Prisca's Miseries

Chapter 4

Beyond the surface, there was this sham called marriage. Some act of a ghoulish man that imposed what he wanted on her at this moment in life. She had been a victim to deceptions before now, but none of them had been more painful than this. She felt like her head was hit with a sledge hammer. She leaned her head against the entrance door of her room and closed her eyes. Like a lightning, it kept flashing, how it all started; how all her hopes were dashed.

She had always been chauffeur-driven. But on this day, her father had elected to drive her to wherever she wanted to go to. This, for her, was one of the many surprises he sprang in the past. Whatever he was up to this time around, she was willing to c***k it open. As the car meandered through the rocky path leading to the Venetian restaurant, she sat comfortably beside him, loudly cheering him on as he swerved to the left and right.

He was happy she was excited, and he wanted that to linger on for a long time. Time had healed the friction between them. But this, what he was about to unleash, he wasn’t sure whether or not he would be able to handle the consequence.

“Dad, you are the best!” she screamed as they neared Venetian.

“Huh! Yes, I am,” he said, forcing a smile.

He turned right to grind the car to a halt. Immediately, Prisca transformed into a smiling coquette. She once wished she witnessed a day like this, and here it was. Such was her excitement that she hugged her father, leapt out of the car and rushed off to the restaurant without waiting for her father. Bemused, San Tata could only shake his head and smacked his thick lips, trying hard to hide his anxiety away from her bubbly exuberance. Sprinkles of flashbacks, especially of the many times he had gone there with her mum, came to him at that moment, and he wondered whether there were other primal things he was missing about her.

“Dad, you’ve been lost in thought since we got here,” Prisca said, adjusting the chair she was about to sit on as well as her dad’s.

“It’s about your mother. I used to bring her here. I miss her,” he responded while waiting for his daughter to sit first.

This got her a bit emotional. But as she didn’t want to lose sight of why they were there, she quickly snapped out of it.

“Dad, I’ve been meaning to ask you why you brought me here,” she said, relaxed.

“Do you have a boyfriend?” he asked.

“You brought me here because of this, Dad?” she said, laughing so hard that she became teary-eyed.

She wiped off the tears flowing from her eyes and fixed her gaze on him, waiting to hear him talk. San Tata was embarrassed by this, but he kept his cool. What seemed to be cool in the restaurant had paved the way for heat, internal heat that seemed to be increasing each time his heart beat.

“Do you have a boyfriend?” he asked again, sternly.

Just as she was about to respond, the waiter brought their menu, fritto misto platter and their favourite liquors, to the table and asked them what more they needed. In response, San Tata shook his head and beckoned to her to leave.

“Prisca, I admire the lovely lady you’ve turned out to be. Your mum couldn’t be happier and prouder. I understand how you felt not having her around when you needed her most.”

She was torn between laughing and crying. In the end, she could only sigh and stare into space, anxiously waiting for why her father brought her to the place. As obvious as the handwriting on the wall was, it’s ridiculous that she couldn’t see what was hidden behind the gaze, even as he constantly cleared his throat.

“I have paid for your ticket to France. You just go there to get rid of the heaviness caused by your mum’s death. Your departure time next Friday is 7 pm, and you’re spending three weeks there. Don’t say no,” he said, sipping his favourite cognac.

Stupefied by the ridiculousness of everything he said, she couldn’t bring herself to connect the dots. An hour ago, her father had elected to drive her to the restaurant – what had never happened before. A moment ago, he asked whether she had a boyfriend. Without waiting for her to respond, now, he was telling her to travel to France to banish the disturbing thought and emptiness she felt when she lost her mother a decade and six years ago. That was too long a time to heal. Besides, her previous escapades had been with her best friend, Alessia. There had to be a reason why she wasn’t in the picture this time around.

She wanted to decline the offer, but she found herself reluctantly accepting it. He’s the only family she had left, and she was determined not to lose him, not for any reason. Like her, he had been through a lot.

“I know I’ll miss you when you are gone for those weeks. But I’ve promised myself to be strong enough not to miss you much,” he said, smiling.

Afterwards, he raised the glass of cognac he was holding and cheered to her safety in France and seeing her again. Prisca, on the other hand, avoided his gaze a bit. She didn’t want to be emotional at this point, though what the decision was for remained unclear to her. The draining lassitude that numbed the margins of her mind was like muggy darkness. So dark was it that it was impenetrable.

Even as her father drove her back home, she was disturbed about what had just happened. She just couldn’t get the thought out of her young mind. Stuck in the traffic along Meduva, San Tata was a tad excited that the first of the many steps had been successfully taken. He was taken aback by the seamless nature it took. This was a stark contrast to what he had initially envisaged.