Short Story
Narcissist
I am a narcissist. That is what Glory told me while she was in the U.S. two months ago for Thanksgiving holiday. I have always known that. After hearing it aloud felt very strange. Well, I knew that her eyes are windows that could see deep into my soul. That is why I avoid seeing or talking to her. We keep in touch through emails. She writes to me more often than I do. I want our correspondence to be occasional but she pays no heed as to what I want. She kept on writing until recently. She doesn't write anymore after our last phone conversation which lasted only six minutes. That is when she said I was a narcissist. If I see her or talk to her then she says things that I do not want to face or think about myself. Her voice haunts me. With emails, I can choose what to say and avoid answering things that are deep in nature. She once told me she believes we are soulmates. This was very early on. And I laughed since I do not believe in clichés. She looked hurt. And never mentioned it again after I laughed her off. No, we are not in love. How could we be? I am in love with myself. I do not take other people's feelings into consideration anymore. I am happy to be alone. That is what I tell myself.
Glory wanted to meet me since I was in Virginia Beach (U.S.) visiting my eight year old son Robbi. He lives there now with my ex wife Padma and her new husband Mukesh who is a cardio vascular surgeon. I did not tell Glory that I was leaving Bhutan a week after she was flying west from Sikkim. That is the thing with me. I don't say much. I want people to read my mind. When I arrived in Chicago first, to see my mom, that is when I dropped her a line via email that I was in the States as well. I did not have to tell her about my short visit. I think I like to torment her and cause her great anguish. What other explanation could there be? I do not plan on it but most of the time that is how it plays out. But she is excited nonetheless, and I gather that from her usual one page long response to my one line email. I do not know why she writes me long emails. But when sometimes she writes me only a few lines which is uncharacteristic of her, I wonder if anything is wrong with her. I never let her know that, though! I do not reply to her series of emails that she dashed out since she heard about my arrival. She keeps on writing to me with a phone number where I can reach her. Then I decide not to check emails for the next week or so while I am with my son.
Every year in late November Glory goes to Durham, North Carolina, to visit her father in an assisted living facility during Thanksgiving. She stays in a nearby hotel. She spends Thanksgiving Day with her dad in the nursing home eating a traditional pre-ordered thanksgiving meal of turkey, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce and watery gravy with cheap red wine. After the meal about fifty of them gather in the nursing home's main parlour where there is a fireplace and have apple and pecan pie with all the other elderlies and their guilt ridden adult children. Drinking so much wine with one meal doesn't sit well with Glory's dad Sam and he dozes off in his chair before instant Maxwell House coffee is served in Styrofoam cups. Glory dreads these minutes between coffee and her father waking up. Meanwhile she has to make small conversations with the other adults knowing no one will remember the other as soon as they step outside the locked gates of this facility. She may see some of them next year but doesn't feel excited about the prospect. Saying goodbye to her eighty-four year old father is one of the hardest things that Glory has to do in an entire year. She goes behind her father's chair and embraces him from behind and plants soft kisses on his head with a mop of white hair that smells of Pantene pro-v shampoo and says, "Dad, you be good now, OK? Don't give the nurses a hard time. Do you hear? Take your meds with plenty of water. I will be back, before you know it."
Her dad only nods. He lost his speech after having a minor stroke about two years ago in his sleep. He still recognizes his daughter and spends hours in his room looking at all the colourful postcards that Glory sends him from Sikkim. He cannot write anymore. Glory can see tears flowing down from his hollowed eyes and she wipes his tears with the back of her hand, all the while trying to stay strong. It takes about half an hour for Glory to leave her dad. She waits till one of the nurses comes to wheel him away to his room. Then she goes out to the balcony and weeps for sometime. Day after that she goes to visit her godmother Annette in Taos, New Mexico, and spends there a week soaking in the last of autumn sun. Annette is like a substitute mother. Glory's own mother was depressed all her life and one day took her own life by taking three different kinds of sleeping pills when Glory was fifteen. Glory came home from school and found her mother dead. Her father, a travelling salesman, was out of town. She never got over the way her mother died. When she writes all the details about her past life, I simply glance through her emails and do not take a lot in. She told me a lot about her life but I haven't shared much about mine with her.
For the last three consecutive years from New Mexico she has flown back to Sikkim, India where she is doing her doctoral research on forestry. She is a registered PhD student at UC, Irvine. This is her fourth year in India. I never asked her how old she is. To me age is just a number and that has no special significance. I would say she is about forty. The very first time I met Glory was when I was taking a short vacation to Sikkim to see Kanchenjunga. My friend Peter, who I call P, was with me. Glory was our guide. We were with a small group of Nepalese and western tourists and suddenly I drifted off from the group. After a head count before return they realised that I was not with the group, Glory set out to find me. Then I heard a voice from behind, "You remind me of that old Mary Chapin song." I know my mother liked Mary C Carpenter and I asked politely, "Which song? Thinking to myself this is an odd comment from a tour guide!" For a second it seemed to me that she was going to sing that song to me. She smiled and said," Never mind. I think about odd things all the time." I gave a half smile and said, "I was taken in by this spectacular view of the third-highest peak and didn't realize that I was alone." Then she informed me that I was lucky not to have drifted off too far. I looked puzzled and she said there were not any search helicopters if one got lost in the rough terrain. There is only one helicopter service from Gangtok to Siliguri to take people to the airport. I did not know that for we came by bus from Thimphu. I told her P and I were there also for the Losar (Tibetan New Year).Then we made more small talk about Sikkim and she told me that about a third of Sikkim's land is forest. And that is why she came here to do her research for her doctoral dissertation. It was in the summer three years ago. She was working as a tour guide to earn some money and for a chance to see the land as well.
I looked at her in full length. There were only the two of us against the backdrop of this heavenly view of miles and miles of stretched mountains. I didn't think she was a kindred spirit. She reminded me of Judy in "As Time Goes By", the British comedy on PBS every Saturday evening. She has a very bright complexion with an open face and immediately one knows that she is honest and trusting with a good heart. Her auburn hair and pale green eyes make her look attractive enough. One wouldn't call her Grace Kelly but she is pleasing to the eye. Later she told me that she never married. Broken heart and all . . . I never inquired enough. I do not like sad love stories. Maybe it was just not meant to be.
For me things only feel differently when I go to visit my son in the States. Now I live in Bhutan's capital Thimphu and work as an international aid worker sponsored by the UN. I advise people at Bhutan's trust fund for environmental conservation. I got a Masters degree in Environmental Science from Illinois State University after I married Padma. I moved here after my divorce was final about six years ago. While I was going through a custody battle with Padma I heard from an old acquaintance Peter, who was sort of a mentor in high school. P was all for saving the world and he was working for the Red Cross in South Asia and now is stationed in Bhutan. He had sent me a postcard with a breathtaking view of the Himalayas. He wrote me a funny message that said, "2003 business week magazine rated Bhutan as the happiest country in Asia." And I should come and see it for myself once I got my visitation rights with Robbi settled. I didn't file for joint custody because my mother said no judge would grant me that since I was leaving the marriage. And I left it at that.
I am an Argentinian from my father's side and my mother is an Italian American. Her name is Mary Ann Vigilante-Mannino, after the Italian American writer. My father left us when I was only two for a raving Brazilian beauty named Francesca Almeida. Only thing my father left behind is his watch. My mother sold it to the owner of a pawn shop. After that my mother had my last name changed to Vigilante, which is her middle name. Everyone calls me Frank. Only my mother calls me Frankie. Glory calls me Francis. I don't think I thought about my father nor did I miss having one. How can one miss someone without having any recollection? To this day I haven't even seen a photo of him. I do not want that to happen to my own son. Even though I did abandon him as my father did. During my last visit I heard him call Padma's husband dad, but I couldn't do anything about it for he has assumed the role of an absentee father.
From the time I was Robbi's age until I went off to college my mother and I lived in a small duplex outside of Chicago around where all the Italian Americans live. I felt my childhood was normal in that old house which I loved. I loved my mother's African violets over the kitchen sink that she watered first thing in the morning. Then my mother and I would eat breakfast together. On the third floor there was a tiny art studio where my mother painted. She was a commercial artist. When my grandfather lost his leg while working with a machinery assembling cars, the family fell on hard times. They all thought my mother should give up art school at the Art Institute of Chicago and get a job to help out the family. Art was my mother's passion and she simply wouldn't quit her studies. She was heavily influenced by Georgia O'Keefe who also attended the same institute. She took an evening job waiting tables in a restaurant. All the patrons loved her efficiency.
(The concluding part of this story will appear next week)
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