Her picture was on the front page, she’d disappeared one day while she was out playing, just up and vanished off the face of the earth. One moment she was on the street in front of her building, the next moment she was gone. I remember the letter her mother wrote to the kidnappers begging them to give her Therese back. The whole affair made me feel a little weird, or maybe that was only menopause.
I was constantly on the lookout. If anyone asked me for directions, I’d run the other way. One time I passed a car parked on our street and got a bad feeling when I noticed that there was only one black leather glove on the dashboard — where was the other one?
I talked Epsilon into buying a rabbit, but didn’t tell him it was because I couldn’t be alone in the apartment anymore. He wouldn’t understand. “I just love animals,” I said. “Almost as much as Hitler did.”
The very evening we got it, the rabbit started throwing up. I hadn’t named it yet, I’d hardly even touched the white ball of fur, so I know it couldn’t have been my fault. I had to stay up the whole night watching. When Epsilon woke up, I’d already gone out and buried it. “Where?” Epsilon asked. “I’m not telling you,” I said. “I don’t want you to go dig it up.”
Then we got some fish, but despite their presence, I was scared every time I came home after being at the library. “Hello, Epsilon,” I’d say into the stillness, making sure that the kidnappers lurking behind the curtains or the bedroom door could hear me loud and clear. I’d ask, “How was karate today?” then exclaim, “Why Epsilon, you’ve left your gun lying out again!”
My fear diminished with time and the hot flashes were gone before I knew it. But I never forgot little Therese.
Shovel over my shoulder, I make my way to the center of the yard. I really hope no one can see me. If they can, I’ll just tell them I’m picking up trash. I begin to dig. Eventually my arms get so tired I have to stop, but at least I’ve dug a big enough hole for the box. “Bon voyage,” I say and it bothers me that I can’t come up with something that rhymes. I refill the hole and then tamp the grass back down on top of it. Luckily, the lawn is ugly enough that I don’t think anyone will be able to tell where I’ve dug, I hope it’s not just the darkness deceiving me. After that, I hurry back inside. Out of the corner of my eye, I spy — that rhymes — a flier hanging on the bulletin board, I hardly even knew we had a bulletin board, I’m usually so busy looking at the floor. The words “CLEAN-UP!!!” leap out at me, they force me to take a step back, it shouldn’t be necessary to shout like that. I don’t have the courage to read the rest of the flier and scurry back up the stairs.
~ ~ ~
I FEEL THE NEED to scratch my bites until they bleed. That rhymes. Maybe it was the mosquito bites I got outside in the dark, or the adrenaline left over from the burial, or the flier about the gathering that kept me awake all night. I look at my bloody fingertip. Lovely, another sign that I’m alive, and seeing my breath on the kitchen window while checking my teeth too. Thinking that I like the sight of blood scares me though, so I force myself to think about something else. I wipe my fingers on a napkin and look out over the lawn. Unless you were in on the secret, you’d never guess something was buried out there, so I suppose I can breathe easier now. But as far as helping with my state of mind, the box doesn’t seem to be working at all. I wonder why, maybe it won’t work until someone digs it up again, though by the time that happens I’ll probably be six feet under.
I decide to go to the store after breakfast, even though I don’t need anything. There’s a flier in the entryway advertising a get-together at the senior center, and the thought makes me ill, so I read about the community clean-up instead. I see that it will take place this weekend, but get no farther than that before a sound on the floor above me sends me scurrying out the door.
We’ve never had a community gathering before. Since the old super did everything himself, there wasn’t a point. And now he’s dead. Odd that they haven’t replaced him. I can’t go, that’s completely out of the question. Then again, I have a shovel and maybe they’ll need someone with a shovel. Plus, I need to make sure no one finds my box. I could bring homemade rolls, my popularity in the building would skyrocket, I’d be adored by one and all, reporters from the Groruddalen papers could snap pictures as my neighbors carry me around the lawn. I’ve always loved the idea of being carried like that.
I walk through the woods. The only thing that catches my eye is a mushroom, a white destroying angel. It’s deadly. At first I’m disappointed that the man with the banana isn’t here, but then I tell myself that you can’t depend on others for your happiness, you have to make your own happiness, Mathea.
In the store I buy ingredients for dozens of rolls and several batches of meringue, and I buy three different jars of jam too. When I’m in line at the register, I realize that I won’t have room for everything in my small net bag and I’ll be forced to ask for a grocery bag. Then I remember a news story about how many Swedes are working in Norway now and I don’t know the word for “grocery bag” in Swedish. But without asking or even looking at me, the cashier puts two extra bags on the conveyer belt, and I’m so relieved that I whisper “thanks,” although I say it in Swedish and it sounds like a sigh.
The bags are heavy and that’s a good thing, I’m sore after my night’s work, I like being sore, it tells me I’ve accomplished something. Soreness is probably my favorite feeling. Next to love, of course. Sometimes my tongue gets a little sore, and even though Epsilon always kisses without using his tongue, I always kiss with mine because then I know it’s there, the only muscle in the body that’s just attached at one end, a fact I don’t like to think about. It reminds me of everything I’ve lost. The kites I flew when I was a child — the string broke every time. The dog I walked, the leash that snapped, I never saw Stig again.
In spite of my soreness, I easily catch up to the people walking ahead of me. When I reach the foyer, I read the entire flier on the message board. “There will be a community gathering next Sunday,” it reads. “All residents must attend!!!!” I gulp and read the rest of the flier as quickly as I can, just in case there’s something even worse there, but I don’t know what could be worse than what I’ve just read. “Come and give our new caretaker, Leif, a warm communal welcome and help us win back the title of Groruddalen’s best co-op!” Oh no, I think, but I can also feel excitement building, I guess I do have to go, I don’t want them to toss me out on my ear. But then I read the last line, it says the elderly and disabled are exempt, and I’m both relieved and disappointed. When I get up to the third floor, June is standing in his doorway shaking his head. It seems like he’s trying to spook me. I close the door behind me and start to bake.
I always baked buns and rolls, but meringue was my specialty, and Stein ate it all by the truckload until the day he died. I tried to convince Epsilon that he’d committed suicide. “He’d been looking depressed lately,” I said. In reality, though, it was me who killed him. He was our substitute child, since no matter how hard we tried, I couldn’t get pregnant. At first we thought it was because of our bunk bed.