BY ADDISALEM MULAT
A dripping tap in my bathroom was making tedious ‘plink’ sound times without numbers. It was unpleasing to the ear. I got out of bed in the twinkling of an eye to get to the bottom of the problem despite every single thing was beyond my capabilities.
Notwithstanding the fact that I made every possible effort with the intention of fixing the leaky tap, all my efforts could not fail fruit. I was losing my temper. I was going up the wall. On the flip side, I was shaking with laughter sarcastically.
By a twist of fate, when I put a sponge under the bathroom basin, the noise of the water interrupted in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. Though I was dog-tired, I could not sleep a wink. As I had a habit of talking to myself when I stumbled upon a certain problem, I kept on talking to myself. If truth be told, quite a lot of things were running through my mind every once in a while.
I was cursing my luck and fighting with my thoughts and blaming myself. As it made me feel small, I did not want to utter a single word on the subject of the thing that was going in and out of my mind at regular intervals.
In actual fact, the thing that caused my sleeping disorder was a guilty conscience.To be very clear, I broke the promise I made to my wife, Kalkidan, who lived under the same roof as husband and wife. The thing was, I cheated on her. I thought the whole sky fell on me. I hated being human. I was doing a lot of dirty things behind closed doors. I would venture to say the whole lot was getting off track.
At a loss about what to do, I switched my phone off at the earliest possible time which was switched off for long periods of time. The whole thing was moving in the wrong direction. I was putting myself in dangerous situations.
One fine day, when I switched on my cellphone, I came across a diverse range of messages sent from a number of individuals. One of them was my better half, Kalkidan. When I went through the text, I felt something inside that could not be expressed in a few words. I threw my cellphone wrathfully.
For the sake of truth, I lived with Kalkidan under the same roof as a husband and wife for nearly two years. With the lapse of day, as we were leading a subsistence way of life, she made up her mind to go abroad in search of better jobs. In spite of the fact that I pulled out all the stops to convince her, she was not in the position to lend me her ears. When push comes to shove, for the love of not throwing cold water on her interest, I accepted the idea willy-nilly.
When she left for abroad, I set in motion studying for a second degree. As fate would have it, as time went by, my wife got a high-paying job at the earliest possible time. Through the passage of time, I bought a beautiful residential house in Addis Ababa and began leading a meaningful life. When I felt lonely I made up my mind to rent some of the rooms. I would venture to say, I was acting not my age but my shoe size.
Over the course of time, I rented out my residential house to a spinster named Hana for six months. Through time, I realized the fact that she came from one of the Middle East countries. To the surprise of everyone, she always stayed at home given that she hated to do death going anywhere. My interest to know more about her kept on growing time and time again. Reasoning from this fact, I was looking into options.
Be that as it may, one day I stumbled across Hana sitting at our premises. After we exchanged greetings, she invited me for a cup of coffee. Instead of declining the invitation, I ended up accepting the invitation and drinking the coffee.
In the middle of our conservation, Hana told me that she was lonely. I also told her in black and white the whole truth about my wife and myself for the most part the fact that we are going to get married when Kalkidan returned home. We got closer to each other.
From that day onwards, we turned out to be friends. Inch by inch she fell madly in love with me deprived of my knowledge. Honestly speaking, I did not know that she was in love with me. As I have expressed the whole thing about my lover, I did not imagine she would fall in love. I was treating her like my younger sister. She was treating me nicely every now and then. As a matter of fact, as she was the queen of love, she was treating me like a king.
Someday when I returned home, the entire compound was decorated with attention-grabbing flowers. I could not believe my eyes. I did not know what was going on there. When I entered home, she told me that it was her birthday. I felt bad for not buying a birthday present. If she had told me the day, I would have bought a beautiful gift.
After a moment or so, we embarked on talking about a wide spectrum of issues revolving around her past. In the middle of our talk, she served a glass of whisky. I drank the first glass at one go and kept on drinking now and then. As I was dead drunk, I did not know what was going between Hana and myself.
The next morning when I woke up, I found myself in Hana’s bedroom. She was in a sound sleep and talking in her sleep. I cried my eyes out. When she woke up, she asked forgiveness and I gave it. But I could not forgive myself.
Unusually, I kept on staying at home and drinking alcohol time and time again. I did not know what I had to do.
As the alcohol made me not to think properly, I kept on making love with Hana at different times. I made up my mind to do something as a way out to the problem. One day, I got up early in the morning and told her to leave my house almost immediately.
“I’m in a family way. I love you with all my heart. Nothing can separate us. You mean the whole wide world to me. I always breathe in and breathe out your love,” responded Hana.”
When I heard the shocking news, I begged her to redeem my love. I made every effort to convince her. But she was not in the position to take my concern into account. She was begging me with tears rolling down her cheeks. She told me the whole story about herself with teary eyes. I turned a deaf ear and sent her out of the house.
After a fortnight, somebody knocked heavenly on my door. When I answered the door, it was the broker who brought Hana to my house. After we exchanged greetings, he told me that Hana committed suicide.
I cried my eyes out. I did not know what to say. I gave up attending school and giving up hope on life. I always drink alcohol for the love of hiding myself from a guilty conscience. I always have a sleepless night. I could not sleep a wink.
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD AUGUST 27/ 2021
