Beauty Is a Wound (32 page)

“Yes, I think that would be best.”

And that was what started to happen: Alamanda developed a fever in the afternoon, with a deathly pale face and a climbing temperature and the shivers. Shodancho did not rape her even one more time that day, perhaps because he was exhausted, or because he was finally satisfied, or maybe to improve his relationship with his wife so that he could convince her to eat. Alamanda was now completely refusing everything, not just rice, she wouldn’t even drink, and that was what finally made her fall ill, growing delirious but still hurling curses.

Shodancho started to panic at his wife’s worsening condition, still trying to convince her to eat, now even just a bowl of porridge, and still he was met with refusal. What’s more, Alamanda’s body that had at first been trembling was now wracked with violent shudders, as if she was dying, but she endured it all with an extraordinary calm, as if she was ready to face even the most gruesome end. Shodancho tried to bring her fever down by putting a cold compress on her forehead. A vaporous mist rose from the wet cloth, but the heat of her fever didn’t seem to subside.

Shodancho finally made the decision to untie his wife, but Alamanda just lay there, even though this meant that she was now free to get up and run away. Nor did she resist when her husband put on her clothes and carried her out of the room. Alamanda no longer understood what was happening so she didn’t ask any questions, just hung there draped across Shodancho’s shoulders. The man quickly told her, even though she was beyond being able to hear anything, “I truly don’t want you to become a corpse, so we are going to the hospital.”

Shodancho had thought that his wife just needed a vitamin shot and maybe a little infusion, but Alamanda ended up spending two weeks in the hospital. Every day he came to her room to say how much he regretted the way he had treated her. Alamanda no longer appeared hostile. She accepted the porridge the nurses spooned into her mouth (even though she still refused porridge from Shodancho), and nodded when Shodancho promised he would never do it again. But she didn’t believe one word of his regret.

On the fourteenth day, after the doctor had called and said that Alamanda could be taken home, Shodancho met with the doctor in the hospital corridor. The doctor greeted him with small talk, “Good morning, Shodancho,” and Shodancho said, “Good afternoon, Doctor.” Then the doctor invited him to sit in the hospital canteen to discuss Alamanda. “Is there something seriously wrong with my wife, Doctor?” asked Shodancho, as the doctor ordered a simple lunch. Only when his meal arrived did the doctor shake his head and say, “There’s no such thing as a serious illness, as long as you know the correct way to treat it.”

Then he began to eat, as if to draw out whatever drama he was going to discuss, while Shodancho waited patiently. As he smoked a cigarette, because the canteen was the only place he was allowed to smoke in the entire hospital, he was still worrying about his wife and still worrying that he was to blame for everything, as he had been ever since the first day the doctor had given the diagnoses of dehydration and an ulcer, and had said that Alamanda was displaying the symptoms of typhus. The doctor had said that he didn’t need to worry, Alamanda just needed to rest, eat only plain porridge, avoid all sour foods, drink a lot of fluids and take antibiotics, and the virus in her body would die of its own accord in no more than two weeks. But even though the doctor said there was nothing to worry about, Shodancho still worried, knowing he couldn’t bear it if Alamanda were to die and leave him behind, even though he knew she had never loved him and never would.

“If I tell you the good news, though, will you buy my lunch, Shodancho?” asked the doctor as he finished his meal.

“Tell me doctor, what’s going on with my wife?”

“I’m quite experienced in making this diagnosis so mark my words—you are going to have a child, Shodancho! Your wife is pregnant.”

He was quiet for a moment. “The question is, who got her pregnant?” Of course he didn’t actually say that. “How many months?” asked Shodancho, who did not look at all happy with his ashen face and his hands trembling on top of the table. Nasty images darted through his mind, as he imagined Alamanda having sex with whomever she wanted on the sly, with an old sweetheart or a new boyfriend, taking revenge for having been fated to marry a man she didn’t love.

“What, Shodancho?”

“How many months is my wife pregnant, Doctor?”

“Two weeks.”

Shodancho collapsed against the back of his chair while letting out a long breath, now quite relieved. He took a handkerchief and wiped away the beads of cold sweat that had begun to sparkle on his forehead. After remaining silent for a long moment he began to smile, then began to look truly overjoyed, and then finally he said, “I’m buying you lunch, Doctor.”

So he was going to have a child, proving the gossip that he had never made love to his wife, that he was impotent, and that he had been castrated was all completely false. They both went to meet Alamanda, who looked strong enough to be taken home. The doctor had told her she could eat something a little more substantial than rice porridge, whatever she wanted, and her face was slowly beginning to look refreshed. She even began to move about a bit on her sickbed.

When the doctor left them alone to arrange for Alamanda’s return home, Shodancho said to his wife, “You have recovered, darling.”

Alamanda replied without expression, “I guess now I’m healthy enough to turn you on.”

Unmoved by her hard heart, Shodancho sat on the edge of the bed and put his hand on his wife’s leg while she lay stock-still looking up at the ceiling. “The doctor told me that we are going to have a child. You’re pregnant, darling,” Shodancho continued, hoping to share his happiness.

But Alamanda surprised him by replying, “I know, and I’m going to abort it.”

“Darling, don’t!” Shodancho begged. “Save that child and I swear that I’ll never do anything like that again.”

“Okay, Shodancho,” said Alamanda. “But if you ever dare to so much as lay a hand on me, I will not hesitate to kill this baby.”

The speed with which Shodancho withdrew his hand from Alamanda’s leg made her want to laugh at his ridiculousness. Shodancho reiterated his promise to never force himself on Alamanda again in any way, even if she wasn’t wearing her iron underwear. And that was just how it came to pass: Alamanda stopped wearing her ironwear, not just because Shodancho had thrown them into the well but also because she trusted Shodancho would not go against his word. Having a child was more important than anything else for a man with an ego like Shodancho’s and Alamanda said, even if she was seven or eight or even nine months pregnant, she would abort that baby if Shodancho forced her to service his base lust, even if she herself died because of it. So it should be clear that she didn’t stop wearing the iron underwear because she had changed her mind. She had already sworn that she would never love him and so she would never give herself to him. And by God, she truly did not love him.

Alamanda’s homecoming was joyfully celebrated by their friends and family and as soon as the happy news of her pregnancy had spread to the farthest reaches of the city, Shodancho held a small ceremony of thanksgiving. The people of the city discussed it in every canteen as if they were waiting for the birth of a crown prince, most of them in excited tones—except for Kliwon and his fishermen friends.

Kliwon even said brusquely, “She’s a whore.” His friends were shocked to hear him say such a thing about a woman he had once loved so dearly, but he calmly continued: “A whore makes love for money, so what else can be said about a woman who marries for money
and
social status? She’s more than a whore, she’s a princess of whores.” There was no bitterness in his voice, as if he was merely voicing a commonly held truth.

And if there was some bitterness in Kliwon’s heart toward that family, especially toward Shodancho, of course it wasn’t because his lover had been unceremoniously taken from him. As a real man, he was always prepared to be abandoned by the woman he loved. What really made him bitter toward Shodancho in all of this were the man’s two giant fishing vessels. Those two ships had changed the face of the Halimunda coast. They now floated in the sea and lowered their nets. Workers went back and forth on their decks and coolies hauled the catch to market. The two ships had also changed the faces of the fishermen, which were now crumpled in concern because the fish had grown scarce. They could not compete with the ships’ equipment, and even if they did catch some fish, its price had fallen due to the oversaturation of the market that those ships had caused.

This was when Kliwon, at the instructions of the Communist Party, decided to establish a Fishermen’s Union and began to explain to his friends what was happening with the ships and their boats: “It’s more than just unhealthy competition, they have stolen our fish.” Many of his friends hoped they could fight back by burning the ships, but Comrade Kliwon (as he was now called) tried to calm them down, saying that there was nothing worse than anarchist action, and instead he told them, “Give me some time to talk to Shodancho, who owns those ships.”

Comrade Kliwon chose the moment when the news of Alamanda’s pregnancy had become an open secret in the city. He hoped that in his good mood Shodancho could be drawn into negotiations about the fishing business. He met him one afternoon in the military district office, purposefully not calling on him at home because he did not want to see Alamanda or in any way disturb the couple’s happiness in welcoming their first child.

“Good afternoon, Shodancho,” said Comrade Kliwon when they met and shook hands. Shodancho served him a cup of coffee, and indeed he looked very happy and displayed unusually cordial behavior.

“Good afternoon, Comrade. I have heard that you are now the head of the Fishermen’s Union and I have heard that the fishermen are complaining about my boats.”

“Yes, that’s how it is Shodancho,” said Comrade Kliwon, telling him about the fishermen’s complaints regarding their meager catch and the falling prices. Shodancho told Kliwon about the progress of a new era, that the use of larger ships was inevitable. It was only with these ships that the fishermen would no longer be riddled with rheumatism in their old age. It was only with these ships that the fishermen’s wives could be sure their husbands would not be swallowed up by the stormy sea. It was only with these ships that more fish could be caught in order to meet the needs of all people, not just the needs of the people living right here in Halimunda.

“For years, Shodancho, we have caught only as much fish as we need for the day, with just a little left over to stock up for when big storms come. And for years we have survived; we have never been very rich and yet neither have we been poor. But now you are plunging the fishermen into hopeless poverty; you and your ships have stolen the fish they usually catch, and if they do get some fish, it no longer has any value in the market so they are forced to turn it into salt fish they must eat themselves.”

“I think you guys probably forgot to do the cow’s head throwing ritual, and that’s why the queen of the South Seas isn’t sharing her fish with you anymore,” said Shodancho with a chuckle, drinking his coffee and smoking his clove cigarette.

“That’s right, Shodancho, we didn’t do the ritual because we no longer have the money to buy even one cow! Don’t make these poor people angry, because no one can win when pitted against a starving angry man.”

“You’re threatening me, Comrade,” said Shodancho with another chuckle. “Okay then, I will pay for an ocean ceremony and we will throw a cow’s head for the stingy queen, as a sign of my gratitude for my first child. But as for this business with the fishermen I only have one solution: I will add another boat and allow your fishermen to work on deck, with a salary and the guarantee they won’t get rheumatism or be threatened by storms. How about it, Comrade?”

“It would better if you acted wisely, Shodancho,” said Comrade Kliwon. He quickly took his leave of Shodancho, who only wanted to talk in circles and showed no intention of withdrawing his ships.

The new fishing vessel actually did arrive in the seventh month of Alamanda’s pregnancy, but not one fisherman wanted to attend the cow’s head throwing ceremony that was held by a handful of Shodancho’s men. Even Comrade Kliwon grew upset and told Shodancho that he could no longer guarantee his ships’ protection from the fishermen’s anger, but Shodancho replied calmly that they should not act rashly. Shodancho didn’t seem to care very much about the issue, because after that he didn’t meet with anyone, he just stayed in his house awaiting the birth of his first child, who would be his pride and joy, his future, and whom he would clear his schedule to spend the afternoons with once it was born. He would even take the child to school himself once it was a little bit older, and give it whatever it asked for.

Because of this, he truly didn’t care about the striking laborers on the fishing vessels, the majority of whom were fishermen from the villages along the coast. The men suffered blows from an army of policemen and soldiers from the military district, but remained unmoved. Without consulting Shodancho, the ship captain fired those laborers one by one, and replaced them with new workers who were willing to follow the rules of their contracts. The Fishermen’s Union had succeeded in employing a couple of their men on the ship, but now they had all been fired.

This triggered widespread anger among the fishermen, who in their defeat were now planning to burn those ships down in earnest. But once again, Comrade Kliwon tried to restrain them and promised to go talk to Shodancho. This time he would have no choice but to go to his house, because Shodancho rarely went to the office in those last two months of waiting for his first child. So whether he wanted to or not, it looked as though Comrade Kliwon would have to see Alamanda.

And so it came to pass, because it was Alamanda who opened the door for him, waddling under the burden of her stomach, which puffed up under her white flower-print housedress. For a moment the two looked at one another with a rising longing, united in the same repressed wish to burst out and embrace, kiss, and cry together in their grief. They didn’t even smile or say hello, just stood perfectly still and stared at each other. Comrade Kliwon marveled that Alamanda was even more radiant in her pregnancy, and he felt as if he was looking at one of those gorgeous mermaids the fishermen told tales about, or at the queen of the South Seas, who was so unbelievably captivating.