I have a merciless encounter with my reflection in the bathroom mirror. My face is mute and blank. I’m trying to spare myself. My eyes are two black stones, without intensity or life. My lips are dry and cracked from not speaking or having contact with anyone else. The pills I take dry out my body from the inside, and my skin feels more taut every day that passes. My hands are chapped. As my body dries up, my brain is also shrivelling. I’m finding it increasingly hard to keep my thoughts straight; they keep merging, creating incomprehensible patterns inside my head, impossible to dissect. In most cases, I just leave them there in a tangled heap, like a ball of yarn that has unrolled and then become hopelessly snarled. Impenetrable.
I’ve been sitting in the kitchen, watching the refuse lorry and all the activity surrounding that rumbling behemoth that is now blocking the entire street. The kitchen window faces the same alley. Sometimes it’s liberating not to look at the view that’s visible from all the other windows in the flat.
Two men in overalls come out of the back door of the restaurant. They fling big black bags into the maw of the lorry. Imagine if you could do the same thing with your own shit. Just dump it somewhere and then start over afresh. Shit you never asked for, which was simply foisted upon you. And there was nothing you could do to escape it.
On the other side of the alley I can see people in the windows. Office drones at their desks, staring at their computers. Every now and then they pick up the phone, lean back and stare listlessly out of the window. They drink endless cups of coffee, pick their noses, unaware that they’re being watched. One man has a habit of sticking his hand down his crotch while he talks on the phone. Inside the waistband of his dapper-looking suit trousers. Then he holds his hand up to his nose. People are disgusting.
What sort of lives do they have, those people in that office? Who is loved or not loved? Are any of them happy? Do they like each other? I doubt it. People meet, have dinner together, go to various social functions, but how many of them really enjoy spending time with one another?
Like Mamma and my siblings. Birthday parties, Christmas Eve celebrations, the obligatory flower bouquets, comments, compliments. I used to think they were fun, but now I see things much more clearly. Do my siblings share my view? When I was younger, I took that for granted. Now I see reality differently. There are too many obstacles. We were never encouraged to take care of each other, to support one another. Instead, Mamma split us apart, making us feel like three isolated islands without any connection to each other, which made us all the more dependent on her.
Of course that was exactly what she wanted.
I don’t know how many times she has told me how wonderful my sister is and how much she loves her. More than anyone else. ‘She’s the apple of my eye,’ she once said to me, giving me an intent look. Then what does that make me? How does she expect me to respond? What does she want me to say, feel, think?
On the other hand, she doesn’t hesitate to complain, loud and clear. ‘I can’t for the life of me understand how he could say something like that to me, his own mother. Can you understand it? When I went to visit him, at the dinner table I asked him for some pickles, and all he said was: They’re in the fridge. Can you imagine that? I was supposed to get up and go and look for them myself in the refrigerator! I would never have treated my own mother that way. Another time I asked your sister to return the rug that I gave her because I decided it would look so nice in the living room now that I’ve had it repainted. But she got furious and told me it was hers to keep. Good Lord, after all I’ve done for her, and that’s the thanks I get?’
One day I have to listen to how adorable my siblings are; the next day I’m expected to comfort my mother because they’ve treated her so badly. And worst of all, they show her no gratitude. The same story, year in and year out. It never ends.
On top of everything else, we’re expected to put up with her constant reminders of what she has done for us. We’re supposed to be so bloody grateful, because of all the sacrifices she has made.