Allyce was quick to say, a second before Dita was about to hang up, “Victorino joins the MSF”.
The next second, the phone hangs up and Allyce’s last word is caught on a beep.
Allyce looked impatiently at the disconnected mobile phone and put it down on the counter.
Dita should have listened to him and should call soon.
Fortunately, the phone soon rang again, and the otherwise mellifluous ringing sounded somewhat impatiently in my ear.
Allyce pressed the answer button and turned on the amplification.
Dita’s impatient voice came immediately: “What did you just say, say it again!
His tone was so full of anxiety that he did not even use the honorifics.
Allyce doesn’t care about that either, but understands how she feels.
“Victorino is leaving, he is joining Doctors Sans Frontiers, it is confirmed, he has spoken to Severo, I have spoken to him, it is set in stone, I just don’t know when he is leaving”.
Allyce finished slowly, waiting for Dita’s response, and looked up, only to find that the phone had been hung up at some point.
…
In his study, Victorino organises the data and information from his research over the years, as if this item were not important to him.
Tonight he had an early morning flight and a long journey of over thirty hours to reach his destination, with a connecting flight halfway.
The building, which Severo acquired for himself and had it renovated.
He had been living here for more than ten years and when it was time to leave, he realised that he had very little to take with him.
Apart from a few sets of clothes and a first aid kit, everything else either could not be carried or was not considered necessary.
“Buzz-”
The mobile phone placed to one side suddenly vibrated twice.
Victorino’s hands moved and his breathing stopped for a moment.
Who would call you at this hour?
With Severo and Allyce he had already spoken, and Xabat had been too busy lately to mind his own business.
So there’s one left, and that’s her.
The bony fingers clenching the stack of paper are white and beautiful, and just by looking at his hands you can tell that they must be very important in the work he does.
His fingers gradually tightened, and when the phone quieted down, he kept his crouched position, not moving a muscle, and wondered what he was thinking.
The phone was soon ringing again.
It’s as if he won’t stop until he answers the phone.
Victorino has always considered himself a very patient person, at least, his longest record is hundreds of hours in the lab.
Of course, this is very unhealthy behaviour, which he knows very well in his heart and therefore tries to avoid as much as possible.
Only later did he realise that Dita had even more patience than he did.
How many words, all of which he was forced to accept when he could not wear her down.
The girl’s request was not frivolous.
At first, he was impatient and superficial, but eventually he got used to it.
He let his mind wander, even thinking about things from a long, long time ago.
The phone was still vibrating when I came to.
Then the sound of a low battery sounded.
As if he had suddenly woken up, he got up and walked over, picking up his phone to charge it.
The phone has switched off because the battery is too low.
He plugged in the charging cable before turning on the phone.
More than 300 missed calls.
Let’s just say this girl has more patience than he does.
Even when he had something important to tell Severo, he did not bother to call back after a few phone calls that failed to reach him.
The phone vibrated again.
Victorino hesitates, sliding his thumb over the edge of the phone.
Without realising it, he touched the button to connect.
“Victorino! You speak. Dita spoke in J. Victorino had always lived in J and could understand.
The J language is considered to be one of the best-sounding of the small languages.
I didn’t believe it before, but now that I heard Dita call him by his first name, I felt it.
J.’s language is quite good.
He stood up, one hand in his pocket, and walked to the window, pulling back the curtain as he did so, before saying, “Listening.
His voice was clean, unadulterated, like the sound of jade plates meeting, and with a coldness.
Normally, every time Dita heard him speak, she felt excited. It’s so exciting.
This time, however, she sounded hateful to the core.
“Why don’t you answer my calls? Weren’t you going to tell me you were going to join Doctors Without Borders? Why? After all these years, even if it’s a block of ice, if it doesn’t melt, at least it can be warm!”
Dita’s tone, questioning at first, had become a little choked by the end.
Victorino’s grip on the phone tightened uncontrollably and he did not utter a word in defence.
In fact, I didn’t know what to say.
Severo is surrounded by people who seem to have one trait, and that is obsession.
So he went to Severo at noon and asked him to detach Dita on his way out.
Only, to my surprise, she still knew.
“Say something! Why don’t you say something, don’t you dare?” Dita’s voice had recovered, though it still had a hint of hoarseness in it.
She had calmed down a little and, as her mind wandered, it dawned on her why Severo had arranged for her to go on a business trip at short notice, and that the matters she had come to discuss were not important, but only trivial matters that kept her too busy to take time off.
He did it on purpose.
Several people had known each other for more than ten years and she knew more or less everything about their habits.
Severe, though moody and unpredictable, he was never confused when it came to business matters, and she was his right-hand woman, whom he rarely sent packing.
It was a bit strange, but she thought it was due to Severo’s recent mood swings that had sent her on a business trip.
I didn’t know this layer of reason existed.
Victorino’s silence stirred the anger in Dita’s heart for good.
“Letting the boss send me on business! Not telling me you were leaving, why didn’t you order them not to tell me if you had talked it over with the boss’s wife? You’re a hypocrite and a hypocrite!”
Crash!
The phone suddenly went off the hook.
During the whole process, Victorino said only two words.
All the while he listened to Dita, hearing her go from questions to choking, then to calm and finally to anger.
“Boom!”
Victorino picked up his phone and looked out of the window just in time to see lightning flash across the dark night sky, followed by a dull clap of thunder.
He silently counted the hours.
Summer is almost over and this is likely to be the last storm of the summer before the whole city enters autumn.