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Suddenly, she stood in my kitchen. It was summer, I must have left the terrace door open, and sat with the back to it, and did not see her come in.
I just heard the fridge door close, nearly jumped out of my skin, and turned around.
There she was, eating an apple she obviously had just taken out of my fridge.
I was so startled, I did not even get angry. She held the apple with her teeth, took the bread with one hand and the knife with the other, then cut herself a slice. An unpleasant feeling appeared up my spine when I saw her grabbing the knife. Weird. The strange woman in my kitchen did not make me too uncomfortable, no fear, just surprise, but when she reached for the knife, and it was just a bread knife, the big kitchen knife right beside it, she calmly left lying there, a fright drove through me.
She put the knife down, took the apple out of her mouth, after having taken a considerable bite, put it beside the knife and spread first peanut butter, then a thick layer of jam on her, that is my, bread. After that, actually she still chewed on that chunk of apple, but she was eating with a routine, as if she did spend all day systematically processing large amounts of food, she skilfully and languorously bit into the peanut butter bread. Finally, without interrupting her mechanical chewing process, she sighed contently.
"How can you eat like that and be so slim?'' I asked. A really daft question, regarding the fact that those were the first words I spoke to her.
GIRL IN FATHERLAND first page.
She raised her eyebrows and looked at me, as if I had missed something obvious. She took another bite of the apple, and spoke with a full mouth, "Are you getting it, at long last?''
I looked at her in confusion. "Getting what?''
"Oh man. A lifetime of searching and you don't savvy this. Stupidity has gotta be punished. If you don't savvy it yourself, I can't help you.''
She was gone. I stood there, shortly paralysed, then ran after her.
She had just gone through the terrace door into our garden, she had not had enough time to walk so far that I could not have easily caught up with her, but the garden was empty.
It didn't make any sense. My garden was fenced in, she could not have gone anywhere without me seeing her. But she was gone. Panic gripped me, a sudden feeling of loss. I wanted her to come back. I opened my mouth to call her, but then didn't. What should my neighbours think, when I shout like that? And what should I have shouted? "Hey, you strange young woman, who just stood uninvited in my kitchen and helped herself to my food, come back?''
No, thank you. People already believe I'm off my rocker, I don't need to confirm that by acting the part. More than usual, I mean.
But I could feel my body hurting when she was gone.
You have to own the pictures. Or the pictures will own you. Andrew Vachss.
I was haunted by I did not know what. I was one of those women, who fall apart from the inside out, consumed by illness no one can explain, with varying degrees of, ''Maybe it's all in your head, dear."
Of course, there was always another theory, another specialist to see, another test to perform, another diet to try.
Keep the nigger boy running. Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man touched something in me. Keep the nigger boy running. How long would I let them keep me running? How long?
When what felt like every doctor on the planet had declared me "healthy", I turned to homoeopaths, acupuncturists, osteopaths, basically to every kind of medical profession with a -path or an -ist at the end. I suffered from everything, and therefore, obviously, had nothing.
You have to own the pictures. Or the pictures will own you. I had been owned enough. It was time I owned myself, no matter what the mess was I would be left with.
