Veorica (Pushcart Nominated)

by Zaher Alajlani

From the author

There is great consolation in reminding oneself that this fallen world is not the end—that there is truth, purpose, and hope in Christ. When He says, "My kingdom is not of this world," He doesn’t invite us to despair but to hope for what is better. This liberating and comforting truth “will set” us “free.” Although Christian truths are straightforward, our interaction with them is often complex and contradictory. This has nothing to do with the beauty of the Christian message and everything to do with how horrifying existence can be. “Veorica” is a bleak story because it doesn’t seek to preach or uplift but to look at existential crises through the lens of John 18:36 and John 8:31-32.

The usual frantic knocking began shortly after midnight.

“Help me, please,” she said when I opened the door. “My husband went to the balcony to smoke, but I can’t find him now. Please help me. Please!” The emaciated old woman put her liver-spotted hand on her chest.

She was dressed in the same worn-out blue sleeping gown, looking lost and terrified like those prisoners in photos of Nazi concentration camps. Her white hair was badly cropped. Her front teeth were missing, and her green eyes were desperate.

“Doamna (Missus) Veorica, are we going to do this every night?” I asked.

She took her hand off her chest and held my wrist. “Please help me!”

“Sure, give me a second. I’ll come with you.”

I grabbed my cell phone and keys from the living room and returned to her. “Let’s go.” I offered her my arm. “Here, Doamna Veorica, so you won’t fall.”

Her apartment was opposite mine. The sweet, musty smell of old people hit me when we entered. The lighting was dim and yellowish. The living room she spent all her time in was as I had seen it the night before. Everything in it looked exhausted and tattered: the gray sofa bed and the white sheets covering it, the old television, and the round coffee table carrying her rectangle reading glasses and an old Romanian Bible.

She pointed at the glass door. “Ther—”

“I know, Doamna Veorica. I know where the balcony is. We’ve been doing this ever since I moved here.”

“What did you say?” she said.

“Nothing.” I smiled, helped her sit on the sofa bed, and squatted before her. “You stay here. I’ll look for him.” I used the same soft tone people reserve for toddlers and dimwits.

When I turned and faced the glass door, my eyes fell on her reflection. Her face, mangled by agony, seemed unreal, like the fading memory of past trauma.

“Give it a push.”

“Sure.” I opened the door, approached the railings, looked down, and went back inside.

“There’s no one there,” I said.

“Where’s he then? Maybe he fell from the balcony.”

“I’m sure he didn’t.”

“Let’s call the police. They’ll find him. I’ve been married to him for sixty-five years. I’m eighty-five.” She scratched her head. “No, wait. I’m fifty-eight.” She looked around as though searching for something, then began pleading, “He’s my husband, and I love him. I can’t live without him. We-we-we need to f-f-find him.”

I sat beside her and held her hand. It was cold, like that of a steel statue. “Did you eat anything today?”

“No.”

“Did you drink anything?”

“No.”

“Should I bring you a glass of water?”

“I don’t know.”

I got up. “I know. I’ll get you some water and call your son.”

“Yes, call him. He knows where my husband is.” She put her hands on her cheeks. Her eyes narrowed before her tears flowed. “Yes, call my son. Call him.”

“Please, Doamna Veorica, don’t cry.” I hugged her until she calmed down. I didn’t mind her protruding backbones and shoulder plates or the faint smell of sweat nesting in her gown.

The kitchen cupboard creaked when I opened it. I took a glass out and placed it on the counter next to an untouched bowl of soup and a box of Xanax. I unlocked my cell phone, scanned my call history, and called her son. He didn’t answer. I turned on the faucet, and the water poured into the beige porcelain sink. I rinsed the glass, then filled it up as my cell phone vibrated in my pocket.

“Buna (Hello),” her son said. “God! Is she doing the usual thing about my dead father?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so.”

“I’m sorry. Living next to a senile woman must be terrible.”

“Don’t worry. I got used to it. It must be terrible, though, for an old, terrified woman to live alone,” I said.

“Could you please give her Xanax and help her lie down? There’s a box in the kitchen. If you could do it this time, you’d spare me the trip.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t give her any meds. I’m not a doctor or a family member. I’ll keep her company till you come, as usual.”

“I’m on my way.” He hung up.             

I gave the poor woman the glass of water, but she refused to drink. I put the glass on the coffee table and sat next to her.

“Where is he?” she kept asking every other minute.

“On his way,” I answered every time.

When I heard his keys rustle, I got up to meet him by the door.

Her son, Bogdan, was a scrawny man in his late fifties with a weaselly appearance: small face, thin eyebrows, long neck, and sunken black eyes. He was the kind of man you’d distrust if you saw him on the street and absolutely despise if you got to know him.

“I’m sorry she keeps bothering you,” he told me.

“It’s not about bothering me. It’s about her suffering. I know it’s not my place, but maybe she should be living with you. She’s lonely and needs your attention.”

His stare was razor-sharp. “First, thank you for tolerating her. Second, I can’t have her live with me. That would put unnecessary stress on my marriage. My wife never got along with her, even before she started losing it. Third, it’s been five years, and she still believes Father is alive. We don’t challenge this belief for her own sake. The only thing standing between her and death is her hope for Father to return.”

“I’m sorry I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s not my to plac—”

“Is he here?” Doamna Veorica’s voice came from the living room, followed by the sound of her footsteps. Bogdan and I helped her back to the sofa bed. Usually, that was when I’d say goodbye and leave, but this time, I stayed. I stood in the corner of the room, observing the depressing scene.

“You’ll take your sedative, and then you’ll lie down, close your eyes, and sleep.” His forehead creased, and he looked at her with disdain as though he were telling her, “You’re a burden. Have mercy on all of us and disappear!”

“Would you stay till I fall asleep?” she asked him.

He scratched his chin, then huffed. “Yes.”

The old lady finally smiled. “Thank you. Thank you.” Her voice was now dripping with childish excitement.

The weaselly man went to the kitchen, brought the Xanax, and gave her a pill before placing the medicine box on the coffee table. He handed her the glass of water. “This would relax you, Mother. Take it.”

She did and gave him the glass back, still almost full.

“Would you look for your father?” she asked him.

He placed the glass on the table and helped her lie down. “Sure. Whatever. Sleep now. Just sleep. For God’s sake, sleep.”

Doamna Veorica closed her eyes and soon began snoring. Bogdan got up and motioned for me to follow him. We went outside, and he addressed me in a faint voice, “There was no one on the same floor until you moved in. She’d never left her apartment at night before that. You’ve been too kind to her. She got used to it; you encouraged her. From tomorrow, I’ll start locking her in.”

“What do you mean ‘locking her in?’”

“I’ll change the door lock and keep her in the apartment. I’ll check on her in the morning on my way to work and at noon on my way back.”

I sucked in my lips and stared at him without saying a word.

“You don’t know my mother,” he went on. “She could be very manipulative. Old people and children are the best manipulators. I’ll take care of her. I’ll make sure she’s fine. She won’t bother you anymore.”

“You can’t lock her in! What if something happens to her?”

“No one cares about my mother more than I do. Good night.”

As he walked down the stairs, I saw his balding crown and hairy neck.

I sat in my living room, thinking about the poor woman.

What if she falls and can’t get up? What if there’s a fire and she can’t escape? I must tell her the truth, even if it kills her. If I were her, I’d rather die than be imprisoned in my apartment by my callous son! What’s death anyway? It’s ceasing to exist, and that’s how everything ends. Nada! Nada! Nada! The elderly more than die when they’re abandoned. They begin decaying while still breathing. I must tell her the truth.

I knocked on her door. No answer came. I knocked again, and again, and again. When she still didn’t open, I slapped the door, punched it, kicked it, and knocked some more.

“Hey, you, upstairs, what the hell are you doing?” a neighbor shouted from below. “We need to sleep, idiot.”

She must know the truth now. “Go to hell,” I yelled back.

“Idiot. I’ll tell your landlord.” He slammed his door.

Doamna Veorica finally opened hers. “Have you found my husband?” she asked, rubbing her eyes and yawning.

“No.”

“Would you look for him again?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’s dead. He’s been dead for five years.”

“Not true. No!” She took a step back, her eyes fixed on me.

“Yes. It’s true. He’s dead. Dead. Dead. Dead!”

“No! You’re lying.” She took another step.

“I’m not, Doamna Veorica.” It was me now who grabbed her wrist. “I’m begging you, help me. See the truth, recognize it. Your son will lock you in your apartment if you keep asking us to find your dead husband. I don’t really know you. I don’t know if you’re a terrible mother or an awful person altogether. All I know is that you deserve to know the truth and be free of your delusions.”

The agony in her tearful eyes devastated me. I let go of her wrist, and she retreated back into her apartment and shut the door.

The next morning, Bogdan knocked on my door. His weaselly appearance didn’t get any less annoying.

“She killed herself. She overdosed on Xanax,” he said. He pressed his lips together and closed his eyes. They were wet when he opened them. “Apparently, she had been reading the Gospel of John when she died. The Bible lay open on the coffee table, next to the empty glass of water and the blister pack she’d taken.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

“You’ve been kind to her in her last days.”

He began weeping. But his likes are incapable of experiencing true profound loss. They cry because it is the custom to shed tears when one’s mother dies.

“I guess you don’t have to spend money on a new door lock now.” I felt immediate relief upon insulting him.

He wiped his tears with his fingertips, then curled his lips in disgust. “Have a good day.”

When Bogdan was about to enter his mother’s apartment, two paramedics came out, wheeling a body bag on a stretcher. They made their way downstairs with what I assumed was Veorica’s corpse. A police officer got out of the apartment and mumbled something to Bogdan before they both went back inside.

I returned to my place and stood by the window, looking at an overcast sky. “May you rest in peace, old woman. I thought I was helping you by telling you the truth,” I kept mumbling.

The more I mumbled, the more my body felt like a prison—a trap of flesh and bones destined to decompose. I stormed outside the apartment and roamed under the tin-gray sky. I had an unshakable feeling that Doamna Veorica’s broken eyes were following me. The cold touch I once felt when I held her hand began resonating throughout my body like a cry echoing in an empty room.

My phone vibrated in my side pocket. “Hello. Your downstairs neighbor complained about you. We need to talk. Are you free now?” my landlord’s deep voice came through when I answered.

I laughed.

“Are you free now?” he repeated.

“No.”

“Ok. When will you be free?”

“Never.”

“Why?”

“Because no man with a beating heart can ever be free.”

He shouted, then hung up. I didn’t pay much attention, but he might have mentioned something about evicting me.

Heavy rain began washing over the city as I walked back to my apartment. I looked at the sky; the raindrops felt marvelous on my face. When I arrived home, I wiped my cheeks with my palms. My cold hands felt like they belonged to a steel statue, and I was somehow at peace.

Zaher Alajlani is a Syrian short-story author, editor, researcher, and translator living between Romania and Greece. His work has been featured in various publications, including Agape Review, Ariel Chart, Bandit Fiction, Active Muse, Revista Echinox, and The Journal of Romanian Literary Studies. He is a prose editor for Agape Review and a proofreader for Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory. Zaher is working on a Ph.D. at the Babes-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca. His research focuses on early modern horror fiction, the relationship between science and religion, and the 19 th-century mad scientist prototype. He speaks English, Arabic, Romanian, and Greek.