Primeval and Other Times

THE TIME OF MISIA

When she was ten years old, Misia was the smallest girl in her class, and so she sat in the front bench. As she walked between the benches, the teacher always stroked Misia’s head.

On her way home from school Misia collected things her dollies needed: horse chestnut shells for plates, acorn tops for cups, and moss for pillows.

But once she got home, she couldn’t decide what she wanted to play. On the one hand she was drawn to the dolls, to changing their dresses, and feeding them dishes that were invisible, but which did actually exist. She was drawn to wrapping their stiff bodies in baby quilts and telling them simple, rag-doll stories for bedtime. Then, once she had picked them up, she’d suddenly feel disheartened. They weren’t Karmilla, Judyta, or Bobaska any more. Misia’s eyes saw flat eyes painted onto pink faces, reddened cheeks and mouths that were permanently sealed, for which no food could exist. Misia turned over the thing she had once regarded as Karmilla and gave it a spanking. She could feel she was hitting sawdust covered in material. The doll didn’t complain or protest. So Misia sat her with her pink face to the windowpane and stopped bothering with her. She went to rummage in her Mama’s dressing table.

It was wonderful to sneak into her parents’ bedroom and sit before the two-winged mirror that could even show things that were normally invisible – shadows in the corners, the back of your own head… Misia tried on the beads and rings, opened the little bottles and spent ages fathoming the mystery of lipstick. One day, when she was feeling especially disappointed with her Karmillas, she raised the lipstick to her mouth and painted it blood-red. The red of the lipstick set time in motion, and Misia saw herself in a few dozen years, just as she would die. She furiously wiped the lipstick off her mouth and went back to the dolls. She took their coarse, sawdust-stuffed paws in her hands and clapped them together soundlessly.

But she always went back to her mother’s dressing table. She’d try on her silk camisoles and high-heeled shoes. She’d make herself a floor-length dress out of a lacy petticoat. She’d look at her reflection in the mirror, and suddenly think she looked funny. “Wouldn’t it be better to make a ball dress for Karmilla?” she’d think, and excited by this idea, go back to the dolls.

One day, at the crossroads between her Mama’s dressing table and the dolls, Misia found a drawer in the kitchen table. In the drawer there was everything. The entire world.

First of all, the photographs were kept here. One of them showed her father in a Russian uniform with a pal. They were standing with their arms around each other, like good friends. Her father had a moustache from ear to ear. In the background a fountain was playing. Another one showed her Papa’s and Mama’s heads. Mama was in a white veil, and Papa had the same black moustache. Misia’s favourite picture was one of her mother with her hair cut short, wearing a headband. Mama looked like a real lady in it. Misia had her own photo in here too. She was sitting on a bench in front of the house with the coffee grinder on her knees. Above her head the lilac was in bloom.

Secondly, the most valuable object in the house, as far as Misia was concerned, was in here – the “moonstone,” as she called it. Her father had once found it in a field, and he said it was different from all normal stones. It was almost perfectly round, and there were tiny crumbs of something very shiny embedded in its surface. It looked like a Christmas tree decoration. Misia would put it to her ear and wait for a sound, a sign from the stone. But the stone from heaven was silent.

Thirdly, there was an old thermometer with a broken mercury tube inside, so the mercury could move freely about the thermometer, not restricted by any scale, regardless of the temperature. One time it would stretch out in a stream, and then freeze, rolled in a ball like a frightened animal. One time it would look black, and another time it would be black, silvery, and white all at once. Misia loved playing with the thermometer with the mercury shut inside it. She thought the mercury was a living creature. She called it Sparky. Whenever she opened the drawer she said softly:

“Hello, Sparky.”

Fourthly, old, broken, unfashionable costume jewellery was thrown into the drawer, all those trashy purchases no one can resist: a snapped chain whose gold paint has come off, exposing the grey metal, a fine filigree brooch made of horn, depicting Cinderella, with the birds helping her to pick the peas out of the ashes. Between pieces of paper shone the glassy stones of forgotten rings from the fair, earring clasps, and glass beads of various shapes. Misia marvelled at their simple, useless beauty. She would look into the window through the green eye of the ring, and the world became different. Beautiful. She could never decide what sort of world she would prefer to live in: green, ruby, blue, or yellow.

Fifthly, among the other things in here lay a switchblade, hidden from children. Misia was afraid of the knife, though sometimes she imagined she could use it. In defence of her father, for instance, if someone tried to do him harm. The knife looked innocent. It had a dark red ebonite handle, in which the blade was treacherously concealed. Misia had once seen her father release it with barely a flick of his finger. The mere “click” it gave sounded like an attack and made Misia shudder. That was why she reckoned she shouldn’t even touch the knife by accident. She left it in its place, deep in the right-hand corner of the drawer, under the holy pictures.

Sixthly, on top of the knife lay some small holy pictures collected over the years, which the priest used to hand out to the children on his way round the parish. All of them showed either the Virgin Mary of Jeszkotle or the little Lord Jesus in a skimpy shirt, grazing a lamb. The Lord Jesus was chubby and had fair curly hair. Misia loved this sort of Lord Jesus. One of the pictures showed a bearded God the Father sprawling on a blue throne. God was holding a broken staff, and for a long time Misia didn’t know what it was. Then she realised that this Lord God was holding a thunderbolt, and began to be afraid of Him.

There was a little medallion knocking around among the pictures. It wasn’t an ordinary medallion. It was made out of a kopeck. On one side the image of the Virgin Mary had been die-cast, and on the other an eagle was spreading its wings.

Seventhly, there were some small, neatly shaped pig bones rattling about in the drawer that were used to play a throwing game. Misia kept an eye on her mother whenever she made aspic out of pig’s feet to make sure she didn’t throw away the bones. The shapely little bones had to be cleaned properly, then dried out on the stove. Misia liked holding them in her hand – they were light, and they looked so similar to each other, just the same, even from different pigs. How can it be, wondered Misia, that all the pigs that are killed for Christmas or Easter, all the pigs in the world have exactly the same little dice bones inside them? Sometimes Misia imagined the live pigs, and felt sorry for them. At least there was a bright side to their death – the dice bones were left after them.

Eighthly, old, used Volta batteries were stored in the drawer. At first Misia didn’t touch them at all, just like the switchblade. Her father said they might still be charged with energy. But the notion of energy shut inside a small, flat box was extremely appealing. It reminded her of the mercury trapped in the thermometer. Though you could see the mercury, but not this energy. What did energy look like? Misia took a battery and weighed it in her hand for a while. Energy was heavy. There must be a lot of energy in such a little box. It must be packed in there like a cabbage for pickling, and pressed down with a fingertip. Then Misia touched the yellow wire with her tongue and felt a gentle tingling – it was the remains of the invisible electrical energy coming out of the battery.

Ninthly, Misia found various medicines in the drawer, and knew it was absolutely forbidden to put them in her mouth. Mama’s tablets were in there, and Papa’s ointment. Misia had particular respect for her Mama’s white pills in a small paper bag. Before Mama took them, she was angry and irritated, and suffered from headaches. But afterwards, once she had swallowed them, she calmed down and began to play patience.

And yes, tenthly there were cards in there for playing patience and rummy. On one side they all looked the same – a green plant design, but when Misia turned them over, a gallery of portraits was revealed. She spent hours examining the faces of the kings and queens. She tried to fathom the relationships between them. She suspected that as soon as the drawer was closed they started holding long conversations with each other, maybe even quarrelling about their imaginary kingdoms. She liked the Queen of Spades the best. She thought her the most beautiful and the saddest. The Queen of Spades had a bad husband. The Queen of Spades didn’t have any friends. She was very lonely. Misia always looked for her in her mother’s patience rows. She also looked for her whenever Mama told fortunes. But Mama spent too long staring at the laid-out cards. Misia got bored when there was nothing happening on the table, and then she went back to rummaging in the drawer, inside which lay the entire world.