Valentina

Trigger warning – this interview discusses suicidal feelings.

‘Let’s talk about how you make your living,’ I said.
‘I’m an artistic director,’ she replied.
I was waiting for the continuation. She tried to tell me something but her lips seemed glued together.

‘Could you explain to me what you actually do?’
‘All that (speaks indistinctly) like illustration, photos, logos,’ she was nervously bending her white soft fingers.

‘Is it an easy job?’
She was quiet. Her phone vibrated with messages.
I undid my watch strap and placed the watch on the table in order to keep track of time, albeit discreetly.
She looked around. Then she turned off the sound on her phone and shyly said with a French accent: ‘I sink (mispronounced ‘think’) no.’

‘What is so hard about it?’
‘Sometimes it’s hard and stressful to be creative, because it requires full involvement.’ She was pausing in between words as if she was checking every single word in her imaginary French-English dictionary before saying it out loud to me.

‘What do you like or dislike about your job?’
She mumbled something with her lips glued together.
I kept quiet, examining her suspicious finger movements.
She was silent.

‘If you could choose any job, what would you take?’
‘Mm,’ she voiced, ‘pho-to-gra-pher I think.’
‘Mm,’ I said.

‘Are you a happy person?’ I smiled.
‘No,’ she smiled me back.

‘Why not?’
‘I don’t know. I think it’s always been like that.’

‘Was there a moment in your life when you felt and realized what happiness really means?’
‘Yes, when I adopted my dog.’ She sounded like her mouth was full of saliva and she didn’t know how to empty it.

‘Do you feel embarrassed in front of me?’
‘I’m a very shy person and in childhood I wasn’t able even to say “hi” to another person.’

‘I see. Where did your shyness come from? What do you think?’
‘I always feared what people would think of me.’

‘What do they usually think of you?’
‘I don’t know, but I’m always afraid that they think something bad.’
Her way of speaking was very slow and she was abnormally silent after every short answer. It was paralysing me, kind of bugging. I had never met anybody so lacking in confidence.

‘How are your relationships with parents?’
‘(Makes some odd sounds) We don’t really understand each other and it’s hard for me to express my emotions and I think it’s hard also for the people who live with me.’

‘Is your shyness the reason for your lack of confidence?’
She was silent. I was impatient to get a response, but I kept waiting for it to happen and eventually it happened.
‘I don’t feel that I’m adapted to this world, I think I don’t understand it and nobody really understands me, so I feel always… (speaks indistinctly).’

My impatience and annoyance were shifting to compassion. She was different from the others, and it seemed to me that she suffers from it.

‘Could you please share a story with me of a time when you felt misunderstood?’
She was silent again. I waited for the answer listening to the second hand of my watch, but no response was received.
‘You said that people don’t understand you. I would like to know in what circumstances do you feel that? Maybe when you talk to them, trying to explain something? What is it that people don’t understand about you?’
‘People don’t understand my feelings I think.’

‘What feelings?’
She did not reply.
‘If it’s a hard question for you, we can move on to the next one.’
She just looked at me.

‘What do you like the most about yourself?’
‘I think I’m a kind person. C’est tout.’

‘And what is it that you dislike about yourself?’
She was silent for half a minute, then she said. ‘I think I want to be like everyone else, just to be able to speak normally, or, I don’t know.’

‘Do I understand correctly that you dislike the way you speak?’
‘Yes, I just want to be normal.’
‘But people are different. There is no such thing as being normal.’ I don’t know why I said that, it just came out of me.
She was staring at me.

‘Is there something in your life that you are missing?’
She kept staring at me.
I got out of the chair and walked around.
‘No,’ she said quietly.

I sat down at another table about four meters away from her and said: ‘Maybe you miss your dog?’
She smiled. ‘I miss having friends or people who take care of me.’
I looked at my list of questions and did not want to follow it anymore. It just paled in front of her drama.

‘You didn’t answer my messages about the interview for ten days and I thought you wouldn’t come today. Though yesterday you wrote to me that you were in hospital, you just got out from there and still want to come. I wonder, what happened that you ended up in hospital?’
‘Overdose of morphine.’ She was rubbing her right hand with her left.
‘How did it happen?’
‘I went to a party. I knew that I would find drugs there and that I could take it in the bathroom.’ She was about to cry out of her shyness.

‘Was it the first time you tried to kill yourself?’
‘No. I think of death since I’m little. Last months just accelerated my desire to die.’

‘Why exactly did you take morphine and not something else?’
‘Cause I knew it’s easy to overdose.’

‘Weren’t you scared to go so far?’
‘No.’
Her answer robbed me of speech.

‘I never tried morphine,’ I thought out loud. ‘How does it look?’
‘Sachet.’
‘And what did you feel when you took it?’
‘I sat on the floor and then I don’t remember anything, just the moment when I woke up in hospital.’
‘What were you thinking when you woke up?’
‘I was feeling very bad because I didn’t want to wake up.’

My throat felt dry. ‘Do you still want to die?’
‘I think so, yes.’

I reached for a glass of water and took a couple of swigs. ‘What is stopping you?’
‘Cause I know it will hurt my family.’

I went back to the table with her. ‘You said that you miss the people who take care of you. Does it mean that your family doesn’t care about you?’
‘Yes. I don’t know my father at all, while my mother is really complicated. When I was a child we had a really close relationship, but then I felt like there was no air, no liberty. So I distanced myself from her. She couldn’t understand why I did so, and our relationship was getting worse and worse, and we stopped talking to each other. She couldn’t accept that we are not as close as we were before.’

‘How old are you?’
‘28.’

‘What pushed you to have a suicide attempt?’
‘The last few months were very tough for me… I had no money and I had to prostitute myself. I was raped many times.’

‘Were you raped by your sex clients?’
‘Not only. Once it was at night on the street, another time it was with a photographer, and other times with a client.’

‘How did you come into prostitution as a living?’
‘My mom kicked me out of home and I needed to pay for myself.’
‘When did it happen?’
‘Five months ago.’

I didn’t know what to say, so I asked her a question from my list. ‘Is there something that inspires you to live, create, love?’
She did not reply.

‘Is there something that you hate in your life and want to change?’
‘Yes, I hate everything in my life.’
‘What exactly do you hate?’
She shut me out.

‘Is it a difficult question for you?’
‘I don’t ask myself those sort of questions, and I avoid thinking of my feelings.’

‘Have you ever tried to talk to psychiatrist?’
‘I tried a lot of times when I was younger, but I was just sitting like that and saying nothing.’

‘Didn’t you have to talk to psychiatrist in the hospital yesterday?’
‘I lied to him that it was just an accident and I convinced him that I’m okay.’

‘What does love mean to you?’
‘I don’t believe in love.’

‘What do you believe in then?’
‘I know it’s complicated but I believe nothing.’
‘What is nothing?’

‘Do you love your dog?’
‘Yes.’
‘So what is love then?’

‘I understand that you’ve experienced a lot of bad things, but it seems to me that there are a lot of good things and uplifting feelings you still could discover in your life,’ I awkwardly and vainly tried to cheer her up.
‘Do you have an idea of your perfect world?’
‘Where people are more kind and less judgmental.’
‘How can we achieve it?’
‘I don’t know.’

‘When was the last time you cried?’
‘I cry every night when I’m in my bed.’
‘Why are you crying every night in bed?’
‘Because I feel sad and lonely.’
‘What is your approach to those feelings? Is crying every night helping you to cope with loneliness?’
‘No, it’s only getting worse and I feel even more lonely.’
‘Sadness and loneliness are always with us and no one can take it away, neither your friends or lovers.’
She looked at me with irreparable desperation.

‘What are you afraid the most?’
‘Life.’
‘What is life?’ I said hopelessly.
‘It’s a repeat of things that never changes.’
It drove me crazy and I broke out: ‘Close your eyes! Things are changing non-stop! Your thoughts, your feelings, everything is moving and changing!’
She was quiet.

‘Do you have any questions that you want to find the answers to?’
‘No.’

I felt tired, and I did not know why, so I thought maybe I just woke up like that.
I took my notebook and walked out to another table. A scooter drove loudly down the street, someone noisily ditched some garbage out the back door. Laying down on the table, I looked at the ceiling. Suddenly everything became very quiet, and the watch working sound became present. Looking at my notes, I said: ‘It seems to me that you’re depressed, but I’m not a doctor.’ Someone started the old car and diesel engine sound filled the studio and then disappeared.

‘Why do you want to get a tattoo by me?’
‘I want to know what words you will choose to describe me.’
‘So answer my questions!,’ I said to myself menacingly, lacking any idea of what words I might choose.

‘What words do you find beautiful?’
‘Something pure and ephemeral.’

I stood up and went to the toilet. When returned, I asked: ‘Is there something you are searching for that will make your life happy?’
‘I’m searching for a person to rescue me, but it’s not possible I think, and I don’t know how can I change my attitude towards it.’

‘There must be some happy moments in your life. Let’s try to find one!’
‘I don’t remember any.’
‘Try to think what brings you joy.’
‘Pet my dog in the nature.’
‘That’s great! You have at least one pleasant thing to do to feel better!’

‘What about sex?’
‘No. I have a lot of sex but I never feel pleasure doing it, I only feel the void, emptiness.’
‘Don’t you feel this void without sex too?’
Church bells rang midday.
‘People are interested in me only for sex.’

‘Tell me please when was the last time you walked with your dog out in the nature?’
‘Last summer, in the South.’
‘Were you happy there?’
‘Yes, it was a house in the middle of nowhere.’
‘Was it in the forest?’
‘No, it was in the fields of lavender.’
‘How long had you been there?’
‘Ten days.’
‘Have you been there alone with your dog?’
‘Yes.’
‘What did you do all ten days?’
‘Sleeping, eating fruits and walking in the nature.’
‘You said fruits?’
‘Yes.’

The story about her dog was the brightest and the only happy part of her narrative, so I decided to tattoo her that exact moment when she was airily eating fruit in the middle of nowhere with her lovely adopted dog.