Sky-Blue Wallpaper

First two chapters of a novel about a teenager navigating an abusive household

Chapter 1
I

         The most unnerving sound in the world is the crackling of the key inside a lock. It immediately hoists me out of my little world, invading my space and pulling me back to reality. The rustling of the keys, the subtle throat clearing ahem, the overwhelming smell of perfume creeping from the hallway. My heart drops, my breath stops, my mind goes into overdrive and in one swoop, I shut down the computer, open a textbook, and plaster on a smile.
         Mom walks in, tosses a hello. Her cold voice permeates the tiny apartment, leaving a trail of uneasiness. Hey mom, I'm doing homework. Yes, I ate. Got an A in math today.
         I secretly open my diary and note down my dreams: I'm in London, walking down the stunning European streets, smoking a long fancy cigarette, wearing an elegant grown-up outfit. My mom is irrelevant, she's miserable, and I don't care, I'm living my best life, and she doesn't even know.
         Writing is solace. I write in my diary, create short stories, indulge in poetry, and even have an online diary, where I leave cryptic insights without giving too much away. No one is allowed to look too deeply, no one is welcome in. My poems are about love and death, my public journal is to flush out different personalities, and my private diary is to hide.
         In front of me lies a thick textbook on Russian history that I’m pretending to be studying. For tomorrow, I have to memorize a chapter on Pugachev, the most notorious rebel in the Russian Empire. Claiming to be Catherine II’s late husband, he led a massive uprising against the empress’s totalitarian rule. Two years later, he was betrayed by his supporters and beheaded. That’s what happens when you rebel.
         While I’m perusing the pages about Pugachev, mom’s taking off her tall leather boots, removing her glamorous leopard print coat, while suddenly she stops in her tracks. She rushes into my room, comes agonizingly close, and exclaims: “Exhale!” I oblige. “Did you smoke again? Let me smell your fingers!” I shakily move my right hand to her nose, “Left hand!”, I submit. “You did smoke! I can smell it!” I quietly reply that I didn’t. “I know you’re lying. Оцени мою проницательность.” (appreciate my perspicacity)
         Mom exits my room, takes a right turn, walks into her quarters, grabs a belt, and returns. I know what is about to take place. It’s not the physical pain that I’m dreading, it’s the humiliation. It’s a secret that I hide from everyone, it’s shame, embarrassment, powerlessness. I get into position and let my mind wander, while my body is being punished.
         “Grab a piece of paper and write an essay about why you smoked again. Don’t think you’ll get away with your I-don’t-knows, write why you did it and how you will act in the future.” Whenever I fuck up, she forces me to write essays to explain myself. If I miss school, get a bad grade, lie about missing school or getting a bad grade, smoke a cigarette, lie about smoking a cigarette – lying is a big one – all of this leads to yelling, screaming, face slapping, belt whipping, and essay writing. This callous humiliation ritual, supposedly, is a way to reflect, explain my actions, and come up with future solutions that wouldn’t involve lying and messing up.
         I sit down, trying to hold back tears and evade her gaze. Breathe in, breathe out, calm down, I’m okay, it’ll be okay. I attempt to quickly forget all that just happened, rip a piece of paper from the journal, and write. Despite my effort to stop crying, the tears drip down my chin, leaving marks on the paper and morphing the words. My forceful and irritated writing on the wet paper breaks the page, leaving holes. I get a new piece and start over.
         “Today, after school, I went with my classmates to a nearby park. My friends were smoking cigarettes and it was hard to avoid the smoke. I didn’t smoke, I got engulfed in cigarette smoke because everyone around me was smoking. In the future, I’ll ask them not to smoke this close to me.” I hand her the paper, she glances at it and then at me. “You’re lying! I can smell cigarettes on your fingers! You know how much I hate lying, write an honest essay, this won’t do.” Fuck. I go back to my room and start on a new essay.
II

         We live in an old, decrepit apartment on the outskirts of the city. It’s a small one-bedroom rental with yellowish wallpaper that most likely wasn’t yellow when it was first applied. In the typical Soviet-era fashion, the wallpaper has a vague flowery pattern that’s hard to recognize through decades of wear-and-tear. Near the ceiling, the design is nearly illegible, riddled with holes, gaps, and cracks.
         A few months ago, mom declared the interior to be depressing and renovated my room, my room only. Sky-blue wallpaper with snowflake-like designs – this way her coldness was always present, even when she wasn’t. I guess I am supposed to be forever grateful that she only redid my room, but I am not.
         I am dying to decorate my room the way I want, with posters, pictures, poems. I want to paint them, draw on them, write on them, use them as canvas, journal, blank page. But I’m not home, I am a guest, even in my own room.
         Yet, I’m not rebelling. I just hide, lie, omit, sneak out. Making her angry is the scariest consequence imaginable, and I’d do anything to avoid it. The touch of her long, icy, spidery fingers is akin to being pulled into a frozen lake in the middle of January. By the time you realize you’re in it, all you can think about is catching a breath. Even her occasional hugs feel like a death trap. Her voice sends shivers down my spine, her presence envelopes the surroundings in the frost, her smell is nauseatingly sweet.
         I do anything I can to avoid interacting with her but she doesn’t make it difficult. She spends the bulk of her time at work, on business trips, or with her husband, who lives separately. I’m alone a lot, sometimes, three, four days at a time. Most of it, I waste watching South Park, talking on the phone with Rina, and writing about my misery.
         On Sundays, when she’s around, we go to church. Sunday morning service is a three-hour-long torture of standing in the crowded unaired space, spending at least an hour waiting in different lines, confessing your deepest sins to a strange middle-aged man, and kissing the strange middle-aged man’s disgusting hairy hand. After which you get rewarded with a sip of watered-down wine and a teensy slice of wafer.
         Confession is by far the worst. After lining up for what feels like forty years, you get to share all your naughty thoughts with a total stranger, while standing two meters away from the line. Yes, they can hear you, even if you whisper. I would always come prepared with some bullshit “confession” about how I don’t respect my parents enough, lie too much, or don’t listen to what they say. Sometimes I involve my dad, saying that I’m not honest enough with him, which isn’t a complete lie, technically. You can’t be fully honest with someone you’ve never met.
         I don’t know why there aren’t any pews in Orthodox churches; maybe it’s a part of punishment, our people love to suffer. Staying on your feet for two, three hours in a cramped unventilated building with a thousand candles eating out the remaining oxygen sounds like a circle of hell. But no, it’s a miracle, Cassie! Aren’t you in a better mood now, Cassie? Isn’t god beautiful, Cassie?
         There is one redeeming quality to our Sunday church ritual: it would get her spirits up. And when she’s cheerful, my life is better. Since we’re supposed to arrive at the service on an empty stomach, we’d be quite hungry afterward. Although she usually doesn’t spoil me with sweets, after-church-Sunday-afternoon was special. My favorite is a poppy-seed bun, so is hers.
         Did you like today’s service, Cassie? She’d ask me on our walk home while nibbling on the freshly baked pastry. I never know how to reply to these questions; I don’t want to say anything critical to avoid her wrath, but I also don’t have much positive to say. Sunday mass feels the same every week, aside from the final thirty minutes, where the pastor goes off the script and preaches on a certain topic, typically, a common transgression.
         This time, he talked about смирение. He said that real piety comes with humility, so that a spiritual person sees everyone, while remaining unseen by others. Without humility, none of one’s good deeds are truly good, and the only way to approximate god is through смирение. The thing is, unlike the English word humility, the Russian смирение has an additional connotation of resignation and submission, making it sound less convincing. Although I am submitting now, I do still hope that one day, I’ll stand up for myself.
         Luckily, she doesn’t wait for me to reply, and begins her weekly rant about her mother, who “could use some humility, don’t you agree?” I nod along and add, “yeah, she can go on for hours, bragging about her incredible accomplishments, loyal friendships, and unique talents.” Enthusiastically, she continues: “in reality, she pushed everyone away, both her daughters aren’t speaking to her, my dad left her, she’s lonely and miserable.” She cannot help but subtly smile about it, as if she’s happy about her mom’s misery.
         “The torment she put me through when you lived with her was unimaginable! And now she pretends like she did me a favor, it’s absurd.” Mom moved to Moscow about five years ago, while I stayed with grandmother for the first two years before relocating as well. Those two years were rough on mom: grandmother used me as leverage to control her as much as possible. She didn’t shy away from abusing this unique opportunity to dictate to her how to live her life, raise her daughter, build a family with her husband, spend money, – mom’s still sour about it.
         I don’t mind her rants about grandmother; on the contrary, I invite them. I grab onto them and add fuel to the fire to let it grow larger and consume the conversation. As she laments about how grandmother wronged her, I interject here and there to validate her points, sharing similar stories from my experience living with her.
III

         Even after we came back home, her mood persisted. Leaning on the coach, she is knitting an obnoxiously loud scarlet cardigan, meant to pair her stylish stiletto boots. A woolen scarf is covering her stomach – an old Russian remedy against stomach pain.
         A holiday TV program is on, displayed on the bulky 60s monitor. Despite a stomachache, she seems jovial, and I’m enjoying the small kernels of love I’m lucky to receive. We’re watching a popular comedy show, sharing laughs, these moments are few and far between, so I’m just bathing in the temporary thaw.
         When in a good mood, she talks a lot, not to me, but rather at me. She goes on and on about her new boss, who hired some guy without checking with her. “He never even went to university, and it shows,” she continues, “I had to explain such simple things to him, I can’t work with these stupid, uneducated people. I think even you’d be able to grasp these concepts faster, honestly.”
         I like it when she praises my intellect, it feels special. I also know she isn’t just lying to be nice, she means it. She doesn’t care if you’re nice, caring, kind, empathetic, or none of those – the only trait that matters is intellectual curiosity and a quick mind. As long as I have something witty, insightful, and smart to say, she’ll be nice to me.
         It’s December 26, holidays are approaching, and we’re planning the biggest holiday in the country, New Year’s Eve. She’s going to spend it with her friends and husband, while I’d like to celebrate with classmates. She doesn’t mind, I’m fourteen now.
         The program ends, I head to my room to finish homework but I can’t focus. I’m imagining New Year’s night, visualizing how it’ll feel. It’ll be the first time I’m celebrating without her, I can’t contain my excitement. My mind wanders as I stare at the sky-blue wallpaper, trying to make out images in the intricate white patterns.
         “Is the computer on?”, she barks from her room, “could you look up my symptoms on the Internet? My stomachache is getting worse.” I start the comically large early-nineties PC, it’ll take a few minutes. Meanwhile, I’m thinking about the upcoming holidays, pondering what to wear. I should call Rina later and talk about our plans.
         “It’s on now, what should I type?” She describes her pain, the location, the intensity, it sounds like appendicitis. She agrees, adding that she thought so too. From her room, I can hear her groaning; it must be serious, she usually doesn’t mention physical discomfort. I stand up and walk to her room: “how are you feeling? Is the pain worsening? Can I get you anything?” The pain is unrelenting, and she’s starting to get worried, so we call an ambulance.
         The EMTs arrive roughly ten minutes later and enter the apartment. It’s two people in blue uniforms, a man and a woman, I’ve never talked to EMTs before, they look tired. I gesture to them in the direction of mom’s room, they nod and enter. A couple of minutes later, they exit mom’s room and tell me they’re taking her to the hospital as they’re suspecting appendicitis. It’s not serious but it certainly can become serious if not treated immediately.
         They rush out of the apartment, wishing me a good evening and reassuring me that mom’s going to be alright. I’m not that worried, I know that appendicitis isn’t that big of a deal, my classmate had it last year. In fact, I’m not worried at all, on the contrary, I’m rejoicing in the newly found freedom. Almost immediately, I get on the phone with Rina to discuss our New Years plans.
         Rina tells me that the guy she has a crush on, Andy, invited us to his friend’s place to celebrate New Year’s. I don’t know his name, but I know he is a friend of Vince, who pays way too much attention to me. I don’t like to be seen like that, it makes me feel vulnerable, and if I’m vulnerable, an attack is imminent. I don’t tell her that, instead, I ask if we should bring something to drink.
         I’m going to spend the next night or maybe even a few nights alone. I cannot even believe my luck! I stay on the phone with Rina for a couple more hours, watch the new episode of South Park where Cartman gets stuck in the future all for a Nintendo console, smoke half a pack of cigarettes, and go to bed.
IV

         The following day, grandmother calls and says she’s going to come visit while mom is in the hospital. My brief window of freedom is closing. Disappointed, I begin frantically cleaning up the place, throwing away cigarette butts, washing the dishes, cleaning the floors. Unlike mom, grandmother is kind of a neat freak, so the apartment needs to be spotless.
         She arrives on the same day in the evening, we eat, she is being suspiciously nice to me. She tells me she’s only in town for a couple of days, so I’m not home alone, because my mom will stay in the hospital longer than expected. I don’t really question that, I suppose the appendix removal recovery took longer than anticipated. She reiterates that everything is fine and she’s just here to keep me company.
         We don’t talk much, she spends her time watching mindless TV and cooking greasy, fatty food that gives me stomach pain. She doesn’t argue with me, doesn’t fight me, doesn’t berate me, which is unlike her. She lets me go out and see my friends, and I can hide my smoking a lot easier from her.
         I lived with her in the past. For two years, I was under her overbearing gaze, while my mom was already in Moscow. Their unending chess match of victimhood made me feel like a pawn. There’s no love in this family, only competition for the biggest victim. But these few days, my grandmother has been strangely kind. But I don’t question it, I simply enjoy it.

V

         Three days later, mom comes home. She looks alright, considering. She sits me down: “You have probably already guessed that it wasn’t appendicitis”. I haven’t, I didn’t even question it, but I can’t let her know that I’m not as smart as she thinks I am. I nod, she continues, “Yeah, I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.”
         She has cancer. My mom has cancer. I doze off staring at the snowflake shapes on the walls. I’m not sure what ovarian cancer is but it sounds huge, too huge to grasp. She doesn’t say much after dropping the bomb, just sits there for a couple of minutes and leaves to her room.
         It turns out, she’s not an impenetrable force I thought she was. Am I allowed to despise my mother now when she has cancer?

Chapter 2
I

         I haven’t been sleeping much lately. I lie in bed restlessly, trying to drown out the sounds of mom’s vomiting. Luckily, she’s too sick to watch over me as much as she used to, so I can clandestinely turn on the computer even in late hours of the night. I quietly get up, power on the old machine, and move into the chair. While the computer is waking up, I slowly open the old briefcase that’s been living in my room for years now, and reach for my secret cigarette stash. It’s this tired black briefcase that belongs to my mom’s husband and contains a bunch of old photographs, just taking up space in my already tiny room.
         I get closer to the window, located on the right side of the desk, light the cigarette, and breathe a soundless sigh of relief. In the building across the yard lives Jack, a guy three years my senior, who goes to the same school. He writes poems, makes songs, and is nice to me. He’s tall, blond, attractive, and I devote my love poems to him. At night, I smoke my cigarette and stare at his window, longingly waiting for something to happen. The building is too far for me to make out people in the windows, but I can see when the lights are on. They are.
         My friends know that I like this guy, sort of everybody knows, I don’t hide it well. I like the feeling of being in love, thinking about another person, fantasizing about being with them. If he actually makes a move some day, I’d probably freak out. But he won’t, I know he’s not that into me, so it feels safe. I’m just one in the row of many who likes the popular guy in school.
         By the time I finish my cigarette, the computer is finally on. I log into the ICQ account, the archaic messaging app, and see Jack’s handle online. But I don’t text him, I don’t want to appear overeager. Instead, I open the browser and search for my online diary profile in the bookmarks. A moment later, I get a message from Jack. My heart skips a beat, I click on the notification and read his hey, how are you Cassie. I cannot help but smile reading his messages and reply hi back. I’m alright, cannot sleep, too much going on.
         I hide my smoking from him. Once, he saw me smoking outside the school and berated me for it, saying I’m too young and female. Not to mention that writing anything in the messenger app or anywhere else for that matter is unsafe, mom will read it.
         I continue with “and why aren’t you in bed this late?” He explains he has to finish something for school. He’s graduating this year, so he’s got a lot on his plate. I lie that I’m awake because of insomnia, I don’t tell him the truth about my mom. We awkwardly chat for a while, he critiques my latest poem, implying that my rhythm is off. “See, the first line has 9 syllables and the third has 10, that’s why it’s off, don’t you hear it?” I do, I report, but I like it, it’s boring otherwise. I’ve always enjoyed writing with an off beat, chopped, dry, unmelodic. His poetry is pretty, flowery, purposeful, mine is rough, unpolished, exploratory.
         I respond with something cynical and mean, playing hard to get, as if. As if he doesn’t know, as if it’s not public information at this point. Shut up, Jack, I’m still learning! Not everyone is so effortlessly talented like you, you ass. He complains that I haven’t posted any new pictures of myself. “You posted photos of your friend in a bathing suit, where are yours?” I flirt back with “there ought to be a mystery about a woman, huh.” He insists, “I’m not asking to see you naked, just in a bathing suit…” He knows the power he has over me, he taunts me, suggesting he’d send me his pictures in return but I have no use for them. What am I supposed to do with photos of a semi-naked guy? I try to change the subject by asking him about the schoolwork, he ignores it, texts a good night and logs off.

II

         The next morning, I wake up at six in the morning to get ready for school. Mom is still sleeping and I’m trying to keep it that way. Very slowly and quietly I open my door, make my way to the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face. This February early morning is greeting me with minus twenty two, blizzardy winds, and suffocating darkness. But I don’t mind, I’d much rather go out in this burning cold than stay at home and interact with mom.
         In the kitchen, there is a tiny TV atop the fridge, where I watch the stupidest yet most addictive soap. I don’t even know its name, but the plot follows a young woman whose brain is transplanted into another woman’s head (I know, I know). While I’m getting dressed and snacking on an apple, I catch the next episode of the show and head outside. Things I have on include a green wool sweater, thick underpants, grey pants that my teacher refers to as hunter’s pants, a huge red puffy jacket, a long scarf that mom made, a warm white beanie that mom made, red wool gloves, thick white socks, fur-laced shoes. Before stepping out, I sneak into my room to grab the cigarette pack from the briefcase and put it into my backpack.
         We live in a nine-story building on the sixth floor, our apartment is one of four. The neighbor on our right is a sweet old lady, whose place has been robbed a few times by our neighbor on the left side. I don’t know why we were never robbed, I always thought it’s because we didn’t have anything valuable to take but maybe they just didn’t want to stoop this low and rob a single mother.
         I take the stairs instead of the elevator to shield myself from the early morning staleness of the elevator stink. It’s a combination of burned plastic, urine, sweat, and vodka. Albeit slightly less gross, the staircase also reeks, forcing me to breathe through my mouth rather than nose. On the ground floor, I press a button that plays an annoying tune and unlocks the door. I push the door open to be met with the coldest breeze that feels more like a punch in the face than a gust of wind.
         I receive a text on my black and white motorola brick phone. It’s Rina asking me if I’m going to school and suggesting to go to огурец instead, a tall green house near school. The hallways of residential buildings are popular spots among kids – it’s always sufficiently warm in the winter and pleasantly cool in the summer. Plus, we can hide in staircases where we are largely unseen and unbothered as most people would rather go on an elevator than take the stairs in this twenty something storied building. The smell leaves a lot to be desired but we’d mask it with cigarette smoke.
         There, we can safely smoke cigarettes, drink cheap alcoholic beverages, listen to early 2,000s’ emo music, and talk about boys. In hindsight, I might have been more interested in Rina than boys. Rina is a tall, gorgeous, emo punk girl in my class who for some reason is friends with me. I never feel cool enough to hang out with her, yet here I am. She is popular, funny, smart, she smokes cigarettes, drinks alcohol, and hangs out with older boys - I am way above my head.
         She likes this guy Andy who lives in the огурец. He is this nerdy-looking guy who is mainly popular because he is older, he’s Jack’s age. That's predominantly why we spend our time in this building in particular – in hopes of him seeing us, to be closer to him. Огурец is where I smoked my first cigarette, had my first sip of alcohol, discovered Zemfira and Placebo, snuck onto a rooftop and even got stuck there for a few hours. In March of last year, with Rina. That's where life happened. And I was part of it, all because of Rina.
         I don’t have enough money on my phone balance to reply to Rina, so I send her a free call-me-back request. She does immediately, I pick up and say that I’d love to meet at the огурец, school sounds like a dread. The green building is only fifteen minutes on foot from my house. I step onto the bright white untouched snow, creating the satisfying crunch noises. I walk through the yard with the Soviet-era playground, cross the street, and make my way through hidden yards to reach the street near school. From here, I take a “wrong” turn and wait for Rina near the огурец.
         She lives further away, it’ll take her extra five minutes or so to arrive. In the meantime, I light a cigarette, sit down on the bench near the building, and wait for my friend to come. Cassie! I hear her voice calling me out. I turn my head in her direction and wave at Rina. She’s wearing a black coat with a thin pink scarf, outrageously not weather appropriate but who cares, it looks awesome. Complementing her emo aesthetic is the hefty black eyeliner, rough home-cut bangs covering her eyes, and chopped black nail polish.
         I wish I could dress like this too. I can only wear what mom deems suitable; it’s mostly girly shit like dresses, heals, blouses. Makeup is not allowed, I sometimes apply it on the way to school, I keep it in my backpack. I didn’t want to do it today, it’s too cold, maybe, I’ll do it inside огурец.
         Andy texted me yesterday, she says once we sit down on the stairs between tenth and eleventh floors. What about? He is throwing a birthday party next week, and we’re invited. Me as well? She nods while lighting a cigarette, holding her bangs with the left hand to protect it from the fire. I study her bracelets, nails, earrings, hoping that one day I’ll be able to dress however I want. Despite her young age, she lets herself be loud, seen, present, and it’s intoxicating.
         How’s your mom? I hesitate to answer, I don’t want to talk about it. Not great, I heard her puking at night, chemo is taking a toll. She looks sympathetic. Mom wants to take a trip to S, my hometown, this summer. She has some business to finish and wants to arrange a meeting with my dad. Rina looks surprised, do you want to see him? Mom didn’t ask me that, so I had to think before replying. I’m not sure, I guess I’d like to meet him, I’ve never seen my dad, it’s weird, right?
         My parents split when I wasn’t even one year old, so I never had the chance to meet my dad and his side of the family. I know he has a daughter, but I don’t know anything about her or him. I haven’t been in S since I moved to Moscow four years ago, but I’m not dying to go either. Who cares though, if mom wants to go, we’re going.
         I’m gonna miss you, what am I going to do here alone in the summer without you? She’s sweet, she has plenty of other friends to hang out with. She asks what I’m going to say to him when we meet. I reply that I don’t know, I’ve never had a dad, what do you do with one of those?