I have always assumed that Merry’s incessant chattiness was because she had lived for many years in almost isolation, in the coastal town of Caen, having for company only the querulous seagulls and the hardy descendants of the ferocious Normans.
Where she had taken residence before coming to California was once the fiefdom of William the Conqueror and his Viking relatives. She had given birth to her sons in a hospital that looked out to the desolate seacoast of Normandy; a fierce battle had been fought by the Allies, destroying most of Caen.
Her sons were the products of nature, not love. That much was shared immediately.
It was hard for me to piece together in one sitting all the information that Merry furnished. It did not help that Merry had a habit of rambling on, departing from one part of the narration to arrive in the middle of another episode altogether without a proper transition. I had to constantly probe, asking questions and receiving answers that, as Merry chattered, veered off in so many directions it was impossible to regroup and align them in any logical manner.
So I took in her story in whatever way she chose to disclose, her inspiration for speech prompted by the recent incidents of her current life, a passing cat, or the rustle of tree leaves in the park as we took walks together, following the pathway round the manicured lawn as if in the labyrinth of her memory.
With the years, I came to understand that her compulsive, rapturous way of speaking was to Merry a cathartic ritual. Without this she would collapse. She needed to let her thought out to find her ways through life and repair the damage it caused.
When she mentioned the accidents that brought her two sons a year apart, I asked, unconvinced, “Successively?”
Merry looked in the distance.
“But Merry, I understand that you cannot refuse a husband his right. However, you’re a pharmacist…don’t tell me you’re unfamiliar with contraceptive means.”
“The pill makes me sick. I cannot afford to get blue when I work. And I work twenty-four seven as pharmacienne de garde.”
I did not get the meaning.
She explained, “My customers can knock at the store at any time—midnight, Sunday afternoons, sometime at three in the morning.”
“Whoa!” I said. “And you’re there for them?”
“We live above the pharmacy,” said Merry.
My head bobbled like a doll head on spring. “No pill,” I murmured, trying hard to sympathize. “What about him? No glove too?”
Merry bit her lips and said, “Irregularly. He prefers the coitus interruptus method.”
“And you go with it?” I raised my voice.
Silence.
I refused to speak. Her next sentence floated long afterward like dust in the air, unable to settle. “I want to have a good marriage.”
It took a woman to decipher another one’s logic. I could relate to her motive. To many women, a good marriage—love— required the shares of butchered meat necessary in a sumptuous banquet. The only difference being the sacrificed animal.
But I did not want to accept the unspoken covenant. So I drilled on, “You think that he beds you for love?”
“Isn’t it why most people marry?” Merry’s words escaped her lips imperceptibly.
I sighed. I did not know about the rest of the world, but in Merry’s case, love was not what her husband sought.

2.

At one point in her life, Merry had been a fierce believer in the transforming power of love. A wall-sized poster of E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial, in her bachelorette bedroom in Paris proclaimed her unprofessed faith. The picture of the misshaped alien with skin as thick as elephant’s and an oversized head with protruding eyes spoke for her: “I am ugly but loved.”
Tears came to her eyes each time she contemplated the possibility that she, too, would one day be in E.T.’s position, when someone would come and love her—Merry with a fat body and awkward manners and all else that was unlovable. Hung there by her single bed, the poster had given her hope and courage to seek love. One day, whoever will share a bed with her would do it because he had no other choice but to love her. Merry would be his ultimate “raison d'être”— her future husband would come to her like the waves towards shore. He would come to Merry like a firefly towards the only burning lantern, like ferric dust toward a magnet.
Poor Merry! She had been devouring too many cheap romance novels, attending too many operas where all a soprano heroine had to do was to put a hand to her heart and swoon for a dashingly handsome tenor to rush in and swoop her up, tragically crying out the torments of his heart.
Looking back, Merry realized that her unattractiveness was only the product of her own imagination. She had compared her body with those shown on the screen or Vogue’s cover page. She had mistaken her voluptuousness for portliness in comparison with her Vietnamese friends’ dipstick figures and had condemned herself to Vince, the first man to ever touch her in a way that set off her fancy.
Her heart had glowed like E.T.’s when at some point on the first visit, his hands had rested on her, lingering behind her back and electrifying a million sensations.
On the second encounter, he visited her at the drug store where she worked on Boulevard Bourdon in Neuilly-sur-Seine. Merry did not know the way of conversation with men and discussed pharmacology with him instead. He asked her about the salary range of pharmacists in France and talked to her about his engineering job in Berlin. A bespectacled intellect, he was half a head taller than her, possessed a pair of muscular arms and had dark hairs sticking out from the opening of his shirt, “So virile looking,” she remembered thinking.
And although he spoke French poorly and whatever he was able to say came out distorted by a heavy Vietnamese accent, she forgave him because… because he drove a decent Scirocco, wore an expensive cologne that only men of “certain family” had the taste to acquire, and, this was very important to Merry, he was bright enough to study abroad on a full scholarship.
Other things that indicated his miserly tendency Merry disregarded. Like when they ate out, somehow thinking it would be more proper for her to offer paying, Merry had picked up the tab hoping that he would object, but he did not, stating, “It is all the same, me or you,” behaving as if they were already intimate as husband and wife. She associated this gesture with feeling of love, and her heart warmed as if it was wrapped in wool.
At the red light, one night, his right hand strayed on her left thigh. She remembered the sides distinctly, for she thought he was fumbling for the stick shift and she was too close to it, had crossed her leg toward the window side to avoid for him a second embarrassing moment.
She waited for him to disappear, like other men had vanished from her after a meeting or two, or turned out seduced by her younger, charming sister, Agathe, the one who never hesitated to flirtingly pull inside any male visitor standing at the apartment door, and coquettishly straightened his collar before leaving him to call on Merry.
But Vince returned day after day for her. Then one autumn night, while waiting for the other cars to clear the intersection, he leaned over for a kiss, resting his palm on her trembling knee. She did not know what to do with his lips when his mouth brushed against hers. His exploring tongue alarmed Merry, perhaps the guy did not know how to properly kiss. Romantic kisses were lips to lips, not this vulgar tongue thrust, licking like a dog begging for affection.
The traffic came to a crawl and he proposed marriage. He waited patiently while she, too stunned to speak, endured the passing minutes and the angry honking from the stalled lane. All she could think in the way of answering was, “Please move your car.” But he sat waiting while the line of cars behind them started to split, swerving to the right and left of them, leaning on their horns while passing, screaming “T’ es con ou quoi?”—telling him he was dumb-assed.
She had to say yes. That night, she relived again the crazy moment and her heart danced a wild jubilee. He was definitely “in love” with her. She bolted up in the dark at the thought and sat straight on her bed with a beaming pride shining on her face. She had achieved love, the hardest to earn.

3.

The next morning Merry woke with a wonderful feeling. It was a drizzling Saturday and the April sun was still hidden behind rolls of dark clouds at seven. From her seventh-floor apartment window, Merry could only see the neighborhood below in a haze, yellow head lights sweeping along the Jordan Boulevard, drooping trees shaking off water at fitful intervals, black umbrellas like swooping bats amidst colorful ones no bigger than peonies scattering upside down.
“Agathe,” Merry called from her bed. “Do you mind going down to Boulangerie Jean for a baguette and a few croissants?”
Lazy bum, she thought as she did not hear any reply from the sofa bed, Agathe’s improvised bedroom. Shivering, Merry stepped away from her warm corner in front of the electric radiator to wake up her sister and to her consternation, found that the foldable bed had not been opened. And the horrible fact dawned on Merry. The only way that the sofa had stayed nicely plumped up with cushions was because no one had slept in it last night.
“Nom de dieu!” Merry’s mind started to race as it called out to God’s help. “The ruined girl,” she thought with a shiver not due to cold but fear. “Agathe has stayed back with her boyfriend. Doesn’t she know better? It’s not something a decent Vietnamese girl does even in the free Parisian society.”
She hurried into the bathroom to brush and change. There was no time to use the curling iron. But it was Saturday. There was no need to dash out for the metro, no need to be anywhere on time. She realized, then, that the sense of urgency came from the possibility for her to safeguard the family honor about to be forever lost. She had to bring Agathe home. But where from? Agathe had never told her the address of her late beau, and Merry had assumed that the fast blossoming courtship would quickly end like the ones before it. Agathe always had a handful of handsome and young university men at her disposal. The embarrass of choice was the only problem the girl had to face and indecisiveness being her shortcoming, she had opted to go out with all who came calling on her, granting each a week of two of pleasure and parting with them without losing a tear or a single heart, keeping them all dangling like deflated balloons from her child-like fingers.
Frustrated by her helplessness, Merry decided to step out anyway. Perhaps I might find Agathe walking back from the metro station, runs her thought. A walk to the bakery would relieve Merry from this agitation and self-incrimination. Agathe had come to her in the last days of Saigon. She was to stay at the at the Cité Universitaire in Choissy-le-Roi, a ten-minute metro ride from Merry’s apartment but had to forfeit the live-in residence for the lack of funding once communication with their family was cut off after Saigon was lost.
Soon the older sister found herself fighting the wind and rain, driven by her wind-powered umbrella along the glistening street from Jordan Boulevard towards Avenue de la Tunisie where her favorite Boulangerie Jean was located. She kept looking up for Agathe despite the whip-lashing wind storm. She pushed open the glass door of the warm, lighted bakery with relief, and was greeted by the wonderful scent of freshly baked breads rich with butter and yeast and sugar.
And there stood he, Lam of the past in long trench coat buttoned up to his chin, his handsome face clean-shaven and showing only a thin, fainted mark of a mustache, and under his arm a morning edition of Le Monde.

“Bonjour Merry. What a nice surprise.” He said, and there was a pleasant surprise in his dark eyes that made her heart throbbed with pain. Involuntary she put her hand to the wildly dancing life engine of hers, then realizing her gesture, quickly said, “God! You startle me,” covering her track.
He extended his right hand with long and thin fingers to her, continuing, “Comment ça va?”—how goes thing?
She gave him her handshake limp and cold like a dead fish, mumbling, “I’m just fine,” and almost fainted from the shock of his warm and vigorous flesh holding on to one end of her extremity, giving it his warmth, resuscitating it from a state of dormancy to its current agony—caressed as it was never before caressed, held as it was never before held, prisoner of a wonderful encapsulation.
“Sorry for the cold hand,” she said as if on cue, not knowing what she was saying.
“Poor girl. Let me warm it for you. Why are you out in such weather? Hungry?”
She blushed, thinking he was hinting at her plumpness. “No, no! Not at all.” She managed to utter and as soon as the foolish words tumbled out of her mouth, she hated herself for her clumsiness. Not at all what? Not at all cold or not at all hungry? But he only laughed, showing white rows of teeth, lips stretching wide. His nostrils flared out and she looked up to the cavities shyly, seeing dark hair inside it, noticing a mole on one bulbous lobe.
“How’s Agathe?” he inquired. And she felt deflated. Of course, that’s who he was after. He had not been visiting since the day her sister had gone out with her latest boyfriend, Van, the youngest son of a late Vietnamese ambassador to France, now a fortuneless immigrant as any other lost sons of the South.
His mentioning Agathe waked up Merry’s sense of purpose. She withdrew her hand from Lam’s grasp and murmuring a soft, “Oh! I forget that I need to bring some bread home for breakfast,” avoiding to answer him.
But he did not let her off easily. He followed her to the glass display case, commenting, “What a nice big sister you are. Going out in the cold to bring breakfast home to the lazy Agathe.”
Merry ordered a baguette although she had wanted two, fearing his judgment on her calorie intake. And abandoning her favorite croissant idea altogether, she paid and said goodbye to him, trying a cheery tone, repeating what she had heard Agathe mouthing expertly to her male friends, “To tomorrow. Tata.”
She escaped the bakery like a fleeing convict, forgetting to pop open her umbrella and only remember the rain when the water sprinkled her wet. Her steps retraced the familiar path home and carried her along unseeing, her mind reeling from the event. She rushed headlong home without stopping by the corner paper stand to pick up her weekly Paris Match.
Like all Parisians she survived on daily actualities and paperback novels. She absolutely had to be informed of the latest development or mishap in the lives of anybody of royal blood or fine pedigree. She got her quota of cheap romances to pass away her free time, but what engaged her mind were the historical novels through which she learned about important people around the world. Merry’s mind wrapped tightly around the inner stories of the historical celebrities with fascination. The fact that a Corsican boy of obscure origin rose up to be the world’s emperor convinced her that one’s fortune could be positively altered by life’s circumstance and ambition. She was separated by a grander path in life only by the accident of birth, born a commoner. But who knew, she might one day be selected to head a state, or president of a company, or, why not, this was a closer possibility, a woman business mogul owning pharmacies in all seven continents.
Years later, she gave to me one such book that had belonged in her bedroom, Josephine, Napoleon's Empress.
But that morning, she was so flustered up she came home empty-handed. Walking in with a single baguette and drenched from head to toe from the cruel beating of the April shower, whom did she find but the wretched Agathe in the kitchen, nursing a steamy cup of coffee and nibbling dry biscuits salvaged from the cupboard.
Seeing Merry’s poor state, Agathe whistled gaily and quipped, “You are that devoted to hot baguette?”
Merry roared, “Where have you been last night?”
“In Van’s warm arms. Where else?” Agathe said matter-of-factly, offering her sweet smile. “Coffee?”
“Do you happen to think about our parents when they find out that their unwed daughter slept with a man, giving away her honor?” Merry spoke from the bathroom, taking off her blouse, bra, and peeling out her woolen skirt and panty hose, methodically turning them right side out as she took each layer off.
Not hearing a reply she poked her head out, calling, “Agathe, you hear me?”
“Oui. Tu m’emmerdes. I’ll be an old-maid like you if I do not let any man honoring me.”
“Agathe!” Merry gasped.
“Wake up, sister. C’est la vie. You’ve got only one life to live. Don’t live for others.”
Saying these last words, Agathe stretched like a cat and yawned, “I’m going back to bed. I have a whole night program ahead of me. Van and his group will take us out to watch La Bohème if you care to join. Ah! By the way, that Vince of yours called ten minutes ago. He said he will be here next week to go over the wedding plans. To tell you the truth, the guy spooks me with his tight-wad attitude. I’d rather tie knots with l’Avare himself.”

4.

It was not the grandest wedding but she was nonetheless married at the mairie and blessed with a Catholic Mass in the historical Cathedrale Notre Dame de Paris. She never once looked back to her dreamed man again. After meeting for the last time that rainy day, she had asked herself, “What shall I do? Wait for a few more years for the guy to notice me?”
When she asked Agathe that same question, the girl had given her a quizzical look that plainly indicated to Merry that the reconsideration was the indicative of a deranged mind. Agathe also said, “But I would not marry the Vince guy in a million years. What’s the hurry sister; you’ve got only one life. Enjoy it. Why ruin everything by shackling up with a single male?”
Then the light-hearted sister of hers waltzed around, grasping Merry by the waist and twirling her as if she was only a spin top, singing:

Des yeux qui font baisser les miens
Un rir' qui se perd sur sa bouch'
Voila le portrait
sans retouch'
De I'homme auquel j'appartiens
Hold me close and hold me fast

The magic spell you cast
This is la vie en rose

Realizing then that she had to make up her own mind and that, unlike Agathe who could yank out of life’s hand what she wanted for herself, Merry could only choose what life offered her and work out the rest, conceding all the steps of the way. Vince was her best bet, and she would stick with him.
Lam’s image in her mind was forever put away with her single years’ belongings, like the poster of E.T. that had meant so much to her and other knick knacks, all boxed and stored in the dark storage of her new home in Caen soon after the marriage.
It was funny how she thought of the extraterrestrial’s wimpy, gentle eyes now with resentment. She was almost glad when Vince tossed away the poster still rolled up—together with other discards, into the common dumpster of their street. That way, she did not have to ever explain it to him.
The love that Merry hoped from her marriage was quickly chilled by the icy winds bearing down from the open sea. Her faith in the power of love was contested by the greater power of daily economy and it was lost in the attempt to budget and balance each franc, scrutinize every single bill, and wrangle who brought in the family income and consequently, who should be doing the house chores and changing the baby’s diapers.
Or perhaps, she had not charmed love enough to retain love’s magic. Perhaps she had imagined it too perfect—two persons holding hands walking through the gloomy and trash-littered avenues of life, leaving behind their path rose petals and singing birds, the way they had left the marble steps of the cathedral to run—oh so happily—into the back seat of their rented limousine, waving to family and friends who tossed handful of rice grain at them and blowing farewell kisses before embarking on their one-week honeymoon in Greece.
Even Agathe had stared incredulously at her when in full white bridal gown, Merry had walked up in dainty, heeled steps up the church aisle in the guiding arm of her newly immigrated father, an exquisite figure slender as a sliver of white moon leaning delicately on what seemed like the majestic velvety wing of a white-breasted eagle.
What a moment to remember.
She had woken up from the powerful powders sprinkled in the midnight summer of her girlhood too soon and yet, too late. Her firstborn, a daughter, was already two; too late to break away without destroying another life.
Since eighteen, since the day Merry had stepped on France’s soil and left behind her native Vietnam, the shy daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Ta had learned to cope with the hostile environment of the academic world in a strange land. What gave her courage to forge an independent and successful life was the determination to make her parents proud.
“You are our face. Go show your best face to the world,” were the words they said before sending her off.
It was a shame for Merry wanted so much to preserve her best face. She would, if given the chance, if hard work was all that was required of her to achieve a good marriage. Her parents never thought to teach Merry how to go on with a broken heart. That, Merry had to find out on her own, her best face to the world.
Not once Merry regretted her decision to marry, not even in her unhappiest moment. “At least I have a guy like any normal girl,” she confessed this repeatedly, as if to reinforce her conviction, like Catholics reciting their credo.
At least she would not be condemned a spinster. That would be a total disaster to a person like Merry, a person who valued status—even marital status, achievement record, wealth, education, pedigree. The only regret was the poor image she had of herself in her single years.

5.

Countless times Merry tried to retrace to the exact cause that had unraveled her couple’s life. A traditional girl, she had willingly taken on her husband’s name, surrendered to him the control of all her assets, counted on him to take care of their finance, even yielded to him the complicated tasks of managing their home economy.
From day one Vince was the family’s treasurer and accountant. He made all large and small purchases for the house. Merry became happily oblivious to their bank account balance. She did not want to be bothered. If there was one passion in Vince, it would be book keeping, and Merry was glad he was meticulous in an area where she was proven mediocre, even disastrous.
She re-adapted her lifestyle, habits, preferences, even personality, matching them to which of her partner, so that she would be to the eyes of her family and friends no longer Merry Ta but Mrs. Vince Tran. She was determined to be a good wife.
Like a sea that have found its shore and swept into it full force, claiming sand, shells, castles as well as the names of lovers, their footprints and the relics of a day thought to be unforgettable, Vince’s abrasive way conquered and transformed Merry in the name of family and love. His usual phrase when addressing her, “Will you be more careful next time?” slowly eroded her confidence in her ability to take charge of their affairs, from grocery shopping to driving places.
How many time had she lost her bundle of keys, forgot her credit card at the stores or purchased a pair of slack for him a size too small? When would she learn to back up her car into the street without his assistance at the curb? For heaven’s sake could she not fill up the tank before driving it home or rely on him to check the tire pressure? How hard was it to change a tube light?
Made aware of her weaknesses, mortified by self-recrimination and ashamed by her husband’s distrust, Merry gradually participated less in the household activities, leaving the various tasks to her husband’s discreet. Once she told him, “I may do thing imperfectly but they get done, but you ought to stop criticizing.” Vince shrugged his shoulders and said, “I wouldn’t call the mess you create an accomplished job. I’d rather you not dirty your princess hands at all.”
After that, she was no longer involved. She let him do as he wished. She spent all her energy at the pharmacy where clueless Vince left her alone.
Stealthily, Vince misery habits invaded Merry’s already conservative lifestyle, tightening her purse, skimming the fat layer, his scrutiny like a fine sieve carefully sifting through each and every disbursement, day and night tabulating and computing for excess as if one franc more would make him richer.
The arithmetic exercise taxed his mental peace, robbed him of all the joy of life, rendering the man grouchy and guarded. Naturally terse, he grew into a snappish brute when cranky. Naturally pessimistic, Merry became a nervous wreck around her husband. Between the two of them one could easily believe the world would surely fall off its axis on the morrow. Was it the weakening of the facial nerves that caused uncontrollable laughter in one of their kids? How could they find happiness in this morbid household?
After a while, Merry was so transformed that she could no longer differentiate which was the cause of what. Was Vince’s rudeness the reason for her retaliations or her little cruel remarks about his financial peculiarities a factor for his foul temper. Whom to blame for their impoverished and joyless life?
Then he managed to lose his job of twenty years. “They do not like my accent,” he said, “and with my declining health, it’s an incentive for them to let me go before my pension hits the ceiling.”
It would help if he didn’t call in sick so often. Her thought ranted savagely. It would be better if he was more sociable with his colleagues and perhaps, had he offered Christmas gifts to his boss once in a while, his employment would last a little longer. It was not his lack of ability or intelligence that caused his downfall. It was his execrable personality, his calculating way to extract the most out of everything and everybody, his selfishness that alienated even me, his wife. She restrained hard to keep her thought silent.
One by one, all the little extravagances that made life tolerable after the working hours were crossed off the budget: the monthly operas, the Paris Match subscription, occasional visits to Paris, the summer vacations. Vince kept the receipts of all household purchases in a notebook carefully sorted by date and demonstrated to her each wasteful expense.
“Why do we need to buy bottled water? We can drink off the tap.”
“But the taste is awful,” Merry said.
“You’ll get used to it.” Merry kept her tongue. Her husband continued, “With the saved money we can buy more tangible thing, object of real value…a better car, per example. What do you say?”
She approved of his idea. After all it was her wish for them to drive a better vehicle...a Mercedes like her friend’s, the object of envy in her circle. It didn’t matter that Kim and her husband were both MDs and making good money while Merry’s husband was out of the job market. Merry had gotten used to the idea of a stay-at-home spouse. She even thought how lucky that he was available to manage her store account. He had a much better economic sense, the kind of shrewdness she lacked—perhaps ashamed to acquire.
But the Mercedes never materialized. After a while, Vince told her, “It would be a total waste to buy another car when we already have one in good condition. Wait until it breaks down.”
A wise move, she thought, a little reluctantly this time.
Gradually, she gave up designer names and shop solely for clearance sale or end-of-season discards. Vince told her, “You wear a lab coat all day. What’s the point of decking up underneath?” To Merry who was hundreds kilometers away from Paris of her close friends and family, the need to impress was seldom provoked. She knew, too, it did not matter to Vince whether she wore rags or riches: in his eyes her beauty was invisible. When he went looking for her, it was in the dark to fumble at hooks and buttons, to tear off her body’s covering gratuitously. He appreciated her most when she was naked.
She absorbed into herself the little shocks of daily experience as formerly she coped with academic stresses, making up consolations and covering the failure of her marriage with blatant lies. The business of keeping “her best face to the world” occupied her wholly. She took care to hide her unkempt house, the kids’ lack of material comfort, and the fact that the thermostat was regulated according to a budgetary limit and not to the temperature of the house.
“Merry, it is a small sacrifice. We need money for our business expense. Not everyone owns a pharmacy. It is not child-play. We have to be careful.”
But after a while, the duel inside her head became unbearable. She needed to talk to a person. She needed to listen to people talking, to stories other than bankruptcy and poverty. She missed her magazine articles and books. The “commères” of the village filled her in with the special insider’s knowledge and entertained her with everyone’s private, juicy details.
Even then, it was not satisfactory. The longing for conversations haunted the unquenchable Merry. She could easily pick up the telephone and yak on endlessly but the single line was reserved during the day for customers’ calls. When she proposed the installation of a second line for their private use, Vince showed her the long list of numbers he had computed, saying, “This is your monthly business expense.” She was told that they barely broke even. No extra money for extraneous expenses.
Merry resolved to call her few friends at night.
“Call after nine when they charge the lowest rate,” her savvy accountant advised immediately when he caught her at her new hobby. After a few months, he exhibited the expensive phone bill to his talkative wife. The money would be better used to hire a babysitter during the business hours. Merry agreed.
“I should have been more careful in my expense,” she reprimanded herself, looking at the large bill with guilt.
But she barked at his suggestion to buy a generic-brand diaper for Laurence from Carrefour or Leclerc supermarkets. He yielded for a few days. Then quietly he substituted Pampers with a cheaper brand. Well, since he did not work and took care of the baby, she thought it was his domain after all. Perhaps, like he said, she had been throwing money out the window for diapers which only purpose was to catch baby’s bodily waste.
“You’re being brain-washed by the T.V. commercials to enrich the big corporations,” Vince scorned when she tried to explain her choice of toilet tissue or soap.
Only when looking back to her old lifestyle did Merry realize how her current one paled by comparison with it. They have been living like paupers.
Yes, during the dating months she was not blind to the little indications that offered her the insight of her future with Vince. But the magic of courtship and the happiness of a new family painted over the raw image a forgiving gloss.
While the toxic combination of a time-worn, loveless marriage and children acted as a sharp blade to rub off the glossy wax layer from the possible prize, revealing only a disappointing message. Now Vince emerged as who he was without the shimmery layer. The thrifty Vince of the dating months—to Merry a valuable trait in a husband— turned out to be a modern Harpagon as Agathe had warned.
Merry thought about the image of that scratched-off prize and wished she could “Try again next time,” like in the old time. However, this was life, not a luring game or advertisement.
After the births of their boys five years later, Merry no longer had any illusion about her husband, his love, or her married life. This marriage would never bring her the love she dreamed and her married life was never going to be wonderful. Perhaps her idea about marriage and love was flawed. Perhaps, like Vince said, the wonderful notions about marital relationship had been sold to her by commercial books and advertisement designed to satisfy the wish list of a single woman. False pretenses like cosmetic products and stylish clothing only attracted love equally fake and easily washed off.
All had changed now that she learned first-hand the dirty tricks and multiple faces of marriage. She now knew she was just a fish baited and jerked at the far end of her partner’s pole. From seeking the sweet taste of marriage she had given up her freedom. From adapting herself too swiftly into the role of a wonderful wife, trusting to her mate everything that kept life going forward from finance to driving to planning for the future, she had forever forfeited her independence.
Once a self-driven individual, she realized too late that she had succumbed into the pathetic role of a back-seat passenger bewildered by the fast passing scene outside her window and ignorant of street names and directions. Once a professional full of confidence, she had been reduced to a housebound wife marveling on her husband’s expertise with handling loans, bills, car repair and maintenance and myriads other things out of her grasp.
Slowly she had gotten used to asking him for money for every little purchases, even waited for him to buy what little she needed from groceries to household appliances, from children’s toys to shoes to bigger purchase like mortgages and car loan—for he had a way to hunt for the best deals and blow-out bargain.
Her dependence on him grew with each year and with each additional child. It first grew on what she thought was her husband’s caring. Then the little attentions that during their courtship had flooded Merry with a warm joy became manipulative, controlling tactics bordering on tyranny. Sharing one car, she had abandoned the wheel to Vince entirely. Whenever she had to go places, she waited for him to drive her. This he did uncomplaining until he realized, without him, she was totally helpless. She had not driven a car for so long she was sure she would not know when to shift, how to make a three-point turn, what to do at the roundabouts and, Oh God! Which street was one-way only?
One time, Vince told her, “Since you’re so clever, why don’t you drive yourself to Kim’s party?”
He had promised to go with her before she accepted the invitation of her friend. She begged him, “Please, don’t be mad at me. I didn’t mean to correct your mistake. I meant well.”
He slammed the door after him and mounted the stairs to his room.
That night she slept alone, shivering from the lack of his warmth. She had never gone to bed without him.


She called her friend to be excused. She had got the flu and couldn’t go. “Let Vince come alone. C’est tout à fait d’accord avec nous,” protested Kim.
Merry coughed out a dry smile. She thought, “He didn’t care a hank for you. He did this to make a point with me.” But she said to her friend, “Oh. He sends his apology. He will not leave me alone at home. You know how he is.”
Kim laughed, giving Merry the impression that her friend was not easily fooled. Merry pretended a headache and hung up.
That was the beginning of a worsening deterioration. For each car ride Merry begged and waited, palpitating until the last minute not knowing the turns of his mind.
But one thing remained with her for many more years. Vince, aloof and irritable during the day, cruel when she needed his help, torturous when he decided to assist her, Vince who was moody and withdrawn, who let Laurence cry upstairs until the little girl’s voice grew hoarse while his wife, one hand on her ear and the other holding tight to the mouthpiece trying to listen to a customer describing his symptoms and asking for health advices; Vince who shrugged his shoulders coldly when she bolted upstairs to calm their hysterical daughter until the telephone shrilled again for her and the only option left was to work with the drowsy girl in her arms, was the same Vince who sat gloomily in front of his accounting book, penning numbers and calculating loss and profit.
That same Vince, morbid and complaining during the daytime instead of being capable and helpful, returned night after night for her--tearing, hurting, and seeking with fervor.
She did not imagine love this way. In reality, love was not as noble. Not as that sparkling concept she had when she slept alone. Love did not make her bed warmer or nights less lonely. In fact, what a burden it was for her—a restrainer on her neck, a dull weight around her ankles. It had become even more elusive when it moved on top of her, panting and grunting feverishly.
But because of that, Merry no longer thought she was too repugnant for love. And she was pleased.
The benefit of having love consuming her nightly was that it had devoured all her superfluous layers of fat. Her slacks no longer showed the little pillow in her stomach, her thighs did not scrape onto themselves, and her slender arms floated imperceptibly under the sleeves of her dress. Marriage, then the birth and nurture of three children while working full-time as the only bread winner of her family, like a chisel in the hand of a marvelous sculptor, had reshaped Merry’s body into one of exquisite curvature—round where round should be and tight at the places that mattered most to a woman’s self-image.
The features of the young mother she found each day in the mirror gave her the confidence that her pharmacy diploma did not. It was a good and fair price to pay for love.

(to be continued)

Impressum

Texte: All rights reserved
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 10.06.2011

Alle Rechte vorbehalten