Short story
The room where Tigist and her friends were sitting around the table of a small night club was a bit dark due to the deliberately deemed light. The thundering music to which the customers were dancing was deafening. It was in this setting were Tigist and her new friend Wudinesh, sat close to each other and intimately chatting and confiding their secrets to each other unreservedly.
They both seem to have gone through more or less similar life experience. Both had lost their mothers and both were abandoned by their husbands and both are now bar ladies entertainers of the customers who treated them like dolls- a status below human level. These bar ladies always wanting to wage war on the inequality created by men and the injustice done to them.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, a tall woman, other than the two friends, shouted saying, “We are not any different from the so called house wives except that due to the trouble we facing, we want to recognize the strength inside us.” At this point, out of shock, the two friends, Wudnesh and Tigist, exchanged glances without uttering a word and they tightly drew to each other.
Their differences are that one has two small children, three and two, while the other has none. Of course, seniority on the profession was another issue: Wudinesh, started the job six months earlier than the other, Tigist. Relatively, Wudinesh was more familiar to bad occurrences that might suddenly erupt in the bar; she was better immunized.
There was silence for a moment, yet, all of a sudden, a certain intoxicated young man came to where they were and started harassing Tigist. She pushed him farther than anyone else would dare and took to her heels to the back of the bar followed by Wudinesh.
“Why are you like that? I thought you would tolerate things that can happen to you in such place. It is normal. We daily experience it and we live with it.” “No, that’s not me,” said Tigist. She burst into tears loudly crying, and said, “I am here only to provide for my two small children who are at this moment locked up in a small room with nobody to look after them until I return home late at night, as you know. I have not left them any food except small loaf of bread a leftover from what we ate last night.”
No sooner than she said this, the other women came ridiculing and laughing at her for what she had done to the man. “Do you think you came to a big parlor where you would be treated like a princess? This is where you should absolutely submit to any circumstance despite the harm it causes you.”
“Our employer,” said another woman “expects us to tolerate whatever happens to us as long as she thinks the situation can please the customers, the source of her income.” “You are just a cheap expendable item, nothing other than that. You should know your worth, and act likewise,” added another one. After that, all of them left except Wudinesh, who sympathized with Tigist in every circumstance.
Tigist was a tall and slender, fair looking with dominant forehead and sharp nose; her thin lips resemble that of the beauty queens. Many customers of the bar often pleaded with her to pass the night with them to which she in all cases declined to accept their requests. Her situation was rather puzzling to the customers. Her hair texture and the tone of her skin definitely are of attraction to any man. Her smiles were scarce when she did, her surrounding glows with warmth of comfort and attraction. The mystery of it is that visions of her beauty burst in the eyes of her admirers.
Having observed the tide of anger in Tigist subsided, Wudinesh told her to go back to the bar. Inside the bar the man who caused her present of state of mind quietly slipped out of the bar unnoticeably. Now Wudinesh found the right opportunity to chat with Tigist.
“Why are you so bitter?” she asked Wudinesh.
“Well it is a long story,” replied Tigist.
“What do you mean? Is your case different from ours? We are all forced into this situation contrary to our will. One thing unique to us humans is that we accept the situation, how difficult it looks, and find means to adjust to it and lead our life with little complaint. On this planet of ours there is no trouble-free place. Wherever you go under the sun, life is punctuated with cares and troubles.”
“Your argument is well accepted. I fully understand it. But my case is different,” said Tigist.
A bit puzzled, “How different?” asked Wudinesh looking at her sternly.
“I was married to a guy and we had a happy life blessed with two children as I had earlier told you. Nevertheless, the so called husband went to the United States without informing me and without making prior financial arrangement for me and the children. One late afternoon we found ourselves abandoned.
The owner of the house demanded money for the house rent immediately. As we did not have even a penny, we were forced to evacuate and there we were in the open air. There was literally nobody to turn to and nowhere to go. We could not take our furniture for the rent had been accumulated for months and the house owner claimed them all. The time was getting late and late, the evening was stealthily crouching in and it soon became dark. So my children and I had to sleep huddled together on the verandah somewhere on the street corner.”
“What animosity,” cried Wudinesh. “How can he do such a crime to you, his wife, and his children?”
“Please don’t address me as his wife again. I do not want to hear his name related to my life at all. I have cast him out of my life,” said Tigist bitterly, tears rolling down her cheeks.
After attentively listening to her, Wudinesh asked her where she was living.
“Now I live in a one-room house. The rent is expensive. In the face difficult time such as now, let alone house rent fee, even money for food is hardly earned as you know. Coupled with that, the owner of the house daily nags me and even threaten to throw me out,” said Tigist. Seeing her children sleeping in the dark when she comes back from the club sometimes empty hand, sends chill down her spine. The demand of the children for milk and meat they were used to makes her condition even worse making her burst into tears.
Owing to her beauty she could have made money as she had offer from many customers of the club. For that matter, there was a gentleman specifically begging her to sleep with him.
Tigist one evening compelled her to accept the man’s offer.
“He is HIV victim should I contract the virus for money?” asked Tigist.
“Don’t worry about that. I am HIV victim, too. Even if you contract the virus, there is medicine that can protect you and makes you fat. It is better to earn money to provide for your and even you can send them to school. What do you think?”
The same evening, she went to the gentleman when he called her.
“Why do you always refuse to accept to my offer to make you my wife?” he asked.
“My fear is contracting the virus,” she replied.
“It is not a big deal these days. Advanced medicines are available. I can send you to best hospitals where the medicines are available. I can write a check of two million Birr. If you are willing, send you a car to bring you to my house.”
The next morning the car came to where she was living and to her future house. When she reached there, she couldn’t believe her eyes; it was a mansion he had never dreamt of. She became a respected lady overnight. Her new husband was exceedingly pleased for being a father.
The course of life seldom follows normal route. There are obstacles to entail intolerable sorrow that last for as long as life continues. While Tigist and the children were leading a blissful life, the new husband suddenly died. When it rains it pours; her husband who abandoned his family out of nowhere came to take away the children yet defended her right of motherhood and the verdict was passed that the children be in her custody. Abreast of this the relatives tried to drive her out of the house; here, too, the lawyer arranged by her late husband won the case and she became the heir of the property of her late millionaire husband. She and her children lived joyful life thereafter.
BY JOSEPH SOBOKA
The Ethiopian Herald June 8/2021
