Chapter 37 Kal
37
KAL
Miz has made a liar out of me. It takes all my willpower to return to the house from the café by her mom’s hotel. I can only take so many detours from home, to the point I found myself mindlessly circling over and over the Atse Menelik monument in the Piassa roundabout, as if the old king mounted on his rearing horse would lend me some of his fortitude. Once I return home, I fabricate lie after lie, beginning with telling my family that Miz’s dad had appendicitis and she will not be able to join us. I cannot bring myself to utter the truth: that she does not want to be with me anymore. Not even to Eske, who proves hardest to convince. If I don’t say what actually happened, then it has no reality, no power. And to me, Miz and I had become a kind of family, of two, with a view to adding to our number in the future, so there is, in fact, a private family crisis at hand.
Only Bini senses something is off. “You all right?” he says to me, already on his third drink of the morning, as we ride on the expressway to Bishoftu in the back of the ’70s model Benz sourced specifically for this day, to evoke my parents’ era. The original intended passengers were Abay and my mother’s spirit; then Miz and I got added, and now here I am with my so-called best man because Abay chose the more cheerful vehicle packed with his grandkids.
“Yeah, yeah.” I inject my voice with energy matching Bini’s. “Just worried about Miz’s mother.”
“I thought it was her father with the bad appendix?”
“Oh, yes.”
Bini narrows his eyes. I don’t blink. I’m thinking about her parents because of what Miz told me last night, trying to connect that to what she told me this morning. Because that’s the only way I can begin to make sense of how she flipped so quickly.
Bini pokes me with a finger of his drink-holding hand. “You better not have fucked it up. Did you fuck it up? I told you, man. Don’t fuck this up.”
“I didn’t fuck it up.” She did.
“Good!” He gulps his drink. “?’Cause this is Miz, nahmean ? Yeah! Whoo!” He winds down his window, pops out the side of the vehicle, and shouts, “ My boy is married! ”
As if the residents of the boxy, ochre-and-yellow housing developments we are whizzing by would give half a damn. They’re probably sick of the sight of flower- and ribbon-bedecked luxury wedding caravans travelling to and from resorts on the city’s outskirts. I want to pull Bini in and demand to know what the hell he means by this is Miz . What makes her so special? I think, letting all my bitterness surface freely on my face, taking what might be my last chance to drop my mask of cheer for the rest of the day.
I am in pure agony from the moment we disembark from our cars and are welcomed by the guests gathered on the resort’s wide terrace designed to create an infinity effect with the grey-green water of the lake. The densely wooded shoreline curves out on either side of it to meet itself on the far shore, half a kilometre away. I feel as lonely as a man stuck on one of those steep hills. The centres of attention—Abay with his wife absent in body but not spirit, me with my wife absent in both—navigate from group to group, taking photos, accepting congratulations and concerns, playing hosts. I check my phone for a missed call or message from Miz a thousand times a minute, wishing every time I see Come get me that it was sent seconds ago, not hours ago.
I drink and drink, finding alcohol the only way to slow this spin cycle of my mind, creating so many gaps in my experience of the evening that I find myself standing alone on the stage with a microphone in my hand. I blink. Everyone is still at their dining tables, faces turned to me expectantly. It takes me a few seconds to piece together that Abay must have made his speech and now it is my turn.
“When Abay decided that he and Emay would go ahead with this day…” I start. The boom of my voice on the sound system almost knocks me off balance. I pull on the edge of my top as if that will help me stay upright, hoping my swaying is more internal than external. “Despite…despite…”
Eyes on my toes, I falter. Until this morning, I had planned to say that I had understood him completely, because I believe that true love never ends. But my lips refuse to open and utter the lie, as if pressure-sealed by all the alcohol that I’ve poured past them tonight to numb myself and speed up time. I shut my eyes tight, praying for some higher power to slip me different words. But all I hear, through the pounding in my head, is someone clearing their throat. Even in the dark, I can feel the energy of an audience when a performance has fallen short. With a sharp sobering inhale, I snap my eyes open.
I raise my glass. “Congratulations to the happy couple.”
No one corrects me.
The rest of the week, on the pretext of being there for Miz and her family, I manage to have all the alone time that I lacked on the weekend, with still no word from Miz. I spend days avoiding places where I might run into people I know. Hard to do in a city where I have lived and worked most of my life. I steer clear of Miz’s area. I spend a lot of time brooding alone at the topmost edge of the coliseum-like Meskel Square, contemplating the nearly nonstop cat’s cradle flow of traffic steering humanity to and fro, on the eight-deep lanes going in each direction, the lane markers merely a suggestion. If anyone had told me, a couple of weeks earlier, that I would be this idle, counting down the days until I leave Addis, I would have laughed and said, In a hurry to leave my home city, where I am visiting for the first time with my love? You must be out of your mind! Maybe for a honeymoon to Lamu Island, or Zanzibar, or the Seychelles or Dubai—all places I had thought to surprise Miz with, except I didn’t want to deprive her of time with her parents.
Without giving anything away, I try to find out whether Emay and Abay ever had problems, something I have never thought to ask. Even a single day when they were sour with each other or exchanged hard words? Anything. I am not sure what I am fishing for. Permission to have a flawed, messy marriage? Assurance that I will not be the first in our family to stumble in marriage? Surely, between all us siblings and their spouses, somebody witnessed a moment, heard a rumour, has a slightly different recollection of one day? But I get no such assurance. Either my probing is too subtle, or my parents really were as they appeared. Whatever magic those two had, unfortunately it has not passed down to me.
I dread and anticipate the flight back to Toronto in equal measure. I am late checking in because so many people come to my house to see me off and tag along to the airport.
I don’t realize it’s possible to hurt more than I was already hurting until I see that empty boarding zone as I rush to the final document check. I never, ever dreamed that Miz, knowing my situation and the ridiculous number of document and security checks every passenger to North America must pass through, would board the flight without me. When I am finally allowed to board, I don’t want to see her face, so I turn left, upgrading to business on the spot in a petty, wasteful act of one-sided revenge that shames me even as I carry it out.
Sixteen hours later, I am still nursing my grudge, waiting until we are home to confront her about boarding without me. But the repeat ordeal with border agents on the Canadian side throws me for a loop, exacerbating my acidic mood. The border agent, purposely to disorient me, is asking irrelevant questions about a ten-year US visa on my records, which hasn’t expired but is in my old passport. I am trying to maintain composure, used to automatically relinquishing my personality whenever I deal with any government representative, to complete the interaction fast and without incident. When Miz intervenes, I don’t know how to manage my automatic response to her presence—her face, her voice, her touch, the vibrating heat of her body, even her stale wine breath and sharp odour, all of which are like cool water to my parched insides—with the tension of the situation, so I default to being an asshole. I deserve how she tells me off. And then how am I supposed to follow her home after that?
My lies continue in Toronto, where I tell Silvio that Miz is staying on in Addis a bit longer, hence why I’m back at the house. I busy myself with meetings with several agents who had told me to get in touch once my papers were sorted out. I quickly sign with one, who promptly starts sending me out for a string of commercial and silent-on-camera auditions that I try not to feel too demoralized by.
On my second Monday back, I am out on a ride on a rented bike, taking advantage of a mild winter day, when I get an email from my agent regarding an offer from the TV show Oliver had me retrain on-camera to audition for…for the role of Security Guard/Custodian.
This can’t be Oliver’s doing , is my first thought. I suspect I was marked for the part from the first time I walked into the casting studio. Silvio is optimistic and practical about it, pointing out that the role is a series regular that pays union scale. What more do I want? He’s more amused by the irony of me claiming that I didn’t come all the way out here to be a janitor, and reminds me that at least it’s not a gangbanger. That’s when I walk away, needing to talk to someone who would get where I’m coming from. Miz. Oliver. I ache to call Miz. I call Oliver.
“If I take this on, there’s really no coming back from it, is there?” I ask him, pacing on the rooftop terrace, my fingers numb, trying to be careful about how I turn this down. He has done so much for me, and our relationship matters to me. “I have to be strategic how I let myself be perceived, don’t I?” Oliver had hoped I would take a chance on the part, but he completely gets it, especially when I share with him that I have an Open Work Permit now. “Are you…disappointed?” I ask, my throat catching as if I’m disappointing Abay.
“Absolutely not!” Oliver says. “And were I so inclined, you would be more than justified to be disappointed in me for pushing you toward a role that we both know is not right for you. For what?!”
“Thank you,” I say, lowering onto the frigid old sofa with relief.
“Give it time,” Oliver says. “The role you are right for is out there.”
That’s when it hits me, like a sudden gust of skull-cracking windchill. I’ve done the same thing to Miz. She only wanted to be a good friend to me, to help, but I took it and ran. I shoved and shoved her into a role for which she never auditioned, let alone signed up for. Then, when she had the courage to walk off the set, I punished her. After I end the call with Oliver, I pull up the photos I haven’t been able to bring myself to look at since I showed them off to my family the day Miz and I arrived in Addis. Our simple, visually chaotic civil ceremony. I see so clearly now how unaware we were of how far in over our heads we were about to dive. I revisit the night I put on my wedding ring, and she didn’t; the day we arrived in Addis and I delighted, but she froze, at Abay’s suggestion.
What can we do but go back to where we started and begin again? I know the onus is on me to ask for this do-over. I just hope she agrees. She must.
I believe in the power of the simple words I’m sorry , but because there’s no harm in a small gift, I detour to the supermarket on the way to her place to pick up just the thing. She deserves something grander, of course, but limes will be special in their own way, I know, because they’ll take her back to her delight when I told her, a long time ago, about how limes are to our rural folk what roses are to us city people—symbols of love. “Specifically, during Timket,” I’d said, “when you toss them at the one you have a crush on.”
“But why limes?” she’d said.
“Because love is tangy, refreshing, rare, aromatic, full of essential vitamins and minerals.”
“In other words, you have no clue whatsoever.”
I’m in the produce aisle, smiling at the memory, when Aimé calls. Oho, the obligatory best friend intervention. Not needed, but why not have a little fun? “Yes?” I say gruffly.
“Hello to you too. Nice of you to say hi when you got back.”
“What’s up, Aims? I’m in the middle of something.” Trying to decide between organic limes from Mexico or Argentina and whether I should include lemons, for chromatic variety.
“Are you planning to do something about whatever’s going on with your woman?”
“Why do I have to be the relationship mechanic?”
I hear Aimé smack something, probably her face. “Because that is marriage! How am I, the not-married person, the only one talking sense? I don’t have time for this runaround. Handle it. Y’all are married .”
“No. We are not. Simply taking on the label doesn’t make it so.” I am clear on that now. We have to both choose that status. Then, if we do, we have to earn it anew every moment.
“Listen, she’s laid up with an injury, busted up her ankle trying to be the fourth Dibaba sister.”
All my pretense crumbles to ash. “What?!” A vivid memory flashes through my mind—of my hands clasped around Miz’s ankles pressing against my neck, her pleading yes when I hit that spot, when I ask her whether I can let go.
“She fell, while running. On Saturday. She’s the worst patient. You signed on the dotted line, so drop whatever you’re doing, and go take care of your business.”
“Going!” I say, hanging up and tearing off a produce bag from a roll. This is Miz. Dotted line or not, she is my business, mine to take care of.