Part II: A Talk before It’s Gone
When I thought it would end in an awkward way, I was wrong. We didn’t talk for two weeks, yes, although he was all alone in his favorite table. But then he kept calling me on my cell phone. That was even more awkward since I never told him my cell phone number. He often called me at the evening, before he got home. I never said a thing, and he never continued our last argument. He only said one thing, which I didn’t know where the hell he got that sentence, “I miss you.”
I almost got into my apartment that night, but then he stopped me. He said he wanted to say something to me. His eyes were very different at that time, it seemed full of agony. I could not interpret his sad sight.
“Rika, I need to talk to you.” he said.
“What? What does a man like you want from me?” I challenged him with all the pride that I have.
“A man like me??” he tried to smile hearing and repeating the phrase, but eventually he could only giggle. “What do you mean by a man like me?”
“A man who makes his wife a robot and puts her in a cage, while he himself calls a girl he met in a restaurant and says ‘I miss you’ to her???”
“You are too cruel.”
“Thanks very much, I’m so proud of that.” I felt great when my pride helped me saying that.
“Rika, I was serious when I said that.”
“Oh yeah?? Okay, let’s say that you’re serious…and then??”
“I’m going to divorce my wife.”
ENOUGH!! I’d had enough of this and I truly got my eyes out!! “You….you what???!!!” I couldn’t stop my shout.
“I want to divorce my wife.” he repeated that again, and then I was convinced that he was serious.
“What?? Why??”
“I…” he seemed not to be able to say his reason, he stopped at a moment. Then he continued, “I don’t feel happy lately, it’s all wrong for me.”
“Do you think that a 40-years-married couple really feels happy for all the time of their marriage??!! Do you know what marriage is?? Do you know what the point of marriage is?? You cannot break a marriage just because you don’t feel happy!!” I shout…out loud, in my exhaustion.
“I love you, that what actually happens.” he told me in a low voice, but I could catch that, and was shocked.
We were both quiet for a long time. It might be five or six minutes. I could not still
accept that. I eventually said, “Look, I could not accept this. That’s all. It’s totally silly. Fool.”
Say, loving someone just because of his or her physical appearance is all wrong, isn’t it?? First, difference of seeing things. Then…divorcing his wife just because he fell in love with somebody else, that’s….me… I never thought that he could do that, seriously. Behind all of his amazing things and personality that attracted me previously, he could say…”I want to divorce my wife because I love you.”!! STUPID! What THE HELL happened to me??!! How could I really fall in love with him?? Or at least, how could I still ask myself whether I love him or not?? I never thought that I could walk on this path. People might be happy seeing the one they loved did everything for them, sacrificed everything for them, but not me. I was just….NOT.
I tried so hard not to see him. I had my lunch in my own office’s canteen, I rejected all of his callings. More than that, I tried hard to concentrate on my job. Not that I never did that, I only wanted to forget him through this thing which, I believe, everyone knows…being busy.
Perhaps it worked, since after that he never called me again and thank God, there was no news about a famous doctor in the city who divorced his wife. I felt safe…a little bit. I couldn’t feel better, I didn’t understand. That’s why, when my boss offered me to go abroad to make a report on European Union meeting in France, I took it. It was a good job, it was a good escapism.
***
Three years later. My life went on, and I thought so did his. I could enjoy my single status without emptiness, hanging out with friends, taking vacations at the end of the year, seeing and knowing some guys, even though they were not interesting…much. I thought my life would be like this until I got the right man, people called it…what?? Mr. Right??? Yes, that’s what I meant. However, very unfortunately, he called me again. I almost (actually, not really) forgot him, but then he called again and told me this stupid and hurting story, after twenty times of phone rings.
He and his wife were laying on their bed. It was white, cold, and almost dark if not endowed by the lights outside their bedroom’s windows. They were at the peak of their emptiness, of their marriage. Their efforts to preserve their family seemed to be useless. They didn’t often fight, just rarely. But they didn’t often make love, and that’s bad. Every time they did it, there was no feeling, even worse, there was no orgasm…at all. Hassan tried to be a good husband, practicing what I called being a father. His wife was still the good wife and mother whom he had always dreamed of. They took vacations sometimes, but they never cheered up for that. There was no happiness anymore, there was nothing….nothing at all.
That night, when both of them could not sleep for so many times, his wife asked him, “Why didn’t you just divorce me three years ago?”. He could not answer, but I thought he merely didn’t want to answer. I knew it would be hard for him to say, for instance, “I didn’t do that because the other girl that I love didn’t want me to do that, and now she’s gone.” His wife laid straight and looked at the empty wall of their white bedroom, and while he laid to the right side with his back against his wife’s face, she spoke, “It’s been ten years, and is this all that we got?”
“What do you mean?” he asked his wife with a low voice.
“I never wish you to divorce me, but I hope you can understand me.” she answer.
“I don’t understand.”
“I’ve done what you want, I’ve been what you want, but you never did the same.”
“What do you mean I never did the same? I work, I try to be a father, what else??!!” he
started to put some anger in his sentences.
“But you never care about what I feel.”
“What??”
Then he woke up and turned his face to his wife already sat against the pillows. “I…I…” his wife almost cried, and she could not speak. There was silence for some seconds, they looked at each other with sorrow and hidden anger. “I just never feel happy… Never…”
“Why? You don’t love me?” he asked.
“I love you, Hassan… I love you… I just don’t feel happy being with you, I don’t know why. I myself can’t understand.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I almost told you when you wanted to divorce me because you didn’t feel happy, I wanted to say that perhaps it was the best way for both of us because I felt the same way too! But then you canceled it and said that you would try…you would try… And I couldn’t do anything.”
“Why? There must have been something.” he tried to get to know the reason. She kept silent. “Was there…?”
“If you think there was some other guy, no. No.”
He could only be silent too, didn’t say anything. A week later they decided to divorce, and his wife got the custody of their kids. The end. I hang up the phone.
Tags: english story, gender, love story, short story
