The Marriage of Opposites
Page 40
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“You do,” Hannah insisted.
I went searching for my notebook. It was in the kitchen, stored with Madame Petit’s cookbooks. From then on I kept it in my bedchamber. I never lost sight of it again. I wrote in the evenings, and whenever I could I went to speak to the women in the market. Tell me a story, I would say to them, as if I were a child again, and they would sit beside me, near the crates of chicken or the piles of fish, and describe the wonders of our world.
LATE IN THE AFTERNOONS I visited the cemetery. On most days it was so hot steam rose from the puddles after the rain. A simple walk and I was soaking wet. At the gate, I slipped off my dress and wore my white muslin petticoat. I wanted to be the girl I used to be, to go backwards in time so I might sit in the mountains and watch for parrots and believe my whole life was ahead of me. I brought branches of flamboyant flowers to place on the graves of Isaac and Esther, and the bees drifted above me, rumbling through the air. Esther’s ghost had never again visited me; she must have been satisfied to have her husband back in her arms. Beside their graves there were ground doves nesting in the weave of oleander, calling to each other. Perhaps they were in love, as Esther and Isaac had been. Although I’d never loved my husband, I missed him. My milk was still in from the baby before the one I now carried. Perhaps I should have been more modest, but I didn’t care, I was too hot to wear anything more than my petticoat. Sometimes I wondered what I did care about. Rosalie still went to my children when they cried at night. Their cries were so distant when I was asleep that I barely recognized them. I thought perhaps I was becoming more like my mother than I’d ever imagined I could be. Cold and far away. I missed the three people who had died, and I thought perhaps I myself would be better off dead. I lay down on the soft earth of the cemetery and imagined what it might be like, even though I knew such thoughts weren’t good for the baby I carried. Perhaps inside me he was crying, too.
People began to notice me in the place of the dead, there in my white undergarments, lying on my back and studying the leaves and the treetops where ghosts walked. The old men who came to pray in their black hats and prayer shawls ran away when they spied me. They covered their eyes and asked God to protect them.
My mother soon heard the rumors about me. She called me to her. “People are starting to talk about you.” She had developed a cough. Ever since the death of my father she had seemed weaker, but only in her physical aspect. Her tongue was still just as sharp. “They think you’re going mad, or that you’re possessed. You think you’re the only one to know grief? You think I didn’t lose more than my share? Cry all you want at night when you’re alone in bed,” my mother advised, “but pull yourself together when you go out.”
Other than my undergarments, the only clothing I’d worn since the funeral was the black dress Jestine had sewn for me. It was filthy. When I finally gave my mourning dress to the day woman who came to help us with the wash, the water in the tub turned black; burrs and sticks rose to the surface, for they’d stuck to the hem of my garment.
Rosalie cried when we left our house. She had good reason to do so. My mother was horrible to live with and ordered her around so that she had double the work, as well as the children to look after. Rosalie had begun to spend time out behind our house, where Mr. Enrique lived. She was younger than he by twenty years, nearly the same difference as that between me and my husband. Still he seemed like a young man whenever Rosalie came around. As for her, she sang to herself even when we did the laundry together. I knew love when I saw it, from the flattering white dress she wore, to the cakes she baked for him, to the sound of their laughter as they sat together outside his cottage. One night I waited for her, to see if I was correct. I was there when she came into the courtyard. She was aglow, singing a song I didn’t recognize in a language I didn’t know.
I admired Mr. Enrique, the man who had saved my father’s life. I’d given him all of my father’s clothes and personal belongings before my mother could stop me. He was a solitary man, but he didn’t always spend his time alone. I warned Rosalie that she was not the first woman to want him and that he didn’t seem to want a wife.
“It doesn’t matter. I’m the best,” Rosalie assured me. I suppose this is what love can do to a woman, bring her into a garden at night, convinced she somehow can affect fate’s plan with her desire. Love like this was a mystery to me. I didn’t understand how people allowed sheer emotion get the better of them. You couldn’t see love, or touch it, or taste it, yet it could destroy you and leave you in the dark, chasing after your own destiny.
I went searching for my notebook. It was in the kitchen, stored with Madame Petit’s cookbooks. From then on I kept it in my bedchamber. I never lost sight of it again. I wrote in the evenings, and whenever I could I went to speak to the women in the market. Tell me a story, I would say to them, as if I were a child again, and they would sit beside me, near the crates of chicken or the piles of fish, and describe the wonders of our world.
LATE IN THE AFTERNOONS I visited the cemetery. On most days it was so hot steam rose from the puddles after the rain. A simple walk and I was soaking wet. At the gate, I slipped off my dress and wore my white muslin petticoat. I wanted to be the girl I used to be, to go backwards in time so I might sit in the mountains and watch for parrots and believe my whole life was ahead of me. I brought branches of flamboyant flowers to place on the graves of Isaac and Esther, and the bees drifted above me, rumbling through the air. Esther’s ghost had never again visited me; she must have been satisfied to have her husband back in her arms. Beside their graves there were ground doves nesting in the weave of oleander, calling to each other. Perhaps they were in love, as Esther and Isaac had been. Although I’d never loved my husband, I missed him. My milk was still in from the baby before the one I now carried. Perhaps I should have been more modest, but I didn’t care, I was too hot to wear anything more than my petticoat. Sometimes I wondered what I did care about. Rosalie still went to my children when they cried at night. Their cries were so distant when I was asleep that I barely recognized them. I thought perhaps I was becoming more like my mother than I’d ever imagined I could be. Cold and far away. I missed the three people who had died, and I thought perhaps I myself would be better off dead. I lay down on the soft earth of the cemetery and imagined what it might be like, even though I knew such thoughts weren’t good for the baby I carried. Perhaps inside me he was crying, too.
People began to notice me in the place of the dead, there in my white undergarments, lying on my back and studying the leaves and the treetops where ghosts walked. The old men who came to pray in their black hats and prayer shawls ran away when they spied me. They covered their eyes and asked God to protect them.
My mother soon heard the rumors about me. She called me to her. “People are starting to talk about you.” She had developed a cough. Ever since the death of my father she had seemed weaker, but only in her physical aspect. Her tongue was still just as sharp. “They think you’re going mad, or that you’re possessed. You think you’re the only one to know grief? You think I didn’t lose more than my share? Cry all you want at night when you’re alone in bed,” my mother advised, “but pull yourself together when you go out.”
Other than my undergarments, the only clothing I’d worn since the funeral was the black dress Jestine had sewn for me. It was filthy. When I finally gave my mourning dress to the day woman who came to help us with the wash, the water in the tub turned black; burrs and sticks rose to the surface, for they’d stuck to the hem of my garment.
Rosalie cried when we left our house. She had good reason to do so. My mother was horrible to live with and ordered her around so that she had double the work, as well as the children to look after. Rosalie had begun to spend time out behind our house, where Mr. Enrique lived. She was younger than he by twenty years, nearly the same difference as that between me and my husband. Still he seemed like a young man whenever Rosalie came around. As for her, she sang to herself even when we did the laundry together. I knew love when I saw it, from the flattering white dress she wore, to the cakes she baked for him, to the sound of their laughter as they sat together outside his cottage. One night I waited for her, to see if I was correct. I was there when she came into the courtyard. She was aglow, singing a song I didn’t recognize in a language I didn’t know.
I admired Mr. Enrique, the man who had saved my father’s life. I’d given him all of my father’s clothes and personal belongings before my mother could stop me. He was a solitary man, but he didn’t always spend his time alone. I warned Rosalie that she was not the first woman to want him and that he didn’t seem to want a wife.
“It doesn’t matter. I’m the best,” Rosalie assured me. I suppose this is what love can do to a woman, bring her into a garden at night, convinced she somehow can affect fate’s plan with her desire. Love like this was a mystery to me. I didn’t understand how people allowed sheer emotion get the better of them. You couldn’t see love, or touch it, or taste it, yet it could destroy you and leave you in the dark, chasing after your own destiny.
