The Stone Building and Other Places Read online

“Have you ever listened to the Brazilian, Paolinho?”

  “No, in fact, I know next to nothing about South American music.”

  Graciela broke into song. This was a sudden miracle, completely unexpected, moving, extraordinary… “Vida e bonita…”

  Incredibly melancholy, silken, a melody that went straight to the heart. One that aroused pleasure and pain in equal measure, music that brought you close to death and to life. Filiz’s eyes welled up, she gulped to stifle her tears. She never cried in front of others — even when they held a gun to her head — neither did she sing.

  “The words mean something like this: ‘Life is beautiful, beautiful, beautiful… Whether full of sorrow or happiness, it is, it is beautiful… No shame in wanting to be happy …’ Paolinho was born on the street, he lived in poverty, and died of tuberculosis at thirty-three. I’m telling you all this so you don’t just reject the song.”

  “If someone at the bottom of the abyss tells me that life is beautiful, I should obviously stop and listen. But to truly understand this music one would have to have experienced a different kind of suffering.”

  Dijana slipped between them. “Listen Felicita, we need to take the short-cut. We have very little time left. Can you handle a mountain path that’ll last at the most for twenty-five minutes but is sort of a killer? How are the bellows?”

  “They haven’t started complaining yet. But I don’t understand, what are we late for?”

  “That’s the whole point: not knowing where you’re going until you get there. You have to decide now whether you’ll come or not, because we can’t just leave you halfway up the mountain. And, as I’m sure you’ll agree, we can’t carry you on our backs, either.”

  “I’m coming. I don’t turn back half-way.”

  “Come on girls, Felicita is in! The Women’s Squadron! Forward, march!”

  Shouts, jokes, and commands rose up from all sides. “ Amazon Express, we’re on our way!”… “Aventa!”… “We may die, but we won’t turn back!”

  “Good God! The hysteria! What a farce!” thought Filiz. “So now we’re playing soldiers. A half-crazy caravan of tubercular women. All we need are the bells on our saddles! Oh cruel world, and we can’t even breathe… ”

  Shouting loudly, creating a ruckus, the Women’s Squadron started up the mountain path. The inhabitants of the woods scampered off, the birds grew quiet, and nature silently withdrew to clear a path for these noisy, reckless, selfish animals. Dijana, who knew the route well, led the pack, moving quickly, deciding their course, finding the trails like a native tracker. Close on her heels followed Martha and Gerda with their broad shoulders. Strong, dependable, confident shoulders… The two of them climbed with heavy, sure steps, clearing branches, breaking trails like Panzer scouts, shouting directives to the rearguard. Beatrice was a wild cat just escaped from captivity. Confident and full of energy, she was an agile hiker, thanks to her long legs, her hiking shoes, and above all, her youth. She paused often to extend a hand to her dark-haired friends in need.

  Filiz spent the twenty-five-minute journey through the woods drenched in sweat, grabbing at thorny bushes and roots, anxiously searching for solid rocks to set her feet on, nearly fainting from panic and worry. She would occasionally slip on pine needles and fall, or stumble over roots. The brambles escaped her grip, leaving rosy scars, while her body was whipped by branches . Her seldom-used, flaccid muscles began to vibrate like a tuning fork, and her legs felt like heavy sacks full of water. Fits of jaw-rattling chills coursed over her back like cold snakes. She had soaked through her underwear and could not stop thinking about how excessive sweating can be deadly for a lung patient, especially one who had been given her first leave only that day. She could hear the eerie whistle — called the “fog horn” in hospital slang — starting up in her lungs. She cursed herself for having joined this adventure, for senselessly jeopardizing the health that had cost her untold trouble to regain On the verge of weeping from fatigue, remorse, and desperation, she appealed to her personal god, as she would do in times of trouble, praying sincerely, imploring him again and again.

  At last, like all terrible things, like physical pain or prison, the journey came to an end, and Filiz was able to look up from the trail and see where she was. Throughout the dreadful twenty-five-minute ordeal, with each step a matter of life and death, she had been trapped in her body, buried in fear, and had paid no attention to her surroundings. Only now — panting, with a tightness in her chest, blinking back the burning salty sweat from her eyes — she saw that they had reached an extraordinary place.

  They were standing atop a steep cliff, its face covered in human-sized shrubs and a tangle of tree roots and heath, a vast, spreading net of wild flora. Forty or fifty meters below, a raging river was rushing furiously, thundering, crashing over the jagged rocks it had nicked and carved over time. A path dotted with purple flowers resembling large carnations laced along the horn-shaped ledge right before the river took a sharp turn and disappeared among the rocks.

  “A path of purple dreams,” Filiz thought.

  “We’re going down, Felicita. Be very careful.”

  Filiz scanned her companions, baffled. Everyone looked wretched. Their faces, flushed to a purplish hue, were sweaty, grimy, full of scratches. Their hair was soaked, their shirts, come undone at the waist, were drenched, too, their nipples discernible.

  Everyone had fallen again and again, getting cut and scratched all over. What were these women after? What was the point of all this exertion, danger, injury?

  “Listen, I’ve had enough! As if it wasn’t enough that we ran through the forest like lunatics, now we’re climbing down into that gorge! What is going on here?”

  “Don’t be a spoilsport,” hissed Dijana. “You promised you’d come with us till the end.”

  “I promised nothing.”

  “Let her do whatever she wants.” This was Martha; no, Gerda.

  “Filiz, please tough it out a little bit further. Believe me, it’ll be worth it.” This was Graciela.

  “Come on, please Filiz.” Beatrice took her arm, gently pulling it.

  “Come on girls! It is 3:23! Seven minutes left!”

  Suddenly, the group forgot about Filiz. They began tumbling down the slope like pinecones set in motion with the flick of a finger. Down to the very last drop of their strength, the women grabbed at branches, rocks, whatever they could find, most of the time sliding on their butts, holding hands, helping one another. One false move and they could fall, be torn to pieces. Filiz, too, had become a link in the chain without thinking twice. She submitted to the urgent momentum and joined in the descent down the narrow, slippery line between life and death. The danger stimulated her, arousing all her senses. She was filled with an urge akin to sexual desire. How deeply she loved life right now, feeling the joy of existence in the very marrow of her bones. It wasn’t simply a rock or a bush that she grabbed onto with her hand but life itself, the wounded heart of the forest, of earth, of life. A tree bent at an angle almost parallel to the river appeared in her path. It had spread its roots like an octopus over solid rock, managing to grow on this steep slope with stubborn persistence. Its shadow fell on the gorge. The tree extended one of its tired arms to Filiz, and for a brief moment they held hands before they each returned to their own crooked path through life.

  After a descent that felt like a journey through the circles of hell, they arrived at a completely different world. Friendly trees, dreamy flowers, all traces of life had vanished; here there were only rocks, terrible, cold rocks… Much larger than they had appeared from above, they rose to the sky like shiny black daggers. And then there was the terrifying roar of the river, its blind, aimless anger… Filiz had the thought that she had joined up with a troupe of mechanical dolls whose springs had wound down, landing them all in this spot to perform their obscure roles.

  Before her startled eyes sat Dijana, on a rock as wide as a double bed. She had assumed a pose common to cheap erotic magazines. He
r knees bent slightly, her legs spread wide, she placed both of her hands on her crotch. Her face assumed a pre-orgasmic expression of sexual pleasure. Nearby, Martha was reclined with her profile turned to the river; one of her knees drawn up, she had her head tilted back, clasping her hands behind her neck. Her face, too, wore the expression of a vulgar prostitute. Gerda was on her hands and knees, displaying her magnificent ass. Beatrice was standing, one foot resting on a big rock, her body leaning forward, arms outstretched. She rested her cheek on her knee as if leaning against a tender and passionate male shoulder, her dreamy blue eyes gazing at the water. Confronted with this astonishing scene, Filiz searched for Graciela with one last shred of hope, but she had already joined the performance. Like a statue of a goddess, she stood on a sail-shaped rock — alone, unmoving, half-naked. She had stripped off her blouse and, her right hand resting on her waist, she was pushing her breasts slightly forward. Her pose made Filiz think of a dove; natural, innocent, and fragile. Between her raspberry-colored nipples, stripes of burn marks showed under the silver necklace. She had her eyes fixed on a point up in the sky. The thin fingers of her left hand wandered over her lips — half-open, taut with thirst — as if she couldn’t speak, couldn’t find words for her intense, painful longing. Her entire body, grown thinner, taller, had become an arrow aimed at the sky, about to be released to hit its mark. Filiz had landed in a mind-boggling dream from which she could not awaken. But even dreams held more meaning, more inner logic than this.

  “Felicita, come on, give us a pose. Find something funny.”

  Filiz remained as stiff as a Sphinx. She understood nothing. Gerda’s watch beeped at precisely 3:30. At first, nothing happened. During a minute that slowly evaporated into the mist, the women waited, almost without breathing, in those ridiculous, absurd poses. Then, a canoe appeared among the rocks. The four young men, as was made clear by the badges on their life-jackets, were members of the rowing team of H. University, located seventy kilometers away; strapping, healthy and strong, these athletes were rowing with all their might, exerting superhuman effort to avoid crashing into the towering rocks along the narrowest and most dangerous passage of the river. They spotted the women. Where they had seen them every Saturday.

  “Hey you, forest fairies! You again? We’re going to drop by your village today!”

  “Girls, come on! Show us a little more!”

  “We’ll tie up the canoe and come back. Don’t leave!”

  “Hey, Red, what’s the point if you don’t take off your pants!”

  The women didn’t respond at all, they didn’t even giggle. Stiff and frozen, they were more mute than mechanical dolls.

  Whistles, catcalls, jokes about what’s “down there,” but nothing too vulgar… A couple of comments about Beatrice’s skinny body, Dijana’s shamelessly open crotch, Gerda’s ass, Graciela’s naked breasts… Felicita had posed as herself, motionless, not a thought in her head, remembering, feeling nothing, unable to shift her eyes from Graciela’s scars, and the breasts she offered up. At last, as the canoe was about to disappear from view, Filiz’s arms slowly lifted to the sky. They spread out rigidly, haltingly, like the wings of a wooden bird that had never learned how to take to the sky, but then they fell, exhausted, collapsing upon her head. One atop the other, like broken wings. Graciela’s otherworldly voice rose, wavering, among the river’s roar and the receding shouts: “Vida e bonita… ”

  Two warm tears, born in the deep wellsprings of Filiz’s eyes, ran down her cheeks like two muddy yellow streams, leaving their tracks behind. The canoe had long ago disappeared. The women were alone again in the middle of the forest.

  THE

  PRISONER

  She woke up long before the alarm went off. As if checking to make sure the night was over, she opened and closed her eyes a few times in the humid, pre-dawn twilight. She had slept for a total of three hours, and the night — full of tossing and turning, and dreams burdened with an intense realism, much more painful than reality itself — had felt like it dragged on endlessly. A sense of waiting with no beginning and no end…

  For hours she had lain like a chained ghost with her knees pulled up to her belly, afraid to move, pricking up her ears at the slightest noise. Unable to cry, unable to sleep… Without lighting even a candle in the darkness… The objects in the room, as if in sympathy, had been restive through the night as well, stirring imperceptibly in troubled agitation.

  Moved by an inexplicable sense of responsibility, she jumped out of bed. The cold of the house overcame her, numbed her, helped her to not think of anything, anything at all. She went about her daily routine: Brew some tea, empty the ashtray, splash your face with ice cold water, reach for the cigarette pack! The smoke warmed her insides with its sly tenderness — a feeling resembling happiness! Suddenly, seized by a sharp nausea rising from the depths of her body, she remembered the day waiting in ambush. Everything, all that she tried to keep at a distance, crowded into her consciousness. She hurried to the kitchen.

  She opened and closed the drawers, the cupboards, noisily, rummaging through the shelves. She had finished the cheese pastry and biscuits she’d bought yesterday. Even though she knew the refrigerator was almost empty, she searched every square inch of it. She found the jar of honey left somewhere at the bottom. With a child’s appetite, dipping the stale slices of bread into her tea, she ate them along with the honey. She was neither hungry, nor full. “What an emptiness inside!” she said, rubbing her belly. That’s when she remembered the baby for the first time.

  Usually, every morning as soon as she woke up she would imagine the baby in her belly, believing that the baby was imagining her in turn… At times, she was satisfied with a simple, clear image, say, a college-age girl with a bright smile, her hair tossed by the wind — a proof of life’s invincibility and resilience. At other times she’d imagine a miniature human — a stain in human form — with perfect little hands like she’d seen in the ultrasound. Most often, though, she’d imagine a magical, cloudy mirror that freed her long-lost youth from the grip of time and carried it forward, into infinity. The image was of one without a care about the future, someone who no matter where she might look, sees only the familiar, not the unknown. As if until now she’d never had a future, even when she was young, when she’d had only her useless youth. For the first time the future was being formed, gradually growing, taking shape in flesh and bone… A warm being stirring into life; feeding on interrupted dreams as much as it was fed by her own bloodstream… A state of waiting with a definite beginning and an end. A miracle. “I am expecting a baby,” she would say at every opportunity, anywhere, to anyone she happened to meet… As if she didn’t completely believe it herself.

  The room, crammed with things collected from here and there, from acquaintances, from second-hand stores, struggled for air under the cardigans, blankets, and piles upon piles of newspapers. The dust that had accumulated for weeks made this always dim, small, basement apartment look like an ancient tomb slowly being swallowed by the sands. It was as though this place, where she had spent three cold, lonely winters, still belonged to no one — it reflected nothing of her life, offered no hint about her past. Photographs, trinkets, vases, objects that might trigger memories, she avoided these things as if they would burn her hands. This was her way of denying her womanhood. She hid old letters — stamped “Read” — in a Chinese box inlaid with red and black swallows. As if these letters had been written to be saved forever, to be read again and again, awaiting a time when they would all be framed and hung, like a voice resonating from the walls, pained but never complaining… When she felt strong enough she would open the letters, taking sustenance from them as though they were a serum she would later replenish with her own blood. Each time, a bit more.

  The night before she’d ironed the only available skirt and jacket she could wear — the dark green set she’d bought her senior year in college. The chair, with her jacket draped over its back, resembled a bow-legged, sulky civil ser
vant. She wore the light green shirt with a scalloped collar — was it called that? — purchased that same year; an ill-fitting slit skirt, too short for her thickening thighs; and a pair of blunt-toed, short-heeled, brown boots that hid the run in her nylons. Completing her look was the chic coat her sister had sent from Stockholm years ago, a couple of sizes too big and looking almost new, since it hadn’t been worn in years.

  Wake up the puppet, shake the dust off her, drag her in front of a mirror. Wipe the traces of tears from her face, put on her everyday stone-faced mask so she’s ready to appear in public. Cover the deadly paleness with powders, eye shadow, and layers of color, or else you won’t pass in the world of humans.

  Her appearance was painfully incongruous in spite of the color coordination she had accomplished after much deliberation… Her hair, which she’d washed at midnight, but couldn’t dry because of the power outage, was fuzzy with random curls, resembling a wig left over from the previous century. She turned on the fluorescent light over the mirror, held her breath, and looked at her own face.

  To be a woman meant taking on an appearance acceptable to everyone. It meant shouting constantly, “Please, someone, see me!” “See me and turn me into an image to remember forever. The way I could never see myself.” On days when she had to dissolve into the crowds, she painted her cheeks and eyelashes clumsily, covering the circles beneath her eyes, drawing jerky lines across her trembling eyelids. As if drawing her own caricature… She watched with feral satisfaction as the singularity of her face receded further with each crude brushstroke, the step-by-step erasure of her self as an anonymous woman emerged in the mirror. It was as if she was seeing her legs exposed through the slit in another woman’s skirt. She removed the last residues of authenticity by plucking one by one the bristle of blond hairs on her chin, deriving an unexpected pleasure from this pain.

  She dried her hands on the blue towel — so soft, as if infused with lotion. This was the only object of his that she still kept. A towel from Bursa, bought at a discount… warmer, more intimate than all his passionate caresses or the memory of those caresses. It was still here this morning, it hadn’t disappeared — the common fate of objects that bear witness to human loneliness — it had remained, always within reach, waiting. Its mute resolve, its deep-blue-sea softness recalled not so much the man who had left it behind as his absence; and strangely, that feeling seemed to grow with each passing day. “I bought it at the layover,” he told her while rummaging in his tiny bag on that night when he had turned up after so many months. “I thought maybe you wouldn’t even have a towel in your house.” “I have a dozen,” she responded, hurt…