The Rooms I Will Not Enter

by Robert Scott Leyse

Estella was always playful of spirit; even when exhausted following a lengthy stint at her job as a cocktail waitress her sweetness of disposition would glow upon her gently smiling visage and lend charm to her movements. We lived in a turn of the twentieth century two-story house, verging on being a mansion, located in a small town on the northern California coast. I'd been gifted with the deed to the house, fully paid for, by an aunt who'd remarried and gone to live in Spain. I worked as a bartender at the same hotel – the only one in town – where Estella worked; between us, we easily managed to cover the property taxes and sundry expenses involved in maintaining the house. Before meeting her at the hotel when I first arrived in town, I'd fully intended to sell the house and use the proceeds to establish myself in New York. But I'd fallen in love with Estella instead – the proverbial love at first sight – and chosen to remain when she more than indicated that she returned my affection.

Estella was tall – nearly six feet – and had a cheerful head of light brown hair, verging on red. She was slender, with a hint of voluptuousness. She seemed to have stepped from a movie made in the forties; her hair was styled that way and the close-fitting knee-length dresses with plunging V-necks that she preferred also suggested it. She was innately graceful, like a cat. In all of the pictures I have of her there is that same grace, flawless poise; even in the pictures where she's laughing or intentionally being silly, it is there: impossible to put a finger on – a tone of beautiful otherness, being of the earth but somehow also somewhere else. But what was most striking was the beauty of her face. "There is nothing that partakes of beauty that doesn't have something of strangeness in its composition," says Poe (either with those words or something like them) and Estella's face was an example of this. Think Garbo or Dietrich: Estella's face easily bears comparison. A slight suggestion of the masculine, but indisputably feminine. A face that I once caressed and kissed – oh! when sweet Estella was still among the living, and curled up next to me each night in bed!

For my darling Estella is no more: a month ago she passed over to a different world. She became ill early last autumn; Cancer was the diagnosis; it had already spread throughout her body and there was no hope. I'll forgo describing the devastation of this discovery. I'll likewise forgo describing the hospice program I set up in this house and the naïve hopes I entertained that she'd recover and we'd be happy again. Nor will I mention the days and nights spent languishing at Estella's side as she lay in bed. Estella died five weeks after the turning of the new year, in February, six days after her twenty-eighth birthday.

Seventy-two hours previous to her death Estella was still able to sit upright in bed and speak of happier times and smile and, even, laugh. (She never pitied herself; never succumbed to despair; never cried: such things were for me, sentenced to a longer life, to do.) She died on a Thursday night following nearly a day of delirious ramblings in English and German, her native tongue. She died in my arms, myself vainly continuing to speak to her after the light had departed from her eyes. I had to be pulled from her body by two nurses so the funeral home director could place her on the stretcher and wheel her from the house.

But I'll forgo further description of that ghastly night. Nor will I touch upon the wake, when I was staring disbelieving at her empty shell of a body, her earthly home – unable to believe her eyes would never open again, that their beneficent light would never shine on me again. Estella is dead and has been buried. I am alone in the house. I will be putting it up for sale and shall depart this town, never to return. But I'm unable to leave just yet. I need to, so to speak, face off with what has happened to us. I need to mourn here. I will know when it is time to leave.

Estella is dead and the house has changed. Formerly, all of its rooms dispensed cheer and were a delight to be in. Now, many of the rooms have declared themselves off-limits, on account of the searing memories they conjure forth. If I venture to enter these rooms, I suffer not merely a mental but physical reaction: my whole body shudders and my limbs shake, almost as if I'm stark naked outside on a frigid winter's night; my breath becomes short and almost seems to falter; my heart pounds so furiously I begin to fear it might cease beating. I dash from these rooms in the same manner I would dash from the flames of a fire.

In particular, our bedroom is impossible to enter. I have attempted it several times, in order to gather precious mementos of our life together and pack them in boxes for shipment elsewhere. The moment I step into our bedroom, dark wings appear and commence to flap about me: in vain do I seek to stare at the floor, limit my field of vision, and forget the dark wings are there; they only surround me in greater profusion and press closer; the air, although well lit by the bright lamps I flick on, seems to be obscured by a pane of smoky glass. And then comes a horrible hollow feeling in my chest and the sensation that knives are twisting there – a sense of loss and longing so strong it's as if my nerves are being ground into an entangled mass of sputtering sparks. The dark wings commence to hiss and brush against me; it's as if strong hands are gripping and squeezing every muscle in my body; my very skin seems to catch fire and scream. So far, I've been obliged to flee our bedroom before managing to gather a single memento.

The house has divided itself into areas that I'm allowed to be in and areas that I'm not. The entire first floor, with the exception of the add-on room that replaced a portion of the front porch, belongs to me – which is to say, I'm permitted to dwell in the kitchen, dining room, living room, and downstairs bathroom without suffering unmanageable attacks of grief. The second floor is far more tricky: I'm permitted to stroll the hallway and enter one room only, the guest bedroom with the small balcony that faces the sea. I don't even dare look at the closed doors of the other two bedrooms and upstairs bathroom: it's only by strolling past them as if they're not there that I escape hints of what I suffer when I enter them.

Allow me to describe the routine that's been imposed upon me by my loss of Estella. I awaken at onset of evening in the guest bedroom with dread tearing at my chest; it's as if there's an empty space in my body, nerves, and psyche that I must fill. The first thing I do after literally leaping from the bed is switch on the CD player and turn the music up loud; next I turn on every lamp in my areas of the house, both upstairs and downstairs; then I eat and shower, not with any particular enjoyment but because I realize these things are essential to health and hygiene; lastly, I brew a cup of tea and return to the guest bedroom; once there, I sit at the typewriter I've placed on a box on the floor and begin working on a novel while the music continues to blare. I've never been as focused on my writing as I am now, nor produced higher quality work. I take credit neither for my discipline nor for my newfound way with words: I have no choice in the matter; it's the only activity that keeps my pain at bay and allows me to remember what it was like to experience calmness. I work on the novel simply because I must do so; and I write with greater skill simply because I must do so: while I'm writing it's as if I'm racing inside to stay one step ahead of unendurable dwellings upon Estella. Indeed, as long as I'm seated at the typewriter and bringing the words forth memories of Estella politely approach and remain at a bearable distance; she somehow keeps me company instead of reminding me of the loss of her company; unfocused recollections of our life together – vague images, fleeting impressions – somehow manage to comfort instead of stinging. I write all night until about noon the following day, only pausing to eat, make new cups of tea, or visit the bathroom. When I lie down to sleep for five or six hours in the afternoon it's as if the empty space in my psyche has been filled, for the moment. When I awaken again in the evening the emptiness is there again, and I must start the cycle anew.

Unfortunately, the above routine doesn't always remain intact, due to the fact that I often become too wound up on account of writing to be able to sleep. It's then that I'm in trouble: too tired and frazzled to write well and too aflame inside to be able to sleep, I'm left with no refuge and become easy prey for the grief I've been holding at bay. It doesn't take long for the knowledge of what I've lost to grind at my nerves, infect my thoughts with gloom, and grip my muscles in a paralytic vise; I'm soon lying on the floor of the brightly lit living room or sitting with my back to one of the couches and starkly staring and almost wishing for death.

It's when I'm stranded in one of these insomnia fueled in-between zones and being subjected to paralyzing dread that I make bold to enter the rooms which have declared themselves off limits. I do not do so on account of the wish to make my torments greater; I do so because I feel that my torments could not possibly be greater and that I've therefore nothing to lose; I do so because it's a means of squarely facing off with my sorrow; I do so because, curiously enough, it's something to do.

Earlier this week, after writing well and steadily for over twenty-four hours, I found that my reward for such labor was inflamed nerves that wouldn't allow me to sleep. Alarmed, I returned to the typewriter to resume working but, of course, my well of words had been drained dry. There was no escape: the dam of my grief burst, the loss of Estella burned and stung and pummeled every cell of my body, and I gave way to convulsive crying while face down on the bed with my arms folded over my head. When, I wondered, would the pain subside? And would I, I further wondered, be able to survive until such time as the pain subsided? I wasn't wondering about that one night: I was wondering about the grieving process in general: would I outlast it with my life, not to mention my sanity, intact?

It was while I was sobbing face down on the bed that I suddenly resolved to enter our bedroom right then and there, with none of the usual mental preparation. I had no clear plan in mind; I was neither informing myself I had nothing to lose nor that it might be beneficial for me to face my grief head on; it was blind compulsion.

I was yanking open the door to our bedroom within seconds (it was, curiously enough, adjacent to the guest bedroom where I was permitted to work and sleep). No sooner did I step within, than I strolled towards the foot of our bed and glanced at the rumpled bedspread and sheets, unchanged since Estella was moved to the hastily erected bed downstairs in the add-on room on the porch over three months previously. And then I dared to about-face and stare straight at Estella's nightstand, something I hadn't done since her death. Instantly, I recalled how she'd often sit there applying makeup, her unclothed body resplendent in the lamplight; instantly, I saw her seated there again. God! How the knowledge of what I'd lost rushed into my chest, pummeled my heart into erratic beats! It wasn't even as if I fled the room; it was as if I was shoved out of it by some sort of inner suction-force or current in the air!

Nor was the attack over: even though I'd stumbled into one of the safe places – the living room downstairs – the recollection of Estella seated at the nightstand, happily combing her waves of red-brown hair, continued to seethe in my chest, tear at my heart, and set my nerves ablaze. I could do nothing but sit immobile in the center of the room on the white carpet, surrounded by bright light, while inwardly shuddering. It was as if I'd partaken of a drug that altered my perception of time and space; although I clearly saw on the wall clock that barely five minutes here – two minutes there – another five minutes there – had passed, it seemed as if I'd already been sitting on the carpet for hours; as for my eyesight, it was as if I was sitting inside a cylinder of thick glass and gazing at the world outside: all objects were blurry and distorted; a shift of position of my head would cause my surroundings to bend and move and erratically reflect light like moving water. As for the air of the room, it was uncommonly warm, had increased in density, was as clinging and oppressive as that in a sauna after upwards of an hour. But what was the most alarming was my inner state of affairs: thousands of needles seemed to be stabbing at my stomach from the inside out; stinging heat was creeping towards and accumulating at the center of my chest; it was as if I was being flung against inner walls of blazing electricity.

"No!" I shouted aloud as I rose to my feet, commenced rapidly pacing in tight circles, jumping up and down and slapping at the ceiling with my hands. But this attempt to externalize my condition via physical activity was futile; therefore, my fear and despair increased. Where could I run? Where could I hide? Short of shedding my body, there was nowhere! After all, how does one escape from an inner upheaval? How does one remove the loss of a dearly loved one from one's memory?

I remember that I slumped to the floor like a wounded animal and fell onto my back: I was staring straight at the bright white ceiling. And then the ceiling began to blend with the air between it and myself, such that it appeared to be descending; the room was being inundated with bright light and, in pace with it, the disturbance in my breast became more unbearable: I was literally being hammered into the floor by fear. And then the air was as blindingly silver as a river's surface in the sun, and all depth perception and sense of dimension vanished; the entire perceivable world was an amount of terror that neither my senses nor mental faculties could sustain: I blacked out.

My next recollection, following I've no idea how long of an interval of complete unconsciousness, is that Estella was framing my face with her delicate fingers while gazing into my eyes with the look of sweetness I knew so well: it had been a long time since I'd felt her rejuvenating touch and sensed bliss surge inside me at the sight of her loving eyes – far too long!

We were in our bedroom, atop our bed: how wonderful it was to be with her again and glance about our room – our cheerful room with clothes flung pell-mell, flowers in the vase on the nightstand, and Estella's perfume stirring shimmers into my nerves. Our mouths joined in a kiss – our tongues intertwined: how starved I'd been for our kisses! How we'd always poured our souls into our kisses – communicated our abiding love with our kisses – washed away all care with our kisses – joined one another to the heady wellspring of life with our kisses!

We embraced, intertwining our legs and wrapping our arms about each other's back and waist: what yearnings the sensation of Estella pressed hard against me appeased! Again, it had been far too long since I'd known what it was to clasp her close, as she clasped me, and be awash in the invigorating vitality that hummed inside her skin – the rippling urgency of her love! The far too long neglected part of me slipped inside Estella, and was soon thrusting deep, and savoring: how this organ had been hungering for her warm undulations! I fell spinning deep inside the blitheness of her eyes as our tongues twisted together – as her hair sparkled in the light – as her thighs wrapped themselves about my waist – as she spoke to me in the soul-caressing tones of unquestioning love!

Long-forgotten sensations awoke within me: again, I knew what it was to be enveloped in an all-pervasive aura of well-being; again, I was an inhabitant of a happiness-inundated world; again, I was thriving in a place of endless wonder, aswirl in joys the very Gods would envy! I clasped Estella tighter, and eased myself deeper inside her; I kissed her so hard it was as if I was about to climb inside her mouth; the loving regard darting back and forth between our eyes was strong enough to lift me into transcendent surges of giddy bliss!

And then I gasped deep inside, and felt myself fall out from under myself, clasping Estella tight as her tongue writhed in my mouth. She joined me in surrender and we shimmered together, seeming to float above the bed in the shared nepenthe of our affection. And then sweet exhaustion overtook us; I slipped into sleep…

Sometime later my eyes opened and, for maybe a full minute, I wasn't sure if I was still dreaming or not. The sun was flinging brightness at the window in full measure, and sending warm streamlets of light across the floor: it was the heat of a streak of sun upon my face that informed me I no longer dreamed. I sat up and was surprised to find that my usual greeting upon awakening – dread hammering at my chest, and a sensation of lonely emptiness – wasn't there. I felt like a whole man again; for the first time in weeks, I relished the dawn of a new day – thrilled to the flow of blood in my veins, intake of air into my lungs, and serenity of my thoughts. Estella had paid me a visit – we'd embraced in joy, exchanged inner vows of everlasting love – so how could I not be happy?

That Estella's visit had occurred in my dreams is something I didn't trouble to remind myself: the omnipresent sensation of well-being I enjoyed wasn't willing to undermine itself with the thought it had been acquired via a fantasy. Estella was dead and buried; and yet she'd unexpectedly returned to dispense authentic good cheer: there was no reason to call the good cheer into question with the reflection that I'd never see Estella again in the waking state, or caress her flesh and blood body with my hands or hear her melodious voice travel through real air.

Joy was upwelling within me with such force I – again, for the first time in weeks – found myself impatient to be outside. And so I went for a long walk on the beach, relishing the sight of sunlight on the sea and sound of the endlessly breaking waves. I kicked at the sand and was thankful for the giddy gift of life; I gazed upwards and felt my senses soar into the endless expanses of blue sky; I took deep breaths and savored the swell of fresh air in my lungs; and in the background of these sensations was the picture of Estella's face aglow with love – her dark eyes abrim with the silver light of love.

It wasn't until I awakened the following day that the spell cast by Estella's dream visitation began to wear off, and I became prey to feelings of emptiness again – that uneasiness again stabbed at my thoughts and flayed my nerves. All too brief had been my taste of nepenthe: the waters of Lethe receded and I was once more alone and trembling in the house I once occupied with my beloved. Estella's dream visitation had displaced panic with joy, and made me feel whole again; but now the effects of this irresisitible drug were wearing off, and I was craving another dose: I could think of nothing else.

_______________

Over a week has passed since Estella's dream-visit, and that brings me to my present frame of mind: now an utter stranger to what passes for self-respect and pride in the regular world, I've approached my aunt for a stipend to live on and been granted it and given up all plans of leaving this house – of undergoing the stages of the mourning process, and becoming a socially adjusted human being again. Estella visited me once: I'm determined that she shall do so again. Yes, gone is all thought of rejoining the world outside: I only live for the moment when the stress of my situation again reaches the point at which Estella is, so to speak, compelled to pay me a visit. I don't care what horrors of emptiness and fear I must endure – how long I must wait: I'm remaining in this house until I'm again rewarded with a night of Estella's love.

They say that Paradise is girded about by swords: I'll willingly brave all manner of swords for another night with Estella – willingly step into our room and see the black wings whirl and hear them hiss as my chest constricts and I flee gasping; willingly court insomnia, sensory and emotional disorientation, inner screams; willingly test the limits of my sanity, watch the white ceiling descend as my nerves flare and sting; willingly brave the threat of a seizure. I'll willingly do all these things in the hope that my undying love for Estella will cause a salvational dream encounter with her to again melt the stress away, dispel the dangers, and reunite me – however briefly – with the joys I once experienced every hour of every day.

Those who accuse me of avoiding the responsibility of reindoctrinating myself into society – of living in an irrecoverable past, existing in a limbo state – of being little more than an addict endlessly craving a taste of bliss that bears little relation to carving out a productive future for myself – I say to them: love as I have and lose that love as I have before presuming to judge me.

It's nearly midnight now – the sea breezes are rattling the windowpanes – I've been awake for over a day. I'm unable to sleep, and dread's erupting in my chest. I'm going to do my best to increase the dread by paying our bedroom a visit: will I succeed in spending a second night with Estella in life-sustaining dreams?

The Rooms I Will Not Enter
© 2006 by Robert Scott Leyse