Читать книгу Damselfish - Susan Ouriou - Страница 8

I had a vice, a secret sin. I read other people’s diaries, letters, notes to themselves. The words Do not open, Private, Confidential, Top Secret, For addressee’s eyes only were an open invitation to me. Not that I was spying. A spy gathered information to use against others. All I wanted was a glimpse behind the masks and the images people projected. Looking for answers to questions I hadn’t yet figured out how to ask.

It was Faith’s doing actually. One day, when we were living together in Montreal after Mom left — Papi was already long gone — I came home from CEGEP feeling extra sorry for myself: Little Orphan Annie having to live with her bossy older sister and her sister’s boyfriend. I took a cooler out of the fridge and plunked down on the couch to watch TV, anything to drown out the self-pity. But Faith’s notebook — which I took for her coursework — was lying open on the coffee table. I picked it up out of sheer boredom. Instead of a linguistic treatise, I saw she’d written her self. Her anger at Mom. Her frustration with sisterdom. I caught glimpses of myself. It was too late. I couldn’t help it. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel alone.

That was the only time Faith ever left her book lying out in plain view, but the damage was done. I was hooked. All that week, I kept sneaking into her bedroom for a peek whenever she was out. The journal kept moving around, from her bedside table, to under the mattress, then hidden in a stack of books. But I always found it. That Saturday, she confronted me, holding up a strand of hair. “You little snoop,” she said, “You’ve been reading my journal.”

I’d always found the best response to any attack is counterattack. “What do you expect when you leave it lying around for anyone to see?”

“Don’t give me that.”

I did have the grace to blush, I think. Ever since, Faith had gone to incredible lengths to hide her journal. And I had to be extra careful about putting back any strands of hair, nail clippings, or pieces of fluff whenever I rooted it out.

This time I hadn’t set out to pry. It was all because of the cockroaches. I couldn’t stand them anymore. I was determined to find out where they were coming from before we left for Cuernavaca.

Every night we had to spray for those damn insects — I felt my lungs shrivel a little more each time — and every morning there were six or seven big new ones succumbing on the floor. I couldn’t imagine coming home to several days’ worth. Actually, I could. Which was why I decided to act.

My idea was to find their gateways into our flat and plant Raid inside. Yes, I valued the gift of life. In mammals, birds, and humans. Not in cockroaches. Not yet. Maybe someday I’d convert to Jainism, become a monk, and wear a gag so no flying creature’s life could come to a brutal end in my mouth. I’d live on water and air. But not yet.

The bathroom was first on my list. All that damp made it a hothouse for bugs.

I found a broken tile just under the sink, with the bottom right-hand corner missing. The perfect size for a cockroach to squeeze through. With my bent knife — not much choice there since in my bargain apartment every chair wobbled, the table had a gimpy leg, forks were missing tines, plates were cracked, and knives were bent — I started to pry the tile from the wall. I was surprised at how easily it came off.

No cockroaches skittered away in the wavering light of my flashlight, but a gleaming something winked back at me — a plastic bag dangling out of a broken pipe. I counted to four then gingerly reached in and pulled it out.

Inside were several looseleaf sheets rolled into a tube. I saw Faith’s writing on the top sheet and a date. To think I hadn’t even been looking.

October 29, 1993

I was right! Nahuatl makes the perfect code! Who needs numbers and signs!

Key to code — keep any possibility of meaning from potential decoders — refer to reality no one knows exists (1st letters of Nahuatl words for most exotic Mexican flora and fauna = alphabet. Nahuatl the language of metaphor: white — izta-c — means ‘like salt,’ black — tlil-ti-c — ‘like ink.’ Endless poss. for combinations!)

Difficulties — the 35 dialects in modern Nahuatl. So much to learn!

I never thought Faith would be the kind to use exclamation marks. And for what? A bunch of foreign letters and words. The stuff of Faith’s work was the forcing, bending, and twisting of words into unnatural, indecipherable codes; the stuff of my work was play — colours and textures that I scooped up and plastered on, not knowing precisely what hue or shape each blob would form. I never realized Faith might see her work as play, too. I skipped the code part and flipped to the next entry.

October 31, 1993

Mexico = Makesicko. Feel like throwing up most of the time. Losing weight. No more Gordita, dreaded Papi nickname. Said it meant sweetheart, not little fat one. I’m not so sure.

Found a tutor. Kiko’s his name. Instant rapport.

Hope still looking for excuses not to paint: boyfriend, street kids, reading bios, copying quotes. Overheard her on the phone with Mom making plans for our trip and telling her she is a liver first, a painter second. Hope should call herself a kidney while she’s at it!

Ouch. Prying had its drawbacks.

She was wrong anyway. Already in the short time since that first painting, I’d done several quick studies in charcoal and ink. I was experimenting with the introduction of new colours to my oil palette, the vivid colours of Mexico. Helping at the market with the children was actually feeding my work, too; the crafts, for me, were a new exploration of old materials. And I’d taken a few bios of artists out the day I showed Faith the way to the library: Frida Kahlo, Georgia O’Keeffe, Debora Arango. She was the one who said a nude is a landscape in human flesh. Oh, and La Malinche. But she wasn’t an artist. I was just curious. Plus, I was going to be able to teach José something now. That Malinche wasn’t a traitor, not really. That she’s the mother of the majority of today’s Mexican people, her child the first mestizo — mixed blood — and that my blood is as mixed as the rest. And how did Faith know I’d been keeping a record of my favourite quotes?

Even when she was absent, she had the knack. I felt like I’d been caught in the bathroom playing cockroach killer and amateur spy when the studio was where I should really be at.

I rolled the sheets back together, slipped them into the plastic bag, and pushed it back into the recess, shining the light first just in case. Faith would never know. Meanwhile, I might actually have to hide my quote book.