I didn’t show him the flat right away. I’d been reluctant to share this part of me that, while external, felt so personal.
‘Is it that one? No, not that one?’ he’d teased, pointing at the ugliest buildings we passed as I walked him to it, a few days after completion. He paced around the front garden, while I searched the bunch for a key to the outer door. He rushed up both flights of stairs with lunging, two-step leaps. Inside, the rooms were stripped – only curtains, carpets and a sour musk remained from the previous inhabitants. He ran his hand along the cracked magnolia paint, then crouched to inspect the sealed fireplace. At the far end of the room, he yanked back the curtains and peered out through the big bay windows, rattling in their rotting-wood frames.
‘It’s rather nice, isn’t it?’ he said into the glass.
Between my clasped palms, the keys pressed unfamiliar.
‘Now,’ he said. ‘You just need art!’
But first, renovation. The original features are carefully restored. We browse for furniture and decorations. The selected piece arrives via courier in a smart box, along with a crisp white envelope bearing a document titled: Certificate of Authenticity. Also in the box is a folded leaflet printed with supplemental information about this lithograph.
When alone for an evening, in this tasteful home I’ve fashioned, I strip off the day’s clothes. Layers, fabric, peel from skin until there’s nothing left beneath. Still, nothing more is revealed; no hidden self, no nakedness. No exotic, exposed other.
Nothing.
I sink into it.
Pull at it, take these strands, gather them up and spool them around you; reconstruct yourself from the scraps. Say: I love you. I love working here. I loved speaking today. No, no it was nothing. I am fine, I am; I’m excited, yes, for the future – say whatever they tell you to say or not say, just survive it; march on into the inevitable. As our mothers, and fathers, did. Our grandparents before them. Survive.
I’m not sure I understood that I could stop, before this. That there was any alternative to survivable. But in my metastasis, I find possibility. I must engage the question seriously: why live? Why subject myself further to their reductive gaze? To this crushing objecthood. Why endure my own dehumanization? I have the flat, savings and some investments, pensions, plus a substantial life-insurance policy. I have amassed a new opportunity, something to pass on. Forwards. To my sister. A fighting chance. Though, she would not want this. Yes, I am leaving her here alone.
But to carry on, now that I have a choice, is to choose complicity.
Surviving makes me a participant in their narrative. Succeed or fail, my existence only reinforces this construct. I reject it. I reject these options. I reject this life. Yes, I understand the pain. The pain is transformational – transcendent – the undoing of construction. A return, mercifully, to dust.
I’ve walked quite far, I realize.
I turn back to survey the view. Even up here, I feel it against my skin, the thumping nationalism of this place. I am the stretched-taut membrane of a drum, against which their identity beats. I cannot escape its rhythm. Everything awaits, Monday – New York, then back in the office. For the rest of my life these Mondays loom loud, thudding and crushing, crescendoing on to me, tearing through –
– but it’s quiet, now. I sit on the grass and look out over the family’s bustling estate. The tableau before me moves small and detached from sound, though well-composed. The house and the greenery set a splendid backdrop for the lively garden scene. Fruits and bottles, ripe, laid out, ready for uncorking and consumption; opening mouths. Four figures – dressed in black – erect stands formed of the tiniest strokes, then open up cases. The satisfying pop, after the click, the final creak are unheard – but I can almost smell the sweet resin as they, with maternal care, lift instrumental bodies from velvet lining.
There’s much here to delight an eagle-eyed viewer. Spot the animated figures: the caterer, clipboard in hand, at the corner smoothing a tablecloth. A loose edge of the marquee flapping harmlessly above – a tiny strand （imagined? hinted?） waving in the welcome breeze. The busy mother pausing to rearrange a table bouquet. The daughter, bouncing an infant, inspecting a bottle, turning to her husband.
Yes, I’m staring, but I do not diminish; I cannot snuff out such vibrancy with my dim view from afar. Still, I have looked – I’ve seen, and even if I cannot express what it is I saw here, what I’ve come to understand, I know it’s enough.
I’ve seen enough.