ApartFrom
Constance A. Dunn
Copyright © 2013 by Constance A. Dunn
KUBOA/SmashWords Edition
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[email protected] BULGARIA/AFTERNOON
Bettina climbed the lobby steps of her apartment complex. She thought it was strange how the carpet pattern always seemed askew each time she returned home, the brown diamond pattern blended with the dirt to create new shapes: rhombuses, squares, faces and animals. Her living quarters included one spacious room with a tiny kitchen and a bathroom. There was no such thing as a shower stall beyond the border of Romania and Bettina lost count of how many rolls of ruined toilet paper she drenched during a groggy morning bathing; the remnants of them were stuck in-between the moldy tiles, slowly disintegrating. Bettina often examined the shadow under her own jaw in the grimy bathroom mirror. She considered it lucky she had a face that blended well there, she admired anonymity above all else, but there was no doubting her purely American demeanor. She was just a little too warm to strangers, just a little too loud on the phone, she had a man’s handshake she learned from her mother, and she’d never seen a war. All in all she was a loose sack of stereotypes that ended up being true.
She placed her key, which felt like an anvil in her fingers, into the keyhole; it stuck when she turned it. Bettina never understood how curious neighbors could peek through a keyhole until Bulgaria. A keyhole in Virginia is just that, a hole, “but here they are standardized to accommodate the arm of a grown woman,” she thought while she turned the key again with a loud clang.
The smell of her own body odor, pungent from the residue of sweat greasing the furniture and dirty clothes, hit her in the face. She had a strong scent, an ex-lover once told her it was like a drug that both angered and intoxicated him; likewise, Bettina was both ashamed and proud of it. It appeared after the first few days of sleeping on fresh sheets, and once she had used a mattress long enough the smell never quite faded away. She missed having a partner when she walked into the apartment. It was one of the only moments during the day that she consciously recognized the disadvantages of single life, one of them being an awareness of your own scent. She crossed to the fridge and discovered she was out of tomatoes.
… Late Afternoon...
Bulgaria smoldered in the summer and Bettina was hot walking down the market boulevard. The gypsies were in full-force on the small lawn in the center of the place, they always were. The heat made their faces shine and Bettina stared as she passed. She stood in awe of the culture; these free-wheeling outcasts represented something intrepid to her. She tried to shake her narrow-mindedness when she left Virginia “travel would do it,” she conjectured, at least that is what everyone said, but it would take time. But no matter how much time passed she couldn’t blind herself to the obvious differences between herself and others. European prejudices aren’t much different than the prejudices of the southern U.S., so she fit right into the population of local bigots. She was satisfied that at least she had a justification for her prejudice: assimilation. The few expatriates she associated with still made the jokes and talked the talk despite their worldliness, but so did the locals and with more conviction, so she still blended with the enlightened and unfeeling without having to compromise too much.
She walked the length of the market until she found a firm bunch of tomatoes, firm enough that her fingers didn’t pierce holes in the skin with the first touch, and she grabbed as many as her hands could manage. The booth owner kindly offered her a bag, Bettina bobbled her head “Da.” The attendant filled Bettina’s bag to the brim.
“Blagodarya.”Bettina nodded, or bobbled, in thanks then she turned a one eighty to make her way home when she ran right into a small girl. The girl’s skin looked like aged copper after the ashy green begins to congregate on the metal. She had a kind of smile on her face, but it was only effective on half the mouth, the other half drooped and snarled. The child’s hands were the strangest of all, both held in tightened claws, the skin chapped on the back like a worn washer woman’s and the right hand sported a tattoo across the bones; a simple series of lines, nothing intricate or impressively crafted, just three straight lines that traced the bones toward the wrist and up the arm. The girl had deep blue, almost sapphire eyes, indignant and unblinking, peering out from her copper face. She took Bettina in, all of her, every inch, as if to make sure she had the right person. And Bettina watched the girl’s tattoo on her right hand and followed the lines to the wrist. The creature’s little bones protruded from her arm: two knobs on either side of the wrist and skin stretched over two sticks in the forearm. Bettina’s gut lurched and she felt a sob lodged in her throat, some lament for lost opportunities or excessive loneliness. She felt herself start to bleed. A painful contraction of her abdomen and she could feel the fabric between her legs soak through in a most unwelcome way. Bettina had often thought of what it would be like to face one of her own memories head-on and relive it again in full consciousness, but she always knew that in the end she would have done the same thing, this felt like that. She reassured herself that all this meant nothing and she would forget it tomorrow, she was moody that was all. One corner of the girl’s mouth rose to form a broader smile. The girl giggled and ran like a hunted gazelle through a throng of stern-faced mothers and the image evaporated. It was only later that Bettina noticed anything missing from her purse, by that time it was long gone.
….Later Afternoon...
At sunset the streets of Sophia glistened with a sheet of rain about as thin as a fly wing and as iridescent. “Now is the time to deal with the practicalities,” she braced herself for the police office visit and the mish-mash of emails and phone calls that would alert the world of the possible fraud committed in her name. Cancel the credit cards, check. A quick e-mail back to the States will solve that. Cancel the bank card, check. Bettina placed a call on her way to the police station at eight in evening Bulgarian time, nine in the morning stateside. The market closed at five. A five block walk to the police station lasted three hours. She used a toilet at a fast food chain to clean herself up. She stopped at a café and sat, and sat, and sat. She may have had a coffee, and continued to sit. She waited. She waited as long as she could.
Bettina could waste hours easily, it was a talent of hers, but this was the first time she remembered wasting time with purpose in Sofia. Usually she just whiled away the hours watching people, buildings, views, whatever as long as she could be silent and unobtrusive. She kept thinking of the girl and her tattoo and why anyone would tattoo a child that age. She remembered her decrepit skin, the dryness on the back of the hands and the way the child looked at her with such expectation.
…..Before Closing Time...
“Okay, Miss?” Asked the officer. He chewed the side of his mouth as he spoke.
Bettina blinked to wet her eyes that had dried out from waiting under the fluorescent overheads. The same light made the officer’s skin look green and gave him a reptile-like aura, it made Bettina sick. She was disappointed, not that her wallet was taken, but at the banality of the whole thing.
“Yes?” Bettina said.
“You tell me about the wallet, okay?” He said.
“It’s a brown, ladies wallet…so long, disorganized inside. It has a brass clasp.” She used her fingers to illustrate the size.
“What is this? Clasp?” He interrupted.
“The…um hook, or button? The thing that holds it together.” She explai
ned.
“Uh, yes, okay.” He said.
“Right. So do you think? I mean its low priority.” She was annoyed with his indifference and her own self-deprecating remark.
“Yes, I tell you the truth. This gypsy child, this is not unusual. So I doubt we find. I would call the bank and things. Okay? I am sorry but this is all, it is difficult.” He said.
“Yes, yes. I know, of course.” She replied.
The officer’s red-green cheeks glistened with oily sweat, a precursor to future heart problems thought Bettina. His form was stuck in the chair, rather than sitting in it, wedged between two armrests. The extra flesh draped over the metal frame, he was a paragon of disgruntled former military turned police. He sat sanguine and looked at Bettina as if searching for some kind of congratulations for his exemplary English. The fluorescents flashed above.
“Do you think I could find her, myself?” She asked again.
The officer looked at Bettina in that way only a man disappointed in his own life can look at a woman; as if to say “oh, now that’s cute.” Bettina swallowed the insult and continued.
“Yes. If I were to try to find her myself. Where would I start?” She asked.
“I do not know. “ He smirked again and shouted something to a colleague behind him, they all laughed. Then he got up and left her there without a goodbye, sorry or any other polite formality. He gripped the police report in his fist and the paper crumpled under the pressure.
…..Evening Coming On...
Outside the police station Bettina was greeted by the nonsensical weaving in and out of side streets, the uncomfortable relationship between ancient order and modern chaos, the rag-tag geometry of the pedestrian walkways. Bettina relished the conflict of the city especially the visual conflict of streets in the Balkans; balconies colliding with balconies in the alleyways or Communist blocks cuddling next to Viennese knockoffs with a perishing church right in-between the two. She was humiliated to admit her attachment to the mundane details. She regarded all these things now as she wandered side streets half-searching for the girl, a little distracted and slightly anxious about her wallet and other money troubles. She kept a mental tally of gains, losses, deposits, withdrawals, approximate growth at the present interest rates, possible future investments, employment opportunities and other ways to put herself in numbers. She kicked a crumbled bag of chips out of her path toward a kerchiefed begging woman. She felt ashamed when the woman made eye contact with her afterward, but this subsided into relief that she had the leisure time to ponder investments instead of sitting within kicking range of street garbage.
...Early Evening...
Bettina thought of the girl again but the first thing that appeared in her mind’s eye was a section of copper-plated roof she’d seen as a child. This image super-imposed itself atop of an image of copper decor at her wedding then everything got confused.
The girl’s eyes were also remarkable so she thought of those instead, something between sinister and sublime. Her eyes stood still as the scenery behind her sped past, evolved and disintegrated; eons of time spit out of a vacuum and brushed past like a stray cat. They were dark blue of deep water where demonic-looking fish hunt for their prey without having to hide. The pupil was open and black, but the whites of the eye were a true white, not yellowed from malnutrition or red from tears, as white as a pageant queen’s teeth.
...Evening...
Bettina searched every street she could think of in hopes of catching a second look at the child’s coppery skin. She had no hope of finding the wallet. She sat in cafes and waited using her bag as a lure, hanging it out in the open to attract the attention of would-be pickpockets. She completely neglected her work, but she was looking for an excuse to ignore work anyway. She had grown increasingly bored with touting the beauties of a Grecian coastline and giving suggestions for what to bring on a Saharan adventure; one, because she had never been to either of these places and two, because the idea of traveling by guidebook left her numb. Every time she opened her laptop, she felt the sting of her own limitations. Fortunately, Bulgaria’s struggling economy allowed her to work less, so she could afford a little side adventure. Despite her pleasure at being alone, she had to admit it was nice to get out of the apartment, to be amongst her own species. This aimless watching had the inadvertent effect of forcing her into awareness, the concentration it took to spot a quick-moving, blue-eyed gypsy girl among a hubbub of people, honed her eyes to other passersby: the high-heeled, over-made-up girls, the men and their stares, the elderly couple walking arm and arm. The old were her favorites, their creases and age marks were more compelling than the fresh faces of the young. The young had been nowhere, so everywhere was possible. This made them unpredictable and she couldn’t trust them.
So she sat and watched. She tested the water with the gypsy families in the market, mostly they just laughed at her; but the market is where she spent most of her time. Reason told Bettina that this wasn’t the first time the girl had stolen in there; it was very possible that it was her office.
She repeatedly walked a one mile circumference around the area before she planned to find a resting spot where she could wait for the copper girl. She counted each turn around using a tree as a marker. One, two, three…eight turns around: the uneven cobblestones, the holes in the street, the running shoe knock-off guy, the makeshift open-air cafes, the coal-dust covered buildings, the pigeon shit, the covered heads and the platform shoes. Soon her feet pulsed, she could feel the rawness at the bottom of each heel. she could feel the dull thud of her hips as the muscles popped in and out of place. She was just about to sit down at a nearby café and wait for the pain to subside when she saw it.
It was right there on the ground at her feet; a miniature version of her face smirking back at her. It had expired, as of two years ago. She passed this point eight times before not seeing it and she didn’t know where it came from. She was afraid to touch it. It was clean, as if it just fell out of her wallet seconds before. She mustered the strength to bend her knees and reach for the I.D., but before she disturbed it she wanted to get a closer look. It was right side up, facing her. She looked around for footprints, nothing. Okay, so she looked for other distinctive markings on the ground: imprints from bike tires, scuffs on the cement, even a hair or a disturbed pile of dog shit. Nothing unusual or traceable as far as she could tell, not that she was expecting there to be, she laughed at her own belief in conspiracy theory.
It was inside the hollow of a tree planter. The cement and stone walkways surrounding the planter made any marks left behind difficult to trace. But as she looked closer, there was something else, nail marks. Someone had dragged their nails across the tree and left three deep gouges. Encouraged by this discovery, Bettina looked closer at the ground and saw a handprint; a very small, very light handprint. Whoever left it had not fallen; it was too gentle, too specific and too clean to be an accident. The nail marks weren’t violent, to the contrary, when Bettina looked closely they had the same deliberate characteristics as the handprint and they were completely parallel, perfectly horizontal. Judging by this oddity, Bettina guessed that the girl had stood behind the tree, looped her arm around and scratched with three nails, pulling her arm strong and straight along a parallel plane. Bettina stood on the other side of the tree, staring at the girl. She was there, but not there. One half of the girl’s body peeked out from either side of the tree. The trunk divided her face into two unequal sections. Her eyes were fixed on Bettina, ice and deep water, hardness and blackness. The emptiness filled Bettina as she watched the girl drag her nails across the tree. Skin fell from the girl’s chapped hand and dusted the ground. The three lines on the girl’s hand ran straight like arrows. Bettina noticed she was standing next to the sea, somewhere not in Bulgaria. The next thing she knew the ID was in her hand; when she put the ID in her pocket it all disappeared. She was back on the stone walkway.
The sea always brought tears to her eyes; actually, it made her w
eep, uncontrollably. A regret came over her; a regret that plummeted down inside her, like the sea rushing in, flowing down her throat into nothing. “It was a weird hallucination was all. Maybe I am losing some reality, but I’ll be fine, I know what’s real,” Bettina tried to calm herself.
She walked on, not looking anyone in the eye, not wanting to interrupt her own thoughts for a moment. Somehow she reached her apartment complex. She looked up at the antiquated door with the brass knocker and didn’t recognize where she was for a moment. She walked through the door and found her way to the apartment. She vomited then swallowed the acidic, burning liquid down again.
She felt the air move past her before she actually saw anything. Despite how horrifying the moment was, Bettina felt a bizarre relief at not being alone. But this only lasted for a moment and then she panicked, instinctively flicking on the light switch with a loud click: nothing was there. Nothing disturbed, nothing out of place, absolute nothingness. She was alone, just like before. Who was looking for whom? Her heart fluttered. She went to the bathroom and rinsed her mouth with a handful of water then she spit what was left of the tingling acid back into the sink. She looked at herself in the mirror and thought of a box lined with angled reflective surfaces she had seen once at some exhibit. When she looked inside the box she could see her image repeated back from three sides and continuing on indefinitely, except for the image in front of her, that led down a black hole; doubling, tripling and quadrupling back on itself into eternity.
…Next Morning...
The morning was sunny and Bettina found herself in a church. It was early in the morning and she was alone. She had walked there with coffee cup in hand trailing the morning rush hour crowds. She had been in a church like this before. The arched canopy of the ceiling was familiar looking, as were the stained glass windows and the front altar. She felt strange seeking refuge in a church, particularly one of such majesty. The structure somehow lost its meaning when she thought this way, the same way words lost their meaning when she found she could manipulate them. This made her too casual with sacred words, even when they fell short of defining the idea they are meant to represent, words like refuge and majesty. She didn’t know how she found her way here, but there she was; the wooden pew, the draughty aisles, the lit candles burning away in remembrance of some prayer and the morning sun making the dust dance visible. She hadn’t stepped foot in a church since the last time she made a promise in one. But this incident with the child, images of copper and eternity, oceans appearing out of nowhere, emptiness was too strong. She was never religious, but she had always thought herself spiritual; still, she felt rituals were showy and provided shallow comfort. The hardness of the pew numbed her legs, she bowed her head and closed her eyes but the domed ceiling seemed to press down on the top of her spine. So she sat in silence and thought the same request, over and over again “forgive me.” It was the guilt that always plagued her in these places. The church became dark; it descended slowly. Bettina thought it must be a cloud passing over the sun, only a momentary block, but it kept descending until the church went black. She heard the sound of a match strike and saw a small, dark figure light a prayer candle and kneel. But the figure made a sound, it was very faint at first, but it grew louder until she could hear the metallic laughter of a little girl. Bettina’s heart was a piston and she squeezed her eyes tighter trying to force the tremors and the vision to pass.
…A Few Minutes Later...
The brightness outside blinded Bettina and made her dizzy. She saw an unsettling image of herself in a white dress with an indifferent look on her face. She was cold and unfeeling. She stood in a church, similar to the one she just left. She stood facing the altar where a man waited with his back turned toward her, she knew who he was. He patiently waited for her, he always waited and she felt nothing. Two figures entered on either side of the altar: one was the copper girl, dressed for first communion with a long crinoline skirt. The girl was giggling, almost uncontrollably. She ran up and down the aisles and her dress caught the wind like a sail but it didn’t slow her down. She ran faster and faster the light reflected off her skin and blinded Bettina every time she passed. The other figure was a dark woman with freckles and the girl’s same blue eyes. The woman locked her gaze on Bettina and moved toward her seductively; her smile revealed a gold tooth that made her eyes look like sapphires. She pulled Bettina in, beckoning without weakness. The woman called out to Bettina with the air of answering a question she had heard before many times. The woman moved close enough to smell Bettina’s dead breath, but said nothing. Bettina instinctively opened her mouth. She was breathing in and out, filling Bettina’s lungs with a heavy sorrow. She said nothing, but Bettina felt a sound escape that made her cells shudder.
“Excuse me, excuse me miss? Where are you going?”
The tourist pointed at his map, squinted his eyes and looked up at Bettina. She stared back and said nothing.
…Late Morning...
She sat in the darkness of her apartment. She sat on a chair and stared at a wall. She turned her head every few minutes to inspect the empty space behind: a framed photo with a landscape of leafless trees, a buzzing fridge, a dirty floor and a multi-colored fabric pinned on the wall were all she saw. She laughed at herself again. “I am still a child,” she thought weakly, “afraid of nothing and thinking that ghosts are frightened of a sense of humor.”
The woman with the freckles had made a request of her. She contemplated the insanity of following through, but she also contemplated the likelihood of anyone noticing, “If a tree falls in the forest, etcetera,” she mused. “To follow the request of a person non-existent is one of the defining characteristics of schizophrenia,” she laughed to herself. “But if I am aware of it, is it really uncontrollable? A murderer may be insane but in the end they still killed someone.”