2.16 Calling Auntie

After the lesson, I hurried downstairs to the Family Mart on the first floor of my building and bought an international calling card. Then, hopping on Azami’s old bicycle, I pedaled as fast as the clunker would take me towards Ôhori Park where I knew I could find some public phones from which to make an international call. What with everyone owning cell phones nowadays, public phones, the international variety in particular, were fast becoming scarce. The last time I'd personally had any use for one was just after the earthquake in 2005 when public phones were the only ones you could get a dial tone on.

I found a phone booth just a few yards away from a playground in the park. Young mothers chatted to each other as their children climbed monkey bars, chased dragonflies, and nibbled on the goodies in theirbentô boxes.

Looking out of the phone booth at those kids, I couldn’t help but envy them, snotty noses and all. Hardly a care in the world, they spent the afternoon running around, falling down, getting back up, and running some more. At my age, with the consequences as distressing as they were, I no longer had faith in my ability to stand up, dust my knees off, and keep on going like those kids. If I did fall, I knew it was going to hurt.

Sighing heavily, I dialed my aunt's home in Beirut. After several rings, Dita, my aunt’s Sri Lankan maid, answered.

“Dita?”

“Yes?”

“Dita, this is Rémy. Is . . . “

"Oh, Rémy! How are you?" she said cheerfully.

"I-I'm fine, Dita."

"It's so good to hear you," she said. “Are you coming . . . ”

I was hardly in the mood for chitchat. "Um, Dita, is Ammteh Michelin home?"

"Madam?"

"Yes, Is she home? I need to talk to her."

"No, Rémy. No. Madam is not here."

Dita's English, despite having lived for the past twenty years in countries where English was more often than not the second most commonly spoken language still spoke with heavily curried accented. Her Arabic was even worse, far worse than my own. And that's saying a lot. Had I not been living in Japan where your average Westerner after a decade-long residence still couldn't string a proper sentence together in local tongue if his bloody life depended on it, I might have dismissed the "house girl" as stupid. Dita wasn’t stupid, she was just average, dismally so. Polyglots like many of my Lebanese relatives were the exception.

That said, at times like this, I wished my aunt's maid spoke better English. When a tornado is churning its destructive way towards your home, you didn't want your message to get lost in the winds.

"No?" It had to be eight, maybe nine in the morning in Beirut. Maybe she was out picking up manakish for breakfast. "When will she return?"

"Sorry?"

"What time will she come back?"

"Come back?"

"Yes, come back. What time will she come back?"

"No, Rémy. She no come back."

"What?"

"Madam is in America now."

"America? What's she doing there?"

"She's visiting Naila."

"Perfect! That's really who I need to get in touch with. Have you got Naila’s phone number?"

She did.

The problem was her accent which was so heavy that, I couldn't tell if she was saying "two" or "three". I had her give it to me again before I read it back to her. I double and treble checked and just as I was about to hang up I noticed the number she had given me had one too many digits. Where there should have only been nine, there were ten.

"Dita, the number's too long.”

“Too long?”

“Yes. It has too many digits."

"Digits?"

"Yes, it . . . “ Ah, fuck it. "Never mind, Dita. Thanks. Bye."

© Aonghas Crowe, 2010. All rights reserved. No unauthorized duplication of any kind.

注意：この作品はフィクションです。登場人物、団体等、実在のモノとは一切関係ありません。

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

No. 6 is now available on Kindle.