Catharsis
by Daniel Seifert

“That hurts,” whined the old man as she brushed his thick white hair.

She sighed and stroked it through the wisps even more gently.

Still he complained. “Too hard. Too loud. Too fast.”

She unbent her spine and brushed her own hair back with soft fingers. He looked at her with dull milky eyes. At this point they were decorative; bright curtains in a dark house. Yet the hazel points still slid into her.

She tries not to look him in the eye too much, or at his face, or his body. It’s why she brushes his hair daily. She likes the softness of the strands, like a baby`s palm.

He slapped his hand on the newspaper that dwarfed his lap. She cleared her throat and read.

“One across: Shakespeare`s most violent play.”

“Titus Andronicus,” he croaked, and she marveled.

It was impossible to tell when his words would come out sharp and lucid, or thick and stupid. He burned with intelligence, or sputtered. It was unnerving to witness the change, still.

“Well done,” she smiled, and patted his wrist. Matchstick brittle.

“Don’t patronise me, Helen,” he said. His imperious tone can still tighten her throat, take her back to childhood when his eyes were clear and fierce.

“I’m not Helen,” she said gently.

He glared, ran his milky tongue over his teeth. She returned to the paper so she didn’t have to see.

“Nineteen across: Favourite of vultures. Seven letters.”

He yawned, showing a mouth slick and pink.

“Carrion,” he mumbled, and went to sleep.

The light was fading as she closed the apartment door and walked the seventeen steps to the bus stop. The old man lived on the ground floor and if she turned around on the bench she could see him, stiff and sightless, through the window. Always she kept her back to him. And always her neck creaked over her shoulder, the taste of salt flooding her mouth.

 

Another day, another week, and the old man was more lucid. She cleaned his apartment, flicking at dust that cobwebbed every surface. As she wiped down an ornate mirror, hanging fragile on the wall, her features loomed. She did not like what she saw. Heavy skin hung slack on her, giving her face a softness that bordered on weakness. Her lips were thick and curved up questioningly. It seemed like she was smiling when she was not. She blinked often. It seemed like she was fighting back tears when she was not.

As she ran the rag down the gilded frame she spied the blurred figure sitting up in bed. It tapped its chin.

“Bear child: three letters,” he murmured as if to himself.

“Cub,” she called behind her.

“Pregnant farm animal.” He savoured the syllables.

“Sow?” she guessed, inhaling some dust that had freed itself from the frame.

“Pertaining to the navel,” he whispered. The words came slow and gleeful because he knew she would not know.

“Eight letters,” he pressed.

“You’ve stumped me,” she laughed in high tones. “Go on then.”

“Umbilical” came the wheezed answer, and she knew his eyes were on her. Steam stuck to the mirror as she exhaled. Then the warmth fled and the steam died away. Her stomach ached emptily.

 

She walked carefully to his bed, her flat shoes clicking on the old wood. She focused only on his pyjama buttons as she piled heavy sheets around his neck. On the bed was no paper, no crossword. He chewed on the inside of his cheek and looked up at her.

“Would you like something to eat?” she said.

“Breast milk,” he replied. How can he be so old but look so young, so mischievous?

“Some nice broccoli soup. Would you like some nice broccoli soup?”

He nodded soberly. “Only if it has breast milk in it.”

 

At home she sat in her shoebox of a living room. Listened to an ill-tuned radio, a teacup rattling coldly in her hand. It was a mystery why he tormented her. Perhaps anger and pity had crossed wires in the fog of his mind.

She tapped her ring finger and she thought of the brightly painted, empty room next to the living room, and she went to bed.

 

Thursday. Once a week she bathed him and pondered the extent of her willpower. The worst part was holding him. Her broad shoulders enveloping his skin-clad frame, as he lay slack and naked, breath swamping the skin of her neck. Now he burrowed his long nose into her, and she grew prickly and hot.

“Helen,” he wheezed and pawed at her.

“I’m not Helen,” she said, in a tone which was not cloyed with revulsion at all.

“You look like Helen,” he pouted.

She did, yes. At most times the thought cheered her, but for twenty minutes every Thursday she fervently wished otherwise. But one cannot fight genetics.

 

The bathroom was solid with heat. Shoved in a corner was a large white bathtub, its clawed feet echoes of those that dangled now in her arms. She laid him gently in the water. He let out a sigh that eked from his drooping stomach. Cradled by the tub he looked like a child and nostalgia cruelly burst inside her. The water lapped at him and his shoulders came down from his ears. The heat, so gentle on his snarling muscles, was unbearable in her thick practical dress. Needles of sweat dropped from her face to the fluorescent tiles. She averted her eyes as he sighed contentedly, the colour yellow billowing from between his legs.

Dipping a sponge in the tub she began to scrub him briskly. With his hair slicked back and water dripping off the lean jaw he almost looked handsome. He gazed at her questioningly and waited. She scrubbed his rusty arms and sunken chest, and he waited. She ran the sponge up his calves, his thighs, his ankles. He waited. She watched the hard metal taps and cleaned him quickly where he liked it best, and he giggled. Mechanically she moved on to his hair, fingers foaming.

“Helen, I’m still dirty. I’m still dirty, Helen.” He pointed proudly to the thing peering out of the top of the froth.

“I need to get more soap,” she said and tried not to swallow. “Stay here,” she pointed. As if he would bound out like a dog otherwise.

She strode to the cupboard by the bed and found more shampoo. A grandfather clock in the corner creaked. She stayed an extra second and breathed, forehead against the doorframe.

Back in the bathroom his limbs were flailing. He had managed to start the taps. They roared blazing water down, and he roared back. Clawed hands hammered at the enamel lip. He was so red. She stared and stared and something billowed gently in her chest and said, wait. She did wait, as her heart jumped twice, a child with a rope. Umbilical.

She lugged him up from the maw of the tub. Gawked at the form steaming in her arms like an afterbirth. Eyes hammered shut and mouth slashed with pain, his face was a theatrical mask. She dropped him and ran to the freezer, blindly yanking out packets of peas, ice cream, fish sticks. She packed them tightly against his skin as he flopped, a wild shark on the wet floor.

 

She sat by the old man’s bed that night as sores flowered on him.

“You’ll stay with me tonight, won’t you Helen?” he asked. “Will you stay with me?”

She sat unmoving, half her face in darkness. Her fingers caressed the heavy lamp on the bedside table, felt the cold weight. Inlaid in the thick, dark iron was a figure, a maiden with a hand reaching out to the heavens.

He spoke again, his voice trembling into the dim room. “Helen? Will you stay with me? Will you stay with me?”

 

 

Daniel Seifert‘s writing is published in The New York Times, Consequence, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and the anthology Missed Connections: Microfiction From Asia. His work has twice been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize, and longlisted for the Letter Review Prize. He lives in Singapore, and is working on a novel. Wish him luck on Twitter @DanSeifwrites.

Image source: Erik Mclean/Unsplash

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