STEPS

CHAPTER SIXTEEN Surrendering and never finding...

Before this understanding, I had no idea why I felt disparate. Why I considered myself so god-damn apart from everyone else. I assumed other things. My being a migrant for instance. The cultural differences, the duality produced by living in two distinctly opposite worlds.

I remember the crossing over, the point from when I began to think in the new language. Before this point, the internal translating, searching for new words. After the crossing over, feeling less foreign, more at home in the new culture. Now it is the opposite - I search for those forgotten foreign phrases each time I need to translate for my parents. Up to that point though, battling to co-exist, desiring to immerse myself in the new country, never tying those long ago events to my continued screw-ups.

I wonder if that one day... When he first followed me downstairs, when he lifted me for the first time on the narrow bench, when he raised my short dress and took out his handkerchief... I remember it distinctly: Square, white, a tiny embroidered flower on the corner. When he wiped me and kissed the hanky afterwards, placing it in his pocket. What was he thinking?

What did he think each subsequent time? His eyes always lowered, never in mine. Did he recognise this wrong? Did he suspect it would stay within me, the memory of his white hanky? The memory of his penis? Before I understood, had a word for that thing? Did he comprehend how it would stay within me? Was it part of his sickness, this imposing a lifelong memory, a subsequent aversion?

"Just put it in me already. Fuck the stroking, the mouthing. Fuck the parading it around so I can ogle and feel desire. It reviles me every time. Just put it in. Get it over with. For me, only the preceding steps significant. The getting to there. Physical manifestation an end, is how I view it. You may as well pull out a hanky. Pull my dress down and tell me, "It's okay. Don't be afraid."

Only ever about the journey, the word-play, the verbal dancing when two minds connect and shimmy, strut, sway, and whirl. Each added word another move, another step towards. The anticipation most of all, the moments before, suspended on a maybe that could either end, or sway towards/away. Any brief wrongly perceived gesture, any misguided phrase stopping the dance.

Like the infrequent holidays I take and those I'll never take yet plan in meticulous detail. What to see, what to do.Best way to travel, where to stay. Never mind my plans never go to plan. It's about the formation, the burgeoning anticipation. I've learned to live withdisappointment. From my first honeymoon, after devouring travel books and guides, living afore-hand the romance and mystery of walking the narrow cobblestone streets of Europe; dreaming of sipping espressos in quaint side-walk cafes. Secret gardens I'd wander into. Recognising read-about landmarks. Awed by the magnificent art and history wandering through galleries and museums; husband at my side, our togetherness enhanced by sights and smells and sounds.

But we resembled two average friends, aimlessly strolling together in search of distraction. Yeah. Romance was everywhere. The romance I devoured in those cheap novellas as a pre-teen. Stories fuelling my imagination, the protagonist always portrayed strong, commanding.

This boy man at my side failing. Other couples holding hands, caressing faces, kissing. I sat in a fucking gondola, serenaded by a heavy Italian... A horse-drawn carriage in the moonlight... Atop a frisky camel, bare legs touched by hundreds of grinning kids on the way to the pyramids. Only to try capture some of this illusive romance floating around me, appearing effortless for everyone else to attain. But we two always side by side, he never comfortable with outward signs of affection, I too badly damaged, disallowing him room or time to grow. No patience, only disappointment around each quaint new corner.

Standing before the Sphinx. This ancient monument ever a representation of myself. The secrets contained within. Standing alone, my husband's attention on the souvenir stalls nearby. Those few moments gazing up, seeing not a crumbling stone relic but a twin self, sitting ever silent. Infinite vows I ached to voice, emotions and senses tangling, my aloneness chilling despite the dry heat.