Bliss Montage by Ling Ma

Author:Ling Ma
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

* * *

The night before we left for Garboza, I looked up from the TV to see Peter, standing in the doorway, gazing at me intently. “What’s this?” He was holding my spiral-bound notebook. “What is it?” he repeated. He wasn’t asking about the whole notebook, we both knew, just the passages that he must have read.

I looked at the page he indicated. “It’s fiction,” I finally said. It had been a while since we’d read each other’s drafts.

I put the movie on mute. On the screen, the countess was prostrating herself before the count, her heaving bosom, stuffed in a ruffled powder blue dress, streaked with tears. It was a confession. She had done something transgressive, and now she was repenting.

He looked from the TV screen to me. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have looked,” he said, now visibly relaxed. “It’s good, if this is your new project. Different, though.”

“Different in what way?”

“Well, there’s less scene work. It’s more emotive. There’s more interiority.”

“Does it read like a different person wrote it?”

“No, it’s still you.” He placed the notebook next to me on the sofa, turned back toward the door. “Anyway, I’m going to finish packing.”

“It’s my journal,” I corrected quickly. “It’s not fiction.”

“It’s not fiction?” He stopped in the doorway. Quietly, he said, “I’m assuming these entries are not about me.”

“They’re not about you,” I echoed, like an idiot.

“I thought so.” His back was toward me, I couldn’t see his expression as he put two and two together. “Well, I still have to finish packing,” he finally said.

I didn’t know what to say either. Numbly, I watched the movie. The duchess was being told that she was forgiven. She burst into tears. Then, out of nowhere, a toddler joined her on-screen, comforting his mother and reestablishing their family. Finally, the count joined his wife and child, kneeling to tearfully embrace them, reestablishing the hegemony of marital unity, of hearth and home. The end credits rolled.

I walked into the other room, where Peter was folding clothes and placing them in our carry-on, and broached the topic carefully. “Maybe I shouldn’t go on this trip with you tomorrow.”

He didn’t look at me. “It’s been planned for a while. I think we should follow through.”

After a moment, I said, “You can be mad at me. I can take it.”

“You don’t have to give me permission to feel my feelings, all right?” He finished folding a shirt. “I should feel mad. But the first thought that came to mind was, Is it me?”

I pursed my lips. “I’m not someone who knows what they want. That’s the problem.”

“Please don’t say, It’s not you, it’s me. That would be tragic.” He zipped up the suitcase. “Maybe it’s me. Maybe I need to change.” He said this last part quietly, as if to himself.

“It’s not you, it’s—” His glare at my lame attempt at a joke was silencing. I tried again. “Nothing serious happened. You don’t have to worry.”

He shook his head. “I just feel like this life we have isn’t good enough for you.

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