Fishhooks

Some men are like fishhooks. They slide so easily into the softest flesh they find - your cheek, the inside of your arm, maybe
even your heart. And their journey therein is so smooth, so quick, you don't even realize they've done it, until it is too late.
When you realize, it is too late, and you

reach for the tiny metal barb with panicked hands. Your fingers tremble at the cold
steel certainty of their presence in your body, your soul, your life.
You cannot remove these men without much tearing of flesh, much pain, much loss of blood.
When she first met him, he had a face that made her want to spend the rest of her living days gazing at him. Cheekbones like
cut glass, dark, watchful eyes, full lips, a straight nose with nostrils that flared ever so slightly, giving him a slightly disdainful
look. She had been caught from the start, by the urgency of his voice, the stabbing motions of his hands, the way he held a
cigarette. She watched him, mesmerized, imprinting his every nuance on her cells and in her veins.
Soon she knew that she was hooked. She knew this from the way that her heart quickened when she heard the phone ring,
hoping it might be him on the other end of the line. The lurching disappointment when it was not. The dizzying moment when she
smelled his cologne on another man - she'd close her eyes and imagine him standing there before her, laughing quietly. "All
right?" he'd say in that beautiful Northern accent of his, and she would smile at the image, unable to stop her lips from curving
upwards involuntarily.
At first, spending time together was intoxication. She could feel the crackle of electricity when they stood close to each other.
They didn't even have to be touching - the heat would rise up between their skin, like an aura with an energy of its own.
It seemed she could do nothing wrong in his eyes. "You're so bright," he would tell her. "I don't know anyone who's as bright as
you."
Once she played the piano for him, and his eyes brimmed with silent admiration. She tingled, hardly believing that she had such
power over him.
He told her, "I'm lost, and you are my compass. It's like I'm negotiating my life by you."
He had ambitions of his own, too. He wanted to be an author, and spoke to her endlessly of the novel he was going to write.
She knew it would be a masterpiece, a bestseller. It might even win the Booker Prize. He hadn't thought of a title as yet. But
that didn't matter.
"I'd love to write a novel myself one day," she said to him once.
"You can't," he said flatly, "You haven't read enough of the classics. Balzac, Bellow, Proust, Kafka. I don't think you could do
it as yet."
So caught was she in the beautiful dreams he had dreamt, the webs weaving and floating in the air like the smoke he blew from
his cigarettes, that she didn't mind him saying this. He must be right, after all. He knew so much, and she was happy to learn
under his tutelage. She didn't write much after he said that, though she continued to practice the piano diligently.
One day she wore a new dress for him. She turned in front of him, posing, preening, waiting for the compliment that she knew
would come.
Silence made her nervous. "Well~Ewhat do you think? Do you like it?"
He said, slowly, "Don't you think you've gained some weight?"
She said nothing, her back turned to him so he wouldn't see her cheeks burning. That very day she resolved to go on a diet.
She lost seven pounds. It was the same when he told her he thought she didn't wear enough perfume or jewelry. She began to
make an effort, to fasten beads at her throat and ears; she invested in several bottles of expensive scent. His embraces regained
their old warmth. She realized then how clever she had been to turn the negative into a positive, not to make a fuss, not to
protest and shout that he should "accept her as she was". She might prove her point, win the argument, but she would lose him.
Of this, she was certain.
But she didn't know just how clever she was, or how lucky, till the day six months later when she was getting ready for her
wedding to him.
The clothes had already been chosen, the jewelry bought, waiting for her in their grey boxes, safely tucked away in the safe
deposit box at the bank. Right now, she was being massaged with special oils and upton, a yellow paste which was meant to
make her skin soft and velvety, though it looked like discolored mud and smelled even worse. She was being prepared, made
ugly for the next three days so she could emerge beautiful for her husband-to-be.
The massage woman, a foolish, talkative woman, chattered away to her. Her talk was filled with silly tales of romance, stories
of other girls who had found true love with men they had never seen before, or who had been whisked away to foreign
countries, or who had enjoyed peace and prosperity with seventy year old widowers.
She was hardly listening, her eyes closed, made drowsy by the relaxing, repetitive motions of the massage woman's strong
fingers on her skin.
The massage woman said, "But some girls, bibi, they are so unlucky~E.they marry, but are never happy. You see, some men are
like fishhooks. They slide in so easily~E"
"What do you mean?" she said lazily.
"Well, they find the softest bit of flesh they can find. And they slide in so easily, but when you notice it, it's too late," replied the
massage woman, her voice suddenly gray and somber. "You cannot remove them without much tearing of flesh, much pain,
much loss of blood."
"And how can you tell if the man you marry is such a man?"
"Oh, you cannot tell from looking at them. They are so charming, so handsome, there is no sign. But-" and her voice dropped
lower with the weight of the information she was about to impart - "if you look closely, on a soft part of your body - perhaps
your cheek, or your thigh, or the inside of your arm - you will find a small scar, like the puncture wound of a fishhook going into
your skin. You have to look carefully, but it is there."
"And if you find the scar? How do you get rid of it?" She was alert now, but trying not to show her interest.
The woman looked at her with sharp, suddenly narrowed eyes. "Bibi, there is no cream or ointment that can get rid of that scar.
The only way is to amputate it. A clean cut, casting it out once and for all, never to touch your flesh again. Because these men,
they work their way all the way through your body to your heart, and then they mutilate you beyond all repair."
After the woman had finished and left, she stood up slowly. Her arms and legs were trembling, but she paid them no heed. She
gazed at herself in the mirror for a wild moment. Then, she began to remove her clothes. When she was naked, she pinched
and prodded every inch of flesh she could reach - her thighs, stomach, breasts, arms - looking for that mark. She was not sure
that she would recognize it, half-disbelieving the woman's tale, half-dreading that it might be true.
Just when she was about to stop, with a scornful smile for her own foolishness, she found it, on the soft skin of her throat, just
behind and under her left ear. It was a small indentation that had not been there six months ago, with jagged, angry edges, as if
something sharp had clawed its way inside her flesh. She would have missed it in a weaker light.
She stood there, watchful, frightened, alone. Her heart beat so fast that the vein in her neck danced beneath her skin.
The scar pulsed with each heartbeat, and as she touched it with her fingers, pushing the skin this way and that, pulling it to see if
it would disappear, she knew it was a living thing.
She let out a short, sharp laugh, tinged with hysteria. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see her razor, sitting there on the
side of the cool bathtub. The woman had said amputation was the only way. It was either that, or mutilation. She stretched her
shaking fingers out towards the razor.
But then she thought of her lovely bridal gown, the pale pink tissue, the soft silver kaam, and the heavy jewelry that she was to
wear with it. She could not stand the thought of her blood staining those clothes, ruining them forever. She did not want to do
anything that would mar that day for her - or that would mar her for him.
Finally, she said to herself, in a voice that sounded more like a croak than any human sound, "An old wives' tale." She reached
for her clothes, and with steadier fingers now, began to dress herself again.