The Shining Girls

Kirby ^{22 NOVEMBER 1931}

She doesn’t know what she is looking at. A monument, of sorts. A shrine that takes up the whole room. There are mementoes in incomprehensible configurations pinned to the walls, lined up on the mantel above the fireplace, on the dresser with its cracked mirror, the windowsill, arranged on the exposed metal frame of the bed (the mattress is on the floor, a dark stain showing through the sheet). They’ve been circled with chalk or black pen or the tip of a knife gouged into the wallpaper. There are names written beside them. Some of them she knows by heart. The others are strangers to her. She wonders who they were. If they managed to fight back. She must try to remember. If only she could hold on to the words long enough to read them. If only she had a fucking camera. It’s hard to concentrate. Everything has a hazy quality, flickering in and out of focus like a strobe.

Kirby trails her hand through the air, not quite able to bring herself to touch the costume butterfly wings dangling from the bedpost or the white plastic ID badge with a barcode for Milkwood Pharmaceuticals.

Of course, she thinks, the pony is here. Which means the lighter will be too. She’s clinging to cold rationality, trying to take in the details. Just the facts, ma’am. But the tennis ball undoes all that. It drops her into freefall like an elevator with its cables cut. It’s hooked onto a nail by its split seam. Her name is written in chalk on the wallpaper next to it. She can make out the shape of the letters. He has spelled it wrong: Kirby Mazrackey.

She feels numb. The worst has already happened. Isn’t this what she was looking for? Doesn’t this prove everything? But her hands start shaking so hard that she has to press them against her stomach. The old scars ache reflexively under her T-shirt. And then a key jiggles in the lock downstairs.

Jesusfuckshit. Kirby looks round the room. There is no other exit, no potential weapon. She yanks at the sash window to climb out on to the staircase that runs up the back of the house, but it’s wedged shut.

She could make a break for it, try to barge past him as he comes in. If she can get downstairs, she could hit him with the kettle.

Or hide.

The key stops scrabbling. She takes the coward’s way out. She shoves aside the hanging shirts and identical pairs of jeans, and clambers into the wardrobe, tucking her legs in under her, perched on top of his shoes. It’s cramped, but at least it’s solid walnut. She can kick the door so it smashes into his face if he tries to open it.

It’s what the self-defense instructor told them, after her psychiatrist insisted she go, to take back control. ‘All you’re aiming for is to give yourself enough time to get away. Get him down and run.’ Always a ‘him’, these perpetrators of terrible violence upon women. As if women were incapable of evil. The instructor demonstrated various methods. Gouge the eyes, hit him under his nose or in the throat with the palm of your hand, smash his instep with your heel, rip off his ear (cartilage tears easy) and throw it at his feet. Never go for the balls, it’s the one attack men anticipate and guard against. They practiced throws and strikes and how to get out of a hold. But everyone in the class treated her as if she would break. She was too real for them.

Downstairs she can hear a man struggling to get in the door. ‘Co za wkurwiajqce gówno!’ Polish maybe. He sounds drunk.

It’s not him, she thinks and she’s not sure if what she’s feeling is giddy relief or disappointment. She hears the man stumble inside, towards the kitchen, from the sound of ice clattering into a tumbler. He stomps into the parlor and fumbles around. A moment later music starts playing, scratchy and tender-sweet.

She hears the front door open again, furtive this time. But even though he’s drunk, the Pole has heard it too.

The wardrobe smells of mothballs and maybe the faintest trace of his sweat. The possibility makes her feel sick. She picks at the paint on the back of the door. All the old nervous habits come back. For a while, after it happened, she used to pick at the skin around her nails until they bled. But she’s bled enough for him. Enough for a lifetime. The door can take it though, especially if it’ll keep her from doing something rash like bursting out, because the darkness in here has a weight and a pressure like being in the deep end of the swimming pool.

‘Hej!’ the Pole shouts at the person entering the house. ‘Cos´ ty za jeden?’ He clomps through to the hallway. She can hear the pitches and falls of a conversation, but she can’t make out the words. Wheedling. Abrupt responses. Is it his voice? She can’t tell. There is a meaty smack. A cow being staple-gunned in the head. Squealing, high-pitched and undignified. There is another abattoir smack. And another. Kirby can’t contain it any more. A low animal sound wrenches through her, and she clutches her jaw with both hands pressed over her mouth.

Downstairs, the squealing cuts off suddenly. She strains to hear, biting her palm to keep from crying out. A muffled thump. A one-sided struggle, heaving and swearing. And then the sound of someone coming up the stairs, swinging a crutch that goes tok-tok on every step.