Olga Grushin - Forty Rooms

Why did you do it to me? Mrs. Caldwell demanded, not bothering with small talk; for there was no time for that. Is it because your father drank, your mother slapped you, your childhood was a low-ceilinged, dismal trap? Did you think the poverty of your life gave you the right to steal from me, as you have done for years—for I see everything now, all those books of yours with their ballet dancers and precious heirlooms and cuckoo clocks, even the names, even the faces, you used my friends, you used my family, you used me, turned me into a cipher on a page, on a screen—why, why? Was it not enough for you to have taken the boy I liked all those years ago, must you now try to take my past as well? Olga sounded apologetic but firm, sure of herself. She talked about art, no, Art—Mrs. Caldwell could hear the solemn rise in her tone each time she said it—and the illusory nature of memory, and the purgative power of the autobiographical impulse, and the greater artistic truths revealed sometimes by borrowing, sometimes by distorting, what might be called reality; not to mention the fact that whatever she might have borrowed from Mrs. Caldwell was now immortalized, an indelible footprint in the sands of time—

But already, tiring of the imaginary conversation, she released her immaterial hold on the nonexistent receiver, and briefly opened her eyes—and the darkness of the room crowded her still, and the dizzying pain was still there; so, closing her eyes, she thought, fighting through the chaos of her mind: But this does not matter, this isn’t important, I shouldn’t waste another moment thinking about it, for no one can take my past away from me, it’s mine alone, and it’s here, it has always been here, and if I float away from this pain that has narrowed and sharpened until it has become the piercing needle on whose tip the universe is spinning so quickly—if I walk away into this glowing mist, into this welcoming warmth, I will once again feel the trickle of lukewarm water down my back, and hear my grandmother’s voice, and smell the sweet tang of the soap, and see the tree, the great ancient tree at the heart of the world, and sense the boundless promise of the future unfolding before me, and no one, no one, will ever take that away from me…

Overwhelmed by confusion, I stare at Mrs. Caldwell slumped over in her chair. I do not quite know how I got to my feet, nor do I remember turning on the lights, yet I see things so surely, down to the smallest of details—the beige carpet stained by countless soda spills, the tassels on the velvet curtains tied into messy knots by the busy hands of restless children, the strands of Mrs. Caldwell’s hair plastered over her moist forehead. Everything is bright and clear and precise and, at the same time, slightly off, as though every object has moved an inch to the side and now shimmers with a doubled contour—the way things appear sometimes when your eyes are brimming over with tears, in the second before you blink them away.

For a moment my world totters on the brink of falling over, as vast, invisible things strain to burst into light. Then the moment moves on. I am overtaken by a marvelous sense of an unexpected, unhoped-for liberation. I am free, I am somehow—finally!—free of this woman who is not me, who has never been me—free of the complacent, materialistic, dim oppression of her timid spirit. Light-headed with the immensity, with the joy, of this new freedom, I look again at Mrs. Caldwell. She continues to sit slumped over in her chair, her face covered by the fallen hair. She is, I imagine, still fuming over the irrelevant movie, insisting that her past is hers alone, planning perhaps to set her husband’s lawyer on her treacherous friend… I am wondering if I should speak to her, when I am seized with a sharp, almost animal panic at the thought of lingering another instant in her oddly immobile, heavy-limbed presence.

Jerking my eyes away from the woman, I pass out of the room.

I feel another, lighter prick of panic when I realize that I cannot recall having parted the pompous curtains as I stepped over the threshold, but I dispel my fear quickly: I am, it is true, a little hazy about what has happened—about what is happening—to me, yet I am certain there will be plenty of time to sort it out later. For now, it is enough to know I am free. I am ready to go and live fully at last. I have so many plans, I think in a fever of joyous agitation. I will leave this house, I will travel, I will cross unfamiliar roads and turn blind corners without trepidation, I will look up old friends and talk to strangers, I will capture every moment of joy, every crumb of discovery, as I write all the poetry I have ever meant to write.

I do not remember the last time I felt so alive.

And so I have made up my mind to leave. I told Paul I intended to go to Russia for a while, spend a few months in the countryside reliving my childhood, and he did not raise a single objection; in fact, he appeared distraught about something and did not seem to hear me at all. His indifference saddened me a little, but I reminded myself of the journey ahead and felt restored to happiness. I will not go to Russia just yet; I will save it for last. For now, I will follow religious processions through the ancient streets of Spanish towns, I will sit on mud floors in African huts listening to the midnight roar of lions, I will taste unknown fruits in the floating markets of Asia. I will walk through the mountains, the valleys, the forests of the world, all-seeing and all-hearing, greedy for every tiny morsel of life. Perhaps I will come back, perhaps not.

I have already decided what to bring with me on my travels. I will take almost nothing—just a thick sweater, a pair of sturdy walking shoes, my passport with its pages virginally clear of stamps, a handful of pens, a notebook, my dog-eared volume of Annensky, and Celia’s lopsided blue bunny. I have not actually packed—in truth, things have developed a somewhat disconcerting tendency to pass through my fingers, but I choose not to dwell on such matters; I cannot leave just yet, in any case. Three and a half decades of maternal habits cannot be discarded so easily, and there are still a few loose ends to tie up before I can go: the birth of my second grandchild in February, followed by Eugene’s homecoming over Easter, followed by another reunion in July—

In between family visits, I wander the house. As often as not, I end up in the entrance hall, and there I sit, going over the packing list in my mind, dreaming of escaping soon, so soon, almost any day now. The entrance hall is a grand space inscribed into the stately arc of the marble staircase, crowded with stuffy, lion-pawed chairs and consoles. One’s entrance hall—my decorator told me once, a third of a century ago now—should serve as a perfect introduction to the house that follows; to the world of people forever kept on its doorstep, peering wistfully over the homeowner’s shoulder (a delivery man, a gardener, a Jehovah’s Witness, God visiting incognito), it should offer a tantalizing hint of the wonders that await the lucky few allowed within. When we first saw the house, I remember the awed sense I had upon entering—that of an immense place, full of possibilities, unfolding inward, like that magic house from a childhood fairy tale that was bigger on the inside than on the outside.

Now I know it to be the other way around. On the inside, the house is much, much smaller than its sprawling, many-columned façade would lead one to believe.

As I sit in the entrance hall, revising my list (I will not, after all, need that sweater), I stare at the enormous double doors of brilliantly polished oak reflected in the expanse of the brilliantly polished marble floors. I never throw the doors open, for fear that temptation will move me to make a dash for it before I have quite disposed of the last of my matriarchal obligations. Sometimes I do feel a surge of frustration, as though I am a clockwork toy that has been wound up and cannot act of its own accord until it completes the predetermined range of its mechanical motions. In other, darker moments, my throat tightens with panic—what if it is simply too late, what if over the years I have sprouted such thick roots that I will be unable to walk away? But such thoughts are only signs of weakness, so I force myself to breathe, and busy my mind with shaving more unnecessary items off the list (I decide I do not want the walking shoes either), and muse on my past, on the decisions I have made in my life, on the roads I have followed and not followed. I imagine having had five children, or two, or none; I imagine having left Paul or never having married him; I imagine having gone to Paris with Adam; I imagine not having stayed in America, or not having left Russia; I imagine having crossed that dirt road and kissed that boy; I imagine having never given up my poetry. I remember a little girl who lived in a faraway country with long, cold winters and bright summer stars—a girl who had a mermaid for a mother, a sage for a father, a god for a guide—a girl who loved life and played with words and looked out of the small window of her small room to behold the whole world. And when my memories start crowding my chest with something much like sobs, I distract my attention with the comings and goings of people around me.