Every family has a few days a year when it knows it has to get a present ready for the other half. Birthdays, anniversaries and so on.
On top of those, I have fought hard at home so that we don't neglect 8 March and 14 Feb. It wasn't easy. After all, the two holidays come close together, and my husband is a practical man.
For many years he tried to break me with talk of how on 14 February all we do is line the pockets of the big manufacturers of cards, chocolates and other rubbish. Fact. But I parried with the counter-argument that every day we line the pockets of the big manufacturers of all sorts of rubbish without me even feeling special. So why shouldn't I feel special on at least one day while I'm lining those damned pockets?
The phrase “every day” gave my husband an idea for a new defensive tactic. This time he leaned on the spiritual. Love is every day, in the little everyday things – he remembered. He was so happy with me every single day that he felt no need to show it only on 14 Feb. He refused to cheapen Love like that!
That won't wash with me.
Besides, I've saved him the bother of wondering what to buy me. I've given him a ready-made present solution – I have a Pandora bracelet and I've told him to “fill” it for me. Job done.
A Pandora charm on 14 Feb, another one on 8 March, and then no present commitments whatsoever all the wa-a-a-ay until our wedding anniversary!
On 14 Feb I get my “Pandora”. And I'm telling you, a gift bag like a proper gift bag with the pink ribbon, the works. The box is a box. In it, a nice charm – very nice, actually – a little flower studded with tiny stones. I thread it onto my bracelet straight away. We celebrate however we celebrate, and the next day I remember I want to put the certificate away in a box with my other Pandora certificates. But there's no certificate in the little bag.
I ask my husband where it is. “Ohhhhhhh,” he says, “and of all things I went and forgot the certificate at the office!” He'd locked it, poor soul, in his desk drawer and then lost the key to the drawer. He looks devastated.
Never mind, never mind – I reassure him. I've got the picture.
I tell him that for me it's the gesture that matters, not the certificate. Which is the absolute truth – as long as he's made the effort, it doesn't matter to me whether the charm is “real” or a replica.
That went and stung him.
“No, I swear, I forgot it at the office.” My suspicions about the authenticity of the jewellery are refuted. The defence is ironclad: if I don't believe that he locked the certificate in the drawer at his office and then lost the key to the drawer, I should go and ask a certain Marieta.
Marieta, I remember, is the colleague he shares an office with; we once had lunch together. A nice woman.
I think what a great show it would make if I actually rang her and got her to testify that Emo had locked my certificate in the drawer and then swallowed the key, or whatever it was he said he'd done with it to lose it. But as I said, she seemed like a nice woman to me. She didn't deserve me doing that to her. Once again I stress to Emil that what matters to me is the value of the gesture, not the price of the trinket.
Emo narrows his eyes and shakes his head menacingly. He growls that next time I'll “get” a certificate too. It sounds to me like “you'll finally get what's coming to you”.
On 8 March, besides a bouquet and perfume, I get it. The customary little package with a pink ribbon. “You wanted a certificate – here's your certificate!” – that's Emo's greeting for my special day. Thundered out in a triumphant voice as he hands me the presents. That line fires up my curiosity so much that I can barely contain myself. Out of sheer courtesy I manage to look at the present first, instead of pouncing ravenously on the certificate.
But its turn comes too. It's in my hands! A masterpiece! When I saw how much work and planning had gone into making it, this certificate became almost my favourite present of all time. (In second place after a ceramic picture that Emo commissioned, depicting two animals that are the pet names we call each other.)
Because I've always loved it most when someone puts in the effort and takes the time to personalise my present. And God, how much work, time, creativity and teamwork had been invested in my certificate! Picture nice thick glossy paper. A real certificate has been copied on a colour photocopier. It's in the form of a little booklet, with the “spine” of the booklet carefully “gone over” several times with a fingernail until a perfect edge has formed. The importer's stamp is there. True – you can tell it's a photocopy, but still, the photocopy is in colour. So the dark-blue colour of the original stamp has been faithfully reproduced. And the cherry on the cake is that when I open the certificate, inside, in caring female handwriting, there's even some kind of identification number for my trinket. I suspect it's the work of Emo's faithful accomplice – Marieta.
So far, Marieta's work on my certificate left me with the impression that she is a perfectionist. That's why I put the slightly wonky cutting-out of the certificate down to Emo. Again I was touched to see how, along the bottom, he had marked with a pencil and ruler where it needed to be cut, and then, when cutting, hadn't quite stuck to the lines. He should have delegated the cutting to Marieta too.
That thought makes me burst out laughing. Emo laughs with me in relief. We had a good laugh together, until we realised we were laughing for different reasons. His laughter was the laughter of a man with a light heart, because his certificate had “passed”. I correct this view of his with a question:
“OK, fine, so if I go to” – I glance at my photocopied certificate to find out where my charm was bought – “…if I go to Mall of Sofia (I bite my tongue so as not to say ‘AliExpress’) and ask the shop assistant to swap it for another one, will I manage to exchange it if I show her this certificate?”
“Well, go on then, if you're not ashamed…..”
“Ha! Why would I be ashamed? I've got an original certificate!” I decided to trip him up a little. Otherwise, yes – it was a wonderful scenario for a hidden camera show – going into the Pandora shop and asking for an exchange with Emo's certificate. We could make some family show on YouTube.
“If you're not ashamed that you don't like the present your husband chose with so much love, I meant.”
If there's one thing I have to give him, it's that he fights bravely to the end and doesn't fall for being tripped up.
I put my certificate away; I'll keep it all my life. I don't put it with my real Pandora certificates, but I decide to keep it with the various cards and wishes of sentimental value that I've accumulated over the years. This document's place is definitely among the precious memories.
A few months went by, and the emotional exhibitionist in me wanted to write up the story in question. For me that's very easy. I'm not one of those people for whom it matters to make themselves, their marriage and their husband look perfect in the eyes of others. I'd rather find the funny side of everyday life.
The hard part comes when, once written, the little story had to be approved by the family government's censor – Emo. I'm beginning to understand what it was like for writers under totalitarianism. He sits down with a regal bearing; I read in a trembling, fawning voice. Every now and then I glance at him, hoping he'll like the story of how he bought me fake jewellery but I really loved the effort he put into making the certificate. I knew there wasn't much chance, but as the ancient Greek legend of the original Pandora's Box has it – hope always stays with us to the very end, curled up at the bottom of Pandora's box.
“So you're still claiming the last two charms aren't real!!!” roars the censor! “What will people think of me? That I buy my wife fake jewellery????”
“If they're real, why are you palming me off with a fake certificate???” The tension starts to rise, but the hero of this story, in a style untypical of him, defuses it.
All right, so the certificate was fake, he admits, softening. But I should admit that it had turned out very well – he and Marietka had had to sneak into the bosses' office to get their hands on the colour printer. I sense he's giving a little, so I take the opportunity to push a bit harder.
“What's the poor woman's role in this whole circus?” I ask.
It turns out to be bigger than the secondary posts of Potential Witness and Chief Calligrapher that I thought she held. Marieta is also the Supplier of my Pandoras-without-a-certificate. She also has a Pandora bracelet, but she has “overfilled” it and there's no room left on it for new charms. Emo buys up her stock. He couldn't give me her certificates, because they're dated long ago, in someone else's name, and I'd find out about the deal.
But I do have a photo of her bracelet with all its charms, and I've already picked the next one for the coming holiday. I'm very keen for it to be given with a carefully crafted certificate.
P.S. According to the ancient Greek myths and legends, Pandora is a kind of equivalent of Eve from the Old Testament. A woman whose curiosity brings misfortune upon all mankind. Eve makes Adam eat the apple, Pandora opens the box from which all the misfortunes of mankind come out. It's obvious that many of the ancient texts that lay the foundations of human understanding of the world were written by men and somehow show only the male point of view. That's why I'm taking it upon myself to show the female point of view as well.
