Fish in the Sky (13 page)

But I didn’t stab myself, and Mom is just making dinner. Potatoes are boiling away, and the lid jingles gently on the brim of the pot. It’s already dark outside, and I watch Mom’s reflection in the window as she stands by the wooden chopping board, cutting an onion. Fried fish with onions, potatoes, and a glass of ice-cold milk. It’s like a reward for being alive. It was good to sleep. I feel better; I’m numb, and there’s not a thought in my head. And the best thing is that Mom suspects nothing and simply hums along to the radio. I could sit like this all evening. It would be so nice to sit like this for a long, long time.

But I’m forced to my feet by the pressure in my bladder, and I go upstairs to the bathroom. For about half a second, I stand in the doorway and stare at the wonder before my eyes. At first I don’t react. Maybe I’m not fully awake yet; maybe I’m still dreaming; maybe I’ve started to hallucinate. Up from the frothy white bubbles in the bathtub rise two firm, round, and glistening breasts. My cousin Gertrude has her head under the surface and is combing her fingers through her hair in the water. Her breasts are large and beautiful, and there are little wisps of lather on each of the dark-brown nipples. And suddenly I don’t need to pee. Without thinking I sneak into the bathroom and crouch under the towels on the hanger, press myself up against the wall, and peek through a tiny gap between two towels. Most likely I’m still sleeping; otherwise I would have run out of here. But I can’t move; I am limp like the other towels, watching. Suddenly her head rises out of the water, she catches her breath, moans with pleasure, and dries the water from her face. Then she notices that the door is ajar. My heart is not beating anymore. I’m no longer a towel, I’m one of the tiles in the wall.

“Betty?” she shouts.

“Yes, dear?” Mom calls up the stairs.

“Can you close the bathroom door? It’s opened,” Gertrude shouts back and covers her breasts. My mom’s footsteps come up the stairs.

She takes the knob, and as she closes the door she says, “It does that all the time. You’d better just lock it next time.” Then she closes the door tightly.

My mother has shut me in here with my stark-naked cousin. I’m not breathing anymore; I’m invisible; I’m just two eyes behind a towel. Gertrude stands up in the tub, and I can see her whole body; the water runs and drips down curved lines and round forms. She gets the soap and a washcloth and starts to rub it on her, smearing the white foam over her breasts so they move gently in her hands, and her hands move the soapy towel down the stomach, round and round, down the outside of her long thighs, then upward inside her long thighs. She strokes all of her wet body until it’s white all over, in streaks and patterns like African body paint. Then she sits down slowly into the steamy hot water and sighs and moans. She lies still in the tub with her chin just touching the water. Two mouthfuls of breast rise up and surface, nipples on top, like two volcanoes, each on its own island. White foam circles the islands like silent surf. She lowers her body a little so that just her lips are above the water and starts to breathe out. The gurgling sound echoes around the tiles, me among them. I have to disappear before she gets out of the tub, have to crawl out the keyhole or something.

Gertrude’s face is sweating; she lowers her eyelids, and then her head disappears slowly under, her kneecaps rise, and I notice that she is jerking her head side to side while combing her fingers through her hair. Carefully I stretch my trembling hand from under the towel rail, grab the doorknob, and open the door as quietly as I can. In one swift movement, I’m out in the hallway, closing the door behind me, and as quickly, my heart starts to beat, faster and faster. I’m drenched in sweat, and there’s a monstrous pressure in my groin.

Mom walks past the foot of the stairs and sees me standing there, still with my hand on the doorknob. I stare back, but my eyes won’t focus.

“Gertrude is taking a bath, dear,” she says. “You’ll have to wait a bit to go to the bathroom.”

I take my hand slowly off the knob, fingers trembling, and speak with a deep, husky voice I’ve never heard before.

“All right,” I say.

“Dinner’s ready soon,” she says.

“All right.”

I float like a whiff of steam into my room, and I’m certain I have a fever now. I’m numb everywhere, even my fingertips. But deep down in my belly, a roaring lava stream whirls. I’ve never felt like this before, like I’m being fried on a stick, like my head is full of cotton, like my veins are bursting from the pressure of my blood. I lie on my bed and focus on a tiny crack in the ceiling, while my mind starts the replay in slow motion.

I had no idea that breasts could be so beautiful, that a single girl taking a bath had such graceful movements. There must be something terribly wrong with the creation story. How could such beauty be made from a single rib from a normal guy? More likely the guy was made from leftovers when God had finished his true masterpiece: woman. Just like the art teacher used to say when we were supposed to make something from clay: “If there are any leftovers, you can make whatever you want to.” That’s how it must have been with God; when he had created woman, in all her ethereal beauty, there was a small piece of mud left that was enough for a male.

The door swings open and Gertrude storms through the room in a white bathrobe with a high towel turban on her head, the red towel I had hidden behind. She goes into her room without looking left or right and closes the door, but the warm and sweet fragrance from her body twirls around my room and embraces me. I can’t hold back the smile of pleasure that slowly spreads, from somewhere deep down in my belly, across my lips.

Although my cousin is a goddamn brat, intolerable in every sense and the loudest bitch in the Northern Hemisphere, it can’t be denied that she’s not badly formed by nature. My life would probably be much less interesting if she hadn’t forced herself into it, and it’s quite possible she even saved it, without having the slightest idea.

I peek over the edge of
Tintin
and watch my cousin eating her cereal on the other side of the kitchen table. It’s 7:25, and Mom is running around the kitchen as usual.

“Here’s your lunch box, Josh. Don’t be too late, now. Did you finish your homework?”

To avoid answering, I fill my mouth with cereal and make a sound that could be either yes or no.

“There you are — I made some for you too, Trudy, dear,” Mom says, and hands my cousin two cheese sandwiches wrapped in aluminum foil. My cousin looks up with disgust.

“You have to eat, you know,” Mom says.

“Yes, but not this,” my cousin says.

Mom takes her purse out and puts some money on the table.

“Then buy yourself something, dear. You can’t go starving, you know.” Then she runs for the bus.

Gertrude has her hair down, but one thin strand hangs over her forehead. Her long earring dangles from her ear, and when she leans over the cereal bowl, I can easily watch the curving hills slope down the open neck of her sweater. Then follows two rope-knitted hills with a deep valley between them.

“What are you staring at?” she shoots out, and looks up, but I disappear behind
Tintin.

“Nothing.”

“You’re such an ignoramus.” She frowns and stands up.

Out in the morning light, rain falls on the kitchen window and I hear the front door slam shut behind her and the sound of her high-heeled boots on the path as she walks toward the bus station. Then all I hear is the ticking clock: 7:45. I still have time to run to school. Five minutes more and I’ll be too late, ten minutes and the first lesson will have started. I brood over
Tintin,
reading the text as slowly as I can. Captain Haddock is swearing over some disaster. “Billions of bilious barbecued blue blistering barnacles!” he says. I wonder how many
b
’s there are in this sentence, and I start counting.

The ticking clock slows down until finally I can’t hear it anymore. The cereal crackles almost silently in the bowl, raindrops fall on the windowsill outside with gentle plops, someone next door flushes the toilet, the water gushes through the pipes in the wall, a radio is turned on, and I hear the sweeping news melody. It’s the eight o’clock news. I’m too late for school.

I run to my bedroom, undress quickly, and crawl under the warm comforter with
Tintin
in my hands. Before I can even read one page, I’m fast asleep.

I wake up extremely well rested but a little confused, and it takes me a long time to stretch fully and look around me. It’s like I’m waking up in this room for the very first time. It feels like Sunday. But then I notice my schoolbag in the corner where I threw it yesterday. It’s close to noon. My class will be having their lunch; nobody has any idea why I’m not there. Stupid schoolbag. I get a knot of anxiety in my stomach just looking at it. It’s like it’s staring at me, murmuring, “Truant, truant.” I have to get rid of it as soon as possible and everything that’s in it. I also have to find a way to get Mom to sign the letter I’ve written without her knowing what she’s signing. If I can manage that, then my liberation will be complete.

It’s a strangely comforting feeling wandering around the house in pajamas in broad daylight on a workday. This is what millionaires must do every day. They don’t need to work and can just do whatever they want all day. One day I’m going to have so much money that I don’t have to do anything. I’m going to have a huge mansion with loads of bedrooms and living rooms and a library. I’ll sit in my silk gown, smoking my pipe, having servants bring me chocolate milk and cookies on a silver plate while I read all the books in the world. Mom will have her own part of the mansion all to herself, where she can lie on a big sofa, drink coffee, smoke Kents, and read all the ladies’ magazines she likes.

I take my sandwich out of the foil, pour milk over the chocolate powder in the glass, and stir until the milk turns dark brown. I take a bite of my sandwich and continue to stroll around my future home. Gertrude will be welcome to stay as well. She’ll have several rooms of her own. And a gigantic bathroom with mirrors from the ceiling to the floor. But I will have a secret chamber where I can sit and watch her bathe without her noticing me. I follow her in my mind as she walks out of the bathroom into her bedroom. She sits stark naked at her dressing table, combs her hair, and smears body lotion all over her breasts. Then I open the door and walk in, dressed only in my silk robe, with a silk scarf around my neck and a mustache. She looks up and smiles, walks toward me, naked, naked, naked, takes my hand, and leads me temptingly, provocatively toward a huge bed. I lie down, and her face comes closer to mine, her breasts stroking my body until finally they rest on each side of my Adam’s apple.

I choke and a bit of bread gets stuck in my throat. I gasp for air and try to cough, try to inhale, but I can’t. My throat is blocked. I jump to my feet, stiff with terror. I’m alone in the house. I can’t call for help, can’t breathe, can’t make a sound. I grab my throat and fall to the floor, trying to pat myself on the back. Soaked in cold sweat, I stumble to my feet and throw myself against the door. My feet are trembling, my eyes bulging, my head bursting. Is this how God is going to punish me? Choking me to death on my school lunch because I played truant and spied on my cousin while she was having a bath? My face is boiling. Everything has gone red and black. I’m drooling, dizzy; my feet are cold, my fingers numb. I drop to my knees, double over, and bang my head on the floor. Once. Nothing happens. I strain to lift my head up and let it fall. Twice. I try to raise my head again, but I’ve lost all sense of direction. Which way is up? Which way is down? My forehead slams to the floor. Third time’s the charm? And finally the bread dislodges and shoots from my mouth. A great hissing sound rings in my ears as air rushes into my lungs — breathing in, screaming out, breathing in, screaming out. I stumble to my feet and run to Mom’s bedroom. As I rush forward, I stub my toe on the door frame and fall onto the soft comforter, crying out like a toddler. I want to be small again. I want my mom to comfort me, take care of me, dry my tears, stroke my hair, put me to sleep, and protect me from this terrible world. I’m scared and vulnerable, and I want to disappear, to become nothing so no one will remember I ever existed. I want to have never been. I wish for it, I pray to God, I curse God, and I curse the world and school and the injustice of it all. I curse the total lack of understanding, the gym teacher, and finally the government until I’m tired of crying and lie still, sniffling, staring at the doorknob.

It’s always dark in here because Mom never draws the curtains — there’s no point. It’s dark when she wakes up, and it’s dark when she comes home. She doesn’t draw the curtains until spring. This is her hollow, her shelter from the world, her private corner of the universe. Above her bed is a black-and-white photo of her childhood house, on the bedside table a photo of Granddad, who died when she was a little girl, by the window an easy chair, a knitting basket, and a coffee table loaded with magazines, an old lamp with frills dangling from the lampshade. That’s all.