The Minister's wife returns

 Continued from here.

We were told Mrs. Minister was arriving in a few days. I had met her a few times, she was an acquaintance's cousin and we had known of each other before she married the Minister. After, during the Ministerial incursions in the various parts of the world I had found myself in the same city, and come for the various state-sponsored dinners as well as the more intimate personal parties. I was perhaps not the most odd one out at those parties, but got pretty close, with my backpacker's vibes and tales of travel across towns and struggles and the adventures I had. Which, how unassuming of me, actually put me in a great place since everybody wanted to listen to my strange tales. I was not a competitor, I was not a spy, I was an outsider who happened to be close to the Minister, which meant they could trust me and open up to me.

The Minister told me on every one of those occasions to find myself a wife, or lacking that a girlfriend even for a few weeks somebody to travel with and have fun with, told me of all the aspiring young women at the parties who'd jump to spend any time with me at a heartbeat. I declined politely, every time, for I had other liaisons I was figuring out. And besides, the girls were just not my type.

My relationship with his Missus was a bit more formal, despite having the other connection. We would talk of our mutual acquaintance and how well they were doing, how many new countries they bought houses in, the travel plans for her, and general information as such. I learned to stop asking them about the children except out of politeness because apparently they'd been accused by the media of using the children as a way to get future citizenship abroad after the job ended eventually.

She surveyed our living quarters the evening of her arrival, and if I may say so, was quite impressed by the changes I'd made. "Madam," I said, "Sir made us wait too long, and I thought if I'll wait this long, I'll impose on the hospitality as much as I can. I have taken perfect photographs of how things were, and the boys from the army and police have promised to help me with getting rid of all the new things at a moment's notice." She laughed a hearty laugh, the likes of which I hadn't seen before, said she didn't mind the updates and was excited I had taken interest in improving my lodgings. "You know, from the day I found you were Shriya's friend, I knew you were a classy guy. Which is why I always reminded him to check if you were around us in our travels, to not forget you. Shriya doesn't hang out with the cheap crowd, you know. We spent some time together in Switzerland, before she got married, and my god, all her friends were like top bankers and what not. So you see it's been a relief having you here, otherwise it's mostly the village people who live here and I would much rather this be a classy intellectual place like you've made it, not some village hovel smelling of dung, hahahaha," she said.

I inquired about when the Minister might be coming back, as all the information I'd received yet had been highly inaccurate. I did have a few obligations I had to meet, and didn't want to miss the Minister in case he appeared on short notice.

"I know as much as you do dear, since you have lived in our place for so long, you are basically our staff now, I can arrange to have you be back at a day's notice in our Airlines if he's back on short notice. But please feel free to make use of our resources, it's good to have you around. And it is not just me, the guards were saying how lucky they were to have an interesting man like you in their midst, they are enjoying your company. And I heard inquiries about your background, they made it sound so innocent and casual, hahaha, from the neighborhood girls too," she said, winking at me, "we are graced with your presence, and would like to have you here for as long as possible, if you do have other urgent tasks to attend, I can arrange roundtrip tickets, from the VIP area, no security etcetera, so just ask," she said.