TMB II: The Foreign Encounter

Taking off the worn, clumpy receiver and fishing for some cents in my pocket, I tried to think of where I'd put her parents' phone number. Funny thing I had it at all, given what a secret we'd both made of our upbringings and our past in general. I remembered that it had been me who, one day, had insisted on at least exchanging our parents’ numbers, just in case we ever needed them.

"What if you get run over by a truck?" I asked her.

She didn't really seem convinced, but in the end gave in to my constant nagging. Then I had forgotten about the whole thing myself, up until now. And now it seemed that number came in handy after all.

Frankly, I didn't have any real idea where to start. I even wasn't so sure if it was a good idea to look for her at all. Her actions of today spoke a pretty clear language in themselves. And once she had set her mind on something, she usually stuck with it. She was that kind of a girl. Rather stubborn, or so people would have called it. In fact, stubborn as concrete.

But if I really wanted to find her out, I had to start somewhere. And right now, her parents seemed to me to be a sensible first try. After all, she had to be somewhere, didn't she?

But where had I done that number? After five minutes of serious head scratching it came to me that I'd simply stored it in my mobile, like everything else I have to remember for one reason or another. Anyway, the most rational place to put a phone-number. And there it was.

So I fed the phone and started to dial, then hesitated and took a closer look on their area code – in fact, it seemed to be a foreign number.

I temporarily hung up again. Why hadn't I ever noticed that before? It didn't make sense at all. I couldn't imagine her being a foreigner. Never had given me any hint of anything like that. Neither had she had an accent, nor practiced any weird alien customs or cooked exceedingly spicy dishes. But, on the other hand, here I was, abandoned by her on the day of our wedding, stuck in a bar in the middle of the night, and having to admit that all I ever thought I knew about my girlfriend had all of a sudden become more than unsure, so probably I had to face the improbable and try to make some sense out of it after all.

And to make at least some sense out of it, I wanted for sure! You don't live together for years on end, finally settle to marriage (it had even been her idea!), and then stand by while your supposed spouse vanishes into thin air at a whim. Well, normally you don't just vanish in the first place.

Out of a sudden, I found myself determined to find out what was going on here. In fact, I was angry, I realized, damned angry. I clenched a fist and slowly took a deep breath. Ah, I indeed was a bit slow at times to come to terms, but in the end I always made up my mind. Rock-solid I was, in every way.

I grabbed the receiver again and started to dial up her parents once and for all, then noticed something in the back of my mind trying to catch my attention. Something important, and I ran the risk of missing it. I decided to take a closer look on what I'd just thought:

Here I was. (Nope.)

Abandoned on the day of our wedding. (Not yet there.)

Stuck in a bar. (Closer…)

Middle of the night. (Bingo!)

An inaudible bell started to ring in my head. It was in the middle of the night. Took a look on my watch: 11:53 pm. I couldn't possibly phone her parents right now. Even if I'd reached them, I'd been more likely to get called names than to find out anything about her. Even more so since we'd never been introduced to each other, her parents and I. Probably they didn't even know her daughter had been about to get married at all. (My parents didn't, as a matter of fact.)

Now that was a fine mess. I leaned against the ad-plastered, grimy wall and twisted my mind for other leads to pursue and other directions to take, but I couldn't come up with any. After ten minutes of brooding like this, I washed my hands and face at the sink in the privy, and reluctantly returned to my seat at the bar.

What was left to do tonight? I couldn't think of anything better than to return home, get some sleep after all and see what the next day would bring. It couldn't possibly get any worse than it already was, I told myself.

And return home I did, after I'd ordered one last whisky 'for the road'. The fine malt and the cool, crisp night air brought back some of my energy, and so I was in a fairly good mood when I finally arrived at our flat's door.

That was, of course, before I noticed what had been going on inside while I'd been away.