What was it like to go back with Eliyas?
I discovered that the 31 years old him was less mature than the 27 years old him, which is quite weird actually, since people tend to get more mature with the coming of ages whereas this husband of mine was living his days backwards.
You see, back when we were first married i was terrified with his over mature personality, he was serious 100% of the time, and when i threw jokes he didn't even get them!
I was only 23 years old then, i was very youthful and loved to have fun, since i was always surrounded with people only my age my mentality and even the manner in which i spoke was influenced with the modern way of talking belonging to the younger people, having a husband with a slight generation gap i thought it will be very easy to communicate with him at first, ultimately i found out i was married to a man in the mental age of 60 years old! Not only he had no idea about the most trivial of matters related to actualities such as social media, movies,the whole freaking modern world .. We even found it challenging to actually find any common topic to talk about.
Try to see things from my perspective, a newly bride whose husband only knows business .. Only speaks about stock markets and financial details i have no clue about not to mention that i had not a single thread of interest in hearing about, i was so downcast back then, we didn't even have a honeymoon since he had to work daily that is of course including weekends, So in the end i realised i married the most boring person in the world, i lost every desire in trying to communicate with him, although with the passing of days we naturally had more mutual things to share.. But i think it was because of this first long period of lack of understanding and affection that i ended up having so little emotions towards him.
Which is rather unfair to him, if the first time our marriage happened was not when i had my immature age of 23 i would have appreciated so many qualities about him: like his absolute patience in dealing with the flips of my mood, his sincerity to our marriage, his unperturbed and everlasting commitment in face of every problem we had.
The older me would have appreciated his calm and mature affections, and would have known better that a "romantic lover" isn't just a person who showers me with beautiful words and throws a surprise every two days, he can as well be a boring person who is just too inexperienced to express him self.
The 31 years old Eliyas though was different, maybe during those 3 years of separation he did a lot of reflecting, in the end the emotionless piece of wood turned into both a raging fire and a chatterbox.
When we were still in the office before leaving at 1am and he was speaking excitedly about his plans for our future i just stared at him at one point and i wondered: is this man really Eliyas?
He wasn't afraid of smiling, he wasn't afraid of mimicking my eastern accent while boldly teasing me, it was actually fun to spend long continuous hours talking with him, and getting to know this side of his.
Isn't it weird? That sometimes a woman can be married to a man for 4 long years and yet is still in the process of being introduced to him.
But even seeing such a side of him i still realised that in my heart.. Eliyas Filladi.. Was still the same mature and calm lover.
Speaking of raging fire, when we reached the house i ended up not getting any food to eat because someone had other body needs to take care of first and couldn't wait not for a second longer. In the end it wasn't until we woke up late the next day that he remembered:
_" we forgot to eat yesterday, i'm going to order food now"
I looked at him on the verge of crying, how is it that we forgot! I mentioned that i was hungry so many times that i became full only from talking about my starvation! Yet someone was very occupied to actually focus on the words i was saying!
_"you don't have to go to work today, i'll ask for a leave for you" Eliyas joyfully said while hugging me and kissing my cheek.
I felt so odd with this "honeymoon vibe" he was emitting, so i released my self from his hug, i jumped out of the bed, Properly put on my pyjamas and then i turned to look at him again while holding my hair with a clip and i said:
_"what about you? Are you going to work?"
_"yes.. Naturally"
I frowned right away, not because he was going to work and i'll especially miss him but because he said "naturally" !!
As if his work is important whereas i'm just an insignificant employee who can ask for a leave whenever she pleased and her absence wouldn't affect anything, i hate that this is actually the truth!
Still i pettily objected:
_" why should i have a leave! i should too go work no matter what are the circumstances! i should be serious about my work as well!"
He casted me a long pensive look and then he shamelessly commented:
_" Are you sure you're fit to go to work today?"
That scum!
I stormed off to the bathroom without saying not even one additional word.
In the end we haven't moved to the villa until the end of the following weekend, due to reasons i should not speak about.
I didn't take much of my clothes, while packing i discovered that my style of clothing didn't precisely reflect the maturity of my age, take my pyjamas as an example of that, the ones that didn't have an animal print on them were either pink or had slogans such as: "i love you" or " i love to party". It is very inconvenient to meet my serious father-in-law who spent his life reading, signing papers, and delt with the most sophisticated of bussinessmen with a pink pyjamas with "i love to party" written on its chest.
So before we went to the villa i invested my save ups in buying a couple of new housewears and comfortable serious attires to wear as well while moving around the villa.
We headed together first thing in the morning to that place i haven't visited in long years. I didn't feel any particular emotion once we reached the big entrance gate, the gate guards team had different workers from before so i was formally introduced to them as the lady of the house by Eliyas.
When we drove across the long garden path and we finally stopped at the internal gate i remembered to ask:
_"was your family informed about us moving in again?"
_" i informed the servants to prepare our room so they will naturally know"
_" it's inappropriate Eliyas, you should have informed them personally" i objected.
He looked at me seriously .. And then asked:
_"Noursine, in the last three years had anyone among them tried to contact you? Or tried to ask how you were doing? They are not concerned to know your whereabouts so why should they be informed of your return?"
I didn't object any longer.
I wondered what look will they have on their faces once they see me, when i had my miscarriage and Eliyas and I were on the verge of divorce no one predicted that there will come a day when i will come back to this place again except for Eliyas himself.
I'm very physically different than how i used to look three years earlier: my really, really long dark hair of then is a short brown bob now, my makeup free face of then is makeup loaded now, although i'm still small framed but i'm rather fuller than before, and i no longer curry an innocent carefree smile.
my carefree soul was murdered there once, and it will never be revived again.
I directed my gaze at the calm husband who was sitting beside me in the car and i reminded him:
_" i will not stay here if i'm treated the same as before just so you know, if anyone tries to insult me i'll move back to my apartment and you're free to do whatever that pleases you"
_" No one will take the risk of mistreating you Noursine"
He replied while opening his seat door and walking out of the car, I haven't even opened my door yet when the servants already greeted me and went to the car trunk to take our luggage, it sure felt weird to be served again.
Although that unromantic creature called my husband waited for me until i followed him before he started walking inside the villa, but it was left to me to take care of details such as wrapping my arm around his and squeezing my small self to his side to indicate that this man belonged to me.
We were received by the whole family the moment we walked inside that place, they were all standing in a line in the hall as if they were welcoming the kings of the world, my grandmother was standing with them as well..
That family haven't changed, not even a bit, maybe mr belguassem Filladi had few more grey strands of hair here and there but my mother-in-law looked like a copy-paste version of her old self, even the manner she extravagantly put on jewelries and fancy clothes inside her own house haven't changed.
As for Ines, who is 2 years my junior, she still looked elegantly elegant ..and Extremely cold.
I haven't yet finished analysing them when my grandmother jumped to my side and yelled:
_" you ungrateful granddaughter! How can you let me know of your coming back from the servants! But i'm still happy that you finally had your brain back and you made amends with your husband"
I just smiled and hugged that old woman tightly, when we parted from the tight hug we had, we both wiped our tears in the speed of light not to show that we were emotional, i really missed that woman despite everything.
Although before i left Eliyas she made her stance clear: she will absolutely not come to see me again if i left my husband, and i made my stance clear: i will absolutely not come to see her if she chose his side, she still called me once in 2 months or so, fearing that i might die without her knowing about it.
I greeted my father-in-law despite knowing he was partly involved in my father's death, i totally ignored the other insignificant two people and then i whispered to Eliyas:
_" you talk properly with your family, i'll go ahead before you to our room"
He nodded.. So i took the stairs and went up.
I haven't even had a proper look at the room when my grandmother opened the door and had "i'm here to gossip" written all over her face.
She quickly dismissed the servant who was about to start unpacking the bags, she installed her self on the sofa and then patted on the space beside her indicating that i should go sit beside her.
Once i did that, she couldn't even wait for one more second when she bursted:
_" wallah you made me proud! You're indeed my granddaughter! I did well with bringing you up!"
She quickly looked at the door as if fearing someone might overhear us and then she continued:
_"you should have told me you had it all planned before you left! Your husband took over all the properties of his father just to please you, you even made him go to live with you.. Educated him well.. and then you brought him back to kick out his family and only have you here, indeed you're scheming! Your mother in-law is having poor health lately from overthinking, just looking at her pale face this morning i knew she couldn't sleep yesterday from terror!"
It's such a rare occasion to be praised by Nana, still i didn't want her to nurture her old sneaky head with more fantasies so i honestly admitted:
_" Nana, your imagination really ran wild this time, i never wanted Eliyas to take over anything.. It was his personal wish all along, as for leaving him i truly wanted to have a divorce and find just an average husband to marry and curry on my life with.. It was Eliyas who worked to get us back together, he's just a good man to me"
_" Anyways take better care of your husband this time round, and soon have children"
_" what children? I'm not even sure if i can curry a child anymore, do you think i just left this place on a whim before? I really lost a lot.. Even the possibility to be a mother again"
Once i finished saying this, my grandmother fell into a deep thinking.
If you wonder where did i get my bold shameless character from, then you are invited to meet my Nana.
Eliyas coincidentally walked inside the room when Nana was in the middle of her long thinking session, he was apparently surprised to already find her in our room, his surprised expression haven't yet faded when she scolded him:
_" what have you been doing not taking your wife to see a doctor yet! She says she maybe can't have children anymore! These matters gets only worst with the delay. Are you planning to cut my bloodline with her?"
The times in which Eliyas's face turned into a red tomato can be counted on the fingers of one hand, and that moment was one of them.
This straight serious man fell into a state of embarrassment which words can't solve and feet can't ran away from.
_"i will take Noursine to see a doctor pretty soon about the matter"
Nana who wasn't satisfied still further scolded:
_" you should accompany her as well and ask for advice! How come you haven't noticed this! What were you doing while living with her all this time? Being her brother?"
_" Nana! Let's chat later, ok?" I intervened not even daring to look at Eliyas's face anymore.
I pushed her out of the room and then slammed the door shut.
As for the man whose manhood had just been in question, he just stood behind me like thin air not daring to utter not a single word.
After a long time of us both ignoring each other he finally called:
_" Noursine?"
_"hmm" I answered without even daring to look at him.
_" i haven't forgotten about this, the doctor back then said that we should try first and then consult if it didn't go well"
I turned to look at him covering my face and i yelled:
_" just forget Nana's words!"
_" Noursine?"
_"what!" I yelled.. Finally taking my hands off to look at him.
He was still standing beside the sofa, his face still having a reddish shade while he smiled to me.
He didn't say anything after that.. So i was just stuck in that situation where i didn't know whether i should just ignore him and go throw my self on the bed to rest or i should smile back awkwardly and keep looking at him as well.
But his pensive eyes soon sparkled as he said:
_"welcome back home"