Chapter Sixteen The Artisan #2
Mr. De Villier nodded, getting up to gather some of the papers to show me more of the surface.
“Expensive for something used so often, no?”
“On the contrary, a man’s desk is a sign of his status, his life’s work. It is the modern equivalent of a throne. A desk isn’t just about utility. It represents all you have built.”
I offered a mumble coupled with a nod as I listened, debating on whether my next question was something I truly wanted to know. “How does one manage to garner such success in such a short amount of time?”
The question came off more aggressively than intended, garnering a sharp look from Mr. De Villier.
“Your company is relatively new. It must be some biblical type of luck to become so large so quickly,” I clarified, pinching myself mentally for not being concise the first time. “Now I am just curious about where it started.”
He sank into his office chair, leaning back to take in the question, or perhaps to be strategic about how he answered.
His eye caught on a small frame propped on the desk; you could have assumed it was a photograph of his wife or his children, based on the wistful smile.
He pinched it between his fingers and twisted it to face me.
A photograph of him in front of his first factory, here in New York City. The iconic LAGO signage painted on the doors.
“We began as just a manufacturer of pharmaceuticals,” he said, twisting the photo back so he could admire it again. “We moved into development shortly after.”
“That’s quite a path.”
“We used nearly the last of our money to buy the warehouse. It was the purchase that would let us be the company we are today.” He sighed.
“What did you do before?”
Mr. De Villier’s expression faltered in amusement, only briefly. “We owned an orchard.”
“Do you miss it?” I leaned closer. “I saw that you’ve expanded into buying farms, setting up clinics and housing. It seems like a great deal of charity for something so different than pharmaceuticals. Is nostalgia a reason?”
“Because I miss it? No, never,” he scoffed. “But I remember what it was like, how desperate conditions become if the crop isn’t thriving. The conditions that are standard. It seemed like a logical opportunity.”
Before I could chip at him any longer, shouting from another part of the house made both of us question what we were hearing.
Both of us stood quickly once we realized it was Petronille.
We were barely outside the study door when we heard the quick footsteps and another shout of crude insults.
As we approached the main room, Petre hurried down the grand stairs with a red face, her mother nipping at her heels. Though, Mrs. De Villier seemed to recollect herself when she spotted us on the ground floor.
“You’re being dramatic,” her mother hissed.
“You choked me!”
“See?” She laughed, throwing her hands up in gesture to her daughter as she looked to her husband.
It only made it worse, every word out of her mother’s mouth fueling the dainty blond. She stopped in her tracks, her mother nearly bumping into her as they reached the bottom floor.
“You are an ugly, awful monster!” Petre shoved her finger into her mom’s chest on every emphasis, gaining some ground in the process.
Mrs. De Villier was now almost as flustered as Petre, a quirk in her brow and tight-lipped as if to keep the illusion of levelheadedness. She didn’t say a thing in return.
Petre sneered, a smile of victory, but at what cost? More an expression of righteousness and knowing that, for now, she had a firm stance.
For a brief moment she looked at me, and so did her mother. Then I realized her father was also staring.
Everyone was waiting for a word from me; in defense or reprimand?
“Coward.” Petre audibly scoffed, turning on her heel for the door without her coat, her things.
“Fetid moppet.” Her mother’s venomous words before she retreated back up the stairs, fussing with her necklace as if she’d just experienced something putrid.
“I suppose this is good night, then. Good luck reeling her in.” Her father patted heavily on my shoulder, somberly following his wife.
At first I walked, then jogged lightly, toward the door. I gathered our coats in my arms, the rain smacking my face in thick droplets as I walked outside. Looking left, then right, I saw Petre, a small, wet silhouette halfway down the block already.
“Petre!” I shouted, my shoes splashing as they smacked the puddles, my socks already becoming cushioned with the water logging down the insoles of my shoes. I extended her coat to her. “It’s raining—”
“What is the point of having you as a husband if you can’t stand up for me!” She whipped around, slapping the coat from my hand, where it sulked onto the sidewalk, overtaken by a puddle.
“You were doing fine on your own.”
“I wasn’t! And you were utterly useless!”
I didn’t answer right away, not with words. The streetlamp made the water glisten on her face, casting a dark shadow over her eyes. Her chest heaved, jaw tense like a bull-baiting dog unwilling to let go. Stubborn.
She spun on her heel, her shoes clicking as I got a full view of her hunched shoulders.
“Petre, stop!”
“Why?” Violence in her tone. Her sogging tendrils of hair slapped against her face as she turned, the white dress translucent in its dampened state.
“So you can laugh at me? So you can wallow in misery at my very presence? To feed me to the dogs the moment I need something as little as one singular loyal word from you?”
“Loyalty?” The word fell from my mouth, but the next ones were more violent. “You want to speak of loyalty?”
She stumbled back like the words were physically thrown at her.
“What about you, dear wife? What have you done to show even the slightest bit of appreciation for my service to you? I can name some of your gratuities. For one—the way you stormed from the dining room table with lead feet, child’s play at the tender age of twenty-four!
” I laughed into the air, wiping my wet hair from my face as I stared up at the sky as if to beg God not to let my mouth run on too long.
“How about putting me in as many awkward situations as you can afford? Have you thought about how your actions affect me?”
“I didn’t—”
“No! No, you haven’t, of course. Because no one exists outside of your influence. You can’t hold yourself socially, you scream at your hosts, I bet you’d cry if I made you finish the greens on your plate.”
“That’s unfair. You’re being cruel!”
“You petulant child. How dare you accuse me of no loyalty when you’ve done nothing to earn mine.”
My throat burned, my breathing suddenly quick and heavy, like I’d endured some great labor—emotionally at least.
“I killed for you.” I swallowed. “I promised to keep you safe. Is that not enough?”
Petre was so still, I wondered if she’d heard a word I said.
In the world of a greedy, spoiled child, nothing would ever be enough.
I put on my sopping coat as I brushed past her.
“Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“Without me?”
“You have free will.”
I almost made it to the corner of the block before feeling a sharp blunt hit to the back of my head, then a clatter.
I raised my hand, rubbing my scalp as I looked behind me on the ground.
A single dainty ivory shoe.
When my eyes lifted to her, I expected her to be livid, given that she was now missing a shoe in an attempt to assault me. I expected a tense brow and a beet-red face, at least a few more insults.
Her breaths were stuttering, lip trembling.
Though I’d seen this expression before. Red eyes and a shaky white-knuckled fist. This was the image of a child who was never listened to, and was still ignored into adulthood.
While she was older than I was, I felt nostalgia seeing her this way.
Unfortunately, I saw my angry, bitter younger self.
This didn’t absolve her of her transgressions in my mind, but my understanding of her cleared ever so slightly in that moment.
“I . . .” She swallowed, laughing to herself before raising her hands just for them to fall by her sides in defeat.
“I hate you. I hate the way you make me feel, I hate the way you don’t want me, and I hate that everyone loves you.
Everyone does. No one questions you, misunderstands you.
They accept you with more ease, with no leverage, and I hate it. ”
“The problem with everyone loving you . . .” I picked up her shoe, watching her shake as I approached for the last time.
Her eyes were red, searching, possibly puffy from tears.
She shivered under my stare, more so when I let my sentence linger.
Did she really think my life was so easy?
I pitied her. “Is that you sacrifice what you really want to say, how you really want to act, at all times. You are a portrait of what you wish to portray, unable to speak and only there to be observed. As a woman, I would have thought you’d understand this most of all. ”
“I’m tired. I’m tired of it all. I feel as though the only way to be true to myself is to be exceptionally loud.”
“I may have agreed with you at one point.” I knelt down, holding the shoe out before she reluctantly lifted her foot, stepping back into it. “But you can’t be on the offensive constantly. Some ropes will strain on their own; let them snap and avoid the friction burn.”
“The only reason to act that way is to be accepted by those creatures,” she said, her words laced with spite.
“Appeasing them won’t make you one of them, even through me.
They’re vultures ready to pick the bone clean, to use every part of you for their gain.
It’s foolish to please them while they eat you alive. ”
“Maybe. But knowing that is power”—I looked up at her—“and when you play the classes, being aware is the best defense you have. Keeping a level head allows you to shape the narrative rather than force it.”
She was silent, the adrenaline finally wearing off.
“You may not think I am familiar with the games of your parents,” I said, softer, my hands still on her ankle, “but you get a lot of practice when you come from the bottom. I would say you may be more blind to them than me.”
Then she knelt before me, on both knees, eye to eye with me.
“I don’t hate you,” she recanted, her voice sounding like a guilty child’s admission. Her hands balled into fists in her soaked skirt.
“I know,” I said softly. She had a hard time meeting my eyes now.
I touched her face, cupping her cold cheek. The streetlamp cast a dull light over her face when she looked up at me again. The rain mixed with her tears, her eyes tired from whatever war was going on inside her mind. She made herself so small, as if in anticipation. Belittled all her life.
“You’re not my enemy, Petre.” Our lips were so close. “You are my wife.”
An instinctual lunge, her arms thrown around my neck, and our lips crashed together. I enveloped her in my arms. I balled my fists in her wet blouse, squeezing her against me like it would be possible to just absorb her there, two pieces of wet clay kneaded together.
I held her in my arms as we caught our breath, and I pulled her head into my shoulder in our embrace.
“You’ll fall ill if we stay out here,” I breathed, holding her frame like it was merely a doll, light and delicate.
“What’s the point, I’m already sick.” If I didn’t know better, I’d think I caught a breathy laugh.
The night may have been a failure, but it seemed like maybe it wasn’t a waste, after all.