Death by Silence
by: EGH

Since there was no postmark on the envelope, I assumed she had dropped it off in the mailbox sometime during the day. My wife had perfect penmanship and, in her very perfect penmanship, she had scrawled my name on the front of the thick letter size envelope… in pencil. My wife used a pencil to write my name. I could tell she wrote it several times… the letters were doubled and tripled at some places, the graphite of the pencil carved deep into the paper. I burrowed into my memory of all I know of Freud and concluded it was the first sign of any kind of emotion on her part.

Inside the envelope on a sticky notepaper with her company’s logo on it were simple words, again in pencil. "Please sign and return a.s.a.p. Best, Tseday." I unfolded the wad of papers. Several neon green "sign here" stickers stuck out from several pages. Four years and some months of marriage ended with me being guided by neon green stickies to sign off on a relationship that was not even the worst. Four years and change and we could not even to meet to talk about our divorce. In silence, I signed where I was told, folded it back and headed towards the liquor cabinet.

By the time I was half drunk, I was flirting with the idea of tearing the papers up and dragging Tseday through divorce court. At least then we could talk, or, better yet, shout. But she is the epitome of the CHewa Ethiopian intellectual. She would probably call me to coldly inquire about my reneging on the "deal," and rationalize it. Or, MOST probably, she would shut me out and talk to me through her lawyer, which would drive me crazy - which she knows would drive me crazy. There were no more battles left to be fought in order to win the big war, so I crossed off my name on the same envelope she used, and deliberately casually wrote her name, put our divorce papers back in and sealed it. I toyed with adding a smiley face after her name, but it seemed so childish, even in inebriation. After a long debate with myself, however, I added an exclamation mark after her name: Tseday!

Last call from a dead man walking.

I was best man at my best buddy Agonafer’s wedding. His nickname back when we were in high school was "Qesu" for exactly what he was not, and for his ability to become the confidant of all the pretty girls. "Esti Genetin labablat zarE," meant that Genet was a) distressed about something, and if she was not distressed he would say something TO distress her; b) she needed to be comforted; and c) he was the one to comfort her. Qesu was the impossible combination of the playa/feminist who "connected" with a lot of girls at a level none of us could even dream about. All the while, he would chastise the rest of us who made them cry. "Setochun esti tewachew," was his standard line when we complained about the women folk. What he left unsaid after that line was the word "le-innE!" Even though we hated the incongruity of his luck/MOD, we could not but envy him selling his tactics to a lot, a LOT of girls, all of whom thought he was their best friend. They wanted all of us to emulate his feleg. Ay Qesu!

When he got married we thought it would never last. At his wedding we were betting how many phone numbers of the prettiest girls he would end up with. The arguments he would have with his wife were downright harrowing… in front of us too. Made all of us swear to hang on to bachelorhood with the same firmness of a lifejacket after the Titanic’s first encounter with an iceberg.

"Ahunis beqaN!" Agonafer would often complain. "CHiqiCHiq… beqaN." But six years later, they still laugh as hard as they scream. He was hard pressed to believe that Tseday and I were thinking of splitting up, ending what he thought was the perfect marriage of a calm, steady unity. He asked me why. I told him "CHiqiChiq nafeqeN." He called it the "death by silence" syndrome. "Silence is the silent killer."

I agreed it was the most painful of deaths. Before we could talk further, Agonafer’s 3 year old called him. He hung up the phone promising to call me later.

I thought I should call Tseday to tell her that I signed the papers. But the sting of her pencil-written note mitigated my desperation.

My younger brother was on vacation with his wife. My two youngest sisters… they are young. Being oldest suddenly left me unimpressed.

I called my father to inform him of my divorce. The long silence, which I thought would finally mushroom into that one heart-to-heart every adult son should have with his father, ended with Dad’s familiar "Dehna… yihun esti". Thank God for the Lakers, Dow Jones and Ethiopian politics. Otherwise….