Baltimore by Jelena Lengold

going to examine me through a magnifying glass. Calm down. Go straight for the bathroom as soon as you go in. Make a fuss about something. Dear God, it’s almost midnight. So what? You’ve come home later than that numerous times. Yes, but with a clear conscience. My panties are completely wet. What if he hugs me at the door? Of course he won’t. He’s stopped doing that long ago….
    He opens the door for me.
    How did he look at me?
    “Oh, what a horrible night,” I say in a rush, looking away, throwing my purse on the chair. “Have you had anything to eat?”
    “Yeah, I made French toast,” he says, like a proud child.
    There you go, stupid, you’ve ruined your fun for nothing. The man was making French toast while you were going crazy with fear.
    “It’s awful outside?” he asks.
    “Terrible. Can’t see six inches ahead through the fog.”
    “How did you get back?”
    “I took a cab, of course. I’m off to take a shower, I feel the soot of the city on my skin.”
    “Do you want me to make you a sandwich? Are you hungry?”
    “That’ll be great!” I shout from the bathroom, now feeling at ease, knowing I’d been saved this time and that everything went well. “And put on some tea, will you?”
    “Okay, hon!” my husband shouts back from the kitchen. “We’ll get you warmed up in no time.”

Some things can never be forgotten. Certain scents. The morning you woke up feeling the perfection of life in your still very young body. My right profile in the bathroom mirror of our family home. When I stood up in the tub and leaned just a tiny bit forward, I was able to see my right profile and my wet hair clinging to my head, as well as a part of my right breast which, back then, stood firmly in an enviable position. I liked the shape of my nose. I felt like it embodied a kind of softness, which, no doubt, people find attractive.
    I remember the small box of glue my grandfather used. A plastic box with a small round section for the plastic spatula. We don’t use things like that today. Now we have tubes, scotch tape, staplers. No one uses ordinary glue anymore to attach two pieces of paper. It takes too much time. I remember the smell of the glue and the firmness of the plastic spatula and the little lumps the glue made on the paper, which we then needed to spread around using the spatula. Back then, it seemed like we had our whole lives ahead of us. And everything was in a kind of a calm state of joyous anticipation. Now I know: that was it. That was the moment of beauty. Nothing this beautiful ever happened again.
    My grandmother used to dry her own mint and basil on top of armoires. She would place newspapers on top of all the armoires, as well as the guest-room beds, and there she would spread the fragrant herbs. I remember the pleasant chill of those rooms and how the half-dried mint crackled between our fingers and crumbled on the newspapers when we touched it. I remember how opening doors made the newspapers rustle, and disturbed the dry herbs. We walked slowly through these rooms so as not to disturb the drying process. We spoke in hushed voices so that our breaths wouldn’t lift up the newspapers. To keep everything from flying to the floor, we would close the door before opening a window. We all waited until my grandmother slowly and very carefully gathered the herbs from the newspapers and stored them in linen bags, specially sewed for this purpose. Later, we would drink mint tea, which smelled better than anything ever before, and cured us of all ailments.
    In another room, my aunt sometimes dried walnuts. While still green, she would place the walnuts on the floor and wait for the hull to dry and fall off.
    Many years later, when we sold our house, this was the last thing I saw before leaving those rooms forever: a few green walnuts drying on the wood floor. No one wanted to take them. They were left there, a few walnuts in an empty room. This is also something I will never forget. Though I