The Phone Call

[appeared in the malawi news of 13 october, 2012]

When only a week remained to the wedding of my family friend, Andisen, did preparations move at a record breaking speed, now that the dead seriousness of Andisen really wanting to marry finally settled down in us. When Andisen had announced to the world that he would like to wed Beatrice, his new love catch, in two years time, many of us were wholly skeptical. We laughed our lungs inside out at the ‘joke of the century before us’. We believed ‘it was easier for a camel to go through a needle’s hole than Andisen getting married’. Andisen would surely find an excuse to abandon Beatrice, we all foretold.

Andisen had dumped many girls we had lost count of, sometimes even for flimsy reasons, such that many who knew Andisen and happened to come across Mateso Kazembe’s short story entitled ‘Compromise’ would have thought the piece of art was a replica of Andisen’s love expedition. Andisen was a facsimile, or even more, of the gentleman in the story, who always found one excuse or the other to break girls’ hearts. And moreover Andisen had found the faults sometimes within days or months of dating out. ‘What more with a two-year-period?’ We all doubted.

Nevertheless, it gradually started to settle down in us half way down the line, particularly when even stanch skeptics such as Lino, my father, who once labeled Andisen as ‘a dangerous species to girls in the world of love’, accepted wholeheartedly to be Andisen’s marriage counselor.

And questions started to drizzle down amidst the acceptance of Andisen’s ‘miraculous’ marriage determination. What was it with Beatrice that Andisen’s lax approach towards matrimony be incinerated? We all wondered. Was it her stunning face that glowed with salmon-colored effulgence and her soft and smooth kissable lips that knocked Andisen out? Or was it her sexy brown eyes that were full of kindness, but yet seductive in a special powerful way that did the magic? We pondered on. Was it her full succulent breasts that bobbed up and down seductively and captivatingly in accordance with her engrossing soft inhaling and exhaling? Or was it her killing smile? Or could it be her gripping hips, absorbing bum and riveting legs that finally tethered him to the pole of marriage? But Naomi, the girl my friend Andisen, left for the reason that she was ever-smiling, was equally beautiful. We all reasoned.

And good manners of Beatrice we also countered out. Definitely, that could not be the reason that got Andisen on the leash. Because even Ireen, the girl Andisen unceremoniously kicked out for being bow-legged, was better mannered than Beatrice.

‘Well, everybody has reasons for taking final paths of actions, so is Andisen. Someday we would come to know and understand the reason or reasons for choosing to settle down with Beatrice of all girls’. We finally said.

Now with only two days to go this afternoon I saw Beatrice, my in-law to be, coming towards my shop, one of the rarest things to happen, with an obviously somewhat craft fallen face. I instantly smelt trouble and my heart skipped a beat. My mind was now a field of racing thoughts, and this nagging notion that Andisen had terminated the affair kept hitting my mind, no matter how hard I tried to purge it out or to play it down. I said ‘a God forbid’ silent prayer, as I watched her making final strides towards my place of work, the place where I eked out a living through servicing electrical appliances and other gadgets such as phones.  

But moments later I was totally relieved to hear that Beatrice’s hitch was that her phone was not producing any sound when receiving a call or when playing songs. More than willing to assist her I gladly received the gadget and sooner than later I established that the problem was to do with the speaker. I assuredly told her to wait for only five minutes as I fixed the problem. She later excused herself and left for a Metro shop that was nearby to buy Kamba. ‘Girls’, I said in my heart as I watched her leaving.

I quickly sprang into action, as all good in-laws to be would do, and started to look for another speaker. Beatrice had hardly receded round a corner of a nearby building when her phone indicated there was an in-coming call. I casually peeped at the screen and I was about to call her back.

‘Darling!’ the caller’s identity indicated. ‘Andisen,’ I thought. I instantly quashed the idea to call Beatrice and excitedly picked it up more than eager to tell my friend that Beatrice’s phone had developed a fault and I was the one servicing it. I had just pressed the okay button when breath was momentarily knocked out of me. I audibly prayed that I should be dreaming. But the tangible quizzical looks of people in the shop made me realize I was not. I quickly removed the gadget from my ear like a hot potato burning my skin, and cut the call and checked the number. It only worsened my condition.

The words: ‘darling, meet me at our usual rest-house’, from the other end were not necessarily the ones that sickened me, but the caller. I could not miss the voice, and even the number. The caller was my father!