Bitter Bitch

by Maria Sveland

  I see one man gesticulating wildly with his arms while he explains something to his wife. At least they look like they are having some fun together, the look she is giving him is open. The women here in the breakfast room are all sitting, facing the men, with their bodies and their eyes. The men sit a bit turned away or they look straight ahead. Up until now I have not seen a single instance in which the man has been sitting, facing his wife. Even when they are sitting across from each other, the husband’s eyes are staring off towards the horizon while the wife’s are attentively focused on his, constantly ready to smile or parry.

  The ones who look the happiest are two middle-aged women sitting at a table with flowers and candles. I caught sight of them when I heard a champagne bottle being opened by the waiter. Apparently one of them has her birthday today. That sort of thing makes me feel warm all over, it is so damn beautiful. I see them clink glasses, and their faces are very red. Maybe they feel a bit like outsiders in this couple-filled ghetto? Aside from them I’m completely surrounded by couples, couples, couples and then a few young families.

  Maybe they’re widows? Or divorced, since they are here without men (they looked a bit too ordinary to be lesbians, but then again that is just one of my countless prejudices). If you are a middle-aged woman you simply do not travel without your significant other, if you have one. At least it is very rare. And that goes for me, too. Men travel alone all over the world without anyone raising an eyebrow, but when women, regardless of age, do the same, people wonder what is wrong.

  When I leave the breakfast room I see the happily gesticulating man. He is standing down by the cliff with his wife, looking at the ocean. He is still gesticulating wildly, as if he really has something to say, which maybe he does. But even if that is not the case I love him for trying. She looks happy and not as woeful as the rest of the wives here at La Quinta Park. The fact is that when I look around among the couples here at the hotel, the women are the ones doing the talking. Even the woeful ones are trying to carry on some sort of conversation.

  I wonder what all of these quiet men are thinking. There is almost nothing that infuriates me so much as quiet men. A strange contrast to how loud men often are in other situations. So why do they often grow quiet in relationships? Nothing scares me more than Johan when he becomes quiet and distant.

  There is a physical memory which makes me depressed and makes my knees and elbows itch like eczema. I am seven years old, and weighed down with Mum and Dad’s silence; a silence containing everything, it is threatening and filled with failed encounters. An organized form of an unlived life.

  This physical memory has left me overly sensitive to the silence between people. People who are quiet make me uncertain and fill me with contempt. I immediately write them off as mean. When Isadora travels with Bennett to Paris for their first Christmas as newlyweds, he suddenly becomes quiet.

  Throughout the whole long drive from Heidelberg to Paris, Bennett said almost not a word to me. Silence is the bluntest of blunt instruments. It seems to hammer you into the ground. It drives you deeper and deeper into your own guilt. It makes the voices inside your head accuse you more viciously than any external voices ever could.

  I know exactly what you mean, Isadora. I wish I was there as a witness, a friend who could remind you that you have not done anything to deserve his punishing silence. A friend would say, ‘Let’s dump this quiet weirdo. He can stay here in the hotel room and sulk. Let’s go and drink some fantastic French red wine instead!’

  But I was not there in the hotel room in Paris, and Isadora becomes more and more desperate. After hours of silence she asks him what she has done and Bennett just asks her to forget about it.

  ‘Forget what?’ Isadora asks in a shrill voice, and Bennett says he does not want her screaming like that.

  ‘I don’t give a fuck what you won’t have me do. I’d like to be treated civilly. I’d like you to at least do me the courtesy of telling me why you’re in such a funk. And don’t look at me that way …’

  ‘What way?’

  ‘As if my not being able to read your mind were my greatest sin. I can’t read your mind. I don’t know why you’re so mad. I can’t intuit your every wish. If that’s what you want in a wife you don’t have it in me.’

  ‘I certainly don’t.’

  ‘Then what is it? Please tell me.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have to.’

  ‘Good God! Do you mean to tell me I’m expected to be a mind reader? Is that the kind of mothering you want?’

  And it continues like that. Isadora masturbates and cries herself to sleep while Bennett sleeps with his back to her. And I wish Isadora could call me so I could tell her what I read in Carin Holmberg’s book It’s Called Love. Carin Holmberg writes about a concept she calls ‘Micro-power’. The lack of response, she says, is one of the ultimate expressions of a man’s power. By the man not answering, the woman is forced into subordination and becomes a non-person. Being silent is a way of distancing yourself, it forces women to take over roles in order to understand the man’s emotional mood and problems. This means that she actively relates to him while he does not relate to her to the same degree.

  When I read this the for first time I cried because I was so affected by the clear-sightedness of Carin Holmberg’s analysis.

  ‘Damn autist!’ I hissed at Johan once, after I had asked the same question three times without getting an answer. We had been out shopping and now he was standing there, contemplating the receipt.

  ‘Do you know what happened to the spinach?’ I asked.

  No reply.

  ‘Johan! Do you know what happened to the spinach?’ I asked again.

  He just continued to stare at the receipt, without replying or even looking up at me.

  ‘DO YOU KNOW WHERE THE SPINACH IS!’ I screamed far too loudly and hysterically. The cashier gave me a questioning look but now Johan finally looked up from his receipt.

  ‘Don’t yell! Can’t you see I’m checking the receipt?’ he said, irritated.

  ‘Damn autist!’ I said angrily and walked off, leaving him with all of the shopping bags and the receipt.

  Do I exist? I thought as I walked towards the car and the humiliation intensified. Because I know that if he had asked a question, regardless of how busy I had been with the receipt, Sigge, a book, the TV or whatever, I would have answered. Always ready! Always ready to converse if an uncomfortable silence develops. I hate silence, because it could mean that we really are unhappy.

  When Johan disappears into his quiet disconnectedness and I ask what is going on, he always says that it is nothing. He does not reply with any cryptic insinuations that I ought to know, like Bennett. But the strange thing is despite the fact that he assures me it is nothing, absolutely nothing, his sulky silence tells a different story. The tiniest hesitation presents itself, and is impossible to ignore.

  Sometimes I try to do the same thing, delay my answers a few seconds, just long enough to make him uncertain, force him to repeat the question while I continue with what I was doing as if I was so busy I hadn’t heard. It is interesting to see that he reacts with the same uncertainty I do. It is interesting to experience the secure peace I then feel inside.

  His silence is often worse in the morning. The silence, he says, comes from his tiredness and not being a morning person; that he has never been cheery in the morning. For a long time I accepted that as an explanation until I realized that his silence, if anything, was related to his good sleep and my ear plugs. I have always been impressed and jealous of Johan because he sleeps so well. He can fall asleep even in a bright room with the radio on. It does not bother him.

  It is an ability he has, to shut out his surroundings.

  When Sigge was born, I was infuriated when he asked how the night had been. Had he not noticed that I had got up five times to change nappies and feed Sigge? That my longest nap had been two hours? When it was Johan’s turn to take Sigge one night, I woke up every time he got up. Sigge’s
whimpering often woke me first, and I had to wake up Johan so he would go to Sigge.

  That is what life was like until it was enriched by two wonderful little pieces of rubber called ear plugs. A friend with the same experience had given me the tip about the ear plugs and suddenly everything was quiet. I could put in the ear plugs and say goodnight to Johan and let the wonderful silence take over. It was a way of handing over all the responsibility. Suddenly I was sleeping through the night and not waking up a single time when Johan got up to go to Sigge.

  The nights when it was my turn to take Sigge remained sleepless, but at least now I got to sleep every other night. Now I was the one who cheerfully asked Johan how the night had been and Johan who, irritated, told me that he had been up every other hour between twelve and six.

  Ear plugs must be God’s gift to women. Sometimes, on certain mornings when Johan seems particularly distant, I have left the ear plugs in during breakfast and allowed myself to live in my own wonderfully quiet world while I read the newspaper and slowly let the coffee bring me to life. I have lost myself in an article and not reacted to Sigge’s cries so god damned immediately. I have drunk my coffee slowly and stared listlessly at Johan’s lips which moved when he said something to me.

  ‘What?’ I’ve asked. ‘What did you say?’

  I left the ear plugs in and made myself just as distant and silent as him, until he asked, frustrated, what was going on.

  ‘Nothing. It’s nothing I promise,’ I replied, and continued reading the newspaper.

  It is a way of achieving balance: he blames it on his bad mood in the morning, I blame it on the ear plugs. Sometimes I think the only way of achieving balance is to assimilate the behaviour and manners of men. It is not fun, but maybe it is a necessary evil. Women must let go of the responsibility, allow themselves to become just as sloppy, forgetful and selfish as their husbands.

  Every time I take the train or the bus from work I hear at least one mobile phone call from some man calling home to ask what he should buy at the shops.

  ‘Hi sweetheart! Can you ask Mummy what kind of fish I needed to buy … Yes, OK, can you ask if there was anything else we needed?’

  She is his private, comfortable computer memory. She is the one who needs to create space in her brain to make room for what food needs to be bought. Room she could have used for significantly more important and interesting thoughts than what kind of fish he needs to buy. She stores it in a safe place so that he just needs to call home when it is time for the information to be delivered.

  I have never heard a woman call home to ask her husband the same thing, and I think about what will happen the day her hard drive becomes full, when it crashes. A small daydream about the day she suddenly starts replying with incomprehensible oddities.

  ‘We need chocolate with a high percentage of cacao, red wine and more love, more tenderness, more time for each other and by the way I would really like to go to a tango course with you tonight!’

  Or the day she just giggles and says that she does not have a fucking clue what they need to buy.

  ORANGE MEN

  I wake up in the middle of the night because I am freezing cold, and I have just had a very strange dream. I dreamed that my grandmother was going to kill me at eight p.m. She announced it during the afternoon in a threatening, agitated voice and I knew she meant it and I was frightened, despite her fragility. I had disappointed her in some way, so many times that enough was enough. I went home (in my dreams Mum and Dad are almost always still together) and told them about Grandma’s death threat.

  ‘Oh my,’ Mum says anxiously.

  Dad lights a cigarette and walks into another room with a resolute expression on his face. Then nothing happens for several hours.

  ‘But don’t you understand?’ I say desperately. ‘She’s coming here at eight to kill me!’

  ‘It’s a shame she got so angry,’ Mum says, while she continues doing the dishes in the kitchen. Dad still isn’t saying anything; he goes out to the garage instead and closes the door.

  When it is five minutes to eight I realize that if I want to survive I will have to take matters into my own hands. Grandma could be here at any moment. I quickly stuff some clothes in a bag and run to Mum, crying.

  ‘I’m going to have to go away for a while, since you apparently aren’t going to help me!’ I say accusingly, feeling small and abandoned.

  ‘Yes, maybe that’s for the best,’ Mum says indifferently, hugging me goodbye.

  Dad was still in the garage when I left the house running, and jumped on the bus.

  Now I am lying here in bed thinking that it is true. They could never protect me, and the dream recalled a familiar feeling of being alone and exposed. There was always a yearning, always depression. To think that secondary school graduation was one of the happiest days of my life – the day when I could really leave, walk away from the insecurity and all of the crap, the ugly wallpaper, the worn leather sofa, and the dust-filled carpet which made my eyes red and itchy. The day I finally became free from my family.

  I walk out on to the balcony and watch the sun rise over the ocean. I feel the warmth in the air even though it is only six-thirty in the morning. To think that life can be like this, so fantastically beautiful and sad and horrible and completely good. I sit and look out over the ocean and the sun until breakfast is served.

  I fill my plate with fresh watermelon, pour honey over the fat, tasty yoghurt, pick out two, newly baked rolls and top them with salty, smoked ham. I also take hot, black coffee and sweet orange juice. The sadness slowly lets go and I become happy again, mainly because of the watermelon. It makes me genuinely happy. I do not think you can feel anxious if you get to eat fresh watermelon for breakfast every day.

  Later I lie down in a deck chair by the pool and read. A young English family is lying next to me. The parents are about my age and they have a little boy and a little girl. They are chatting while the children are playing by the edge of the pool and I get a stab of longing for Sigge, but then something happens. The little boy named George wants to run around the deep end of the pool. Dad sees this and yells: ‘Come here Georgie! Georgie! GEORGIE! I’ll count to three: One! Two! Three! … Well done! Good boy!’

  Mum is drying off the little girl Jessica, and she wants to read her a story, but Jessica would rather run around the pool with her brother. I see the mum pull her daughter towards her and hold her on her lap.

  ‘The Pink Princess. The Pink Princess was always dressed in pink. One day when she walked into the forest …’ Suddenly she stops reading.

  ‘Jessie! What have you done? You broke Mummy’s sunglasses! Oh why, Jessie? Why!’

  Their voices can be heard over the entire pool area, but you still have to admire their open frustration. No family shame here, no sir. The dad takes big steps over to the oh-ing mum.

  ‘Look what she did! She broke my sunglasses!’ she says to her husband, hurt.

  I try to ignore the incestuous tone – she is talking like she is a little girl and not an equal partner. But her husband takes over his practised role as the all-powerful father.

  ‘Jessie! Why are you ignoring Mummy! Say you’re sorry!’

  I stop listening at this point and go to the loo instead. When I come back it is calm for the time being and I can hear the mother explaining to little Georgie that ‘Tomorrow we’re going back to England.’

  But there are exceptions to nuclear family hell. A Finnish family that came today looks really nice and happy. The father, dressed in a black T-shirt and beige shorts, rushed around getting deck chairs for everyone so that they could lie next to each other and sunbathe. When everyone in the family was settled, he stood a few feet away and got his digital camera out from his light-blue waist bag. He looked so proud as he took a picture of his family. I bet you he is the kind that peels oranges for his children. And his wife.

  Men who peel oranges in public are extremely rare. So are men who bring a packed lunch to work. I love men who pee
l oranges. There is a kind of beautiful precision, a patience and a care in the peeling. A way of showing love in little ways; a desire to give without necessarily wanting something in return, because the only thing you get back is juice on your hands. It is a true act of love without prestige, which goes against so much in the male role.

  And I love men who bring their lunch to work for the same reason, or bike or walk to work instead of taking the car. And men who dance. Why is there such a shortage of men who are willing to dance? Do not they understand that it is a perfect, awe-inspiring action, which shows they are humans who aren’t afraid to reveal themselves? Instead, little boys are taught to be afraid of expressing themselves physically in the open, sensitive way that is part of dancing. In contrast to sports, dancing is not about competing and winning. These boys become men who stand there on the side with their beer, staring stupidly at all the girls who are dancing with each other, and looking like they need to take a shit. This is one of my few requirements: no more men who do not want to dance!

  The Finnish family dad stands protectively behind his sunbathing family and looks at them proudly. Definitely an orange man!

  And he takes pictures of them. One of my friends told me that she had grown up thinking she was Daddy’s little girl, not because she had many memories of her dad taking part in family activities, he was usually away on business, but because the family album was stuffed with photos of her and her father. There were only a few pictures of her and her mother, and that is why she assumed Dad had been around more than she remembered. Until one day she realized that the person who had taken all of the pictures of her and her father was her mother. She was the kind of woman who is constantly covering up the absence of her husband, creating stories and pictures to lessen the child’s longing. Maybe that is why fathers have such a predominant role in children’s books and films.