She could have been my grandma, but she wasn’t. She was my neighbour who lived on her own. My mother left me with her when she had to run a few errands. My mother used to be gone all afternoon and sometimes, my mother would leave me with my neighbour between the evening news and Sale of the Century.
During the day, I sat beside her on the swing bed and she showed me a picture book and tell me what the story was about because I couldn’t read the words in the book. It was an alphabet I had never seen before. So many picture books and no one to read them to. The pictures would show children playing in the snow, wrapped up in long coats, red scarves and Ushanka hats. Whenever she saw snow on television or in the picture books, she would tell me how much she missed the Motherland.
She never spoke about the children in the filigree frames in between the wooden dolls. When I asked who they were, she walked to the wooden dolls, caressed them as if they were real, and said nothing about those memories in filigree frames.
Sometimes we would make Pastila together. I gathered the apples from her apple tree, then she let me step on a footstool to get the sugar and the eggs from the chicken pen. She made a drink called Mors, and I drank a tall glass with the Pastila.
“More Mors please, Mrs. Maria.”
We both laughed at the tongue twister.
The postman showed her how to use the self-timer on the camera. Once she got the hang of it, we created paper memories.
* * *
My face became spotty. I became very cranky once a month. I found it increasingly difficult to squeeze into school yard cliques. My mother gave me keys, banknotes, shopping lists and cleaning instructions, but I didn’t want to stay home alone. My mother worked until the break of day. She was the hotel receptionist, always there to make her guests happy and satisfied with their stay. Come again soon!
I teased my absent mother, but also attempted conversation when I couldn’t sleep. I rang the hotel.
“No woman by that name here, darling,”
I jumped the fence to Mrs. Maria’s, and we watched the four seasons go by. Watched the trees change colour and babies hatch and take their first flight. We named our feathery friends.
While Mrs. Maria, who became Maria, would sit near me while she read a book, I did my homework. Fyodor Dostoevsky and Vsevolod Garshin were her favourite authors.
One day I noticed the filigree frames were no longer there. The wooden dolls painted in red, green and yellow seemed melancholy, just like Mrs. Maria when she spoke of her Motherland.
We continued to make Pastila together, but I didn’t need the footstool anymore. I could reach ingredients, use the oven and clean up. She would cut extra slices for my mother.
The camera changed. The self-timer was more sophisticated. We would get in position and created even more memories. We filled many take-up spools as if it were urgent.
I watched as people in grey suits walked out of her house one day after school. When I asked who they were, she walked to the wooden dolls and caressed them. This time, she played with them. Placed one inside another and repeated the action three times.
We were so much alike. We both liked the colour red, we both enjoyed reading and cooking, sugary treats and the warmth of eggs minutes after the chickens laid them. We had a disagreement about winter and summer, but I had never known her winters as I had never felt snow melt between my fingers. Objects and animals surrounded us. People were in short supply.
I understood the time together was ending when the doctor opened her blouse and I saw what looked like a speed hump on her chest. Her beautiful heart needed a little help from science. She had no problems loving, but there was an issue with rhythm. Even here, we were alike. I have no rhythm, but I had much love to give. The problem was some people have a no vacancy sign posted on their chest.
The men in the grey suit didn’t win. Nor did her heart. Cancer got the gold medal in the sport: How to kill people—fast. Hearing, I’ve read, is the last thing to go. I tried to fit so many words in. Small talk, mainly. The rain. The train strike. The For Sale sign between the shrub roses and begonias at number 46.
She left me a big box. I found an old Ushanka hat, the wooden dolls that she used to touch whenever she didn’t want to answer a question I had asked. Filigree frames without photos. The Polaroid and the 35mm. Photos tied in red ribbon, a couple stained with Pastila and Mors, photos that showed me getting taller, Maria getting smaller. And then this:
Deer Gran ma,
I luv you.
She wasn’t my grandma, but she could have been.
Isabelle B.L is a teacher and translator currently living in New Caledonia. She has published a novel inspired by the life of a New Caledonian politician. Her work can be found in the Birth Lifespan Vol. 1 anthology for Pure Slush Books and Flash Fiction Magazine. Her work is also forthcoming in Growing Up Lifespan Vol. 2 for Pure Slush Books, Flash Fiction Magazine and Drunk Monkeys.
The Cabinet of Heed 