Baltimore Read online

  Baltimore

  Copyright © 2014 Jelena Lengold

  English translation by Persida Bošković

  Front cover and layout design by Sadie Crofts

  Serbian Modern Literature Series (SMiLeS)

  Published by:

  Blooming Twig Books

  New York / Tulsa

  www.bloomingtwig.com

  All rights reserved.

  This book may not be photocopied for personal or professional use. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without permission in writing from the author and/or publisher.

  Hardcover: ISBN 978-1-61343-052-1

  Paperback: ISBN 978-1-61343-053-8

  eBook: ISBN 978-1-61343-054-5

  Printed in the United States by arrangement with Geopoetika publishing (Belgrade, Serbia)

  www.geopoetika.com

  Let’s get something clear first:

  If this is going to be one of those stories in which everyone is nice and polite, then we’d better stop now.

  I would like to tell you everything about everything, and there is so much to say. You get that, don’t you? When you want to say it all, not everyone can be pleasant and polite. Least of all me.

  Then, there’s my family. With its highly developed sense of drama, a trait I too acquired at an early age as its equal member.

  Then all those diseases, which frightened me and still do.

  The numerous lies I sometimes lose track of and then think I’ll get confused and forget what I said and to whom.

  The amount of disdain I feel, mostly in the morning, while I’m taking off my nightgown, throwing it on the washing machine and getting into the bathtub.

  The things I try to forget, but sometimes go back to, then chase away yet again and remember once more… this can be exhausting, you know.

  The predictability of certain conversations – well, this is perhaps the worst of all.

  The predictability of everything that follows.

  And immediately after, or parallel to this, the hope that soon someone will surprise me in a superior and completely magical way. But, this doesn’t happen anymore. If it ever did. All right, it used to happen, but back then I was more easily surprised.

  When do we stop being young? When we feel back pain for the first time, or when there is nothing left to surprise us?

  The time difference between Belgrade and Baltimore is six hours.

  You might think this is crazy, but almost every day at 2:15 p.m., I sit at my computer and watch this guy in Baltimore on his way to work. He has the misfortune of living on a corner where one of those street cameras was installed. This is the location of a fast-food place. A street light. A bus stop. Nothing out of the ordinary.

  He leaves his building every morning at 8:15 a.m., local time, usually carrying a briefcase. Naturally, I gave him a name. It’s Edgar. Along with a name, I also gave him a biography. Edgar works for an insurance company. He’s single. That is to say, I’ve never seen him leave his apartment in the morning with a hottie. It looks like he doesn’t have a dog either. He walks out of his building and waits for the bus, completely unaware of the fact that some silly woman from Belgrade is watching him as he goes to work.

  I wait for the bus with him almost every day. The angle at which the camera was set up enables me to always see only a part of his face, and sometimes Edgar turns his back to me as he looks to see if his bus is coming.

  Sometimes Edgar is late. He runs out of his building with a sandwich in his hand.

  Sometimes he walks slowly, looking tired, as if he hadn’t slept all night.

  Sometimes he stares at some papers, without even looking up, while walking down the path from his building to the bus stop. As he waits for the bus, he continues his reading.

  Always alone. He never carries an umbrella. If it does rain, Edgar just pulls his hood over his head and shelters that briefcase of his under his jacket. This brought me to the conclusion that the content of the briefcase was more important to Edgar than his own head.

  By this time, my work day has long begun and I usually imagine myself buying an overseas plane ticket some day and then flying to Baltimore, getting out of the airplane and into a yellow cab, giving the cab driver the name of that street, arriving at the bus stop at precisely 8:10 a.m., local time, and waiting for Edgar to appear. He arrives wearing his yellowish hooded jacket. I look at him and say:

  “Hello, Edgar. I know everything about you and your life. I know how lonely you are. Fuck going to work today because I’ve travelled halfway across the world to spend this day with you. Let’s go to the zoo. Let’s go to a big park. Tell me what it’s like in this insurance company, Edgar. Are they giving you a hard time?”

  This is usually when my inspiration gives out on me.

  Edgar, whose name of course isn’t Edgar at all, would probably see me as just another crazy woman with a strange accent, move back a step in a politically correct manner, and turn away from me.

  Or, he just might surprise me. Who knows?

  I made an effort to be on time. Even though I knew this could also be construed to mean something. Everything could be construed to mean something. If you’re late. If you forget an appointment. If you arrive early. All these things can give you away. All right, then. I’ll try to be punctual, regardless of what it might reveal about me.

  I pressed the button on the intercom at precisely a minute to six.

  She opens the door and tells me to wait in the front room. I guess that means the previous patient is still with her. Then she disappears again, somewhere in the back.

  Not very professional, I think to myself. Why is it that I can’t be late while she can keep me waiting, and for our first appointment no less?

  Maybe this is some sort of tactic? Maybe there’s a small camera, over there above the sink, which records what the patient is doing while waiting to go in for his psychotherapy? Maybe she left her purse here intentionally, along with her notepad containing who knows what sort of information, and a computer? How could she possibly think I would be so naïve?

  Okay, looking over the room. Even if the camera was taping me, looking around is normal. I don’t suppose she expects me to sit here and stare into one spot? Not very imaginative posters. Emphasis on the “female” touch. Dried flowers. Aquarelles portraying romantic pregnant women. Numerous real potted plants. Yuck.

  I have a clear view of a wall clock from the bench where I’m sitting. Ten after six. This is now becoming a bit rude, don’t you think?

  I can hear someone laughing in the other room. If only they were crying, then delaying my appointment would make some sense, but laughter? I try to make out the words, but all I can hear is mumbling. The only distinct sound is that of occasional laughter.

  I get up and pour myself a glass of water. I’m not thirsty. I do this just for the sake of doing something. Then, I observe the small bubbles as they rise to the surface and fly upwards without hesitation, racing on their way to the top, towards the light, to unite with the open air in the room.

  And then I hear something. Here they come. They’re leaving the room. I return to the bench, a bit too quickly. Like a guilty person. What foolishness. I just got up to pour myself some water.

  “Would you like some juice?” she asks, as if I were there for a dress fitting.

  “No, thank you. I helped myself to some water.”

  Little does she care. Evidently, the fact that I’ve been waiting on this little bench for the last fifteen minutes didn’t even deserve a hint of an apology.

  “All right,” she says in her calm voice, as she shows the woman who was laughing during my fifteen minutes to th
e door. “You may go in now.”

  And then, suddenly, I’m in this other room, once again waiting for her.

  She shouts from the other room:

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t like a cup of coffee, tea, some juice, or something else?”

  “No, really, I’m fine,” I shout back.

  In the room I see two chairs, two sofa chairs, a coffee table, more flowers, and even more of the female garbage. Flower arrangements and the like. All right, everything is quite tasteful, but it somehow makes my stomach turn.

  I bet she’s not coming in so she can see where I’m going to sit. But, I know that trick. I won’t sit anywhere. I’ll stand in the middle of the room and wait for her to come in.

  And here she is, finally, with a cup of coffee in her hand.

  “Where do you sit?” I ask.

  “I sit here, across from you,” she says and motions me to a chair.

  She then spends some time observing the potted Japanese violets standing in the window, and says:

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with them. They won’t bloom like they’re supposed to.”

  “That’s odd,” I say. “They certainly have enough light here.”

  Could it be that she too feels a little uncomfortable, or is this the standard beginning – seemingly informal? Like, we just met to talk about flowers. What would happen if I were to tell her flowers were the last thing in the world I was interested in? If I were to tell her my mother’s home was always packed with rubber plants, cactuses, and by and large resembled a jungle so that we were never able to sit comfortably in any part of the apartment? What would happen if I were to say this, and if I were to ask her not to bother me with her flowers? Would that be considered impolite? What would happen if I were to tell her that I’ve made it a point not to have any plants in my home? And that in my opinion, plants don’t find apartments pleasant at all. In fact, I think these plants are unhappy, condemned to listen to our quarrels, to watch us having bad sex, to breathe in our cigarette smoke and the scent of our bathroom fresheners, and worst of all, sometimes they’re even condemned to endure light throughout the night. Plants that would have gone to sleep long ago, and dreamt about other plants. I could have told her all this, but of course, I didn’t.

  Finally, she sits in her chair. Her cup is in her hand. In fact, she’s holding it with both hands. I’ve always liked it when people held their cups of coffee with both hands. It makes them seem so vulnerable. They look like someone who is trying to keep warm by holding this cup. I’m inclined to develop an instant and irrational liking to people who hold their cups in this manner.

  Why is she doing this to me?

  She smiles at me – a nice, warm smile. Not at all fake. Trained, maybe, but honest. It’s clear she’s not afraid of the silence between us. Leaning back in her sofa chair, which is, as I’ve just come to notice, significantly lower than mine, she slowly brings the coffee cup to her lips and takes a sip. Once again she places it in her lap, still using both hands.

  “So, how are things?” she asks.

  “Confusing,” I say, determined to be completely honest.

  Since I’ve already decided to pay for the aggravation, the least I could do is try to be honest.

  “Confusing. Aaall right. And what else?”

  “Well… to be honest, I also find it all a little silly. Unusual. I even feel a bit humiliated, but not too much.”

  “Why humiliated?”

  “It’s like, well, you should be able to solve your own problems. If you ask for help, it means you’re weak. I guess?”

  “Whose voice is telling you you’re weak?”

  The voice of my husband, I’m thinking to myself. But I don’t say anything. He’s the one who thinks if he can do everything on his own then everyone else should too.

  “All right. Here’s what I know about you. You’re forty-three years old, a writer by profession, you’re married… do you have any children?”

  Oh, dear God. Here it comes.

  “No, I don’t have any children.”

  “Was this a mutual decision or….”

  “Well, sort of, yes, I guess… we didn’t really come out and say we didn’t want children, but we didn’t really try to have them either. On the contrary. We made sure it didn’t happen. Had I decided I wanted children, I’m sure my husband would have supported me, but since it frightens me, he, of course, never forced me to do anything that frightened me….”

  I shouldn’t have mentioned my fear. If she now starts pestering me about this….

  “In any case,” I quickly continued so as not to allow her to jump in with one of her questions, “I don’t think this presents a major problem for me. It’s quite clear now that I won’t be having children and I’ve learned to live with it. Sometimes I feel a bit uneasy when I find myself with a group of women who have children, and they start talking about them, because I can’t participate, but for the most part, it’s okay.”

  She smiled. I got the impression that she realized I didn’t wish to talk about it anymore.

  I too leaned back in my sofa chair. The hell with it. I’m here. Whatever happens, happens.

  “I’m afraid of this,” I said.

  “What exactly frightens you?”

  “Pain frightens me, naturally. I know this is a process and that it will last and that it will be painful the entire time. I’m afraid of what we’re going to dig up, and of all the feelings I’m going to experience on my way there, wherever that might be. I’m afraid of giving up halfway through. I’m afraid I might even make it all the way and then reach a place not worth all the searching and all that pain. I’m afraid of all the things that might creep out in the meantime.”

  And then I told her all those things about the writing. How my writing used to give me great pleasure, how nothing could be more important, and how the satisfaction I felt after writing a story couldn’t be compared to anything else.

  “Maybe the problem is,” I said, “is the fact that I’ve decided to write a novel. Maybe I’m expecting too much of myself, who knows. Maybe the short stories were an ideal genre for me. You lift the lid just a bit, for a few days, dig around your inner self, write the story and quickly close it again before all the demons find their way out. Open, write, close. Over and over again. And now, suddenly, a novel. This means that lid, that manhole, has to stay open for a long time. For months and months. And I have to live next to it, sit on the edge of that ravine, look down and feel my legs tremble above the abyss. To be exposed for months to the stench that is about to gush forth. And this is why I haven’t written anything for the last two, three years. I tell people I’m writing a novel but, in truth, I’m doing nothing. I wander aimlessly about the apartment, clean it to no end, play computer games, write to strangers all over the world, have conversations with cyber maniacs which, had I made notes, could have been played on Broadway that same instant, but I never bothered to write them down. That’s the strangest thing of all. It’s not unusual when you find it hard to do a job you never really liked. But when you suddenly can’t do something you used to like, something you used to enjoy, well, then there must be a problem somewhere. This is why I came to you. Primarily because of this. I want to know why I can’t write a novel.”

  To me this sounded like an excellent explanation. I almost believed in it myself.

  Our conversation revolved around this problem a little while longer. I told her a little about my family. She posed small, pleasant questions, and I talked. About my mother, about my father, about the nice, green house where I grew up. I felt like crying again when I came to that part, but I controlled myself. She said:

  “Feel free to cry.”

  I suddenly felt like this was all too much. I thought things would go more slowly. That it wouldn’t hurt right away. I told her I have nothing against warm and open communication; that I’m willing to make an honest effort, but that I nevertheless need time to open up. I felt like I was walking on top of an enormous ball,
contemplating whether or not I’m going to stay there and waste our time, or if I’m just going to dive into the depths. And I knew the latter frightened me immensely.

  “I see,” she said, “that you have a very pleasant way of letting others know where your boundaries are, how far they can go with you. You do this in such a way as not to hurt the other person.”

  I was both thrilled by her compliment as well as ashamed by the fact that such little praise could make me so happy. Could it be that I crave approval to that extent?

  “Would you say your life has been a happy one so far?”

  What a tough question! Is there anyone who can honestly say they are happy? And as far as the other question goes, the one about the meaning of happiness, I don’t even want to think about it, let alone discuss it. It’s so overdone.

  “Hmm… I don’t really know. Let’s just say that the only thing I can tell you for certain is that, so far, my life has not been an unhappy one. I’ve been blessed with so many things. Compared to other people, I’ve fared well. I’m not ill. I’m not an invalid. I’m not unattractive. I have the right number of fingers and toes. I didn’t have to experience the things I truly dread, like being born in a town consisting of ten houses stacked on top of each other on some mountain somewhere. For me, that is the worst imaginable fate, even though this might not be the case. But, when I travel somewhere and see such places and houses, and think about the people who live there, I know I’m very lucky I’m not one of them. Compared to the people who are really unhappy, I guess I’m happy. I don’t know.”

  A small clock stood in the window, sideways, strategically positioned so that I could see it, and be aware of how my time was running out much faster than I would like it to. I remember the operation from two years ago. That was easy. You go in, they put you out, remove a few gallstones, which caused you unbearable pain, and – you come out healthy. Sheer magic. How great would it be if the therapist could do the same.

  “And if therapy did work like this,” she asked, “what would you like to change?”

  Finally, an easy question.