In the Bath
The Bath (1925) by Pierre Bonnard
By Carina Cain
I was feeling overwhelmed, so I locked myself behind a big wooden door and drew a bath. I had nothing to put into the bath except my body, which I reasoned would be enough. I could pretend it was a warm blue patch of ocean off some great reef. Bubbles and oils did not belong in the sea. The absence of salt, I would just have to ignore. I drew the bath. It was very hot, so I could not put my body there immediately. I thought about what to do in the meantime. I looked at the big wooden door, about what was behind it, like my whole life. My whole life was behind the door. I walked to the door and unlocked it. I stuck my head out into the world. I said, loudly, I’m taking a bath so please don’t bother me. I heard my husband say from somewhere out there, I surely won’t. We had been arguing about something important. I had started to feel overwhelmed, and so I had locked myself behind the door and drawn a bath. I walked back to the tub and touched my big toe to the clear surface. It burned, but in a tolerable way. I put my whole foot in, then my leg. I put my whole body into the bath and my whole body burned, intolerable for a moment. I waited through the moment. It was fine. I let my hands rest upon the water, then sunk them below so I could see them through a blue barrier. They looked slightly distorted and sodden. I could still see them, though. I leaned my head back against the rim of the tub and imagined I was floating in the sea. I imagined a current, but not a riptide. I imagined I could control the great pull of the world’s oceans. My body was very warm. I didn’t want to imagine life outside of the sea, like behind the wooden door, but that was something I could not control. I imagined life the way my husband imagined it, a contained scene with me and him and someone else. He imagined a child. I could not imagine life this way. In the bath, in the sea, I imagined my body independent of another, only mine from the beginning until the end. I imagined floating along forever with my own weight and nothing more. The tips of my fingers touched the bottom of the tub. I curled my fingers into fists and pressed my knuckles into the porcelain until they burned like my big toe had upon entering the water. I pressed until the burn passed what was tolerable, then I stopped and let my hands float to the surface again. I wondered if my whole life was still happening behind the door, or if I actually had to unlock it eventually. If I could turn the bath into the sea with just my mind, I could probably do much more. I could sink below and survive underwater. I could breathe without air and swallow a key. My fingers were getting pruney. I took them out of the water and raised my knees. I put my hands on my knees and held onto the bone there. I didn’t want to leave the bath. I didn’t want to have a child. I didn’t want to get a divorce. I imagined life and sat there as the water cooled and my body too, within it.
Carina Cain is a Bay Area local who graduated from Lewis & Clark College with a B.A. in English. She is admittedly too fond of the hyphen, and wholeheartedly believes that arts education is fundamental to the well-being of society.
