Breathing into Marble by Laura Sintija Cerniauskaite

Author:Laura Sintija Cerniauskaite [Cerniauskaite, Laura Sintija]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Noir Press
Published: 2017-05-30T22:00:00+00:00

THE CAR slid smoothly along the sun stitched road. Looking at the trembling light and the tapestry of shadows, he felt nothing but sadness; it was the same with anything that held his gaze for more than a moment. Even the sound of a match hitting the wooden parquet floor, having over-shot the rubbish bin. The pain never left him. Occasionally, for a moment, he would forget about it, or become inured to it, like a pulsing vein in the temple, until something reminded him of it again.

Driving through the woods Liudas was stopped by a teenager, deeply suntanned, barefoot, with rolled up trousers and a dirty shirt.

‘Can you drop me at the Kurpiskiai bend?’ he asked through the rolled down window, his vowels dragging in the local accent.

Liudas didn’t know him.

The boy settled next to him, resting a bag full of yellowing mushrooms between his knees and fixing his half open eyes on the road. He was talkative. He was from the neighbouring village and was going to Kurpiskiai to drop off the mushrooms. Liudas was suspicious that the boy was drunk, though he couldn’t smell alcohol. The smell of the mushrooms was unpleasant, like damp soil.

Liudas lit a cigarette.

‘Can I have one?’ the boy asked casually.

Liudas thrust the packet of Wall Street cigarettes towards him.

‘When did you start smoking?’

‘I was born with a cigarette between my lips.’ The teenager smiled like an old man; he had probably heard the phrase somewhere and decided to use it.

The boy only stopped talking when he was taking a drag on the cigarette. The shadows of alders slipped across their faces and Liudas barely listened to him, as if afraid he might hear the tap of the match on the floor.

‘A child got stabbed here just recently,’ the boy said, suddenly, when they had nearly reached the Kurpiskiai bend. ‘The killer came right into the yard, but they couldn’t catch him… Some kind of psychopath from prison, they reckon.’

The car swerved, momentarily, onto the opposite side of the road.

‘Hey, watch out!’ the boy shouted.

Liudas straightened the car.

‘Let me out here.’

Liudas realised he had passed the bend. He stopped and put the car into reverse. The boy’s bag smelt of sludge. The boy thanked him, slammed the door and strolled off thoughtfully along the road to Kurpiskiai.

There were only a couple of kilometres left until the turn to Puskai where the woods started. The lukewarm September sun spilled across the landscape like molten gold. Somewhere beyond the golden mist a dog howled and he knew instinctively that he was remembering it rather than hearing it.

The woods slid away from the road like a tablecloth; a clearing with a view of the farm opened up. The sunken, run down cottage had been painted green with white shutters, but now it looked washed out by the rain and time, burnt out by the sun, weathered by the wind. It looked as grey as a house martin’s nest.

The yard was empty. He had heard, at the funeral, that Isabel might have sold her car.

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