Why I Don't Like Diamonds

By a bride-to-be

Getting married in London.  I am five foot tall - a meter and a half. I try on wedding dresses, they are wider than I am tall. I can barely walk in them, let alone dance or feel sexy.  And they cost more than a buggy or a beach holiday.

I am expected to:

• Think this is the best day of my life – unlike the day, say, when my baby is born (each one of them), or unlike the day I recover from that hideous, life and sanity-threatening illness
•  Wear a massive white dress that starts at £400, takes a few months to find, to try on and to adjust
• Buy new bridal shoes – god forbid I look in my wardrobe!
• Get a diamond ring from my fiancée, to the order of a few thousand pounds
•  Have a massive party, also to the order of a few thousand pounds, that takes me a few hassled months to organise and zooms by in a couple of hours
• As a bride, it’s really my job to organise it, and the groom is free to dip in and out of the whole coordination exercise when he feels like it
•  Get my guests to pay a hefty sum for the privilege, perhaps even travel abroad or book hotel rooms to come to my wedding.

Now, I walk down the street, and all the women have the same straightened hair, the same handbag, the same black coat – and the same diamond ring.

My wedding planners expect me to have a flower-swamped, colour-coordinated party of over 100 people that will cost over £5,000.  They come back to me dejected with smelly, far-away party halls I wouldn’t touch with a bargepole, because, they say, that’s all you can get for my budget of £3k.

Honestly, I am giving up.

I like a party, but I want to turn up and have some fun, not fret and swear for months trying to organise it. It’s only one day, for God’s sake!

I would like to have a party with all my friends and family, and with those of my man’s, but I want to feel happy about it. As it stands, I feel frustrated. 

My partner is totally relaxed about it. He “just” wants specific food from his country, because, he says, that’s the only thing that people remember. I want a good dance. 

As it stands, we either have to go over budget, or take a cramped, far-away location with cooks that swear they will cook the authentic recipes of our countries. Right!...

Now, I don’t see the point in spending the money either. I am planning babies and buying a house. That’s what my savings are for. I never budgeted to save half of my yearly salary for a one-day party, in an uncomfortable dress, that looks like any other bride’s dress. I just don’t see the point. 

So the last decision is to have the party at home, with just as many people as will fit inside and move on. Or maybe two parties, one with family, one with friends. I relax just thinking about it. 

I bought a £20 white office dress in a sale and it actually fits me, let alone that I can also move in it. I thing that’s exactly the price it’s worth, for a dress that I will only wear once, and maybe one more time on a beach holiday. I mean, how often do we wear white dresses, during the 2-week summers of London?  Since I bought it, I saw a picture of Dita Van Teese’s wedding dress: purple. Now that’s more like it.

So there: I am looking now for a delivery service to bring me food from the tiny authentic restaurants at the edges of the metropolis. 

And I forbid my man to buy me a diamond. Get me a holiday to Bali instead, or to Madagascar. It will stay with me for the rest of my life, and I won’t be afraid to lose it in a swimming pool. And I won’t look like all the other women, all with the same diamond ring. 

Why would I wear or want a diamond?  So De Beers, the diamond monopoly holders, can stay in business, with this made-up tradition?  My mother doesn’t have a diamond engagement ring. Just a plain band.  

Why would I wear a diamond?  So other men can say “that’s a small diamond”, and calculate how much money my husband has?  Remembering the size and price of their wife’s ring? (Really, one of my friends heard that remark from her boss on showing off her new engagement ring.)  The same men who used to ask me, “What does your father do?” and I’d answer, “My mother, not my father, …”  

Why would I wear a diamond?  So my man can weigh in money and carats his love for me?

A friend of mine has received a large diamond-and-gold set from her in-laws. She doesn’t remember where she put it in the house. She can’t really wear it to the office or to the playground. I ask her why she doesn’t put it in holding at a bank safe?  “Why, so I can pay for having it?”, comes her answer.

That’s why I don’t like diamonds.

I told this to a friend – and her answer came back in an SMS: you don’t like them? Give them to me!

I Don’t Have Any Gypsy Friends

BUS JOURNEY – GYPSIES – THE FENCE

I am sitting on the bus coming back from my father’s village deep in the mountains of Transylvania, going back to the city where I’ll catch my plane back to London.

People have been pitying me about this choice of transport.  No self-respecting person goes by bus, if they can drive or hitch a ride in a car from any friend or vague contact.  The bus is supposed to be dirty and unpunctual, but really it is a legacy of the old days when people had no cars, or if they did, no petrol could be found at petrol stations.  What it really is, is the wrong kind of status symbol.  An anti-symbol of poverty.

But I am not a local and I don’t care, and I can’t drive either, so that’s settled.

I get on the bus, half of my suitcase filled with delicious half-ripe, half-green walnuts freshly picked, a casserole of homemade cakes the goodbye gift from the weekend’s wedding, and my packed lunch of fried cottage cheese dumplings “papanasi”.

I walk through the bus looking for a good window seat on the right side of the bus.  There are very few people on board, a couple of old village ladies, a mountain guard and a gypsy woman with two little daughters, one sleeping across her lap.

I sit behind her, and half an hour into the bus ride I switch seats to the left where the window is not clouded-over and I can watch the striped hay plots with haystacks sensuously curving across hills in between patches of orange and green forest.

When my side of the view is destructed by trees close to the roadside, I look around me.

There is a failing argument running through my mind.  The liberal Londoner I pretend and try hard to be is up against the standard Romanian psyche deep in my system.

I watch the gypsy family.  The woman is young, not particularly pretty, a set preoccupied expression on her face.  She may be younger than me but aged by responsibility.  Her greying hair is a lighter shade of brown than mine, perhaps even some natural blonde flickers.  Her skin is vaguely freckled and fair.  Her long hair is platted with orange ribbon in an intricate lattice above her nape.  I study her clothes automatically, as I do with any woman that ever comes my way.  (Why?  Looking for tips, do’s and don’ts, special flavours?).  Her blouse is white with purple-fuchsia and orange flowers, the same as the skirt, a silvery blue jumper over it showing just the collar of the blouse.  A white with gold thread platted apron over the long skirt this is uncannily similar to the ancient fashion worn by the old village women, who would undoubtedly balk at the comparison and probably forever banish their platted aprons, even at the risk of spending their funeral cash, hard saved from many meagre state pensions.

My gypsy woman wears purple sandals styled socks, it is after all October and chilly.  When she gets off at the next break, she covers her head with a transparent yellow scarf.  The two daughter look may be seven and nine, ribbons in their two plaits at either side of their heads.

The daughter who is not sleeping keeps checking me out on the bus, I see the brown eyes peeking around the bus chair every now and then?  I look her in the eyes, with curiosity but no aversion.

The running commentary in my head goes something like this.

“I don’t have any gypsy friends.  None of my friends or family do.  Only an adventurous ex of mine knew some, and I was afraid of getting anywhere near them, while being attracted to his interloper aura.

As long as he kept me safe, that is, and separate from them.  Once, only once, there was a gypsy man in his house, and he took a picture of me, without knowing me.  I left the house after five minutes, offended but also afraid.

None of my family or friends have any gypsy friends.  My ex is gone now.  Everybody I know has an anti-story about gypsies.

Apart from my Norwegian friend, whose government pays her to teach immigrant gypsies Norwegian to integrate them.

And here is the Londoner in me saying I should strike a conversation.  I should find out what are “they” like.  What does it look from “their” point of view.  Does my story about “them” match theirs?

My story about “them” comes in many different ways from my family, friends and newspapers – always the same story.  “She had her hand in my handbag, and when I looked she fixated me with her stare”, said my mother when I was ten.  Petty thieves, occult hypnotists, international networks not to be messed with, their good music on my iPod, hat on the floor at the exit from their London South Bank concert.  They may win, but not for long.

There is no real dialogue.  I don’t dare go and talk to her.  I entertain the thought, and shift my passport into a deeper pocket of my handbag, then I take my handbag in my lap and hold it.

I know she has a story and may be an answer, if I found the right cord, the right curiosity, the right respect.

Instead, I assess the “rich” message my black crocodile leather bag sends, and loop through the latest versions of “their” story.

“A gypsy beggar shouted after us in Granada- “Romanians are poor and they work, we beg and are rich”.”

“A gypsy family asked after the deserted empty house in our village, but the owner refused to give it to them.”  How long before the hay stacked villages with apple orchards change owners?  There are only another ten, twenty years that the aging haystack makers will still be there.  Their children are all in town, or on the fields and building sites of rich Europe, saving money for townhouses.

I want to talk to her.  I want to tell her I don’t hate her.  I want to tell her I am curious about her.  Where do you buy those platted aprons, to start with?  Is there an apron workshop or factory somewhere?

Of course, I know the other side of the story, or rather another side.  We put them across the fence here and we never cross that fence to see what it’s like over there.

But once we are out of the country, like I am, I am put right behind the same fence too.  When I say I am from Romania, I am asked, “Are you gypsy?”  In the city of London, on Playa Paraiso in Mexico.  I shudder at the question, my knee-jerk conditioning coming out of my mouth unfiltered.  “No, and we don’t like them either.”

Yes, I have read The Economist’s studies about “them”.  I have read a PhD’s anthropology travel book, “Wild”, where she affectionately explained how the nomadic civilisations will never be like the settled ones, “they” will never be like “us”, and expecting them to be cannot work, never has and never will.

We will all have to find a “third way” and drop our expectation of “civilising” “them” with our “white and settled” – world standards.  Which, incidentally, have led to uprooting and infecting indigenous populations worldwide with crime, alcoholism and poverty.  Sounds familiar, no?  The Inuit, the Native Americans, the Aborigines, they all suffer from them.

In the meantime, I clutch my purse to my chest and drift on thoughts of innocent me befriending the gypsy woman, only to be conned by the network of her world, at the bus destination.  It’s so deeply rooted in my mind I can shake it.  It paralyses me.

The same evening I am having an orange juice with my family, four of them having just one juice in the glitzy new shopping mall.  Only one of them has a job.

Two flashy gypsy women in gold leaf jackets and platted red and fuchsia long skirts get off the escalator, accompanied by a man, well-fed, sporting a John Wayne moustache and wide-brimmed black hat.

This is our world, from this side of the fence.  Are “we” right, “are they” wrong?  Do any of us have a choice?

I am a Londoner.  I have a Rwandan friend, an Iraqi one, a Sri-Lankan, an Indian, a German, a Japanese, a French, a handful of Eastern Europeans, English, Scottish, Americans, Canadians - and these are just the close friends.  But I don’t have a Gypsy friend.  I think I’m missing something.

Stories - 2009 - Rhythm

 ‘I know you’re all looking at me wondering where I’ve left my skirt, you insufferable old women, and soon I’ll be the talk of the entire neighborhood. Especially with this stuffy young man, looking all embarrassed, standing there red-faced and about to drop that violin from his hand…  Who’s this anyway?  Mummy’s boy, come here and introduce yourself.  Oh poor you, your voice is shaking, just like these clammy cold hands’, she thought to herself as she entered defiantly the drawing-room.  ‘Why does Mother have to call me in as soon as I enter the house?  Oh, I hoped I could just escape quietly upstairs!...’

“Stravinsky? Nice to meet you. Are you a music student?”  She withdrew her hand quickly, slipping it out from his sweaty grasp and wiping it discreetly on the back of her thigh. 

She smiled sweetly.  ‘I’m tired and flushed after the bicycle ride’ she thought, ‘now, how am I supposed to ride the darn thing wearing a full-length skirt and corset, for God’s sake?  Haven’t they all seen the advert in the latest Paris Match for those lovely new Turkish trousers, specially made for ladies who wish to ride a bicycle?  Of course not, stuffy old cows, when would they ever open Paris Match, busy as they are, sitting there, pretending to listen to music, drinking tea and ruining my reputation… who cares, it’s lost anyway, and Father loves to see me try the latest inventions.’

“Miriam, show the gentleman the garden.”

“Certainly, Madam, I’ll be downstairs presently.”

A few minutes later, she came downstairs in a long white dress, holding a sun umbrella in her delicate gloved hands.  “This way,  Mr Stravinsky.”

They walked quietly together through the fragrant rows of blossoming cherry trees.  As she passed the bow-windows of the ground floor, she caught a glimpse of the sun dropping lacy shadows on her face through the umbrella.  ‘I’ll just tour the garden once with him, that should be polite enough, and then I’ll make my excuses.’

…..

The beginning of the 20^th century was the era of the Belle Epoque, of the enigmatic jewels of Art Nouveau, an era when the woman was pictured as a mysterious, dark, magic temptress.  It was an era of discovery and experiment.  At the Paris Exhibition, Japanese stamps were being shown to Europeans for the first time, the Eiffel Tower was being built and Guimard was drawing the red-eyed, tentacled Metro entrances of Montmartre.

....

“I’ll play this Minuet of Boccherini for you.”  He picked up his violin and started playing.

The music burst like a ray of sunshine after the rain, making the green leaves sparkle, gushing forth with such joy that she couldn’t help but close her eyes, swaying to it, smiling in deep reverie. 

“I wonder how you dance to a minuet.”  The violin weaved a silken thread of light and joy, a deep, simple, childish joy for life that swirled around in a rhythmic, playful dance.

“What is it about rhythm that makes me so happy?  Or sad?” 

He put the violin down, listening to her intently.

“How can I go from the deep melancholy of a tango to the cheer of a dance so suddenly?  Why?  Is it that my heart suddenly beats to the rhythm of the dance, and starts dancing despite my static body?  Why?  Is it that once, in the dark of time, we were fashioned to start beating faster, like herds of wild horses running from a beast?” 

He smiled.  She carried on, without noticing.

“Just the sound of many feet pounding the ground, the soil trembling rhythmically under your feet, would instinctively make your heart beat faster and make you want to jump and run, move your feet to the beat, despite your judgement or your feelings?  And that sudden change to happiness?  I mean, in those Spanish legends of El Cid, they would go to war to the sound of the drums, wasn’t that making them feel just as I feel when I hear those dance beats?  Aren’t we all just primitives when it comes to music, ready to jump and dance and run at a bare sound, no reason, no explanation?”

She stopped, surprised at how much she had spoken to him.  She didn’t like him, after all.

“Let me take you somewhere you can join the herds of wild horses.”

“Ha ha ha!!”   Despite herself, this bland-looking young man had made her laugh.  

“That’s the most amusing offer I have ever been made!”

“Let’s go to a guinguette.  We’ll dress like servants and go dancing!  In the fresh air, along the river, you will like that.” 

“Can we do that?’ She said, incredulous at his daring.  Her skin tingled with excitement. “You won’t tell on me?” – oh, just think of it, the adventure! - ” If you’re just tricking me and you’re going to tell my Mother and Grandmother, I promise I will have your little finger chopped off so you never play the violin again, I will!”

“Ouch, that’s cruel!  Fine, I do promise.  Saturday evening, I will meet you in the little park near the church just before Mass.”

“I’ll be dressed like a servant, be careful not to run off with some other maid!”

“Better than those ridiculous trousers!”

She giggled, pleased at his camaraderie. 

....

Saturday evening came.  As she stepped in the park, she couldn’t see him in the crowd.  She looked around, and at last, his eyes looking straight into hers, she found him.  All proper-looking, his blond hair brushed back above his pale forehead, his washy- green eyes barely showing any feeling at all.  A wide smile beckoned to her, and she walked over relieved.  

‘I don’t know why I’m going to the dance with him; he is really not that handsome, not even half as any of the others.  But who else would dare ‘insult’ me and take me to a guinguette?!  And I’ve been longing to go to one for so long, just when I pass them in our carriage and hear the music, they call out to me. This is so exciting, I hope we don’t meet anybody that knows me!’

‘He is so gentle and I can see so little in his eyes, I wonder why he wanted to go there together. Did he just find me amusing?  Is he attracted to me? How can he show so little?’, she thought as she took his arm.

“I didn’t imagine you much of a dancer!”, she said playfully.

“I am a musician, after all. I make music, I write songs. This – he gestured around – is music. Living music. The best there is.”

“I bet you don’t say that in the salons where you play those Mozart sonnets to the serious ladies of the nobility!”

“Of course not, they’d throw me out for blasphemy.  But those lovely new sonnets they so gracefully patronage me to write, where do you think they come from?”

“Here?” she whispered, incredulously.  “Your inspiration are the chansons?!  Most people are even ashamed to admit to ever listening to them, let alone liking them!”

“Music is something beyond people, society, and what they say is acceptable. Music is something that talks straight to your heart. It may be venal or even slightly obscene, and yet it can still move you beyond words and prejudice.”

He bent slightly and took her hand:

“May I have this dance?”

“You may, sir”, she smiled.

His arms were light and he kept a respectable distance. A vague flicker passed in his pale green eyes, but she didn”t see it.  He was much taller than her, and she was looking to the side, watching the other dancers sway to the heart-felt melancholy trills of the red-haired singer.

“You dance very well”, he said.

“To this day I cannot listen to such music without dancing.”  She blushed.  “At least in my mind.”  She suddenly felt she could tell him anything.

“Dancing is the only true way of listening to music. I am sure I was dancing long before I could speak, before I was born even. The warm round sound of a deep beat just shows me how to move.  I want to simply float along its pellets or merry song as if along a bubbly stream.  I could spend all day splashing around in the sea.  I could spend all day splashing and whirling around in waves of music.  It talks directly to my muscles, to my bones, to my sinews, and they just have to move to it.”

He suddenly drew her closer, so close his chin brushed her fringe.  A tingling wave of desire swept, warm, through her body.  She skipped a breath, her stomach gave a pleasant jolt.  ‘Thank God he can’t tell’, she thought.  He could. She had gone too quiet.  After a few moments she stole a glance at his face.  ‘Is he holding back? Does he like me? Then why?...’  This was far more tantalising than any of the open compliments she was so used to.  She caught herself imagining his eyes longing for her, searching for hers, his fingers on her arm, his lips...  She drew breath sharply.  ‘This just isn’t practical, Miriam. He is a musician, a poor student and not a suitable husband for you’.  A sweet and heavy lightning bolt slashed through her lungs.  She sighed.

...

A hollow sense of despair lurked in his bowels.

“I will never be able to offer you the kind of life you want, Miriam.  And I would loath you to live in any other way than you do. ” He sighed deeply and hung his head low, looking at the hat in his hands.  Then he kissed her deeply, passionately, despairingly, and he was gone.

...

Her mother looked very pleased that day.  Her daughter had made a good alliance with one of the most sought-after bachelor of the day:  Maurice Benoit, son of wealthy merchant.  Her daughter held the arm of her well-dressed new fiancé, a faraway look in her eyes.  He looked very pleased with himself, and  Miriam was glad he didn’t look at her face. “Why are you so quiet, my darling?”, he said in between greeting guests with a magnanimous smile.

‘Oh, no, Mother, why do you have to bring more musicians?  Today of all days!’, she thought to herself, at the faint chords coming from the garden.  Music only made her sad today.

“He is caring, and handsome, we will be happy together”, she told herself.  All the while, she searched inside her heart for something - something that was not there.  No spark, no tremor, no joy, no anticipation, all silence.  Deep, velvety silence, in the middle of the noisy crowd of guests and her fiancé’s voice thanking them for the engagement wishes.

“Let us to the garden, my darling”, Maurice said cordially.

The music started a strange, unfamiliar new tune.  ‘Mother and her modern music!  I wish she were as modern about other things in life!’, she thought to herself.

Then, something in the music changed.  She turned her head slightly, tilting her forehead to hear it better, tuning in through the noise.  She held her breath.  Rain drops, then a ray of sunshine, making the green leaves sparkle, gushing with joy – and then plunging in deep, sad darkness and fading out in the rumble of a thunder.  Then silence.  Then, again, thunder.  She listened to that receding silence, and felt it deeply, that silence, through the babbling noise of the crowd.  She knew it was his song, for her.  It was a message.  She felt him deep in her heart, amid the silence she had been searching, and he was saying good-bye.  And yet he was there, deep and sad, part of her.  She felt her throat tightening, a tightness that rose and rose, stronger and stronger, until she burst into tears.

“But Miriam darling, I thought you were going to like it!  You are always like the latest inventions, and this music is just that!”, said Maurice, puzzled by at his fiancée’s tears.

“Don”t worry, Maurice!  She is just happy!   Engagements always make me cry!”, said her mother, patting her arm reassuringly.

Stories - 2013 - Hiding

We are walking along the path in the park and I suddenly turn right to walk between the two bushy rows of lavender. He doesn’t follow me, because he just has to be different, doesn’t he. I walk to the end and he walk s to his end. I look his way, but he isn’t coming and he isn’t looking either. There is a tall rose bush in front of me and I duck down. Maybe he won’t see me. Maybe he’ll wonder where I’ve gone. I want him to look my way and to see him worrying, surprised I’m not there anymore. He doesn’t look worried. But he starts walking my way. I keep looking at him through the branches and flowers. When he is close and he can see me crouching in my black office suit, his face opens into a big smile and he laughs. 

“Are you hiding?”

“Yes, how did you know I was here?”

“I saw you.”

“You could see me?”

“Yes.”

“I’m going to call you Pedro from now on.”

“No, you won’t.”

“Yes I will.”

... I am small. Six maybe.

My mother and I are in the house of some friends. She is talking grown-up things with them in the living-room, and I am bored. So I go and hide. Their flat is like ours, a dark corridor with a built-in cupboard by the bathroom door. They use theirs to store dirty laundry and rags for washing the floors, as far as I can tell by the dank smell.  I sit there in there and carefully close the doors from inside. My dark purple dress would look like any other rags, but I have to hide my hands and face. I pick up some dirty clothes in the dark and put some over my arms, and one over my head and face.

And then I sit there, waiting, listening to the noises in the dark and smelling the clothes. The smell is that of wet cloth drying in a closed, airless space.

At length my mother’s voice emerges from the living room, saying goodbye and calling out to me. She calls, but I don’t answer. They all start looking for me. They go in the other rooms, I hear the doors opening, their voices calling me, and asking each other where else to look. 

That is infinitely pleasing to me. They actually want me, and they are feeling it, now I am not there. And I can hear it all while they don’t know I’m there. 

I hear someone switching the light-switch by the bathroom door, and the door to my cupboard opens. I hold my breath and keep very still, my heart pumping extra hard. A few long, silent moments. The doors close. I take a deep breath and shift a leg - it has gone numb. They didn’t see me. I’m good at this!

“Did you look in the cupboard? She must be hiding somewhere.”

“Yes, she’s not there”.

I smile in the smelly darkness.

The light switch again. The doors open, I stop breathing again. The doors stay open for a while, but I can’t see who it is, the dirty cloth is on my face. I can’t hold my breath for that long, so I start exhaling slowly and carefully, trying not to move at all. I take small, invisible, shallow breaths. My heart is thumping again with the excitement. Who’s going to win this time?

Me. The doors close again, disappointed.

My mother’s voice rings again in the corridor. She is saying goodbye, she has to go. She has given up. But I don’t hear despair in her voice.  She isn’t crying either. I’m disappointed now.

After she has gone, I stay there for a while longer, and then I emerge. There is no more fun if they are not looking for me. If I am not the thing they care about most.