Elvira Dones - Sworn Virgin

‘You’re thinking I’m growing up fast, right?’ Jonida guesses. ‘You have the same look as Mom when she starts saying she won’t be able to live without me when I go to college.’

Hana laughs. So all mothers are the same, she thinks. She feels maternal towards Jonida, but she tries not to make it too obvious so that Lila doesn’t feel like Hana’s trying to muscle in on her exclusive relationship with her daughter.

She finds a parking spot on P Street. While they are walking into the center of Georgetown, Jonida starts chattering about school, her friends, her geometry teacher who’s totally cool and gets the students interested in the subject, her high grades in American history.

When they sit down at a table near the window in a snug little Vietnamese restaurant, Hana is filled with a sense of overpowering happiness.

The next day she takes Jonida back home. Lila and Shtjefën offer her a cup of coffee and they start discussing what to cook for Christmas Day. Lila is on a diet and has started going back to the dentist to work on her teeth and improve her smile. Every now and then she goes to the hairdresser and straightens her long, curly hair. Shtjefën explains that his wife is trying to keep him interested, otherwise his virile good looks might end up attracting some other woman. Lila smiles.

‘What do you expect? Apart from Jonida I only have you. And every day she’s getting further away, however much love we give her.’

She sighs and looks at Hana.

‘Are we doing something wrong with this girl?’ she asks Hana in a whisper. Jonida has vanished into her room. ‘How was she yesterday? She goes over to your place as soon as she gets the chance. It feels like she’s trying to get away from us.’

‘Oh come on, baby,’ Shtjefën chips in. ‘You go to Hana’s all the time too, like tomorrow, for instance. Does that mean you’re trying to get away from Jonida and me?’

When she gets back to her apartment, Hana puts on a pair of baggy red sweatpants and checks the to-do list on her board. At the top of the list there’s an exhortation to read the computer manual and practice doing some Google searches.

She sips a cup of tea as she reads the manual attentively. She feels as though she’s understanding everything, and she’s proud of herself. But rather than starting to surf the Web straight away, she sits there, completely immobile, suddenly unsure where the evening is taking her. For sure, she has made some huge steps. She’s completely self-sufficient in all her daily activities and needs no help at all. She pays her bills online. She can speak fairly fluently, and she can read Emily Dickinson, Sylvia Plath, Gloria Naylor, and Toni Morrison, as well as an army of male poets and writers. She has pages and pages of notes on English idioms and phrases spread all over the house; her fridge is like a school whiteboard.

‘But between my legs, things are still pretty dry,’ she says out loud. She stares at the empty teacup. It’s her favorite, the color of a green lawn. She calls it Melissa. She likes the name Melissa.

She thinks the time has finally come for her to lie down close to a man and smell his body, even though she keeps telling Lila and Jonida she’s in no hurry. In her diary she has written: ‘Hana desires a man.’ Then she added an exclamation mark. But she can’t confide in anyone about these things. Not Jonida, and certainly not Jack.

She saw a program on TV where women were saying they solved the problem by using a vibrator. But she has no idea where she could buy one. She tells herself she’s pathetic thinking about all this filth, and tries to focus on the computer. But all her attempts to get started go nowhere. Sex is on her brain today and she can’t stop thinking about it.

The next evening Lila comes to Hana’s house with some byrek pastry she has made at home and wrapped in a damp cloth. She walks into the kitchen without even saying hello and asks Hana if the oven is already on.

Hana leans on the door frame and doesn’t move. Lila turns around.

‘What are you doing there? Hurry up! The pastry has risen and it can’t wait. Shtjefën’s coming at nine.’

Lila dusts the kitchen table with flour. Hana, still standing, asks her if she has ever made love to herself and if she happens to have a vibrator. Lila opens and shuts the kitchen drawers, apparently looking for a rolling pin.

‘Answer my question.’

‘A vibrator.’

‘That’s what I said.’

‘We have sex in the normal way with the tools God gave us. What kind of question is that anyway?’

‘Why are you going red?’

‘Where do you keep your rolling pin?’

Hana takes it out of the bottom drawer and hands it to Lila.

‘Don’t get so anxious. I asked if you had a vibrator, not a Kalashnikov.’

‘Ok, ok. Yes, we have one. We got hold of one as a kind of joke. Jeez, I can’t believe we’re even having this conversation.’

Hana lets Lila roll out the pastry, taking her time, while she warms up the meat sauce and dices the mozzarella.

‘I want to buy myself a vibrator,’ she announces as she greases the baking pan.

‘For crying out loud, can we change the subject here? Isn’t there a radio or something in this house?’ Lila layers pastry, meat sauce and cheese, drizzling olive oil over each layer and seasoning the byrek with pepper and oregano.

‘I don’t see why you’re so bothered,’ Hana insists.

Lila opens the oven door, pulling away as the rush of hot air hits her. She puts the baking tray in and closes the door. Hana sits down. Lila stays standing, suddenly awkward.

‘You’re always complaining I don’t talk, and now you’re making things difficult for me.’

‘We’re Albanians, Hana. We don’t talk about these intimate things.’

‘Well if you don’t talk about them then you shouldn’t do them either.’

‘Well I don’t. It’s Shtjefën who likes trying things out. He says we need to be a little westernized or what’s the point of being here? Not just to work our asses off. What would you do with those things anyway? You don’t even have a man.’

‘Exactly. I don’t even have a man.’ Hana’s mood darkens. ‘How come you don’t understand?’

She goes and gets the wine she has already uncorked so it could breathe. She takes out two glasses and pours one for herself. She takes a sip. Lila wipes the kitchen table clean and pours herself a glass, but doesn’t drink.

‘I’m thirty-five years old now,’ Hana explains in a whisper. ‘Can you imagine being with a man for the first time and asking him to go easy because I’m a virgin? At my age? I’d be a joke. I don’t even dare think about it. I can’t imagine moving on from being just friends to being intimate. And that’s why I never even try.’

There’s a moment of pure embarrassment.

‘I can’t seem to make love to myself,’ Hana goes on. ‘I’m getting desperate. I feel like I’m sick or something. I thought things would be easier.’

Lila’s tender gaze is directed somewhere behind Hana.

‘Of course you can’t make love on your own. You’ve never reached orgasm, Hana. Usually a woman learns to get pleasure from masturbation after she has had full sex. You need a man to find out what you really feel, to see whether you feel pleasure. You can’t lose your virginity on your own, if that’s your crazy idea when you ask me for a vibrator.’

Hana drops her head on the table. ‘I’m in deep shit.’

‘You knew that,’ her cousin reminds her, without any reproach.

‘I feel like shit too.’

Lila gets up and slowly tidies the kitchen. When she senses Hana has calmed down a little, she sits next to her.

‘The first man you make love to, or have sex with, will have to be a very special man. Or else, you can find a guy just to help you get over your problem with your virginity. In any case he’ll need to be gentle and sensitive.’