Mary Agnes, Who Wishes to Meet Her Maker
“Can I ask you a question?” Mary Agnes says to me. “Tell me the truth.”
I promise to be truthful. Mary Agnes and I are on the express train from Chennai to Goa, a 23-hour affair. That’s long enough to swap life stories, unless you have a story like Mary Agnes’s.
She’s Indian but lives now in Dubai, where she keeps house for a Lebanese woman. Every two years she has four weeks off, and she comes back to India even though she has no family here. Mary Agnes was raised in an orphanage run by nuns. I can see their influence when she turns on her cell phone; a full-color cross materializes on the screen.
“How many sleeping pills does it take to die?”
I tell Mary Agnes the truth. I don’t know. She’s disappointed and takes another sip from her bottle of whiskey.
This is why Mary Agnes wants to die: She has no one. She has money, but no love. (“My madam pays me very well,” she says of her employer. Every time she mentions “madam” she kisses the tips of her fingers like an Italian chef proud of his puttanesca.)
In India, having no one is worse than having nothing. It’s not unusual for a dozen family members to sleep in a one-room house; not one would trade that life to sleep alone in a mansion. Children don’t grow up and “get a place.” They live with their parents or in-laws long after having children of their own. Solitude, loneliness, independence – these are strange concepts here. When I say I’m traveling alone, I’m asked the question again. “You are here with?” They’re confident I misunderstood the first time.
Mary Agnes, who’s 45, had a husband once. She was young and naïve when the nuns coaxed her into marrying him. She didn’t drink or smoke then. She didn’t know where babies came from. He never kissed her and had a habit of dragging her by the hair. She left but didn’t divorce him. She didn’t want another woman to suffer.
Mary Agnes is sharp. She doesn’t read or write, but she speaks six languages. Her English is excellent, though it gets a bit worse with every sip. She wears a watch with a maple leaf on it, a souvenir from a trip to Canada with “madam.” She used to have a bracelet with diamonds, but it was stolen by people who called themselves friends.
“I live only for him,” she tells me, hand raised to the sky.
I promise to be truthful. Mary Agnes and I are on the express train from Chennai to Goa, a 23-hour affair. That’s long enough to swap life stories, unless you have a story like Mary Agnes’s.
She’s Indian but lives now in Dubai, where she keeps house for a Lebanese woman. Every two years she has four weeks off, and she comes back to India even though she has no family here. Mary Agnes was raised in an orphanage run by nuns. I can see their influence when she turns on her cell phone; a full-color cross materializes on the screen.
“How many sleeping pills does it take to die?”
I tell Mary Agnes the truth. I don’t know. She’s disappointed and takes another sip from her bottle of whiskey.
This is why Mary Agnes wants to die: She has no one. She has money, but no love. (“My madam pays me very well,” she says of her employer. Every time she mentions “madam” she kisses the tips of her fingers like an Italian chef proud of his puttanesca.)
In India, having no one is worse than having nothing. It’s not unusual for a dozen family members to sleep in a one-room house; not one would trade that life to sleep alone in a mansion. Children don’t grow up and “get a place.” They live with their parents or in-laws long after having children of their own. Solitude, loneliness, independence – these are strange concepts here. When I say I’m traveling alone, I’m asked the question again. “You are here with?” They’re confident I misunderstood the first time.
Mary Agnes, who’s 45, had a husband once. She was young and naïve when the nuns coaxed her into marrying him. She didn’t drink or smoke then. She didn’t know where babies came from. He never kissed her and had a habit of dragging her by the hair. She left but didn’t divorce him. She didn’t want another woman to suffer.
Mary Agnes is sharp. She doesn’t read or write, but she speaks six languages. Her English is excellent, though it gets a bit worse with every sip. She wears a watch with a maple leaf on it, a souvenir from a trip to Canada with “madam.” She used to have a bracelet with diamonds, but it was stolen by people who called themselves friends.
“I live only for him,” she tells me, hand raised to the sky.
posted by Badass at 6:51 PM
2 Comments:
You know what's awesome about you? Most people would never even take the time to find out this woman's story. But you do.
I must agree with muffin's mom.
The only other comment I would make is that it may well be that Mary Agnes has reached a level of honesty where she has already met her maker. May be something to think about anyway.
Thanks for the story and the opportunity to add my two cents worth.
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