MISTRESS PALAVER: EPISODE 2.
Every woman would have loved to stand by her man. But things men can do, you never know with them. There is always something not right with men. They gave never ending and meaningless explanations and baseless excuses to justify wrongs. We the ladies also have our little misgivings like crying to confirm claims which are not true and to fend affection in order not to apology for wrong done but to prepare the shoulder to cry on. In the psychology class the teacher told us that our physical structure determine the tone of our love life and pattern. We did not take him very seriously as we were all novice and did not even understand what he meant and why he even mentioned that. “Good morning class, we had just analysed the emotional behaviour of people. Today we shall see the part our physical structures play in our love life particularly of women.” The boys were so attentive. The girls did not know a thing. “Fat women love dearly and sincerely. Slim ladies have little love. Short women could not be trusted. Plain women have no love at all in their heart. A beautiful woman is never stable in love. A divorcee would divorce again. Tall women, you can count on as they are prepared to go the extra mile. The only complication is when you have a plain, tall and fat women, how would you rate her? Women never have only one shape” The class was over. “The general conclusion he gave in these matters was human nature was unpredictable. He did not say anything about men. So I could not rate and predict Joseph’s love life. All I am certain about was he was not a husband.
He once told me, he knew all the tricks of a woman so I should not try anything cynical. “Tania, when you come home and your wife is extra nice you should know something is at stake, if she is not going to make a massive demand then she is hiding something,” he concluded. We both laughed over the joke. To me, I took it as a lesson not to be extra nice to Joseph. He also told me about the ‘crocodile tears’ of women so I did not cry for anything during our ten years marriage. I actually did not know what to do or what not to do as men have developed a conceptual framework for everything natural.
But the fact is women are a lot smarter than me. Accept it or leave it. You may not want to accept that. In the Garden of Eden it was Eve who first ate the fruit of ‘good and evil’ so many hours before she gave it to her husband Adam. So women are always few hours ahead all the time. The first day Joseph fell in love Sophie I knew. I could not explain everything in words. In fact, it was he who gave the name away. After serving his dinner one night, as I was going to the kitchen he called me ‘Sophie!’ Can you imagine that? He was surprised I did not strangle him on it. The unnecessary anger at little things were just few of the signs. The striking one was, he no longer appreciated anything I did whether good or bad. He was ready to reprimand me. That simply meant he had lost his love for me somewhere along the way. He now behaved like a bird in a cage with limited freedom. He there wanted to revolt, shout and set himself free. This emotion was the bases of our break-up.
It all happen in the Hotel Plaza, a man mixed up the room numbers came knocking at our door, Joseph demanded I should tell him whom the man was. “I do not know him.” I said softly. “You know him, you surely going to tell me what is going between you and him.” He shouted at me. I smiled. “It is not funny!” he said. I turned to move away from him, he kick my feet under me. I reeled over.
The next thing I realised was, I woke up in the hospital. I could not tell what he did to me after the kick. My ribs hurt so much. I knew we actually did not fight. The court case comes on next year. I pray he is taught a lesson. The doctor’s report was damaging. Joseph could not escape. All the same, it is hard to see your husband go to jail.