chapter 3

I realised that what she said was true. Dejax lifted her eyebrows and it seemed strange, mechanical, unfamiliar. "You need to learn to keep yours in check, Xenia. That'll be a challenge, but I know you want to please me, don't you?"

"I do, but it's very hard. It seems natural to me, and I'm not even aware I'm doing it. And blushing is just something autonomic. I can't control it any more than I can prevent myself from salivating when I taste food."

"You have to adapt," she said firmly. "You can stop yourself from blushing by not allowing yourself to feel embarrassed. And I need you to develop an active passivity. You should be in complete control of your body, willing it into a quietude. Be slow to react, so that you can contain your impulses. Don't allow surprise to overtake you."



I was a very different woman by the time of my wedding day. No one could miss the changes in my personality. I had become quiet and slow in movement. My friends were disturbed by my perceived seriousness, since I hardly allowed myself a smile and had been told that laughter was most unbecoming for me. There were times when I found it almost unbearable to contain my emotions so tightly but then I would see how my efforts pleased Dejax, and her delight seemed more than compensation for my intense repression. As she undressed me on our wedding night I remained impassive.

"You were very good today. I know how hard it is for a British girl not to smile on her wedding day but you managed admirably. But the truth is, you are still not my wife in my mind. You'll only be that when we're married in Jertul. And I saw your eyebrows raise then. You still need to learn more discipline, Xenia. I've employed a woman in Jertul to prepare you. It'll take months for you to be ready to be my wife and she'll push you hard."

"Yes, Dejax," I said, feeling scared and sad as she outlined her plans, but trying to keep the soft face that she demanded of me. She kissed me.

"I can see fear in your eyes. You need to conquer fear through passivity. You're afraid of the unknown, but in truth everything in the future is unknown. Abandon yourself to your future, Xenia."



Three weeks later I took a flight and five hours later I arrived in my new country. The language remained impenetrable to me and I seemed to have hardly made progress. I was entirely reliant on my new wife (I regarded her as such, despite her continued refusal to acknowledge our UK legal status), who seemed to glow with pride as she returned to the country she cherished. A house was being prepared for us, but it wouldn't be complete for several months and until then we would live in a lodge in the estate of Dejax's parents.

They were clearly less than pleased with their daughter's choice of fiancée, although Dejax was diplomatic in her translations. Her mother was a large woman, tall and heavy, and she was unstinting in her criticism of my slenderness. I tried to accept her criticism passively but later, when we were alone, Dejax said that my eyebrows were out of control.

"You behaved like an English girl in there. You let your nervousness overcome all of your training. In a few days we'll attend a feast with my parents and you have to show them that you are a suitable bride for me. Tomorrow you'll meet Madame Harosul and you need to listen to everything that she tells you. Once we marry you'll be a Jertulian and you need to show me that you can honour our nation with your behaviour."

I was shocked that Dejax had decided that we should have separate rooms until after we were officially married in the Jertulian style, and she removed my wedding ring to remind me that I was as yet only her fiancée. In Britain we'd had a very active sexual life and as I lay alone in my bed I felt more alone than ever. I was so far from everything I knew and I worried that I'd made a terrible mistake in coming here.

By six on the following morning I was in the care of Madame Harosul. She entered the house early and took me to bathe. She was a formidable presence, taller and heavier even than Dejax's mother. She wore her hair in a cut similar to Dejax's, though the top was longer, slicked back in a tall pompadour, the sides almost shaved. Her obese body was covered in a purple dress which reached to the floor. Her plump hands were covered in rings.

Her English was good, since she'd been educated in the US and I was relieved that my training wouldn't be conducted in Jertulian, since I'd only mastered a formal greeting, and words to express gratitude. She looked critically at me as I undressed. "You're too skinny. I'm surprised that Dejax would like a scrawny girl like you, even more disappointed that she allowed you to remain so unattractive."

I took her criticism as passively as I could. "Dejax did warn me that your eyebrows twitch when you're upset. I'll attend to that today. And your pale skin looks very western. You'll be conducting your sessions in the sun to darken your colour. Take these pills, they will speed your tanning." I took them without hesitation.

I wasn't allowed to wash myself: a servant attended to this, which I found so humiliating that I knew I was blushing. Madame Harosul observed this, but her face showed nothing of the anger I knew she felt at my weakness.

I was provided with a large breakfast: four eggs, a large bowl of a gritty porridge with fruit and honey, bread, cooked meats. "Is it more than you were used to eating in England?" Madame Harosul asked. I nodded. "Dejax has informed me about the meagre dining you're used to. You'll eat four meals a day of this size. If the improvement in your figure is too slow we'll add some supplementary foods. I won't tolerate a skinny bride, it would bring shame on Dejax."

I started to eat but anxiety had affected my appetite. Nevertheless, I knew that Madame Harosul wouldn't tolerate food being wasted. It was only with a great effort that I managed to finish the meal.

I felt stuffed and bloated as I was taken into the nearby city. I started to see why Dejax was so fond of her country. The city looked wonderfully clean, a mix of ancient and modern. Ancient stone buildings, built in heavily decorated version of Romanesque, mixed with dramatic new architecture, but few of the new buildings (except for a single district of tall skyscrapers) were of much height. Obviously the city was planned so that the new buildings didn't overwhelm the ancient structures.

I was taken to a beauty salon where Madame Harosul gave a lot of instructions to the receptionist. She was a very pretty girl with a frizzy red bob, beautifully dressed, perfect make-up. Still, it was a surprise to see such a large girl as the receptionist at a salon. But I soon realised that all of the staff here were of similar dimensions. Madame Harosul had allowed me to wear one of my own dresses, which was tailored to show off my waist. Now I realised she'd chosen it deliberately so that my slim figure wouldn't be hidden. The figure I'd always been proud of was now a source of embarrassment, as I noticed how these women looked at me.

I was taken back to a stylist, Kadax, who showed me to a chair. I saw myself in the mirror and I looked anxious and fearful. Try as I might I couldn't soften my features to the bland passivity that I knew was expected of me. My stylist wore her hair in a rather extreme wedge cut, permed on top with a cropped lower section. I started to feel a panic as I imagined walking out of here with a similar cut to hers or, worse still, a recreation of Madame Harosul's mannish style.

My stylist chatted volubly with Madame Harosul, making no effort to hide the topic of her conversation: my appearance. "She says you look like a hungry peasant girl," my tutor translated, amused. The stylist pinched my cheek with her chubby fingers and asked me something. "She asks whether you'll be a fat gamtre next time she see you. You will, won't you? Tell her."

"Chxa, Nanga Kadax," I said (it meant "Yes, Miss Kadax," one of the few phrases I'd managed to memorise).

"Minanna," she corrected. It was the term of address for a married woman. "You'll have to be fatter than me to do honour to your wife," she told me, Madame Harosul relishing her role as translator. I couldn't hide my displeasure. Kadax was obese, a huge belly pushing through her white cotton dress, her arms thick and heavy, a noticeable double chin hanging from her neck.

My inability to control my emotions seemed to draw further disapproval and the two women spoke at length about me. Finally Kadax attended to my hair. She brushed it out (my hair was a soft brown, waist length, wavy since it had been allowed to dry naturally after my bath), then clipped it up as she covered me with a black rubberised cape. An assistant brought over a large bowl of pale cream which she aided Kadax in applying liberally throughout my hair. My eyebrows were treated with the same cream, which had a sour odour. My hair was wrapped in film, tightly bound to my head. I was stripped of the cape and Madame Harosul told me to go with the assistant.

My new guide looked very young (no older than sixteen, I guessed), and was the nearest to slim of any of the women I'd seen in the salon, but even she had a plumpness to her figure. She had shoulder length blonde hair, permed into tight curls. Almost all of the staff of the salon had been permed, I'd noticed, and obviously curls were a popular fashion here. She led me to a tanning bed.

"Nanga Xenia, please change into the robe. I'll then help you into the tanning machine," she said in stilted English. I did as she asked and was soon reclining under the harsh light of the bluish tubes, my eyes protected by goggles. By the time my teenage guide allowed me out my skin felt raw. "I think I was in too long, I'm going to burn," I complained. "My skin is very fair."