Lake Of My heart - Chapter Two

LAKE OF MY HEART CHAPTER 2

“Hello sir! Your code?” asked the receptionist.

She was well dressed, tall and as thin as a test tube.

“Sorry,” he offered.

What had he been thinking of? Those late night calls, those conversations, those whispers between his wife and whosoever and her coming back unable to look him in the eye. There was nothing as bad as suspicion that had brought him here.

Was he getting cocky? Was he watching too many Mzanzi movies? Movies had hatred, unfaithfulness, back biting and other things that kept people glued on television sets. When your own wife sat up in bed and didn’t want to be touched, did it warrant having this test? If there was an infidelity test many wives would have been divorced long ago.

But, he thought that was being chauvinist. Wasn’t that being a male chauvinist pig at that? If he was a boar, he should think of it in reverse, if there were infidelity tests, how many of his male compatriots would have been caught in the gutter? What would happen to those marriages? If women can forgive so easily, why not the opposite? What had happened to his marriage? Where had the breathing rocky fire gone to?

He rummaged through his pocket for the piece of paper. He came up with business cards and other small paper paraphernalia including a loose padlock key. He found the incriminating evidence in the other pocket, which he handed over.

“Cubicle 3,” she said. She pointed to a row of what looked like partitioned offices lit by fluorescent bulbs.

“Thanks”, he moved to the cubicle and knocked.

They were made of wood panelling separating offices within a large single room. The panelling separating the room into smaller offices rose from the floor to the ceiling. Wood panelling was being used within a large room to seclude the offices offering privacy. In place of windows were translucent windows where the office occupant could see images of those in the passage without the reverse happening. Only ablution facilities remained the same. However this meant few ablution facilities where the work force was increasing.

“Come in.”

There was a sweet looking tall and lanky lady behind the desk. A single fluorescent lamp was fixed to the ceiling. Why were the counsellors mainly female? Where had the males been when applications had been considered? He knew that these counsellors had other qualifications besides counselling. He didn’t want this kind of a job. It was kin to being a forensics or DNA analyst telling people the bad news that the late was their relative who had missing and was now being confirmed dead.

This one told individuals and couples that they had the dreaded scourge of HIV/AIDS. Besides which he wanted the freedom to smile at his friends, shake their hands with that real glint in his arm exuding charm and charisma when he felt like it. He wanted the freedom to allow a frown to crease his brow when someone was not good to him. He didn’t like the automatic switchback type of smile for every customer. One would smile through a situation where the customer was being plain rude with the adage that the customer was always kind.

“Hello, welcome and take a seat.”

“Thank you”, he shook the outstretched hand. “Thank you and my results?”

The skin was soft and subtle. It was baby skin add some years down the line. A lot of lotion and machine work kept the skin super soft. They sat down. She talked about protected sexual content and the side effects. She didn’t flinch though she didn’t speak the actual words. He kept his stare close on her without keeping eye contact because that was not his nature. It just didn’t happen with women for him. He was shy enough to avoid eye contact with his wife, what of a foreigner? He had always been the shy one. His mother had always chided his shyness saying due to that he would bring home a mute for a wife.

“Keep them as negative as they are, have a nice day. Keep up the positive behaviour and save yourself and the nation.”

She smiled handing him a paper without his name. It had an identification number. There was a huge sigh of relief from him. It was not always that results were negative for those brave enough to seek to know their HIV/AIDS statuses. At times, they did the test under duress after relatives footing the medical bills demanded. He did not want to be in the shoes of those on the medical list because they had tested positive.

“Thank you Beatrice, same to you.”

He rose and folded the paper. He put it into his pocket on his egress. She opened the door for him accepting another client. This was professionalism at one go. Why didn’t the commissioners at banks do that for the crowds surging to withdraw more than deposit their inflation hit salaries and deposits.

AIDS/HIV negative. That did not prove that either parent was cheating. It only proved that they were being responsible. The thoughts still assailed him. One down ninety-nine more worries to go. At this rate, he looked around checking his bearings. That is when a grown man walked into the path of a UD truck coming at full speed. Think, he forced himself to worry less. He trudged on, one foot after another. That is how grown men died of stress. He should reduce his stress levels lest he kicked the bucket and had a good looking corpse. Would they shave his beard and hair when he died?

He headed for the park. It was a place of solace for those that were alone and needed time. Those that were religious found the Harare Gardens a Mecca for meditating on the word and praying silently. It was not odd to see singles sitting here and there far apart from the milling crowds as if in introspection. It had been a long time since he had last walked more than two kilometres. That was when he considered everything before he had become confirmed as a permanent member of the workforce. Driving instead of walking had increased his frame. As a student he had taken his time with walking long distances on foot. But a peri urban mining area was not a place where students walked very long distances. His company vehicle was being serviced. He was also off duty which gave him time to reminisce and rest. Was he resting with his mind in turmoil?

He did not even listen to the sound of the wind or feel it against his face. He just walked against it. He did not even listen to the sound of the birds chirping. The park was less noisy than the city proper, with the noise of traffic gone. He should have heard others noises like a cicada chirping.

He walked with the gait of a middle aged person through the Harare Gardens coming from Julius Nyerere Way past the Holiday Inn Crown Plaza formerly Monomutapa Hotel. The hotel and Harare Gardens proper were separated by a hedged in fence. Neither side could access the other’s area. Hotel guests enjoyed their privacy. Those in the park did likewise. Garden weddings with huge tents were not uncommon. Both gardens were immaculate with the hotel one being better kept. The traffic that went in was very limited to guests staying at the prestigious hotel unlike the public gardens.

Two sides of the fence kept the curious out of areas they were not allowed to enter. The out of bound areas were not security issues but rather privacy issues. He reached the main garden less than a hundred metres from the entrance. He found time to turn right on the path to use a public toilet. He washed his hands joining the few going into the park. He walked past heading for an obelisk which sat in the middle of the road.

He turned west towards the rockeries trying to find a place amongst the couple necking and sunning therein. He chose a spot away from any couple. He sat down. He took out from a trouser pocket Samsung touch screen cell phone. He searched for the icon holding his files. He selected pictures scrolling through those contained in there.

The past was behind. The past was the immediate when one watched history through photographs than had been scanned and loaded onto computers and onto Samsung smart phone. Some photographs were recent. He had been to a maternal uncle‘s funeral. He went through other photographs. Memories ran through like a film strip with blank spaces in between. What was he going to do? It was very tempting to walk up to a garden flat and be involved in an illicit relationship. For how long and where would it lead?

He was not running short of admirers. In his type of job, he met many situations of temptations with regards to women and cash that did not belong to him. Would most men believe him if he said he had never lain with another woman beside his wedded wife? That was despite all other problems that he and his wife had had.

He wore denim blue jean trousers, turquoise blue sneakers, dark blue t-shirt and a black belt looped around his waist. He crossed his legs looking at the gardens which at one time had been the preserve for Caucasians. Now even street kids messed around. There was a total absence of municipal police. They were slowly giving up on the war on illegal vendors.

It looked like everyone who was unemployed had found a ware to peddle in the streets or the residential suburbs. Those that worked supplemented by selling something. With everyone buying and selling something, somehow, people were surviving from day to day, week to week and year to year. Council workers were working on maintaining the greenery in light of the financial constraints which the council was facing. It was as commendable an effort as sanitary workers dealing with refuse when all other services were collapsing under financial hardships.

The younger the couples the more outlandish the dressing and fashions. An angel moving above would look at the gardens and enjoy the colours represented by material, grass, lawn and shrubs.

Couples dotted the gardens. Their clothes and attire was a kaleidoscope of makes, models and colours. As they moved holding hands, laughing at each word coming from another’s mouth, it made him make painful recollections. There were young couples, the middle aged and the occasional senior citizens out for a stroll mixing all ages and races. Some were families in the park because to the west and to the north of the park were residential units comprising of flats. At times little children became restless being confined to concrete and brick passages. Here they chased butterflies and pigeons that swooped to drink water from the irrigated lawns.

It reminded him of years ago when he and Naomi had been couples. Where had they erred? Where had the charm, charisma and drive gone to? What turned a heart full of yearning for a girl not available into despair when she slept very next to him? What kept married couples from not talking together the whole week when previously they had run short of airtime to talk. Previously they had been charged with landline bills they had accrued talking endlessly on the telephone.

Now a man and his wife sat in the lounge looking at a television screen without speaking for an hour. Previously, he had failed to watch his prized Barclays English Premier league, La Liga, Italian Serie A, Bundesliga etc. whenever his girls had come to town. Where had they erred? He had missed out on his favourite darts and golf tournaments to be having lunch with a girl or two.

Now it was different, twelve years later they were worse than estranged cousins. Where had they erred, he thought? Where had the burning fires gone to? What happened between couples to make the marriage vows become unnecessary? Look at these couples, he thought, staring into each other’s irises and laughing at every word the other said.

She didn’t mind the smell of his mouth neither did he mind the pimples on her cheeks. Give then ten years of marriage and she suddenly knew that he was a worthless drunkard. Dating now, she could meet him holding a pint of beer, with a packet of cigarettes and with a lot of his friends. After a few years of marriage she didn’t want to see the same friends she had tolerated. He would not stand her cooking which he had once praised.

Where had they erred?

Researchers had concluded that married couples ended up looking like brother and sister because of the smiles they made at each other. What of divorced couples, did they look like estranged cousins?

Better to dwell in the wilderness, than with a contentious and angry woman." Proverbs 21:19

He quoted from somewhere in his head. Why not the opposite if he was the one that was wrong? Hey, why was he quoting verses? He presented himself as being too busy for church. Where the pubs closed on Sundays for him to go to church? What had happened to the welcoming sight of the golf links? Was staying in the desert better than staying with a woman with whom one was no longer in speaking terms? He thought of life across the borders of the country then he thought of the effects of ten years separation would have on his children.

Would the heart grow fonder for the partner he would have left behind or would it turn into a rock? Would he find himself in another culture with another wife? Here he hesitated to think because this was forbidden territory. One mistake and he would rue it for the rest of his life? How would it appear if they divorced and both remarried only to find out years later that they had made a mistake?

Wives, likewise, be submissive to your own husbands that even if some do not obey the word, they, without a word, may be won by the conduct of their wives. Where had he read this verse and how could he ply it to his advantage? Then he remembered where there was something to do with right and wrong before God, there was no one with an advantage.

After all God in his son’s form had said something about a log in your eye while seeing a stick in another one’s. Was he seeing logs in his wife’s eyes and none in his own? Tell this verse to the hundreds of wives taking their husbands to maintenance courts at the Harare Magistrates Courts in Fourth Street. Tell that to discordant couples where the wives were trying to extract a few dollars from the boozing stages of their husbands in order to support a family when all the head of the family did was find the nearest pub.

The pastures that looked the greenest attracted a lot of animals without them realising the snares. In the greenest vegetation in the savannah was where the lions, leopards, cheetahs, hyenas and spotted dogs prowled. Predators like puff adders, African pythons, green and brown mambas and others maintained their camouflage in the green grass. Fish liked open waters of the floodplains but when these dried up, the same fish were left high and dry. One had to learn to be a fish which stuck to the deep waters so as not to fall prey. The vultures were out there scanning would be victims. Marriage was a fluid investment in time and effort, had he failed therein? Would he succeed in another project when the first one had failed?

Divorce opened a Pandora’s Box of independence and freewill dating. The thought of dating again was an open minded set which was welcoming like a snare. There were flower like leafs that opened to flying insects only for them to close and swallow the insects. There were women out there, desperate singles looking for marriage and there were also women who looked single looking to ensnare a victim one way or another.

How many stories had he heard of men who married customarily never legalising their marital status but getting legally married to a girlfriend of a few months? Will he be one of the ensnared or would his wife be? The last time he had been in his home town, he had thrown dirt on the grave of one classmate who had separated from his wife for eight years. It took just eight years of freedom for him to cede his life. Besides which, what if pastures looked greener from within a room because of the shades in the glass?

Divorce was a word that frightened him. He could imagine the effect it had on children and the rest of their family lines both ways. What would those of his close associates say when he and his wife broke apart? What effect would that have on their double sets of parents who dotted each on their own blood for their achievements? Successful in all issues besides marriage, he imagined a report being written on his life.

It was as scary as quitting a job for greener pastures only to find that these pastures were irrigated with waste water and human waste. Hey, the smell was unbearable. Figuratively speaking, that is. He had made that sudden move of leaving an established company for a fly by night for eight months or so. He had quit with great luck had been accepted back under the same conditions. Just in time because the new company he had quit for, by dismissing his management advice had a police record to which he had been called in for questioning to check if he had profited from sales.

Divorce was a word that sounded foreign. Was he now a foreigner?

He found a spot half in and half out of the sun. He lay down there looking up, with his knees folded. He adjusted his pockets so that the contents could not fall down. He breathed easily wiping all the worries and events from his mind.

That for thirty minutes was a blank canvas.

© Copyright tmagorimbo 2014