A Story
She rested her head on her husband’s chest and kissed him lightly on the lips. He closed his eyes and stroked her hair, as he always did after they made love. They had been married for over thirteen years. They were always in love and courteous to one another. Both were respected intellectuals in their fields. Ina was a professor of sexology in the coastal town, while he was a doctor of psychiatry at the state hospital in the city of D. He cast his eyes over her fragile, beautiful shoulders, which took on sweet hues under the reflection of the nightlight—a blend of sweet chocolate, the pink of the room’s curtains, and a faint red coming from the nightgown she wore. He moved the thin strap slightly with his finger and kissed it; she shifted her shoulder gently, as if delicately trying to shoo away a butterfly that had landed on it. And so, they both fell asleep.
The morning light came in through the open window, along with the sound of the waves whispering below the house. Ina got up, washed her face, and prepared breakfast for herself, her husband, and their nine-year-old son. She was still in her nightgown. Her husband got up and kissed her lightly on the shoulders.
“Your breakfast and coffee are ready!”
“You’re not going to the beach anymore, Inush!”
She turned around and spoke to him in a sweet, playful tone:
“Why, darling? Why shouldn’t we go?”
“You’ve already got your tan, my love, so why go? You can spend your school holidays at home, or go for a walk with our son.”
Ina looked intently into his deep eyes, knowing every corner of them by now, every thought:
“But I do take our son with me, sweetheart. Besides, we don’t stay on the beach all day because we have other things to do. In the afternoon we go shopping and he plays outside. Has he been complaining to you?”
“No, Inush, he hasn’t complained, but I think nearly a month is enough to call it a holiday.”
“Meaning, the son hasn’t complained, but the son’s father is complaining.” Ina hung on his neck like a gold pendant and kissed him, but her husband didn’t move; he stood as still as the stone of the city monument. Ina continued, “Sweetheart, I see dark shadows in and around your eyes. It seems you didn’t sleep well today!”
Her husband removed her hands, turned his back, and went to wash. Ina was left alone, feeling a heavy weight of insult to her character from his behavior.
She didn’t enjoy her breakfast; it was cold, and the conversation had left the bridge of their communication broken... Meanwhile, their son got up, kissed them both, and sat down to eat. Even though he was little, he read his parents well.
Gazmend stood up, picked up his bag, kissed his son, and turned toward the door. The boy didn’t wait but called out to him:
“Dad!”
His father turned his head.
“You didn’t kiss Mom!”
The usual joy had vanished from Gazmend’s face; he realized his son was scolding him. He turned to Ina and kissed her. He spoke with a heavy diction he rarely used:
“We said, no beach today!”
The boy got up and went over to him, leaving his food, and clouds of sadness appeared in his eyes:
“Why, Dad? Why shouldn’t we go to the beach with Mom? It’s so beautiful there, so nice. There are lots of people, even a lot of men like you who swim and play with us!”
“With who?” Gazmend said, like a rushing river.
“With me, Dad!”
“With you, or with your mother too?”
Ina looked up and eyed him from head to toe. For the first time, she realized that the suit he was wearing didn’t suit him, nor did the heavy bag holding his psychiatric tools.
“No, not with Mom, no, they play with me!”
“They play with you and look at your mother.” Gazmend muttered through his teeth, and the boy didn’t hear him, but Ina heard him perfectly well and understood his anger. She understood why he didn’t want her going to the beach with their son. She approached her husband and pulled him by the hand toward the front door. She made him understand that such conversations shouldn’t happen in front of the boy. At the door, she kissed him and said:
“Signs of jealousy, my soul?”
“Yes,” he said, and opened the door.
“Have I given you any reason for such a thing?”
He pulled the door shut behind him and left, taking with him the thoughts and undertones of the conversation that had ruined the harmony on this late July morning.
Ina was a woman in her forties, of average height, with truly unique curves that looked as if they had been hand-painted by a talented artist. In recent years, a few minor issues she had had since her son’s birth, on her upper thighs and stomach, had also faded away. She had beautiful hair, high, delicate shoulders, and an angelic face.
She pushed the glass of milk in front of her son and spoke sweetly:
“Eat up, my darling,” she said, and kissed him on the forehead.
“I don’t want to eat. If we’re not going to the beach, I won’t eat. Why did Dad say we shouldn’t go?”
“He was joking, my heart!”
“Mom, Dad gets jealous over you!”
Ina froze; a cold electric current ran through her body.
“Dad doesn’t want those men who greet you in the morning to look at you!”
Ina smiled.
“Mom! I like it when everyone looks at you, because you’re beautiful, you’re my mother. Everyone loves beautiful things, don’t they?”
“Yes, my sweet, yes!”
“Yes, but Dad is happy, because you’re his wife and my good mother!”
Ina stood him up on the chair, and his head was level with hers:
“You’ve grown up, my darling... you’ve become a man. You have the thoughts and words of a mature man! Eat your food, because we are going to the beach.” To herself, she thought how her son felt happy for his mother, while her husband showed signs of dissatisfaction, stemming from a man’s instinct mixed with a bit of jealousy, perhaps inherited from his family’s past.
*
Ina left her heavy bag next to the sun lounger under the straw umbrella. She looked around. By now, she knew almost everyone. They were regulars around her spot and her umbrella. A bunch of men, Ina thought; if I hadn’t come today, they would feel devastated, and if all these gentlemen didn’t show up as a result of my absence, the bar and the café would lose a lot of business. She sat down and took off the thin dress she was wearing, which was in fact almost transparent. She was pinned by dozens of stares; she knew it herself and was used to it. She wasn’t a woman who wanted to attract attention, but her appealing, almost mesmerizing looks drew men’s eyes. She was already used to it, and she wrestled with her thoughts, trying to figure out why men were so sensitive that both their gaze and their very selves betrayed them when they saw a beautiful woman in front of them. She took her son’s ball and his inflatable ring out of her bag to blow them up. The boy snatched it from her hand and ran to the nearby sun lounger:
“Mister, blow this up for me a bit!”
The man stood up and, after taking a few deep breaths, inflated the ring and filled it up. It looked like a small boat in the shape of a seagull, with its head and beak raised. Several men around were watching the gentleman who blew it up. They called him lucky that, this morning, his interaction with the boy and the professor was the first. The boy took it and ran off. The professor acknowledged the gentleman with a nod of thanks. The man smiled, letting her know there was no need to thank him.
The boy took his ball and went to another umbrella on the opposite side. He gave it to another gentleman to blow up, and he didn’t hesitate either. Afterward, Ina again acknowledged the gentleman with a smile of thanks.
The boy felt right at home. He had made friends with everyone and felt pampered. Ina let him roam free, only following him with her eyes so he wouldn’t slip out of her sight.
Ina took out her tanning oil, which consisted of strong carotene pigments with a shimmer and specks of cyclamen. She applied it to herself, applied it to her son, and handed him the bottle.
“Sweetheart, rub this on Mom’s shoulders too.”
The boy took the spray bottle and was spraying it on her shoulders, all the while noticing dozens of stares fixed on his hands. He smiled, rubbed his mom nice and well, then hugged and kissed her:
“Mom! You’re the best, most beautiful mother in the world!”
Ina watched everyone’s stares and thought she ought to get up. They were waiting to see and enjoy what they were expecting. She wasn’t embarrassed by this, because she was used to it, but she also knew their psychology well.
She took her son by the hand and walked among the umbrellas. To her left and right she heard greetings... Good morning, Ina. Good morning, Professor! She walked proudly, calmly, receiving and returning acknowledgments. Ahead of her, she saw a young man around thirty, broad-shouldered with sun-bleached hair. She hadn’t seen him before during these thirty days; he was sitting under an umbrella with the son of pharmacist F.
“Oh God,” he sighed, casting his eyes toward Ina. “Is she going into the sea, or is she a nymph emerging from it? Whoever is in the water will drown. Whoever is on the shore will have a heart attack.”
Ina pretended not to hear him, but meanwhile she saw the pharmacist’s son speak to him from the other side of the sun lounger and hastily cover his mouth with his hand.
“Don’t! Pertef, don’t!” Dozens of scolding eyes turned toward the young man. They seemed to be beating him with their stares. Pertef tried to keep quiet and lowered his head, but he felt awful.
“What did I do?” he asked his cousin.
“What you shouldn’t have done,” someone told him.
“What else could you do? Is what you did not enough?!”
Pertef was left open-mouthed.
“She is our legend,” his cousin told him. “She is the pride of the city. She is our city’s professor of sexology.”
“I’m sorry,” the young man said. “I’m sorry, but when I saw her, it took my breath away. It probably doesn’t impress you, since you see her every day!”
“Even though we see her every day, we still get the exact same feeling as you,” another man, around fifty, said from the direction of the sea. “That’s why we often come here when she’s bathing, because we feel good about her poise, her beauty, her politeness, because the professor is a pearl of intellect and beauty.”
When Ina came out of the sea, the conversations had ended. She was entirely covered in beads of water droplets running down her body. Her long hair cascaded wet over her shoulders, and the water dripping from it streamed down her back and her beautiful chest. The droplets gathered at the tips of her hair, which looked like stalactites, and traced lines down her body as beautiful beads that, against her delicate, sun-kissed skin, looked like pearls, while her soft skin was like velvety silk. She truly looked like a pearl emerged from the water. Even the women standing around watched her in silence, with admiration, but also with a bit of envy. Some of her female students greeted her with smiles and followed her with their eyes all the way to her umbrella.
She sat down on her sun lounger as if nothing had happened. She felt good about the conversation and the scolding the others had given him. She felt safe in the company of these men, but also of their wives, who often envied her but greeted her politely. Pertef didn’t cast his eyes on her anymore; he sat with his head down, looking guilty.
After sitting for a long time, Ina got ready to go out again for a little float in the sea. She walked slowly with the seagull ring in her hand, which her son had deflated while playing with it. She stopped at the pharmacist’s umbrella and spoke to Pertef, who was on her side:
“Could you blow this up for me a bit, please?”
Pertef stood up hastily, paused to look into her calm, beautiful eyes, and took the ring from her. He lowered his eyes and blew it up. After putting the stopper in, he handed it to Ina.
“Thank you! What is your name?”
“Pertef,” said the newcomer, who was at the beach for his first day.
“Thank you, Pertef!”
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Pertef said, looking guilty. “I’m sorry. My introduction to you wasn’t very pleasant!”
“It’s nothing,” she said, and walked away, leaving behind her beautiful charms and her sweet, melodious voice.
In those moments, Ina saw the eyes of everyone around her smiling. She understood that she had won another battle. She had won yet another friend with her manners and her kindness.
It was time to leave. She gathered her things and her son’s, and with a greeting full of delicacy and respect, she walked away toward the car. After her, the others got up too, those who came to the seaside stage for the parade. Then the area where the psychologist had been sitting began to thin out.
*
When Gazmend came home in the evening, he didn’t even eat dinner.
Ina welcomed him with her arms around his neck, but he was as cold as a block of ice at the end of July.
“I told you,” he said to his wife, “not to go to the beach. If you hadn’t gone, today’s incident wouldn’t have happened either.”
“What incident, my love?”
“The incident with that clown who spoke to you at the beach!”
Ina understood that there were malicious people whispering in her husband’s ear. She approached him, kissed him, and spoke to him in that delicate voice of hers, which often took on the trills of a violin at the grand New Year’s concerts in Vienna.
“Gazmend, I don’t recognize you, darling. You are not my Gazmend with a smile on his lips and a kiss that brings the sweetness of honey.”
“And you are not my Ina of old, either,” he told her.
Ina understood that she had a lot of work to do; she left her writing unfinished and stayed to lie down with her husband. Midnight had passed, and they were still awake. The three o’clock ferry arrived at the port and announced itself with its siren. They were talking close to each other. The next day, and every other day, Ina went to the beach. Before September even began, the well-known publishing house brought out her book, “Male Psychology and Female Charms”. At the end of September, as they were preparing for the start of the academic year at the universities, Ina received a notice from the Ministry of Education. She was being transferred as a professor to the State University of Tirana. Gazmend read her appointment, kissed her, and fell asleep just like that, half on Ina’s chest and half on the newly arrived letter. They woke up a little late to the chirping of a bird singing in the tree opposite their window!
