Мадина Федосова – Signora Lucia’s Laundry (страница 8)
The laundry was quiet. Only the machines hummed and the coffee maker hissed.
«What was your daughter’s name?» Lucia asked.
Andrea flinched.
«What?»
«Your daughter. What was her name?»
He was silent for a long time. Then said:
«Elena. Her name was Elena.»
«A beautiful name,» Lucia said. «Elena. That was my mother’s name.»
Andrea looked at her.
«Do you think it will help? If I take off the coat, you wash it, and then what? Will she come back?»
«No,» Lucia said. «No one will come back.»
«Then why?»
Lucia stood up. Went close to him. Looked into his eyes.
«So that you can live. You can’t go on living until you take it off. You can’t breathe. You can’t eat. You can’t love anyone. You’ll walk the earth in someone else’s coat, smelling of death, until you die yourself. And she wouldn’t want that. Your Elena. She wouldn’t want you to die.»
Andrea looked at her. His eyes filled with tears – for the first time in many months.
«How do you know?» he whispered. «How do you know what she would want?»
«Because I’m a woman,» Lucia said. «Because I’m a mother. Because I know: those we love don’t want our death. They want us to live. Even if it hurts them to look down on us.»
Andrea covered his face with his hands. His shoulders shook.
Lucia didn’t touch him. Didn’t hug him. Didn’t stroke his head. She just stood beside him and waited.
The crying was long, heavy, with wheezes and sobs. The kind of crying of people who haven’t wept for years. Who have accumulated so much inside that water no longer helps, you need to wail, howl, scream.
But he didn’t scream. He cried quietly, face in his hands, in a stranger’s laundry, before a strange woman, in a coat that smelled of stations and death.
After about ten minutes, he quieted. Wiped his face with the coat sleeve. Looked at Lucia.
«I’ll try,» he said. «To take it off.»
He stood up. Unbuttoned the buttons. Pulled the coat off one shoulder, then the other.
And froze.
Under the coat was a shirt. Once white, now gray, dirty, torn. But that wasn’t important.
What was important was that he stood without the coat for the first time in three months. Stood and trembled. Not from cold – from emptiness.
«Cold,» he said. «Without it, it’s cold.»
«It will pass,» Lucia said. «Give yourself time to get used to it.»
She took the coat. It was heavy, wet with sweat, dirty black at the collar and cuffs. She brought it to her face, sniffed it.
«What does it smell of?» Andrea asked.
«You,» Lucia said. «Only you. And a little bit of the road.»
She went to the sink. Ran hot water. Poured detergent, added stain remover, then something else, then something more.
«Will you put it in the machine?» Andrea asked.
«In the machine,» Lucia said. «You can’t wash something like this by hand. Months of dirt here.»
She loaded the coat into the big machine, closed the door, turned it on.
The machine hummed, water rushed.
«An hour and a half,» Lucia said. «Will you sit?»
Andrea nodded. Sat on the chair. Sat, looking at his hands. Without the coat, he seemed small, thin, defenseless.
«And you?» he asked suddenly. «Who did you lose?»
Lucia froze at the stove where she was pouring herself coffee.
«What makes you think I’ve lost anyone?»
«Your eyes,» Andrea said. «You have eyes like mine. Only older.»
Lucia was silent for a long time. Then she sat down opposite him. Poured coffee for him and for herself.
«My husband,» she said. «Twenty years ago. He died. Cancer. He was sick for six months, I cared for him, washed his shirts, sheets, towels. Every night I changed the bedclothes because he sweated, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t sleep.»
She sipped her coffee.
«After he died, I couldn’t go into the bedroom for a month. It smelled of him. Of medicine, of sickness, of death. But also of him. Of the man he was before. I would go in, breathe in that smell, and couldn’t breathe. And couldn’t leave.»
Andrea listened.
«And then I came here. To the laundry. I took his last shirt – the one he died in – and I washed it. By hand. For a long time. Until the water ran clear. Until the shirt was white. And then I understood.»
«What?»
«That the smell isn’t in the shirt. The smell is in me. I carry it with me. And I can go on carrying it. But the shirt – it’s just fabric. It can be washed.»
They sat in silence. The machine hummed, spun, rinsed. Time passed.
«Do you believe there’s something… after?» Andrea asked. «Afterwards?»
Lucia looked out the window. The sun was setting, shadows grew longer, the golden glow returned.
«I don’t know,» she said. «For forty years I’ve washed the things of the dead. Shirts, sheets, dresses they died in. And you know what?»
«What?»
«They never smell of the end. They smell of life. Of what was before. I think that means something.»
Andrea was silent.
«Maybe there’s just a washing machine there,» he said. «A huge one. And they’ll wash us all until we’re clean.»
«Maybe,» Lucia smiled. «Then I’ll have work there.»
He smiled too. For the first time.
The machine beeped.
Lucia opened the door, took out the coat. It was wet, clean, without a single stain. Dark gray, like a cloud before rain, but clean. It smelled of detergent and freshness.
She put it in the spin dryer, turned it on. Ten minutes later she took it out, almost dry.
«Come,» she said, and pushed open the door to the courtyard.