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How to say ‘ciao’ next to a Chinese restaurant

My Man
 Photo:HARRY

It has been 16 months since the break up. Now it’s time to pre-agree to terms and conditions of permanent separation. We agree to meet at a nice lounge pub next to a Chinese restaurant we used to go to, at 5:30 on Saturday evening, not out of sentiment, but because it is convenient.

When I get in, I go straight to the TV to peer at the Saturday game score – Sunderland, 2, Manchester United, 1, a pleasant surprise. Then to the back of the room where the ‘ex’ is already perched at barrel. After quick hellos, she says I have gained weight.

“Maisha poa,” I say, then dramatically peer at her. “You, my friend, have gotten fatter!”

She laughs. “Less stress, ha ha.”

“And here I was thinking it was because of binge eating, now that we are to divorce,” I say, and on that light note, yank out the documents for her to look through and append her signature to an affidavit. As she looks through the necessary paper work, I sip at a cola with two fingers of vodka and a block of ice in it, and think of how the term ‘dissolve a union’ is like Chemistry, very petri-dish. I hated Chem in school. I prefer the phrase our courts use – decree ninsi.

Lovely Latinate! With a nihilism to it. Like the word ‘annihilate’ – which means to completely destroy. But this is all agreeable, we are amicable, there is zero acrimony – and the ambience is nice.

The signing done, it is time to eat up the remaining few minutes we have left (I had designated this signature ceremony half an hour) in small talk and chit chat.

“So, how is work?” I ask. She rolls her eyes, but I know she likes it. Almost as much as I love writing this! She asks me if I have any book coming up. She always fancied herself to be a bit of my muse, which always secretly amused me. “As a matter of fact, I have,” I say. “A modern African poetry text, which we’re launching on March 4.”

She looks at the date on her smart-phone. “A Friday?” she says. “It’s tricky, but if I’m free, I’ll come.”

“You’re welcome,” I say.

“Look at the time,” she says, standing up. “I have to hurry home. I have guests for dinner.”

Without getting up, I stretch a hand out. The irreversible process of becoming pleasant strangers has begun. “Ciao ciao,” I say, a way of saying goodbye we picked up in Venezia when we were there together three years ago.

Let me let you in on something I have learnt in the course of my life about any goodbyes. As soon as something is over, that’s it. Things happen, and then more things, inevitably, happen next. She left, and I waited for my girlfriend to come so we do our pre-Valentine’s Day dinner at the venue.

As I put away the signed affidavit into the big white envelope also holding my poetry manuscript, a single slide of paper slipped, and swaying, sailed to the floor. I picked it up and read the verse on it:

“My pride was intact, when I wandered into a pack of lions,

They embraced me, as if I were King of the Serengeti.

‘A leopard does not change its spots,’ I said to the leopard that would eat me for sport.

‘Neither does a poet,’ said Leopard, and pounced.

Zebra, she was easy. ‘Wear your pajamas,’ she said, ‘and go to bed...’ “

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