Franny’s bedroom walls were all painted different colors — blue, red, green, yellow. His favorite wall was the yellow one. He kept his stack of books lined up against it and when he wanted to read he would sit against it. He liked to make sure that every inch of his back touched the yellow painted concrete. It reminded him of the drawings of the sun that he saw in some of the picture books that his mother brought him. He liked to imagine that instead of a stone- cold wall, he was pressed against the warm rays of the sun. He knew from reading a science book that the sun would burn him to death. He liked that thought also.
His bed was against the green wall. Franny didn’t like the green wall. It reminded him of darkness and silence. During light hours he could at least hear the voices of his neighbors as they walked outside, past his lone window. He didn’t know how many there were, maybe five or six. But he knew for sure Andy and Sam were brothers, Amy just turned twelve and Hannah Boss hated her husband. He didn’t know what it was about their voices that he could recognize instantly. But during the night, when he had to lay in his bed against the green wall, Andy, Sam, Amy and Hannah, whose voices he’d come to recognize instantly, were all at home. Having dinner with their families. Maybe not Hannah, Franny knew that she and her husband have been sleeping in separate rooms for two months now. Who was to say they ate dinner together?
The blue wall was barren except for the small window that was perpetually covered with his matching blue curtains. Franny liked the blue wall and how its color almost matched the sky. But he liked the yellow wall more.
The red wall was his least favorite. The door to his bedroom occupied its center. His parents came in and out through that door. He only liked seeing them when they brought him food and new books. Otherwise, he liked to be alone. The door also meant there was a way out for Franny. That scared him. Therefore, red scared him.
His favorite books were about adventure. Brave men embarking on long journeys to save a princess they’d never met. Franny liked to imagine that a princess was out there waiting for him. She was his and he was hers.
But there was no princess. There was only Helen. And Franny was scared.
His father brought Helen to him the day he turned seventeen. He didn’t think her name suited her. Helen was supposed to be the most beautiful woman in the world. Franny’s Helen was none of these things. She was skinny. Her hair was dull. Her eyes were a familiar brown. He’d read about princesses with blue eyes like the sky.
“Do you know why I’m here?” she asked him once they were left alone, enclosed in the room of colors. Franny sat on his bed. Helen stood in front of him. The yellow wall behind her. He thought that the color was even more beautiful when contradicted with Helen’s pale skin. Franny shook his head no.
Helen sighed a heavy sigh and unbuttoned the top of her blouse. Franny stared through her at his wall. He thought how nice it would be for her to leave so he could rest his back against it.
“Fuck,” she muttered and sat down next to him. Franny felt cramped by her presence. Her pinky resting on top of his pinky. He asked her to move away. The bed was large enough. She complied.
“How long have you been in here?” she asked.
Franny told her that he didn’t remember. She sighed again. He decided that he didn’t like that habit of hers. He asked her not to do it again. She sighed in return.
Helen began to undress. Franny didn’t want to look but he did, and she didn’t seem to mind. He didn’t look away until she untied her tightly wrapped bun and let her hair cover her pink nipples. She had a scar on her stomach right above the belly button.
She sat herself on Franny’s lap, pressing her body against his, pushing him further onto the bed until his back was against the green wall. Franny winced. He felt cold and he remembered that it was going to get dark soon.
“Do you want me?” Helen asked. Franny said that he didn’t know, he thought to himself that he wanted her gone. Her wording was confusing. He didn’t want to look at her face, so he stared at her belly button. Then he studied the two inch scar that sat atop the crater. He wondered how the raised skin would feel under his fingertips. He closed his eyes to prevent himself from reaching out and touching her.
“What are you doing here?” he asked finally, forcing himself to look at her face.
“Your parents want me to make you feel good.”
It did feel good. Franny didn’t know his body could feel so good. Helen wasn’t pretty but she made him feel like he thought she was pretty. He was embarrassed by the weeps that slipped out of him, but Helen kept reassuring him that it was okay.
“I will see you next week,” she said when Franny sat with his back against the wall, his chest heaving up and down. He couldn’t remember what color it was. Helen’s skin felt like the sun.
She came back seven days later. Franny caught himself staring at the malevolent red wall precariously often. His books remained unopened. When Helen came back the next time she stayed longer. Franny asked her what her favorite color was.
“I like orange.”
Franny liked how fitting it was. He read in a book that combining red and yellow made orange. Helen came to him through red and she felt like yellow. As they laid together on his bed, she had her right arm and leg sloppily wrapped around his body. Every inch of his body that came in contact with her felt like it was burning. He stared at the top of her head, she was almost ludicrously small, and with the way the sunlight hit her curls he thought they looked blond.
“You’ve never been in love, have you?” she asked. Franny told her he hadn’t.
“If I had to put into words what love feels like I would compare it to a walk in a forest in the dark. You get there when it’s still light out and you smile as you listen to the sounds of the insects, you’re at peace. You begin to wonder why you even live in the city. The tree branches hang as low as your eyes, but you can just move them out of the way with your hand. But then the sun begins to set, and you realize you should turn back around but then it’s dark and you don’t know where you are. Suddenly the singing of the birds and trilling of the butterflies transform into the purring of wild animals. It doesn’t feel right, none of it does. You’re scared — is that what they sounded like just hours ago? Or did the light simply mask what really hides in the woods? Now you can’t see the rough branches that are whipping against your face. Your eyes begin to swell and then you’re blind. The beasts are grunting behind you, in front of you, all around you. There’s only fear. You don’t understand how everything changed so suddenly. You were at peace, and now it’s all so wrong.”
“Do you ever get back home?” Franny asked, “back to the human noise?”
“You do, it’s just never the same. Your mother’s yellow silted eyes stare down at you, and you don’t have a father anymore.”
“Where is your father?”
“Gone.”
“I don’t like my father,” Franny confessed. He felt guilty. “But he brought you, so maybe he’s not so bad.”
“No, he’s all bad. Don’t forgive him,” Helen said. She began to unravel her limbs from his. The sedative burning against Franny’s skin was exhausting. He wanted to cry out, but he was embarrassed to. He watched as Helen put on her tan dress, it hung loose against her skin.
The next time Helen came back was seven days later. She wore an orange shirt and a black skirt. She stayed longer, this time she told him about Paris. That wasn’t his name but Franny pretended that it was. It was always easier to pretend like real life was just an extension of the pages in his books.
Helen met Paris when she was sixteen. He was her brother’s friend. His hair is shaggy and he’s very skinny, but Helen likes him right away. She asks her brother if Paris is a nice person. His answer is negative, but she’s too infatuated at this point. Paris takes her to dinner at a diner next to their high school. She gets a hot dog and he gets a hamburger. Franny asks what they ordered to drink. Helen says that she got a coke and Paris asked for water. After he drank the entire glass, he pulled out a flask and filled it with another clear liquid. She doesn’t explain further what the liquid is, and Franny is embarrassed to ask.
After the dinner Helen thinks he is going to drive them home, but he takes her to the outskirts of the woods. He parks his car in the dark and once his headlights turn off, they sit in complete darkness. She remembers his breath and she remembers being scared. Helen says that he did to her what she did to Franny.
Franny imagined her skin glowing as she touched Paris. When their skin touched a ray of light illuminated and lit up the entire forest. There are no beasts, only butterflies and birds chirping. Helen started to cry. Her skin suddenly felt cold and Franny remembered that she had brown hair.
“What are you doing?” she asked when Franny began to sit up and pull his body away from hers. Franny was quiet, he didn’t know what he was doing but he didn’t feel right all of a sudden. There was something building up in his stomach and he hurried to his yellow wall, his sun, pressing his chest against it. But he was perturbed. He was naked, this was the closest he had ever been to the wall. Why was he cold? His stomach felt worse and then he felt the ham and cheese sandwich he had for breakfast traveling up his throat. His ravaged breakfast covered his small collection of books and once he realized what he had done, he did it again. He rested the weight of his body on his knees, palms pressing against the floor. Tears stung his eyes and his throat burnt. He looked up at Helen but he only saw her belly button.
Helen screamed. His father ran into the room. The human noise was gone, Franny was blind and he saw the cheetah staring at him with his silted yellow eyes.
Zhanar Irgebay was born in Kazakhstan and now lives in Washington, DC. Her first published story, “The American Steppe,” came out last year in Asian American Writers’ Workshop/The Margins.
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