Tabassum Tahmina Shagufta Hussein
Dhaka, Bangladesh
Sara was looking at her phone screen desperately and was searching for a 15th wedding anniversary gift for Nick.Sara had already spent almost two hours. Finally, she found pure white cultured pearl with 18 k gold pair of cufflinks. Nick’s profession demanded ties, suits and pocket-squares. Over the twenty years, she had given Nick countless numbers of ties. She had inherited impeccable taste in ties from her father. But Nick loved cufflinks, and Sara had gifted him around a hundred pairs of cufflinks. Nick’s parents gave him six pairs, his sister six pairs and his uncle five pairs. His friends Adrian and Wong gave him one pair each.
Sara was overwhelmed with joy that the cultured white pearl cufflinks she found were from Japan. It was expensive among all the pairs she bought for him. But it was best and worthy of the 20th-anniversary gift. It represented purity, and her favouritecolour was white. Sara always wanted to give him cufflinks with his name engraved in the gold-plated cufflinks. But he never wanted it saying it costs too much for such a customized item.
After the completion of the order, Sara struggled within herself for a while. Did their marriage represent purity? NO, it wasn’t. From the very beginning of her marriage, it was love for Sara where it was a duty for Nick. For Nick, it was a marriage of convenience. For Sara, it wasn’t. Over, the years she received betrayal, deception, infidelities, intimidation and coercion from Nick. She silently bore his domestic violence sometimes. She even endured his parent’s mental abuse but for what? For love and to be loved by him. Not much, but she was expecting an iota of Nick’s love from his heart.
The day came. Sara was not active on Facebook at all. She used to be active twice a year on their wedding anniversary and on her father’s death anniversary. She gave the pair of white pearl cufflinks in a beautifully wrapped box at 12 at night. The customized gift box was printed with colourful hearts and was tied with a white bow. He opened it and looked at it and said “Nice”. Sara was so happy to hear that, and then she looked at the pair. How beautiful, radiant, and they look so innocent. “I will wear them tomorrow”, Nick said. Sara’s delight of looking at those mesmerizing white pearls in gold stud melted with the joys after listening to Nick’s liking of it.
Nick wasn’t expecting Sara to be active on Facebook that day because she was not feeling well. It seemed to him like that way. But Sara wanted to thank all who wished them in both of their timelines. While scrolling down serially, she accidentally scrolled down long. A picture was posted by Nick in the afternoon. He posed as if he was thinking of placing his chin over the palm. His hand was straight and on the table. The other hand was on the lap. The picture was taken at such an angle that the focus was on the round silver cufflink. It looked engraved. He seemed so happy that one could feel the inner glow through the picture on the phone screen.
Sara felt piercing pain right inside her heart. He kept the secret of this pair. If he had ordered it, then why keep it secret? And if it was a gift, then why hide? It looked dearly special. That’s why he posted the picture with such a posture. Ne never posted pictures wearing any of Sara’s cufflinks. Still, Sara should be thankful. At least he gave them the freedom to Sara to choose his clothes, suits, ties, pocket squares, cufflinks and accessories. In his world, Sara had that much access only. What was she to him? Wife? No. Paper wife? No. She was just his dress planner.
Sara could realize after twenty years of experience of deception, lies and betrayal what it could be. But in twenty years, he never did such as he did today. Was she losing the minimum space of being a dress planner in his life? Sara was lost in thoughts. Cultural pearls were cruel. Each time for a pearl, an oyster was surgically opened and inserted with an irritant in the oyster, which was stressful. An oyster felt no pain. But fewer than half of the oysters survived during the progress. How many countless times had Nick inserted inhuman pain into Sara? Sara lost counts. The oysters were taken care of for cultured pearl harvesting. Nick never showed any caring for Sara. In front of people, he showed fake caring.
Unknowingly, Sara had gifted Nick the best gift ever, which symbolized her pain and life. Those pair represented both Sara’s mental and physical pain in a surreal way. Those two cultured pearls in the cufflinks were no longer any pearls. With Sara’s innocence of heart and soul and naivety, they metamorphosed into pain but had hidden it with all beauty and purity. Sara went to the website from where she purchased the cufflinks. She wanted to look at those cufflinks. What a beautiful pair of cufflinks, Sara thought while looking at those pair. Sara related to herself with the pair for a moment. Those two pearls absorbed all of her pains and sufferings. She was not alone, and they had become part of her. All of her pains resided in those white pearls of the pair of cufflinks now, Sara thought. What an irony!
Fiction Disclaimer- This is a work of Fiction. Names, characters, places, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual person/s, living or dead, or actual event/s is purely co-incidental.
Brief Bio-Tabassum Tahmina Shagufta Hussein is a Master of Arts degree holder in British and American Literature from Dhaka, Bangladesh. Her poems have appeared in several Literary magazines including six anthologies. She is the 2nd KEL (Korean Expatriate Literature.) International Poet Award Winner 2021. Her other interests include travelling and recitation. She is the International fellow-2020 of the International Human Rights Arts Festival, NY, USA. Currently, she is the contributor columnist of Different Truths, India and two other Bangladeshi English print newspapers. She is also the Bangla translator for Poem of the week/ Poetry Without Borders, Point Edition, an initiative of ITHACA Foundation, Spain.
