Hadassah stared unseeing at the floor for a long time. She’d felt the prickling of her eyeballs –a warning of the impending deluge of tears which were threatening to fall any minute now – as far back as when her eyes were shot with red and feeling hot. Her brain was still trying to wrap itself around the news she had inadvertently heard.
Rahim had married! He was now a legally married man –and it wasn’t to her!
The dams opened and tears spilled over the reddened brims of her eyelids, down her cheeks and dripped of her chin. Even as the nerves in her cheeks registered the moisture, the part of her that had kept her pride hoisted up and her back straight when she’d heard the two shoppers describing the “wedding of the year” admonished her not to cry.
A heart wrenching sob escaped her lips as she recalled that exactly twenty-eight days ago, she had lain in his arms flitting between a guilty conscience for sleeping with a man not her husband and a happy sensation that she was living the moment. Wave upon wave of memories hit her.
He’d gotten married a few hours ago. The thought hit her like the last high wall of a tsunami and her resolve broke. Hadassah abandoned herself to the waves of pity and sobbed –heart wrenching sobs and sounds came out of her parted lips as the tears flowed in a steady stream and she mourned for her innocence, naïveté and thorn heart. She slipped off the sofa onto her knees on the floor in the midst of her abandoned groceries; her body shook violently and she bent double as she gave vent to the incomprehensible pain and hurt she was feeling.
All the pain she had refused to deal with when Jopah had left her mingled with the betrayal of her love by Rahim.
Could she find love again? Did that specific emotion even exist in the realms of the male species? She sat up suddenly, swiping defiantly at the tears. She wouldn’t cry!
Still it was impossible to stem the flow of memories. Rahim had seemed an oasis after the desert of Jopah’s love. She had finally given in to all the preaching and cajoles of her family, friends and the elders of the assembly. They’d urged her to forgive and forget. Forgiving and forgetting, they’d said, meant opening up for other opportunities and not punishing other men for the mistakes of another. Her friends especially, hadn’t relented in telling her how she was on the verge of extinction if she didn’t live on the wild side at least once.
Absent mindedly, her hands found and caressed a throw pillow in the sofa –her eyes fixed on the simple tile pattern on the floor, couldn’t see.
Rahim had been before Jopah but she had had her doubts about him and had successfully parried his advances and steered clear of him. It was needless to surmise if Rahim knew Jopah or that the two men run in the same circles. They were as different as chalk and cheese, period. Rahim’s broad mind and optimistic outlook on life belied how hard working he was whereas Jopah’s pessimistic and brooding looks hid a laziness more chronic than the nicotine addiction he had.
After her life with Jopah had crumbled like the sand castle it was, she’d found solace in solitude –a solitary life which was dotted with the incessant condolence, advice and admonishments from those she called close. Then like an oracle, Rahim had reappeared on the horizon of her life claiming he had never stopped loving her even after she’d rejected his suit.
Her gut twisted and her heart felt as if it was being wrung in a dryer. She felt a shortness of breath nanoseconds before the second wave of tears welled up and splashed against her cheeks.
He’d known intuitively that something had gone wrong with her and in the charming way that only Rahim knew how, had soothed her nerves and defended her honor against the man he’d never met.
“How could he treat an angel like that?” Rahim had asked, “See how the heat has scorched my delicate flower.”
Were those the words of a man who could break her like this just five months after she’d opened up to him? Hadassah still tried to make sense of the betrayal. It was as if he’d been ridding on horseback and had picked her up whilst he was still at full speed and then without ceremony had dropped her even as he galloped off.
“I’ve been a fool.” She managed to whisper. A feeling of self loathing, pity and despondency welled up within her. She brought the throw pillow to her face and smothered the scream that escaped her lips in it. She clutched the pillow tightly to her face –hoping that by some accident she could starve herself of enough breath and die.
She couldn’t take any more pain. First she had loved a man who couldn’t love her, then another she couldn’t have, finally giving in to one who seemed to know what his mind was only to have her dreams of a home and love shattered.
How could Rahim misuse her so? She rocked back and forth on her calves, beginning to feel numb.
“If ever I find out that you are stringing me along –or that you have a wife or even that there is someone else at this time that you are with me, I’ll be tempted to kill you.” She’d told him one night after one of their breathtaking lovemaking bouts. “You can have someone after me if we don’t work out but don’t make a fool out of me.”
“Honey, even if you marry someone else or I marry someone else, I’ll never stop wanting you. I’ll follow you and wait for you even as I did when you went and gave my heart to the man who broke it.” He’d answered looking into her eyes.
She’d known there was something not quite right with that declaration. Loving wasn’t wanting yet it was as good as any as she could get –knowing that she didn’t want to use the word love for a while especially as her divorce from the man who had loudly proclaimed his love for her everyday was still a fresh six months in her memory.
He had made a fool of her. Hadassah’s heart clenched again as she tried to unravel and make sense of Rahim’s marriage. He had known that he was going to marry another yet he had pursued her and she in her moment of vulnerability –wanting to feel like a woman again, wanting to remember what it was like to touch, kiss, hold –had given herself up to be mocked. An image of her stabbing him right in his carotid vein flashed through her mind –deep enough not to kill him but to cause a lifetime of pain. On the heels of that image was the image of a prison.
She had followed the two women discussing the marriage in the mart with her trolley and had feigned interest in the baby products in the aisle they were in. Apparently Rahim and his new bride had had a baby three months ago so they were thinking of gifting the couple with items for baby care.
The pain in her chest increased another notch and Hadassah thought that her heart was truly being thorn in two. At times like this she wished she had sprits in the house so she could drown the pain as she had seen people do in the movies. A bottle of brandy or vodka and if she didn’t wake up the next morning then so be it.
Don’t be a fool, her conscience pricked her, there’s a lot more to live for.
Really? She piped back cocking her eyebrow as if speaking to someone in the room.
“What more is there to live for?” she shouted at the room –to her conscience. “Is it Caleb, who couldn’t love me anymore because I refused him sex the first time he asked and I later saw him with the woman he’d said meant nothing to him? Or Jaba who was just using me to make his wife-to-be jealous? Hmm? Tell me!” she was well in the throes of hysterics now as she stood up and looked to a point above the other sofa in the room as if someone sat on it.
“Is it Jopah who claimed he loved me but couldn’t make an effort towards building up that love?” She continued heatedly.
After a pause, she added, “and now Rahim. Handsome, rich, charming, smooth and heartless Rahim,” on a broken sob, her energy drained.
You are wallowing in self pity her conscience returned, calmly staring her in her face. Dredging up the past at this time won’t help you any.
“I have no defense.” Hadassah whispered and set out to carry her shopping to the kitchen.
She hadn’t published her liaison with Rahim. Her mother would have been too excited and this let down would have killed her. Her friends would have had a healthy mix of joy and envy at the news which would have made their condolences all the more painful and bitter. Besides she was short on friends, the test of time having winnowed them to a precious few who now had their own challenges. No she could tell no one, no one would hold her hand rub her back as she cried.
Tamar –to whom she had hinted about her new man –had warned her not to get physical too soon but to wait till she’d totally gotten over the emotional baggage from her marriage. She had agreed but all that advice had melted away with her resistance when Rahim had kissed her after their first official date. Hadassah felt shame creep up her neck and reach up her cheeks to meet with the freshly brewed tears spilling from her eyes. She couldn’t call Tamar –at least not just yet.
Out of habit, she unseeingly stuffed groceries into their places in the kitchen and headed off to the bathroom. After a long shower which left her looking like a prune and numb on the inside, she dragged on her old cardigan, pulled on some socks and got some grape juice out of the fridge. She felt too weak to attempt the peach fillet mignon with Greek salad she had planned.
Switching on the TV, she curled up in the sofa wishing Diego was here with her. Diego had been a gift from Jopah –a mutt with a mind of his own. Her best friend and love in the year she’d spent in marriage. As a puppy, Hadassah had believed that Diego symbolized her young love with Jopah. When she left the apartment they shared she had felt the urge to take Diego with her yet she hadn’t been certain where she was moving to so had left him behind. Jopah’s neglect had manifested itself on the young mutt who’d gone out to scavenge.
“I think Diego’s dead.” Jopah had announced on one of their strained phone conversations.
“What happened?”
“It’s been a week since he went out. I’ve searched for him to no avail.”
“Why would he go out? He didn’t use to when I was at home.”
“I don’t know. Maybe to get food?” There had been that tone of confusion that appeared when Jopah was at his most irking –as if he didn’t know that if the animal felt starved he would go out to find food.
Hadassah had known then that she’d decided right –Jopah would never change.
Staring at the TV now, with tears in her eyes, she took stock of her life. Work wasn’t going so well, she gotten a divorce against everyone’s advice and her fall back spot had been a sinking sand patch. The only living thing which could have consoled her without passing judgment or worried about being politically correct lay in an unmarked grave.
She closed her eyes and cried –this time silently. She had loved too many times and her heart had suffered too much.
#
Across the city on the hillside where the houses were further apart and the manicured lawns reflected the opulence that the houses trumpeted, a man stood in the window of his bedroom, looking out on the vista afforded by the location of his house.
He looked out over the carport at the side of the house onto the light strewn valley. There were three cars in the carport. There was also the Harley. He’d been out on that a few minutes ago trying to dare the devil until his mother’s pleading eyes had appeared on his vision. That look had always been accompanied with, “please be careful and take care of yourself. I love you very much and now that your father’s gone, I need to know I still have someone here for me.”
He’d quit trying to kill himself on the road then and had come home to finish the job with a bottle of whiskey –and perhaps if his will broke, he might gobble a couple of prescription pills in addition, he decided.
He’d met Old Ralph’s questioning, “Master Rashid?” with a look that had brooked no questions and warned the older man of his charge’s emotional turmoil. Ralph had been his father’s longest serving man then, butler and good friend.
The name Old Ralph had stuck from when Rashid was about seven. His father had started referring to him as young man and he could be heard chanting in his spare time the mantra “young man, old man, young man, old man.” One day when he and Ralph were helping his father get ready for a party he’d said, “young Rashid, old Ralph” after his father had kept calling them young man and old man alternatively whilst giving them instructions.
The memory brought a minute smile to Rashid’s lips as he brought the tumbler carrying the stiff whiskey to his lips. From his perch in his bedroom window in the house on the hill he surveyed all that he owed and the valley below. He’d seen the other servants leave; old Ralph had been intuitive –his mood tonight couldn’t bide any disturbances.
He squinted at the lights of the valley as he took another sip and felt the hot liquid scorch his throat in a place just above his heart.
If I look hard enough maybe I can see the dwellings of women. Women, who know what they want, are with integrity and not the kind I’ve been dealing with, he soliloquized. Just one woman, just one will do.
He looked at his bare feet and wiggled his toes in the plush rug. He turned his back to the view for a moment to look at his tastefully décor’d room. His bed, massive and inviting, beckoned yet sleep was far from his mind tonight.
He returned to the view and replayed the afternoon’s events in his mind. Adar had come to see him –to return his ring.
He was a playboy and she didn’t think she could live with him.
What was the basis for her assumptions and did she have any proof of his infidelity, he’d asked calmly.
She could just feel it, she’d replied. He was too good looking and charming not to be a ladies’ man.
He could have told her that he had proof of her infidelity. That he knew how she had decided to ‘hang’ with one of his ‘boys’ just months into their year long relationship. He could have told her how he had decided to allow her have her fun thinking that it was a phase she would grow out of –how he had marveled at her role playing and even begun to think that she may have been bewitched. He’d however held his tongue.
That was what he; the most eligible bachelor had been reduced to –accepting a cheating partner!
He breathed in and leaned his six foot three inch frame against the window. He studied his reflection in the glass. Beneath the mat of curly hair that bathed his torso, he felt as if warhorses were trampling the blood out of his heart. It was hurting like, damn!
Remembering how Adar had looked this afternoon trailed heat down his navel along the hair that vanished in the band of his pants. Recalling how she had run to go kiss her new lover –he’d watched from his office window, sent spikes through his heart.
His mum and aunties plus most of his female cousins had declared him God’s gift to women. His male friends –at least those he could still call friends with confidence, claimed he had everything going for him in the looks department. He studied his deep set coffee colored eyes hooded with glossy bushy brows and his slightly pointy nose above thin almost pink lips – he was descended from an interracial marriage. His hair was as dark and straight as his dad’ and he was described as olive skinned –a mixture of light and dark skin tones. He stood out in a room both for his height and skin color plus his personality. He knew women swooned at the sight of the hair on his chest and he’d always played that like a harp, leaving that tantalizing triangle open to their gaze whenever the occasion allowed. It was a great magnet for women but apparently it didn’t help in sieving them out or keeping them.
To the outside world, he had everything going for him –wealth, business and pleasure. Truth was his father had thought him above all to respect life over inanimate things and to love and respect the opposite sex. Nobody expected a handsome, wealthy man to have a heart. He did –and it broke just like anybody’s.
He passed his hand over his face and through his hair. Sighing he picked up the bottle of whiskey from the sill and poured another round. Before Adar, there had been others. Two or three of those relationships had been pretty serious. One woman had tried to fob off someone else’ pregnancy on him, the other had only been interested in his money but most of them had cheated on him with his associates or men in his circle. It wasn’t as if these men were better than he was but as Old Ralph had pointed out, those people assumed that he had his pick of women and wouldn’t miss the one they took from him.
“I just want to be loved for who I am just like everybody else and not for what I represent.” He whispered at his reflection.
His insides were boiling with a mixture of fury and pain. How could he feel so cut up by the woman he’d picked up from the grips of depression –at her most vulnerable, who had decided to label him a playboy after she had played the harlot on him? To think that he had given his heart, body and soul to her as he’d nursed her self confidence and desire for life back to full bloom put a fist in his chest. The movies were wrong! Women with teary doe eyes weren’t always true, innocent damsels in distress.
He’d fallen and fallen very hard for Adar’s seeming artlessness and simplicity. Who could have known she could very well stab him and twist the knife to give such pain? Rashid felt the pain in his chest heighten as his gut twisted and his nose flared. His eyes were hot and he tried hard not to give in to what he knew was going to be the inevitable. He hadn’t indulged in that action in a very long time.
What would his father say if he saw him like this?
“It’s good to cry my boy. Once a while, a man’s got to cry –that’s what keeps him human. Don’t do it often though and don’t let your mum catch you doing it.” He’d say with a wink.
Rashid dropped to his knees on the rug as he felt his father’s presence and wept. He cried for how badly he’d been misused by women. He cried for their prejudice against his good looks and wealth. He cried for how lonely he felt in his mansion and how every night was a burden for him in his huge bed. He cried and sobbed like a baby as he remembered Adar and her lover –how he had been ready to forgive her and take her for his own despite the fact that she had been with another whilst they were together.
He shouted and yelled out his anguish without regard for Old Ralph, that faithful servant who was sitting at the top of the stairs worrying about his old master’s son and how he could soothe him after the worst of the storm was over.
“Mother’s love is not enough”, he whispered. “I want to have what you had with mum, dad.” Tears poured down his high cheekbones in torrents as images of him strangling Adar or clubbing her new man played like a puppet show in his mind.
“That is beneath you.” A voice whispered in his ear.
He reached for the tumbler to drain the remnants of whiskey in it but he couldn’t put it to his lips. He hadn’t cried this much since his teenage hearth break; Ruth’s parents had forbidden their love and bundled their daughter off to marry an old cloth merchant up north. He dropped the tumbler spilling its contents and curled up on the rug to cry like a baby thinking all the time how he had to appear untouchable and unaffected by anything tomorrow. Tomorrow when he headed off to run his empire and keep his mother in high spirits. He had to be through with this –this emotional turmoil –to affect the stiff upper lip and broad shoulders. He was a golden statue to his employees and a refuge for his mother but he had nowhere to run to.
An hour later, when his strength retuned and he decided to drag himself to bed, one of the wise sayings Old Ralph had thought him to recite came to mind; uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.
He lay on his back in the bed and stared at the ceiling for a long time and didn’t know when sleep overtook his tired eyes.
#
In the middle of the night, Hadassah woke up with a start. At the same time, across space, Rashid’s eyes flew open. The reality of their loneliness, the error of their choices and the enormity of the fact that they couldn’t close their hearts to love dawned on them and each clung to their pillows for dear life even as sobs wracked their frames and tears soaked their pillows.
The morning was coming soon when they couldn’t show any signs of weakness or let it be told of the tears they had shed. When they had to smile and stay strong and possibly open themselves up for hurting again.
