Albena Stambolova - Everything Happens as It Does

Then he would shut down and leave. She had no idea why.

Her relationship with her brother had improved. Now he was a student at the university and he was telling her about all kinds of things. Margarita listened to him in her typical manner — she would concentrate for a second, following the story, then she would lose the thread again. Valentin would react in a funny way — he would get angry, as if Margarita was deliberately trying to annoy him. “She can’t understand a word. I’m just wasting my time.” Then he would come back, astonished by how much she actually remembered. And who said she needed to understand everything?

He would sometimes study for his exams with her and then they had a lot of fun. She knew she was helping him and felt proud.

Gradually, having the experience of other relationships, Valentin became very attached to his sister. Margarita was like a crystal mirror. Also, she was becoming prettier by the day. Her beauty had something childish and fragile about it. It was incredibly easy to hurt her or make her anxious.

According to Valentin, their mother was giving them too much freedom. A helpless creature like Margarita, who could get into all kinds of trouble, being out and about doing God knows what… He couldn’t bear the thought. But as usual, when he finally summoned the courage to speak to Maria, their conversation just dissipated into smiles and looks, which made Valentin realize that nothing would change, that he was worrying for no reason, and nothing bad could ever happen to Margarita.

After that conversation, he started taking Margarita with him whenever he could. He became closer to people who showed an attitude toward her similar to his own. In various circles of friends, Margarita was thus welcomed and loved. It became easier for Valentin to know where she went when she went alone. Sooner or later someone would tell him they saw her somewhere. Or he would try to guess.

Their relationship with Maria was odd. Maria had never seemed worried that one of the twins was different. In fact, around her mother, Margarita was at her most normal. Maria allowed her things that were forbidden to others — for example, she allowed her to come to her, avoiding the girl much less than she avoided everyone else; she even went to Margarita herself; she let her cuddle and play with her hair. Maria would always read fairy tales to her and Margarita knew them by heart. Margarita knew countless fairy tales. When she learned how to read, only Maria showed no surprise. But she did not appear happy about it either. As if the fact that Margarita was gradually entering the world of other people destroyed some essential bond with her mother. Valentin had noticed that his sister was a little timid with their mother, afraid to let her know that the world had become bigger, or that it had left any permanent traces in her mind.

Maria did not protest when Valentin started taking his sister out. But he knew that she didn’t like it and was merely tolerating it for the time being.

No matter what she put on, the mirror reflected back an unfamiliar image.

In the beginning this seemed normal. One put on clothes in order to become someone else. Changing clothes changed everything.

But there was also what she could observe in other people. For example, her mother. For a very long time she believed that Maria always wore the same clothes. Her mother was her mother and that was it. When she began to notice that Maria’s clothes were similar, yet different from one day to the next, she went to the bedroom and opened the wardrobe. It was filled with darkness — all clothes were dark-colored, most of them black, and all of them shapeless, masses of fabric with an occasional seam. Margarita took them down and threw them on the floor, where they landed with a whisper. They were so light — so different from the heavy sweaters, coats and trousers others wore. Margarita sat down on the floor and buried her hands in the fabric. Her mother’s clothes responded with a lifelike shiver. She lay down and buried her face in them — no smell. Unlike everything else, animate or inanimate, Maria had no smell. The clothes were tender, caressing, but they smelled of nothing. Or maybe nothing smelled like Maria.

Then Margarita tried to put something on; she didn’t know exactly what it was. A piece of clothing. She struggled for a while with the dark violet folds. Just when she thought she could glide her arms or her head in it, she realized there was no hole but only new layers of fabric unfolding in different directions. She persisted, slid her legs and arms blunderingly, without being able to put the thing on. Maria’s clothes also persisted, slipping off of her body to the ground. Margarita crumpled them furiously, grabbing them with both hands and pouring them over herself like water. They rolled down like streams, spreading when they reached the flat floor.

Suddenly Margarita stopped and looked down. She was standing ankle-deep in a moving, rippling mass. She lifted one foot, then the other — the fabric filled the empty space as soon as it appeared, then it settled back into stillness. Margarita sat down again and started crying, she was not strong enough to fight the clothes. And she couldn’t put them back where they came from, either. She sat in the middle of the lake of fabric, her tears trickling down her cheeks and over the cloth. Gradually, she quieted down as something interesting began to draw her attention. The fabric did not absorb her tears; the water drops from her eyes rolled over and disappeared into the folds like translucent pearls. Margarita tried to catch them but they vanished too quickly, without leaving a trace. Then the tears stopped, and Margarita stayed on the floor, gazing absently. Her mother found her still sitting there. She lifted her up without a word and took her out of the room.

Then there was a period when Margarita refused to change her clothes. She would feel great anxiety whenever Maria tried to force her. Her mother let her be. It was painful, Valentin remonstrated, it was unacceptable, but, as with everything in which Maria was involved, the problem reached its own resolution. Margarita stopped paying attention to clothes, she somehow forgot about them. She would put on and take off her clothes again. End of story.

But then something else happened. Margarita saw herself for the first time. Until then she had only felt herself from within, she had learned a thing or two, but somehow one-sidedly, as if under an umbrella hiding half the world from sight.

She began to make up her face, or more precisely, to paint her face. Her face was like a clean porcelain bowl and invited all kinds of painting. She usually stopped after doing one eye. And that’s how she went about for a long time — with one eye that was her own, and an eye that wasn’t.

Maria was never bothered, Valentin was not happy. What now? His sister was a Cyclops. His sister was a clown. On top of that, she did it well. And sometimes snuck out of the house with only one eye painted like this.

One day it was he who stopped her in the middle of putting on her make-up. He had come to pick her up to visit some friends. She was just finishing one eye. When he dragged her to the taxi, he couldn’t say if she had managed to finish with it or if he had interrupted her. Her eye was made-up perfectly, even Valentin couldn’t deny it.

Margarita entered their friends’ house without the slightest embarrassment. He was walking close by her side and everyone began to turn around. Then a mirror made him stop short in his stride. He and Margarita. He and his sister. The two of them together.

Half of her face was identical to his. As if she had merely borrowed it. For the time being. The other half… the other half was something Valentin felt unable to describe. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Names of stones dashed through his mind — turquoise, sapphire, ruby, gold, malachite, onyx. What else? Nothing. It was something alive looking at him in the mirror. It was like an ephemerally divine gift for infidels. For the wretched. A gift to make them pause, stunned for a second. A handful of time.