Chapter 29 Miz
29
MIZ
Backpack slung over my shoulder like a teenager, I trudge up the exterior staircase and let myself into Dad’s apartment with the spare key he sent with Abera. I step into the darkened, spacious living room, which flows into the dining room, where on the table, Dad has left me a small stack of musky-smelling birr —pocket money until I exchange my dollars—and my local SIM card. My luggage awaits outside the guest bedroom door, which is across the hall from Dad’s bedroom, our respective bathrooms between. I sit at the dining table, switching out my SIM card, my mind playing over the afternoon and the big, noisy dinner at the Legesse compound. It’s not until I hear a honk outside the balcony doors that open onto the dining room that I remember Kal’s waiting to see I got in safe.
“Oh shit,” I say, and hurriedly go out onto the balcony and weakly wave at him. I stand there for a while, watching the last of Kal’s headlights as he leaves the compound, feeling like my heart is being towed after it. I’m surprised and realize that I miss him, even after being apart for only a few minutes. I already regret not spending more time alone in the car or up here while we had the chance. But this afternoon’s bombshell was a lot.
I call Kal’s local number but then hang up quickly, remembering he’s driving. I quickly tap out a text to him.
Me: ’Night!
When Kal’s dad started making his speech and I realized where he was going with it, I wished so hard that my name was not Mizan and he was talking about someone else. But nope , all eyeballs were on me. On principle, I did think the idea was brilliant and insanely romantic—but for a real couple, not Kal and me! For us, it felt plain delusional. But the best my flailing brain could come up with was that sad excuse about my “people.” The way everyone justified the absence of my friends and family, it was as if they were just desperate to bring some normalcy to the event; you know, an actual bride in attendance, not just a spiritual one that one family member regularly talks to. They were ready to grab at any rationalization to make that happen. After that, there was no way I was going to decline and watch my words break the heart of every Legesse in front of me, so instead, I sat smiling and nodding, having my little internal freakout while they got all hypothetical about traditions or whatever. And there was Kal, eating up every word. Ugh, why did I have to be such a chickenshit and put off clarifying our relationship, even as the flags got redder and redder? Serves me right to now be stuck with one mother of a special treatment.
I realize that night has finally fallen, and I look up at the sky to greet the dome of stars, my million brilliant friends that always wait right where I’ve left them. I take in the perpetually semi-constructed villas on the other side of the compound wall, the birds flitting around the lemon and avocado trees behind the bougainvillea-bordered fences of the bungalows across from our low-rise. I check my phone to see whether Kal has texted back, but nothing yet. Frowning, I open up our texts again and realize that he probably doesn’t know it’s me.
Me: This is me, btw…Me, Mizan.
Seconds later:
Kal: Who? Only know a Mizu.
I grin and my stomach flips. It’s as if I’m texting with my crush. I pluck at the clotheslines jutting out from the edge of the balcony like a guitar, thinking of what to type next.
Me: Home yet?
Kal: Popping bottles at da club.
I laugh out loud. This is the us I like. No labels, just bubbles. We should have arrived a week early, not told anyone and stayed at a hotel gobbling each other up enough to last us two weeks of separation.
Me: Already? Not wasting time, huh?
Kal: Miss you already.
My fingers are moving faster than my rational mind.
Me: Me more.
Is he really going to the club though? I know all too well what goes down when the groom and his groomsmen are let loose on Addis in that week before the wedding, but I try to push that out of my mind.
Me: Have fun. We’ll talk tomorrow!
I wander back inside, cross through the living room and into the kitchen and try Mom’s number as I get a chilled bottle of water from the fridge. I’m not expecting to get through on the first try since she’s in the “regions.” But she picks up after a few rings.
“Mommy!”
“Mizu, are you here? Why you didn’t call me before going to sleep?”
“Sorry,” I say, to keep it simple. “Where are you now?” She’s been moving around so much that I had given up trying to keep track of her from Toronto.
“At Bole Medhane Alem for service!”
“Huh?!” That’s a church in the city. Both my parents in Ethiopia, fine. But both my parents in Addis Ababa, breathing the same air? What?! This city is not big enough for both of them. The thought of them possibly running into each other threatens to make my head explode. Oh Christos, is this the year when everything in my life is set to go up in flames?
“You’re still at the Elilly Hotel? Why?”
“Yes. So many people to visit. I’m staying longer.”
I feel bad that I could have gone to her hotel and seen her already. “I’ll come tomorrow, after lunchtime?” I say. In the morning, Dad will be taking me around to visit with his people.
“Sure,” she says. “Goodbye now.” Click .
Okay, abrupt much? I’m fine, thank you, home all alone here , I think childishly. I go back inside, closing the balcony doors after me, and start unpacking my toiletries. Belatedly I think, Hey, why didn’t Mom call me around when I landed? But before I can think much on it, Kal texts me.
Kal: Home safe.
Me: Yay!
Kal: Eske says she forgot to send you off with some food.
Me: Tell her I ate enough for a week!
As I shower, I replay my conversation with Eske in my head. I was so relieved when she rescued me, sweeping me upstairs under the guise of wanting to discuss “wedding matters.” Obviously, unlike her clueless brother, Eske could tell that I was shitting my pants over what Kal had just signed us up for. Thank God. She could be the one to discreetly let their dear, kind dad know that this “bride” was not down with this spontaneous spectacle. She would save me from having to be the one to disappoint everyone—especially their dad. The one to remind him that I was not Kal’s actual wife.
As soon we had reached the stairs landing, out of sight and earshot of the living room, Eske had hugged me tight. “Thank you, Mizu,” she said. “You don’t know how special you’ve made this occasion for me and for all Kiki’s brothers. What it means for us that our brother has moved on and healed at last and with the best person possible—our own Miz, who we have known so long. You have always been like family, and now you really are!” She held my hands to her face and stared into my eyes.
I swallowed and smiled nervously. So much for getting me off the hook , I thought, the family in question smiling out at me from the framed photos lining the walls behind her. Fantastic. Did she leap into this fantasy on her own, like her father, or did Kal share with her that we were living in this delicate married-but-not- married -married bubble? I opened my mouth to set the record straight, at least with her, but then I surprised myself by getting all emotional right along with her. For just a moment, I let myself give in to the sense of really gaining a family, a big family like the one I’d always imagined being a part of, in a parallel universe where my parents had cut each other loose long ago, found new partners, and had more babies. Next thing I knew, Eske and I were hugging and sniffling and laughing at ourselves.
“Come,” Eske said, pulling me into a room. “I want you to try something on.” She opened the closet door and presented a gorgeous white dress on a hanger.
“A wedding dress,” I said, unable to hide my surprise.
“It’s the dress Emay bought in London years ago and was planning to have altered for the anniversary party.” She held it out to me. “I want you to try it on.”
Another hand-me-down wedding dress. Story of my life. “Oh, it’s beautiful. Um, okay, sure.” What could I say or do? My only hope was that it wouldn’t fit and I could get out of wearing it. I took the hanger from her, scooping the dress at the waist to lift it off the ground.
Eske turned to head out to give me privacy. But then she stopped. “I wanted to ask you something.”
“Shoot,” I said, a part of me hoping her question would be something along the lines of, Do you actually want to do this?
“Your mother and father…” Eske said. Missed the mark. “They can come, right?” Eske knew their situation, that they were, for lack of a better word, separated, and that my mom was currently in Ethiopia. What she didn’t know was that they had no clue I’d signed for Kal.
I sucked in air as if I were trying to stand straighter and shook my head. “Oh, that’s way too delicate. They haven’t been in the same room since I was two years old, and I really don’t want to have to start choosing between them now, you know? I wouldn’t even know how.” I kept talking, knowing that the best shot at winning any convo with Eske was just to out-talk her. “And without them there, how can I have other people there? It wouldn’t look right. Someone else will have to stand in as my mother and father on Saturday. But one day, we’ll definitely have the kilikilosh .”
Eske’s laugh forced me to pause my verbal diarrhea. “ Kilikil ,” she said, the term for when, in the olden days, the bride and groom’s families had their first mixer. My blunder, tagging on the ending of some other wedding-related word (I think) to this one, was enough of a distraction that she let the question drop, to my great relief, and left me alone.
I laid the princess dress down on the bed respectfully. “Okay,” I said, hands on my waist. It felt wrong to put something so beautiful on my grimy, unwashed skin, but hey, I didn’t ask for this. I got out of my hoodie and sweats and stepped my sock feet through the bodice. Please don’t fit please don’t fit. But the waist part slid up over my hips like Pfft , you call these hips ? The bodice slotted over my torso easily too. Shite! I slipped my arms through the long lace sleeves and raised them up high, but my shoulders didn’t stick. Dammit! I folded forward, but my breath stayed even. Fml! Finally, I did a little twirl because, who am I kidding, that thing was divine. The beadwork running down the A-line skirt caught the light and shimmered as it lifted and settled. Oh, kill me. I gave up and let myself look in the mirror. With the boatneck-style neckline, it was a perfect mature-sexy. Juuust great.
“Okay!” I yelled to the door. Eske came in and stopped dramatically to gasp. “Oh, stop!” I said, ogling myself in the mirror . Yep, could totally rock this for eternity if I were a ghost.
“We should take it in a bit, up here,” she said, tugging at the slightly loose bodice.
“No!” I said, surprised by how protective I felt of it. “Don’t touch anything.”
Eske clapped once happily. “I’m so relieved you love it!”
Yes, but for its own sake. For what it represented, not for myself. “This bride intends to eat , okay?!” I said, still trying, in some small way, to distance myself from the occasion.
Between the emotional deep end I’ve been plonked into with my family and Kal’s, and the combo of airplane food and home cooking working its way through my system, my insides are a tangled mess. I pull on my sweats and hoodie and go out for an early evening run around the compound, 1.8 kilometres. The air is perfect for it, a happy medium between the last of the day’s heat and the first of the evening’s cool.
I walk the last block back to the apartment, taking in the bizarreness of the complex bustling with energy for the 3 a.m. post-mass breaking of the forty-day fast, housemaids hurrying to and from the mini-mart swinging small plastic bags of forgotten ingredients, aromas of multiple stews coming from every other household, as if to taunt me about my failed experiment back in September.
Tucked under Dad’s balcony and feeling sentimental, I text Kal a picture of that little secluded parkette where we first met.
Me: Remember this?
I’m staring at my phone, waiting for him to respond, when I hear a voice from above. I look up to see Dad, backlit by his living room lights, the red tip of his cigarette hovering in front of him like a firefly.
I wave up. “Hi, Dad,” I say casually, as if it hasn’t been two years since we’ve seen each other. Almost twenty-three years ago, I had greeted him in the exact same way. Our first meeting had been so hasty and unforeseen, we had both acted as if it was no big deal at the time, and that pattern has stuck.
“Hi, Miz,” Dad says, equally casual. “Who dropped you off?” He taps the ash off to the side.
“Kal.”
“Kalkidan was here?” Dad asks, with an uncharacteristic gruffness in his tone. I feel my knees lock up. Dad has always been liberal and trusting of Kal. Why is he acting weird now?
“Yes, he was.” I consider adding that we actually flew home together, but I decide not to.
Dad looks at the apartment behind him. “And he left?”
“He left.”
“He left you at the gate?”
“Oh, no, he brought me right to here.”
“Hmm.” Oh, the parental hmm . Volumes could be written about the parental hmm . This sounds like a positive hmm . For a man whom I’ve heard say he believes fathers are not as important as mothers, Dad being super paternal all of a sudden lands oddly—he’s supposed to be my cool parent.
“Can I come up now, Counsellor?” I say, and step into the stairwell without waiting for his go-ahead. I send off a last text to Kal on my way up. At the door, Dad is waiting to envelop me in one of his nicotine-infused fluffy hugs—the no-fuss welcome, same since I was fourteen, which I much prefer to the overdramatic, extended kiss-a-thons I get from my other relatives here, mostly out of pity, I suspect.
“How is Kal?” Dad says, locking the door for the night. “He is here because his father is still having that strange party? A friend asked me to come along, but I declined.”
I freeze up, as if I am under cross-examination. But I can tell Dad has no clue about the depth of my collaboration in the “strange party” department. “Oh yes. I’ve been invited. I think I’ll go,” I say, as nonchalantly as I can.
He settles into his armchair and reaches for the TV remote. “It will be something for you to do.”
I curl up on the couch under a thick gabi made of blue-dyed cotton, smiling at how that’s been his standard response to whatever ways I’ve found to entertain myself here, the first of which was running. The country had been in running fever during my first visit, rooting for and then, later, celebrating Roba’s gold at the ’96 Olympics, and then hoping for Haile G to bring home gold from the ’97 World Championships. But I took to running because it was the only thing that settled the turmoil of my life at the time. All those shitty firsts, just because I dared to date: the epic fight with Mom, the solo transatlantic flight and the sob fest en route to Dad’s. And then finding out that my parents have been married all my life, on top of everything else. Thank the Lord for endorphins, or I don’t know how I would have coped, then and now.