The Suitors Read Online Free PDF Page B

Scholastic achievement, she says, is useless because the world is full of intellectuals with fine diplomas who amount to nothing in life. A speech offering the tripleadvantage of telling my sister that since she’s not an intellectual, she’s probably an idiot; informing me that my successes in school and supposed intelligence will get me nowhere; and playing the two of us off against each other, as usual
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    Deep down, our governess is a fool. Wishing to dominate us, but incapable of fulfilling her ambition, she must both clip our wings and divide us, for fear that we might denounce her if we finally find strength in our true beauty and intelligence, and pool our forces to put together the puzzle pieces that will reveal her weakness
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    Nanny always wore a white smock and was dreadfully ugly, with skin tanned by the sun in Egypt, where she had spent much of her life. She had a slender hooked nose, lips as thin as a scar, red-rimmed, washed-out blue eyes, and breasts that rested heavily on her stomach. Marie’s beauty so bewitched Nanny that she really seemed never to tire of it. She would take Marie in her arms, touching her as if somehow to strengthen her claim on the child, and she photographed her everywhere, all the time.
    Did my mother, who lived in constant fear of our governess giving notice, find this attachment convenient? Or did she allow herself to be swayed by our nanny’spreferences? In any case, following her lead, our mother crowned my sister the star of the family. Our closets contain entire albums devoted to Marie at all ages: an infant as perfect as an Ivory Snow baby, a giggly little Goldilocks, a mischievous young lady miraculously untouched by the indignities of puberty. And hundreds of snapshots of the ravishing and lissome blonde she became are tacked to the walls of my mother’s private rooms, framed on the chintz-skirted tables of her boudoir, or displayed on silver easels on the mantelpiece.
    My mother could thus claim to have gone perfectly gaga over Marie, at least in the etymological sense of the word, as she literally spoiled her silly with the toys that cluttered our playroom: pretend grocery stands, playhouses shaped like castles (where we tried to hide from the governess), rocking horses with real horsehair manes (to which I was allergic), and pedal cars that seated four. In short, these expensive and exquisite playthings were accessories intended for the nanny’s own satisfaction, objects she could then parade before her colleagues to show off
urbi et orbi
the extravagance of her employer’s taste, lifestyle, and love for her children. Above all, this avalanche of toys allowed Miss Ross to savor the sight of Marie on a horse, in a car, or playing lady of the house, enjoying everything our nanny hadnever had as a child. Because she was really playing dolls with Marie, dressing her, arranging her hair, constantly asking my mother to buy my sister new clothes with matching barrettes and bows.
    Of course, my mother didn’t buy clothes and toys only for Marie. I had some, too. But when she gave Marie a miniature kitchen with a working oven and real china, I received an exercise mat as well as a children’s encyclopedia intended to make up for the difference in the cost of our presents. Her unfairness to me was not that obvious, for my mother simply thought she was granting wishes we had supposedly expressed to our nanny and was thus taking into account our respective characters, which Miss Ross was actually inventing to gratify her own desires.
    The same thing happened with our clothes. When it came to Marie, the governess would insist that we were growing so quickly that our mother needed to replenish our wardrobe. In my case, however, she thought it best to have my mother save a little money. So I often wound up wearing my sister’s old clothes, so tight they turned me into a sausage. In other words, I looked like the shabby plump one, trotted out as a foil for Marie’s charm when