I was the wild one, never the type to get tied down or allow myself to become subordinate for the rest of my life. Even when I had stared him down at the playground and claimed him for my own someday, I never knew what would happen when that far off day finally came. Childish vows would never amount to anything, I kept telling myself.
But my parents never forgot. The day I came skipping home through the door saying that Paolo and I were going to get married, I knew things were never going to be the same. Gone were toys and books from my childhood. My room was painted an austere grey, and equally dull hued curtains were put up to keep out the sunshine that once filled my life. The pet name my father once called me inside with was forgotten, replaced instead with a grim-sounding "Alaina, Alaina..." as if to remind me I wasn't supposed to be out there in the first place.
Paolo himself was no prize when I looked back on it, his ugly face greeting me with a smile when we walked to meet each other in the schoolyard. Once we were 'engaged', there was no more special treatment from the teacher or any attention whatsoever from my friends. Marriage itself was a sacred practice within our village, but usually not among ones so young. Whether I was cursed to such a fate based on my own wicked deeds or due to some omniscient force, I'd never know. I was the bellwether, the catalyst to a phenomenon amongst which girls would be married young. Regardless of what age you decided at, eight years later there would be a wedding. It wasn't superstition or anything like that. It just seemed custom.
I knew I wasn't the youngest who'd ever had this happen to me. I'd seen girls as young as ten resignedly hanging laundry out to dry on the porches of perfectly similar white houses. But these poor child brides had never had a chance to live their lives the way they should have, running around the schoolyard to blow off their excess energy, chasing the boys who would someday become their husbands for the sheer thrill of seeing them squirm. But no. Their parents had chosen to expose their children at an early age to their potential partners, their lifelong responsibilities decided with the touch of one chubby hand to another. Why?
The years leading up to the day I dreaded most were hellish at best. Fat Paolo was two years older than me and seemed to take joy out of making me miserable. He'd come up from behind and grab me around the waist, laughing stupidly while he swung me about in circles. The nausea I felt afterwards came not only from what he had done, but also from knowing we had been in physical and mental contact with each other, his sensing my discomfort and loving every minute of it. I hated Paolo with every fiber of my being, and wasn't afraid of letting him know it. He put up with all of my violent outbursts simply because he knew that once we were married, he'd have complete control over me. I'd be powerless to call upon my own family for support once I was someone's wife.
At age sixteen I was rapidly approaching the end of my life as I knew it. Facing the mirror the night before the wedding I couldn't take seeing myself in that limply hanging bridal gown that had once belonged to my mother. The lace had faded to a dull off-white, about as expressionless as my mother was now that she'd married and was about to see her eldest daughter fall into the same trap. Had she felt the same way in this position? She had advised me to make myself up as much as possible, but no amount of face paint would disguise the fact that I was not happy. But then an idea crossed my mind that I was sure no one else had ever thought of before: I'd run away from this place, escape and never look back again. I'd break tradition in a way that nobody could ever forget - or forgive. Once I was gone, this whole silly tradition of ending childhood before it began would eventually die off - or not. What would happen then?
Standing outside the chapel early that morning, I observed the people filing in to see Paolo and I be joined in marriage. Besides the obvious members of my family heading to the front to get the closest view, I could see nearly everyone in the village had gathered to fill in the rest of the seats. More than half of the crowd was comprised of other girls who had yet to or already faced the same fate. One of the faces I recognized right away was that of Angelina, the youngest girl to be paired off that year. She looked nearly lifeless as her husband had to support her to walk. She'd had no say in how her life would progress. Shy, quiet Angelina, who for years would hide behind her elder sister Sophie when things got too intense. Now Sophie had moved away and there was nowhere for Angie to go. As the years went by, scores of older girls would recede and Angelina would be left all alone.
Tearing my gaze away from the crowd-and Angelina-I realized it was now or never for me to make my breakaway, head on as far away from my old life as possible before I could start a new one. I ran as far away from the building as possible without anyone seeing me. But as much as I wanted to make it past that next clearing, something kept holding me back.
Halfway up or down, it was impossible to tell. I could go back in there and face what I was meant to from the beginning, or laugh in the faces of everyone who had tried to stick me in that position. Or, I could be an even bigger coward and not even bother to face what had awaited countless others before and after me. Leave my mother and Angelina with the false hope and reminder of what they themselves had to the power to do and refused. No. I couldn't do that to them.
It was then that I started heading back to the chapel.
No comments:
Post a Comment