to portray my Mum at her finest, the way she saw herself – this was it. Not even the funeral could convince me she was dead. I couldn’t watch them lower the coffin to the ground and perhaps I should have. I distinctly remember a small cemetery under the dreary sun coming through the clouds and the damp clumps of grey soil falling across the wooden coffin. And then, the empty town square in front of the church and a small group of friends and relatives. The square is cobbled in white stone and we, all dressed in black, seemed like giant birds slowly and clumsily moving towards the pub.
I tried to postpose cleaning up her suite at the nursing home as much as possible. After two months I finally made the trip. It was a gloomy day and
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the journey took more than usual. I believed it would take me a few hours to clean up her things. Two people would be helping me, I didn’t dare walk into that space on my own, rummage around her clothes, feel her smell. I mustered up courage only when I remembered that it was Mum herself who packed for the nursing home. She was used to moving around, because of father’s work she had already moved five or six times, not including the move to the nursing home. She spared me then. But I couldn’t avoid the last cleaning. How much could a person living in a nursing home suite leave behind? I should have been easy, but still, when I opened the closet – first one, then the other – the task seemed enormous and unspeakably difficult. Two closets full of clothes! Cleaning up the kitchen and the living room was easy. Some dishes, documents, jewellery and pictures. Nothing too personal, I thought, no letters or notes… She left behind very few intimate belongings. What was I expecting to find? A diary? Love letters? In fact, the most intimate thing she possessed was clothes. With strange ardour and determination I dug into the first closet. The smell of her overwhelmed me. Like some women leave letters, a lock of children’s or lover’s hair, these clothes were to me the intimate, the most intimate possession my Mum left behind. How beautifully they were hung and lined up, sorted by type and colour, these garments of hers. Coats, jackets, skirts, trousers, pullovers, shirts, blouses, nightgowns. At the nursing home she must have worn different clothes for lunch and sometimes even for dinner, too.
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That was her, the neatly arranged closet with the clothes she loved and which made her what she was. She used to spend so much time washing, ironing and combining them, enjoying her outfits and taking care of them. When I stretched out my hand to grab the first garment, I felt a sudden pain in my chest. But nevertheless I started to take things out ruthlessly, almost brutally, without paying attention to how and what. I brusquely selected what to leave at the home and what to donate, throwing garments on different piles. I wanted to get this nauseous task over with as soon as possible. Her long mink coat was already in my closet, wrapped in a sheet, the way she instructed me. You must take the coat, she said quietly, confidentially, careful not to be overheard by the hospice nurse. Like she was talking about gold or diamonds. It’s not safe here! What do you mean, Mum? – I asked her, bewildered. You know that the key to the suite is not with me, it’s in the infirmary, anyone can go upstairs and take it. I saw she was seriously worried, the mink coat was something of great value to her, something she cared about. First put it on the balcony, give it a good airing, then put it away. Take a clean sheet from the drawer and wrap it carefully, and by no means put it in something plastic! That was as far as her instructions went. She didn’t say something like it’ll do you good, because she knew I don’t wear real fur. Pity, she said when I turned down another of her fur coats, earlier. Although she expected it, she was still sorry. I hope she sold it later. The fur coat she instructed me about was expensive, a matter of prestige. She had to get a loan to buy it, I’m certain, although she didn’t actually need the coat, in our
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coastal town it never really got that cold. But she wore it, she wore all clothes with natural grace and style. Maybe she remembered the fur coat she bought for me a long time ago, after I spent my first winter in Zagreb shuddering in a light brown corduroy overcoat. That autumn in 1966 I visited a friend who was already a student. I slept at her dorm. My original intention was to go back home soon, but I stayed a bit longer, without clothes, without anything. I remember standing on a tram stop when I got caught in the first snow. Snow was rare back home in the south and as a child I was overjoyed with the fluttering snowflakes, running across the yard and trying to catch them with my mouth open before they melt. That day snow swept me over in heavy gusts, fusing on my hair and shoulders. I returned to the dorm freezing and soaking wet. The next winter, when she realised I was staying in Zagreb, she brought me a brown sheepskin jacket lined with fur, visible only on the edge of the sleeves, around the neck and down the button line. It was warm and simple. I remember the glow on her face when she took it out of the suitcase. It was a symbol of her victory over father, who disapproved of my decision to move to Zagreb. She must have considered buying something that expensive a true success of her own and undoubtedly kept this loan a secret from father. She paid the instalments from her salary as a state official, which was not low. She knew winters in Zagreb could be humid and cold and she was proud she could at least give me a coat to keep me warm. That was as much as she could do for me, every now and then silently slip me a good garment or some money. It was her way of showing she cared despite the fact that father thought I didn’t deserve it.
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I didn’t thank her. I couldn’t accept this gift only as warm clothing. To me this fur coat was a reminder. I couldn’t forgive Mum for not defending me from father’s enraged attacks. Why was she so powerless? When I once later asked her about it, she replied in wonder: What was I supposed to do, divorce him because of you?! What she meant was: because of your stupidity and stubbornness, but she never said it. This lambskin jacket could not substitute for her care, although this was – as I grew aware of it later – exactly what it was, a sign of her true care. I kept rediscovering this anger of mine, kept coming back to it without control on every visit. As we would start talking, my voice would suddenly change, become higher, tense, full of suppressed emotions. Nevertheless, I wore it as long as I was a student, I had nothing else, no other coat. When I graduated, I left it at the cafeteria, on purpose, hoping someone would find it useful. In fact, it was as though I shook it off me, at the same time shaking off all the other things it reminded me of. Years later I met a young man, cannot remember his name, who told me that this fur coat was a life saver and that he later gave it to someone who also needed it. Perhaps someone is still wearing it? Mum would be happy if I only occasionally put on her mink coat. Later is was too late for any remedies.
There was a box on the top shelf of Mum’s closet. On the bottom, beneath felt and straw hats was a black tulle veil. Already frayed, creased, as though it got there by accident. I recognised it immediately and a picture of her
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appeared before my eyes. Mum is standing on the edge of a grave, father is holding her, she is dangerously leaning to the bier where my brother’s coffin has just been laid in. Her face is hidden beneath that thick black veil, the one I’m holding in my hand. I’m standing next to her and all I can hear is her sobbing, muffled by her hand in a lace glove held firmly against her mouth. I still cannot fathom how she coped with it, standing there while the lumps of damp soil were falling against the wooden coffin of my thirty-five-yearold brother, echoing dully like distant thunder. And before that sitting in a chilly chapel listening to the sermon, and even before that kissing his face in the morgue by the hospital. Then, only a month later, my father died, grief-stricken. And the same scene repeated, her face covered in this very veil, on the edge of the grave. She lost them both in a month, the two men who she lived with and to whom she meant the life. I was the only one left, distant, bitter, poor support in her old age. But I did take care of her, I’ve always been good at duties. I dropped the veil in a black rubbish bag, together with her old slippers, newspapers, leftovers from the fridge and two dirty kitchen cloths. Since my brother died, more than twenty years ago, Mum wore only black. But a few years ago, when I paid her a visit, she was wearing a long summer dress, actually a kaftan, in bright colours. She saw how astonished I was. Well, my friends here at the nursing home told me to give up the black and wear something bright – she justified her new clothing. I think I laughed, but I’m not sure. I guess I couldn’t believe Mum would take anyone’s advice regarding clothes and fashion. There, she found an excuse to shop for more clothes, I thought, and immediately knew how unjust I was to her, how
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cynical. To make it up to her, next time I brought her a set of light grey angora shirts. Underwear was neatly lined on the bottom shelf. In two piles, arranged by colour. Black and white. My Mum’s generation experienced not only the post-war shortages, when both food and clothes were rationed, but also the subsequent shortage of anything beautiful. Of course, there was underwear (manufactured by Galeb of Omiš and Tvornica rublja Duga Resa), but there was no choice. Ladies’ underpants, like men’s, were cotton, high-waisted and only white. That’s why Mum all her life longed for lace underwear. Luckily, we had an aunt in Italy whom she visited relatively often. The most important thing was to buy underwear and shoes. In the closet I found an outfit, a skirt and a blouse, from the fifties. A purple and black colour combination, light satin, today again in style. I didn’t throw it away. I couldn’t, not after Mum kept it for decades, only not to wear it for the two decades in mourning, only to start wearing it again towards the end of her life, proud that she could fit in the clothes of her youth, that she remained fit. Her bras, even the orthopaedic one, had to be lace, black lace, no less. When she had her breast cancer surgery (of which we never spoke, no one was supposed to know), prosthetic bras covered by her health insurance weren’t good enough for her. Back then I couldn’t fathom that she wore fine underwear only for herself, for her own pleasure, because no one else saw it except her. But her looks were what she cared about.
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Did I throw all that underwear away, both the black and the white pile, only because of her vanity I couldn’t stand? I threw it in the black bag somehow too quickly, too decisively, more than other clothes… But without her these were only remains, only rags. She used to tell me: look at how you’re dressed, these trousers don’t fit you, you gained weight again, these colours don’t match… I suffered her criticism because I knew she was never satisfied anyway. Once I tried on one of her jackets and of course it didn’t fit me like it fit her, although we were built the same way. It’s not about what you wear, but how you wear it – it was the comment I remembered. Ruthlessly and superficially, without too much stopping, I was putting away all these carefully placed garments she held so dear. I penetrated her intimacy and demolished it like demolishing a painstakingly constructed building. Mum was disappearing before my eyes, but not the body that betrayed her, whether it was heart or lungs. The real Mum. Cleaning up was sheer destruction of her identity. I destroyed what had made her unique. People leave behind paintings, compositions, money, houses – she left her second skin, the one I’m holding right now, made of fabric that made her – what she was. She didn’t leave it to someone in particular, it is only what she left behind as evidence of what she was. I had a dream about her the very first night after the clean-up. Mum didn’t like escalators, once she fell off one and injured her leg on the sharp edge. Since then she used it only if someone held her. We were in a large space, possibly a department store. On top of very steep stairs she took the first step and tumbled down. She was lying lifelessly at the foot of the stairs. I
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saw people coming towards her. I was standing at the top, paralysed, and I heard myself sobbing, the sound that woke me up.
I only saw her a few times in my life without make-up. Even when she came to visit me she’d wake up early to put make-up on before the rest of us woke up. Looking her best was what she saw as decent. In the drawer of the hospice table she had a cosmetic bag and as soon as she gained enough strength she would take out a mirror, first put on some cream, then foundation, then she would place a magnifying mirror on the table and start drawing her eyebrows and eyelids. Since she became too weak to go to town to the drugstore, we brought her all the beauty products she needed. The instructions she gave us were specifically detailed, this was the most important order of all. Not long before her death, when we went to the drugstore together, she bought three eyeliners! Why three, Mum? Because I don’t know when I’ll get a chance to go to the shop again, I need to have a stock. She didn’t even spend one. It didn’t even cross her mind that soon she might not need that much eyeliners, kohls, lipsticks and creams. You know, she said, I can’t believe I’m eighty-five, I don’t feel that way at all. If it weren’t for these breathing problems and weak legs… Mum indeed was much younger than me, I felt old even before my body started to fail me. She had exceptionally groomed hands and nails. She could no longer get up to go to the hairdresser’s to get her hair dyed, her hand was trembling too much to put make-up on her eyes, but the last time I saw her she had lipstick on. Now I know that by cleaning up I buried her the second time around: she died the moment she lost her clothes and make-up.
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But it wasn’t just her vanity. She had an innate sense of beauty she hadn’t acquired by upbringing or education. She had style, and it took more than mere vanity, even more than knowledge. It took talent. Perhaps because of that she was not widely popular, she stood out too much, not only by her looks. Sometimes she complained flirtingly how both her sisters envied her. And indeed, both younger sisters who died before her were like their mother. My grandmother was a short plump lady of plain looks, who secretly smoked in the toilet. She used to send us grandchildren to buy her cigarettes, which were then still sold by piece. Mum resembled her father, a tall handsome man of symmetric features. From him she inherited something more important than looks, an upright posture, which could strike as arrogant at first sight. Such posture cannot be taught, it is something you’re born with. This is what helped her stand out from the crowd. And two little chubby girls, her sisters, had to learn to live with it very early on. But she tried to make everything around her beautiful as well – on the old Minerva sewing machine she made summer dresses for her sisters. With the same zeal she redecorated rundown apartments we moved in, as well as furniture, which looked shabbier with every move. She wouldn’t accept the dreariness surrounding her. The price she paid for being different and making everything around her that way was loneliness and lack of understanding. Her talent for beauty was like some sort of a sin, pretentious behaviour considered inappropriate in the post-war province.
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When she moved to the nursing home suite, she continued to behave exactly the same. On one occasion I paid her a visit and was astonished to see a new painting on the wall, among several old ones she brought from her apartment. An oil depicting an olive tree. What do you think? – she asked me, expecting my judgment. Because of my education she thought I was more competent than her. I didn’t respond well. So-so, I said, casting a superficial glance, with an obvious intention of avoiding the answer. It reminds me of our olives, of my childhood. She said it, I thought then, as though she felt a need to justify the money she spent on a pleasure of hers. The same way she, in defence from an expected accusation of extravagance, would speak to my father. I didn’t call it ugly or pretty. I didn’t comment on its value, I simply didn’t say a single word about it and that hurt her feelings. Her aestheticism, her need of beauty, an important decision to afford something that would make her life beautiful or at least rekindle memories – was of no interest to me at all. Today when I remember that scene, her reproachful look makes me think she in fact wanted to stop justifying. Mum wanted me to finally comprehend this need of hers. She tried to explain herself, appealing to sentimentality, to memories, hoping I would understand her better. Perhaps the olive tree indeed reminded her of childhood, perhaps that was why she decided to purchase it. But the crucial thing was the fact that she couldn’t bear the suite she moved in without trying to make it prettier somehow. Before the move I had to have it redecorated only because of that, the reason I then saw as trivial, although to her it was the most important.
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When she moved to the nursing home, she let her apartment out. She did it not to be a burden to me and the rent covered the accommodation costs. It was a reasonable solution. An elderly couple moved into her apartment, completely void of her belongings. I went over there a few months afterwards to sign some documents, bills, mail or something. And I came back in a state of complete shock. I couldn’t believe what the place looked like. No, they didn’t destroy anything or stain the walls, nothing of the sort. They only decorated it to their taste. There was nothing left of her, of her personality.
While I was cleaning up the last things from the closet like a stranger, I grabbed the purple shirt, the very last garment she ever bought. Still today it hurts the most that I didn’t, when we were at the shop, buy her the long white cardigan which she found on sale. Not knowing that this would be our last visit to a clothing store is not at all comforting. She was like a child in a toy store, she was feeling and touching the clothes, trying them on, undressing was not a problem to her. Finally she chose a cerise coloured wool shirt. But then, she noticed a white cardigan on the sales rack, made of the sort of wool which sheds. Mum, I said, don’t buy that. Your clothes are mostly dark, you’ll look messy, like having a moulting cat. But it’s so beautiful and warm, who cares if it sheds, she said longingly. She wore the purple shirt often. But I keep thinking about the white cardigan we never bought and my wish to take her shopping at least once in my life and buy her everything, everything she could possibly want. I imagined it should be somewhere in Italy, maybe in Rome, she loved Italian
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fashion. Or at least in Trieste. Like in the old days, when she would stop before a luxury boutique and enthusiastically point to a dress in the window. Or shoes. We would go inside. She would try the dress on and it would fit her perfectly. For a moment she would see herself someplace else, at a ball or a premiere, with a glass of champagne, happy. Then she would go back to reality and say goodbye to the dress, actually to herself in the dress. She would sadly wave her head while returning the dress to the saleswoman, who was trying to persuade her to buy it because it fit her like a glove. She had that same longing look on her face the day of our last shopping. She had trouble breathing and was puffing heavily while we were climbing up the small slope on our way to the street with shops. Nevertheless, she had no trouble, no matter how weak she was, to undress and try on the clothes in the changing rooms. I could have assumed this was our last shopping together. But I didn’t want to think about it. Her insisting on buying the white cardigan was irritating. I couldn’t grant her even this simplest of wishes, although I wanted to buy her everything.
I am the one who abandoned her at the hour of need. I betrayed her, and not the other way around. One of my earliest memories was me standing before the entrance to my grandmother’s apartment, crying. I am three or four. I’m looking at the shiny, yellow brass door handle, feeling the smell of Sidol cleaning paste my grandmother used to polish all the handles in the apartment. I cannot reach
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it to open the door and look for my Mum. I don’t want to move away from the door. I am heartbroken. Mum, Mummy, why did you leave me? – I sobbed. Mum didn’t leave you, she just went to town for a short while, said my grandfather trying to comfort me. But to no avail. There were no words to describe the pain of our separation. Mum, Mummy, why did you leave me? – I keep repeating standing before the door until she finally turns up. This childhood cry remained in the backdrop to my entire life. I never forgave her for leaving me. I never grew up and that was the reason why I was unjust to her to the very end.
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Coffee No Longer Tastes the Same
Coffee no longer tastes the same since my husband died three months ago. True, the smell is still rich and opulent, but not the taste. Something is missing, in fact, after a sip I feel bitterness, as though the beans are too roasted. And this cannot be, I can’t have chanced upon such coffee several times in a row. That is why I was thrilled to find a new brand on the shelf in my supermarket, the one they never had before, also an espresso blend, pure Arabica. I decided to try it. When we first met, he drank filter coffee. I found that out, of course, only when I first stayed the night at his place. In the morning he made delicious breakfast, with soft-boiled eggs and croissants, butter and orange jam, all served in silver bowls and with silver cutlery. But the coffee was a horrendous, brown liquid which barely reminded of the taste of coffee, and it didn’t even smell good. If I had known I was going to stay overnight, I would have brought my espresso machine, the little one for two cups. It would have fit in my handbag. Although it would be to no use, because it takes a different blend of coffee. And I wasn’t that ambitious. The thought that the man who swept me off my feet drank filter coffee was as nauseous as telling me he had an infectious disease. It was a bad habit that needed to be eradicated. It proved easier than I thought. He didn’t resist, he even found a French press in the kitchen. This coffee was much better, stronger, tastier. A decent replacement, but only a replacement, for espresso, which had to wait for us to start living together, so that I don’t
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strike him as too bossy. Then I bought two espresso machines, of two different sizes. And for his birthday, the first we celebrated together, I gave him a real Gaggia machine, the retro model, with a handle like those in coffee shops, only, of course, for home use. To me it was a test of good relationship, not to mention marriage. Not that much the love for coffee, but adaptability, sensitivity, paying attention to the other person’s needs. Since then we began our days with a cup of coffee together, the one from a larger caffettiera or Moka pot – whatever you call the machine – for six persons, served in mugs in which we added some milk for a macchiato. But a strong one, to make it through the day. He quickly forgot filter coffee and fell in love with this morning ritual. He was the first to get up and put on the coffee and I would join him only when the seductive smell crept upon me in the bedroom and woke me up. I have to say he continued to make breakfast, perhaps not as grand and without silverware, except for my birthday. More than coffee, it made us happy to drink it together as this was our morning ritual to start the day. So much had kept us together through the years, but drinking coffee together was like glue. That’s why I still drink it now, although I’m alone. Actually, it is because I don’t want to be alone that I drink coffee; when I’m drinking it, I’m thinking of him, which in a way feels like we’re still together. They say that people live as long as others remember them. Now I think about him intensely every morning, and quite often something about him crosses my mind even later. Listening to the news I think about what he would have to say about it, or cooking the meals he liked, like beef soup, I always make too much. Getting used to living alone is hard, it takes time. Half an hour in the morning belongs to us, the way we liked to be. I loved watching this good
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looking man bring the cup to his mouth and look at me over the edge with a smile. Listening to his voice while he tried to interest me in the book he just read, even though I didn’t always pay attention to his words. I thought, we’re together and still going strong. Sometimes I wondered how much time we have left, but I’d chase away the idea like a tedious fly. Why think about what we cannot change, while we’re sitting by the open window with a view on the garden, with blossoming primroses, and I’m pouring us another cup of coffee? It was with coffee that his illness began, with the word coffee. I will never forget this. One morning, exactly seven years ago, he seemed somehow strange. He was looking at the cup, frowning. What you call this, he asked, befuddled. Which, you mean the cup or the coffee? Coffee, yes, thank you, for a moment I seem to have lost the word. Lost the word? How is it possible that a man living off words – loses a word? He didn’t say I forgot it, which seemed even stranger. Did he forget the word forget? I didn’t immediately take it for an omen. I attributed the loss of the word to fatigue, he last few days he was spending too much time staring at his computer, translating. It happens to everyone, I said, the other day at the grocery store I couldn’t remember what I came for. And remember my Mum, she couldn’t remember words like flour or milk, the things she used on a daily basis. We even laughed at her. This soothed him. But soon he began to lose more and more words or, even worse to me, he replaced them with what came to his mind that very moment. Instead of bread, he’d say salt – at least the same category, food – but if he said shoe instead of book – for example, could you please pass me the shoe from my desk – I found it hard to cope. Moreover, the desk was full of books. Should I perhaps ask him which ‘shoe’ he needs?
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The very next moment, unaware of the mistake, he would utter the right word. The next stage was repetition. Whatever he would tell me about, an event from his youth – and he kept going back to his youth and childhood more and more often – he would repeat in a minute, almost word by word. It was hard listening to him, although at the beginning I found it odd that he recalled older episodes and couldn’t remember what happened yesterday or that very morning. For example, the fear of a math test. If you only knew how much I was scared of this math test. We had an old teacher, who’d pull the kids’ ears if he suspected them cheating, and everyone was afraid of him. When he gave us a test, he would walk around the classroom to make sure we didn’t cheat. Later I had nightmares for years about failing the test, I still cannot fathom how I managed to graduate from high school. And then, less than five minutes later, he said: Have I told you how much I was scared of a math test? I adapted myself, I got used to not listening him talk, just the voice. But still it was infrequent enough not to worry. I started sticking post-its wherever I could. The book said book and the shoe said shoe, but at first he removed them. The idea that he needed help made him angry. It’s like learning a foreign language, only that now you’re relearning your own, I kept saying to him. But the words crept out of his memory, out of his vocabulary, which lessened by the day. Like trying to keep coins in a torn pocket, the journey to the depths of his illness was sprinkled with lost coins of words. Mostly the ordinary ones, the names of things surrounding us. Stairs and door, soap, newspaper, chair, all gone missing. For some time he went to the grocery store with a list. Sometimes he read, for example, pasta, but forgot what it was and wouldn’t ask a salesperson to show him, so he
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came back home with cookies or the first thing he laid his hands on. Or he left his wallet at the cashier’s. On the greenmarket, while he could still walk, he would pay for lettuce with a large bill and walk away. While he still could walk, because soon he started to fall down. Out of the blue. Not trip, simply collapse. I was with him when it happened. He just grabbed my sleeve and tumbled down on the sidewalk. Slowly, like when they shoot an actor in a movie and he falls and falls and it takes him hours to the floor. He got a medication, but it was a tranquiliser that made him drowsy. It was easier that way for me, since before that I had to be on standby all the time and make sure he didn’t get out of the house in his pyjamas or get burned. But still I preferred him awake, although his behaviour started to wear me out. I didn’t have the strength to hide matchboxes from him because he loved to watch them burn, to make sure he didn’t shove creased newspapers down the toilet bowl or rummage the dustbin in search of a toy car he lost seventy years ago. Next came the nightmares. He was already sleeping alone, I moved to our son’s room, but the door had to be open. First he mumbled and woke up in cold sweats, not knowing where he was. I would sit by his side and calm him down until he fell asleep again. When he came around, he was sad to be sleeping alone. He promised me he would sleep completely calm, without moving a muscle, without waking me up… I only want to touch you to know I’m alive and you’re by my side. I cried when he wouldn’t see me. I knew I was losing him. The worst thing was that in between fits he was completely aware of what was happening to him, he knew he was getting lost. His pain could not compare to mine.
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Please, put me in an institution. I don’t want you to look at me like this. This isn’t me, you see? I nodded. I couldn’t tell him I didn’t want to leave him alone. Since he started to cry for Mum at night, I didn’t come around. He wailed, like a baby in heavy pain, and called: Mum, Mummy, it hurts, come, it hurts so much. When I appeared at the door, he stretched out his arms towards me. You’re here, he embraced me and held me close. I let him call me Mum, there was no point in explaining. He was nothing more than a little lost boy, very sick, who needed his Mum to stroke his hair and comfort him. Fortunately, he contracted pneumonia and his pain and torture ended. Fortunately, because I believe he wanted that. When I came to his room, quietly, not to wake him up, after a peaceful night, he was lying on his back and his face, still striking, seemed serene. I found comfort in the thought that he died in his sleep because I would die if I knew that he was fully conscious and alone at this moment. Yes, he died in his sleep, otherwise he would have called for me. But sometimes I think he didn’t want to call, he wanted to spare me dying, it was his farewell gift and his way of showing how much he loved me. Although he quite certainly lost the word love long ago. Mum, go back to your room, you can’t live in a museum dedicated to Dad and me, said my son after the funeral. He came from Canada for three days. I was happy that he didn’t see his father in that state. This is not a museum, I just don’t have the strength to change anything, clean up, rearrange, paint, but I’ll move, I lied to him when he was leaving. I never went back to the bedroom. I’d have to sleep alone in the bed I never slept alone in. And wake
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up in the middle of the night to listen if he breathing and hear nothing. What does our son know of loneliness, of the emptiness that comes when someone dies? It cannot be mended, like a whole in a sock long ago. New coffee cheerfully made its presence known in the kitchen. The pleasant smell filled the kitchen and already by the smell I could tell he’d like it. I thought of the body’s resilience, on my stubborn cells that keep on living like nothing happened, of the lust for life which has nothing to do with my will. I took a sip of the hot liquid. He’d like it, I judged with satisfaction, but not even this new brew tastes the same like when we had it together.
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