Publikacija SEP 2011 - Vilenica

Some days were harder than others.
“Bathe her like you wash a car; sit her on the edge of the bathtub,
remove the shower head and pour. Give her a sponge and let her soap
up her privates by herself,” said mum, when I asked her advice.
Her body was like the meat of a dead seal; wherever I pressed the
sponge harder, it left a bruise, the skin on her feet was dry and covered
with scales – crusts of dirt and dead epidermis in fact; that part
needed a good soaking to start with. Grandma resisted and screamed
at first (“Damn you! You damn scumbag,” she yelled.) like a giant
gremlin, afraid that the water would turn it into a monster – as if that
ridiculous metamorphosis had not already taken place. All of a sudden,
she settled down, took my hand and said: “Promise me, promise
me that you’ll protect me.” I nodded; her eyes were veiled by misty
white cataracts, which looked like the cream that accumulates on the
surface of warm milk. I did not wash her like a car; I bathed her as
if I was bathing a child. I poured warm water over her hair which
trickled down her breasts, her sadly tousled pubic hair, down her toes
with claw-like nails. Water flowed into the drain in a muddy stream, I
watched it, thinking about my mother, who was only one death away
from retirement, thinking about Vjeran and me and the future – who
will be beside me to tame my raging madness, lurking in my genes like
a prophesy, who will bathe me then and if that someone will wash me
like a car or like a child.
Translated by Špela Bibič
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