 |
May 21, 2008 - 02:52 PM |
|
 |
The Smell of Resin - Chapter 1 Preview |
|
|
absurd
mid 16th cent.: from Latin ‘absurdus’ – out of tune, hence irrational; related to ‘surdus’ – deaf, dull
I.
For as long as I can think back, all I have longed to be is a ghost. Ghosts appear solid at first glance, but if you get a closer look, you can see that they are actually transparent, that objects can pass through them without doing any harm. Nothing touches them. A ghost is not alive, but not dead, either. Not quite. It floats freely, with no concept of permanence except for that of its own existence.
Sounds fancy, doesn’t it? But who believes in ghost stories, anyway. They’re kind of like Santa Clause – non-existent, but wouldn’t it be awesome if you met one? No, by now, it should be pretty clear that there is no such thing, and that God, if there is one, doesn’t throw a lightning down from his holy throne if something doesn’t please him (and why is it a ‘him’, anyway?). Like you always said, ‘stop bullshitting me, Nat – grow up’. Jeez, aren’t we philosophical today?
You’re probably wondering why I’m writing this by now. I’m not sure, to be honest. We have to write an essay about Sartre’s concept of absurdity for French –no idea what that has to do with the language, anyway- and somehow, that made me think of you. Do you remember how Mom used to freak out over things like a messy kitchen, whenever Dad blew up on her? She’d explain later that if our house were tidier, all of us would be more ‘balanced’. Or that if we ate less unhealthy food, we wouldn’t be so spoiled and overfed, and therefore wouldn’t let unnecessary frustration out on her. She always got to be the victim. That’s what ‘absurdity’ means to me.
You see, I should be doing my French homework right now, but sometimes, the thoughts just come too quickly, too intensely. I can’t hold on to them, because they keep me from doing ‘important’ things. I can’t let them go because I’m afraid to lose them. That’s why I write. Writing makes sense of things; it keeps me sane. At the same time, though, it’s so hard to give things that sense, that structure. Words are not enough, they’ll never be enough. What is a moment, by definition, other than something that passes? More, so much more. But can you ever truly write a moment? You see, time, it doesn’t pass, it keeps jumping backwards and forwards, stopping and accelerating. I don’t know where to start, or what to tell you. Everything. Nothing.
All I can give you are fragments. Like our cave. I think that’s a good place to start, something you’ll understand. Do you remember how we used to go there every day after school? Of course. But do you remember the smell, Rae, that fresh, rough wooden mixture of tiny flowers and that little something else that we could never really guess? I do. Every detail. And I so wish I didn’t.
We left Washington, you know, to forget. Dad, being the all-or-nothing guy he is, didn’t think we would be able to do that in Oregon, or California, or even bloody Alaska. Nope, it had to be the other end of the world, and since the Aussies weren’t too keen on having some more we-rule-the-world Americans around, the other end of the Northern hemisphere had to do. Bonnie Scotland. Yeah, feel free to have a good laugh there. We’re in the land of the kilts and the bagpipes. And the sad thing is: It’s not even a cliché. No judgement.
Admittedly, I didn’t understand a word when we first moved here. My theory is that their Scottish-speak doesn’t really have much to do with English at all; the government made that up to promote ‘unity’ or something like that. You think I could publish a book on that? Probably.
When we first moved into that definitely-not-posh brick neighbourhood, and I was forced to meet the neighbours at some point (the ones who didn’t live in council housing, of course, we still had some snobbishness left), I was in complete smile-and-nod mode. It only took me a few days to figure out that ‘aye’ is actually still in use, before I could move on to the joys of ‘I can’t be arsed’, and finally understood that animal names generally refer to me. You know, ‘pet’, ‘hen’, ‘lassie’, the whole range. I can really picture your face here.
My first bus ride went somewhat like this:
Driver: ‘Student card, please.’
Me: ‘Uh…sorry?’
Him: ‘Your student card, hen.’
Me: nods, still unsure what the hell he’s talking about.
Yep, I’m sure I made a great impression on the other people on that bus. (‘Not another fat, stupid American!’) The same sort of stuff happened to Mom, although she hardly left the new house during those first few months, not even to go to Tesco’s. I did most of the shopping then, although I really didn’t give a shit what we ate.
The night before my first day of school was hell. You know me, always worrying, a complete chicken. Ironically, it was a good day for Mom. She got up with me and made breakfast, even made me eat something. Although the buttered toast did make me choke at seven in the morning, that sure was something. She smiled and said it would be fine, that as a stranger from another country, I would automatically be interesting. A part of me believed her, wanted to believe her, after all, people are strangely fascinated by the unfamiliar, by anything that could possibly entertain them, any distraction from their own grey lives.
But let’s look at the facts: A foreigner with a dumb accent. An American. Fat. Kind of quiet. Among thirteen-year-olds? Hell yeah, I was popular right away! So popular, in fact, that I got to be the new target for paper balls, paper clips, and various non-paper-y items right away.
From the second I entered that 1970s concrete building, I got the feeling that everyone was staring at me, measuring me. Yes, I know that a part of it only happened in my mind, that the eyes of the world aren’t always on me, but I couldn’t help being paranoid. Mom and me had gone to four different stores to find affordable school clothes that fit me without making me look like a complete idiot, but she still claimed that the blouse I got was ‘disadvantageous’ for my figure. She would rather have dressed me in a tent, and believe me, it would have looked better.
Mrs. Galloway, the English teacher, introduced me as a new student from Washington (‘the state, not the city’), telling the class to lend me their notes, point me in the right direction if I got lost, and just generally be nice to me. She was all right, really, an enthusiastic teacher who was even interested in the stuff she told us. It wasn’t entirely her fault that the class did whatever they wanted, wrecking her nerves by October. All she wanted to do was to teach us something, and that’s fair enough, isn’t it? Being cruel in a hideous way that the parents wouldn’t be able to pin her down for, and keeping us kids in line that way, really wasn’t her strength. I liked her.
By the time we were concentrating on the different sonnet forms again, I heard a few girls giggle behind me. It’s the worst thing, sensing that somebody is laughing at you, but not knowing it for sure, being unable to do something about it. That uncertainty follows you around, makes you insecure, keeps you from doing things you should or could do, shuts you up until you’re almost mute. When I did throw a quick glance behind me, I saw a thin, tall brunette with braces, who I later learned to be Sarah Laverock, whispering something to her neighbour. The other girl was looking at me and laughed again. I never found out what it was they were saying about me. It must have been pretty bad, if they thought it was so funny.
There they were with their high-pitched girl laugh, and I was their joke. I don’t know if you remember that feeling. To be honest, I don’t know if you would have cared if it had happened to you. Then again, of course it wouldn’t have happened to you in the first place. You always seemed so confident, so don’t-mess-with-me-bitch, that I doubt anyone would have dared. Also, you weren’t Miss Piggy. But at that moment, I was thinking of you, missing you. Wishing you could be there, talk to me about it, laugh at them with me, tell me that they were pathetic little princesses, who couldn’t go for a pee without their best friend holding their hand.
On my way to geography, I finally found someone who didn’t look at me like I was an alien. Actually, he didn’t look at me at all, since he was too busy learning something about the former Soviet Union’s agriculture. After a minute or two of subtle staring, I found the courage to speed up my pace and started walking next to him.
‘Hi.’
He only glanced up for a second, readjusting his glasses. His face was pimply and his black, flat Beatle hair needed a cut badly, but behind his specs, I could make out the most amazing hazel eyes. Soft, but still inquiring. Like he was seeing something, not gazing at it, but actually seeing. ‘Hi.’
‘I’m Natalie. Nat.’
‘Stuart’ he mumbled.
‘I’m new here.’
‘I know.’
‘Yeah. Um, I was wondering if I could borrow your algebra notes.’
‘Sure.’ He didn’t look for them, but just went back to studying the contents of his folder.
‘Do you like geography?’ How forced, how desperate.
He just shrugged. ‘It can be interesting.’
‘I like travelling.’ There was a short pause. Apparently, he had nothing to say on the subject. Travelling, seeing the world, how boring! ‘So…where do you live?’
‘Cornton Road, about ten minutes from here.’
‘Ah. You like it there?’
He shot me one of those ‘you’re weird’ looks. ‘No.’
I was lucky the bell rang a few seconds later and saved me from my verbal incompetence. I didn’t end up sitting next to Stuart. These half-hearted attempts to corner an outsider ended soon, and after a while, I just tried to be invisible. You know, walking close to the wall with your head down, blending in with dark, baggy clothes, making no sound. Sometimes it works, more often not, but it’s better than standing out. I got over my embarrassment at always being alone when everyone was standing around in groups by taking a book everywhere I went. That way, I ended up making it through A Clear Light of Day, Heart of Darkness and Midnight’s Children before my fourteenth birthday. Not the typical girl books, and no, Mom wasn’t too pleased, as you can imagine. She kept giving me these awful teen books for my birthdays for years, with titles like Britney’s First Kiss, Summer Love, etc. Never read them. I tried, really, but the first five pages usually did the job.
My books, though, mine were different. I don’t know what it is about them, what draws me to them, but they are so clear, so alive. Every sentence crawls through you and pulls you along with it. Most of all, they make you feel something. In all their beauty and ugliness, there’s something there. It’s not always realistic, but sometimes more real than life itself. They bring clarity. I need to be very clear.
You know, a lot of the time, when things don’t make sense, I imagine that I’m just an actress on a stage or in a film. Nothing’s real, it’s all just a big play, and I’m the lead, the centre of everything. It is my performance that is constantly being evaluated, my performance that matters in everything. Am I doing the right thing? What would the audience say about it? Am I showing the right expression of emotion? Does my life make a good story? Am I doing the right thing? And I know it’s not true, of course I know that, but sometimes, it’s hard to stop pretending, because it’s what keeps me going, and because I’ve been doing it for so long. Years of pretence. Without that stage, I wouldn’t know what to do, what to think, what to want. I would be alone.
I can’t believe I’m telling you that. It’s pathetic. You used to make fun of religious people all the time, but what if we are all somewhat dependent on something like that, some little bit of magic to make our life matter? It’s hard to get over the loneliness sometimes, the insignificance. Imagining that characters from a book are watching you, or that people you know are watching you on film – is that really so crazy? And if it is, aren’t we all a little crazy? God or Dumbledore, grandma or Gandalf, does it really matter?
It was hard back then, too, with the loneliness. I think that’s how this whole thing started. It was hard not to know anyone who knew. Just going to school every day, pretending that everything was fine, that the greatest problem in life is ‘does Jake like me or not’. I hated them so much, these girls with the eye shadow and the sparkly bracelets, who would giggle in groups and discuss where to go out on a Friday night. I hated them, and at the same time, I would have traded with them in an instant.
Once, soon after I started school in Scotland, I told one of them exactly what had happened, just totally calm and down to earth. She must have thought I was the biggest creep ever. I don’t know why I did it. My head was hurting, and I felt like clawing at my own skin, like I would explode if I didn’t do something. I guess I just wanted to see her reaction. You know what she said? ‘Oh…seriously? Wow, that sucks.’
I remember how tired I felt after my first day at school, how sick of people. All of the new impressions can make you dizzy. They blur into a haze of colours, which is far, far away. It’s like watching a silent movie.
On the bus, I sat by myself, putting my black bag down next to me so nobody would feel invited. I stared out the window, which grew damp under my breath. Tree. Meadow. Rain. Grey sky. Meadow. Sheep. Brown houses. Grey, green, brown, grey, brown. For some reason I recall these impressions very clearly. I remember how I made up a story, as you do when you get bored. This wasn’t a school bus, it was actually taking us out into the woods. The bus driver was a psychopath, that had to be it, he would drive us out into the middle of nowhere, trying to slaughter each and every one of us kids. What a pervert. He would kill the boys first, slitting their throats. The girls he would keep, until he had drunk in every bit of their fear, sucked it out of them. But we were smarter, we would escape. I don’t know how. The rest of it has slipped from my memory. It was all very foreign and unreal, like a third-person narrative: ‘Nathalie was sitting on the bus, watching the grey, hopeless autumn sky fly by. Suddenly, it stopped…’ Guess what, it turned out that the bus driver wasn’t a psycho after all. He was just an old guy with a beer belly, who liked to chew gum. He would grunt an annoyed ‘student card?’ at the loud crowd every day, although he knew them. Nothing happened. Nathalie just drove home.
The house was silent when I arrived. I dropped my bag in the corridor, took off my scarf, school blazer and clogs, and slurped into the kitchen. The first thing that hit me was the smell – a mixture of sour spices with something else, something old, like cold grease left to dry up in a frying pan. It had to be from the chicken Mom had cooked a couple of days before. The old plates, pots and pans were still stacked everywhere in unstable towers, with left-overs stuck to them. A plastic shopping bag was dangling from a drawer, as it was being used for lack of a bin. And still, the floor was littered with paper napkins and bread crumbs. When I accidentally brushed against the bag, a swarm of flies burst out, hovering above it, suspended in the air. The kitchen turned me into something small, powerless. There was no beginning, no end in sight. Just work.
In the living room, I discovered Mom lying on our new, uncomfortable couch, fast asleep. One of her arms was dangling from the sofa, nearly touching the floor. Her mouth was open, with small breathing noises coming out of it. Not snoring, just breathing. Not dead, but sleeping. An empty yogurt cup was lying on the table, having tipped over from the weight of the spoon.
I stomped over to the sofa, and turned on the TV without consideration. I wanted to wake her up, shake her, make her come back to me. Mom, my first day sucked. Mom, I don’t get half of what the teachers are talking about. Mom, the guys in my class are a bunch of pricks, and the girls bitches. I want to go home, Mom. Come back to me. Come back to me, please.
I turned up the volume, but didn’t listen. On screen, some kids were pretending to be war evacuees or something like that. One girl about my age was extending her arm carefully, and started screaming when a cow began to lick her hand.
Mom opened her eyes. For a moment, I thought she didn’t recognise me. ‘Hi, honey’ she muttered quietly.
‘Hi.’ Her face looked wrinkled and sleepy. Old. I don’t know why, but nothing pisses me off as much as her acting old-ish. It’s weak. Weakness is despicable. I wanted to grab her shoulders and shake her, shake her hard. Dig my nails in. Get a grip, stop being such a wimp! Get on with it, toughen up a little, don’t show it so everyone can see. Don’t act it out. We don’t cry, we don’t lose; nothing less that perfect will be tolerated in his house. Don’t you dare screw it up. Beat them all, hurt them all, but don’t show them your inside. Beat them. Fuck you, God! (Back then, I still believed. Not anymore, though, I don’t. I don’t. I don’t.)
‘How was school?’
‘Fine.’
‘Did you meet any nice people?’
‘No.’
The corners of her mouth actually dropped a bit. ‘Make an effort, Natalie. It’s important.’
Gee, Mom, really? ‘I did!’
‘I’m just saying. I don’t want you to become a loner again. You need to try harder. How are your classes?’
‘I don’t know. Hard.’
‘Your teachers?’
‘Okay, I guess.’
She sighed. ‘So what did you do today?’
I started to tell her about my chemistry lab, but after the first two sentences, she had spaced out again. Her eyes were unfocused, staring straight ahead, her jaw tense, her expression grim. I was half expecting her to start humming and snapping her fingers again any second.
‘Mom!’
‘Hmm-mmh?’ Her jaw remained locked, her face unchanged. I could have said anything; she wouldn’t have heard me.
I turned off the TV and got up. ‘I have homework to do.’
The homework, however, remained unfinished that evening. I found myself re-reading the same sentences over and over again without grasping their meaning. And although I kept staring out the window, I somehow missed the sunset. It just went from light grey to dark grey, to black. Then again, I suppose you can’t see the sunset through a drizzle.
~
|
|
|
|
|
I like money. Especially since I'm still a bit in trouble about the financial aspect of next year, which I still have to figure out. Basically, I will be getting the same amount of money from the state and a bit from my mother (although I hate taking that), but that won't cover the estimated costs of living there. My study permit won't allow me to get a job outside of the campus in Victoria, and I'm not counting on on campus jobs rendering huge sums of cash. So it's all savings, which have to be scraped together, transferred internationally, and so forth. The conversion between this currency and that and the third one is driving me crazy. I hate the bureaucracy with all the troubles I've had with the bank here and the bank in Germany, the government, insurance companies, etc. But that's just life.