Wrecked (12 page)

When I arrive at home virtually all I can say to my future husband are things like, “Did you pack this?”

“Yes.”

“Did you pack that?”

“Yeeeees.”

Apparently he, too, had remembered everything. Prior to the wedding we’re not particularly infatuated with each other, which is normal. There’s just too much to think about. You don’t necessarily want to marry; you’d really rather just be married. Who has ever had a relaxing good time at their own wedding? I don’t know anyone. It begins to get fun only when everything’s nearly over, there’s nothing left to go wrong, and you can start drinking. At least I hope!

We meet all my boyfriend’s relatives at the airport. That’s also nerve-racking—organizing a big group of travelers. The children of some nieces and nephews of my future husband start screaming during check-in. I turn off my mobile phone shortly before boarding. I’m a good little flier, always following all the rules. The children scream even more once they’re inside the plane. I just act as if I don’t know them. They are sitting in the row in front of me, so it works fine. I do breathing exercises to try to stave off panic from all the commotion. I fake a relaxed smile when my boyfriend looks at me and takes my hand. I’ll be happy when we have some peace and quiet at our hotel room. When we finally arrive.

Short afternoon flight to London. About fifty minutes. We land and exit the plane. We’ve booked a huge tour bus with a driver. He’s supposed to meet us outside holding one of those funny signs with our name written on it. I’ve never been picked up by a driver with a sign. We took out a big loan for the wedding. So we don’t have to spare any expense. I’ll be very relieved if everything with the bus works out—if there really is someone standing there and we have a driver.

We collect our luggage, and as we pass the customs booth I switch my phone back on. It rings the exact second I turn it on. I can see it’s my father’s number. I answer.

“Hello, Papa. We just landed.”

This story from back then—and what is about to happen on the phone with my father—has ruined my entire life. It still plays an immense role now, eight years later, as I sit on the
couch with my current husband. My husband married a complete wreck.

Back to the worm problem.

Lying in my husband’s arms, I call my ex-husband, ex-boyfriend, whatever you want to call him.

“Hello?”

“Am I disturbing you?” That’s always the first thing I ask everyone I call. It’s far too polite and apologetic, which is why I like it. This feigned meekness. The submissiveness.

“No.”

“To cut straight to the chase, Liza and I have worms. Nematodes, to be exact. I have to take her to the pediatrician tomorrow. Which means she can’t go to school. Have you noticed anything at your end?” Well put.

“Well, now that you mention it. I thought it was something else.”

Please, no details! But here they come …

“I had this painful other thing recently, so when I felt the itching, I just figured the same thing was coming back again—though it did feel very different last time.”

Got it. Dragged right into it. We were together for years, after all. Even if I can’t possibly imagine it now. It’s horrible when you have kids with someone you split up with. Your first instinct tells you that the fact that you once had sex together is not a reason you ever have to see each other again. But, because of the child, you can’t give into that instinct; instead you have to get along passably forever, for the child’s sake.

Horrible. I would rather not see anyone I ever have sex with after the end of the relationship. Whenever you see someone you’ve been with, you always end up thinking about it, or
rather you are reminded of it even against your will. Awful. It always seems almost impossible that you were actually together, before, ages ago.

“Have a look at Wikipedia, please, so I don’t have to go into detail. You can inspect your stool—they’ll be squirming around in it if you have them. They’re bright white and very active. They move around like crazy. Or you can hold a piece of transparent tape up to your butt hole.”

Oh, God, this is embarrassing.

“They’ll stick to that if you have them, and you’ll know.”

“I’m pretty sure I have them, too. Like I said, I had just blamed the sensation on something else. But I’m totally itchy, too.”

I have to smile. Man, patchwork families are absurd. You’re not spared any indignity.

“I’ll try to get medicine for all of us from the pediatrician tomorrow. Not that we all have to be examined. I bet he’ll believe me if I say the father and mother have worms, too. I just don’t know whether a pediatrician can write prescriptions for adult medicines. At least I fit in children’s clothes. It’ll be tougher for you to pass yourself off as a child. Maybe you won’t need to try—maybe I can get medicine for all of us. I’ll call you tomorrow after we see the doctor, yeah?”

“And Georg, does he have them?”

“No, we haven’t infected him yet, fortunately.” A total lie. But he’s sitting right next to me, so I can’t say,
He says he doesn’t, but I can tell from his reaction to my question about them that he’s lying and is infested, too. I think the reason he’s lying is that he wants to try to stay sexually attractive to me
.

“Well, that’s something, at least. Okay, thanks a lot. Talk to you tomorrow.”

My husband looks at me consolingly, but he can’t think of anything else at this point. We’ll just have to wait. Nine hours. As horrible as it is, and as disgusting as it is, it’s also a little bit exciting. Because I’ve never experienced it. At least not knowingly, during adulthood. I ask him if he wants to see the worms. I can feel that a bunch of them are outside now. It’s time for them to step out for a breath of fresh air. The thought that he should look at the worms is such a motherly thought. But he really should act like a mother for a minute and help me; he should defuse my horror at the situation. He should look at it together with me, comfort me, and tell me it’s not as bad as I think. He declines.

“There is no way I’m going to look at your worms.”

I immediately feel insulted. He doesn’t want to look at my worms? Why not? Such an enticing offer. I would definitely say yes if it were the other way around. I’m sick, infested in fact, and he doesn’t want to see the source of the misery?

“I don’t think it’s a good idea. I shouldn’t take a look. We’re a couple, married even, but that doesn’t mean I have to look at every disgusting thing you get.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what’s coming next: the lecture about childbirth and how it’s better if a man doesn’t see all the gory details because it will ruin the sex between him and the mother. I’ve heard it a thousand times from my husband.

“It’s just like when a man looks at everything up close during the birth of his children—as if he’s a doctor or something—and then can’t cope with seeing the vagina all stretched out and torn to shreds,” he says.

Men also can’t take it when so much shit comes out during birth. The combination of shit and a newborn says a lot about
mankind, though. That the two holes are so close to each other is proof that there’s no God. He would have put them as far apart as possible—one on the foot and the other on top of the head.

And if a man can’t cope with witnessing birth, sex is nearly impossible afterward if he does see it. You have to preserve the sexual allure of the reproductive organs, or else it’s true what my husband says.

But in terms of wanting to show him the worms, I feel as if I’m offering something nice. And he just turns me down. I thought he’d find the fact that I have worms at least as interesting as I do. But he flatly rejects my offer, which at first makes me sad, then angry. I left my parents for a man like this? Great. I guess I’m totally alone. I can’t expect help from anyone. I’ll just have to deal with any disgusting ailments all on my own, with all the horrible images they leave in my head.

I want him to share the images. But he doesn’t want to be burdened with them—he wants to be able to keep me pure in his memory so he can still get it up when he sees me naked. I fold my arms on my chest. I always do that when I feel crazy thoughts brewing inside me.

“Don’t get angry. I know exactly what you’re thinking.”

I’m never able to hide it for long.

“You’re thinking I never help you in an emergency. But Elizabeth, I have to tell you, having worms is not an emergency.”

He’s laughing at me. He’s mocking me. Asshole. He’s got worms, too; he just doesn’t have the guts to admit it to me.

“If you really had something bad, it wouldn’t matter how disgusting it was—I would look at it, I would help, I would do anything and everything. But there’s no call for that here. There’s no reason I need to look at your worms and then have
to have that unnecessary image in my head. If I can have some input into this decision, I would opt for our love life over having that image in my head. And anyway, you
asked
me, so I’m allowed to say no.”

Fucking therapy-speak. He picked that kind of language up at marriage counseling. How to draw lines. He knows he shouldn’t always do what I want just because I flip out. He and I have learned that he should never allow me to pressure him. He’s not responsible for my happiness. I can’t blame him for my unhappiness. That’s my parents’ fault. What is he supposed to do about that? He’s always there for me. He’s nothing but supportive, but it’s still never enough for me. You just can’t make me happy. I can’t be satisfied—or pacified, for that matter. Except by myself, and that is a long process. He’s been freed by the marriage counseling, and all problems now lie at my feet. I’m clearly the aggressor in our relationship. I wheedle, pressure, pull him down with me, and he just needs not to be swayed by any of it. He needs to establish boundaries—just like he did with the worms. He needs to say, “That’s your problem. Go ahead and throw a fit. I can’t do anything about it, and I can’t help you. You’re unhappy, but you are the only person who can fix it. Either you save yourself or not. There’s no way I can do it for you.”

I need to stop overwhelming him with demands. I was better off before the marriage counseling, because I could just passive-aggressively try to make him responsible for everything. That would have quickly destroyed our relationship, though.

I didn’t want to allow myself to feel any grief, which is why I became so aggressive. When I was fighting with my husband, I didn’t feel any of the sorrow. It was nice for me. And bad for
him. Now that I leave him in peace and no longer try to blame him for all the bad things I’ve experienced in life—things my parents did to me—I have to shoulder the burden myself and sometimes feel as if I’m about to collapse. And my husband has to step aside and watch. He can’t help me. The grief that I don’t wish to feel comes from that phone call, back there in the customs area of the airport.

My father says to me over the phone, “Elizabeth, you have to be very strong now.”

Like in a movie. I start to hear a whooshing noise in my ear. I stand still and probably put a grimace on my face, because my boyfriend looks at me, aghast.

“There was a bad accident on the highway. A multicar collision. The Belgian police just called me. We have to assume that everyone who was in the car is dead. That’s what they said.”

A long pause.

“Now I have to ask you who was in the car.”

“What? What? What?”

“Who was in the car, Elizabeth?”

What? Who was in the car, Elizabeth? He doesn’t know? He doesn’t know. They told him everyone was dead. But they don’t know who was in the car? Huh?

“Don’t say Harry was in the car. Say he’s there with you. Did he fly? Say something!”

That’s his only son. My brother, the sibling closest to me in age. I have to think for a long time. I don’t want to say anything wrong. Maybe they’ll die if I say the wrong names. Concentrate. Concentrate. Come on, Elizabeth, think. For once in your life.
My brain has almost shut down from shock. And now I have to give a list of names. I have to list the dead? I’m thinking. He’s calling me to find out who is dead? Think. You just saw them all playing in the yard. Pull yourself together. Try to say the names.

“Mama …

“Harry …

“Lukas …

“Paul …

“Rhea …”

I can hear him writing it down. He’s also in shock. He’s afraid he’ll forget the names. One he will not forget. I’ve told him his son was in the car.

No more? Yes? No? Is this right? Is this all the names? My head hurts. My eyes are barely open. The light hurts them.

In the middle of the exit area, my legs give out and I sink to the floor. My boyfriend sits down next to me and stares at me. He knows it has to be something awful I am hearing. All his relatives stop and look at us.

Everyone is very serious—except for the fucking kids. It gets very quiet, though I can see the children are still screaming. I don’t hear them anymore. I never want to get up from this spot again. My body has lost all strength. I implode.

I think and think. It’s difficult, exhausting, and slow to think. My brain is blocked.

“Mama is dead, too?”

“Yes, everyone. They said we should assume they are all dead.”

A new thought shoots into my mind:
What happened to my dress?
It was in the car, too. Above the car. On top of the car. Is the dress dead, too? Is it wrecked? I can’t bring myself to
ask. I’m possessed by the idea that nothing can have happened to my dress. Suddenly I can’t think of anything that could be worse. My wedding dress. It cost so much. All the fittings! I have to give the tailor a photo of me wearing it. I promised her.

This part of my reaction embarrasses me to this day. My therapist says I don’t need to feel bad about it, though. Our minds do funny things when we experience terror. I just wasn’t in a condition to truly understand that they were all dead. But I was in a condition to understand that my dress might be lost. It’s much less painful having to deal with that than the loss of people. Your brain just shuts down, allowing only a few small less painful thoughts.

My father is also in shock. That’s the reason he suggests we still go ahead and get married. He says this shouldn’t get in the way. He also can’t comprehend the magnitude of the situation in the slightest. He says he has to hang up so the police can reach him. Then he hangs up.