Dollhouse
Une, Mariemeia. PG. Gen.
An interlude between Endless Waltz and its hapilly ever after; Une watches over an unconscious Mariemeia.
2002 | 1740 words
It’s been a year. I don’t want to believe that a whole year has passed. But then, just looking at her face, I don’t want to believe in many things.
Mariemeia Khushrenada. Even the sound of her name is an echo of Treize. Of course His Excelence’s only heir would have a unique, flamboyant name, one which would impose respect just by the mention of it. Of course she would be stunningly beautiful and intelligent beyond her years, or at least enough to nearly outsmart all of us. Of course she would be but a gentle mirror of Treize’s virtues and flaws.
She lies unconscious in this hospital bed since the Eve Wars incident. She took the bullet meant for miss Relena, surviving only due some twisted sort of miracle: they couldn’t either bring her back from the coma nor save her from paralysis. Mariemeia will never be able to walk again - if she awakes anytime soon.
I visit her every day since. I arrive early in the morning, greet her, open the curtains and change the flowers on the bedside table every two or three days. It’s the same little routine I used to follow in my stately dollhouse when I was young, training for a future in which I would be a proud mother and nothing but that. Sitting beside a pretty little girl and combing her silky red hair used to be all I wanted from life.
But in my dreams, my lovely daugther would greet me back and smile at me, her hair would need to be combed because she would move in her sleep. I would bring her a tray with healthy breakfast every morning instead of checking her IV every couple of hours.
It seems that watching my each and every dream shatter to pieces before my eyes is the fair price I must pay for all the cruelty I’ve been capable of in his name.
Treize… you ought to be tired of me asking you why. I’ve been asking this since the very day you left us, but still all I get is silence. I’ve spent each second of the past year making sure that your death would never be forgotten, that you would bring us redemption, because this is the only thought I found to make me accept the fact that you’re not ever coming back. Believing in you, I found strenght to move on day after day.
The months eventually pass, I survive nearly four hundred days knowing that no matter how many roses I lay on your grave, you’re not even there to appreciate them. And on the anniversary of the saddest day of my life, you come back in the form of a confused young girl, who, with one blow, destroys everything I worked so hard to build.
You said the joy of life was in its small ironies. It’s nothing but ironic that all of your efforts and sacrifices in the name of peace, your own final redemption for the sin of being the right man in the wrong age, everything would be destroyed and marred by the hand of your only true heritage.
I have given up asking why. At this point, I can only hope that you forgive me, Treize. You warned me against utopia, but I did not understand until it was too late. I couldn’t maintain that delicate as crystal peace, I could not preserve your memory… I could not even save your beautiful daughter.
That is why you hid her, isn’t it? She’s so small, so fragile, and yet as relentless as you were. She’s your little diamond, a treasure so bright and precious one would rather keep it secret than flash it off. But have you ever thought of her? Do you think she wanted to be kept secret?
I sit on the edge of this bed everyday trying to forgive myself. I clean her clean face, comb her combed hair, and she is this morning exactly as I’ve left her last night. God, she does not move. I loosen the breathing tubes in her long Khushrenada nose so that she won’t choke, I loosen the needles in her veins so that her arms won’t be marked and she never even stirrs. Then I sit back and just observe, trying to find in her face another detail that’ll remind me of him.
They visit her, one at a time, but they come but once. They don’t care about her. They’re just still trying to make sense of what happened. Of what didn’t happen. Of what will happen. Only two of them come back at least once a month: the one who by some strange mistery shares her family name, and the other - the one who killed her father.
“What will be of her?” Barton asks me.
I don’t know. How am I supposed to know? It’s simple: she’ll die, or live. If she dies, I’ll bury her body, my memories of Treize and the last remnants of my childhood dreams beside the grave I wish I could have laid him in. If she lives, I’ll spend the rest of our lives sitting beside her bed, cleaning her clean face, combing her combed hair and waiting until she dies.
The other one, he doesn’t ask me anything. He never asks anyone anything. He walks in, sits beside her, watches her numb face, touches her limp hand, wallowes in his own torments and barely acknowledges me. I don’t look at him. I’m afraid of looking at him. We have our silent understanding: I won’t look at him, he won’t look at me. I won’t hate him, he won’t carry more shame than he alredy does. It’s simple. He killed Treize; there’s nothing left to say.
Relena comes. She’s grateful, but not nearly enough, because she doesn’t quite understand what Mariemeia is a symbol of. The other pilots come too. They understand it better than she does, but they’re tired. I’m tired too, boys, but you can go home now. This is not your battle anymore.
Milliard Peacecraft, Zechs Merquise, or whoever he is incarnating this week, comes once. He looks at her and tries to deny it, but it’s useless. I’ve seen the routine played out in everyone’s faces, including mine: denial, anger, than acceptance, betrayal, disappointment, indecision… time to go. They all go, and I stay. Sad as it is, I might be all she has left in this life.
I rarely work anymore. I don’t find in me reasons to work for, there’s so little left I could be interested in. Week after week they come and look at her with that same fanatic glint they got when they looked at him, when I looked at him, and they try to convince me that we have to continue. We have to lead his dream on, pass forth the Treize worship. It was just that easy to fall in love with him. I think to myself, leave me alone, please. Don’t touch me, don’t plead me, don’t talk to me. Don’t think of him anywhere next to me.
It’s so quiet here.
I hear about the Preventers project and it vaguely amuses me that they could actually come up with an idea of their own. It’s a wonderful idea. I give all my support, but decline the invitation. I don’t wanna be part of this anymore. What killed my mundane motherhood dream was a sudden, unexplainable passion for the dream of gunpowder. “War is insanity,” father would tell me.
But I went after my passion and lived the fantasy to extremes. I found in the uniforms, the ranks, the mobile suits and the guns all the pleasures to be fullfiled with, the power to judge and eliminate those who tried to judge me. I found in the military all the reasons to kill for. And, later on, I found in Treize Khushrenada all the reasons to die for. But now it’s over, I’m tired and I don’t want to wear uniforms or wield flags again, not even those of peace.
They asked me to locate Lucrezia Noin, renoumed pilot trainer, and extend the invitation. I waited a week and told them she too had declined, without ever even searching for her. I saw her briefly when the older Peacecraft came to the hospital, but we didn’t talk. Now she is gone with the ghosts of Milliard and Zechs, who wait in the shadows for the next time to rise, and there is no reason to bother them. Like I try to convince these young soldiers there is no reason to bother me anymore.
Noin and I had our differences, yes, but I did not dislike her. The only reason we had differences was because Treize and Zechs had their own differences and we were (we are) nothing but puppets. A pathetic, sorry embarrassment to the independent women we claim to be. But I didn’t dislike her. We started something like a friendship at some point, lost without our puppetmasters to pull our strings the convenient way. We had to find in each other something to hang on to.
Am I jealous that she had the second chance I’ve been denied? Maybe. But maybe I’m just disappointed because I’ve got no one to hang on to anymore. So this is probably why I cling so desperately to the child. Without Noin, I’m alone again. I’ve got no one to share my uncertainties with, no one to comfort and take care of as I forget to take care of myself.
I follow my routine, coming every morning, cleaning her face, combing her hair, singing lullabies, numbing my mind to the sound of the respirator and even beeping of her heartbeats, slowly forgetting about myself as I watch her unchanging features and see reflections of the past but no hopes for the future, counting the passage of days on each change of the dying flowers.
She never answers, she never speaks or opens her eyes. She never listens -and would she care? I have to remind myself I didn’t just see him beside us, caressing her small hand and smiling down at his baby. I close my eyes and when I open them it’s just she and I again, silenly waiting for nothing.
If I’m all she has left in this life, Mariemeia too is all I have left to move on for.
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