by
Fasil

The in-grown toenail is a stupidity of nature. It happens when your nail is possessed by a mutinous craze for perverted growth. As if in a desperate attempt to escape the maw of the guillotine, it begins to sprawl sideways, recklessly slicing through the flesh of your toe and causing you great discomfort as it does, until you can bear it no longer and decide to get it corrected by surgery.

I made an appointment to see a podiatrist (the more impressive title of a foot doctor) to put an end to this nail-inflicted pain on my big toe. On the day of my visit, I trimmed my toenails with a clipper and carefully washed my feet, especially the one that was to be closely inspected by the doctor. I soaked it in warm water gently rubbing soap lather between the toes.

A man's toenails are not an attractive sight. Perhaps because they live in eternal heat, sweat and darkness, crammed in suffocating pockets of leather and rubber, they give the finishing touch to the hunchbacked, crooked bunch of a man's toes. In protest of the strangling confinement of socks and shoes, their growth is frantic. At that time of your life when all parts of your body have long since gulped the last drops from the cup of growth allotted them, toenails are one of a few other rebels (such as hair that vanishes at your top to sprout out of your ears and nostrils, and to nourish and multiply that in your middle) that defy the sanctions of nature.

I rinsed and reapplied soap. You don't just shove your foot in the face of someone who, for all you know, could have an out-of-this-world notion of cleanliness; unless you are certain that you have gotten rid of the faintest trace of offensive odor. When I had done enough washing, I dried it with a towel and saw that excessive scrubbing had depleted its moisture. An intricate web of cracks had spread over its top and made it look like I had scratched it with gusto. I had to resuscitate it with Vaseline. I did, and it looked tolerable. But I was still wary of its smell. To put my mind at ease, I sat on a chair and picked it up with both hands to pull it up to my nose, almost dislocating my hip in the process. The decades had stiffened my joints so badly that I felt as though my bones were cast in gypsum. I couldn't hold my feet in contact with my nose for more than a second at time. Alas! Gone were the days when I could easily chomp through my toenails with my incisors. But my foot was odorless, at least as far as my sense of smell was concerned.

To my surprise, the reception hall at the podiatrist's office was packed. In my country, most of the doctors make a living because they are versed in treating a good part of the human body; and even those so-called specialists deal with such arch-vital organs as the heart, the brain, the eyes and the kidneys. With all due respect to foot doctors, I can't help wondering if this relentless staking out of the body into ever-shrinking territories would some day soon spawn specialists of the little toe.

The walls of the reception room were adorned with grotesque color pictures of a variety of foot deformities: warts, bunions, hammertoes, corns, and my very own flesh-slicing toenail. I sat over pages of convoluted forms, wondering how history of the mental and physical health of my parents could possibly be of help to the podiatrist in treating my ingrown toenail. I completed the form, gave it back to the receptionist and sat examining the crowd around me.

It is interesting to watch the often hyper-charged, restless New Yorkers confined in a state of idleness in a doctor's waiting room. A life of endless rush and scurrying in this colossus of a city has perverted most New Yorkers' perception of time to such a degree that a few minutes of inactivity ignites in them something akin to panic over the wasted time. Waiting to be called in, the patients are trying, in a variety of ways, to make what better use of their time they could: tinkering with their hand-held electronic gadgets, reading something, looking at their watch every now and then, sighing, pacing back and forth like caged cheetahs, and collectively turning their heads towards the entrance to the doctor's office whenever a patient exited.

An angry looking man, who for some reason I believe is a lawyer, is sitting opposite me, dressed in an expensive suit that fit his trim body perfectly. He has a dark mustache, both ends thinly swooping down the corner of his lips to mingle with his goatee. He picks one out of a pile of old magazines on the table, quickly ruffles through the pages, throws it back and picks up another.

An immensely tall man who is sitting next to the lawyer is fiddling with his Palm Pilot playing some adolescent game, and clumsily crossing and uncrossing his gigantic legs every now and then. I have never seen such prodigious limbs. People thought I was tall in the town where I grew up. When I came to the US and saw that I was no more than of average height, I quit my swagger of a giant. If the folks back home saw this mountain of a man, they would take him for a monstrous apparition, and perhaps stone him to death.

At the far end of the room sits a mammoth lady. She could be in her mid twenties, but she has a babyish face. Her neck is slender in sharp contrast to the torso it is planted on, which is a titanic mound of flesh. Breasts like a prize milk-cow's udders, pillow-sized biceps, elephantine thighs, and calves that could outweigh watermelons, tapering into two ordinary feet clad in small shoes. Snugly stuffed into the wide, cozy armchair, she is the only person in the room who is calmly awaiting her turn. Her face is bathed in serenity, and a halo of peace and harmony hovers over her head.

And then, someone made an entrance and stirred up a silent commotion among the men. The magic she brought into the room was so potent that it dispelled the thick cloud of boredom that had fogged up our eyes and we all shamelessly partook in feasting on her. I can't sing praises to her beauty because the effect she had on us was caused not in the flawlessness of individual body parts, but in the unique blend of attributes that has captured in her the illusive essence of true beauty. To me, she was simply perfection, the embodiment of all my fantasies of a truly beautiful woman. A woman that stunning could not have come for anything other than a follow-up visit for a sprained ankle. I couldn't imagine any of those ghastly foot deformities daring to sully such a beauty.

She sat right next to me, leaving me no choice but to turn my head a full 180^o to stare at her. She caught me in the act a few times, and smiled briefly as she did. She finally picked up a magazine with amusement and nervousness vying for dominion on her face. When she was later called in to see the doctor, an elderly woman hoarsely berated the receptionist for letting people in without their turn. She was chided back by a high pitched voice that there was no need to lose her temper since the lady had been there earlier, and that she had stepped out for a while when she was told she could wait for more than an hour. A few minutes later, the head-turner emerged, and after briefly speaking with the receptionist, she left, escorted out by many brazen eyes.

"Come on in, Daniel," said the doctor with a smile. She was a genial woman probably in her late thirties. She had strikingly undoctorly features. Most of the doctors I have come across in my life, or at least those that have played a role in forming the image I have of doctors, are business-like, impatient, jargon-spouting creatures severely deprived of candor and warmth, perhaps from years of being privy to the groans and complaints of a multitude of strangers. But this podiatrist promised to be different. I gathered that from her smile.

"Have a seat," she said indicating an armchair by her desk. I sat.

"You have an interesting last name," she said. My last name has thirteen letters.

"Interesting" is a word that could mean, well, anything. If I had not already been favorably disposed towards her, I would have been offended by that remark. I am at times smitten with ire when someone says "interesting" to something I said or did, when I suspect what they really mean is something like, "how stupid," or "how barbaric."

"You have an admirer!" she said smiling and frankly looking into my eyes. The thought flashed through my head that the cute podiatrist was offering herself to me.

"She said she'd like to get to know you. Is that okay with you?" she asked me in her euphonious voice. What she said had set my heart thumping and my tongue melting in my mouth. Too dumbfounded for words, I remained mute with a frozen, imbecilic grin. Taking my speechlessness for consent, she said: "She left her number with me here. If you are interested, I'll give it to you and you can call her." She handed me a piece of paper with a name and a phone number scribbled on it. Tina. That was not the doctor's name. But...Wait a minute! Tina? That must be the crowd-stunning, commotion-starting beauty that had left earlier. "She was here a while ago," said the doctor confirming my guess.

It was her alright. Remember that seductive, amused look she gave me when she caught me lapping her face with my eyes; that winsomely coquettish smile I had taken for nervousness as we locked eyes for a moment before she shyly picked up a magazine? She was flashing the green at me in her exquisite, dainty ways. But I was too pragmatic to take it for what it was.

"Do you like classical music?" asked me the doctor.

"Yes," I answered.

"Great! She is a classical musician. She plays the violin."

The violin. That most eccentric-looking soul of all classical music instruments appeared in my imagination as if made to complement her poetic essence.

"So what brings you here, Daniel?" asked Dr. Green trying without success to assume a doctorly air. Her eyes were bursting in laughter as I sat grinning and sweating like an idiot who has just solved a difficult puzzle.

"Uh...I...detected...uh... I think I have ingrown toenail," I stammered out of breath. She asked me to take off my shoes and examined my nail-pierced big toe, gently prodding it with latex-gloved fingers. Although I knew my foot was immaculate, I looked at her face uneasily as she peered at my unappealing big toe, but I saw no hint of displeasure.

"It sure is," she said. "Nothing to worry about. We will fix it in no time. You give this to the nurse and she will tell you what to do," she said, handing me a slip of paper. "See you in a bit."

As soon as I stepped out of the clinic after a quick surgery, I took out the paper and looked at the phone number. Tina lived in Manhattan. God of the universe, who can fathom your ways? You see, it was not that I was desperate for company. In fact, I had then already started an involvement with someone, something that could end up being a serious relationship. But when one as stunningly attractive as Tina falls for you, you might even be tempted to find fault with the one you had thought was your other half. As for her magical allure, if you doubt my zealous praise, take it from the roomful of imperfect-footed men, whose stark agitation on seeing her cluttered the air with many fluttering wings of lust.

Who can ever have a clue of the whimsical surprises that some days spring on him? I left my bed that morning with nothing much beyond the prospect of my visit at the podiatrist's, and returned home with an offer from one of the loveliest women I had ever seen, and with a piece of paper bearing her name and number written with her own hand.

I wasn't lying when I told Dr. G. that I loved classical music. I adore Beethoven. My soul has at times eloped with his music and soared in a chariot of ecstasy. There are some sonatas of Mozart that make my heart drunk with the joy of pumping blood.

I saw Tina in my mind's eye, playing the violin. If things work out between us, there would be many blissful moments when she would be playing some sweet music for me, and I would be sitting at her feet watching her, drinking the melodies as they drip out of her fingertips, and melting with love and admiration. She might even teach me to play the violin, although it might be a bit too late for my thirty-odd-year-old fingers to measure up to the nimbleness required to play the violin. To master instruments, one has to start playing them at a young age, they say. But that does not mean I can't learn a couple of silly nursery songs; and with my latent knack for music, who knows how far I can go with the violin?

What am I to do with Lilly? That is her name, the one I am seeing. It was only circumstances that put her in my way at a time when I was eagerly looking for feminine company. She is alright in many ways and we like each other. But Tina has already begun meddling with my view of the relationship. All the misdeeds and imperfections of Lilly that I had promptly forgiven and willingly overlooked surfaced from the back of my head and acquired graver proportions.

Tina was not at home when I called. It was eight o'clock in the evening. After I left a message, I caught myself thinking longer than appropriate, of where she might have been. She returned my call the following day and we agreed to meet that Saturday afternoon at three.

Having been through a number of first dates, I was used to the rigmarole of grooming to impress. But the thought of a first date with Tina made the ritual excessively meticulous.

I arrived at the café at a quarter to three. It was one of those cafés that have of late sprouted all over Manhattan, attracting a class of clientele willing to be filched for high-priced, Italianized beverages. I felt conspicuous as I headed to a vacant seat. I thought I would wait for Tina to get something to drink.

I tried to read an article in a newspaper someone had left on the table. It might have been an interesting article that I could easily consume and digest at other times; but I was in such a state waiting for Tina that I found it hard to focus my attention. All I could gather with difficulty from ten minutes of running my restless eyes over it was that it was a grim piece about the rising number of American children committing violent crime.

"Daniel?"

"Yes?"

"Hi. I am Tina. Sorry I'm late. I missed my bus and I had to wait another ten minutes," she said panting. I sat dumbstruck, debilitated in disbelief. My tongue thickened in my mouth and my soaring heart sagged as if the blood in it had suddenly turned to lead.

"It's...alright. Nice to meet you," I mumbled grimacing in a fake smile. Tina unloaded herself into the chair. I thought the spindle-legged chair would buckle under her any moment, but it did not.

"Do you live in this area?" she asked me.

"Uh...yes. I mean, not far. I walked here."

Silence. Something in my chest was itching to explode in laughter at the ludicrousness of it all, but I clenched my teeth and choked it. I slammed the door shut on the jumbled swirl of disappointment, panic and self-scorn that was clamoring in my head, and forced myself to focus in pretending to be Tina's date for the day, holding my attention by the throat.

"Would you like to get something to drink?" I asked.

"Actually, I am hungry."

"Great! I haven't eaten lunch myself. There's a good Chinese restaurant two blocks down. Do you like Chinese?"

I was overdoing the enthusiasm in an attempt to appear composed.

"I love Chinese food," she said rising to her feet. She was startlingly agile for her size.

"So I heard you play the violin."

"The cello," she corrected me.

"Oh! The cello." Doctor Green's memory needs some oiling. Medical schools abuse their students' brains, forcing them to cram piles of junk they will never use. But the cello fitted Tina as the violin did the nameless Aphrodite I had seen at the podiatrist's.

"I love classical music," I blurted.

"Really?"

"Yeah. I never understood it for a long time, but when I did, it was as if I discovered a treasure."

"It is a treasure."

"Where do you play?"

"I am a member of a struggling quartet. In fact, we have a show next Sunday. I can get you a free ticket if you want to come."

"That'd be great! I'd love to come."

The Chinese waiter smiled as he led us to a neatly set table in a corner. I doubted if his smile was that of simple politeness. I had already become touchy. I picked my choice at once, and began studying Tina as she pored over the menu. I had seen several obese people in the past, but I had never closely examined one. What surged inside me, as my eyes nakedly traversed her immensity, was awe more than anything else.

"I'll go for the sesame chicken," she said closing the menu and slamming it down on the table.

"I'm having the steamed flounder."

The waiter came and took our order. He still wore that aggravating smirk on his mug.

"So what do you do, Daniel?'

"I am a social worker."

"Oh, really? I have a friend who is a social worker. She says it is a demanding job."

"Well, that's for sure. A social worker deals with people with lots of problems. Ideally one has to have inexhaustible patience and a good measure of compassion to be a social worker. But that is of course easier said than done. I learned that during the first couple of years," I said and waited for Tina to say something. She was just looking at me with interest.

"I mean," I went on, vaguely discomfited, "I considered my job some kind of a calling, and I was willing to give all that I could to the people I was assigned to help, and I did. But I soon found out that some of my clients simply took advantage of me and wore out my patience. They mistook my sincere desire to help for foolishness."

"You have doubts about your choice of a career?" asked Tina, slightly concerned.

"No! Not at all," I answered defensively. "I have always wanted to work with people, and I am glad that's what I do for a living. But it is not an easy job. It abounds in stress and frustration. It is not giving too much that drains you. It is the lack of appreciation and outright meanness of some of your clients."

"What kind of problems do your clients have?"

"Mostly emotional. But I am not saying all of them are alike. There are some who give me back as much, and even more. The ones that heal the hurt the ingrates deal me. They restore my faith in my work."

Two steaming plates were placed on the table. We both quietly downed quite a few mouthfuls until satiated enough to feel discomfort at the prolonged silence.

"Are you married, Daniel?"

That was kinda direct. "No, I am not. I am a bachelor. Hmm! A funny word, bachelor."

"It is, isn't it?"

"It makes me think of this guy."

"Who?"

"There was this unmarried man who lived in my hometown. He was the only middle-aged single person in the neighborhood."

"Yes?"

"People saw that as some kind of a curse. He was always well dressed and devotedly took care of himself. Folks despised him for that, for indulging his appetite for life without anyone to share it with, for living as if there was no old age, no death."

"Where are you from, by the way?"

"Ethiopia."

"Really? I Knew you were from Africa, but I was not sure where. I have some Ethiopian music that I bought at some cultural exhibition."

"Do you like it?"

"It is interesting."

Don't get me started on "interesting"!

"It is all like...melancholy, sad tunes, like the blues. But the lyrics are lively. It is unusual to hear cheerful lyrics in glum sounding songs."

"That is interesting!"

"What?"

"Your observation. I never thought of that before. It is so true."

A man sitting alone at a table next to us whispers in his cellular phone while his food lies cold, untouched.

"Are you married?" I asked Tina. I wouldn't have asked if she hadn't.

"No, I am a spinster," she laughed, shaking. Earthquake.

I laughed.

"What a word. Sounds like sinister. That was probably what they wanted it to sound like when they coined it," she said still giggling.

We talked a lot, Tina and I. We even went to a bar and had some drinks. She was pleasant to be with. We both lightened up as the evening wore on, and I enjoyed her sense of humor. She asked me once if I was seeing someone, and I said yes. That sort of spoiled the fun for a while. I promised to keep in touch as we parted.

I liked Tina a lot. She is sincere and kind-hearted. I wish I could keep the friendship part of our relationship, but I knew that was not what Tina had in mind.

As soon as I was by myself, my thoughts raced back to Lilly.

Forgive me, Lilly. Nothing flatters a man's ego as the thought of being desired by a good-looking woman. Temptation is my folly, for I am the son of my father who had relinquished eternal bliss in Eden for a promise of apple-born wisdom. The difference is, I have eaten my apple, and the wisdom has taken nothing away from me except the naiveté that the most beautiful woman in town would, on laying eyes on me for the first time, throw herself at my feet.