BY ALEM HAILU G/KRISTOS

After lunch break when I opened my office door which was normally evacuated at that hour of the day, I saw Christina waist upward and face downward half asleep on her office table.

Nudged by the key-and-lock sound effect, quickly coming back to her normal self, “We can’t work in the same organization anymore. Either Thomas or I must leave,” Christina uttered unintentionally.

As I know the unglamorous affair between the two, I didn’t pose the question why. But I advised her to rather ask for a transfer to another branch of our organization found at the extreme corner of the city.

“I want you to inform Tomas he and I can’t continue to be intimate anymore. Of course, we could be on bowing terms. Nothing less and nothing more! I intend to write a letter to him. I must ask my husband Joseph for forgiveness,” she got up from her chair and rubbed her wedding ring continuously.

Joseph was a well-read and middle-aged man who had the power to convince people. He was tall and handsome. Always he was clean-shaven and never forgot to put on three pieces.

Tomas, who liked to put on tight clothes to display his shape, was our workmate. He often stood before the lift’s or the restroom’s mirror to check his posture in a way that betrayed his physical appearance over concerns him. “Aren’t I in good shape?” he never failed to put questions to the onlooker expectant a “wow awesome” tip. To make up for the desertification of his head, more often than not, he got his profuse sideburns and beard cut in a u-shape.

As IT expert, he used to come to our office regularly to fix our overused computers often hit by viruses. Repeatedly ahead of time, he asked Christina “Does your computer give you a hard time? Does it need troubleshooting?" It was this way he endeared himself to Christina, a secretary in our organization’s communication bureau, where I was a senior literature expert.

Christina who got her long brown hair done in phony tail style always liked to put on a jeans trouser that hugged her colossal bottom magnificently. She wore a tee shirt in a way making sure the rift valley between the breast mountains, which sported a gold necklace bearing the capital letter C, was open for the interested to feast their eyes on. Her chocolate skin often made a color match with her hair. It was also one of her attractions. Her boomerang dense eyebrows circle her eyes that seem to outgrow the eyelids. She was sure to get sprinkled with a perfume that exuded a biscuit-like aroma that was deadly seductive.

Unlike foolish husbands, angry, who divorce their dear wives or who beat them to death Joseph fought back to salvage his marriage. The knowledge he got about marriage reading the book Fireproof Marriage, among other marriage counseling webs, did wield such influence on him.

Upon knowing his wife’s affair with a coworker firsthand seeing things in her office while on a surprise visit, Joseph ran away from home for two days. But sleeping over the matter, exercising patience, understanding his marriage is salvageable, and summoning his courage he returned to Christina’s office to declare a truce and win back his much-beloved wife.

“It is because of my mistake you stooped to affair. I must not make you a scapegoat. I failed to accord you the necessary attention. Busying myself with work and books and also showing much tenderness to my parents I was absent from home for long. Fatuously I neglected you. Please forgive me. Distancing myself I made you harbor suspicion of an affair on my side which could compel you to seek revenge. Like a double-edged sword, you were subject to wooing on one side and feeling neglect on the other.”

“Yes, you are right Joseph. You read my mind. That was the harrowing situation I went through.”

“Please try to forgive my failure to extend to you the proper affection you deserve. Do not replace me with somebody else! I think you know very well it is you I placed in the heart of my hearts though I was remiss in articulating it. It was foolish of me. Dearest Christina... the love of my life,” he knelt and saw her with beseeching eyes true to the pieces of advice of Kamasutra, author of the perfumed garden. He succeeded in restoring her pride.

“I will forgive you. Anyways I can’t evade the blame that could be hurled against me, for I should have thought twice before I went physical with a coworker,” she ducked her head.

“I understand situational factors such as opportunity coupled with alcohol could have made you low on your guard,” he tried to downplay the matter with his hands.

“Yes, it was on a get-together day held in our organization’s auditorium the mistake was made,” Christina sobbed a bit and by way of confession kept on talking “When blood began gushing down from my friend Martha’s nose who consumed too much alcohol and danced for long a friend gave her a tissue paper. Afraid it might not be enough I headed to our office to fetch her more tissues. Thomas tagged along having in mind an opportunity for a blitzing kiss. We were lonely...”

She sobbed again with anguish posted up face, while Yoseph wiped her eyes tenderly.

“It was after the consensual intimacy was over that I started blaming myself. But when similar incidents offered themselves then after I became inured to the pit I succumbed to. He and I continued to seek each other out for two months whenever our organization got deserted.”

She resumed her sobbing while Yoseph reverted to soothing her.

“I was determined to stop the affair frightened by the frowning faces of coworkers and their gossip when you came to my office to surprise me with gifts on my birthday and caught Tomas and me red-handed while lip-locking forgetting to lock the door. A shockwave cruised my entire being. I was about to faint. You see I partially saw you while opening the door,” Christina wistfully gazed out of the window and resumed her confession “I was afraid a car could knock you down when you ran away throwing the door shut. I was expecting revenge on your side by way of filing for a divorce. But you proved to be wise not to seek divorce as a way out, which is to the benefit of our lovely little daughter too. You didn’t inflict physical harm on me even driven by the spur of the moment which imparted your genuine love to me. You distanced yourself for three days to blow off steam. If you are willing to forgive the emotional pain, I forced you to go through I’m once more yours for the taking,” she got up from her chair and embraced him.

On his turn sobbing “Are you determined to quit the affair?”

“I’m sure as sure can be. Rest assured on that score.”

“Whom do you love more?”

“Talking to me playing with my hair and seeing me straight into my eyes by way of probing into my soul Tomas drew me in. Rejecting calls from his wife he was listening to me attentively. That was how I fell prey to his trap. Once, when I gave him a call his wife picked up the phone and dressed me down. Filing out a form for a transfer to another branch of our organization I will soon leave this place to avoid any form of contact with that womanizer. I was not the type of woman he reduced me to. How could I disturb somebody else’s home not to mention that of mine?”

Yoseph gathered Christian into his arms. Reclining her head on his chest she sobbed. He probed up her chin with his right hand and smeared her lips.

Tomas entered the same office while husband and wife were lip-locking.

Dropping a keyboard, he fetched from the store to replace that of Christina’s which failed to type the letter T, banging the door shut, Tomas left realizing beyond any shadow of doubt Yoseph had dislodged him from Christina’s heart to reoccupy it and never to miss it. What revenge!

Late at night when they returned home from attending a church ceremony the welcoming gesture, they received from their daughter hammered home to them the marital bliss they were about to miss. Clang together they once more wept imitated by the house servant.

After two decades this event took place, I picked up my pen to make a short story out of it. What made me recall that event was the dropping down of a piece of paper from my old Album. The paper in the form of a letter was one written by Christina to Tomas which I was supposed to handle to Tomas. I photocopied the paper and handed over the original one to Tomas in an envelope. The letter handwritten and signed by Christina reads as follows.

“Bro Tomas, you know I’m a married woman with a lot of responsibilities. Besides my husband and I are raising a daughter, the flesh of our flesh, together. She needs us as much as we need her. Worse, I’m suffering from the pricks of conscience from shattering my marital vow. Though you are a good person, and we had a quality time I have decided to abort our unholy relationship and ask for my husband’s forgiveness. I know he has a big heart. Also, I am receiving criticism from every corner. As I told you yesterday and the day before yesterday, I plan to leave this organization. We could click as siblings occasionally. Please let me be if you don’t want me to delete you from my memory altogether.”

Christina Abrham

Last Christmas when I gave Christina a call, she, Yoseph, and her daughter were at Langano Resort. The couples were celebrating their 23rd wedding anniversary. ///