Wrong Number
A Fictionalized Reminiscence
by Matt Rooney
The phone rang.
It surprised me because we didn’t have a phone. Well, we had the device, a bulbous thing in grey and beige plastic that crouched on an end table in the living room. And it had a cord plugged in to the only jack in the house, and I knew there was a wire that stretched from the house to the utility pole in the street next to our front gate. But there was no dial tone. At least, there wasn’t the last time I checked, a few days ago after work, where I had used my office phone to call the phone company, again, and pester the guy to give us a line. He insisted there were no lines available, that the neighborhood was new construction and the phone company hadn’t caught up yet.
It was true that we were on the very edge of the urban sprawl of Abidjan, the capital of the Ivory Coast, and that, with the strong coffee and cocoa prices of the mid-eighties, the country was experiencing a bit of a boom. Across the street was a small shantytown, and past that an area of rolling hills that had been cleared of forest. There were looping streets laid out and lined with utility poles, but no houses yet. And, in the guy’s defense, no wires. But our house didn’t seem that new to me. I assumed he was trying to shake me down.
“Alo?” I picked up the handset and answered, in the French way.
“Marion?” A male voice after a brief silence, as though he was surprised.
“I’m sorry, sir,” I replied in my best high school French. “There is no Marion here.”
“Ah,” he said, and paused. “Sorry. Error of number,” he continued in stilted English. The line went dead.
I set the receiver down and was about to pick it up and call the phone company when it rang again.
“Alo?”
“Bon.” The same male voice, impatient now. “What’s going on? Where is Marion?” He had apparently decided to stop catering to my limited French with his own limited English, and the French words came tumbling out.
“I’m very sorry, sir,” I continued to practice my French. “There is really no Marion here.”
“Putain,” he said and hung up again. I knew that “putain” was a mild curse in French, sort of like “damn.” But it literally meant “slut.”
I set down the hand piece and immediately picked it up again and called the phone company. I identified myself, but before I could speak, the guy asked if I was happy with my new phone service. Did I want to call family in the U.S.? He could connect me and he would send his little brother by later to pick up the payment. Would 450 francs per minute be agreeable? I calculated quickly. That was about a dollar a minute, while the official rate was closer to fifteen dollars. It occurred to me that this kind of petty corruption among the staff was probably why the phone company didn’t have the resources to accommodate demands for new service.
“No, no,” I said, trying to frame the French sentences to explain the situation. It was a little more complicated than high school French class exercises. “I appreciate your efforts, but somehow, I ended up with someone else’s number. I didn’t want to take someone’s number away.”
“Ah, bon.” He sounded a little crestfallen. “It seemed to be so important. I thought, the American Embassy…”
“No, please. I appreciate your efforts. But please give them their number back.”
“Bon.” It was a verbal shrug of resignation. “Très bien, monsieur. I will come out today and rewire it.”
“Thank you. I apologize for pestering you. When you have new service available, I will be grateful if you could connect our phone.” My French was improving by leaps and bounds.
“Très bien, monsieur. Au revoir.” The line went dead, and I set the receiver down.
Almost immediately, the phone rang again.
“Alo?” I said, with a bit of trepidation.
“Bonjour, monsieur.” A woman’s voice. “This is Marion.” I opened my mouth to reply, to apologize, but she continued, in a barrage of French. “How did you get my number? We’ve had this number for ten years.” I heard children laughing and water splashing in the background.
I apologized and explained and told her I had asked the phone company to give her number back.
“Where are you? What is your name?” She didn’t even try to speak English, and I raced to keep up with the torrent of French. “Since my husband thinks I am sleeping with you, I think I have a right to know.”
There were no street names in the area, so I explained that my wife and I lived off the main road in Deux-Plateaux, down the side street across from the supermarket, past where two goats were tethered in a vacant lot.
“Ah,” she said. “The house with the traveler’s palm. We are neighbors. You and your wife must come for dinner. You can assure Philippe that we are not sleeping together. Are you free tonight?”