Baltimore (8 page)

“Draw it.”

I drew myself in a cloud, like in one of those comic strips.

“Whose suitcase is it?”

“My mother packed the suitcase, she’s a school teacher and she has to take her students on a field trip. I’m six or seven years old and I’m devastated because she’s leaving.”

“What’s the small red thing on the suitcase?”

“It’s a poem I wrote. I put it on my mother’s suitcase and I’m hoping she’ll notice it when she goes to leave.”

“What’s the poem about?”

“Some sad children,” I said.

But I lied. I remember only too well that the poem was about some dead children. I couldn’t say it out loud. I thought it would sound too insane.

“So, you’re in this house like some ghost and you’re looking at the suitcase which is making it very clear what is to follow.”

“Yes, the suitcase doesn’t leave any room for hope. There’s nothing to be done.”

“There’s nothing to be done,” she repeated after me, nodding her head.

As if she wanted me to hear some of my sentences again. As if sometimes she wanted to make sure she heard me right.

“So, you’re looking at the suitcase and… What does it look like? If it could talk, what would it say?”

Whatever, if the elephants and the membrane around the baby could talk, why wouldn’t the suitcase? Nothing seemed strange to me anymore.

“The suitcase is a bit uneasy and annoyed, and it says: ‘Why is this kid circling around me? I’m here on a sacred mission to protect the ironed dresses. I can’t be a responsible suitcase while kids stomp on me. There’s no way. You can’t expect that much from a suitcase, even if it is the strongest suitcase of all, like me! Besides, this kid is getting on my nerves.’”

“So, the suitcase feels no compassion whatsoever for the child?”

“Well… it does, actually, but its duty comes first. The suitcase can’t allow its emotions to get the better of it because this would have a negative effect on its performance. To the suitcase, the dresses it holds inside are the most important things in the world. When it reaches its destination, everything must look perfect.”

“Does anyone in the house notice what the child is feeling?”

“No, no one. Maybe just the door.”

“What is the door like?”

“Old and wise. It has seen so much, but it’s powerless to do anything. The door has seen things no one else has.”

She was silent for a while. She was thinking, I guess, whether or not to ask.

“What has the door seen?”

I took a few more strips from the roll of toilet paper. Everything was so surreal. The spring afternoon, the voices in the street, me sitting in a nice wicker chair, the woman sitting across from me, listening to me talk about what the suitcase and the door were saying as if it was the most normal thing in the world. I couldn’t help but observe this scene from the outside as well, the entire time. This made me feel even sadder. I saw myself, a pathetic, desperate, middle-aged woman, sitting there and crying over something that was meaningless, something that happened ages ago.

“The door saw this child kneeling a few times on the door mat, out of fear.”

“Did the child kneel anywhere else, or was it just in that one place?”

“Just there. In front of the door. Several times.”

“Is there, someone who senses what the child is feeling?”

“There is. My grandfather. And nobody else.”

“And now? What’s the situation now? Who takes care of this child now?”

I didn’t have to think twice.

“My husband,” I said. “He’s the one who takes care of me.”

“And do you think you do the same for him?”

“No. I neglect him. My attention is directed towards other things and other people, least of all him. I sometimes feel guilty because of this.”

“And in the meantime, life goes by,” she said, in a manner which wasn’t quite like her.

It occurred to me that she might have recognized something from her own life.

We both looked at the clock. My time was running out. It was time for me to wipe my tears and walk out of there all bloated from crying. Giving me time to slowly return to normal, she continued:

“You have very strong abandonment issues. It’s as if you’re in constant fear of being abandoned. You know, I found the games I too played in my life very interesting and later, I analyzed them. Maybe your game is to compensate for your fear of abandonment by abandoning others….”

If only you knew, I thought to myself, how appealing the idea of abandonment is! To leave everything behind and go live on a mountain. To leave everything and live in sin somewhere where it’s warm and where the wind is soft. To radically change your life, take a new name and live on some other continent. To abandon yourself. Above all, yourself. To be carefree, beautiful, new, and young in someone else’s skin! If you only knew….

No matter where we start, the two of us always go back to something that hurts. Or used to hurt. Or I’m afraid might hurt.

“This is getting too humiliating for me,” I tell her. “I’m constantly whining. This can’t be. I’m not like that.”

“Like what?”

“It can’t be that I’m someone who constantly complains.”

“I find that you have an unusual expression on your face when you talk about the things that hurt you….”

“What do you mean?”

“You smile. You’re constantly smiling.”

“Unless I’m crying.”

“Yes,” she says laughing, “unless you’re crying. Why do you smile when you talk about serious matters?”

I can’t believe she’s asking me this! Did I wander into the wrong office?

“A smile doesn’t always have to mean a person is in a good mood. A smile is also a matter of politeness. You can also smile at a funeral when someone is expressing their condolences.”

She’s nodding her head, but she doesn’t seem quite convinced. I go on to prove my point:

“Who knows why women smile. There can be so many reasons. They might want to charm the person they’re talking to and engage them in a conversation. By smiling, we let the other person know we’re willingly participating in the conversation. All right, I agree that a smile can also be a defense mechanism. But you smile as well!”

She ignores this and says:

“Can you try to pay attention to your facial expression while you speak, for a short time at least? To allow your face to express your true feelings?”

“Are you trying to say that my face doesn’t show what I’m really feeling?”

“I didn’t say that. I just said that sometimes you smile when you talk about very serious and painful matters. How can the person you’re talking to know what you’re really feeling if you’re smiling?”

What is she doing? What is she trying to tell me? That I always hide my pain, or that my “pain” is, in fact, bogus and that my face is giving me away? Which of the two is she referring to? I don’t ask.

In any case, she won’t be getting anymore of my smiles today. It seems best for all concerned if I just sit in my chair and cry. This way, I appear more like the patient, she appears more like the therapist, and everyone’s happy.

That said, she goes on to another fabrication:

“Do you remember a fairy tale which meant a lot to you as a child?”

Hey! I know this game! Now I’m supposed to say something based on which you’re going to interpret my perception of life! This all too typical question makes me want to scream. Besides, I wanted to tell her, all fairy tales are designed to make me look like an idiot. Which one should I choose? Cinderella? That won’t do, after all, I was an only child. Sleeping Beauty? Right, then I’d have to listen to her tell me how I’ve been waiting all my life for a prince to come and wake me from my everlasting dream with his kiss. Indeed, which fairy tale did I like?

“This won’t work,” I say to her. “The problem is I know the reason why you’re asking me this and I can’t think of one.”

“You don’t want to expose yourself?”

And then the smile again. Aha! Go ahead, smile. Meanwhile, you’ve banned mine.

“Truth be told, I know now, from this perspective, where this exercise is going. But back then, when I was just a child choosing a story I liked the most, I didn’t know this. So, I think it makes sense to mention the fairy tale my grandfather used to read to me at bedtime….”

“So then, there is that one story?”

“Yes, of course. But it’s almost pointless talking about it. It’s extremely obvious.”

“Never mind. Tell me.”

And then I told her the story about a boy who lost his parents and wandered around the world trying to find them again. Somewhere along the way, he came across an old man and they continued the journey together. They travelled halfway across the world, got into various predicaments and dangerous situations, and in the end, due to a lot of luck and practically a miracle, the boy managed to find his parents.

“Is there any need for me to interpret this for you?” she asks.

She’s finally beginning to understand.

“No, really no. I told you it was obvious. But, nevertheless, this was a fairy tale from my childhood. And who knows how many times my grandfather had to read it to me….”

“What does that story remind you of now?”

Our two heads on an enormous down pillow. His soft voice. His irremediable Russian accent. I see him reading the story and falling asleep in the middle of a sentence. I’d nudge him a little with my hand and he would awake with a jerk and continue reading. This is how we would lull each other to sleep, only he never nudged me once I dozed off.