Dial - Season 2 - Episode 77

Episode 4 years ago

Dial - Season 2 - Episode 77

I was scooping food into my mouth, and I was biting toasted bread, when I saw the woman’s sad eyes on me again, and as I looked at those eyes realization dawned on me finally.

And then I groaned with sudden, horrible shock and dropped the spoon and the bread, my body jerking as I stared at her with my mouth full.

I swallowed hard, feeling my body going cold all over.

“Dede!” I said, almost choking as my eyes threatened to pop out of their sockets.
She uttered a strangled gasp, dropped her spoon, and got to her feet. She kept her face averted as she quickly hurried out of the room, but not before I saw the tears on her lashes.

I pushed back my chair and held out my hand, and then I followed her.
“Sit down and eat, Yao,” the Holy Man said, but I ignored him as I hurried out on my old legs, shuffling after the hurrying back of the woman.

I eventually caught up with her in the breath-taking garden. She was sitting on a park bench near a clean, bluish pool with swans and ducks gliding serenely on its surface. She looked up at me again and smiled wanly as she gently cleaned the tears from her face.
I stood staring at her for a while, and the more I looked at her the more I became convinced that this was the woman who had appeared to me as Dede.
“You must go and finish your breakfast, Yao,” she said softly. “It would get cold.”
“I don’t understand what is going on here, please,” I said in a pained voice as I lowered myself to the bench, sitting quite close to her. “You’re Dede, and don’t try to deny it!”

She raised a hand and touched my wrinkled cheek tenderly.

“Oh, Yao,” she whispered with a shaky laugh. “I am very glad that you recognized me. At least, it tells me that I’m still there somewhere in your heart.”
“But why the deception, Dede, my God?” I cried with much pain. “You look different, you look older! And you looked exactly like Akos when we met, when we made love, when we fell in love! What is the meaning of all this?”

“My brother will explain everything to you,” she said quaveringly and turned to face the pool of water.
“No, Dede, no!” I said in a fierce whisper. “I have been so disoriented! First I was told you went to Canada, and that you were going to marry a white man! And then your brother, if indeed he is your brother, appeared and said I had a choice to either stay with Abena Adobea – the lady I love now – and dying, or marrying you and staying alive! And now I learn you’re not even who you claimed you were! How could you people deceive me like this?”

“We didn’t deceive you, Yao, my dear,” she said softly. “I’m Mansa, and he’s my brother. Akos is the daughter of Nana b0s0mba, but she grew up here, with my brother, and he saw her as a daughter. Through her we’ve converted many of the non-believing members of her family to Christianity. Her father is proving very stubborn, but my brother is working on him.”
“But he came to me in the guise of Nana b0s0mba, a fetish priest, and put this d--n curse on me!” I cried furiously. “He brought you in, somehow changing you to look like a young beautiful woman! You slept with me, Dede or Mansa or whoever you are! Do Christian women go round fornicating with men they’re trying to convince?”

She looked at me then, her face tortured, filled with agony, and when she shook her head tears fell down her face.

“No, Yao, no!” she cried. “I wasn’t meant to sleep with you! I was married, yes, but my husband died, just like I told you. Since then, I had been faithful to God, helping my brother in the vineyard of the Lord. Believe me, I’ve had many proposals, but I chose to remain single so that I could serve the Lord better!”

“Then why the hell did you sleep with me?” I shouted, very much agitated.
“Because I fell in love with you, d--n you!” she shouted right back in distress. “My brother made me look like a young woman resembling Akos, passing off as her aunt, which in a way I was. I was meant to simply leave you, and then you would be directed to the village for the testing period. Sleeping with you wasn’t part of the arrangement, but I was so weak around you, Yao. So weak and vulnerable, and then I fell in love with you. And then I sinned, and you put me on the Dial List! I disrupted the arrangement my brother had planned for you. That was why he was so angry!”
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