This fog!
One time at the Central Market, a gypsy woman had told her fortune: “You’ll start from zero many times over, it’s a gift you have. But only to a certain extent.”
Marking boundaries. Building a wall? No use — she doesn’t have the skill. You can’t start anything by force. It’s just — I choose to believe. Again and again from the beginning. Ieva looks around carefully. If there had been anything left over, even a grain of sand, she could cultivate a pearl out of it.
She could keep it together.
Everything is scattered. Live half your life and realize that everything is scattered.
But at night she can feel there’s a river. Not a single time in her life, not a single territory through which this river flows, isn’t a part of the river itself. The heart of the river is somewhere in the distance — there, from where the river flows, or there, to where it flows.
While she washes dishes she suddenly grabs a pencil and writes on a paper towel — Oh, this fog! How she’ll wind up paying for this sentence! Half of her unhappiness is her imagination and curiosity. She’ll withdraw from life with each letter, paddle away from existence, until she’ll no longer be able to pave a path back to the simple scene beyond the window. Farther and farther away — like a stream down a mountain. Like the Earth from the sun. She’ll continue. She’ll be far. And wide. She won’t tell her daughter how much she misses her, because she won’t know how to find the right words. She’ll spend days hammering out the same passages, struggling to formulate love in short sentences on paper until others will simply accept it. She’ll spend her entire life studying, but never learn how to write the word “sunset.”
It’s insane — where did it all go! It was just there, she thinks, looking out at the grey sky. And the courtyard is empty. They’re all gone.
Monta
She gets in late. Nobody visits this late — it’s unacceptably late. Extremely late. It’s already that time when early evening is being ushered out by the night. The twilight pulls your thoughts under — and once twilight sets in you can’t start anything. Tendrils of darkness snake into your mind. It’s too late to talk. Everything seems to have already settled into itself, so why waste words?
It’s a good time to drink tea and sit quietly. That may be exactly why she chose to come over so late, so she wouldn’t have to talk. So she could spend the night and take off in the morning. Visit mom — just a date circled on the calendar.
Ieva opens the door.
“Hi!”
“Hey.”
A quick kiss on the cheek and then a step back. Maintain some distance. The air around Monta carries a lingering haze. She probably stopped for a quick smoke before heading up.
Ieva makes tea. Monta wanders around the apartment.
“Can I use the internet?”
“Of course.”
She sits at the computer. Her hair is in dreads — tight braids, thick and prickly like a bristle brush and the color of darkness. Her angular shoulders hunched, her slender neck tense. It’s like her daughter is surrounded by invisible spears, cactus needles. A teenager; not to be touched.
“Do you want tea?”
“Bring it here.”
Ieva sighs. The hope that they could at least have tea at the table across from each other — even if in silence — bursts like a bubble. Ieva puts the teacup on the desk.
“Thanks.”
The screen flickers in the half-light. The lives of others. Her daughter’s messages — concerns, losses, gains — Ieva has no clue about any of them. A silver stud through Monta’s eyebrow. Small hoops and a few safety pins line her ears, spiked leather bracelets hang around her thin wrists, and her eyes are outlined in black. She’s checking her friends’ profile updates on Draugiem.lv. She’s inaccessible to her mother — simply offline.
“How are you?”
“Fine.”
Monta shoots her a look that clearly says “leave me alone.” Ieva goes back to the kitchen. After a while she calls out:
“Want to go to the theater next week? I have tickets.”
“No.”
A few minutes later:
“Do you want to come see me at work sometime? We’re putting together a new movie — it’s really interesting.”
“No time.”
“How’s school?”
“Fine.”
“Where do you work?”
“Sky City.”
“What do you do there?”
“Work with snowboards.”
“Do you snowboard?”
“You see any snow around here?”
“We could go to Switzerland.”
“Thanks, but I’ve got stuff to do.”
“What was your boyfriend’s name — Tomass?”
“Yeah.”
“How’s he?”
“Fine. C’mon, Mom, not right now.”
Ieva sighs.
“Hungry?”
“No, thanks.”
Ieva turns on the television. Something she hasn’t done in ages. But she has to pass the time somehow while Monta’s online. While she’s visiting.
For a long time, one sits in front of the computer, the other in front of the television. Ieva washes up and gets ready for bed. Suddenly, she gets an idea:
“I’ll draw you a bath!”
“What d’you mean, bath? I have a shower at home.”
But Ieva continues:
“A shower’s a shower, and a bath’s a bath. I’ll draw you one right now. I’ve got this new bath oil. It’ll be the best bath you’ve ever had.”
And she gives the tap a hard turn, so the water gushes out. So she won’t hear Monta’s objections.
Soon the bath is ready. Ieva sprinkles some jasmine blossoms into the bubbles and lights the candles at the foot of the tub. She puts a white cotton shirt on the chair.
“It’s ready, go ahead!”
Monta doesn’t answer. Ieva changes into pajamas, gets into bed and intently watches the hallway through the open door.
The teenager sits at the computer for several more minutes, then gets up with a sigh and goes to the kitchen to wash her teacup. The splash of water, the clinking of dishes. She comes to the doorway, looks at her mother as if she’s about to say something, then turns and goes into the adjacent room, where a bed has been made up for her. Ieva starts to think Monta will just go to sleep fully dressed.
But she doesn’t. She goes to the bathroom, then comes back into the hallway. She looks at the computer, then at her mother. Then she goes back into the bathroom and shuts the door with a bang.
The sound of belts and snaps hitting the stone tile can be heard through the closed door; the ringing of metal and sound of leather. Then silence.
It seems like Monta is in the bathtub for at least an hour. Finally the bathroom door opens again and a figure dressed in a white shirt tiptoes into Ieva’s room.
“You asleep? Thanks for the bath. G’night.”
“Maybe you can sleep in here tonight!” Ieva calls out sharply — too quickly. Monta starts and turns to leave.
“No way!”
“Then at least come sit with me for a bit!” Ieva begs.
“No!”
Monta goes into the hallway, but doesn’t turn the light out right away. She moves around the apartment like a cat, inspecting photographs and paintings, flipping through magazines. It’s already long past midnight.