I read a short story written by a friend from college recently. It was a proud moment to see one of our own getting published in a reputable literary magazine. B was a geek who dreamed of being literary without the education in early life or the time to work on her craft later. We were kindred spirits in that sense. I was glad to see her make it somewhere even if decades too late. But the topic of her story put me in a pensive mood. Only those who knew her well from her college das would be able to see that it was autobiographical. She was pushed into an arranged marriage by her parents. It was considered a high-status match for their family - having scored the best deal ever, they made haste to close. In her story, B mentions meeting her ex-boyfriend from college a decade after marriage. The event is described with the degree of precision that is hard to mistake. That was S clear as day. In her story S is married and so is the protagonist but both are unhappy in their own ways. S is estranged from his wife.
The heroine of the story is married to a physically abusive husband she cannot leave because she has two kids. In real life all facts add up to B. Separating fact from fiction can be hard even when you think you know someone reasonably well. Last I saw B she was in her early 20s so I imagine I don't know her at all. But as two women who are of the same age and some shared life experiences, I believe her story is part reality and part fiction. Her marriage is not what she wanted it to be maybe because she could not invest in the husband fully being mentally away with S and imagining what might have been. No marriage can compete with that kind of perfection - where every blemish can be wished away at whim. It is also likely that whatever it was with S ended with such an ostensible finality that such a story became possible to write - there simply cannot be any truth to it. B was always a woman full of mysteries and I am not surprised to see that she retained what was most unique about her - the ability to surprise. For her sake, I want to believe she has never been physically abused.
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