ROTTEN LETTUCES

by Iuli Gerbase

Published by Dublinense & Elefante

As part of the book “Retratos da vida em quarentena” (Portraits of Life in Lockdown)

Pandemic times. On the thirty-first day of the lockdown, she called me. She had called me on other occasions, mostly at the end of the afternoon. She called me enthusiastically when I arrived home from a party at five in the morning. She called me nonstop two days before my period came down.
But on the thirty-first day, she actually called me. With words. With a foreign accent I couldn’t place. With a feminine voice that was both comforting and seductive. I was lying on the living-room sofa, wondering whether I should do the online yoga class at seven. That’s when I heard: “Hey, come here.” I got scared. I looked at the television. It was off. It wasn’t the phone either, and it wouldn’t have been possible to hear the neighbour so clearly. I looked around searching for a ghost, even though I didn’t believe in them. “It’s me. Come here.” The voice was coming from the kitchen. I turned on the phone torch as if it were a weapon. “No need to be afraid.”
There she was, staring at me, with a few crooked magnets on the door. “I need to talk to you,” said the fridge, who had a feminine voice. I looked at my hands, trying to get out of a possible lucid dream. The month before, after having an agonising lucid nightmare, I had searched the internet for tactics to end it. The most effective trick was looking at your own hands. But my hands were still there, normal, lit up by the light of the phone. The kitchen was real, the voice was real. It took me a moment to realise that I should respond to the household appliance. 
“What do you want?” I asked. The fridge produced a long vibration, sucking up energy to communicate. “I need to talk to you soon, in case you end up disappearing because of the virus. I’ve got so many resentments stuck between the shelves.” My mind was trying to remember if I had taken any expired medication. The wine from the day before couldn’t have been off. Did the neighbour put some kind of drug in the butter she lent me? No, she wouldn’t do that. And I was feeling perfectly normal until I heard the fridge calling me. “I need you to pay attention.” Embarrassed, I nodded, focussing on her words again. “I’m listening.”
The fridge vibrated strongly, gathering courage. Then she calmed down and began to speak in a voice that carried a deep grudge. “The way you treat me isn’t healthy… You stuff me with vegetables because you buy too much at once. Then you can never manage to eat all that lettuce before it rots. I know you’re trying to be healthy, but it’s inconsiderate to leave organic bell peppers rotting inside me, releasing that disgusting goo, while you order a pizza. Do you know how many times you’ve cheated on me with cheap, easy pizzas? And I’m always here for you. I’ve never burnt out. I survived strong storms. The television has burnt out, but never me. You clean me once in a blue moon. And when you do, you’re sloppy and never pay attention to the little shelf on the door. Also, I’ve run out of topics to invent with the frozen food. The tub of beans has been here for five months, untouched. I already know the life story of each bean! Are you thirty-one days of quarantine difficult? Imagine five months in the freezer. You wouldn’t last five minutes in the freezer!”
My legs were tense with so much guilt. She was right about everything, which is extremely rare when two people are discussing their relationship. But well, she wasn’t a person. “Sorry,” I answered, ashamed. What a pathetic word. I felt ridiculous saying it. The fridge had always been so loyal and dedicated, and I had only ever given her the bare minimum. When I bought her, I felt very grown-up investing in the extended two-year warranty. I did it to avoid future hassles with repairs, but during our four-year relationship, she never complained, never needed a technician who would give the vague promise of coming “sometime in the afternoon".
“What can I do to make it up to you?” I asked, a bit hopeful. “The mug told me you have a balcony at the back of the flat. Is that true?” I said yes. “And from that balcony you can see the street, people walking by?” I said yes again, but explained that during quarantine only a few people passed, usually carrying supermarket bags, or walking their dogs. The fridge vibrated so much I heard a glass plate rattling inside her. “Dogs! I’ve always wanted to see a dog.” I feared what she might ask of me. And she did. “I want you to take me to the balcony. I want to be there to see the dogs shaking their manes.” I explained that lions were the ones who had manes, and they wouldn’t be passing by. Dogs wag their tails. “Yes, that! The tails. They have tails, ears, and paws.” How did she know these things, if she had never seen a dog? It didn’t matter. The issue was figuring out how to drag her there with my arms that hated the gym.
It was pathetic. I sweated. Pulled a muscle near my shoulder. Broke a nail. Scratched the floor. Chipped the edge of the table. Got tired halfway through and had to do it in four small installments. But she made it there. The fridge was standing at the edge of the balcony, like an elderly woman watching the street’s movement with curiosity. “Do you want me to open your door so you can see better?”, I asked. “No need, that’s not how it works. I’m already seeing everything,” she said in a weak voice, muffled by the emotion of being there. I was surprised she could speak even unplugged.
A couple walked by with supermarket bags. A young woman with an eco-bag. Four delivery men. And then, in what felt like a real-life slow motion, an old man walking his dog. And it wasn’t just any dog. It was a dalmatian. Long-legged. Completely spotted. His head leading the way with authority. One could imagine the dalmatian dancing ballet, he was so graceful. I looked at the fridge, who was silent. I leaned against her, offering emotional support. “Now I understand,” she said. I asked what she understood. “I understand why you treat dogs like children. Why you still love them even after they destroy the entire rug. What is a rug compared to a dog?” I reflected. I had never wanted a dog. I liked my rug and my silence. “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t ask you to bring a dog into the flat. I wouldn’t do that to a poor animal.” I wished the fridge would stop offending me. I had scratched the floor and pulled a muscle for her. It wasn’t necessary to paint me as the villain in an imaginary scenario.
I asked when she wanted me to take her back to the kitchen. “To the kitchen? Never. We’re over. I thought you’d understood that.” Oh. I swallowed hard, then looked at my hands again. They were normal. I was awake. In the next window over, a neighbour poked his head out. He looked at me, then at the fridge, said nothing, and went back inside. He must have thought it was some kind of pandemic art project, the fridge on the balcony. It was a breakup, as surreal as it was painful. I’m not proud, but begging a fridge not to end our relationship would be too much for me.
I returned to the kitchen and saw the dust accumulated in the area of the floor the fridge used to cover. I wondered whether under the stove was also disgusting. I looked at the stove. Each burner had its own colour of grime, and a thin layer of grease covered everything. Feeling nervous, I grabbed the sponge and two cleaning products. I dismantled the burners. I washed inside, around, above, below. I opened the oven and scrubbed it entirely. The sides. The glass door. I lifted the whole thing with a sudden strength that emerged from panic. I cleaned the floor. I cleaned the wall behind it. I cleaned the gas pipe. Everything. I took a long breath, exhausted, putting away the sponge and the products.
I looked at the stove, now even cleaner than when it came from the shop. Its shine almost blinded me. I knelt down, feeling the chemical product wetting my legs. I ran my hand on the oven handle. “I’m going to clean you every day. I’ll never leave a dirty pan on top of you, and no more cheating on you with the microwave from now on. I love you. I love you deeply, stove.” I gently kissed its smallest burner, feeling the metal against my lips. I stepped back and turned on the gas of that same burner. I pressed the electric button. The flame lit up, in a perfect orange circle. A circle that, seen with slightly squinted eyes, became a blazing heart. It was glorious. He loved me too. A warm, intense love, infinitely superior to the one from the fridge.