Beauty

This is something I wrote about 2 years ago in St Petersburg. I can't tell you what inspired me because I honestly don't know. This is not my usual type of fiction but I feel it works rather well.


Beauty

The bathroom looks like the aftermath of a murder scene. Reddened fingerprints are tattooed on the sink and the mirror; the stains of her attempts to recapture a lost youth. The light, not harsh, shines down upon her age-ravaged face, illuminating the hollows that her eyes have become, emphasising each wrinkle, each crease.

She was desirable once. At one time, makeup had been simply a way to increase her evident beauty. Soldiers who visited the theatre at which she had worked as an actress had always whistled when she walked onstage to play her role; some had even said distasteful words – words of appreciation, but distasteful nonetheless – but even these she had been able to shake off, smiling in the direction of the wolf-whistles and gasps and cheers. The Great War, could one call any war such, had been a great time for her in terms of her career.
She was unhappy, though she did not show it. Her husband was called up to fight for his country. His parents had been so proud of him, as had she, but she knew what the war effort meant for men like him. He was a strong man, but she alone knew that the war would weaken him. Everyone had praised him highly for going off so bravely to fight, to win. And no one expected any harm to come to any of their brave boys in the Great War. After all, it was all supposed to be over by Christmas.

Christmas came and Christmas went. In March of the next year, the Great War no longer seeming so great, she had heard that he had been taken to a special camp. Her work meant that she only saw the soldiers who were on leave, and even then only in the dim light of the small theatre: she never really understood what was going on. Her husband was stationed overseas; he was probably doing the same things as the soldiers whom she entertained with plays; having fun, laughing, drinking, smoking and waiting anxiously for the day when everything would be over and he could come home, and back to her waiting arms.

In April, a car pulled up across the road from her house. Two uniformed men got out and crossed the street, and one of them took his hat off and knocked loudly on her front door. When she opened it, the younger of the two men, who was still wearing his hat, asked whether or not she was the wife of a particular soldier in the war effort. When she replied that she was indeed that woman, the elder man exhaled and requested that they be invited inside.

The bathroom looks like the aftermath of a murder scene. Reddened fingerprints are tattooed on the sink and the mirror; the stains of her attempts to recapture a lost youth. The light, not harsh, shines down upon her age-ravaged face, illuminating the hollows that her eyes have become, emphasising each wrinkle, each crease. Even after the two men had explained all that had happened, even after they had put her in contact with her husband’s poor parents, even after the funeral itself, she still does not believe that what they told her was true. So every day, even now in her seventy-fifth lonely year of life, she stands in front of the bathroom mirror with a little pot of rouge, a lipstick and an eye pencil to recreate the beauty that was hers in her youth. Then she waits anxiously for the day when everything will be over and he can come home, and back to her waiting arms.