Mayday

.

At two in the morning, consciousness shuts down. Then, at that dead hour, she became like a natural receiver. She sharpened her senses and listened. In the next room, the television was still humming, and outside the window, the sounds of the street, breathing with the occasional sound of passing cars, filled her sleep. For some time now, she hadn't been able to sleep peacefully, and even the lemon balm she carefully brewed in a clay teapot didn't help. It became like a ritual repeated every night. The taste of lemon on her tongue, a seeming calm within, touching her pillow with her hands as if to soothe it. And then waiting until she could no longer hear her own breathing, the chaotic beating of her heart, and the steady ticking of the wall clock. When sleep didn't come, she wandered to the kitchen for another cup of the now-cold brew. She counted her steps, perfectly measuring the length of the corridor connecting the kitchen and the bedroom. She became so familiar with these sounds, which become particularly refined at night that she decided to record them on tapes. She played back those from previous evenings, when insomnia had become unbearable. She absorbed the sounds. She picked up one of the cassettes, inserted it into the recorder, and closed her eyes. She felt the wind in the room, the hiss of the recording, and her own words, which fluttered inside for a few seconds, sometimes longer, bouncing around her thoughts, and then vanished somewhere in the distance. And then mayday, mayday, and a crack. A wave of heat ran down her spine and into her head. "This is the form of aid used by pilots during World War II," came the first association, and the second, "they're calling me, the echo of their thoughts mingling with mine." From that moment on, she began to believe in all sorts of supernatural phenomena, the interpenetration of worlds and dimensions, the more or less accurate prediction of the future. That night, she had a dream, strange and confusing, which was as extraordinary as the voices on the cassette. After waking up, she told it to her roommate, trying to remember as many details as possible.

"I know it featured the motif of my grandmother," she explained. "The one I resemble so much. Remember? She showed me old photos, and among them were photographs of men. Worn, yellowed fragments of paper that no one else had seen before. On the back, dedications scribbled in faded ink. I just don't remember the words. And then she disappeared, simply vanished. And I searched the room for her, crying that she must have died, gone so silently, so still. You know I don't dissect dreams, but this one got me thinking. And the motif of a child... Remember how we read that a child appearing in a dream represents our "inner child"?

And as if to spite her, despite her recollection, she couldn't recall the words of the boy she'd dreamed of that night. She only remembered that he was from an orphanage and temporarily staying with her grandmother. Highly developed for his age, a bit different, strange in that he spoke a language that didn't quite fit the language of a six- or seven-year-old. He walked toward her, and the distance between them didn't diminish at all. People often meet each other, the living or the dead, during sleep; souls communicate, and we say we've dreamed of someone. This isn't proven, nor is the reliability of astrology, but she was convinced that this explanation was closest to her experience. By midmorning, she tormented herself with the question—"Does this make sense, or is this another relapse?" She had schizophrenia.

Besides her family, her roommate and her boyfriend, who after a year of living with her, could write a scientific paper on the condition, knew about it. If someone said she had "schism," he wanted to laugh at the fact that people didn't understand what mental illness meant. He studied textbooks, read, prayed, cursed psychotropic drugs and the doctors who had addicted her to them. It often seemed to him that people like her perceived the world differently, and didn't even truly love. But he was there when depression alternated with moments of extreme agitation. Sleepless nights, seizures in sleep, bruises on her back. After five months of fighting for her, she looked at him as if he were a stranger, repeating, "My life is a broken mirror." She babbled meaninglessly, and he deciphered the logical whole from her incoherent sentences, a string of accusations directed at him. He told himself that it wasn't her, but the illness speaking from within, stiffening her body, language, and thinking. He stared into her dilated pupils from the psychotropic drugs and tried not to cry. Her eyes were as they had been when he'd first seen her. They were like those of a hunted animal, and he found within himself reserves of tenderness with which he wanted to tame her.

"Easy, I'll make you some tea, do you want some?" He held her closer and closer, trying to absorb the nervous movements of her body.

"Leave me alone, do you hear?" She would struggle from his embrace, tugging at her sweater.

"Leave me alone, I want to call." She would reach for her cell phone lying on the edge of the windowsill and call her mother.

He would then leave the room and wait outside the door, unable to listen to the curses mingling with her sobs. The sharp words in her mouth cut him like a razor blade. He felt she hated him. He remembered their third or fourth meeting. They had been in the park, in the evening, and the streetlight illuminated the bark of the tree they were sitting by. It smoothed it like an old woman's wrinkles. It illuminated the fingerprints of her hands like a neon disco sign. Even then, he had noticed that her movements were very nervous, chaotic.

"I'd like to be a teacher, you know?" she told him about herself. I'd finish my studies here, then go back to my place and find a job. I'd come home from work and wait for him to come too. I'd like to have someone, I think that's what I dream of most. Have I told you yet?

He'd called her a chatterbox then, such a torrent of words pouring out of her. All he had to do was listen and look at the stars. He remembered a couple walking down the aisle, the boy crying, the girl next to him, cold and indifferent. The boy, sobbing, kept repeating, "I love you, I love you, do you understand?" and she responded with a firm, "Fuck off." He followed her, begging. A slap in the face, then another. He pleaded with her for a moment, then turned back, screaming at the top of his voice, "It's over."

It was like a movie. That was the first time he was afraid she would hurt him like that insensitive, vulgar girl. They started seeing each other regularly, and later moved in together. At night, she became like a child waiting for the shadow of a ghost to emerge from behind the wardrobe. He tangled his hands in her hair, spread across the pillow, pulled her close, and ran his fingers down her back.

"Want me to tell you a story?" he whispered, trying to distract her from the fear lurking in her head.

He kissed her lips, hoping to suck out the dreams that kept her awake. She aroused him, so defenseless, staring at the ceiling and the reflections of the light from the balcony. Then he would place his hands on her body, kiss her neck. Sometimes, at such moments, she would stiffen. He would pull away, confused, when he heard her say, "Don't treat me like that, I'm not a whore." She saw desire in him, animalistic and dirty, and he only wanted to be close. Then the attacks would come. Only he knew what it felt like when a loved one put on a coat and headed for an exit, perhaps one of no return. He felt only, or perhaps even, a scream, trying desperately to drown out the spasmodic, quivering fear. He was afraid when she headed for the bathroom during the attack. Because there, a series of dangers lurked there. Colorful pills that made his eyelids incredibly heavy, a clothesline forming a delicate weave that begged to be wrapped around his neck. The scenarios multiplied endlessly, coming in series, overlapping one another, and he became increasingly helpless. He feared he was going mad along with her. In moments like these, he tried to recall her from the times when she seemed a perfectly healthy girl, slightly isolated by the shyness that permeated her every gesture. From the times when they had made love like normal couples. Now he didn't know what that was, or what he was now. Was what he felt for her a sick addiction, a love laced with drugs, or perhaps a fear that he would simply no longer be needed.

"It was so short, this pseudo-normalcy," he thought, looking at the desk strewn with crumpled papers. On the corner stood a bottle of red wine. The same wine they drank at the beginning of their acquaintance, before she told him about her schizophrenia. He had no idea that, longing for the romance, the sound of glasses, and the words spoken in moments of rapture, she had stopped taking her pills. He didn't know, and guiltlessly, he dipped his finger in the sweet liquid, placed it on her lips, and she licked the dripping drops. They immersed themselves in each other, and the disease matured within her like wine. By the time he realized it, she was completely unstable. Resuming her previous medication didn't help. Nearly unconscious, he took her to a private psychiatrist, where she had been treated for at least ten years.

"Here are the dosages. Please buy it. I know she's strong; she'll cope, just like last time. I could write a referral to the hospital, but that's unnecessary. She'll stay home and recover." "Just walk her to the bus," the old doctor explained with a smile, as if he were talking about a minor cold.

It was mid-March, the air vibrated and mingled with slivers of light. Spring was settling on his hands. Like once, they'd gone to the park and sat on a wooden bench with ornate brass legs that she'd always admired. He watched the swans swim by, the footprints marking the path, and her clinging to him again like a child. She squinted, and the sun's rays illuminated her face as if erasing the illness.

"I'm so good now. Can we stay a little longer?" she asked, pressing herself even closer to him.

"You'll come to my place, right? As soon as possible. And in August, I'll throw a birthday party at my place. I'll invite some friends, we'll pitch a few tents in my yard. I'll be happy again. God, what a year it's been," she mused.

He wanted to remember her like this. Calmly joyful, and how comically she pressed her nose against the bus window as she drove home. Seemingly healthy.

"Promise me that when you come, you'll listen to an anthill with me. You can't imagine the incredible sounds these little creatures make. Bring

me my tape recorder," she begged. He recorded the sound of the wind, the crack of breaking branches, put a few dried leaves in an envelope, licked the edge of the paper like he used to on her lips, and sealed it. And he prayed that she wouldn't become too familiar with the sounds of the hospital hallway.

To my dearest...

Yours forever, A.