The talents of the cucumber were recognized worldwide by all the experts in Cucurbitaceae. It was universally accepted that this vitamin-packed garden plant boasted antioxidant properties, diuretic and cleansing virtues. Researchers had even discovered that cucumber promoted hair growth due to its high silicon and sulfur content, especially when paired with carrot-lettuce-spinach juice. Louise had mastered every conceivable way of preparing cucumber: grated, sliced, diced, or balled. She loved cutting it into ribbons to line a terrine or wrapping it around cheese bites. She enjoyed it just as much plain as she did paired with fine herbs. To her, it was delectable drowned in yogurt or Greek sauce, or in thick cream laced with garlic. Louise consumed cucumber without restraint—in salads, in juices, in gazpacho—when it wasn’t landing as slices on her tired eyes. It took her five years to discover that her husband didn’t like cucumber.
That fateful day, William pushed away his bowl of cucumber-coriander soup and declared, quite simply, that he hated cucumber. Louise vividly remembered that little assassin of a phrase, delivered in a flat, affectless voice: “I hate cucumber…” And yet, until that damning statement, William had never uttered the slightest criticism or reservation about cucumber. Before this cruel announcement, delayed by five long years, William had eaten every cucumber dish Louise prepared, in all the myriad ways she could imagine, leaving her convinced of their shared passion. That day, Louise found herself grappling with a question that would haunt her for weeks to come: What kind of man could, for so long, hide such a trivial secret?
That day, William’s declaration—his proclamation of hatred for cucumber—rang in her mind like an alarm bell triggered by an invisible hand. From that day on, she entered a state of constant vigilance, on high alert for the slightest changes in mood, attitude, searching for even the faintest, most tenuous traces of deceit or disloyalty.
It didn’t take long for Louise to uncover William’s affair with his new secretary—and the affairs he’d had with the previous ones. To the banality of such infidelity, he had added barmaids, students, gym members, the pretty red-haired bookseller two blocks from their apartment, and even a neighbor on their floor, a timid single woman with a sallow complexion. At the end of this long chain of scandalous betrayals, Louise discovered the damning closeness between William and Clara, the wife of his best friend. The guilty husband made no attempt to deny, protest, evade, lie, apologize, or promise. The long list of seduced women now unearthed astonished even him, as it delighted the perfect narcissistic scoundrel within him. Stripped bare, he was exactly as he wanted to be: proud, powerful, triumphant.
Not only did William possess the power to attract, charm, and skillfully ensnare his prey, but he also had the capacity to exploit all his predatory advantages without remorse or regret—for Louise or for his many willing victims. Without a trace of guilt, he could turn away and abandon his past conquests for new ones in an endless quest for seduction. Louise concluded that William bore within him the syndrome of Don Juan, the eternal compulsive philanderer. His case was one for psychoanalysis.
And so it was that a tender love affair with cucumber brought an end to five years of a marriage built on lies and deceit.
Grey Sparrow Journal 