The Dinner

The Dinner


She was incredibly confident. She believed that tonight would be the resolution to the gloomy past and a frightening future. So, she sat in the living room awaiting him impatiently. It was eleven o’clock.
“Oh, he’ll be here soon,” she said excitedly and once again took a precise look at the dinner to see if anything was missing.
“Thanks to Allah, everything is just perfect,” she reflected.
A quarter of an hour had passed when the phone cut into the stillness of the room. At first she thought it was the door bell but then she remembered that he had his own key with him.
Now, she was afraid. She didn’t pick up the phone immediately. Actually, she was thinking about the uselessness of tonight if he was the caller.
“Yes?” she answered in a voice conquered by doubts and anxiety.
“Hello. How’re you?” the voice asked.
“Oh,” she sighed as if saved from an execution verdict. It was her sister.
“Listen. I’m afraid I’ve just realized that I won’t be able to come tomorrow. I’m terribly sorry.”
“Never mind. It’s Ok, honestly”. She was ecstatic.
“I hope I haven’t let you down. I know it’s the third time I’m apologizing for not coming.” The sister was blaming herself.
“Come on. It’s not a big deal. It’s really fine.”  She told the truth, at least, for the time being. The call ended.
Another quarter of an hour had passed and he hadn’t come yet. But she was still fine; she had a huge amount of hope that doubts hadn’t awakened yet. To kill time, she started pacing the living room. Then the clock announced with a shocking and menacing sound the arrival of twelve o’clock. It brought strain and doubts which were in cases, like hers, inevitable to predict the future. “Why is he so late?” she asked herself, no more able to control her doubts. She tried to collect her thoughts and start digging up reasons that usually made him late.
“Oh, yes,” she said hopefully, “it’s the day he meets his friends.” But in a moment of realization, she said, “No, no. Today’s Friday. He sees them on Wednesdays.”
She kept searching for any reason that could give him the excuse to be forgiven again, but she found none. Finally, she cried aloud desperately, “Where the hell are you?”
Realizing at once what she had done, she rushed into the children’s room to see if anybody was awakened by the cry. She couldn’t tell whether, luckily or painfully, the four of them were asleep. She felt she was on another planet. Far away and invisible. 
Yet, she kept waiting. But this time with no eager and no desire to help either the past or the future. Only the present was absorbing her mind. All she wanted was the answer to one question: “Did he do it again?” Soon she was contemplating the dinner which was getting not only cold but stale also. She looked at herself in the mirror and burst into tears.

Actually, she thought about calling him but no longer wanted to. She was surrounded by vagueness. That vagueness that had kept her company for the last five years. That vagueness which consisted of thirty five autumns, four birds and, most important, the man with the long shadow.
She went to sleep, but didn’t want to. She just wanted to hear the click announcing one o’clock. She wanted to hear it while she was in bed. And oh, yes. She was in bed when it was one o’clock.
When she heard it, her heart was overwhelmed by satisfaction, submission and hope. That mixture of feelings that had become her shadow for the last five years. Yet, it was the first time she had understood it. It took her to a status that she’d never dreamed about. She went to sleep.

That night, she had a white dream. It would have been an empty dream if it hadn’t had that deep smell of the sea.
Two hours later, she woke up. But she could smell it. She looked to her left and saw him there sleeping deeply. He was sinking in sand that was, until that moment, wet.
She got out of bed and went directly to his shoes. She took one of them and felt how heavy it was. It was full of wet sand also. She could have poured it out of the shoe but realized that it wouldn’t help. The sand would be always there. Just like the deep and always triumphant sea she could smell.