Mara (21 page)

She already had the knife in her hand, and plates on the table. She seemed to be unaware of my reluctance, didn’t seem to realize what she was doing.

‘After all, we’re not sure exactly what day they’ll come, so we might as well enjoy a few pieces of this cake. If the cake is finished before they come, I’ll just bake another.’

That was just like her. Not for a moment would she wonder to herself why she should go through so much trouble for her sister’s visit. She just did. How could I possibly convince her?

‘Would you mind if I prepared your room for their stay? You could share my room for the time being?’

I had not expected this at all and I froze, unable to respond. I stared at the cake while I thought of their bodies in my bed. My bed!

‘No. No. I do mind. I don’t want them to come, I don’t want to see them, I don’t want to hear anything about it!’ I began to talk louder and louder until I furiously shouted words into the kitchen. They seemed to bounce off the windows, returning straight to me, tormenting me with their truth.

‘NO!’

I lost all control, my foot stepped forward, my hand swung back and then forward again, my mouth shouting in fury. I swung my hand exactly where I wanted it to.

The cake pan clattered onto the floor, chunks of delicious smelling cake flew through the kitchen, against cupboards. Auntie shrieked in alarm and my hand returned to my side. I saw apple and cake in places where there shouldn’t have been.

Everything fell quiet and my mouth closed shut in shocked silence.

What had I done? I saw how a lumpy mixture of apples and raisins slowly oozed down the pan rack, leaving a slippery trail behind, until it reached the edge and dropped onto the floor.

I sank down to the floor, picked up the cake pan and began to scoop the pieces of cake up with both hands. I picked up chunks and put them back into the pan. I crawled across the floor on my knees and found more apple and raisins, stuck on table legs, on cupboards, on seats. My tears fell on the floor and my dress rubbed them away as I shuffled across the floor. I pressed the pieces into the cake pan, tried to re-shape them, tried to fit them like puzzle pieces. My hands were sticky with sugar and jam, but I paid no attention to it, I kept trying to put the cake back together.

I didn’t dare look up at Auntie.

I stayed on the floor, my head bent over the baking pan, my eyes gazed at the shapeless mess. I couldn’t bake a new cake, I had never made one myself. The few times that I had helped Auntie in the kitchen I had done more damage than good, so there was nothing I could do for her.

I sat on the floor, defeated. Auntie would be furious with me. Any moment now she would give me an ear full, pick up her bible and read admonishing verses to me, put me in my place and punish me.

I wanted to shield myself from her fury and my fear, I wanted to cover my ears and eyes with my hands and slip out of the kitchen, but I knew I had to wait for her. She was the one who had been offended and I was to blame. This time there was no doubt whatsoever as to who was guilty and deserved punishment.

I was alerted by the scraping sound of a chair being moved. My muscles tensed as I waited in silence for what would happen. Two feet came in view and I could tell she sat down. Another moment and I would know what my punishment would be. I closed my eyes and waited.

In my mind I heard the Reverend’s voice teaching me about the ten commandments, placing extra emphasis on the fifth commandment. A shiver went through my body. What would she say?

A deep sigh finally broke the silence that had lingered in the kitchen from the moment that I had thrown the cake off the table in anger. The sound of her sigh pierced the fear that surrounded me and I dared to slowly lift my head.

Auntie Be sat on a chair, her legs a little bit apart, her elbows on the table, her head in her hands. I saw how she brought a finger to her cheek and slowly scooped off a sticky lump of cake that had ended up there. She put the finger into her mouth and sucked it clean. She closed her eyes and didn’t say a word until her mouth was empty.

‘Delicious.’

No! It’s not delicious. It can’t be, it mustn’t be.

‘Don’t say that.’ I said with trembling voice.

‘But child, this cake is delicious. You can say what you like, but I know how to bake a cake.’

‘It’s disgusting.’ I forgot my fear for her wrath and thought of the Reverend and hated him.

‘The cake may be in pieces, but it still tastes very good, believe me.’ She reached with her hand and scooped up another chunk.

‘I want to destroy him.’ That was what I wanted, destroy him in full view of his god and his congregation, crush him, dump him down the cesspool, leave him to choke on his own stinking despair.

‘This cake is already destroyed, Maria. Destroyed, but still tasty.’

‘Filthy, will never be clean again.’ We’re virgins until our virginity is taken from us, after that there is no way back. Something is torn, forever, irreparable. Broken pieces are all that’s left, filled with little bits of hope, until that hope is gone too and nothing is left at all. My anger and fear struggled, and words chased each other around inside my head like mad bees chasing out intruders. Then I finally opened my mouth.

‘He always came to me. When mother was away. When mother was asleep.’

I sank back onto the floor and wrapped my arms around my knees. Slowly I rocked myself while silent tears rolled down my cheeks and fell down. They left salty circles on the red tiles. I left them, uncaring.

‘I did call for her, really. At first out loud, but later in my head, I would cry out, but not even God heard me.’

I remembered large hands, heavy breathing.

‘I deserved it, he said. “It’s the will of God that I punish you,” he said. He was cruel, he hurt me, and he turned me away when in the end…’

Mara!

Her calloused hands pulled me toward her and she sat down on the floor beside me. I kept rocking back and forth. Back and forth, back and forth.

‘Oh, my child, oh, my child.’

‘Mother did nothing. She didn’t hear me. I think she didn’t hear me. I don’t know.’ The words left my mouth faster and faster, now that all my worries came out in the open and I could hear them with my own ears as I spoke them out loud for the very first time.

‘He is her father and he took her away from me, he took everything and gave nothing in return.’

Back and forth, back and forth. New tears fell on the tiles, new stains, salty spots on the floor. People would walk over them, the spots would be covered up by dirt and in the end they would be scrubbed away with a brush and soapy water. Nothing would remain of them.

‘It started a long time ago already and sometimes it seemed that life had always been that way, as if I had not had a happier life before. But I knew that things used to be different, this farm used to be my home. I was happy here with Father and Mother, Grandpa and Grandma, and with you. Until he came and they married. And now he’ll return. He wants to take me back to that house.’

‘Oh, my child.’

‘I don’t want to give him any cake, don’t want to give him a place to sleep, don’t want to give him food to eat.’

Back and forth. My buttocks hurt, my back felt as if a heavy weight had been weighing down on it for days, but I couldn’t stop rocking. My fingers had let go of my shoulders and I had taken hold of the hem of my skirt and pulled and twisted at it. The fabric bunched up between my fingers, and then I straightened it out again, just to start all over again.

‘He can’t have any cake.’

‘I won’t give him any cake, darling. I won’t.’

I was silent. My heart seemed to return to its proper place, no longer high in my throat, choking the words before they left my mouth, but further down, in my chest. It hurt, everything hurt.

I was silent. What else was left to say? The pieces that constituted my life were lying about in this now dirty kitchen, apple, shame, cake, raisins, rape.

‘I am so sorry, Maria. So sorry.’

Auntie stroked my back, tucked some loose strands of hair behind my ears and wiped a tear from my face. I looked at her and saw her cheeks were wet and I realized she also had left her tearful imprints on this floor. Her tears were blending with mine. I cried as I wiped them away with my hand, I tried to take them away, but all I did was make moist smudges on the floor.

We leaned against each other in silence, on the hard kitchen floor. Finally Auntie broke the silence. Instead of remaining quiet and moving on to regular daily tasks she asked the first question.

‘When did it all start, Maria?’

I swallowed hard as I considered her question. If I closed my eyes, all I saw was the torment he put me through again and again, but when exactly had it started?

‘I think it started when I… got older.’ Did I have to tell her that he had come to me when I had had my period for the first time, at the moment that my body began to show the shapes of a woman? That he at first only touched my developing breasts, and that the rest all came later? Did it make any difference?

‘Where was your mother?’

‘Invisible.’

With that last word my tears could no longer be held back and I started to cry vehemently. With long, loud wails and a horrible noise. I sat on the floor with shaking shoulders. Speaking out loud of the doubts I had about my mother was harder than to tell her of what the Reverend had done. Auntie sat with me and held me, she shared my pain and her tears found their way down her rounded cheeks. When I calmed down she spoke again.

‘I’ll send hem away when they come.’

I nodded gratefully.

‘I’ll have to send her away too.’ Auntie muttered and rose. My bones hurt from sitting on the floor, by eyes were sore from crying, my nose was plugged and my mouth dry from breathing. I realized that Auntie probably felt similar. Regardless, she stood up instantly.

‘Come.’

She stretched her hands out to me to help me up. I hesitated. How could I possibly stand up and sit down on a chair, return to regular life as if nothing had happened?

‘Come, child.’

I made a decision, ignored her outstretched arms, pushed off and stood up on my own, even though my knees creaked and my back protested. With my head hanging I walked to the table and sat down. I looked at the tablecloth and without thinking about it my fingers found three strands and started to twist them into a braid.

My secret was no longer mine alone and I didn’t know if I would ever be able to look Auntie in the eye again. She squeezed me softly and I had the courage to glance up for a moment. Her eyes looked at me with such compassion, still filled with unshed tears. I quickly looked back at the tablecloth and pulled my hand back. Why had I told her?

Again she held her hand out to me, this time with a handkerchief, and I gratefully took it from her. My head pounded and my nose was plugged as if with a bad cold. Blowing my nose didn’t bring much relief. There was so much left in my head, so much I hadn’t told her yet.

I crumpled up the handkerchief and tucked it in the sleeve of my blouse. We sat at the kitchen table in silence, until Auntie spoke.

‘I need to do something and I need your help with it.’

I nodded, of course, there was always work to be done on the farm and we had wasted enough time together already. I didn’t know what time it was, but no doubt Auntie did and it probably was time to milk the cows, or to knead dough, or to clear the dung passage.

I pushed back my chair and got up, ready to help.

‘What can I do?’

My voice was soft.

Auntie bent down and picked the cake pan from the floor. She held it against the edge of the table and wiped a few more crumbs in to the pan, then she gave it to me.

‘Come along.’

Auntie headed for the door and stepped into her wooden shoes, I picked up mine in the barn and stepped into them as well. She wrapped a shawl around her shoulders and took the cake pan from me for a moment so I could grab my shawl. Then she returned the cake to me and opened the barn door.

I followed her across the yard toward the pig house and I followed her in. Why was I carrying a cake pan if we were going to feed the pigs?

The dog came running and jumped barking against the door of the pig house when it closed behind me. Undoubtedly he had smelled the cake and had hoped to beg for some of it.

‘This is the only place for this cake,’ said Auntie. She pointed at the sows, lying about lazily in the pen.

‘I want you to do the honors.’

My hesitation was only short lived, then I turned over the cake pan, and I saw the pieces fall into the feeding trough. Immediately the animals got up and came our way, snorting. What had been a beautiful round cake only this afternoon, was now gobbled up within seconds by hungry pigs. We watched in silence.

When the last crumbs had disappeared, Auntie broke the silence.

‘If he wants cake, he’ll have to go and look for it here.’

I sniveled a watery smile. I imagined how the Reverend would stand here in his black suit, right in the middle of the pigs dung, groping with his hands in their trough, fighting for a few crumbs of dirty cake.

Together we returned the cake pan to the kitchen and had another cup of tea. It was strange, but we didn’t talk anymore about the things I had told her earlier that afternoon. We just chatted about nothing in particular and divided the chores that were left to be done that day. I could tell though that Auntie had been shocked by the things I had revealed to her. With mounting astonishment I watched her scoop five spoons full of sugar into her cup.

I felt strange, my head felt heavy from crying and I felt a headache creeping up, but I also felt relieved that I no longer carried my secret alone, but now shared it with Auntie. We smiled at each other and when the teacups were empty and we got up to get back to work, Auntie hugged me without speaking a word.

Auntie and I had agreed that I would muck out the stables and it felt good to be physically active. Gradually my head cleared, even though my temples kept thumping as a result of my tearful outburst. As I worked I calmed down. It was odd, my secret was out in the open now, but, no, I didn’t feel the humiliating shame that I had expected to feel.