Chapter 34 Kal
34
KAL
The second thing to wake me up on the morning of my wedding is the rumble of my own stomach in response to the aroma of clarified butter and spices wafting through the house. I take what might be the happiest shower of my life, as if the silky warm flow of the water is Miz’s touch coursing over every inch of my body. Both Abay and I will be wearing traditional dress today, so after showering and shaving, I put on my all-white eje tebab tunic and pants combo, and tie on my white sandals, the strains of my “Indegena” playing on Bluetooth intermixing with “Yeshi Haregitu” on the sound system on the porch. By then, the clatter and chatter from downstairs have amplified. Buttoning up my tunic at my window, I marvel at how the compound is already full of cars, with more parked on the street outside. Extended family, close friends and neighbours are here for brunch and photos before we drive to the hotel to pick up my bride and her entourage. The bulk of our guests are already at the Bishoftu resort, making a long weekend of the occasion.
I am in front of my mirror, coaxing the patterned hem of my shawl into draping over my shoulder perfectly, when my door barges open, revealing a frazzled Eske, wide eyed and glowing with sweat. “Oh,” she says, fanning the T-shirt she has over her jeans. She loosens her grip on the door handle. “She’s not here?”
“Who? Miz?” Eske’s hair is styled, so they must have been at the salon. “Didn’t she leave with you this morning?”
She wipes her neck with the collar of her shirt. “She did.”
“So why would she be here?”
“Nothing.”
“What’s going on?” Did they fight? That and other unlikely scenarios flying through my head, I look at my phone and see that I have missed multiple calls from Eske, having had my phone on silent. From Miz, I have only the text she sent me last night. Come get me. I hadn’t even texted her back. I just hurried to her apartment as fast as I could before she changed her mind.
I call Miz’s number. She doesn’t answer. Now I begin to feel dread.
Miz: We need to talk.
I call her again. She declines it.
Miz: In person.
Me: Miz, what’s going on?
Miz: Can you come?
Me: To the hotel?
Miz: The café next to it.
“What’s she saying? Where is she?” Eske says, rising on her toes to try to read my texts.
“Everything is okay,” I tell Eske, keeping my voice calm. Maybe Miz is up to something good, something fun, something sexy and out of left field. Holding on to that hope, I tell Eske, “There’s no problem. She’s on her way back now. She just went for a walk.”
“A walk?!” my sister almost screams.
I have to tell Eske many more soothing lies to get her to leave so I can hurry to Miz. I even have to lie my way out of my own house. Mocha Coffee is on a quiet side street around the corner from the hotel entrance. Rushing down the wide stone-tiled pavement separating the café patio from the cars parked along the curb, dressed as if I am celebrating Gena a week late, I attract plenty of glances. I spot Miz sitting at a table for two on the patio, partially hidden by the row of large planters holding small trees and the green sun shade hanging low over the metal railing. Thanks to a scorching morning, there are fewer customers here than inside.
Miz’s hair has also been transformed by an elaborate style, tied into a soft bun at the nape of her neck, a line of sparkling gems tracing a diagonal part from the front. But the rest of her, in a velvety track suit, is looking decidedly not wedding-ready.
Still, the sight of an empty coffee cup in front of her appeases me. Things can’t be that bad if she had a macchiato, right? A thought suddenly comes to me: What if she just found out she’s pregnant? Joy blooms inside me. I scoot the other chair close to her and sit, ignoring the intent stares. We must make an odd sight. A hawker passes by, carrying a tall stack of locally published books in Amharic and pirated Western bestsellers—I spot Becoming by Michelle Obama wrapped in plastic. I tell him we’re not interested, and he moves on. I hold out my hand, but she doesn’t accept it. “Are you okay?”
She takes in a deep breath, and her eyes fill with tears. “No, I’m not.”
My chest tightens. My mind is a riot. Something happened to one of her parents? She saw something horrific? A stranger said something awful to her? Groped her? “Talk to me, nefse.” I give her the napkin from under her coffee glass, feeling myself shake with anger at an unidentified foe.
She dabs her eyes and takes a few more breaths. “I can’t do it.”
Her voice is so low I almost have to read her lips. But she becomes more clear-voiced as she continues to speak. “I can’t do today. I am not your wife. I’ve barely been your girlfriend for a minute. It was my mistake to not stop you when you started to call me your ‘wife’ and call yourself ‘husband.’?” The air quotes she puts in her voice at those words feel like lashes, so visceral I feel my skin sting. “I should have said something a long time ago. I’m so sorry. I didn’t think it would get this far.” She smiles ironically. “Me and you? Standing next to your parents as if we’re anything like them? I can’t. I just can’t.”
I don’t know what to untangle first. She hasn’t looked at me once. She spoke to the table, the coffee glass, the commuters rushing minibus taxis on the street, the mobile credit hawkers. She darts her eyes at me for a second and withdraws them back to the tabletop. “Do you hate me?” she says, trying to crush a single grain of sugar under her nail. The air hangs between us, thick and hot. On the outer staircase of the retail complex across from us, I watch as a waitress dressed in a white coverall takes her time climbing up carrying a covered tray of food for delivery.
“No,” I say at last, but I know that my long pause before and my face say different. The truth is I do hate Miz a little right now, for asking me that in this moment. And I hate myself more for realizing that I am capable of hating her even that much. Blood is pounding in my ears. A server approaches our table but backs off at one blazing glare from me.
Miz stands up, lifting and pushing her chair in soundlessly. “Please tell everyone I’m sorry.”
“Sit down,” I say through clenched teeth, in a voice I haven’t used since I was a manager at the bakery. She stays standing. “What could have changed between last night and now?”
She pats the back of the chair as if it’s a skittish animal. “I’ve felt this way before.”
“Yesterday, all the months before, was that all you pretending?”
“No. Not really. No. I just didn’t know. I didn’t realize it.”
I stand too and run my hands over my head, ignoring the people staring at us.
“I was being…I don’t know what I thought I was being. Someone I thought I could be?”
I let out a long, long breath. “Let’s just get through today and—”
She backs away from me the same distance I try to close between us. “Are you listening, Kal? I said I can’t do it.”
“As a guest, Miz! And then we can—”
“No.” She shakes her head. “That would be just as bad.”
I can’t help raising my voice in accusation. “Do you know what this will do to my father? To my family?”
She recoils. “Don’t do that to me,” she says, her voice and face hard. “Don’t manipulate me.”
“But you can do this to us ?”
“ For us. I’m doing this for us !”
We start talking over each other, neither of us caring that we’ve become public entertainment. “Your parents deserve the party. We don’t. It’s because I respect them that I cannot share their day, in any way. I like us ! A lot. But that’s all.”
“We’re not saying we are equal to them, we’re—I don’t understand you. Then why not celebrate us?!”
“Kal!” She presses her fingers deep into her eyelids. “You’re. Not. Listening.” She stuffs her napkin in her pocket. “Take time and think about it. You’ll know I’m right. Please give everyone my deepest apologies.” Her phone rings in her pocket. She checks it, then declines the call. “Abera’s here for me.”
I am floored to realize she’d already arranged her ride home before I came. I’ve been summoned here to receive her decision, not to have a discussion or have my point of view, my feelings in this, heard.
“Today will be fine,” she says, calmly now, trying to catch my gaze, which I adamantly refuse to give her. “It was going to be amazing before we got involved in it, and it still will be. Go. Celebrate them.”
With that, she leaves me alone in the spotlight, in a story unknown.