Page 41 - WTP Vol. X #7

stairs. She opens the dark wooden cabinet where her father keeps his bottles, she takes out a thick, heavy glass with a square pattern cut into it. She pours the dark liquid and drinks it in small sips, then she wipes the imprint of her lips off the glass and puts it back in the cabinet. She sits for a while in the dark living room, she feels the chill of the night-air on her body. She looks out the window on the empty street, the tall trees, the quiet houses, the dim light from the street lamps. This is where they live. This is Elinor’s youth.
~
On the opening night of the play, her father and
“The sound of the phone hits Elinor in the
stomach like a sharp pain,
it spreads to her throat and stays there, a hurt threatening to suffocate her.”
grandmother dress up. Her father is wearing a suit like Mr. Evans and her grandmother a light blue dress with white flowers. They talk to Elinor in the car on the way to the theatre. She can see their gestures, her father who turns to her on the back seat and smiles, she can see their lips moving. Elinor can’t stop smil- ing but she can only hear the ringing tone and now and again the rhythm of her blood pulsing, pressing against her ears from inside, being pushed from her heart back out into her body.
Elinor squints, then she enters the stage, she doesn’t see the audience. Far away, she hears the gunshots, the bombs and the music, she sees the light changing, she sees flashes of the other actors on the stage, and she hears her own voice far away, as if the words were spoken by somebody else in some other world. Then it’s all over.
The audience applause and a rush of sound hits Elinor.
Her father and grandmother come to congratulate her. Elinor is still in her costume and make-up. They are all around her, they chatter, they smile, laughs leave their mouths. Her grandmother pats her arms and her hands, her father firmly touches her shoul-
ders and ruffles her hair. Elinor looks up at them from her chair.
Afterwards she sits alone in the dressing room, she’s breathing like she’s been running. She cleans off her make-up. Strange shadows from costumes and wigs fall on her face in the mirror, blood pulses through her veins.
~
Elinor doesn’t go back to medical school after the summer holiday.
She plays on bigger stages, people rush down the corridors to change costumes for the next scene or to catch a bus or a tram to meet their boyfriends. Pressed against the wall of the corridor she lets them pass, watching them, their voices and laughs, a smell of sweat and perfume, coloured feathers and gold dust stays hanging in the air when they are gone.
She plays in different cities, she steps out of trains with her suitcase, somebody picks her up, she shows her passport in airports, hotel rooms in strange cities become familiar. She bows, she smiles, she gets naked in front of other people when she changes her costumes.
She calls home.
~
Elinor becomes part of the ensemble at the Royal Theatre in the capital, she moves to a little flat owned by the theatre. Most of her windows face
a square where cars drive round and round and people have lunch at cafes shaded by big trees. Her kitchen windows face a backyard.
They rehearse mornings and afternoons, and in the evenings, she has parts in different plays.
She can walk to the theatre in a few minutes. They eat lunch in the staff cafeteria on the ground floor. She’s friendly with some of the other actors and actresses, she’s friendly with some of the opera singers even though she doesn’t like opera. They sit around the table together, they put down their trays, they complain about the food in the cafeteria and then they eat.
“Where are you from, Elinor?” they ask and Elinor says the name of her hometown. “Yes?”
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