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11
EVA
The apartment Anaand her mother shared is on the fourth floor of an apartment building across the street from where Ana was killed. If it were just two or three floors higher up, it would have a direct view of the exact spot where she lost her life. Her bedroom window faces in that direction, as does the living room window, but her mother’s room and kitchen face the street.
Ana’s bedroom is the exact opposite of the rest of the apartment and that’s the first thing that struck me. She and her mother were two completely different people. Night and day different. The rest of the apartment is the mother’s domain, decorated in bright red, gold and white. The kitchen cabinets are high-gleam and bright red, as is the table top of the dining table and the chair backs. The TV unit in the living room is also bright red, while the centerpiece of the room is definitely a three-seat sofa, which is covered in a red roses against a gold background print.
Ana’s room is all white with just a touch of light grey and pale pink here and there. Her double bed is neatly made with a pink woolen blanket covering the stark white linen. The two matching nightstands, one on each side of the bed, are clear of everything except a book on one side and a small silver box on the other. The white writing desk set against the window is cleared of everything but a neat stack of journals and books, and several pen jars, the pens, pencils and markers in them neatly arranged by function and color. It’s all so clean and neat that I’m afraid of touching anything for fear of soiling it.
Even the books on the white bookcase lining one of the walls are arranged in such meticulous and austere manner that I can’t see how anyone could have any joy reading them. And I love books and everything to do with them.
The only warm piece of furniture is the wooden closet, but even that is polished to such a high gleam that it erases all its old-time charm.
The room smells strongly of lavender and there is a crucifix hanging on the wall above the bed. The rest of the walls are bare.
“Was Ana very religious?” I ask her mother, who is standing in the doorway to the room, her face twisted into a preferment frown.
She scoffs and nods. “Yes. Beats me why. It’s not how I raised her. I blame that priest she took a liking to at the youth center. One of the psychiatrists she went to over the years suggested she try attending church. It was the only suggestion of his she followed and it stuck. They even baptized her a couple of years ago.”
The smell of alcohol forms a faint cloud around her the longer she speaks, probably from the glass of wine she was drinking when he came.
Mark turns to her. “Do you happen to have a list of all the psychiatrists she went to?”
“A list? No, but I can make one for you,” she says.
“That would be very helpful,” Mark says.
“It’ll be a long one,” she says. “I have a boxful of her medical records that I’ll have to go through to make it.”
“Those would be very helpful as well,” Mark says.
The mother’s eyes widen. “I don’t see how, but you’re welcome to them. What use are they to me now?”
She leaves the room and Mark follows, leaving me alone in the place where Ana spent most of her life. The place where she fought her demons, clearly with order, cleanliness and faith.
“Her room wasn’t always this austere,” her mother suddenly says behind me. “It looks like a nun’s room now, but the walls used to be covered with all sorts of pentagrams and such when she was in high school, and it was always a mess. She was going through her darker, gothic phase then. Before she found God. She was such a happy little girl, but then she hit puberty and it all went downhill.”
Her voice cracks and she rubs at her eyes with the back of her hand, smudging her mascara. Then she points at my belly. “Make sure you watch over yours. I got careless with Ana, had my own life to live, you know, and before I noticed the changes in her, it was too late to help her.”
“You helped her,” I say kindly, but she shakes her head.
“Not very well,” she says. “I didn’t notice the darkness that come over her and by the time I did, it had consumed her. I think all this white was her way of chasing it away, because embracing it before this didn’t work.”
Mark thinks she’s an uncaring woman, the psychiatrist had an even worse opinion of her, but I get a strong sense that she did the best she could by her daughter.
“When did Ana’s behavior start to change?” I ask.
She thinks for a couple of moments. “When she was about twelve is when it really hit, but there were hints of it before, which I ignored. Then she started having night terrors and psychotic episodes during the day, which I could not ignore. She would see this man dressed all in black enter the apartment, usually via the balcony, and outside she would see him following her. One time, he appeared to her in class and she had a complete breakdown. I had to take time off work just to be with her, because she couldn’t be alone and she couldn’t go to school.”
“Sounds very frightening,” I say as she pauses to take a breath.
“They diagnosed her with schizophrenia, but none of the medications worked. And there is no history of that disease on my side of the family. Must be in her father’s.”
“Did you check?”
She shakes her head. “Her father is not a part of her life and my daughter wasn’t schizophrenic. Why else would none of the treatments work?”
I can’t answer that question. She seems desperate for me to say she’s right though, looking at me with wide, pleading eyes, the smell of alcohol on her breath growing more pronounced.
