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On The Seventh Day |
by Josephine Vraca
Monday
He moves around a lot. I just lie there sucking on the fig, pink and white pulp crushed against my sticky lips.
His body makes a neat table, perfect angles to rest my cup upon, if I was drinking tea, or even the figs and apples, which are on the window ledge right in front of his face. I've placed them in a row, purple, green, purple, green, purple, green, purple. By Sunday, the ants will have begun to investigate the syrupy aroma.
He looks down at me curiously, is it as good for you...
Of course, you're the best.
His face sparkles like a plum after heavy rain. A damp strand of hair is playing with his eyelashes and I want to pull him close, lay his face against my cheek. Instead I pull the meager hair on his chest.
"I wish you wouldn't do that," he says. He moves his hips gently against mine.
"Sorry." I move my hand away slowly, brushing his nipples.
"No, not that. That."
"What?"
"That. Eat while we fuck. You know I hate that slurping."
Papa used to tell me to chew more delicately, and to close my mouth. But I would gasp for air between bites.
"I'm hungry."
My eyes sting with sweat. I wriggle out from beneath him and lie there, resting on my elbows and looking out of the window above the bed head while he gets dressed behind me.
Across the courtyard that separates the East and West wing of the apartment building, the red-headed dancer finally appears on the cramped balcony. She stretches her legs and arms, her feet en pointe, aiming her hands desperately to the balcony above as though trying to tear her body in two.
She pirouettes and her skirt flips over her belly, revealing a shock of waist-high white briefs.
Tuesday
"'You never take me anywhere always stuck in this house like I'm some godforsaken vestal virgin, f'god'ssake'."
He's a goddamn bore when he starts talking like this but he pays well so I'm not about to start.
"That's exactly what she said to me. Can you believe that? I give her so many goddamn diamonds that she might want to use some to plug up that fat mouth. Death by diamonds." He snorts at the gag.
"Tell me you would shut up if you got diamonds. And not just any diamonds—square ones, rectangular ones, round ones with so many facets that you can see ever blackhead goddamn it. I even gave the bitch a pink one. No cubic zirconium from me, honey. Bitch walks around half her life in those slippers that have a heel like a prostitute's-no offence— and that mangy dog tucked under her arm—even when she eats!—and then she complains to me that I'm never home. Vestal virgin? I wish."
In all actuality, I suspect that Charlie Conti is gay and that he has no wife. In fact, I'm certain of it. But I'm not about to stop him from going on and on. He doesn't like me to talk much, unless he asks a direct question like, 'Octavia what time is it?' or 'Octavia did you have a bath this morning?' or 'Octavia, do you love me?'
I have nothing to add to his outbursts. Often, though, I just tune him out.
The dancer across the courtyard is lying on the washed-out carpet just inside her balcony. She's holding a grey kitten against her face, rubbing it against her skin like it's a wash cloth.
She tickles its nose with hers and the kitten bats her lips playfully.
"—alone?"
My nose is cold and slightly moist, like a dog's. The weather's turning, as is the fruit on the peppercorn tree that darkens the courtyard, from pink to brown to black.
"Did you catch that?" Charlie says through sad lips.
"What?" I turn back to him and twirl the apple stem—A, B, C... —until it twists off. Always a J.
"I'm leaving," Charlie says in that way he has when he's trying to make me feel guilty for ignoring him or something.
"Don't go." I mean it. I'm not ready to be alone yet.
I climb across the bed and wrap my arms around his hips, my head in his warm thighs.
"Why stay?" He falls back on the bed.
"Because I like you to."
I rub his earlobes. He likes that.
"But you're never here. Always so far—"
I turn his face towards me and his eyes are glistening.
"No, no, I'm here, I swear. I'm listening now. I mean, I was listening before but I just missed some of it."
He goes back to what he was doing and I turn back to the window. She's whispering into the cat's ear. Warm, soft, smelling of the musk lollies that she keeps in the glass jar next to the sofa.
Wednesday
Willie drives an electric blue Chevy pickup truck with red flames that lick the side panels, black wall-to-wall carpet interior and a crucifix hanging from his rear-view mirror.
He hangs out at the local high schools and looks at the girls even though he's just served a stint for fucking a girl who had "tits that were too big and an ass too curvy to be only fifteen."
He has a thing for Viagra too.
"I am willing to see my magnificence."
He turns back from the bedside table and I stop poring over the fruit, the figs have already started to sag.
"What?"
"I am willing to see my magnificence."
"Okay."
I turn back. I'm distracted by the poor quality fruit. I pick up the fig from the stem and it sticks to the window ledge momentarily.
Her apartment is smaller than mine. It's a bedsit too but the sofa is closer to the bed.
She's in the kitchen tossing the contents of a frying pan into the air like they do in infomercials. Her sinewy arms tense with the effort.
Willie slaps my ass and laughs, and I'm back in the room for a moment.
"Yes, yes, I see it too," I say.
"No, that's what it says on this card. Where'd you get this shit from?"
I turn to face him. He's holding a square green card from the deck that's under the lamp on the bedside table. My Dream Cards. How embarrassing, I forgot to put them back last night.
"Oh it's nothing, it's just something—"
A scream echoes across the way.
She's shaking her hands nervously and the frying pan's on the floor, its contents splattered everywhere.
Hold it under cold running water. I wish I could leap across the ten yards that divide us and blow cool air on the wound.
"What are you looking at? Say, who's tha—"
I turn back to him quickly and settle him with my hand. He rests his head back onto the pillow.
The dancer is sitting on the sagging sofa now, on top of the throw that's covered in large pastel peonies. She's just staring at her hand.
I look at my free hand and hold it to my cheek.
Alone. Forgotten.
Do the dancer's eyes ever wander beyond the confines of her tired walls? Does she ever watch me?
Thursday
"Are the waters calm there?"
"Why aren't you here?" I'm feeling vague today.
The dancer is on the sofa, holding a feather above the kitten's head, flicking it over its nose and paws. Her hand is bandaged with gauze the colour of flamingos.
"Are the waters calm there?"
"What waters?"
"The waters!"
"There's no water here. I'm inland. You said you'd be back in time."
"What a shame."
"I rely on it."
She moves like a ballerina. She doesn't walk through her apartment. She does a plait to remove a carton of milk from the refrigerator, a pirouette to add a pinch of salt to a pot.
"Can I come next week instead?" He's anxious now.
"I'll have to check my schedule."
I don't have the energy for this today. He's a whiny dog, begging for scraps. A spoiled child with no toys.
"I know you must be so busy but I just wish the waters were calm so I could just dip my toes for a while."
But I told you there is no water here, I want to scream into the receiver. But I close my eyes and count instead.
"Tell me what you're wearing," he sighs.
No energy for this. I'm off the clock right now.
"I'm sorry I can't make much time for a phone call at the moment."
She bends forward and wraps her long arms around her calves, folding at the middle like a rag doll. The skin on her back is like parchment stretched over her ribs. She remains in this position, her body rising and falling with each breath, shaking with every sigh.
I don't want to, but I take a bite from the apple and concentrate on the voice on the other end of the line.
Friday
Daniel had spent three months in Japan wandering through the S&M clubs where they eat sushi off naked bodies. Consequently, he has developed a penchant for unblemished, milky flesh and carefully embroidered silks that he likes to drape across my thighs.
I fall asleep for a few moments, my head resting on the open book. I wake to something cool and pasty on my back. Something dribbles down my waist but I try to ignore it. I also try to ignore the slurping but I like the sensation of his warm tongue against my skin.
He inhales deeply.
"Those Japanese are too clever for their own good."
"I heard once that in America they have chocolate with chilis in it," I mumble through the pages of the book.
"Oh this is much better." He slaps my thigh enthusiastically.
I am rather fond of his enthusiasm.
There is a sound from across the courtyard. I look up and she is pressed against her front door. Someone is pounding on it.
"Faustina!" says a man's voice from the other side of the door. The voice, all menace and low notes, collides with the loud and tinny gypsy music that echoes through the peppercorn tree.
Faustina.
How about that...
She clasps the opening of her kimono and wraps the belt tightly around her wrist, one time around, two times, three. She hurtles herself wildly towards the tape player and turns the volume up until I can't hear the voice behind the door.
Faustina resumes her protective post against the rattling door. She places her hands over her ears and the robe falls open revealing a bermuda patch of flat dark hairs and a scar from her naval to the top of her ribs zipping her closed neatly.
Daniel groans loudly and I blink my attention back to the room.
Saturday
He just wants my company today. Father Alfonzo Agosti scatters the pieces of the Vatican, all five hundred of them, onto the flattened sheet with the yellowing embroidery stitches.
The first time I saw her, Faustina, was the day that Father Alfonzo Agosti first came calling. She was hanging a white slip over a cord that was tied across her balcony.
"Are you a virgin?" he asked when I greeted him at the door.
I was thrown. You see, it isn't a question I get asked much. Not at all, actually. So I didn't manage to respond quickly enough. The eyes behind the rimless hexagonal glasses were disapproving. No, they were disappointed.
"Of course, Father," I blurted.
Things have gone swimmingly ever since.
He wears a civilian suit when he comes. A gold cross rests under his shirt against his skin. Before his first appointment, I imagined he would be like the Jesuit priest from The Exorcist – the one played by Jason Miller. I imagined he would be young and athletic. Instead, Father Alfonso Agosti is middle aged and short. But he does have a spectacular head of hair.
To my delight, Father Alfonzo Agosti does not waste his time with meaningless chitchat. His visits are solemn like confession. I arch my spine to meet his smooth fingers, which have never done an honest day's work.
He strokes me now, under my arms, and offers me an apple. The sun has bleached it slightly on one side. I take a bite and spit it into the priest's waiting hands. He tosses the piece out of the window.
During Father Alfonzo Agosti's first appointment, Faustina slithered onto her balcony and sashayed into my life with an orange towel wrapped around her head, wearing only a man's oversized shirt with the sleeves rolled up high making great puffs that encircled her slender arms. She made a great event of hanging out her laundry. And with the slip hanging from the cord, she backed into her apartment and smiled at her imaginary audience, bowing her head in appreciation. I quickly lowered my head below the window ledge.
Sunday
No-one comes on a Sunday. I feel the solitude embracing me like my pilling blue blanket. My thoughts are foggy and I could happily watch paint dry.
I force open my eyes to the yellow glare in the room.
It's sparse.
My room is spartan but certainly not devoid of personal objects. My walls are covered in prints. The 1966 Pirelli Calendar is on the table, opened to May. A great bookshelf takes up most of one wall and is crammed with books I intend to read and lives I intend to pry open.
I lie on the bed and rest my head on the window ledge. The last piece of fruit, a fig, is wrinkly and dark and split in two places.
Faustina's walls have always seemed vacant and lonely, covered with blue, peeling wallpaper. A poster of a matador and the map of the world are pinned to the walls. An aged brown teddy bear sits upright on the sofa. A blue vase is filled with silk sunflowers.
But today her room is deserted. More vacant than usual.
The doors of Faustina's balcony lay open unevenly as though they are partially unhinged. Her apartment door is ajar.
I get out of bed and put on a robe. The air in the room is icy so I light the oven. As the water boils for my tea, I stare out of the kitchen window but she is nowhere to be seen. There is nothing in her room. Not even a whisper.
My chest pounds restlessly and I draw a breath that encircles my lungs like the first drag of a cigarette. The posters are gone leaving pale rectangular ghosts on the walls. The furnishings are gone, along with the bear and the flowers. The room is a gaping chasm.
The kettle whistles, more and more urgent, but I don't feel much like a tea anymore.
I am alone. More alone that I would like, even for a Sunday.
Josephine Vraca arrived in Australia from Sicily in 1971 when she was two, strapped to her mother's hip aboard the Marconi ocean liner. Her earliest memories include running from a friend's house after being served a plate of tinned spaghetti, and the words to the Beatles' "Yellow Submarine." She couldn't speak English, but those were good times. These days, she lives a mile from her family and spends her time writing fiction, blogging and often knitting. She still balks at the thought of tinned spaghetti.
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