Folie à Deux (18 page)

We always take the same train into Paris. Although I know the landscape and the stops by now, this particular journey is unsettling. I didn’t pack especially nice clothes except for Easter but I certainly don’t have anything appropriate for a wedding — my wedding. I’m scared. Carla talks all the way from Fontainebleau to Paris. The ride seems rougher than past trips. It might be my fragility that causes every turn of the car to rattle my bones. I’m sure many reasons have caused people to vomit on their wedding day but I’m fairly certain that this set of obscene circumstances is unique. I take no comfort in my individuality.

Her rambling allows me to revel in the white noise. When I do pay attention she tells me how wonderful it is that we’re going to a place as sacred as Notre-Dame de Paris. I find it sanctimonious. She rattles off a list of famous people from some era, unknown to me, who have gotten married there but I’m sure that she means inside the building. The illicit, deceitful ceremonies must be reserved for outside.

We stay on the train to the Métro stop St Mîchel-Notre Dame which puts us on the Left Bank. It is not a far walk to the first set of stairs that leads us down to the river. This section of the city is busy and I can barely hear her over the life that surrounds us. I have no idea where I am nor our destination but I follow and still
she talks. I feign interest but am playing back the conversation I had with my mother before we left Fontainebleau this afternoon.

I didn’t have anything significant to say to my mom but it had been a few days since we last spoke. I was terribly nervous about the threshold I am to cross, the burden of managing it alone overwhelming. Pay phones in France don’t accept coins, rather a Carte Téléphonique must be purchased at a news stand. The card is inserted into the phone and the denomination purchased determines how much time there is to talk. Before I made the phone call I bought three cards. Even though I had thirty minutes on an old card, I hoped my mom would hear something in my voice and ask, “What’s wrong?” I didn’t know if she could stop the momentum of events but I feel like if anyone could, surely it’s my mom.

I called while she was making breakfast and the first thing she said was, “Oh your Dad just left for work. You missed him.”

“That’s fine,” I really wanted to talk to her anyway. We made the usual small talk and like every other conversation I can tell she was interested because I’m her son, not for any reasons of her own. She is a good listener anyway.

There were a few uncomfortable silences, me out of things to say and her, depleted of polite questions. Seemingly, neither of us wanted to end the conversation. When I saw the number five blinking on the LCD screen, I knew one card was almost done. I doubted she was going to ask.

“Listen, Mom, there are only a few minutes left and I don’t want to be disconnected,” even though I had three more cards in my pocket.

I surrendered, “I should get going.”

Saying, “Goodbye,” wasn’t just until the next time we spoke and it wasn’t until I see her again in New Jersey. I said it with
more finality because I knew that once this happens tonight I will be different because Carla says I will.

Carla and I make our final decent down old stone stairs to the quay. We are greeted by a loud, bright tour boat, immediately reminded of their inescapable laps. We find the bench closest to the cathedral and sit. Some people walk by and the honking of car horns is intermittent but nothing stops her from staring through me and somehow ignoring what she does not want to see. Things like my reticence, fear and discomfort fade away at will.

She can overlook my immaturity and fumbling for words at the stress as though they are inconsequential nuances. Even the imbalanced stages of our individual lives are conveniently leveled to diminish the dysfunction. All cast out and replaced with her conviction that we are meant to be divinely united.

She explains, “I can see it in your eyes when you look at me and feel it when you hold my hand and of course, most of all, when we make beautiful love it pervades all of my senses down to my soul.”

She stops speaking only when the boats pass. Although the light blinds my eyes, I feel like everyone inside is staring, just like at school. Hiding this indiscretion in plain sight takes on a brand new meaning in the context of conducting an illegitimate wedding ceremony mere feet from the literal center of Paris.

By the time the second boat passes she already has the ring in her hand and has pulled out what looks like a crib sheet. I can’t imagine what she wrote until she begins. Her voice, deeper than normal conveys the depth of her emotions. She speaks slower than she has all night making me drowsy.

I can sense her words being etched into my memory, knowing I’ll never forget the monologue. I’ll be able to recite this for
the rest of my life but never allow the words to leave the safe confines of my secrecy. The entire soliloquy is laced with admissions of love and praises my exceptionality. For the moment I feel like the once in a lifetime catch of which she speaks but I’m swept up in fantasized romance.

As it seems that she is concluding she moves her hand toward mine. I can’t see what she is about to put on my left hand but also don’t want to look. She moves the ring down the last finger of my left hand and all I can think of is how much the sensation resembles what it first felt like to put on a condom. When she removes her hand I see a crucifix ring on my pinky.

She describes, “If the body of Christ is facing out,” as she has situated mine, “The marital status of its wearer is indicated as ‘taken.’” It looks like her eyes are welling up with tears but it could be the reflecting lights across the river. The religious symbolism is too ironic for me to integrate into my thoughts.

When she suggested Notre Dame de Paris as our ritual site I chuckled but Jesus truly puts the exclamation point on this evening. Years before the initials appear on a rubber bracelet I ask myself as I look at my hand, “What would Jesus do?” Did Carla ask the same thing to solicit his heavenly response? “Carla, you must marry this boy to make your indiscretions tolerable.”

I’m about to remind her that I couldn’t buy a ring when she pulls a small bag from her purse and says, “I know you couldn’t do this on your own, so I picked it up for you,” handing me the bag. I’m tempted to look inside but also afraid. Instead, I recite my vows which are really just one. It doesn’t include for richer or for poorer, nor the sickness and health. I can’t vow them to her because I don’t know the meaning of those concepts.

“Carla, I’ve never been in love before. I know I care about you and I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you and
live happily ever after. I think this is a special place and a great place to get married. I hope to always make you happy. I love you.”

When I look at her recurrently she is starting to cry. Her lower lip quivers and she bites it to stop. As I finish speaking I reach into the bag and find a box. Inside the box, a plain band of gold I place on the ring finger of her left hand.

I’m being slowly drained as I say those words because they are void of validity. The truest thing I said is that I have never been in love before. I thought of what a wedding vow should sound like and tried to write my weak reflections. I imagined what she would want to hear because I try to please her. After the ring is on I look at her, she looks back at me and there is no mistaking her tears.

She leans and kisses me after she says, “You may now kiss the bride.” I taste the salt of a tear that has run into the corner of her mouth. I’m unable to take my right hand off the crucifix. I fondle it to convince myself of the tangibility of right now because it borders on fantastic. The ring convinces me that I am actually living this life. I feel compelled to believe that we are married because she is so convinced of this reality but somehow I cannot. This whole trip is surreal, I want to believe that I’m here in Paris but there are unwholesome truths that cause me to question that anything I think is genuine.

The train ride back to Luce’s is quiet. I feel like I’ve done something wrong because she is no longer talking. When I overcome my fear of her possible answer I ask, “Is something bothering you?”

She smiles a melancholy smile and tells me, “There are so many wonderful things on my mind. I can’t stop thinking what a dream come true this is.” Her response seems insane, unanswerable but I press no further. She moves against the window, lays down putting her head on my lap and places my hand under her arm where it’s warm. The closeness makes me feel momentarily safe. I think of the parallel of how she took me under her wing in many respects and analyze the normal connotation of that expression.

During the ten minute walk to Luce’s she starts talking again and although I cannot concentrate on what she is saying I like it better than her silence. I drag my feet from both physical and mental exhaustion at two in the morning. She replays the ceremony in Paris and anticipates the consummation of our wedding night, “I cannot wait to make love to you as your wife.” I’m unable to contribute. I know what an annulment is and my mind wanders to wonder if this has grounds to be annulled, if anyone even believes me.

The apartment is dark and silent but Luce has left cookies on the kitchen table where we sit and debrief. Our late night conversation is no different than any other where she does most of the talking and I do all of the agreeing, except when she asks me direct questions like, “Where do you want to go to college? What would like to study?”

She even asks me for the first time, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” The cookies are good and since I don’t drink milk I have a glass of water which from a French tap, is lukewarm to match my affect. Apparently she notices my boredom and allows the dialogue to taper.

Before any detectable discomfort she pulls me to my feet, “Shall we go make love as husband and wife?”

I feel ill.

I’m surprised when sex is no different from any other time. Missionary until we both orgasm and then when she is ready, she rolls me onto my back and begins to rub me until I am too. I’m still jetlagged and my body has not yet adjusted to the change in diet. I have been waking up in the middle of the night with terrible leg cramps, the painful, whole leg spasms that sneak up without warning. My body is rejecting all of the deprivations of this experience.

Regardless of the reason, it’s five-thirty in the morning and I cannot get an erection. I feel the frustration in her grip. She seems to think that tighter and faster will expedite my arousal. It does not, it only hurts. When I stop her she uses her mouth and as soon as she deems me ready she rises to complete our ritual.

For the first time she puts the condom on me herself, climbs on and moves aggressively. As she starts to writhe, the typical indicator that she is about to finish I feel something different, my pleasure doubles. I come instantly.

She slows and says through her groaning, “That was beautiful as always but this time as your wife,” and lays her head on my shoulder. Something is different and something is wrong. I pull the short chain to the light that rests above the bed and when I look down I see the condom has broken.

It takes all of my faculties at this time of the morning after this type of night to keep my composure. I’m convinced there is torn flesh hanging from my penis. My initial reaction is panic, but I’m proficient at keeping my emotions in check at all times. The condom is sheared all the way down to the tightly wrapped elastic ring at the bottom. She catches me staring and sees the look on my face so she looks too.

Before I can say anything I hear, “Oh, no.”

She speaks not a word but rises, puts on a T-shirt of mine that barely covers her ass and walks out of the room leaving the door open. I’m still lying naked on the bed looking as though I have torn through the last barrier of my innocence. I quickly pull the blanket up when I hear voices from the bathroom. I lay silently wondering if she is mad at me.

Fifteen minutes on my watch till she returns, yet seems like an eternity.

I can smell soap from a fresh bath as she sits beside me, “Do you know what went wrong?” I keep quiet about the strange sensation before I popped because she’s already upset.

Instead, I tell her solemnly, “I don’t know,” and quickly ask who she was talking to in the bathroom.

She tells with a distant tone, “Luce had just gotten up for work.” Carla was so upset that she stripped right in front of her and stepped in the bath even though Luce was still talking.

Sitting cross-legged, still in my T-shirt but now wearing underwear, she looks nervous. Her eyes shift between me and the
window. She occasionally glances at my crotch as if placing blame, unsure what about my covered penis attracts her attention.

She says, “I think I’ll be ok because the spermicide, Nonoxyl-9 is nothing more than soap. So I took a bath and scrubbed down there.” Her face does not reflect the consolation she speaks.

She ask again, this time with more incredulity, “What happened Jim?” and picks up the blanket to reveal the defective condom. It looks worse now because I am fully flaccid, like a sick flower with the shards resembling limp petals. She stares and I stare to avoid eye contact.