hybrid nonfic by madelaine gnewski
A Letter
I thought about you today. Not in a weird way, not obsessively. But I thought about you.
I thought about your face, the way your wrinkles frame it like a cracked porcelain doll. It is so definite, so imperfectly beautiful. The lines, caverns I want to seek refuge in. Rest and comfort. And your eyes. How they squint when you smile. It is not like how other people squint I have noticed. Your squint is a lot more animated. It’s as if you are still performing on stage. You have to make sure that even the people at the very back—the ones who could not afford a front-row seat—can see your eyes disappear and your teeth swallow your entire face.
“Do you think about your wrinkles a lot?” I wish I could ask you. I know youth was always important to you. When did we stop celebrating your birthday? Was it your forty-fifth? Children are very receptive to the unspoken. It is silly to think about it now. I always thought you were the most beautiful woman in the room. Any room.
Your presence so strong that people could do little but
see you.
You drew them in, inside of you. I think it was because you were so unusual that they could not help themselves but to look. And when they did, they had to retreat back into themselves, question their own self-expression—or lack thereof. How alienating that must have felt to bring out emotions in people they did not want to feel, were not able to control.
*
The other night I woke up dripping with sweat, the duvet tangled up around my ankles—an involuntary position of submission. I could not remember much about the nightmare except your fingers around my neck,
your long nails pushing into my flesh,
and your dark curls hanging
lifelessly around your distorted face.
I have never seen you with long hair. Maybe that is why I grew out mine. To create a physical barrier between us—one they cannot ignore.
*
It must be hard to build a career on love and admiration only to come home to the mundane. There is no prize for motherhood, no ultimate reward at the end of it all. Children are not made to adore you. They are there to challenge you. To question you. To need you. I am not surprised you could not cope.
*
I went back to London last year. It felt good to be back in a place so anonymous. I thrive in anonymity. It is my ideal space of existence. I stayed in a small apartment, a basement flat in a typical North London townhouse. A new area to me but around the corner from my old haunts. The space was sparsely decorated apart from a giant neon sign hung on the wall opposite the entrance. The sign portrayed a cat eating noodles in purple and pink hues. At night, it transformed the space into what looked like a brothel, the lights so perversely colorful. P accompanied me to London but had to leave mid-week for a work trip to Madrid. This meant I had to spend two nights alone in the flat, which filled me with intense anxiety. I was not used to living alone at this stage. P had been in my life for three years, and I was going through what I refer to as my “mini-breakdown” at the time.
The definite before and after.
*
Am I boring you? I hope not. There is so much here that I do not understand.
*
P left on Tuesday afternoon, and my first night in the flat went surprisingly well. I love London in October. It is colorful and bright, and the threat of cold is only just there, close enough so that you can touch it but not close enough to feel it yet.
I left the flat at 9 a.m. I remember this because I had to lock the door with three different locks, which took a bit of time—three minutes and thirty-two seconds to be exact—and I thought to myself, I hope I do not ever have to open this door when I am busting for a pee. As I made my way up the steps leading to the flat, I noticed a tall figure walking toward me. He wore a hooded puffer jacket in a dark color, maybe dark blue or black, and he was swaying a little from side to side like an inflatable air dancer. Do you know what they are? They are the blow-up stick figures outside cheap car dealerships. I do not think they have them in Poland. The stick figures, I mean. Or at least, I have never seen one there.
He smelled of wet towels and cigarette smoke so strong it made my eyes teary. A chill went down my spine. But I did not look back.
As I turned back onto my street later that day, I saw him again, hanging around the entrance to my flat—or close to it. He must have been there for hours, I thought, the panic rising in my chest.
I wish I could have called you then,
or maybe not you,
but a version of you
from another dimension.
*
You told me a story once about a time before this one. Curled up in your arms, my twin sister and I hung on every word you said. Concentrated, ears moving to the sound of your voice, like two squirrels attached to a tree trunk listening out for potential threats. You had your branches wrapped around us both—a protective layer of warmth—and when you spoke, you raised your nose ever so slightly, as if to signal that you were talking to an audience beneath you in rank.
It was a story about how you had been to ballet practice, and your legs were sore and tired, and all you could think about as you were making your way home was your softly cushioned couch. You made it almost to the front door that day before noticing a man standing by your apartment block smoking a cigarette. He was blond, tall, and broad-shouldered with a face like a bloodhound. He did not pay you any attention as you fumbled with your keys, but he stank of poison. “Were you scared?” I wish I could ask you.
*
It is amazing how your brain reacts when you are faced with danger. For years, I did not trust my own instinct, thought I would not be able to recognize it even if it stared me dead-straight in the eyes. Occasionally, I went looking for it, too. But on this rainy Wednesday at 2 p.m., I was not looking for it.
The uneven surface made it difficult to run in a straight line.
*
You gripped the keys tightly with your carefully pedicured fingers, inserted them into the keyhole in a straight line. “Why did you not run?” I did not ask you. I was too afraid that you would stop telling the story. The heavy door swung open. You were already halfway up the stairs at this stage,
listening
listening
listening
for a click that never came.
*
I ran so fast I could hear the blood in my ears. In fact, I could hear everything—the buses, the people, the coffee grinders, the wind, the chatter, the train. I could hear everything. I could hear everything but him.
*
You took every new set of stairs in two strides: one, two, one, two, one, two. Any doorbell you passed, you rang—hoping, praying, that someone would open. But it was early afternoon. No one was home.
*
I had recurring nightmares for weeks after you told me your story. Dreams about being chased by strange-looking, large men, fumbling with my keys only to enter through doors that led to more doors. Did you know that? I cannot remember if I told you. I cannot remember if you cared.
*
I do not know what finally made me stop, but I sat down at a cafe next to a young man who appeared to be on a business call. His “ROIs” and “incremental wins” soothed me. It brought me back to this reality, this world. Everything else felt like a distant dream I did not want to revisit.
P did not pick up when I called him the first time. Nor the second. Nor third. Fourth. Fifth. What could he do, anyway, all the way in Madrid? More importantly, what would he want to do?
The man sitting next to me was not athletic, but he was young, and the carefully trimmed stubble gave him an endearing quality. He could probably run quite fast, faster than me, and I imagined his punches could, if anything, at least slow an opponent down.
*
Children do not always understand the consequences of their actions. Their brains are not wired to take in another narrative but their own. Only the options presented to them right there, within reach. It is a kind of selfishness we need to be taught or encouraged to abandon as we mature, but if it is our instinct in childhood to be selfish, it must also be human nature.
*
I was ready to fight! After thirty minutes in a crowded cafe, I was ready to get back out there. How dare this man have felt so entitled. To me. To my Wednesday afternoon. To my safety. The rage that had been building for some time was reaching its peak and riding the wave of it. I stormed out before I had time to change my mind.
*
“Was my reaction a coincidence?” I wish I could ask you.
*
Your voice changed, but you welcomed it with your head held high. My sister and I were on the edge of our seats at this point. Two rodents sucking the fluid out of a water bottle. Do you remember that? I needed to be fed. Needed the information you were holding on to. Needed you. And you trickled it down to us slowly, one drop at a time.
Drip drip drip. “I caught a glimpse of his black shoes every time I turned a corner. They were disgusting. Dirty. Falling apart.”
Drip drip drip. “He was closing in on me, and I was running out of stairs to climb.”
Drip drip drip. “And then what, Mama? Did he catch you?!”
The attention was so addictive to you that I think you forgot that we were children.
*
As soon as I turned back onto my street for the third time that day, my stomach was in knots again. Large, complex knots creating havoc on my insides. What could I do, really, if he was to attack me? He was larger, he was stronger, and he was, let us face it, much faster, too.
But he was not there.
*
You were halfway up the last set of stairs that led to your apartment. But you knew you had no time to find your keys, and you knew the apartment was empty, so you did what any desperate, young woman in your situation would do: you threw yourself at the door. The weight of your body slammed against the wooden frame again and again so that whoever might have been in that afternoon could not miss it. The bloodhound drew closer, his heavy breathing louder and louder. Your body was aching.
And suddenly, an explosion. A relentless yapping noise from the inside of your apartment. “Yap yap yap!” The footsteps stopped abruptly. The sound died away for a second. There was an interval of silence no one wanted to break.
You
listening
listening
listening
again.
Ears pierced for safety. And then, the yapping again.
Footsteps receded quickly down the stairs.
*
I often think about why you decided to tell us your story when we were so young. Do you know why? I would like to think you did it to protect us. To teach us that not all people—not all men—are good. That there is so much evil out there our tiny seven-year-old brains could not even begin to imagine its extent. I do not want to think about the alternatives just as likely to have been true. That you did not think about us at all. That you craved the attention so badly it got the better of you. Your human nature won out over a more mature attitude of common sense. In some ways, your story was like so many fairy tales that were penned with the aim of frightening children.
I don’t blame you. You were never taught how not to be selfish.
*
But all I wanted from you that evening—all I ever wanted from you in the years that followed—was simply,
I wished you had seen me,
or maybe not you,
but a version of you
from another dimension.
Madelaine Gnewski is a writer, linguist and assistant editor at TINT Journal. She is Polish, grew up in Sweden and lived in Australia, the UK, New Zealand and Ireland before moving to Denmark.