Cruel to be Kind

As I've mentioned before, Lilia deserves a post of her own to explore her history and treatment of Dasha and her husband. Thinking about it more, I've decided to dedicate a series of posts. This first one is a slice of writing from the fourth scene in the novel. I've structured In Memorium's early chapters into snippets from Dasha's childhood with a gap of two to five years between each section. This one below kills two birds with one stone: a glimpse of Dasha at age six and Lilia being, well, a bit of a bitch.

To protect Dasha from the bright lemon bursts of sun, Lilia kept her indoors throughout her childhood. Each short English summer her skin thickened in their smoky lounge and set like solid cream.
On Tuesdays and Thursdays she watched her neighbours throw balls against the walls and smiled to think of them in twenty years; bent and brown while she was vampiric with flush that turned her cheeks translucent. Her hair grew redder. She matured with no memory of sunlight.
Vitamin E and lavender cream mixed in a shallow mortar, its skein lumped and broken. Lilia would paste it along Dasha's arms and throat until she shone under the kitchen fluorescents.
-It itches.-
-Don't rub it off. It has to sit. Soak in. Keep you soft.-
-Why don't you have to put it on?-
Interruption from her father. -Because she has always had the most beautiful skin. That's where you get it from. And this.- A hand in Dasha's mane of hair. Lilia touched her own; greying but still shivering warm.
-I had to do this, just like you. My mother used zinc. You should be grateful for some things.-
Every night Dasha left a film on her bedsheets like powdered limestone. Early morning when dawn sidled onto her pillow she picked particles of grit free, mounded them like so many anthills by her head. Their smell was pale. Watery and reminiscent of basil. On her skin it evolved into something live and warm. Beating of blood at her throat rolled the scent into fragrant doughs that tickled the nose of the postman at delivery.
Winter meant freedom. Lilia believed in stiff cold air to shrink the pores. Allowed her daughter to play around the greenhouse wearing only her overcoat, stockings and a pilled scarf. One day in December she came inside with frostbite edging out under her fingernails. Lilia rubbed them with vaseline until she cried.
-I want Daddy.-
-He isn't here. Give me your fingers.-
-It hurts.-
-Of course it does. Playing in the snow all morning.- Her lips a blue line. -Stop. Fidgeting.-
Dasha sobbed and looked away as layers of skin surrendered to Lilia's ministering. When the feeling returned she sat miserable on the rim of the bathtub, throbbing hand floating in a sink full of Radox and warm water. Wintergreen and lavender steam around her temples. She watched the pink crawl back into her flesh. When Lilia dried them she pressed their tenderness to her lips twice, quickly. As though she hadn't done it at all.
Dasha could still see scars around her cuticles ten years later.


Lara S.