Crystal Garden. Ewa Bash

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      One night I was drawing in my room by the lamp light. I was trying to draw my beautiful Amazon in the heat of a battle with a terrifying monster, but nothing would come. I wasted dozens of sheets of paper and tore the last one up. I got furious. The door opened, and my mother entered the room. I pretended I hadn’t seen her, took a new sheet of paper and scribbled on it. Mother sat on the edge of the bed. She was looking at me without saying a word. I scribbled some more, and it became an outline of a face.

      “Walter,” mother said quietly.

      I didn’t respond and kept on sketching until I’d drawn a stiff upper lip and nose.

      “I know it’s hard,” she said. Well, yes it was. But in our family, we didn’t communicate with each other. We all lived our own lives, and I was perfectly fine with that. Why break the tradition? I carefully drew one eye, then the other. My mother was still talking, trying to encourage me to “open my soul”, telling me she “understands me and wants to help me”, and that she is ready to listen to my problems. No way!

      I added the eyelashes, then after some thought I lengthened them. They were never interested in my problems before, and now all of a sudden, they’ve become important.

      “I know a very good doctor.”

      Stop. Doctor? I was going to finish off the curls, but at the mention of a doctor my pencil hovered in the air, and I paused to listen.

      “Albert is a very good doctor. He’s worked with adolescents for almost 20 years. He’s a psychologist and the kids love him.”

      Albert. A psychologist. Kids … It was nonsense. I didn’t need a doctor. I continued to draw; a neck, shoulders, hand, sword in hand. Or should that be a spear?

      “Walter, I’ve made an appointment for next Monday.”

      I opted for spear, then started to make changes to the hand. Mother sat for a while looking at me. Then she nodded either to me or to herself and left the room.

      On Monday, we went to see Albert. He was one of those experts who was adored by parents who believed he would help their children. However, the children did not like Albert, and neither did the teenagers. I was lying on the couch in his office while he sat next to me in his leather chair making notes in a large notebook. I don’t know why people think that lying on a couch helps you open your heart to an unsympathetic stranger. I was lying there examining the picture on the opposite wall. It depicted a summer meadow and a little girl playing with a big sheep dog.

      “Walter,” he said. “You are going through a difficult period, but it will end soon.”

      “Are you sure?” I thought.

      “If you shrink into yourself, it will be more difficult for you to move on. Open up to me, share your feelings, and together we will decide what to do next. We all knew Robert, he was a good friend to many, and your loss is our loss.”

      Robert. No-one called him Robert. Our loss? Who the hell are you to talk about him? Thoughts raced through my head, but I was silent.

      “Death doesn’t only choose the sick and old”.

      Oh, really.

      “Sometimes it takes the young and healthy, but God works in mysterious ways.”

      C’mon, and God is here, right.

      “We have to believe that he is in heaven, and he’s ok.”

      Are you a psychologist or a priest?

      “He’s gone, but we continue to live, and we must not give way to grief.”

      You try that.

      “We must find the strength to move on …”

      Blah, blah, blah. He talked a lot. He tried to appeal to my feelings, then to my mind, and then just resorted to asking questions that I only answered yes or no to. Later I heard him telling my mother that he was able to get talking teenagers who were far more troubled than me, and advised her to talk to me more about what was going on.

      It made little sense, and the annoying questions angered me even more. I continued to go to the therapy sessions, but still refused to open up to Albert. I didn’t want to talk to anybody. I wanted everyone to leave me alone. I knew that they sympathised and were only trying to help. I knew that Sunny was gone, and I had to find a way to carry on. I knew that someday I’d probably adjust. I couldn’t share my feelings with my mother, who had suddenly remembered that I existed. Moreover, I had nothing to share with Albert, who really didn’t understand troubled teenagers like me. So, gradually the hideous monsters, who fought my beautiful Amazon, started taking the form of Albert and my parents.

      7

      In early May, one of my classmates, Alex, had a birthday party.

      I did actually have normal relationships with my classmates. I wasn’t an outcast or a nerd, and I wasn’t an object of jokes or bullying. We just kept a respectful distance, which was a conscious choice I’d made. I never really strived to be a part of their company. It was enough for me to communicate with one person only – Sunny. But now, without him, my world became too empty. There were times when I didn’t talk to anybody for days, but now I desperately wanted to communicate. So desperately, that I went to that party.

      Alex had a big, beautiful house just a few blocks from my parents’, but our house was nothing compared to his. The doors were wide open when I arrived, and I heard the music and laughter. At first, nobody noticed as I walked in and hesitated in the doorway. But soon all eyes were on me. Some people were surprised, some absolutely indifferent, and some even looked at me with sympathy. Sunny’s death was a shock for everyone, though not as great as it was for me. Two girls ran up to me and began offering me beer and vodka cocktails.

      I don’t remember what I chose, but I was drunk pretty quickly. I sat slumped in a chair and stared blankly at the girls dancing in front of me. In one hand I held a cigarette, and in the other a glass of something alcoholic. I felt weird. My head was spinning. I inhaled, and the room disappeared in the fog. Suddenly I found myself on the steps of a ruined gothic church. Big snowflakes were falling from the night sky. My lonely footprints were lost somewhere in dark thicket of old trees.

      “Walter”, someone whispered in my ear. I turned around, but saw no-one. “Walte-er”. The vision became fuzzy, and I was back in the room. A smiling girl was sitting on my lap.

      “Hey, where were you?” She asked. I looked at her and said nothing. She reminded me of the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland when he disappeared and only his smile was left. That’s all I saw now, a smile but no girl.

      “Welcome back to the real world,” she said as she tapped me on the cheeks.

      But I would argue that the vision of the gothic church was much more real.

      The next time I came around, I was in the midst of a Latino dance with another girl. Everybody crowded around us applauding. Enthusiastic cheers and whistles rang from all sides. It looked like I was taking the lead, even though I had no idea how to Latino dance. It was actually quite funny.

      But then I saw Anna. She was standing at the other end of the room and was looking right at me. Her face reflected a mixture of astonishment, bewilderment and resentment. Our eyes met, then she turned and left the room. I stopped right in the middle of the next step and ran after her, trying to keep my balance.

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