Whenever Mikey came out of his house, Mr Ttotsi usually feels anxious about him from his window.
"Look, look, he is coming out, there he is - the great doctor!" He will call out to his wife who always feels disappointed about her husband's demeanour about the young man.
"He is not a doctor, he is a pharmacist." She says dismissively.
"He is a doctor to me. What difference does it make?" Mr Ttotsi emphasized.
"There is a big difference can't you see?" She insists, "a doctor treats people, a pharmacist administers drugs, that's what he does."
"They all work in the hospital, don't they?" He paused and leaned over the window, "look, I don't care, all I know is that he is a nice young man and he will make a good husband for our Tshego."
"You don't even know this man and Tshego would not even like him."
"Which beautiful girl won't like a doctor? I mean, every girl here likes him? at least I know that, but I want our daughter to meet him first. They will make a fine couple," he wore a very optimistic smile on his face.
Mrs Ttotsi walked from the wardrobe where she was picking out a dress to meet her husband at the window. She giraffes her neck from the glass to take a look at the boy, "I don't know what you see in him anyway?" She removed her face from the window and moved away from her husband’s body.
"I know you don't admire good things, but I do," he rejoined admirably and his face looked more calmer.
"All I am saying is that you don't know the man, you only know him for his mistaken profession and his dressing. That is not a good judgement for passing a man for a husband."
"Why shouldn't it be?" He exclaimed in protest, "he's a disciplined man. He dresses responsibly and doctors are disciplined even if you don't see him as one."
Mrs Ttotsi walked around the bedroom keeping things in order as her husband kept amusing himself with the stranger he was admonishing from his window. She sneered at his manner of judgement but did not demure. "Will you keep wasting your time starring at this boy everyday from the window, or you will come over to the dinning for breakfast?"
"Ahh! I tell you that some days he's better to watch than this boring routine meals," Mr Ttotsi exclaimed unapologetically and grumbled.
His wife gawked at him sadly as he reluctantly tries to pull himself out of the window when the young man disappeared into the busy street.
"When Tshego comes for her holidays I want to introduce her to this young man, I know he will like our daughter. You may call him a pharmacist, but I am going to have a doctor as an in-law soon," he was very confident.
He left the window and moved away from the bed with a pleasant look still gleaming on his amused face. His bald head bowing with arrogance to his bemused wife, he exited the room to the dinning.
Mrs Ttotsi watched her husband shamefully as she shuddered in disbelief of his obsession about a boy he knows only for his clothes and his mistaken profession. She grabbed a handkerchief and made her way to the dinning too, in haste.
The following two months, summer passed everyday with warmness leaving brown leaves to carpet the ground wherever a tree stood. In front of Mr Ttotsi's house there stood a tree whose brown leaves stretched themselves like sheets on the ground. Mr Ttotsi sat with an anxious face on a bench under the tree. He was starring at the door of the young man whom he admonishes everyday. For two days he has been there, watching and looking at the door, waiting for when it will open for the stranger to come out of it as neat and professional as he always looked.
On the first day, he took his disappointment of the man's absence lightly and made himself to believe that he might have been preoccupied at the hospital, but when the second day he waited in vain again, there was this anxiety of fear that struck him over thoughts of the young man's unannounced relocation from the neighbourhood. Today, being the third day, he decided that if he didn't see the young man come out of the doorway as he normally did, he will force himself to accept that the young man had left the neighbourhood without getting to introduce his daughter to him.
Tshego was back for her summer holidays. She was doing a degree in physiology. Upon her return, her father had spent the first three nights convincing her to agree to meet the young man he admires. When it became palatable that she will meet the man, he was getting upset that the young man chooses to disappoint him despite accepting his invitation for a dinner at his house.
"He should be ashamed of himself if he fails to honour his words which he said to me," Mr Ttotsi complained.
"Didn't I tell you before?" His wife was teasing.
"Doctors have honour, it's an oath of discipline. How can you say something and you don't do it? These young men of nowadays! You don't lie to an old man, you don't dishonour your words to an old man?" he stuttered in frustration.
His wife interrupted, "don't waste your time on this. You have to go inside now. It's 6:30 and not 7:30 when he usually comes out of that door. You have been here since 5:00 am."
Mr Ttotsi pleaded, "he should have mercy on me and come out of that door. He hasn't come out of there for two days now, I can't possibly let today slide. He agreed to come for dinner today and I wanted to remind him of his promise, but maybe I am too late on that, but I just don't want to think that he leaves home very early nowadays so I had to come before 6:00 am so I can catch him before leaving."
"It's better you leave our daughter to rest. At least this burden of her meeting your muse will be off her shoulders," Mrs Ttotsi retorted in relief.
"Have you been praying for this?" He turned to look at his wife who was frenetic about her husband's suspense.
"It's nothing I should pray about?"
"Good Lord! Only if he comes out of that door I will kiss his cheeks. But anyways, you don't have to be so dismissive of the young man, he hasn't moved out yet, at least I haven’t seen him. I know he still lives here, maybe he is at the hospital. You know how it is for them over there? He might be performing a surgery." He turned to look at his wife who dodged his eyes.
"I will be inside, I can't freeze with you here," she said walking away from her husband. He didn't mind her absence for fear of distracting his eyes from the door of the young man he had kept two days vigil for.
At about 12:00 pm, just when Mrs Ttotsi was about to change the dinner menu to exclude their invited guest whom it had been clear by now that he wasn't coming, Mr Ttotsi ran into the kitchen to meet his wife.
"Do not change the menu, he is coming. He called the phone. He said he had a guest, I don't care I told him he can come with his guest, as many as they might be.
Mrs Ttotsi looked alarmed.
"You're going to rather make a large table, I don't know how many of them but make an extra one for two or three more."
As shocked as Mrs Ttotsi was, she couldn't hide her resentment, "three or more? I was already going to change the menu, now you say three or more," she walked to the sink to wash a dish.
"Yes, three or more I don't know, just make something extra, I have reserved his accommodation and he thanked me already. He even said he's coming with some sort of wine, it's a good one, he's very hospitable as well as polite - such a fine man."
"Well then, I will need assistance here, tell Tshego to join me here now."
Mr Ttotsi replied anxiously, "of course, I have to be proud to tell him that Tshego prepared the meal, he needs to start liking her from her dishes. You know men start liking women from the taste of their food." He ran out to fetch his daughter who was in her room trying to take a nap, "you will join your mother in the kitchen, our guest needs to know that you can cook."
Tshego grumbled out of her bed to join her mother in the kitchen.
Evening came, there was a very large table for six people, Mickey had come with two friends—all women. Mr Ttotsi had made sure that his daughter sat on the left rear of Mickey even when his wife hated the idea. Mickey's friends sat on the right rear with him. There was a discussion and Mr Ttotsi had waited for a chance to break the conversation with a proper introduction of Tshego to the man he admires so much.
But whenever he wants to break in, there was another conversation. Alas! There comes the chance, everywhere remained quiet, he took a sip of the wine his fascinating guest had brought, which he had praised so much even if his wife and his daughter disliked it swill taste. But before the wine went down his throat to settle in his stomach, Mickey interrupted the quietness.
"I decided to have my friends accompany me to honour your dinner invitation. I had hoped that it will be a better time for me to introduce to you my colleague Suzy," he pointed at the lady in the third end who greeted with a smile "and my best friend and beautiful wife, Bassie," he said, drawing their attention to the flattered lady sitting beside him. "She will be living here with me from now on, she's always a good neighbour."
The dinning room was quiet and the dinning table was motionless except for Bassie who waved at the Ttotsi family a hand that exposed her gold-shiny wedding ring at the table, you could imagine the feelings and reactions that might follow such quietness.
"How long have you been married?" Mr Ttotsi asked in a heartbreaking tone.
"Five years," the man replied politely with a smile.
THE END
