(SHORT STORY)
After a busy day in my office, while I was having tea sitting on the veranda of a cafeteria found in the heart of Kazan chis, I witnessed a girl, with a comely face, bending forward from her waist and begging by the door of a nearby pharmacy.
On the first day I saw her I felt pity and shoved a hundred Birr notes into her, observably, domestic chores roughened hand. Stunned she gave me a cursory glance and turning back she rushed into the pharmacy after uttering “May the Almighty pay you back in abundance!”
Minutes later she came out with a drug rolled in a white paper and cleared out of the area.
After a fortnight in a similar episode, I met the girl walking with the posture of a banana on the same spot.
“Hello! How are you?” I saluted her.
“I’m Okay,” she unzipped her small lips that hid well-chiseled white teeth.
“Haven’t you got enough money to buy the drug you wanted last time?”
“I buy painkillers occasionally. You see I suffer from an excruciating back pain!”
“I see! Is that why you walk with a curved back?”
“Yes, I get relief when I take this. Especially at night, the pain turns unbearable.”
“Taking too many painkillers has its side effects. It could be averse to the kidney.”
“A relief today has blinded me from a risk tomorrow,” she moved her head sideways by of saying what else could I do.
“Is it a car accident?”
“No. For want of jobs here I was in Arab countries the past seven years.”
“But you seem young.”
“Now I’m 28”
“It was illegally I went there by self-seeking brokers who packed the likes of me in a container and ferried us to the Ethio-Sudan border. Once more via illegal brokers crossing the Red Sea a few of us found our way to the Middle East. We were working there without a license.”
“Isn’t it difficult to lead a life like that?”
“Yes, it was like cat and mouse with police I spent almost six of the seven years there.”
“Did they dump you?”
“No. My last employer was a kindhearted person when he saw my condition growing worse by the day he took me to a hospital. As the doctor said “She needs a long rest,” my employer covering my air transport cost sent me here with modest money in my backpack.”
“Are there good employers there? Many returnees paint them in dark hues.”
“Though rare there are good employers. Some are genuinely Allah-fearing. But the majority overexploit employees. They take employees to relatives or neighbors’ houses to tackle the extra task without extra payment.”
“How cruel?”
“After working yourself to the bone they mercilessly saddle you with a backbreaking toil.”
“Now I got the reason why you walk like that!”
“You see my parents and relatives sent me there pooling resources. I was sending them a lump some money occasionally when situations permitted.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“As an illegal immigrant, I could do that when my employers permit me or when I became out of the radar of police. But I came back tragically aborting my relatives’ dream.”
“Were they dreaming milking the golden chicken?” I ironically laughed.
“They became disappointed. They couldn’t hide their displeasure! ”I read discomfort from her face.
“Did you have a boyfriend?”
“I was wiring him the better portion of my income so that he salts it away for our future wedding. It turned a bashed hope.”
“What was your reaction when you returned?”
“He shunned me like a bad day.”
“How cruel!” I spoke.
“Did you ask him about the money?”
“My parents told me he was drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, and chewing chat with the money.”
I tapped her back sorrowfully.
“Worse he fathered a child from my friend with whom he was often taking the nights out.” She wiped tears breaking away from her big eyes that seemed projected in a three-dimensional space.
“I squandered the prime time of my life dreaming about the blissful marital years ahead of us,” she ducked her head.
“I could guess the pain from an insult to injury.”
“How cruel?”
“We began meeting with the café. During our rendezvous holding her hand and seeing her in the eyes, I treated her with a burger and milk. Love out of sympathy was welling up in my heart. It was at that moment in life I realized the veracity of the saying “familiarization is a great magician.”
On our fourth meeting, I asked her name she said, “I go by Mesale Solomon.” I reflected it literary means proverb of Solomon.
I didn’t exactly ask for her address. But I remember she told me her house was around Olympia.
When she regained her normal posture, she cut down the frequency of our meetings. When I asked her about that she said “I have become a chef in a restaurant owned by Aderes around Bole.”
“Do your employers behave?”
He is a gentleman who fears Allah. He is a widower.”
Before I knew it she glitched our contact to a halt. It did create an irk in me for some time.
Four years later, in a big supermarket around Meskel Square, I saw her with a chubby old man holding her hand affording a piggy shoulder to a kid. She was heavy with a child. She had held a bagful of baby clothes. When we crossed paths presumably, she had to be indifferent. I have to follow suit wondering about the miracle the passage of time does.