A Small Sacrifice

a short story

By:
Füsun Atalay
Copyright 1998 ©

I remember Mother always walking around in her high heeled shoes- even inside the house. She had the most beautiful shoes I’d seen in my life; and she took good care of them. At least a dozen shoe trees were placed meticulously inside her soft, Italian leather footwear when they weren’t worn. She had beige suede shoes, shiny patent leather pumps, multi toned snake, silver sparkly sling backs and even a midnight blue satin pair to complete an evening dress made of the same fine fabric. She was very proud of the small size of her feet and maintained that small feet on a woman were indicative of elegance and beauty.

Once, she had read in a Paris Match magazine that Brigitte Bardot boasted of her petite five-and-a-half shoe size. "Huh!" I remember Mother scoffing. "She thinks that’s petite? I wear size five!"

Father had humored her, "Well, honey, we should certainly display your tiny, elegant feet in Eaton’s front window."

I used to admire and wonder how she managed to parade around the spacious house all day in her heels and not fall down or sprain an ankle . I’d tried walking with her open toed red stilettos once. She was shopping, I think, and I challenged my sister to sneak into Mother’s room and attire ourselves in her clothes and shoes for fun.

I’d sensed an extraordinary thrill the first time I slipped into her high heels, the ultimate symbol of femininity. However, our feet didn’t quite measure up. Mine took up only three quarters of a shoe and Annie’s perhaps a half. We tried strutting around, wiggling our hips in a coquettish fashion and dragged our feet rather than float gracefully as we’d seen Mother do so often. After twisting our ankles a few times and sagging the footwear in the middle, we decided to place them back on her shoe rack, lest we broke a heel and got Mother angry at us.

The failure of that attempt was not enough to discourage me and Annie, who followed my lead, from further experiments with our quest for femininity. We tried placing wooden picture-puzzle cubes in our own shoes to look like we were taller. Stepping on the hard edges cut into our tender heels, and that one soon became a short-lived experiment.

During our fascination with high heels also came a period when we were intrigued by breasts.

When Mother held her Wednesday afternoon tea parties, Annie and I used to peek through the keyhole of the garden room and pick our favorite lady whom we wanted to look like when we grew up. I was usually partial for the brunettes with wavy hair and lots of jewelry. Annie’s favorite was a red haired lady with a protruding belly. She claimed her face was the prettiest.

Their fashionable clothes accentuated and occasionally revealed their round bosoms. I convinced Annie that we could look like them too.

was happy that we’d developed an appetite for oranges and apples which we had snubbed for a long time in favor of cookies and cakes. We began snitching a couple of each every day and hurrying back to our playroom. Then we placed a pair under our sweaters or undershirts and stood in front of the mirror admiring the miraculous transformation from the front and side views. There was such a thrill to having instant boobs. I didn't know how I could lived without them anymore. I was addicted to oranges, in a manner of speaking!

Annie and I invented games in which we pretended to have our tea parties and, as we sat on our play chairs lifting miniature tea cups to our lips, we repeated what we had heard from the adults.

We talked about the sad state of the world, the rising prices of meat, the mortal pain of childbirth and the impossibility of finding good help those days. We addressed each other as "Darling" and adopted pseudonyms. Annie would be Olivia and I, Miranda. Occasionally one of us had to readjust a slipping orange or a sagging apple, but neither of us took note of that. It was an act as natural as breathing or scratching our nose .

Mother had started complaining of headaches and dizzy spells. She started spending more time in bed resting with a cold towel draped over her temples. It was frustrating for her to remain inactive, for she was a woman of action. She liked attending meetings at the city council, the neighborhood association, P.T.A. ; and enjoying afternoon tea with her friends. She also took pride in being a good mother who spent quality time with me and my sister.

Since her discomforts started, however, we were left in the care of a hired nanny to look after our meals and chaperone us to the park. Annie and I could sense Mother’s unhappiness with the state of affairs. Father, too, seemed very concerned so he called in a renown physician to attend to her

Mother had to stop wearing high heels. Stuffing her feet into those pointy shoes was impeding circulation of her blood and supply of oxygen to her brain. She was not a sleek woman by any standard. Soft, fair and pleasantly plump, she was the paradigm of the classic female figure. She was fashion conscious and concerned about appearances .

This prognosis was a big blow to her.

Father tried to make light of it by joking that at least her condition was not due to a brain tumor or some other incurable illness. She should at least try the good doctor’s suggestion and see if it worked. Annie and I looked at each other puzzled not knowing what a tumor was .

Next day, there was a delivery at the door. Our nanny signed for it. It was for Mother. We rushed the package to her room and awaited anxiously to see what was in it. She pulled out the pink ribbon and gently tore the pink, white and silver wrapping to uncover a rectangular box. In it was the most beautiful pair of burgundy, cushiony velvet slippers with white feather trimmings. The note read:

"It’s not the wrapping I care for; it’s You!

Love, H."

That was so thoughtful of Father!

Doctor Holm was right. Within a week of slipping into her mules Mother’s headaches and dizzy spells vanished. She was her old cheerful self again, although she insisted that she felt a lot shorter than she actually was. The house was also quieter without the sound of her clanging heels, tattling her whereabouts.

Annie and I were back to our carefree play world, stuffing fruits in our shirts and Lego pieces into our shoes. One day I decided that we needed some color on our face. After a momentary silence we yelled out simultaneously, "Lipstick!" and ran to Mother’s room as if we were on cue.

Mother had gone out to order our Christmas turkey. Like children in a candy store, we were full of delight and greed. I immediately picked a cherry red and Annie settled for the dark pink color. We smeared our lips generously first puckering and then rubbing them back and forth over each other just like we’d seen Mother do.

Then I rubbed my index finger on then I rubbed on the lipstick and applied some color on my cheeks. Annie copied my action without delay. Our lips looked fuller than their usual size because we’d gone over our natural lip line. The faces in the mirror looked nothing like our own at all. Maybe we’d gone overboard a bit; so I suggested we wipe some of the rouge off. A lace trimmed handkerchief next to the ivory jewelry box caught our eyes.

"You first," challenged Annie. I obliged, boldly. Then she pulled it from me and wiped her mouth. When I saw the soiled kerchief she handed back, I started feeling a little uneasy about what we’d done, so I said we go and wash the rest from our face with soap and water before Mother came back. We returned the lipsticks back to the ornate maquillage tray and turned toward the door in a hurry.

I wish that instant could have been captured in celluloid. It must have certainly been a Kodak moment. Mother was standing at the doorway, her eyes and mouth wide open in horror at catching her angels red handed. Annie and I with rouge smeared faces and unevenly sagging breasts which had developed in the few hours since her departure, stared back dumbfounded.

We hadn't heard her return in those soft, padded slippers. She couldn’t have been standing at the door too long, but long enough to catch us at the scene of the crime. Then an orange, rolling out of Annie’s cardigan and stopped right at Mother’s feet, causing her to break the silence with a resounding laughter.

She was a good sport. We weren’t punished for what we did. Instead, Mother said she’d make us up just that once, and we’d have tea with her. Annie and I couldn’t believe our ears! Mother told Annie and then me to stand in front of her as she sat on her velvet cushioned chair at the make-up table. With the expertise of her steady hand, she lined our eyes with black kohl. Then with a large brush she brushed a pink powder on our cheeks and finally painted our lips with the color of our choice. Occasionally she used tissue paper to wipe off the excess color.

Then she opened her jewelry box and took two pairs of dangling earrings- one with green stones and another with gold leaves. We could select the one we wanted. When we looked at the gilded mirror again, what Annie and I saw were quite different from the clownish faces of a while ago. Then Mother led us to the garden room for tea and heart shaped cinnamon cookies.

My sister and I were so happy that afternoon, seeing Mother take part in a conspiracy which none of us would tell our father. The memory of that day when we played grown-up with Mother, was something that’d stay among us girls for the rest of our lives. Annie and I must have had our fill, however, because after that episode, neither of us wanted to put on make up or stuff fruit in our shirts any more.

Mother didn’t wear her mules any more after that day. She tossed them to a corner of her shoe rack and went back to walking around in her high heels again. Her dizzy spells and headaches returned slowly but surely. When they were terribly unbearable, she retired to her room for a few hours with an ice pack and a couple of aspirins. Annie and I felt guilty; but Mother was a good sport about it. She insisted that hers was really a small sacrifice to keep us in line, and make her presence well known around the house.

Copyrighted Material ~ Copyright © 1998 ~ All Rights belong to Füsun Atalay