SHORT STORY

A blessing in disguise Short story by Ananiya Alick Ponje Finally, Chiletso decided that he was left with no other option than to accept what he had read in the sms whose reality had been substantiated by her own words. Had it been that she had never come to confirm it herself, he would have taken the sms for granted but her cold voice had mercilessly revealed everything in the twinkle of an eye. A straw had been in the wind that such a thing might happen one day and this was the day. For many times, he had disapproved of the maxim that it is your best friend who is your greatest enemy but now his humble heart accepted it. The maxim was to be applied in his situation with necessity. He had so much trusted his friend, Charles that on a number of occasions he had sent him to go and pick his wife at her workplace until this hour; until this moment that appeared to have brought a terrible atmosphere of gloom in his life. He had sacrificed his time to loving her but now there was this heart-breaking sms, and more painfully, her own betraying voice which was threatening to shatter his hopes of survival. For her sake, he had plunged himself into terrible debts but now she had condemned him like a murderer in a gallows. She had told him candidly that their marriage chapter was closed and those words had pierced his heart like a rapier sharpened to a glitter. At one point, Chiletso was completely strapped for words. He could not call his wife again for she had told him openly that he should not waste his time calling someone who would not pick his calls. He did not know whether he should pile the blame on her, his friend Charles or on himself. He could hardly figure out who was wrong in that fracas. Perhaps he should have avoided allowing Charles to be so close to Cathy. Maybe, in the first place, he should have stopped him from calling her during odd hours, or better still, maybe he should not have sent him on a number of occasions to pick her up at her workplace. If he had tried to strategize all those ‘maybes’, maybe this entire fracas would have been avoided. He would not be sitting in his bedroom shedding silent tears. They were tears that were falling into his heart. It was a very painful end to his once happy marriage. He gazed at Cathy’s photograph hanging on the wall; and then at four other photographs that they had taken at the Botanical Gardens during their honeymoon. They provoked vivid images of their once happy marriage whose end had come so unexpectedly. As long as the photographs remained there the painful memories would be etched on his heart forever. He could not make head or tail of why Cathy had come to such a conclusion after all the love that she had shown to him. Above all, she had promised at the altar that she would be with him in peace or turmoil, health or sickness till death. But now she had easily made the decision to leave him, the reason being that Charles was always giving her a good time when he went to pick her up at her workplace. Chiletso thought that it would have been better if the person to betray him was someone else, not his best friend. “But remember the oath you took at the altar during our wedding, Cathy,” he had pleaded with her two days after she had broken the sad news. “What is there in an oath?” she had retorted. “Look here, Chiletso, no one is going to drag you into the 21st century. You are stubbornly stuck in the past with too much tradition that you can’t recognise that the world is changing right in front of your nose.” Chiletso had looked at her from head to toe. This woman was not the Cathy he had known four years ago when he had gone to Kalenge, a very remote village, to court her. She had been a woman of very admirable morals, with her natural beauty defying all sorts of cosmetics. And now she had started putting on deep makeup and she had told him that he was too traditional. “Cathy, remember where I picked you. Remember how you were when I picked you at your parents’ house. Remember how much I struggled to send you to that secretarial school. If only you have a retentive memory, you will remember all the time that I spent escorting you to town when you could not go alone in fear of being hit by a car. Remember all these things that I did just for your sake,” Chiletso had said but it had all fallen on deaf ears. “I do remember, but everything is subject to change.” “Fine, since you have made the ultimate decision, you are free to leave. Go and make life; life in the 21st century; life to the fullest,” he had concluded painstakingly, staring at her see-through strapless blouse; her skimpy miniskirt that had barely covered her thighs; her vanished fingernails and she shadows around her eyes which together with her plucked eyebrows, qualified her for a professional harlot. When she had left, Chiletso had sat in his bedroom and thought of calling Charles. “What have you done friend? At first I thought it was only a joke,” he had said through the mouthpiece. “Well you should blame your wife. She began to seduce me about four months ago. She used to tell me that she married the wrong person who is still stuck in the past with stubbornness and tradition.” He paused for the hell of it. “And she told me that she would rather be hooked to a man who would take her out than rot in a lackluster home. I am sorry, friend, I am only human and I failed to fight the attraction.” Then he had ended the call. It took almost a month for Chiletso to partly get over the bitter feeling of parting ways with his wife. He spent most of his time at home, drinking heavily. Even at church, his fellow congregants were wondering at his sudden change in behaviour, but some of them who knew his situation understood him. “Don’t worry much,” one of Chiletso’s friends told him one night when he visited him. “Remember what one famous novelist and poet said about drinking to drown your sorrows: They that drink to drown their sorrows should know that sorrows know how to swim. Just accept with fortitude what has happened. She was never meant to be yours.” Chiletso looked at his friend and dropped down the bottle of beer which he was about to open. “Life is a vicious journey. As we travel, we meet too many tribulations. I wish I were not born at all.” Then there was a strong knock at the front door and Chiletso wobbled towards it to open. In front of him stood a young man who did not dither but immediately informed Chiletso that his former wife had been involved in a car accident together with her new husband who had died on the spot. “She is in hospital now,” the young man concluded. Together with his friend, Chiletso rushed to the hospital where they found Cathy in a very critical condition. “Chiletso, you are still the husband of my life and death though I know I am not going to live. I was involved in a car accident together with Charles and I don’t know how he is wherever he is but when I was being taken to this hospital, he was labouring his breath. “I have something to tell you. A long time ago, I went to a witchdoctor so that I could find a man to marry. What he said after he had conducted his ‘rituals’ devastated me so much but he said I had no choice but follow the instructions he was giving me. He told me that I would die together with my husband. It just happened that I left you but I had never thought about what the witchdoctor had said. God was by your side. Take care of our little Alinafe.” She chocked and, with tears streaming down his cheeks, Chiletso told her that is was alright. “For my sake, you are not going to die,” he said, his hands trembling. She coughed heavily, shook herself and rested to the hilt. Her eyes closed as her heart rested.