Eternal Traces (Part Two)

(Picture from; https://www.vintag.es/2019/09/female-hysteria.html)

 1905

After returning from France, Cynthia visited Judy.
She was standing in front of a two-story house with slightly yellowish walls, surrounded by trees with precisely trimmed crowns, with a path to the driveway strewn with gravel. The door was opened by a maid with a freckled face, a year or two younger than her.
Ever since she returned from France, Cynthia knew even less about who she was. Although her mother had called her a woman since she was thirteen, when she got her period for the first time, she never felt less grown up. Judy's house was huge, it could swallow her, chew her up and spit her out. And when it'd spat her out, Cynthia would only be left with a shrunken body, a childlike form she felt suited her better than a woman's body. France shattered the last illusion of composure Cynthia felt. Beaches and walks with her aunt, watching girls walking hand in hand with young men, museums with hundreds of years old antiquities separated her from her own body.
Judy met her in the parlour. Empty room, blue wallpaper, glass table, crystal vase. Objects, dilapidated and silly like the dolls whose heads they used to chopp off.
"How was it in France?"
So someone told her. And that is the first topic of conversation they start. No mention of Judy's aloofness, the sudden marriage, the lack of returned letters. It is a matter of principle. And social reputation. "Good. I've been in the castle. They say it's inhabited by the ghost of a woman killed by her husband."
Judy nodded and pushed the tray of cakes in front of Cynthia. Why do people always think that cakes can distract you or make everything seem fabulous?
"How are you?"
"Great," Judy whispered. She didn't want to look up. The girl who used to look everyone in the eye, to whom no one could lie, she couldn´t look her best friend in the eye.
"So," Cynthia fumed. "Do you enjoy hanging out with chickens dressed in expensive dresses? Does your John or William or whatever he's called give you pearls and gold necklaces? Do you dream together about the many offspring you will raise in this cursed palace of yours? Is it pleasant all day long sit there, all dressed up like for a ball, and idle around until Mr. Ideal shows up?"
"His name is Brian. And yes," she took a sip of tea, "we like it."
She stared at Judy and wondered what the hell had happened to her. What did they do to her? "Are you sick?"
Judy's lips curved into a barely perceptible smile. "On the contrary, I am very well. Cynth, thank you for coming, but I have no desire to argue with you. I have understood how one should behave. This is the greatest success I could have hoped for. I am loved, everyone is happy with me. That's what you should strive for, too."
Cynthia didn't know how to answer her. To that poor, fallen angel, lost in social reputation and principles. She took her advice not to stay long, but not the other advice.

Whenever her mother wanted to pass some news about Judy to her, Cynthia would stop her. She didn´t want to hear about Judy´s firstborn, nor about Brian´s success, nor about Judy´s illness… She knew all about it before it even happened.

1906 - 1908

Excellent man. Good, successful, honest, loving, just the kind Judy dreamed of and Cynthia abhorred.
After school, Cynthia didn´t go to college. "Yes, I wanted you to get education," her dad told her. His mustache shook as he laughed and lifted his reading glasses with his hand to wipe away the tears. His daughter was funny to him. "To be a smart wife to a smart husband. To be able to help him. Do you know Roderick Samson?"
Cynthia was still staring at her reflection and had no idea who was the person looking back at her. A lonely girl who can't do what she wants.
"But you've always been a bit wild," her mother said when Cynthia tried to argue against the idea of marrying Roderick. "That's why you need a good husband like Mr. Samson. Why are you looking at me like that, honey? I've been saying for a long time that this school is only distracting you from your important goals! Nobody likes too smart women!"
"Cynthia's smart enough and decent enough and she'll do what's right, won't she?"
Her father. He wanted it all along. Her mother, whom she once considered so kind, caring, now calls her too smart, which is equivalent to stupid.

She met Roderick one day, they were engaged a week afterwards. He talked to her father more than to his fiancee. He never asked her what she likes, what are her hobbies, her hopes. It was like he bought her and even though her mother cried at their wedding, Cynthia knew the successful bargain satisfied her parents.

She lost control of her life. As if she ever had it. If everyone always knew it would end up like this, why did she bother? Perhaps for the same reason as the suffragettes. She couldn't stand it. And she knew, already on the first night after marriage, that it would not end as everyone hoped.
Roderick was absent during the day. He came back in the evening expecting his dinner and a compliant wife. Cynthia wasn't like that. After the first month of trying to be obedient, she couldn't stand his panting, his sweat, the mask he wore every morning at breakfast, his callous "Have a nice day, darling." She is nobody's darling. She's not even her own darling any more. She started waiting for him with a fork in her hand. She stared at him during dinner and went to bed with her weapon. When he leaned over her, she pointed the fork at his neck. "No."
He threw himself on the other side of the bed. "Cynth, what the hell are you doing? Why did you bring your fork to bed?"
She didn't say anything. She was breathing deeply with her fork clenched tightly in her fist.
It went on for days, until Roderick gave up. Every attempt he made failed as soon as Cynthia pointed the fork at him.

Every day she considered herself a person less and less. She buried Cynthia Limes, Cynthia Samson was an unknown person to her. Cynthia, Cynth Limes was a girl with dreams. She wanted to be a botanist, an explorer, dive to the deepest depths of the ocean, climb trees and chase squirrels, give them hazelnuts to eat from her palms. That would´ve been a great achievement. The squirrels eating out of her hand.
Cynthia Samson was the ghost that stalked her as she moved through the house. Prison. Servant looked at her in confusion. They exchanged whispers, guessing what was wrong with their employer's wife. "She's too young, she's like a lamb." Roderick was thirty years old. Only twelve years her senior, her mother would say.
"Cynthia, how long do you intend to go on with this?" She was lying on her back, covered up to her neck. Only one of her hands was sticking out from under the covers. She was holding a fork. "You know, if you're… if it's that time of the month or… if you're afraid, tell me. I won't force you." She wasn't afraid. She didn't care. She was just disgusted. She was disgusted by herself.
"Fine." She spoke so rarely that her voice became rough. Did Judy, like her, gradually discard the ability to speak because she had nothing to say? She put her fork down on the side table next to the pillow. Roderick strode to her side and picked up the fork. He put it away in one of his drawers.
Ten minutes later he threw himself at her. His hand as if accidentally covered her mouth. She reached for the fork. In vain.
"You're sick," the maid remarked a month later. "Look at you, ma'am, you're so pale! And your hair, aren't you washing it? The cook noticed that the plates of your food were coming back untouched, and we were all wondering... Are you pregnant?"
How can a person who does not know herself carry another being inside of her? No, she wasn't pregnant. She barely still existed. She was fading. Every day she saw less and less in the mirror. First the feet disappeared, then the palms, and she faded like a photograph. She disappeared from the picture. Servants stopped noticing her.
"The maid says you're sick. I noticed that too. I called your parents."
They came, as if Roderick's invitation were sacred. Cynthia sat on the couch between them.
"Yes, they say women of her age are susceptible to . . ."
Women. She was a child. She looked at her mother, the person she expected to hug and kiss her like she had kissed her knees ten years ago when she fell in the park.
"I know a good expert, we are in the same club..." Her father. The breadwinner of the family, the same man who financed her education, who she relied on to support her. He laughed at his own daughter. He denied the employees of his company the necessary salaries.
None of them took into account that even though Cynthia was disappearing, she could still hear. She heard every word they said. She also saw pamphlets for women who need help because they suffer from mental illnesses. Specialized doctors helped these lost women to find their lost femininity, to return to their duties, to be good mothers and hard-working wives. Helped them to give up themselves and please others. It. Is. A. Matter. Of. Principle.
Barefoot, in a nightgown, Cynthia ran away. Morning came, but she remained as imperceptible as in the dead of night. She has almost disappeared, only the outlines of her reflection remained. She almost gave herself up. That's why she wasn´t hungry, she didn't get pregnant even though Roderick tried to plant his seed in her, she couldn't speak. Cynthia deleted herself, and others helped her do that. But the further she went, the more she renewed herself. She got hungry, felt the cold. She regained her ability to speak and, when a woman found her curled up in her yard, managed to say, "Food. Please." However, it wasn´t Cynthia´s voice which came out of her mouth.

1912

Cynthia, regardless of her last name, died as soon as she escaped from Roderick's house. She was killed by the social reputation, and buried by the principles. The creature that survived moved far away and got a job first in a factory, almost the same one that Cynthia's father owned. She progressed, joined the suffragettes. One of the other women's rights activists allowed her to get a job in a boutique, to sell the same clothing for which the fabric was sourced from Cynthia's father's factory. Mr. Limes. But that man was not Ginger's father. Ginger evolved from a likeness that crawled out of Cynthia before she completely obliterated herself.
Ginger folded the newspaper and put it away. No one will connect her face with the one in the picture, so much has changed. Wait, no. That was never her face! It's nobody's face.
She left the store. She had to take an evening course. She was finally going to graduate, as she was supposed to before her parents signed her out of school right before the graduation... no, it wasn't her parents, but the parents of that girl who ended up taking her own life out of desperation. A girl who was robbed of the most important thing that every being possesses; her self.
Ginger may have known all her life that she was missing something. She gave up a part of herself and left it behind as she fled, as her personality formed. And that shadow returned from where the newborn Ginger escaped and lived the painful life she herself escaped. She left Cynthia alone, without courage, without desire, pale and blank as paper. Now she pitied her. Poor thing, she couldn't last, but Ginger knew she wouldn't. She couldn't take it either, so she left. Only one of the two could´ve been saved.
She stared at her reflection on the glass of an exhibit. So different. And yet, somewhere deep in that skin, beneath the layers of tremendous changes, that little girl with curly hair who wanted to become a botanist occasionally surfaced. She also survived. Ginger was glad because of that. Turns out, it´s not possible to completely delete a person.
Some traces are eternal.

 Submitted: 11th March 2023

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