High Tide

Mother

Mother tries to remember where she’s seen it before.

Faces peering at her from a glaring brightness.

Big eyes. Lips that are saying something, smiling, cooing, scolding. Faces that pull her from the comforting darkness and into the light.

An avenue.

For a moment she sees her father; he points out the leaves overhead. She is a child in her stroller, a child absorbing every single detail. She sees the leaves and becomes them, submerges herself in them and their silky movement.

The faces in this narrow room are like the leaves. They form a canopy high overhead, full of rustling movement and a teasing wind. The faces look at her as she lies there like a dried-up worm, wedged between the body pillow and the wall. A pair of hands throw open the curtains — a window fills with light.

“Good morning! Time to get up,” a light voice says.

The face leans in very close — it’s a woman’s face.

Mother opens an eye. The other is crusted over with pus. She looks at the faces and her toothless mouth whispers a few syllables in greeting. Mother is afraid of the daytime, afraid of the daily routine. She’ll be rolled over, picked up, moved, washed — it hurts and it makes her uneasy. Mother wants to tell them she doesn’t understand why she needs to get up anymore. She’s tired, but they won’t leave her alone.

“And the worst is she somehow gets in there with her left hand. She grabs and tears at the diaper and then smears shit all over the place. She’s out of her mind. I’ve got to change the bedding twice a day — all of it.”

Mother closes the one eye and pretends this talk isn’t about her. For several years now her good eye has been covered by a film, a rapidly swirling fog with tiny black spots.

“You have to figure something out. You can probably do something like tie a shirt over her chest,” says a second voice that’s lower, infused with darkness.

Mother likes that voice better.

“She doesn’t get in from the top, but from the bottom along her thigh. The entire bed is flooded by morning. She pees so, so much. And if there’s shit I can’t even come in here without gagging. You wouldn’t believe the smell,” the first voice complains, white and clear as a ray of light.

You can’t hide from that voice, so Mother just shuts her eye tighter.

“Maybe like something for a baby. A onesie that buttons up the sides.”

“Won’t work. Since the last treatment she’s completely lost it. Look at how small she is — but she’s heavy, as heavy as a rock. She’s dead weight, ten times heavier than me. I make her stand up so her legs won’t totally atrophy. A few minutes a day. When I come home from work I have her sit up. You can’t believe how hard it is. I’ve sprained my back — it hurts. No, no, no. No onesies, no pants. She can’t even lift her legs. It would just mean extra clothes for me to wash. No, no, no. I had an idea yesterday — I’ll secure the diaper with electrical tape. Or a wide strip of duct tape. What do you think?”

“You can’t do that, Mom. Her skin’ll get infected.”

“You think so? Well, then I don’t know.”

Mother pretends she is dead. Pretends this stupid conversation isn’t about her. People only talk like that about children who misbehave. She’s not a bad child, never has been. No, no, no.

The light voice disappears and the door closes.

Something warm slips under her neck, she feels warmth. Mother feels a soft, youthful breath on her cheek and opens her good eye.

“Drink some coffee, Gran,” says the dark voice, “while you can. I’m visiting. So you can have your coffee before washing up.”

A white cup enters into view. It moves closer. The hand firmly grips the back of her neck and lifts her head. Mother’s toothless mouth and pale, slug-like lips suction to the rim of the cup. Something white, warm, and sweet fills her mouth. It flows over her tongue, which has dried out overnight and rattles inside her head. The drink is heavenly. Mother wants more and watches the cup eagerly as it’s moved away from her lips.

“See, it’s good. More?”

Mother gives a sharp nod with her pointy chin — almost like she fears the cup will stay out of reach. But it comes back. This time the slug-like lips don’t let go of the white cup. Mother gulps down two mouthfuls and sinks back into the pillow. She tries to smile and make out the face. But she can’t. The effort clouds her vision even more.

Mother speaks:

“Sweetheart.”

“Yes, Gran? What do you want?”

Mother wants to tell her, but there are no words.

A yard divided up by the bright sun and a shadow cast by the roof. Gravel and tufts of grass. In this yard, she is a cat crouching close to the ground on the edge of the shadow.

The cat jumps into a flock of birds sunning themselves in the hot sand.

The birds scatter and the scene crumbles away.

She doesn’t call up these scenes; they just come and go. There’s the damp smell of moss, a cool spring wind on her face, the breaking of the last layer of ice underfoot and boots splashing into mud.

She sees a clearing and catches the scent of resin.

She sees railroad ties, up close — pitchy wood ties, iron tracks covered in red rust and tiny yellow flowers — so lifelike.

She sees a newborn child, slick with fluids, and they place it in her arms.

She can see everything except the chance to experience it all over again.

She thinks a lot about this.

But right now Mother doesn’t want scenes; Mother wants what is right next to her. That warm, innocent, dark voice.

Mother speaks:

“Sweetheart.”

“What is it, Gran? More coffee?”

Mother slowly sticks out her chin.

“What then?”

Oh, if she only could say.

Mother wants heat.

The kind that can’t be bought with money.

Mother wants someone to lie down next to her. Right next to her, pressing side to side.

Like her own mother used to sleep next to her.

Like her grandmother used to on winter nights.

Like her husband used to once she had overcome her cold, distant teenage years — once she had been grown up enough to sleep with a man. The return of the nights when their separate warmths would join to become one.

Like when her own children used to climb into bed next to her.

And wasn’t this one here — the one with the dark voice — wasn’t she her granddaughter?

A country home in the July swelter. The window is open and not a single blade of grass moves in the stifling heat. She is exhausted from this heat and reclines on the large sofa in the kitchen. They call it the “lyre”; it’s covered with a faded, striped cotton blanket that smells faintly of dust. She calls to her granddaughter:

“Sweetheart! Come lie down!”

Like a tiny flame, her granddaughter nestles against her broad back; the flame turns this way and that until it is overcome by sleep. Flies buzz around the brown wood of the curtain rod. Life is so incredibly vast.

Mother wants to say to her granddaughter — sweetheart, come lie down!

Mother wants to say — to hell with bathing, to hell with all the pissing and shitting, the eating — what does it all mean? Coldness, coldness is seeping into her from all sides. Lie down next to me, sweetheart, so I can feel your warmth. Take my frozen body into your arms. Let’s look out that far, faraway window for an hour. Two.

Live a moment of my life and you’ll feel like a year has passed.

Let’s look at our hands against the light, you can read so much in them.

Sweetheart, do you have a little time for me?

Just one night — in the heat of your embrace.

Sweetheart — Mother tries to say it, but only a sigh comes out. So many words in one sentence just to convey one thought. Mother just can’t string them together anymore.

Please don’t deny me warmth, she wants to say. It’s the worst thing one person can deny another.

Sweetheart, Mother wants to say, your face is a beautiful canopy of leaves. Full, soft, alive. That’s a good thing, Mother wants to say. It’s important for a woman to be attractive.

“Gran,” her granddaughter speaks suddenly, close, close by. “Gran, do you remember back when you said that a person is beautiful only once they understand themselves? Gran, right now you’re very beautiful. Yes you are, don’t shake your head, you are! You are.”

The light voice returns above them:

“I went to the Red Cross earlier and got one of those cheap toilet chairs. See, that white thing. They rent them out, but I paid for only a month, since it’s not worth paying for a half a year. The man said so — if they’re dying, it’s not worth it. They’re dying.”

As these words are spoken a wet towel is scrubbed back and forth over Mother’s face. Mother pulls away, squeezes her eyes shut — both the good one and the one that’s crusted over — but it’s impossible to escape the towel. It’s wet and rough.

“Mom, don’t say that around her.”

“Her hearing is bad. And what does it matter anyway? That’s life. The day we brought her home from the hospital, another patient in her ward died. She was this tiny old woman, swore at everyone, complained, was never satisfied. That day they’d supposedly pumped a ton of fluids into her — you know, eight of those huge bags. Well, and she died anyway. She didn’t suffer long, maybe ten minutes. Her daughter had just arrived and was standing by the bed. The doctors rushed in and wanted to resuscitate her, they even brought the gurney, but there wasn’t anything to resuscitate anymore. They opened the window — for the soul to leave — and then cleared her away, bed and all. And that was it. That morning I’d even told the women working the ward — look how she’s holding her hands, crossed over her chest, she’s going to go soon! And she did.”

Two strong hands wedge under Mother’s shoulder blades and sit her up.

“Oh,” Mother cries, “it hurts!”

“Nothing hurts, you lump. I rented the toilet chair for nothing. She doesn’t understand anything anymore. I sat her on that chair and kept her there for an hour. Nothing. No pissing, no shitting. She doesn’t get it. Just sits and dozes. For nothing! She’s lazy, just takes care of everything in the diaper. And at night she scratches at the walls, fidgets. One night around three I heard this loud thump. I wondered what it could be, so I come look and find she’s fallen out of bed. Flat on her face. Once I’d finally gotten her back up I couldn’t fall asleep until morning. I went to work completely out of it. Now I put the toilet chair against the bed so she won’t fall out. At least it’s good for something. It’s heavy, see, made of metal. It’s like having iron bars.”

Toothless Mother smiles from behind the bars. She smiles at nothing in particular, something melted, sweet, and white beyond that faraway window. But the here and now just won’t let her be. Her palms press down onto the bars and force her to push herself up. Her body is crumpled, it doesn’t want to move. Her muscles are knotted at the thighs, her legs don’t want to stand. It’s hard for her, she doesn’t understand why she has to stand if her body doesn’t want to. But she’s propped up with her hands on the bars and is stretched like a piece of leather across a frame as the bottom of her nightdress is rolled up in the morning light. They wash her back. She puts up with it. There’s a throbbing and pulsing in her temples. She feels her blood slosh through her bony body and pool at her feet, she is a glass of corked wine balanced precariously high over the emptiness and the white of daylight.

“Good thing Pāvils gave me these yellow rubber gloves. They’re really good, see? Before my hands would smell so badly I couldn’t go to work — piss and shit get under your nails and the smell sticks to your skin no matter how hard you scrub your hands. It’s more hygienic with the gloves. They work! I put a hat on before coming in here, too. Your hair soaks up smells in a second. I can’t talk to anyone at work about any of it. I never dreamed it would be like this. She’s been strong as a horse her whole life — she worked as hard as a horse and was as proud as a horse. Wouldn’t let anyone or anything get to her. And look at her now! How long will it be like this? Could be years. The doctors said her heart was like a horse’s. Strong. Her mind’s gone, she doesn’t think or feel anything, but she’s still got an appetite.”

Mother hears these doubts about her mental capacity and smirks, then smacks her gums, which are again as dried out as the desert. But right away she winces as a rough towel digs into the skin behind her knees.

“Mom, what you’re doing is admirable — you’re great. You amaze me. You’ll feel good about it afterwards, right?”

“Will I feel good about it? I don’t even know how to respond to your little cheer.”

“Cheer? Mom!”

“I don’t know. I don’t know about anything anymore. I try not to think at all.”

They put a new diaper on Mother and sit her back onto the bed with a pile of pillows behind her back. A napkin is tucked in under her chin. A spoon of something red is brought to her mouth. She opens it like a mechanical beak and swallows.

“Have some fruit, Mother!”

“You should cut it up — she doesn’t have any teeth.”

Mother nods and swallows the piece of fruit whole.

“She can mash it up with her gums.”

“Maybe it would be better to put her in a home. You yell at her. And one time when I called you were in tears. Sometimes you drink and cry.”

“I don’t just yell at her, m’dear, I hit her too — with a towel. She’s totally shameless. And yes, I yell. She shits all over the bed and pisses all the time. But she still has an appetite. I stand next to her and watch my life fall apart — or what’s left of it. An hour with her sometimes feels like a year. I’ll drink her medicine, it happens a lot. It’s human nature! Don’t shake your head, that’s life. You don’t believe me and that’s fine, because you don’t know anything about life yet. Think what you want, but I’m not putting her in a home. She’s my mother.”

“Nurse supervision, good food. She’s been proud her entire life, remember, Mom? It might be better for both of you if you didn’t yell and hit her with towels. If you didn’t cry and drink her medicine.”

“Why bother having kids if they just end up putting you in a home?”

“But let’s at least think about it.”

“You’re all trying to push this nursing home thing — stop piling on your advice!”

Mother nods and opens her mouth to have her say, but gets a mouthful of chocolate spread instead. That was unnecessary. Mother hates the chocolate. She shudders and shakes her head. But her gums mash up the spread, and it melts and drips heavily into her stomach.

Mother speaks:

“The white one.”

“Mom, she wants the cottage cheese.”

“I heard, I heard. I’ve got it all under control, I’ll get through it, you hear me? This is my mother. Alright, let’s give it a rest. She’s scheduled for an X-ray Tuesday. Can you come help me? To get her in the wheelchair and down to the clinic.”

Silence.

Mother smiles.

“I can’t do it by myself. She’s ridiculously heavy. Every muscle in my body is already strained. It hurts here, on the left side. From my ribs to my thigh — it’s like I’m being cut with a knife.”

“Are you crying?”

“No. It’s some kind of fluid that just drains from my eyes on its own. It’s just that everything hurts. I never thought it would be like this. I’ve never experienced anything like it before, you know? She doesn’t want anything but pity. But I can’t give it to her because of all the shit and the pain. I don’t see anything beyond that anymore, and I’m so scared. There’s nothing to do about it. Let God pity her — that’s his job. I just wash the sheets, get upset, and cry. Eat faster, Mother, I have to go to work!”

“What does she do by herself all day?”

“Sleeps. What else?”

Mother smiles. What does she do by herself all day? Time’s a real son of a bitch, she thinks.

Time always pretends it’s something else. Sometimes it pretends to be a person. Time pretends to be people’s wrinkles, scars, saggy bits. Sometimes it’s faraway, unreachable roads. Time pretends to be a road that leads to the sea — over hills, past hidden places, past mysterious destinies that are never understood, over roofs, chimneys, castles and huts, fields of cow-wheat and forget-me-nots, and under the silvery smooth beech trees of manor houses. Sometimes it pretends it’s the sea itself. And the sky. Sometimes it pretends to be gravestones, children, the elderly. It pretends to be your veins, your teeth, your dentures, or eyes. In Mother’s eyes, these days time usually pretends to be the wall opposite her bed. The window is time. Day and night. Light and dark. Time is yellowed photographs — black and white, figures disintegrating under her failing vision (what time hides from Mother is that these figures are her own faces throughout the years, her children and her husband). Time is a clock that has stopped. Sometimes Mother’s fingers are time — she holds them up against the light and studies them for hours like a child.

“I wanted to ask you something.”

“What, Mom?”

“I hope it won’t be like that, but if I… If I end up like her, shoot me! Or get rid of me some other way. I’ll write a letter of permission ahead of time. I’ll keep it in my purse with my ID.”

“Mom! Don’t talk like that around her!”

“See, you’re thinking of her again. I’m not blind or deaf — that kind of talk is fine around me.”

“Stop it. At least stop making it all about you for a little while.”

“I’ve done nothing else my entire life but put myself second — I wonder why she never bothered to do the same!”

There are no more words. They fall silent and hug, then stand next to Mother’s bed. A shadow falls over her face. Mother sticks out her chin — this is how it should be.

Warmth! She also craves that heat. She’s grown almost completely cold. Tomorrow night’s high tide will extinguish her.

A napkin wipes the remains of chocolate from the corners of Mother’s mouth. The voices above her keep talking.

Mother finally remembers — she remembers. There were female voices back then, too!

Like a garment cut from nothingness with magic scissors, like a paper crane made of light — she draws closer to the memory — the warm nose of a foal nuzzles her, its breath hot — she has to get a bridle on it!

Mother leans toward the memory, avoiding the invasive spoon, her toothless mouth now and then gulping the cottage cheese. Her bony fingers tear at the blanket corner in her lap, and she remembers…

. . The voices are coming from the kitchen. She is still in part a child, but also in part a woman, on that border when time ties the first rosy knots at the tips of a girl’s chest. She’s at her mother’s house in the country. There’s a celebration tomorrow. The spring weather is hot, and the cherries, hackberries, and lilacs are blooming. The kitchen door is open and almost every woman from the seaside town is in there baking, cooking, slicing meat, and grinding onions.

The thick, juicy grass lies flat in the garden like a green, hairy beast, and the leafy branches of the apple trees spill in through open windows. The screams of animals being slaughtered for food has stopped and their rolled-up hides lay haphazardly next to the barn, because the tanner is drunk on beer and sound asleep next to the doghouse. The boys are tickling his mustache with a reed, and he smiles in his sleep. Everything smells of sweat and music. Striped cats purr and wind around the porch pillars.

Steam rises above the pots on the stove, rattling the tin covers like bells. Laughing children dart around the grownups with the neighborhood dogs, stealing slices of smoked bacon meant for tomorrow’s bacon rolls. The women scold them and wipe their own sweaty foreheads and flushed necks with white handkerchiefs. They pass around a bottle of lingonberry brew, which you can only have a little bit of at a time, because it’s quite strong, quite sacred, quite devilish!

Uncle Jānis blows a horn on the roof of the shed — the song is “The Sea Needs a Fine-Spun Net”—he doesn’t know that in a few days the sea will take him in place of the net, and then the women will be cooking for his funeral instead.

Uncle Jānis plays his horn, then comes inside, sits at the end of the table, chats with the women and manages to get a few sips of brew. The women swat him with their handkerchiefs and blush when he pinches one of them in the thigh. His voice is pure, unfiltered fire, strong like the lingonberry brew. The children eye the trumpet on the corner of the table, poke at its yellow, brassy shine, breathe in its metallic scent.

Mother goes outside. It’s hard for her to hold herself straight against this bold thundering of life that tears through the air and slams against her little body like the waves crashing against the breakwater. For the first time in her life, she simultaneously feels deep pain and joy. The sweltering happiness in the kitchen and the passionless existence of the blue skies over the sea, with the fragrant clusters of white flowers in the twilight—

— it’s hard for her to be outside for long, her heart is being torn to bits by the cold and lonely wind. She wants to go inside, closer to the fire. Rather, she wants it all together, to pour these two worlds into one cup and drink it. To see: is it really like oil and water, can they never mix? To bring the cold inside, or to bring the heat outside.

Soon enough both worlds melt into one, because something happens that night, something secretive. She is recruited—

— because on her way inside she almost runs into a woman. There, in the front hall, is their neighbor, Maija. Maija’s right hand holds a bundle of onions and is pressed to her chest, but her left hand is balled up by her mouth — her white teeth biting into her thumb. She is listening from the other side of the kitchen door to what Jānis is saying to the other women. The adults have said more than once that Maija is crazy about Jānis.

Maija looks at her with dark eyes. At the motionless, angular silhouette of a teenager in the doorway against the blue-green horizon over the sea. It’s bad to eavesdrop, they both know that. But the woman at the kitchen door burns like a fire, even though her frame is small and her hair is soft and long. Voices can be heard from the kitchen—

“Child,” Maija says and puts a finger up to her lips. Her eyes gleam like a cat’s.

“No, no!” the child cries out, burned by this fervor.

Then the door opens and someone comes out. Maija lets her into the kitchen ahead of her, into the thicket of steam and life. They cut onions, laugh, cry and never again mention what happened. All she does is now and again steal a glance at Maija. Maija is a woman. She, too, is now a woman. A bowl of fire. A tiny, bright flame, until the Star comes — The One That Brings the Rain—

Mother speaks:

“Sweetheart.”

Silence.

She opens her one good eye. She is welcomed by the white square of the window and the black fog the Dark One pulls over her vision.

All that’s left in the empty room is the dream called her life. Voices can be heard from the kitchen.

Daughter

In the darkness of midnight, Lūcija turns on the lamp and looks to see if her mother is still breathing. She’s so shriveled. Lūcija is now her mother’s mother.

The mother is her daughter’s little child.

Her mother’s mouth is opened slightly, her eyes closed.

All the witnesses to this horror gleam at her from the dresser top — diapers, sippy-cups, mugs, wet wipes. Creams for rashes and sores. Things for a child. A newborn child. Only this birth is happening backwards — from the light into the darkness.

And then the child becomes strangely still.

Daughter looks at mother. She’d give up everything for her to keep on living. But over the course of their time together all they mostly did was argue.

Daughter looks at mother. Places a hand on her. Her head is still warm, her arm still warm. The last bit of heat.

Leaving is so difficult and drawn-out.

And how this excruciating period of time finally brought them together.

All of Them

Gran’s soul is fighting its hardest to get out, fluttering in her head. Her mouth gasps for air. Her relatives take turns wetting her lips with water.

When her light is about to give out, Pāvils jumps to his feet, wails and grabs his grandmother by the shoulders.

He cries:

“Don’t fall asleep! Wake up!”

Gran comes to and asks:

“What did you do that for? All of them were coming to greet me.”

Gran dies the next day, when all her relatives have stepped out for just a moment.

But how beautiful she looks.

Granddaughter

Ieva crouches in the middle of the field and watches two giant tree stumps burn among the pile of branches. The wind has picked up and sparks fly through the air. Gran’s things are among the kindling.

Not diaries, letters, or notes — just things. Things from her final months.

The black plastic trash bags melt, split open like blistering skin, and drip into the fire. The flames lick at the dingy shoes, the warped sleeves, lace pillowcases. A mug shatters with a bang, the plastic bottles melt into puddles.

Ieva watches on as if made of stone. The fire melts her down and pours her into a different mold.

There will be nothing left when the fire burns out. Only memories.