Look at Me by Mareike Krügel & Imogen Taylor

Author:Mareike Krügel & Imogen Taylor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Text Publishing Company
Published: 2018-01-23T16:00:00+00:00

When I was in my early twenties, Costas once told me I looked sweet when I woke up in the morning—tousled and crumpled and adorable—and because I wanted him to like me, I began to make an effort to look as tousled as possible. It wasn’t conscious—there was no calculation behind it—but one day I noticed, for instance, that I had got into the habit of rubbing my eyes with my fists in the morning like a small child. That was something I’d never done before. Another thing I’d do was to sit up in bed and blink dazedly for a few seconds, then yawn and stretch, mussing up my hair in the process. Part of me had evidently decided to put on a good show for Costas, if sweet was what he liked.

As soon as I realised, I stopped, not just because I felt silly, but also because I knew I’d never be able to keep up this sweet-and-tousled act. What looked adorable when I was in my early twenties would be ridiculous by the time I was in my early forties. Of all the qualities Costas valued in me, sweetness would probably be the first to go.

I never aspired to beauty—it seemed too complicated. Sissi is beautiful, especially when she plays her cello, absorbed in the music, her eyes closed, her long, slender fingers on the fingerboard, the broad instrument between her thighs drawing your eyes to her ankles—and Sissi’s ankles are the stuff of poetry. Maybe her beauty has been of benefit in certain situations—that’s something I can only speculate about. What I do know is that she’s had to contend with envy because of it. It has made no difference that the first round of auditions for orchestra positions are now held behind a curtain, or that juries are made up of an equal number of men and women—there has been talk whenever Sissi has won a competition, or landed herself a post. I know too that a lot of people don’t take her seriously. No one expects her to be clever, or profound. She has the most incredible stories of sexual harassment and inappropriate come-ons, but the worst thing, she once confided in me, is that when she does come across someone who genuinely cares for her, she can’t trust him. Beautiful people are like rich people in that respect—they can never be sure that they are loved for their own sake. My sister is an ornament and a status symbol—an objet d’art to admire and display. She divides her boyfriends into hunters and gatherers: the hunters want to exhibit her like a trophy, the gatherers to keep her to themselves and look at her all the time. Her composer, to whom she’s been faithful for so long, is a gatherer—anyone can see that.

And like sweetness, beauty is fleeting. It isn’t a quality you want to be loved for, because you can never be sure if you’ll still be loved once it has gone. That leaves me, with my clown’s face and dirty blond hair, in the better position.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.