Scarred

This woman on the Tube, for instance. Quiet, conservatively-dressed, pretty, she minds her own business and doesn’t make eye contact. She holds her round face to one side, pensive, and a brown strand catches the light like dew until she brushes it clear. Indian extraction, half-Indian, anyway. Dark, professional; skirt and short-sleeved pastel blouse, scoop neckline, blazer folded gently over arms crossed. She is not reading. She is not people-watching. She merely is.

Across the top of her bust, or at least across as much of it as is visible, she is scarred, deeply and extensively, as by fire or a chemical. Very very still, she doesn’t even rock along the gentle movements of the shuttle.

Nothing of her arms is burned, just her chest, and one admits, beyond the usual fellow-traveler questions, a certain clinical curiosity giving way to sympathy. How far down do those scars go, and where did they come from? Has she forgiven whoever or whatever it is that caused them?

Is she riding to an empty flat? Does she go home to a lover? When she takes a lover, does she let him kiss her scarred breasts or does she hide them in shame? Are they more sensitive for being burned?

Has he ever asked her about the scar, and when he asked, did he immediately wish he had not drawn attention to it, did he ask awkwardly, the way you ask about a permanent disability, or casually, the way you ask about a sprained ankle on the mend? And was she relieved finally to let fall the lie between them, the polite lie spoken by the eyes, can we just pretend I didn’t notice that, did she thank him for asking, did she touch him on the arm and he pull her close? Did he look her in the eyes as she began to tell the story and say, I don’t care. You’re beautiful and did she believe him, and later, after he had gone, did she still believe it then?

gauche
18 Oct 06