Chapter 5: Burning Love: I
About a hundred yards from where the two friends sat drinking wine, beyond a weathered stone wall, lay the Catalan quarter.
This mysterious community had fled Spain centuries ago and settled on this narrow strip of land jutting into the Mediterranean. Nobody knew exactly where they’d come from originally, and they still spoke their own dialect that outsiders couldn’t understand.
Long ago, one of their leaders who could speak some French had begged the city of Marseille for permission to settle on this barren piece of land where they’d beached their boats like ancient sailors. The city said yes, and within three months, a small village had sprung up around the dozen or so boats that had carried these sea nomads to their new home.
The village looked like something out of a fairy tale, half North African, half Spanish architecture. The descendants of those original settlers still lived there, speaking their ancestors’ language and keeping their old customs alive.
For three or four centuries, they’d stayed on this little peninsula like a flock of seabirds, never really mixing with the French population of Marseille. They married among themselves and kept their traditional clothes and ways of life exactly as their forefathers had.
Let’s walk down the single street of this little village and step inside one of the houses. The walls were sun-bleached to that beautiful golden-brown color you see all over the Mediterranean, with the interior painted stark white like a Spanish inn.
A stunning young woman with jet-black hair and eyes like liquid velvet leaned against the wall, nervously shredding heath flowers in her delicate fingers and scattering the petals on the floor. Her bare arms, tanned and perfectly shaped, moved restlessly, and her arched foot tapped against the ground.
About ten feet away, a tall guy in his early twenties balanced his chair on two legs, elbow propped on a beat-up old table, staring at her with a mix of frustration and anxiety. His eyes questioned her, but her steady, determined gaze shut down whatever he was thinking.
"Look, Mercédès," the young man said, "Easter’s here again. Isn’t this the perfect time for a wedding?"
"I’ve told you a hundred times, Fernand. Are you really that dense that you need to ask again?"
"Just... say it one more time. Please. Let me hear you refuse my love again, the love your mother approved of, by the way. Make me understand once and for all that you’re just playing with my feelings, that whether I live or die means nothing to you. Damn it, I’ve spent ten years dreaming of marrying you, Mercédès, and now I’m losing the only hope that kept me going!"
"At least I never gave you false hope, Fernand," Mercédès replied. "You can’t accuse me of leading you on. I’ve always been straight with you, ’I love you like a brother, but don’t ask for more than that. My heart belongs to someone else.’ Isn’t that true?"
"Yeah, that’s true," Fernand said bitterly. "You’ve been brutally honest. But don’t you remember? Among the Catalans, it’s sacred tradition to marry within the community."
"You’re wrong, Fernand. It’s not a law, just a custom. And please don’t try to use that tradition to guilt me. Besides, you’re eligible for military service and could be called up any time. Once you’re a soldier, what would you do with me, a poor orphan with nothing but a half-ruined shack and some torn fishing nets that my father left my mother, and my mother left me?
She’s been dead a year, and you know I’ve been living basically on charity. Sometimes you pretend I’m useful to you, and that’s your excuse for sharing your catch with me. I accept it because you’re my cousin, because we grew up together, and because it would hurt you if I refused. But I know damn well that the fish I sell to buy flax for spinning, I know it’s charity."
"So what if it is, Mercédès? Poor and alone as you are, you suit me better than the daughter of the richest shipowner or banker in Marseille! What do guys like us want except a good wife who can manage a household? Where could I find that better than in you?"
Mercédès shook her head. "I’m not that woman. And who knows if she’ll even stay faithful when she loves another man more than her husband? Be satisfied with my friendship, because that’s all I can promise, and I won’t promise more than I can give."
"I get it," Fernand said. "You can handle your own misery, but you’re afraid to share mine. Well, Mercédès, if you loved me, I’d take risks to get rich. You’d bring me luck, and I could expand beyond fishing, maybe get a job as a warehouse clerk and eventually become a merchant myself."
"You couldn’t do any of that, Fernand. You’re a soldier, and you only stay with the Catalans because there’s no war right now. Stay a fisherman and be content with my friendship, because I can’t give you more."
"Fine, I’ll do better than that. I’ll become a sailor, trade in our traditional clothes that you obviously hate for a sailor’s outfit. A varnished hat, striped shirt, and blue jacket with anchor buttons. Would that make you happy?"
"What the hell do you mean?" Mercédès snapped, her eyes flashing with anger. "I don’t understand you."
"I mean you’re being harsh and cruel because you’re waiting for someone dressed like that. But maybe the guy you’re waiting for isn’t as loyal as you think, or maybe the sea has claimed him."
"Fernand!" Mercédès cried. "I thought you were good-hearted, but I was wrong! You’re being evil, calling on jealousy and trying to curse him! Yes, I won’t deny it, I am waiting for someone, and I do love him. If he doesn’t return, instead of believing your insinuations about his unfaithfulness, I’ll know he died loving me and only me."
The young woman’s gesture radiated fury. "I understand you, Fernand. You want revenge because I don’t love you. You’d cross your Catalan knife with his blade. But what would that accomplish? I’d lose your friendship if he won, and that friendship would turn to hate if you won. Believe me, picking a fight with a man is a terrible way to impress the woman who loves that man.
No, Fernand, don’t give in to these evil thoughts. Since you can’t have me as your wife, be content having me as your friend and sister. Besides," she added, her eyes troubled and wet with tears, "wait, Fernand. You just said the sea is treacherous, and he’s been gone for four months. During those four months, there have been terrible storms."
Fernand said nothing and didn’t try to stop the tears running down Mercédès’ cheeks, even though he would have bled his heart dry for each of those tears, but she was crying for another man. He got up, paced around the small room, then suddenly stopped in front of her with burning eyes and clenched fists.
"Tell me, Mercédès," he said, "once and for all, is this your final answer?"
"I love Edmond Dantès," the girl said calmly, "and only Edmond will ever be my husband."
"And you’ll always love him?"
"As long as I live."