We kissed in his office afterwards, long passionate kisses..
I didn't feel hungry, i didn't feel tired.. I just kissed that man like i had no tomorrow.
I could feel his confusion with my decision to stay, he was hesitant with every touch he made.. And he was eager and unsatisfied as well, as if he was living a dream which he didn't believe yet he refused to wake up from, such a state is something very natural and expected of course, since i always led the life of a prideful selfish person with him, he simply couldn't believe i actually chose to stay despite the big fat quarrel we had earlier.
It is not an exaggeration to say that all the knifes were out that day, we really had that type of quarrel that can simply be written in the category of "unreconciled differences" on a divorce paper. A quarrel that the 80 years old me would have recalled and then proudly said: " my decision of ending my marriage with him was right.. It was impossible between me and that man!"
But i stayed, and magically i let go of everything.
I just wanted to treasure him too, and give us a chance to try fixing things somehow.
While kissing him i teasingly said:
_"you dare touch me after saying you hated me?"
He surprisingly became so emotional hearing this, dealing with an emotional version of Eliyas Filladi was of course something unusual for me. He stopped kissing me only to tightly hug my waist while i lied on top of him on the sofa and he whispered:
_" you're the only person for who i had both love and hatred, and who i'm still insanely in love with no matter how much i hated, i had never treasured a person the way i treasure you."
I was messing with his hair while he said these words.. So i pecked his forehead once he finished speaking feeling happy and satisfied.
Speaking of our positions on the sofa, precisely me being on top, the shameless person who took the lead again to start the naughty business was clear, like i said.. Someone was still in a rather confused state so naturally the other partner, namely me, had to take the first step.
_"you still love me today?.. I hurt you so much" I whispered while looking inside his eyes, although the answer was clear.
_"hmm"
_" i'm sorry for hurting you, i shouldn't have spoken about the accident."
He looked at me pensively for a bit .. Then he helped me get up so as we both sit properly on the sofa, he then said:
_"Noursine, i really loved our son as much as you did.. When i walked inside the room and i found you on the floor, i thought i had lost my whole world, maybe i wasn't the best father.. But i loved my unborn son, and i had fought to keep him in the way a father should, i don't blame you for whatever that you say.. But refrain from accusing me of never loving or wanting my child, or running from that responsibility because i never did."
Speaking of responsibility, it suddenly and finally occurred to me to ask:
_" by the way, were the windows in the lobby surveyed? Someone might have witnessed us together"
Eliyas, who maybe was waiting for me to say something more serious, looked genuinely taken aback before he replied:
_"it's the protection team's job to inspect all the surrounding area so i believe they wouldn't miss such detail, but you don't have to hide our relationship from people anymore, i'll soon announce our marriage now that we're back together."
_" your family will not be so pleased" i commented while shaking my head.
_"Noursine Saadat will you please just focus on us now!"
In the end we spent so much more time in the office since Eliyas suddenly turned into a chatterbox and made a lot a decisions, by the time we walked out of the office it was 1am .. IÂ was exhausted and starved because Mr Filladi forgot that people have basic needs such as eating and sleeping while he conducted his long enthusiastic decision speech, but i was not his only victim.. The poor guards who suddenly had an indefinitely long shift were standing like martyr statues along our way out to the entrance, I felt so sorry for involving the poor them.
I felt even more sorry for the driver whose only job consisted of driving the car from the parking lot of the company to its entrance since he was the only person entrusted with the safety of the car.
Now put your selves in his sad shoes, he had to stay from 8am in the morning to 1am in the night just to drive the car for merely 5 minutes!
The details in which he will take the car from my neighborhood later to park it somewhere safe before bringing it back again in the morning, i don't even want to think of how sad they are.
The torturer of these innocent souls seemed unfairly happy while driving us home, he even carelessly turned on the radio and commented:
_" by the way, i listened to your show everyday.. Of course it wasn't the most pleasant thing hearing you speak poorly about me especially during the last week before you quit, and reflecting negatively when mentioning details about our married life, you even dared to say our marriage brought you no joy and i was a faceless cold person."
I wanted to ask: " so, it this why you became so petty that you forced me to quit??!"
But i didn't say a thing.
For the last three years, my memories of him were very subjective, very modified. I seldom remembered the happy moments we shared, only recalling his cold attitude towards me and continuous formal and emotionless behavior, because that's what pure hatred does.. It only keeps the bad deeds alive in the heart.
I cursed him every time i thought of him, i even cruelly wished he was dead, those three years only nurtured my hatred towards this person and completely distorted his image although objectively speaking living with him wasn't that bad.
_" Eliyas" i called his name.
_"hmm"
_" i don't hate you anymore" i confessed.
_" you never truly hated me Noursine" he smugly interrupted my heartfelt confession.
I looked at him feeling displeased with his over confidence and i asked:
_" do you live inside my heart? Do you know my heart better than I do? I say I hated you before and I don't hate you now, how can you confidently say that I'm wrong!"
_" I'm sure about this at least, I don't know whether you ever loved me .. But you didn't hate me, back when I lived in your apartment after you left and I followed, although you didn't speak to me you still covered me with a quilt at night when I intentionally slept without covering my self, although the weather was warm and I wouldn't__"
_"you snake! You did it intentionally?!" I interrupted him being seriously displeased at this point .. I looked at him wanting to strangle him to death and added:
_" how does that confirm the fact that i didn't hate you!"
He laughed looking very amused in contrast with my deteriorating mood and he uttered one sentence:
_"I know how you hate based on your hatred for my mother"
Once this sentence was said, I remained pensively silent for a very long time, in the end, I very seriously admitted:
_" i think you're correct"
The reason for this being me recalling how I treated my mother in-law who I definitely hated, a particular series of memories came to my mind on the mention of this.
This series of events happened during that period when Ines, my sister in-law, suddenly started to develop a keen interest in cooking, as for why she was so motived to improve her culinary skills out of the blue that I don't know about, After a series of failed dishes she was getting more desperate with every passing day.. That is until she one day miraculously mastered preparing a certain soup, whose name I don't remember, anyways I was generous on the breakfast table that day when endlessly praising her, I even chose to ignore mentioning the fact that such soup shouldn't normally be served on breakfast, yet this sharp tongued mother in-law of mine mocked me saying:
_" you should learn from your masters (meaning Ines) how to cook! I hardly see any quality about you, you can't even boil an egg"
She further praised her daughter until that plate of soup turned into a plate of liquid gold, then asked her to cook this soup especially for her every morning.
Your girl who has hardly any quality and can't even boil an egg happened to have a sharp memory and high observation skills. These two hardly noticed qualities of mine led me to two useful conclusions:
1- that the reason for my sister in-laws very poor culinary skills was because she simply refused to taste her dishes when cooking and serving them for god only knows what bizarre reason.
2- my mother in-low really hated food which was spiced with cumin.
So I set an alarm, and I started to daily wake up at 5 am before Eliyas does then sneakily go to the kitchen to spray cumin on the expensive fish ( i don't even know what that fish was called) which Ines would use to cook that soup.
This plan of mine could have simply been ruined if my sister in law washed the fish, or had a better eye vision and noticed the brown color on the fish's surface, or even if she simply tasted the soup she made.
I enjoyed the sight of my mother in-law daily drinking that excessively spiced with cumin soup with tears in her eyes but never daring to say one word of comment, she finished it all to please her daughter.
I did this for a long time without a single thread of guilt, I never said I'm a nice person.
Unfortunately, one early morning I was in the middle of executing my daily plan of spraying cumin on the fish when Eliyas caught me red handed.
He somehow woke up early too, he followed me soundlessly, then he stood beside the kitchen counter like a ghost and asked me:
_" what are you doing?"
I made a signal for him to hush the moment I heard his question, I finished spraying the cumin, put back the fish in the fridge, then held his hand and dragged him out of the kitchen holding the jar of cumin with my other hand to prove I innocently only sprayed clean cumin.
Once we reached our room, I immediately admitted:
_" what do you think i'm doing?.. Of course I'm spraying cumin for your mother to eat it later in Ines's soup"
_"cumin?" He asked while chuckling.
I gave him the jar of cumin and said:
_" here .. You can go analyse it in the lab to make sure I was not poisoning your mother, you can tell her as well and I'm ready to eat cabbages everyday as punishment, but I do not regret making her eat the cumin she hated everyday!"
He laughed for half an hour that morning, I don't know whether he later sent the spice's jar for investigation but what I know is that he never told his mother about this.
The point is.. During the time I supposedly hated this man, I still treated him kindly.. Although I'm not such a humanly person.
I looked at the man driving the car beside me, and suddenly I had this moment when the whole existence seemed like it was wiped out, and I felt extremely light headed and empty of thoughts.
In such a moment of enlightenment people with great minds had the most extraordinary of ideas and made the world we know now, in my moment of enlightenment I didn't seek greatness nor I wanted to change the world for the next generations to come, I just wanted to have absolute knowledge about one small thing.. And that is:
'if i didn't hate Eliyas.. Then was it love that I had for him?'
My moment of enlightenment soon ended with one conclusion: that no .. I don't love him.
I got used to him.. I feel comfortable around him, but I absolutely don't love him the way a woman loves a man.
_" When will you start to pack up?"
Eliyas suddenly asked cutting my line of thinking while the radio announced it was 1:30 am sharp.
Among the decisions Eliyas and I made ( Eliyas made and I followed), was the decision to move back to the villa for a little while as a trial.. If it was still uncomfortable for us to stay there then Eliyas will see what he'll do next about it.
Since it was more convenient for me to save the money I pay for rent and the other expenses I didn't object although I really .. really didn't want to go back living with my in laws.
I looked at the streetlights outside the car then replied:
_" it'll take me 3 to 4 days to pack everything, I need to find a place where to store the furniture."
_" No, you only need to pack your clothes, leave
Everything just the way it is, the apartment is already ours, I bought it"
_"what!" I yelled in surprise.
He didn't even turn to look at me, this man drives the car like if he's driving a plane, even a pilot puts the plane on a robot mode but god bless Eliyas he doesn't lose his focus not even for a slight moment, it's already a miracle that he speaks with me while driving.
However, although he didn't get to see the shock on my face, still my deafeningly screaming "whaat!!" was enough to convey my surprise.
_" i bought it" he repeated amused.
_"why!?.. Why would you waste money purchasing an apartment that you're supposed to just rent!"
He smiled widely then explained:
_" this apartment holds precious memories to me, I wanted to keep it."
_"and why didn't the landlord inform me about this? What if we had a major fight and you decided to kick me out of my house?"
_"he naturally haven't told you because he was informed that I'm your husband, what kind of husband do you think I am? Why would I kick you out in case we had a fight? Wasn't I always the one to be kicked out by you?"
I looked at him displeased, then I sulked and added:.
_" then, we'll go back to the villa tomorrow?"
_"hmm"