But the walls stay, the roof remains strong and immovable, and we can only pray that if these rooms have memories, they are not ours.
I wish I did not recognise pieces of myself within each of the Ieshans. If only Adonai’s soft martyrdom did not remind me so much of the boy who once marched off to the glory of war. If only Pilate’s nest of snakes did remind me of my own inner turmoil, and the vicious bitterness that rots my soul. If only Ruth did not have to say, there are certain things that I cannot feel.
Only moments ago, she had been uninteresting; a princess in name but not in right. A doctor for pleasure rather than practicality. I choose my next words carefully; but I am looking at her with renewed, apt attention. “At least you can admit it.”
I wonder, then, if she means it. There is a difference between an admission and an actual acknowledgement of truth. Do her words not sound like something a tragic princess might say, to receive attention? Do they not sound like something an unremarkable girl might comment to become, instead, remarkable? I have met many women with similar dispositions; but the idea of delving into the “truth” of her remark exhausts me to the point I would rather just take it at face value.
My mouth works. I remember the way blood and sea tastes too much like copper and salt, like the way rusting pennies smell. “It is not so hard,” I say at last. “First, you have to practice in the mirror. You have to put on a skin and pretend to be someone else.”
Who are you tonight? The question takes on the voice of my mother; it takes me longer than I would have liked, to remember why.
She had said it to me at the banquet where I received my medal of commendation. The medal I was meant to receive besides Bondike, adorned in our gleaming war paint. My mother had prepared me for the ceremony, with the paint; across my brow; my cheeks; my neck; my shoulder. Bondike’s colour had always been gold, to compliment me. Mine had always been metallic, coppery red to compliment him. That night, I had chosen gold and gold again: but my mother included old symbols of mourning, of loss rather than triumph, interwoven into the tapestry of less ancient signs that meant prosperity and victory and valor.
I had not felt anything; not even when they put the medal around my neck and paraded me in front of generals and colonels. Even when I had smiled so graciously; and spoken in my own voice; and acted in my old way. Who are you, tonight?
That is when I had begun, I think, to practice how to smile.
“When it is especially difficult,” I remark, in a kind of detached way. “I pretend I am my old lover, instead of myself. He was always better than me. More gracious. Quicker to smile. Quicker to laugh. Slower to anger. Empathetic.”
Even this is a lie.
We had never been lovers, in anything except for our souls.
It is true that, when times had been difficult, I had asked myself what would Bondike do, if he were me? It was such thoughts that gave me the strength to walk away from my father; to go to war again and again and again; to forgive my mother.
Of course, those things did not last without him. Without her. My mouth twists wryly. "The reason you state? It is why I was a good soldier." And then: "If you were to be someone else, Ruth... who would it be?" Even this, I think, has been recited in a mirror. This simple act of interest, of taking the step of asking--the engagement, the words themselves. I do not care what she answers; but the not caring is in and of itself a kind of imprisonment, so it is easier to walk into this story, into this myth, and pretend (and lie) that it does matter.
I turn my eyes to her, and they are not a soldier's eyes.
They are soft as a lamb's; as bruised as a martyr's. I am tired.
(But even that... even that... do I believe it?)
No.
It is easier, I know, to accept that some of us are simply born cursed.
Only moments ago, she had been uninteresting; a princess in name but not in right. A doctor for pleasure rather than practicality. I choose my next words carefully; but I am looking at her with renewed, apt attention. “At least you can admit it.”
I wonder, then, if she means it. There is a difference between an admission and an actual acknowledgement of truth. Do her words not sound like something a tragic princess might say, to receive attention? Do they not sound like something an unremarkable girl might comment to become, instead, remarkable? I have met many women with similar dispositions; but the idea of delving into the “truth” of her remark exhausts me to the point I would rather just take it at face value.
My mouth works. I remember the way blood and sea tastes too much like copper and salt, like the way rusting pennies smell. “It is not so hard,” I say at last. “First, you have to practice in the mirror. You have to put on a skin and pretend to be someone else.”
Who are you tonight? The question takes on the voice of my mother; it takes me longer than I would have liked, to remember why.
She had said it to me at the banquet where I received my medal of commendation. The medal I was meant to receive besides Bondike, adorned in our gleaming war paint. My mother had prepared me for the ceremony, with the paint; across my brow; my cheeks; my neck; my shoulder. Bondike’s colour had always been gold, to compliment me. Mine had always been metallic, coppery red to compliment him. That night, I had chosen gold and gold again: but my mother included old symbols of mourning, of loss rather than triumph, interwoven into the tapestry of less ancient signs that meant prosperity and victory and valor.
I had not felt anything; not even when they put the medal around my neck and paraded me in front of generals and colonels. Even when I had smiled so graciously; and spoken in my own voice; and acted in my old way. Who are you, tonight?
That is when I had begun, I think, to practice how to smile.
“When it is especially difficult,” I remark, in a kind of detached way. “I pretend I am my old lover, instead of myself. He was always better than me. More gracious. Quicker to smile. Quicker to laugh. Slower to anger. Empathetic.”
Even this is a lie.
We had never been lovers, in anything except for our souls.
It is true that, when times had been difficult, I had asked myself what would Bondike do, if he were me? It was such thoughts that gave me the strength to walk away from my father; to go to war again and again and again; to forgive my mother.
Of course, those things did not last without him. Without her. My mouth twists wryly. "The reason you state? It is why I was a good soldier." And then: "If you were to be someone else, Ruth... who would it be?" Even this, I think, has been recited in a mirror. This simple act of interest, of taking the step of asking--the engagement, the words themselves. I do not care what she answers; but the not caring is in and of itself a kind of imprisonment, so it is easier to walk into this story, into this myth, and pretend (and lie) that it does matter.
I turn my eyes to her, and they are not a soldier's eyes.
They are soft as a lamb's; as bruised as a martyr's. I am tired.
(But even that... even that... do I believe it?)
No.
It is easier, I know, to accept that some of us are simply born cursed.
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