Alva and Irva - Edward Carey [89]
And then she stopped building altogether.
And then she sat still all day, quite useless, and wouldn’t be encouraged.
‘Hello, Irva, come back wherever you are.’
THE DOCTORS visited her, they said ‘nervous exhaustion’ and gave her some pills. The pills seemed to make no difference, she still sat there, looking but not seeing. I built again for her, I built miniature cathedrals and opera houses, I built fortresses and post offices, I built homes. She held them in her hands a while until her wrists became tired and they fell to the floor. She was lost inside herself, and I couldn’t get her out. I showed her photographs, a copy of Mother’s book on baby care, Grandfather’s matchstick models, I showed her my map, I placed her hands upon my map but they only slipped off again. ‘Come back, Irva, come back, please. Where’ve you gone? Where is it that you are now?’
I dressed her everyday, I heaved her with Jonas’s help into a wheelchair and walked her about the recovering city, sometimes people stared at us. She slept on our walks mostly. I’d take her into Café Louis, repaired now, I’d get an Entralla bun and mix it in a bowl with a little milk, and spoon it into her. It seemed to me that she smiled sometimes. Was she finding a way out, was she trying to get back? I washed her body, her frail, lonely body, my sister body, but I am not certain that she ever knew that it was me that was touching it. ‘Irva, hello. Hello, Irva.’ Or, as if she were a child, ‘How’s Irva today?’ ‘Where’s Irva today?’ But she had gone.
All along she had never really wanted to come out, she’d peeped out for a while, it’s true, but in the end, she’d gone back inside. Deep within. She’s probably happiest there.
I go looking for her sometimes. And sometimes I think these little sentences: The world is on my skin. The world was once swallowed by my sister. There are stars on the ceiling of our train station. Outside the train station, up in the night, are the actual stars. We kept a city with us in our old house. Us, in the world, Irva and me, standing on a sphere.
I’M GOING on a journey. I’ve been sitting here in Grandfather’s house in Pult Street, writing this history of my sister and me, so I can get it out. So it can be left behind, for I shan’t be taking it, or her, with me. I’m unburdening myself. I’m shedding history. But it must be kept, for it is a history of Entralla, just like that of Grand Duke Lubatkin, however humble. Or perhaps it is only the history of a street, or even only of a single house in that street. Or perhaps it is the history of a city, only of a city made of plasticine. And perhaps, like all those other faded cities, like Knossos or Persepolis or Timgad, it’s right that, even though the city has fallen into ruin, still some history of it remains.
Sometimes, when I climb stairs, it takes me a while to get my breath back. I know why it is, it’s because I’m tired. Whilst I write this history, I have to keep taking breaks. I haven’t been well. I need a change. I shall be leaving soon, and most likely I shan’t be coming back. I want to be somewhere else, I want to be anywhere, anywhere that is not 42 Pult Street, anywhere that is not Entralla. I want to see streets I don’t recognise. I want to see people I’ve never seen before. I want everything to be new. I hate anything familiar, I hate what I see everyday through these eyes. I loathe it, anywhere else is wonderful to me, no matter how soiled, simply because it is not here. That’s all I crave: somewhere that is not here. If only to glimpse it so briefly, if only between blinks. That would do.
A New Statue for Our City
The new statue for our city is of twin sisters. At their feet is a model in miniature of the central portion of our city. The sculptor has caught them, he has re-created Alva and Irva (if perhaps a little idealised). Quick, I told him, when at last he had finished his work, quick, cast them in bronze, the clay’s too vulnerable,