Doll tales by Geetha Balvannanathan

Doll Tales

By Geetha Balvannanathan

Contents Doll Tale 1 : The painter and his muse .......................................................................................................... 3 Doll Tale 2: Mireilleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ways.......................................................................................................................... 12 Doll Tale 3 : Leaving is living Matilda .......................................................................................................... 28 Doll Tale 4 : In Every Shade ......................................................................................................................... 34 Doll Tales 5: I am a flower ........................................................................................................................... 53

Doll Tale 1 : The painter and his muse

Henry watched with half-closed eyes as his girlfriend scurried along to bring us the chilli flakes that she had forgotten in the kitchen. He did not seem very pleased of this new shortcoming and turned towards us with an apologetic sigh saying “you know, she is not very bright. In fact like most of her people she is quite simple minded and does not have the sophistication required to set out a table properly. Strange, however, that she would not know that this has to be served with some extra chilli flakes. Not all people like to eat bland food and that stupid idiot should know better as I have told her so at least a hundred times.”

Our common friend seated next to me had started feeling the atmosphere become a tad uneasy and shifting uncomfortably told Henry that it was perfectly alright and he was fine with the food as it was.

Henry simply retorted “Fine for you then but I can’t take this food like that. I eat spicier food than her you know”. His expression softened while he said this as he was visibly self-indulging in some gratifying thoughts about himself being such a tough guy.

Somehow, I could feel the food not going down well too but not for the same reason. I felt like saying that he should maybe cook the food to his own liking so that it won’t be an

issue anymore but I just sat there gazing down stonily at my food as this was the first time I was there and had been invited by our common friend.

Malee came back from the kitchen bearing the chilli flakes in a bowl that she promptly handed over to Henry who simply growled at her playfully. I was expecting her to be rather put off by his behaviour and what he said as she surely would have heard him on her way to the kitchen with the apartment being the size it was but was amazed to see her draw closer to him and sit on his lap, eyes shining brightly. He merely smacked her bottom lightly and told her “you’ve escaped this time but next time I will really smack your bottom hard if you shame me in front of guests again. I’ve told you enough times how to serve the food here in Europe. You’re not in Thailand anymore where you can just mix it all at once. This time it was only friends but next time it could be buyers so don’t make me angry again.”

My gaze lifted to meet hers, eyes shining not with love like I had imagined but with a curious mixture of defiance and sadness. She seemed to be thinking I was judging her poorly and apparently resented me for it. I attempted a smile and trying to ease the tension complimented her on her cooking to which she nodded smiling back. We then resumed eating and once finished Henry showed me around the small apartment not as much for the actual rooms as it was a small two-bedrooms although with beautifully high ceilings and an amazing old wooden floor as one could only find in the old buildings in Geneva. The tour was more meant to show me his paintings which were quite astonishingly powerful depictions of the persons immortalized in them.

Henry was a brutish heavily built tall man with a tiny forehead, very small close set eyes and long hair he left loose as befitted his artist status. His hands which were huge seemed incapable of holding a brush properly let alone using it with such maestria to produce such powerful representations of other human beings. My attention was caught by two particularly striking paintings one of which caused me some embarrassment as it represented Malee crouching naked with her private parts fully exposed. In both he had captured that particular mixture of defiance and sadness that I had seen in her face earlier and her baby face with those liquid eyes seemed to be springing out of the paintings. Both paintings were bathed in dark colours with a deep crimson being a dominant theme as in most of his paintings.

“Lovely face and body right?” he said right behind me and I turned around startled to see him so close behind me.

“Don’t worry” he said mockingly “I am not going to jump on you as you came with a friend and I anyway have my hands full with Malee. At least for now” he added provokingly.

I rewarded his stupid comment with a crisp smile thinking to myself that he must be dreaming if he thought I would in any way be interested in him considering his caveman style of handling women.

We went back to the dining cum living room which was also the main room where he received his buyers and I asked my friend whether we could leave as I was quite tired.

A week later, we were invited to one of Henryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s expositions at a local gallery and I accompanied our common friend Peter who meanwhile had become my boyfriend. The place was crowded with sophisticated and glamorous people side by side with ill-shaven and shabbily dressed artists together with a few journalists and some art critics. There seemed to be some true art lovers but most seemed to have come to be seen and enjoy the wine and delicacies being served.

Everywhere there were paintings of Malee some of them very provocative and some where she dumbfounded me with the pure innocence that emanated from her face in the paintings. For the male audience, this seemed to have a very different effect than on me where I was merely considering the human aspect of things. All the men were gathered around her, eyes fixated on her body, trying to guess through the clothing the curves that were splashed all over the gallery in crimson, burgundy, green and other shades that exuded rawness and sensuality. Henry watched from a distance a smile on his lips and seemed to be enjoying the scene.

A few hours later while we were all laughing and dancing to the music, Henry came up to me asking where Malee was but I had no idea and told him so. Some thirty minutes later I saw them both come back into the gallery from a side door and waved at them.

Everybody was enjoying themselves immensely and Henry seemed to have sold quite a few paintings that opening night itself.

The party finished past midnight and as there were no trams anymore, we decided to walk until Carouge and have something to eat before we accompanied the couple back to their home nearby the hospital where we would be sleeping too for the night as we were too tired to walk all the way back to our apartment. We fell asleep fully clothed as we were exhausted before we were awoken by screams and the sound of furniture being moved around and some plates being broken. Peter and I rushed into the next room just in time to see Henry haul Malee over the window sill and then proceed to hold her by the hands yelling at her while she dangled out of the window screaming. He looked insane with his beady eyes alit with anger and his fleshy mouth twisted with rage and Malee, face chalk white, was screaming and pleading for him to pull her back into the room. Peter lunged out of the window while I held on to him fearing he would fall over and attempted to bring her back inside the room while Henry was yelling at him not to interfere as he â&#x20AC;&#x153;need[ed] to teach the tart a good lessonâ&#x20AC;?. At the end, Peter was able to grab enough of Malee to haul her back into the room and we all fell on the ground panting with me going into shock.

Later, after Peter had coaxed me into having a small glass of strong alcohol as I did not normally drink, we split into two parties and I stayed with Malee in the room where Peter and I had slept while Henry and Peter stayed in the other bedroom. I could hear Henry ranting and raving and many times when he had worked himself back into a fit of anger

he would attempt to come back into the room where we were sitting and abuse Malee verbally.

On one of the occasions he actually entered the room, caught her by the hair and was attempting to drag her by the hair across the floor and back into his bedroom before Peter stopped him by holding him in a vice-like grip at the neck. Henry was too strong for him, however, and had soon loosened Peterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s grip and sent him reeling against the wall. Having done that, he seemed a bit appeased though and did not seem in a mood to hurt Malee again but just went back to his room where he locked himself in.

Peter came back to where we were sitting huddled and tried to calm me as I was shaking. I had never seen someone switch from such a normal behaviour to a stark raving lunatic so quickly before and definitely not within my direct acquaintances. Malee sat there crying and asking us to help her go back to Thailand. She wept and said that she had come here to earn some money as she had a family to feed back in Thailand but could not take it anymore.

Henry started yelling from the other room that what she was doing here she could well do in Thailand and save herself the trouble of having to pay taxes and living in a foreign country as prostitution pays everywhere. To which she retorted with a string of sentences in her language that was pronounced colourfully enough to make us understand that it was abuse she was flinging at him. As soon as she heard the door unlocking at the other

end, however, she sat quiet and still again and soon the oncoming footsteps’ noise receded and we heard the door lock again. We removed the sheet from the small bed and put it on the ground so that we could sleep all three of us together as the bed was barely enough for two people to sleep in.

Upon waking in the morning we showered and had breakfast while Malee sat there prostrate, wide-eyed, neither talking nor crying. I tried to coax her into having a shower and something to eat but she simply stared through me and at the door of Henry’s bedroom. Suddenly, the door was unlocked and Henry fully nude appeared in the doorway and I watched with disbelief as Malee sprung out of her chair and flung herself into his arms. He looked at her triumphantly and said “that’s my girl. Don’t ever make me angry again” while she beamed back at him nodding in assent. The door locked behind them and we soon could hear that they seemed to be making up very noisily.

I stared at Peter torn between relief, uneasiness and fear that something could go horribly wrong again. He merely shrugged back at me and said “artists” and held his hand out to me. We walked out of the apartment and pulled the door shut softly behind us so as not to make the neighbours complain more than they probably were going to do during the day. The neighbor facing Henry’s doorstep was out and was looking at us suspiciously with inquisitive eyes.

“So he did not kill her this time” she said in a grating voice. Peter smiled sweetly at her but I could see from his eyes that he did not mean it at all.

“No he did not yet, you can wait for the spectacle next time, I am sure you will eventually be satisfied” he retorted coldly. She gave us both a disdainful look and went back haughtily into her apartment.

A few weeks later we heard during a chance encounter with Henry at a café that Malee had left him. I thought she had returned to Thailand but it turned out that she had eloped with one of the buyers who incidentally had been the cause of that night’s scene as Henry had caught them on the opening night of his exhibition not only kissing but also planning to spend some time together. Henry seemed heartbroken and was telling us that he could not understand why she would want to be with such a man who had no personality and was a stuck up rich man’s son and was only interested in Malee as he would be interested in any new gadget.

I looked at Henry, head in his hands, elbows resting on the table, so brutish and I had thought so insensitive but he seemed truly heart-broken so I kept my thoughts to myself and merely patted him on the back. How could he not see that she could not continue living in the conditions that he had made her live through with him. It simply escaped me that their relationship could have lasted so long as it seemed they had been together for over 3 years. How could a woman take so much abuse and still continue living with the same person. I was barely 22 then and could simply not understand it.

Henry straightened himself up, looked me in the eye and sighed saying “I lost my muse and I don’t know if I ever will be able to paint again”. He paused then added “She was so

easy to live with, never complained, always did things immediately the way I wanted her to do them. I can’t be with a Swiss girl you know, they are so full of themselves so I will have to find another Thai girl or someone asian again”. I bit my lip as I felt some nasty words swarming up my throat and begging to be let out of my lips. Instead I just gave him a thin smile, waited for Peter to pay our coffees and then gave him a cold peck on his cheek before saying goodbye.

The next time I saw Henry again, he was in what I found out to be his manic mood again and he was in couple with a beautiful though tiny Japanese girl. Heartbreak long forgotten he was bustling with energy and his apartment was crammed with paintings of his new muse but that is another story…

Doll Tale 2: Mireilleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ways

Simon was a sweet soul. Everyone in his neighbourhood in a small suburb in Geneva loved him because he was always ready to and even volunteering to help anyone who came his way. A slight-figured man with a clean-shaven and very forgettable face, he was nonetheless liked by both the youngsters and the older generation because of his wellmannered and quiet ways.

A consultant in the local insurance firm, Simon knew everything about everyone and was always available to help out with insurance claims even when his boss believed it would not be in the best interest of the firm they both worked for. All knew and recognized that Simon was a decent fellow and had high moral values so his boss put up with his behaviour because ultimately, the boss too was from the same suburb which had once been some sort of a village. He would not have wanted to face the neighboursâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; wrath if Simon had turned them off and some smart lawyer from downtown Geneva had enlightened them on the validity of their claims.

Simon had a wife called Mireille. She was all the opposite of Simon. Her hair was always unkempt and the smell that rose from her was often disturbing in the winter and outright unbearable in the summer heat as it turned into a stench of sweat and sometimes, on Sundays, a mixture of sour armpits and some cheap cologne. A sullen, ill-mannered creature with hardly any education, she was always glaring at people from beneath an

unbelievably tussled nest of hair that barely left any of her face visible and seldom greeted anyone except the local priest.

All the neighbours never understood how sweet-natured Simon could have married and continue to live with such a woman. Then again, when you knew that Simon and Mireille had four children, you understood that the poor fellow must have got trapped in the marriage and him being such a sweet soul, he naturally must have chosen to â&#x20AC;&#x153;stick aroundâ&#x20AC;? and make the best of his marriage rather than divorce and expose the children to grief.

Mireille, despite being unkempt and unclean, was somehow perceived as a very religious person, to the extent that some could qualify her as being a bigot. She never missed the Sunday mass except when she was visiting her mother with the children. Those were the only Sundays when Simon would come to the mass and tell everyone apologetically that Mireille had gone off to see her mother with the children and could not be there.

All attending the mass would then nod their heads understandingly and smile at Simon although nobody really understood why he was informing them as nobody really could say they missed Mireilleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s presence. It was awfully nice of him though to show up and stand in for his wife despite the fact that everyone knew he had so much work on Sundays and normally could not make it to mass. He would then take some of the mass wine that father Mathieu had set aside for Mireille and go back home immediately after mass.

One fine month, Mireille skipped mass more than one Sunday and it was only on Simonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s uncomfortable fourth Sunday apology for her absence that people actually realized that Mireille had not been to mass the whole of the month. Some whispered amongst each other that maybe her prolonged absence at her motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s place meant that finally Simon was going to be freed from her. Although some felt that it was a shame for the kids, they believed that it was probably the best for all as Simon would probably be able to file for custody of the children. Many neighbours gathered together that Sunday after mass and discussed how they could approach the subject and be of help to Simon in his future custody battle.

Father Mathieu who was leaving the mass and was passing by the CafĂŠ-bar where they had gathered happened to overhear their discussion. He stopped and turning around to face the assembly told them that it was their Christian duty not to encourage this sort of a behaviour and that if they were going to let Simon know they would support him in a custody battle then that would equate to instigating his divorce.

Some of those present looked crestfallen but a small group who really empathized with Simon voiced their concerns that Father Mathieu should not have more understanding and support for a sweet-natured soul like Simon who was spending his life miserable in a situation which he should be helped to come out from. They further tried to prove the validity of their point of view by arguing that Simon being already a sweet and helpful soul, surely it could only be a benefit to the Christian community that such a man be freed from his misery to be able to carry out more community work for someone who would at least

be thankful for it, unlike Mireille who seemed incapable of gratitude or any other positive feeling.

Father Mathieu said nothing but just stared at his shoes and the crowd, emboldened by what they thought was their successful convincing on their point of view pursued their reasoning and even tried to get Father Mathieu involved in the mission of liberating Simon. At the mention of such a possibility Father Mathieu started as if somebody had poked him with a hot iron and blurted out a sharp “No, I will not be a part of it” before walking away holding his head in his hands and muttering.

“Let him go, that’s the church for you” said Estelle the bar-tender. “They will continue to support even someone like Mireille just because she is supposedly a devout Christian but they will never help someone like Simon because he skips mass “. The crowd then devised how best to help and it was decided with the consent of all including Estelle who had half-volunteered that she would be the one who would be in charge of initiating the talks. As she was a tough stout woman who took no nonsense from anyone, including the late-night drinkers that she would throw out herself by their ears, it was felt by all the gathering that she would be able to handle Mireille without much effort and at the same time be able to talk to Simon from equal to equal.

That night, Estelle closed her bar earlier after throwing out the last of the crowd that was still huddled in a corner playing rummy and set off on foot to Simon and Mireille’s house. Upon arriving at their fence she rang a couple of times before realizing that Simon had

told them that both the gate bell and the doorbell had to be fixed so she hopped over the small garden fencing and walked quickly to the backyard as Simon and Mireille probably left the backyard door open like most of the neighbours.

On reaching the backdoor, Estelle realized that it was actually locked so she peered through the glazed panes to see if someone was nearby and could come to open the door. A dimmed light from the living room cast shadows around the walls and suddenly Estelle saw a thin bloodied figure dart across the living room followed closely by another less slight figure and even her tough heart skipped a beat as she recognized Mireille more by the tussled nest on her head than from the actual figure as nobody had ever seen her in anything else than very loose slacks and a big shirt that did not show much of her figure.

Mireille was wearing a gown that was shredded in many places and through the shreds one could guess in the dim light that it was blood and skin that was oozing out. Behind her, closing in on her was Simon who seemed nothing like the Simon that Estelle knew. She could see his profile cut out against the dim light of the living room and he looked murderous, his hand carrying a belt that he was swishing above his head and at Mireille. At that moment, a small movement in the corner of the room caught her eyes and Estelle realized that it was one of the four children who was crawling towards his mother and tugging the bottom of Simonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pants to which Simon reacted in a way that shocked Estelle into action as he just shook his leg, sending the child away from him with something like a half-kick.

The backyard door was no match for Estelle’s hundred kilogram massive frame and Simon froze as he saw Estelle burst into the kitchen from the backyard like some avenging Hulk. Estelle grabbed the child whom she put on the couch and then moved on to Simon whom she quickly immobilized against the wall before taking away the belt that he had been using to whip Mireille.

“What the f… is going on here” screamed Estelle who was well-known for her colourful language.

Mireille, as always with her stony demeanour, just glared at Estelle and said nothing. Estelle felt the rage bubble inside her and knew she was close to hitting Simon if nobody would break the silence so she dropped the belt on the ground. Attempting to calm herself down, she said again in a loud voice

“Mireille, put on the lights and can one of you tell me what the f.. is happening here?”.

Simon, eyes downcast feebly responded “I tried to stop her. She would not listen so I had to take the belt”.

“What do you mean take the belt?” raged Estelle. “I saw you using it on Mireille. She was not the one holding it”

“I tried to stop her” said Simon again

“Are you f.. telling me that she was hitting the kids and you tried to stop her?” barked Estelle

Simon paused, looked at Mireille who was turning on the lights, then looked at Estelle again and his expression softened changing back to the Simon they all knew.

“You know me Estelle” he said. “I would not hurt a fly”.

Estelle faltered. She was sure she had seen him kick off his oldest son who had been crawling towards him but then the light had been so dim. Maybe she had imagined it. Could it be that this demented woman had attempted to hurt the children and Simon had then lost it and started hitting her with the same belt she was attempting to use against the children?

What was she thinking? Of course it could not be possible. She turned towards Mireille again who was walking or rather limping slowly back towards them and she got another shock as she took in the swollen closed left eye, the reddened right eye and the gashed cheeks, the slashes across the neck and the cut lips. She felt sick as her gaze went down to the bruised breasts and thighs from the gaping holes in the gown. It was only from Simon’s gasp and Mireille’s cry that she realized that she had increased her pressure against his throat.

“Please, please, let him go” begged Mireille.

Simon, eyes rolling, could not utter a sound and Mireille begged again “Please Estelle, just let him go”.

“What the f… do you mean let him go? Are you going to tell me that you don’t want this murderous b… dead? I don’t know what has been going on between both of you but I have seen enough tonight to know that you should not be here with your children”.

“Where would I go?” said Mireille in an eerily quiet voice

“Anywhere, but the furthest from this f… place” said Estelle. “Are you a f… idiot? Don’t you realize that one day you are going to end up dead?”

“I have nowhere to go” repeated Mireille in her stony toneless voice.

“Of course you have somewhere to go, you can go to your f… mother’s house” yelled Estelle. “Can’t she put you up until the social services find you something where you can stay with your kids?”

“My mother’s been dead for over 5 years Estelle. She passed away before our first son was born” said Mireille in a quiet voice.

“What the f.. “ started Estelle and her voice trailed off as the full horror of the situation started to sink into her brain. She realized then that every time Mireille

had skipped mass it was not because she was at her mother’s house as Simon said but it had probably been because she was in no state to be seen.

Estelle stared in disbelief at Simon, marveling at how he had fooled them all into believing he was a meek good natured fellow while all the while this monster had been abusing his family right under their noses and they had all been sympathizing with him for his miserable life with Mireille. She tightened her grip again without realizing it.

“Let him go Estelle, please” Mireille pleaded again. “It is not his fault, he is ill. He loses his temper because of his illness but then he always regrets and makes amends”

“Like hell he is going to be ill when I have finished with him and you better tell me you’re finished with him too” blurted Estelle.

“Let him go Estelle” repeated Mireille in a firmer voice. “One must always present the other cheek and not rise against one’s spouse. Marriage vows are sacred” she continued.

“Are you a f… lunatic or what” Estelle ranted at her. “What other cheek? The one which is torn apart from the belt handle or the one that is swollen from the beating?

“You don’t understand” Mireille said. “He is sick but I can cure him. Father Mathieu said that I should be patient and obedient and that I should do all I can not to provoke him but to bring into his heart the love of Jesus Christ our Saviour. He

who has given himself to carry all our sins will also bring peace into Simon’s heart and everything will be alright. What God has united no man can separate”

“Nonsense” screamed Estelle. “I knew that Father Mathieu was up to no good, I just did not realize the extent of it. What idiocy has he put into your brains now? If Simon is indeed sick then he needs a psychiatrist, not a wife whom he can beat every time he feels like it. I don’t know anything about your marriage but nothing justifies what he has done to you and nothing justifies what I saw him doing to your oldest son. You must leave this house now and if you don’t do it on your own, I will make it happen”

“Estelle, please, let him go” said Mireille again in a pleading voice. “Social services will not help us throughout. They will only help in the beginning during the time of the police investigation and then we will be left to fend for ourselves. Father Mathieu has already told me how it will be as he has seen such situations so many times before. I am not educated and it will be very difficult for me to find a job. Simon has a good job, he pays for everything. It is not that bad aside from the weekend. Please, Estelle, let him go”.

Estelle slowly released her grip on Simon’s neck and he adjusted his gait, collected himself into his well-natured mask again and seemed about to say something before he froze under the hatred in Estelle’s look and thought the better of it. He retreated slowly to the other end of the room and sat on the couch where Estelle had placed the child earlier.

The child hurriedly dashed out of the couch and towards his mother who winced when he clutched her bare and sore thighs but held him close all the same.

Estelle backed slowly away from both parties until she felt the other wall behind her. Her mind was racing and she could not decide what the best thing to do was. She remembered how in other suburbs there had been cases of drunken husbands and always the children had ultimately been placed in a home because the mother often was deemed incapable of ensuring a decent income for the children or had resorted to prostitution as a profession and the father was considered unfit to take care of his offspring. This could not be happening she thought. Not in their nice quaint suburb with its beautiful gardenias and poinsettias, with its quaint green coloured fences and beautiful hedges. This happened in squalid neighbourhoods where people took drugs and houses were shabby with broken windows and squatter tags across the buildings.

Estelle breathed out a sigh and said in a steely voice “Okay, here is what we are going to do until I have decided what is better. Simon, you are going to ask one of your friends to lodge you for a week or so until I can think more clearly about this whole matter.”

Simon was about to say something when Estelle cut in icily “I don’t care whether you have a friend who will lodge you or not and in fact you can go to hell for all I care but either you are out of this house tonight or I am calling the police immediately. “

Simon grudgingly nodded in acquiescence and Estelle continued “You will change your common bank account tomorrow to Mireille’s sole name and you will open another bank

account for yourself where she will wire half what is in your common bank account now and tomorrow first thing in the morning you will also request your boss to systematically wire half your monthly salary into Mireille’s account.” Simon scowled but nodded yes again.

“Now beat it” growled Estelle before adding “and remember, I am not Mireille and I will always know where to find you so don’t try doing anything funny because I will be coming back to this house and checking on everyone every day.”

Simon went up the stairs to the bedroom where she heard him put some clothes together into a suitcase that he came down with and he then walked towards the front door, opened it, looked back scowling at Mireille and then pulled the door shut behind him.

Estelle then went towards Mireille and proceeded to inch her slowly towards the bathroom where she found a first-aid kit and tended to Mireille’s wounds. Passing the corridor she was surprised to see a sunny picture of a very pretty Mireille in a wedding gown standing all teeth flashing in a smile and hair impeccably shaped into curls around her soft and warm face. At that unexpectedly beautiful sight tears rolled down Estelle’s cheeks as she thought of how much they had misjudged Mireille and never given her a chance to feel welcome in their midst. She thought that if only one of them had been more understanding, more welcoming maybe Mireille would have felt comfortable enough to share with them her situation and they could have helped her earlier. She just could not fathom how year after year this woman had borne that monster one child after another

and carried on in this living hell. She looked again at Mireille who was also looking up at the portrait of her wedding day.

“I used to be pretty, yes and that sometimes can be a curse. Simon did not like men looking at me. He would ask me to dress less provocatively and not to doll myself up to entice their looks.”

When she caught Estelle’s surprised look she added “Yes, I know, I don’t look like I used to doll myself up but I was quite vain you know. I liked wearing pretty things and having my hair curled up nicely. God help me, I used to like it when men thought I was pretty. I never had a proper education you know so there was nothing else for anyone to admire than my looks. My uncle married me off quickly to Simon right after I finished my apprenticeship and I never had a chance to go even to technical school. Simon has a temper because of his medication you know. He does not mean to be nasty, it is just the medication that makes him lose his temper when we are discussing. He is always sorry afterwards.”

Estelle tried to find something comforting to say but being the tough bartender she was she failed to find something comforting to say and all she could do was grunt.

“Father Mathieu also said that a woman should not bring ungodly thoughts into the mind of a man who is not her husband. He said I should repent from having such thoughts and should try to be a better wife for Simon. He said Simon was not responsible for his behaviour and it was the devil’s work putting these ideas of seducing men into my head

which then angered Simon. He said that as I knew Simon’s condition with the medication, I should try to be a better and more Christian wife so as not to provoke him. I tried you know. I tried so hard…” Mireille broke down sobbing.

All those beatings she had taken silently but now, staring up at that beautiful picture of herself taken on a sunny morning when she thought her heart would burst with happiness, she could not bear the anguish she felt now. All those years that had gone by while day after day she was less able to feel any happiness and keener to just not displease Simon, all those hopes crushed and how she had slowly turned from that beautiful sun-kissed smiling girl into this sullen, grey woman.

Estelle held Mireille’s sobbing body gingerly trying not to hurt her more than she was already hurt but it was difficult as she was bruised all over. When finally Mireille’s outburst was over, Estelle half helped half carried her up the stairs and put her in bed before tending to the children. Two of them were fast asleep in the big bed in their room and she cleaned up the oldest before putting him to bed with his siblings. The youngest was also fast asleep in his crib and she marveled at the children’s capacity to not be disturbed by the fuss that had been going on downstairs. They probably were used to such noises and grew so accustomed to it that it did not wake them anymore she thought with a pang of guilt. It was also true that she herself had not heard anything much apart from the pitter patter of feet before she had seen Mireille dashing across. Probably Mireille never made a sound so as to preserve her children as much as she could. Estelle was torn between cursing Mireille for letting this go on for so long and admiring her for trying so hard to make things work despite the dire situation. She was not sure what to do so thought she

should maybe discuss this with someone who had more experience than her with such matters.

The following morning, I sat at the typewriter, writing down the horrors that came out of Estelle’s mouth as the social worker who had brought me along was not very quick at typing. I was a volunteer at the abused women’s shelter at the local Commune near the suburb where Estelle lived. I watched Estelle and Florence as they discussed various options and typed away all what was being discussed my heart beating at the idea that some women could be living in such slavery and misery just a few kilometers from the heart of our lovely international city. Geneva, the city of neutrality, the city of human rights and human rights’ militants where so many immigrants held a hope of a better tomorrow.

Mireille was awarded full custody of her children and the judge ruled that she would keep the house. She started working with Estelle as waitress and people, as if to compensate for their lack of insight earlier, tipped her heavily. Simon did not lose his job and did not go to jail as Mireille did not press charges and there were no hospital records and no police had intervened earlier to have a case to present the general attorney. He was awarded visitation rights but limited to one hour per week and under strict surveillance but he never used those rights. Simon’s boss maintained his job more to help Mireille than for Simon himself. All those who used to like him before and enjoy his company now scrupulously avoided him as they could not understand how any medication could lead a person to behave like that with his family.

I saw Mireille from time to time when I did my volunteer work at the shelter. I used to take down notes while she talked with the social worker and the psychologist and marvel at how she could continue to think that she was to blame for Simonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s reactions. I never saw Simon and never felt the inclination to go and see what he looked like although I did go to meet Estelle or Mireilleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s children a few times when I was not far from the suburb. Every time I entered the suburb I marveled at how people there could have been so oblivious to such human suffering a few meters away from them. I took a seat and looked on from the CafĂŠ-bar as the sun slowly set and a crowd gathered to play rummy. The scent of gardenias filled the air from the nearby pots as dusk slowly fell and I watched Mireille and Estelle smiling at each other and exchanging jokes. Estelle was the only person at whom Mireille smiled but for all others she would only offer a sullen face. I took out my wallet to pay as I got ready to leave the place and head back home. Somehow, I felt that I too shared some of the guilt this suburb felt each time we looked at Mireille and like many others I tipped heavily and sighed with some sense of relief as I stood to leave.

Doll Tale 3 : Leaving is living Matilda

She thought that she would never have the time to leave before he came back. The events of the previous day raced through her mind as colours that would clash at the bottom of a kaleidoscope. The more she thought of escaping, the more she felt petrified. It seemed to her that there was no way out and she felt like a piece of Emmenthal squeezed in a sandwich between the two hot plates of a toaster which inevitably would make her melt, doing away with her.

To leave, to leave, to leave. She brooded over the word to the exasperation of her mind that revolted against her incessant litanies, her tiresome indecision. To leave yes, but to leave without a quest, without the possibility of winningâ&#x20AC;Ś What for? To leave, but how to leave and how to organize oneself, what to do? These thoughts incessantly ran through her mind like an infernal rondo making her feel dizzy.

Matilda was pacing in front of her car and could not bring herself to slip behind the wheel and take to her heels with her baby asleep in his baby seat. She suddenly stopped pacing, unbuckled her baby turned around and went back into the house. It would not do them any good to drive in her condition and she might as well take the train later she thought. She put the toddler back in his crib and he continued to sleep undisturbed. He had suckled his mother for so long that he was completely satisfied and had fallen into a deep, restful sleep. She stroked his cheek before heading down to the kitchen. Mechanically she took

out the broom, vacuum, bucket and various liquids to clean floors and other household items and began to clean.

Everything was a victim of her zealous cleaning from the floor to the ceiling not forgetting the curtains, the dishes and the children’s toys littering the living room floor. She paused for a moment, realizing that she was stacking everything she was tidying into a pile of five. Today’s pain, for some reason, made her mind wander to the digit five.

Five. The five children she would have had if one of them did not fall following a ski accident the year before leaving the twin free to develop in her belly and if the first, a long time ago, had not come out without a sound. Five if that first one, as dead as her heart had not been ejected at five and a half months in a creepy delivery where death triumphed over life. Giving birth to death, trying to smother one’s five senses to keep no memory of that moment and yet having that memory forever etched in one’s mind and through the five senses so alive at that time: the pain of her flesh, the vision of the doctor, of the pale white ceiling, the smell of ammonia and that more characteristic medical scent of hospitals, the sound that did not come, deafening to the ear despite her knowing that no noise would be there and the words, irritatingly encouraging, oppressive, unnecessary of the midwife who kept asking to push again and again because it would soon be over.

She stood up angrily and ran down to the basement where she vented her grief. She felt that she should as if by patriotic inclination go to war against the cobwebs and dust bunnies she had left to accumulate in the basement of her house during the aftermath of her pregnancy. These grey and sad dirtballs that rose out of the basement when she

shook the rugs made her think about the quirky songs of the past that her husband would mention to her and that, for her, were just as crass as those dust bunnies despite the fact that he thought they were funny and light jokes. She furiously shook the carpets which seemed to release a never ending trail of dirt in the air. How much dirt could these rugs still conceal she thought angrily.

She thought to herself that if she had known before she would have got rid of that gunk for it was not a light joke but a solid reality of today. Did he say a slight madness of yesterday? No, a reality of today, she thought banging the carpet she still held while her tears mingled freely with the particles of dirt coming out of the carpet and fell heavily to the ground or caused the dust to be again made prisoner of the carpet. This floor was really going to keep a very vivid trace of her battle she thought. Everything had been removed, dusted, polished and re-shelved.

She took a deep breath and walked towards the kitchen in a daze where she rinsed her hands and mechanically prepared three sandwiches for the children coming home from school hungry and their nanny who would accompany them home before she left for the day. She then turned towards the mop realizing she had forgotten to remove the water on the floor. As she seized the mop, she reached towards the refrigerator to try to close the door before falling on her back nursing her elbow from the electric shock. She had forgotten that there was still that bad contact problem that her husband had not taken care of and that she had been standing with bare feet in the middle of a pool of water. The current passing through her body had dazed her but had also stopped dead in its tracks her furious housewifeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s urge. She stood up, gingerly feeling her heavy and painful

hand and proceeded to finish drying the water to prevent one of the children having to endure the same incident.

She walked slowly down the stairs to the basement to see if she had forgotten something. The cardboard box she had left in the middle of the room not knowing if she should bring its content up or leave it down caught her eye. It was a box full of old vinyl albums and on the top of the pile there was an album of ABBA and something broke in her at the sight of this palindrome. ABBA made her think of ABC and she had missed the ABC of all the signs, the ABC of sniffing those clues of treachery was what she had missed out. She grabbed the disc as well as all the others inside the box and began methodically to break them into two.

She then proceeded to the cellar, opened the door with the key hanging on a nail in the wall to the left side of the handle and looked at the bottles that adorned the wall: the “grand cru” bordeaux for special occasions were rubbing shoulders with “côtes du Rhone”, “blanc de blanc”, bottles of champagne, a few rare costly burgundy wines among other cheaper wines. She did not drink but if there was an occasion to celebrate she thought bitterly, it was this one. How to solve this dilemma? She took the first bottle of overpriced Champagne that met her nervous fingers and that her husband had asked her not to open unless he gave her the permission to do so. “Yes, what a good idea”, she said to herself, “let us pop the cork of the champagne like in olden times slicing its top off” but she realized that the Samurai sword was in the bedroom so she resorted to the wall. She drank a few drops cutting herself at the edge of the lips in the process. She took another bottle, a Chateau Margaux with a deep robe that went crashing against the white

wall of the wine cellar. Many other bottles suffered a similar fate as she continued her relentless task.

When she left the cellar, the brackish unsavoury pond that decorated its floor kept emitting bubbles that she left to tremble and burst in the dark by turning off the light. She closed the door behind her and leaned against it, rubbing her temples with her fingers that were numb from that mechanical task earlier. She heard above her head footsteps and laughter as the children came home from school with their nanny. She looked at herself in the mirror of the cabinet of the cellar and was shocked to see her livid face smeared with tears and soot. Slowly she walked towards the basin of the laundry room and began to clean her sticky face and hands. She then stripped off her soiled clothes, took a light dress which was folded in a basket of items to be ironed on top of the washing machine and slipped it on. She then climbed two by two the stairs that separated her from her children and rushed toward them with open arms. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Mom! â&#x20AC;? they cried in chorus and she pressed them against her heart.

As always they had so much to tell her and she was always surprised and amazed that they could have so much to tell her each time they returned from school. Yet the day before she had listened to their stories and marveled at how different they were from the day before that. Every day they experienced exciting new events and every day, they like her marveled at being able to experience such interesting events.

In his room, their brother had just woken up from a deep sleep after his vigorous suckling at noon. He let out a long wail of one who is hungry again and Matilda and her children

looked at each other with a knowing air. “You’ll have to feed again this greedy little boy,” said her daughter with a mischievous grin. Matilda smiled softly and extended a hand towards her. “Will you come and help me change him?” she asked her daughter. Her eldest son followed loudly proclaiming that he too wanted to take care of his brother and that changing babies was not a task reserved for women. All three climbed the stairs leading to the plaintive sound of the little greedy one who was claiming his own personal pantry on feet. In three, they were quick to change his diaper, then the two children watched their mother settle into the big chair and her eldest put the nursing pillow under her elbow while her daughter adjusted the blankets around her little brother.

Matilda gently stroked the baby’s cheek and the small mouth opened to grasp the nourishing nipple. And while life flowed in the gulps that her son took, Matilda felt life gently flow back again into her heart as she devised a plan to leave.

Doll Tale 4 : In Every Shade

Faten grabbed her veil and feverishly pulled it over her head as she heard her husband closing the gate and nearing the entrance door. I stared at her puzzled as we were only females save for a young teenage boy who had come with his mother, one of the ladies seated in the midst of our group. She gave me a half-warning half-pleading look and then rushed to the entrance door to welcome her husband.

When Mounir entered the house, all the ladies pulled their scarves over their heads and some even partly over the side of their faces holding the scarf in check with their mouths. I was almost the only one who was not dressed for the occasion it seemed save for one of the ladies who had brought me there the first time and who wore a headscarf that was tied towards the back instead of the front unlike the other ladies whose scarves were tied elaborately to cover the ears, full hair and neck. Mounir looked around approvingly as the women cowered shyly bidding him welcome back to his home and apologizing for keeping his wife so busy with their â&#x20AC;&#x153;idle talkâ&#x20AC;? that she could not tend to her husband properly. His gaze slowly reached me and his smile turned into a sullen frown as he took in the uncovered hair and my western attire. He turned towards his wife and looked at her disapprovingly as she took his jellaba and his bag while he removed his slippers and proceeded into the dining room for his meal. Faten turned again with the pleading look and I reluctantly stood up to leave as I was visibly not welcome anymore in this house.

As I started out from the room, I sensed more than I saw the ladies disapproving look follow me. Just minutes before we had been friends, united in the bonding of our shared stories of how Tunis used to be, of tales of the elders, of times when women were free because Bourguiba had given us the freedom and a voice to reckon with and of the wonders that Tunis had ahead if only things would finally settle down. Of course we did not agree on everything but it was fantastic to be able to share with these ladies a part of my own history while we tried to adapt as much as we could to the foreign country that we were in.

Faten was the second of the Tunisian ladies I had got to know through Houria, the lady who had brought me over the first time. She and Mounir had been married for a few years and she was a little concerned as she was not able to bear him any child, let alone a son. The doctor she had gone to see as per Mounirâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s instructions had informed them that because of her heart condition combined with her anaemia she would not be able to bear a child without a high risk to her health. Besides, as there was a history of trisomy 21 or Down syndrome in the family, Mounir finally decided it was not worth the hassle to try. Ever since the doctor had given them the news about her condition, however, Mounir had never been the same with Faten.

When one looked at Faten today, one would never imagine that this was the same girl who had fought with her classmates in barricades against the uprising Islamists called Ikhwan Jihad in Tunisia when Bourguiba was still ruling. Head uncovered, wearing western attire which was quite close to the body, she had claimed angrily in the face of the Ikhwan her right to continue studying in the attire she chose to wear. Like many of us, she too had believed that nobody had the right to force us to wear what they thought was decent attire for a woman in order to be allowed to study alongside the young boys at the universities.

The Ikhwan used to abuse us verbally and some even threatened us in the faculties if we showed up at class wearing western attire that they deemed unfit for a proper Muslim. After the initial stages of threatening, they had taken the habit of making barricades in front of the university sections and stopping any girl wearing “unfit attire” from going to class. Many of us had created identical barricades to breach their barricades (as they usually did not want to have women touch them) and forced our way through to be able to attend our classes. Soon enough some of the encounters had started becoming physical and often the police was called to separate both sections and this could end up in some form of violence or the other. Hence, Faten’s parents who were a very progressive lot had sent her to Geneva before the time I had gone there to pursue her education unfettered. I had decided through similar reasoning, although other circumstances had also played a part, that it was time for me to leave the country as over and above wearing the “unfit attire”, I also had a very Hindu name.

When Faten and I had met the first time, we had shared those stories and grown an instant liking of each other because of that bond although she was fully veiled by then. She had shown me pictures friends had clicked of her facing the barricades and it had been quite hard to equate that beautiful slim girl with the dancing blond loose curls, closecut dress stopping just above the knees and perfectly made up face with the veiled and stern-faced woman in front of me whose face was devoid of any make-up. When she removed her head gear though, one still could see the resemblance although her body and face had become quite voluminous.

She always kept preciously hidden those pictures of the times before in a drawer where Mounir could not see them as they angered him. Only pictures of them together, she wearing her head gear, adorned the walls and even in her wedding pictures she had her head gear on save for a few which were hidden in the bedroom and where one could still see the Faten of the barricades. Apparently Mounir had made it a condition of their marriage that she would start wearing the veil as befitted a Muslim woman, especially in a foreign country where everyone had looser values and men were more pressing with women unlike â&#x20AC;&#x153;back homeâ&#x20AC;? as far as Mounir was concerned.

When Faten and Mounir had got married, she had been in the country for quite a few years and had by chance been able to get a good job so she had a proper residency visa.

I personally believed that that was the main factor in determining their marriage as Mounir had been visiting trying to land an engineering job and take up residency in Geneva which he was refused when he then met Faten and courted her for a short period after which he had asked for her hand without even meeting her parents. It was only after they both agreed on the terms that Faten and he had made the trip back to Tunisia where they got married despite Faten’s parents’ fears. Indeed, they were quite concerned because of Mounir’s insistence that she be veiled even for the wedding ceremony while they believed their daughter to be free-spirited and especially given her prior experience with the Ikhwan. Faten, however, seemed totally smitten by Mounir and was willing to do anything he would ask of her.

The rush in going ahead with the marriage had been such that Mounir had not met with some of Faten’s family, namely her brother who had Down syndrome and whom the family did not readily introduce to others and a few cousins who also had the same syndrome. Upon seeing them at the marriage, Mounir had only scowled at them but decided it was better not to say anything. Shortly after the marriage, Mounir and Faten had quickly done with all the formalities at the Swiss embassy and travelled back to Geneva where Mounir had applied for a residency visa under the spousal unit rules.

Initially Faten had been able to work after the marriage – although Mounir had made her stop wearing make-up to work – and had to continue anyway as that was one of the

governing conditions of her being able to maintain her visa but shortly she was told that if she applied for the permanent residency visa (type C visa) she would get it because of her good position and the time she had spent in the country and she of course informed Mounir. With a permanent visa, it was no longer required for a person to justify having reasonable means to stay in the country and she could even apply on a long-term basis for unemployment benefits.

Shortly after Mounir found a job and was confirmed in his position, he had asked Faten to resign from her job and stay at home as he convinced her it was more befitting for a woman to take care of her husband and avoid exposing herself to the looks of her male colleagues. He had attended a work party and had seen how many of Fatenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s male colleagues looked at her despite her veil as they had known her before with a different attire and had found her very attractive. This probably was the decisive factor and he could not just ask her to change jobs as it would not be possible for him to offer a plausible explanation of why he would want her to do that.

Shortly after she had stopped working, Faten had started putting on quite some weight but Mounir did not seem too concerned until the point in time that she had a health scare because of her heart condition and they had found out that she had to be careful with her weight while also finding out that it would be better to avoid having children. From then on, Mounir chose what she would eat as well like he had already chosen before how she

would dress, whom she could be friends with and where they would spend summer vacations, etc.

When I had first met Mounir through Faten it was a total coincidence as she had not meant for me to meet him. We were both sitting having tea and sharing memories when all of a sudden the front door opened and Mounir entered with Faten immediately going into an agitated state and fussing around him as he eyed me warily, not able to remit my origins clearly. Faten then told him my name and his face took on a peculiar look while he asked her how come he had never met me before and how come she had met me as I was visibly not a Muslim Tunisian lady from the mosque where she went. He was totally taken aback when I started answering him in the Tunisian dialect that we had met at ladies section of the small place adjacent to the mosque where Arabic lessons were taught and where some Tunisians would meet to have a cup of tea. Of course I did not tell him that I had actually been to his house several times before and played the role of someone who had just arrived there for the first time. Faten gave me a grateful look and carried on tending to Mounir while I stood up and started bidding farewell before Mounir stopped me and said that I should carry on as visibly I was going to get a good view of what it meant to be a good Muslim and he thought it would be fantastic for his wife to be the one converting a non believer. I was about to voice that my mother was a Tunisian muslim but was stopped by Fatenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s warning look so I just left it at voicing that my mother was a Tunisian. Mounir automatically assumed that my mother was one of the rare Christian or Jewish Muslims in Tunisia and I did not correct him either way and thankfully

did not have to continue the conversation as he was hungry and Faten whisked him off to have his meal while I finally made it to the door after hurriedly saying goodbye.

It was only later on that he had found out about my origins and like many others made it a point to always ask me all sorts of pointless and tasteless questions about my origins, my parents, the reasons for the choice of my name amongst other questions that seemed to trouble immensely many people who did not understand how my siblings and I could have come about to exist. Mounir was in two minds always about my friendship with his wife as on the one hand he believed that she would be able to â&#x20AC;&#x153;convertâ&#x20AC;? me properly in case I was not a proper Muslim and on the other hand he was afraid of the bad influence I could be for her. Therefore, depending on his mood and often upon my attire, I was either welcome or unwelcome in his house.

After I left the house, I went to the park to play chess as I often did when I needed to sort my thoughts. It annoyed me to see Faten so submissive and subdued while I knew from some of the times we had spoken that she still had that fire in her and missed working, the interaction with the western world and the possibility of doing something meaningful with her life. In the beginning she had been able to cope with the situation as she had hoped to be able to have children and dedicate herself to their upbringing but with that possibility out of the way, she felt useless and forlorn before Mounir had come up with the solution of having her give Arabic lessons to foreign women converting to Islam.

Although it was not exactly what she had hoped for, Faten was happy with this part-time opportunity which allowed her to breathe a bit and leave the sphere of her house to meet with others and interact with them. It was a limited interaction though as the ladies converting to Islam were also entering a very self-limiting phase of their lives, not because of them taking up Islam but because of the beliefs of the men who were marrying them and the way they interpreted the teachings of Islam. For example Islam did not require a woman to be fully veiled including covering the face, nor did it require women to stop working as even the prophetâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wife had been a businesswoman and worked freely in a male environment. However, these men had persuaded their would-be Swiss wives that this was the only way they could be good Muslims and for some of us Tunisian women who believed in a different form of Islam, it was always surprising to see these blond blueeyed or green-eyed girls coming in fully cloaked and lifting their veils to be able to sip their tea when they were in the CafĂŠ outside with their husbands and not in the female section of the Arab Cultural Centre. From what happened with most of those marriages later on, it was easy to understand that the main reason for the marriage was getting permanent residency or the Swiss passport as shortly after obtaining those, the men usually had divorced their wives and brought a precious virgin from their home towns whom they had wedded shortly after their divorce.

I thought about how Faten had come to be so submissive and I felt anger well in me, replacing the irritation I had felt before. It had taken a while for her to confide in me but

after she had found out that I helped as a volunteer in a shelter for women who had been subjected to different forms of abuse, she had started telling me her story but always refused to come to the shelter or take any form of legal action. Apparently shortly after they had got married, Mounir had been quite rough with her as he had found out that she was not a virgin. Had he asked her the question before their marriage she would have of course told him but as he had never asked her this because he had been so keen on getting married quickly, she had never volunteered the information upfront. In reality, it probably had not struck her as important at all as her parents were not very conservative and she had been raised in a way that allowed her to keep her free-spirited nature throughout the years of growing up.

Somehow, Mounir interpreted it thinking she had tricked him into getting married with her without giving him access to this knowledge. I thought wryly that that was a good tit for a tat if she had done it on purpose as he certainly had not let her in on the fact that he was tricking her into marrying him under the pretext of love while visibly all he wanted was to secure his residency visa in Geneva and land a job there. Unlike the others who were willing to marry a foreign woman if need be, he on the other hand had probably deemed himself lucky to have a woman from his home country offering him that possibility. After he had found out and the initial roughness, he had however accepted the fact and was not really rough with her but shortly after they had found out that it was preferable to avoid having children, Mounir had gotten rougher with her.

Faten had also found out that he had started asking around for a second wife and though it was not allowed in Tunisia where the law did not permit a man to be legally married to more than one wife, he had apparently the intention of getting married in Tunisia and having children who would be raised there. The first time he had made a trip to Tunisia without her one summer, she knew that it was probably to go get married. There were always mouftis willing to marry a man to more than a wife and even if it was not subsequently registered in the official records, many in villages were willing to get married to a man who already had another wife as long as the marriage was celebrated grandly and everybody throughout the village was aware of it. It was fine even when the first wife was in the country so obviously a man with a first wife who was not even in the country was even better as long as he could pay the mahr and maintain his wife. I suspected that it was probably to face the additional expenses that Mounir had arranged for Fatenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s parttime job as he took her whole salary, was the one who decided what she was to spend for their household and was very tight with the money.

The winter after what she had assumed was the trip for his second marriage, he had decided to go unexpectedly to Tunisia without her and she had told me that she had understood and accepted with a heavy heart that it was probably because of the birth of his first child. Neither of them voiced anything about the matter although each knew the other was aware that the secret was no longer a secret, nor had it ever really been one. Faten bore the pain of this double blow of fate with resignation and silence somehow deeming it a necessary evil to redeem her own incapacity of birthing a child.

After the birth of his child, however, Mounir had become more abusive with Faten and while she did not understand why as she had expected this would make him a happier and less abusive person, I suspected the reason but kept it to myself as she needed more a shoulder to cry on than someone who would explain things to her. I had already seen on various occasions that it was pointless to try to make her see things the way they were as that only depressed her and it was therefore better just to be there to comfort her and assist her with her other day-to-day administrative matters.

I marveled at her dedication and capacity to love Mounir despite all what was happening as she was doing everything she could to make sure that Mounir too would get the permanent residency visa like herself. It was not an automatic process as you did not get a permanent residency visa C when you were married to someone who had it but stayed on the B permit for a few years after which you could apply for the C permit. She was therefore diligently processing all the required documentation to ensure that Mounir would get his C permit. I shrugged my shoulders and proceeded with the game as my chess partner nudged me to carry on with my move and stop day-dreaming.

After that afternoon, it became more difficult to meet Faten as she usually told me she had other events planned and it was difficult to get her attention when she was teaching or to get her to stay back for a cup of tea at the centre. I also sensed that people at the

centre were less welcoming with me than they had been before and attributed the change in attitude to Mounirâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s influence. Being the stubborn person that I am, I still carried on anyway going to the centreâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s small outlet and having a cup of tea there all the while trying to have some time chatting with Faten or checking on her indirectly.

One week, however, I neither saw her at the centre nor was anyone able to give me news about her so I called her at home and found a neighbor there who told me she was at the hospital. Fearing she had had a heart attack I rushed to the emergency section only to be told that she was in another section and was recovering well. I went to meet her and my heart welled with sadness as I realized that she had just gone through a severe beating and I knew instantly who was the culprit as I held her hand and squeezed it. Tears rolled down our faces as we looked at each other in dismay, her for me seeing her in the state she was in after all the times I had told her it could finally come to a very serious situation if she let the smaller abuse carry on while she kept shrugging that possibility off as being unlikely and me for actually seeing it had happened to her.

Neither of us said a word but just stayed holding each othersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; hands for a long while and shortly after that it was not visiting time anymore so I left after leaving near her bedside the flowers I had quickly grabbed on my way to the hospital and kissing her on the forehead as her cheek was swollen.

During my subsequent visits I saw that she was slowly recovering not only her health but also her free-spirited ways. She told me that she was going to file for a divorce as this was anyway what Mounir wanted and had caused the argument between them. Only, she would not divorce in the way he wanted where he had been trying to persuade her, blow aiding the persuasion where words lacked it, to renounce her alimony rights. In fact, she would hire a lawyer to ask for the highest alimony rights possible and her only regret was that he was now on final track for getting his C permit, which she then realized was the only reason he had continued to stay with her despite his marriage to the other woman and the birth of his child. He had apparently always had the intention of getting his C permit and then divorcing her to make his marriage legitimate in Tunisia so that he could then file the papers to be able to bring his wife and child to Geneva.

Her body shook and her voice was full of rage as she described how he first tried to persuade her that according to sharia she should not ask for alimony because she had not borne him any children. When she had first refused and mentioned that not only had she given up her mahr when they had got married but she had also given up a really well paid job and could not survive on the part-time job she had at the centre, he had asked her to go back to her parents who surely were wealthy enough to take care of her. Upon her insistence that it was his duty to take care of her as her parentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; duty had ended when she got married to him, he had carelessly replied that she could just sort herself out and find another job. He had added jeeringly that surely some of her previous male colleagues

would be happy to help her out although she would have to lose a few kilos if she wanted to still interest them.

From one escalation to another, he had ended up using what he thought was the infallible persuasion of the physical blows but this time she did not bend and by the time they had finished the persuasion session, the police brought over by the neighbours alerted by the initial cries had had to rush her to the emergency ward given her state. I listened quietly steeling myself inwardly not to say a word, suppressing my urge to tell her that I had warned her that this could happen. I felt ashamed at the urge to tell her this like I felt ashamed that I had not just told her at that time how I suspected him of only staying married with her for the papers.

When Faten finally left the hospital a couple of weeks later, she very quickly filed for divorce and with all the testimonials of the neighbours and the police complaint, she had no problems in getting a clean-cut divorce with a proper alimony settlement in her favour. She could have stayed on in the house they had shared if she had wished to but she felt that the place would bring too many bad memories to mind and chose a small one bedroom near her new job instead.

Several friends from her previous job stood in for her so she never needed to lodge at the stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s expense or go back to her husbandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s house while her divorce was being sorted out. Fatenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lawyer had informed her during the divorce process that she could actually oppose the procedure for her husband to get the C permit even though it was in its final stages but she thought it better to just get on with her divorce, forget the whole matter to turn the page and start her life over again. She probably also did not think it a good idea to make things difficult for him as he would then be in a vindictive mood towards her and her family back in Tunisia and God only knew what he was capable of doing if he lost the opportunity of getting his C permit because of her.

As it turned out later on, there was one final requirement and that was the signature of the wife on the document confirming that they were still married, which she obviously could not do as they were filing for a divorce so Mounir had gone back home empty handed from his final meeting despite the paper that he had received congratulating him that his papers were approved for getting the C permit. Therefore funnily enough after all that waiting through a marriage he had planned just for getting residency in Geneva, Mounir did not get his C permit through his marriage with Faten although he had got his B permit through it but he eventually did get the C permit at some stage later on as Faten had not pressed charges that would have sent him to jail. I thought he was very lucky to have got away with that as I believed he would never have been able to get a C permit if he had done jail time.

The last time I met Faten in Geneva, she told me she had been dating one of the westerners in her job, Hans, who was an expatriate from the Netherlands. She believed he cared a lot for her and would want to get married to her as he would be shortly moving back to the Netherlands and wanted her to accompany him there. Being the spontaneous person I am, I blurted out the question that was burning my lips “Do you love him?” as I knew she was a very sensitive, emotional person and needed a lot of warmth and affection in her life. She looked at me with a mixture of sadness and defiance and said softly “No I don’t. I have seen love in its every shade and am not willing to be in that state anymore. Hans loves me and that is enough for me. I only need to be loved now”. She stopped as she saw my pained gaze as I realized the sorrow that accompanied the words and put her hand on my shoulder adding “Who knows? Maybe in time I will love Hans. He is after all a loveable person”.

Hans and Faten had a quick civil marriage and left shortly after that. In the beginning we emailed each other frequently but then as time went by, the emails were less frequent until they became purely conventional exchanged only for the holiday season year after year. One day, though, I was surprised by a couple of radiant attachments that accompanied an email from her out of the holiday season. The first was a full length picture of Hans, Faten and a child in a baby stroller who was apparently their own. I gazed at the three of them smiling, holding hands with the baby girl in the middle and felt such happiness transpire through the picture. The second was a picture of Faten with the baby in her arms visibly shortly after the birth as she was wearing a hospital blouse and she

looked tired but happy and the third was a picture of Hans and Faten smiling and kissing each other on the lips over the head of the baby girl who seemed to be cooing.

Faten wrote that she was sorry she had not written earlier but it had been difficult for her as she had had so much to do during the pregnancy and after the birth. Lina, the baby girl had Down syndrome and as they had gone through the possibilities, the risks when speaking to the doctors, Hans had told Faten that he wanted to have a child with her and that it would not matter to him if the child had Down syndrome so Faten had been encouraged by his enthusiasm and they had gone ahead with their trials. When they found out during the pregnancy that the baby would have Down syndrome it was a shock for Faten nevertheless but Hans had coaxed Faten into not having an abortion as she would have wanted initially because she was not sure either of them could handle such a child.

After the birth of the child, it had been a very difficult time for Faten while she tried to accept the baby despite the fact that she had grown with a brother who had the same syndrome but Hans was always there to take care of Lina when Faten could not bring herself to tend to the baby because she was submerged with sadness. A couple of weeks afterwards, Faten was however fully attached to her child and marveled at every progress the baby girl made.

I read with awe and admiration as well as respect for her honesty what she recounted of her battle with her beliefs as her parents while being open-minded had still hidden her brother often because they were not sure how to handle the social interaction he would have with others in Tunisia. I read on with tears of how the love of the child had grown slowly inside her heart and how her love of Hans had grown slowly together with the love for her child as she saw how selflessly he devoted himself to both of them.

One particular set of sentences caught my attention and I often think of it when I despair about the lack of love in the world â&#x20AC;&#x153;I thought I had seen love in its every shade but now I know that it is not true. It is limitless and every day I discover with Hans and Lina how you can always find a new side to it, a new shade. As long as Hans and Lina are by my side, I know I can spread my wings and fly because they are my strength and my peace. I want to find new ways to love them every day, in every shadeâ&#x20AC;?.

Doll Tales 5: I am a flower

She was always at the same corner of Rue de Berne although at times she also stood in Rue Sismondi when it was far too cold as she usually stood in a miniskirt with her midriff exposed most of the time. Although a fake fur coat covered her shoulders and back, some days the biting cold would chill her to the bone and she knew she could not close the coat if she wanted to earn enough income before the night was through.

It was at Rue Sismondi that she caught him looking at her intently from the small window of his apartment. When their eyes met, he would often venture out and hover around, visibly lovesick and dumbstruck, eyeing her shyly when he thought she was not looking. At the beginning she had taunted him playfully hoping he could become a client but then one night she had peeped in and the dingy room she had seen him in convinced her otherwise. Sometimes some of his friends came to fetch him and slowly week after week she gathered that his name was Jean, that he was French and a student in law school about to graduate. That proved to be the final turnoff and she stopped even looking at him as she knew students were hopelessly broke.

She remembered with some nostalgia her own beginnings at the faculty of arts where she had wanted to become a journalist before all of this happened. That Devil of Branislav, if it had not been for him, she would still be studying but now it was too late to change

anything. It was not so bad after all she thought, only the beginning had been tough but she had got used to it now. She stared across the street at the feathered hat hiding his face but not hiding the cigar and its red glimmer in the night and her jaw clenched. If there was one person she hated in the world it was Branislav. One day she would get back at him but not now. For now, her beloved Sacha and her mother were doing well. She had got them a house in the countryside with her earnings and so many useful as well as beautiful things to put there. Twelve long years between verbal abuse and beatings until Branislav had finally agreed to give her more than 60% of her earnings of each night. The money flowed incredibly with all these tight lipped Swiss whose wives could not even do a decent job of satisfying their husbands at least monthly she had her fair share of lonely men and regulars even though competition was becoming fiercer by the day.

On nights when she had felt too cold, she would think about the wonderful chimney Sacha and her mother had built in the country house and the wonderful and plush green sofas that they had set in front of it and used to sit in watching the fire as it warmed their feet. She had of that scene a withered photograph many times folded and unfolded so much so that it was tearing at the creases. She held it close to her heart and kissed it with fervor, carefully putting it on her night table before lying down with any client.

A small movement caught her attention and stopped her chain of thoughts. Jean was coming towards her with a piece of cake and some tea. She was all too grateful for this

unexpected mercy as she had not eaten yet and it was really chilly. She gulped down the tea, partially burning her tongue as she did and ate the cake hungrily as he watched her. Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s your name he asked and she was surprised to find that his voice was strong and beautiful, not at all the soft meek voice she expected given his behavior and lanky frame. Did he think he was entitled just because of a miserable tea and a piece of cake? Her eyes shot deadly rays at him but she said nothing merely gulping down the remainder of tea. He nodded, slowly retreating and lifted both arms palms outstretched in a hopeless gesture or perhaps to say he meant no harm and grinned mouthing â&#x20AC;&#x153;I love youâ&#x20AC;?. There was something endearing about his grin. He reminded her right then of Sacha.

Jasmine but you can call me Jas, she said in a low voice and this time he seemed surprised. He probably expected her to have that hoarse voice that most of the women on these streets had from hollering too much and countless Gitanes smoked to the very last bit almost to the end of the paper.

She did not smoke however and was never keen on drinks either. All her money was meticulously put aside since the day she had been given a share of her earnings and every time she had sent it back to her home in Gori Georgia where her mother made good use of it. At first Branislav had offered to have it sent to her home using a favourable rate but she knew he was no good and would actually use her money and pretend to have sent it. Even after Sacha had died and her mother was at the old age home and could no

longer take care of the house at the countryside she continued sending money home instead of using it on drink, smoke or even anything fancy for herself.

Jean on the other hand seemed to like smoking. She had watched him from the corner of her eye snuff out countless cigarettes as he sat watching her. She did not care much. We all die one day she thought to herself. Sacha was there one day and then one day he had died, not even waiting for her to return and live at least a few years with him before he died. We all die, some quicker than others she thought bitterly as she remembered how some of her classmates had died that day when the bombshell had fallen in the middle of the classroom. She had been lucky to have been away to the toilet and when she came back all that met her was death and desolation as some of her friends lay there dead and others mutilated. If this was the way Jean wanted to go then it was his problem not hers. She had seen enough death in her homeland and never understood why people would want to welcome say even call for death. She had been lucky and the times when shells were being dropped on her hometown were now merely a memory. It was not the case of many of her neighbours either whom the shells had killed or mutilated like her classmates. She had been very lucky indeed. Kurta had been the siege of many battles and ultimately Sacha and her mother had decided to move to the countryside of Gori where they had stayed several years before Sachaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s death.

Jean offered her a cigarette and she refused saying she did not smoke which earned her yet another curious stare from him. He put out a hand and touched her cheek softly even as she was drawing back.

You should not, he said with that same grave and soothing voice. You are a flower and all a flower needs is sun, water and the perfect soil. You are Jasmine after all and it has a heavenly scent, you are a beautiful flower and I love you even if I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have the money to be with you.

The way he said it made something move inside her. The memory of Sachaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s smile flashing at her while he proposed shot through her mind. She smiled both at the memory and at Jean before pushing him away. She had just realised that she had missed out on two of her regular clients who had walked past and thinking she was transacting with Jean they had moved further ahead to one of the newer girls. She ran towards the second one who was not yet engrossed in bargaining and flashed her midriff at him.

It was Pascal, one of her older regulars who could hardly do anything at all yet she made him believe that he was being fantastic and moaned and bit her lip faking it discreetly enough that he actually believed it was real. He looked relieved that she was free after all. These younger girls did not quite get his touch and they just placidly waited which

made it even more difficult for him. Jas was something else, she was an artist and he felt on top of the world with her. Sometimes he would even ask her to come away with him to some nice place he would rent for her promising he would take care of her but Jasmine could not care less for that life of safety. She knew she would earn very little and ultimately he would probably get tired of her like he had got tired of his wife and she would be left with nothing much. Her safety lay here, in working and gathering enough to retire after a few more years going back to Gori, to her mother and to Sacha even though he was dead now. She would then spend the rest of her days sitting in those green sofas, watching the fire warm her feet and cracking nuts to feed her mother with and have her mother feed her like when she was a child. She would get her out of that nursing home and take care of her. Perhaps if things went well she could even marry again, someone calm and pleasant like Sacha had been.

Pascal was his usual pleasant and unobtrusive self but after he had finished he fidgeted about and seemed to want to stay behind, unlike himself as he usually left almost immediately after. She reminded him that the night was young and that she needed to go get other customers but he raised a hand silencing her.

I am dying Jas, he said, in a resigned voice.

She looked at him, some pity stirring in her but not enough to make her want to sit there listening to him instead of earning her money.

I am so sorry but I have to go, she said in a soft voice. If you wish, you can stay a few minutes to compose yourself but when I whistle it means I have found a client and you will have to leave before we enter the room.

I am rich you know, he said sharply. I can give you a lot of money, you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t need to leave now.

Why would you be wearing these clothes then Pascal if you were rich, she said softly gesturing towards his corduroy pants and faded shirt and coat.

I did not want my wife to spend it all so I always pretended I did not have much but there is a lot, really a lot, he added. Now I am going to die and she will waste it all with those vultures of children she has from her first marriage. I accepted them even though they were unruly adolescents and raised them paying for them as if they were my own but they never loved me, only saw me as a cash machine, paying for their bills. They never even respected me, ridiculing my height and age. I know I am not tall and am much older than their mother but I tried so hard to be kind with them; they never accepted me though. Now I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want them to have all that money, they would not use it well. I want you to have it, all of it. Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been

kind to me over the years. I know you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t love me but you have shown me more kindness and affection than my wife ever had in a very long time. I knew she had married me only as a meal ticket and as support for her children but I was grateful at the beginning to finally have a family of my own. I never knew then that it would be so horrible year after year.

Jasmine looked at him feeling sorry for him but also anxiously stole a glance at his watch. It was getting late and she was not sure he was inventing all of this. He saw the hesitation in her eyes and took out a small key from his pocket as well as a thick wad of several thousand Swiss franc notes.

I ask of you that you come with me and I will show you that I am not lying he said. This is the key of a safe in UBS that has all the papers and all the cards of the various bank accounts I have opened in the past and where I have stashed all my money from the time I was a jeweler. My wife never knew about those times and I am thankful now that I never told her. She always thought I was simply a retired teacher. This money is for you immediately for now, to compensate your time and so that you will worry less about earning for the night. In the bank accounts I have twenty million Swiss francs and I want you to have all of it but on one condition. I have maybe a couple more months or so to live but I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to live them. I want to go within a couple of days but with you by my side, living as though you are my

wife. I have already rented the place and will take you there now if you come with me.

Jasmine did not hesitate one instant as the amount he was offering her then and there was enough to cover several months of income. She did not really care whether the story about the money was true and was willing to do it just for the amount he was waving in front of her. Soon enough found herself in a small but cozy apartment where there was a huge refrigerator and a TV as well as a whole living room with a small corner as a dining room. She had never seen anything so wonderful in her whole life. She hugged Pascal and set about to be what he expected of her.

You are a flower and must be handled delicately, he said smiling on the second day and he seemed younger and happy. His smile almost reminded her of Sacha and Jean. Tomorrow I will buy the morphine and you must help me so I can inject it properly. My old hands shake too much he said with an apologetic smile. Today we will go to the bank and I will show you everything.

Jasmine merely smiled. She did not truly believe that he had the money but what a shock expected her that afternoon. He did have all that money and she felt faint at the idea that she was about to receive this vast sum. She could not even begin to imagine what she

could possibly do with so much money. She had never in her life imagined what it would be possible to do with even one hundredth of such an amount. Not even in her wildest dreams could she have even thought of this. As they came out of the bank, she saw Branislav’s feathered hat and her heart froze. Was he following them? Had he heard anything?

She looked at Pascal but he seemed oblivious to the presence of Branislav whom he had only identified as some bodyguard she kept not too far from her home. The days of actual pimping were gone and even though she had been subjected to Branislav’s harsh taming twelve years ago, today all prostitutes were officially free to do as they please so he could not attack her in broad daylight. She was supposedly registered as an official sex worker without a pimp. Obviously everybody pretended the old pimping system did not work anymore but the ladies still gave a significant amount of their income (most of the time over half of it) for the protection of their “bodyguards”. Over my dead body she thought to herself. He would never have a dime of that fortune she was about to get.

When she looked again Branislav had disappeared and she breathed a sigh of relief. Perhaps it was by coincidence that he had been there. Nobody came to the apartment and she started fully relaxing. The next morning, they went to the pharmacy where Pascal had a friend and he got his dose of morphine. Jasmine asked him if he was sure he wanted to do this and he nodded firmly yes.

I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to be a decrepit old man dying of cancer and losing all my teeth and hair in a useless effort to delay the inevitable. The cancer is generalised now and it is all over my body. I am too old to suffer one surgery after another before I even reach the chemotherapy time. I just want to go my own way. All I ask is that you stay by me and have me buried appropriately afterwards.

I will, said Jasmine.

She felt a pang of guilt wondering if she was not protesting more simply because she would get so much money when he died or because she truly respected his wishes. Thinking back to how important free will was for her and how much she had suffered during her taming when she had been deprived of her free will, she reckoned she actually did want to respect his wishes.

Jasmine sat next to the bed full of white rose petals (his favourite flower) and with candles all around it some white flowers strewn across the floor of the apartment including jasmine as a reference to her proximity to him, just like he had asked her to prepare it. He prepared the needle and as she watched him he smiled at her asking her to remove her clothes and lie down next to him. This was part of the deal and although the thought of lying next to a dead body disgusted her, she realised that at least she could help him go away with some love around him so she stripped and lay down beside him. He asked her to just

hold his elbow so that his hand would not shake too much and she felt him fumbling around and when his body slowly relaxed she realised he had injected himself with the lethal dose. Slowly, she felt him slip into eternal sleep his arm around her waist and bizarrely she herself felt exhausted and sleep overtook her too.

A few hours later, she woke up not remembering where she was before the touch of the cold body next to hers brought the memories back. Pascal was ice cold and his fingers as well his toes were curled up and rigid. She stared for a long time into his unseeing eyes before she slowly closed them and put five Swiss francs on each of his eyelids to keep them closed as they would not stay closed. She put her clothes back on sluggishly. It seemed like this whole staging of his death in those perfect conditions had got the better of her nerves or perhaps it was the first time that she had ever slept so soundly in the apartment those two nights before this afternoon and sleep was catching up on her. She packed her belongings neatly into one bag and took the small key to the safe that she slid into one of her gloves before putting on her key and stepping out of the apartment. She must go about alerting the police somehow and then must arrange for his funeral just as she had promised him she would do.

The minute she had stepped out of the apartment, Branislav swooped upon her choking her with one hand and with the other motioning her to stay quiet with a large knife he raised to his ugly lips curling upwards in a sneer. She felt her heart sink and thought that

he must have heard her talking with Pascal two nights ago but he just shoved her back inside the flat barking at her to give him Pascalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wallet. He told her he had followed them and realised that the poor bloke must have emptied his account and she must be leaving with the jackpot. Her heart sank again when he jeered at her while telling this.

How much did he give you that old fool? Ten thousand? Fifteen thousand? You hit the jackpot eh you little whore? Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve never seen so much money in one go. How much, he repeated, jabbing at her arm with the knife as she just stared at him in shock, the truth of his stupidity and utter ignorance on so many levels just sinking into her relieved but numbed mind.

He jabbed at her again calling her a whore and a good for nothing who wanted to cheat him out of his money. He kept jeering at her, saying that she might have been the goods but that without the craft of his years of training she would never have even been worth ten Swiss francs. He kept calling her a whore and poking her with the knife and the constant jabbing with the drops of blood falling on the flowers strewn across the floor just made her snap.

All of a sudden she caught hold of the knife from the top of it yanking it out of his reach and it fell with a clang on the floor. They struggled and he slapped her across the face

but when she did not sit still like she had grown accustomed to when he would slap her that way, he hit her again with the full force of his fist across her jaw. She reeled under the blow and fell to her knees. He went to where her purse had fell and took out the wad of thousand Swiss francs counting and laughing like a manic while repeating “Fifty thousand Swiss francs for such a cheap whore. Pascal oh Pascal you were a bigger old fool than I thought” he laughed to himself. She got up slowly attempting to make a quick exit to the door but he was upon her in no time and determined to tame her again as she seemed to have gone wild.

I will teach you how to obey he panted, frothing at the mouth in anger that she had tried to keep from him the fifty thousand francs. He hit her again across the face with his closed fist and her lip opened while at the same time she felt her teeth crack and she tasted her own blood. He took out the knife again from his waist where he had secured it and slowly, with purpose, waved it in front of her to ensure that she fully realised what he was about to do.

Yes, you’re guessing right, he said as he saw the wild look in her eyes. I am going to tattoo you with Pascal across your face so you remember why your face looks so ugly. Nobody decent will ever want to be your client again so I will sell you to one of the captains at the docks. I am done with you, stupid little whore, he snarled

I am a flower, I am a flower, she screamed at him her eyes turning red with rage before she blacked out.

Somehow a few minutes after she found herself on top of him, her hands covered with his blood which was oozing from all over his body covered in wounds. She did not understand what had happened and remained in that state of bewilderment throughout her time in prison while she awaited her trial. Jean visited her many times. The neighbours had alerted the police when they had heard her screaming and he reassured her that everything would be alright because it had to be self-defense even though the circumstances were a bit strange.

Later on, she learnt from him and from the lawyer who defended her â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a fine lawyer whom Jean had paid with money he had begged from his folks apparently without telling them what it was for - that she seemed to have stabbed Branislav twenty-three times all over his body. Considering the number of the blows she had dealt and the fact that he was already dead before she had stabbed him the fourth time, it was a difficult case to defend but the self-defense theory stood valid considering her cracked lip, broken jaw and teeth as well as the history of Branislav who was notorious for beating up the women he was supposed to be the bodyguard of. Aside from that, breaking the law of silence that shrouded the PĂ˘quis, one young prostitute had testified about the taming techniques of

the unofficial pimps in the PĂ˘quis and her defense lawyer immediately used all of that to argue on the grounds of self-defense coupled with temporary insanity.

When finally, it looked like she would be getting away free after just a few weeks in jail during her trial, she felt relieved and started understanding what exactly had happened while people in the courtroom continued to discuss the case around her. She seemed to have got the energy of desperation that allowed her to overpower Branislav before he could carve out her face and ruin her life forever as she would never have been able to retire and go back to Gori and her mother. After that probably the years of hatred had taken over her making her unable to stop. Whatever it was, she did not feel sorry for him. He had deserved to die and she was glad it was he who was lying six feet under now and not her.

At the final stages of the trial, the judge asked her to rise and said she could say a few words if she wished before the juryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s verdict. She stood up and looked around, not finding anything to say. When the judge pressed her again on whether she wanted to say something, she gazed at him and then back towards where Jean was, where he had been sitting during those few weeks that the trial had carried on.

I am a flower, she said. She noticed the sneering of the people in the front row as they looked at her but she did not care. Jean was looking at her, his eyes shining

and on his face that grin which he had given her when he had brought her the cake and the tea. I am a flower she repeated in a stronger voice, her face flushed with pride.

When she left the prison, she was given all her belongings including that small key she had so feared not to find again. The policemen had found it in her glove and kept it aside when she was at the prison hospital shortly after the murder of Branislav. Jean came to fetch her as she was leaving the prison. She toyed with the idea of telling him everything but decided it was too soon. She just hugged him and told him she had an errand that afternoon but would be back later.

She emptied all the accounts that had been transferred to their joint names before Pascalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s death and created new accounts in her name like he had taught her to do that day. In one of the accounts she put a few tens of thousands more than the amount that Jean had paid for her lawyer and spoke to him about it. She told him that he could take all the money but he insisted that he would find an arrangement with his parents and she could not use her hard earned money for she would then find herself penniless and he did not want her to go back to working as a prostitute.

She felt terrible when he told her this and was so close to telling him about the larger amount but decided not to do so. She chose to only tell him that actually she had almost

three hundred thousand Swiss francs stashed away and they could buy a small house in the countryside with it. She had seen how year after year men could tire of their wives and how they could start hating them when the marriage turned awry, just like Pascal had hated his wife. She did not want to take the risk of what would happen if that hatred was coupled with the knowledge that a fortune was to be had if only she were dead. Yes, he loved her today but tomorrow was another day. She smiled to herself and slid the card into his jacket pocket.

Take it she said and at least reimburse your parents. We will work on acquiring the rest for our retirement slowly together. I always wanted to have a house by the countryside and turn it into a bed and breakfast. You can work from home and take only the cases that interest you.

Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a wonderful idea he said. We can have a beautiful chimney and sit in front of it during the winter months roasting chestnuts and our feet while the guests sleep

Yes we can do that she said, smiling slowly.

He really reminded her a lot of Sacha she thought as he took her arm and guided her to the train which was going to the airport. They had decided that finally she would bring her mother to Switzerland and they would all live in the countryside of Vaud. After all, it was a much safer country than Georgia. She was really lucky she thought, already back then

when she had gone to the toilet by coincidence just as a shell had fallen into her classroom. She just hoped her luck would not run out. She slowly lay her head on Jeanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s shoulder as the train began its journey towards the airport.

You know Jean, she said in a low voice, I am a flower. They both laughed.

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