Floating in the Hail E-Book

Nima Khoramak

• Herausgeber: tredition
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 388

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

I burned everything. Maybe everything was burnt before I was born. Doesn't make much of a difference now I suppose. This is it. Even if were to get out out of here some way, there would be nothing left. This pen is all I have now. Here, in this rain, I'll end it.

Leseprobe

Floating in the Hail

Floating in the Hail

Nima Khoramak, Zahra Hajian,

Parnian Sharifi, Mohamad Nickahd

© 2022 Nima Khoramak, Zahra Hajian, Parnian Sharifi, Mohamad Nickahd

Typesetting & Layout: Mahmoud Mohammadi

ISBN Softcover: 978-3-347-54785-8

ISBN E-Book: 978-3-347-54787-2

Printing and distribution on behalf of the author:

tredition GmbH, Halenreie 40-44, 22359 Hamburg, Germany

The work, including its parts, is protected by copyright. The author is responsible for the contents. Any exploitation is prohibited without his approval. Publication and distribution are carried out on behalf of of the author, to be reached at: tredition GmbH, department "Imprint service", Halenreie 40-44, 22359 Hamburg, Germany.

Contents

Cover

Halftitle

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter 3

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Floating in the Hail

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter One

Chapter 3

Floating in the Hail

Cover

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Emma

Chapter one

1.

It's going to rain today. Maybe it's a sign. It rained for mom too. Every time it rains the world is saying goodbye to someone. I need to get the pen. This is it. Now or never.

I don't remember much about home. All I remember from home and mom, everything I can actually recall, is from the day she died. Everything before that is a blur, a bunch of misty, shifting images, mostly of mom, walking, cooking, singing, even talking to me, but I can't remember any words; they're from before my brain started recording voices, something like those old silent movies. The beginning of my real memories is the day I lost her.

It was still dark when dad woke me up. "Get up Emma, we're going to your aunt's, you get to spend the whole day with Anna!" he said, doing his best not to look scared, trying to smile, but I knew something was wrong. Dad dressed me quickly and carried me in his arms the whole way, walking as fast as he could without running while I kept looking over his shoulder at our house and its walls that were made of stones getting away from me. He put me down on the sidewalk in front of their house and rang the doorbell. After all these years I can still recall the smell of wet earth from last night's rain and see dad, just as if I saw him an hour ago. With his shabby hair and unshaven face, he kissed me and it tickled so I pushed him back and made a noise that put a half-smile on his face. "Wait right here, ok? Your cousin will be down in a minute. I have to catch the bus and go see mommy. Tonight, I'll come to pick you up and tomorrow maybe we'll visit her together. Be nice to Anna alright?" I nodded, looking into his worried, tired eyes. He kissed me again, this time on the forehead, and ran away. I sat down on the wet ground and followed him with my eyes until I couldn’t see him anymore, then looked up and saw that the moon was still in the sky. It was left all alone and now the sun was coming to burn everything and he was scared. I hugged my knees, leaned on the wall, and started crying. For the moon in the sky, for me on the sidewalk.

I couldn't have been there more than five minutes but it felt like I was sitting on that wet concrete crying for hours before she opened the door. I must have really liked her because my tears stopped as soon as I saw her. Anna, tall with jet black hair, just like mom, looked like an angel standing at the door. She ran and hugged me and carried me inside, laughing and talking to me. Aunt Lisa had stayed the night at the hospital with mom, leaving her alone. A few years later dad told me she wasn't older than thirteen or fourteen, practically another child, but to me, she seemed like a grown-up. She made scrambled eggs for breakfast and when I wouldn't eat, tickled me and made so many silly faces that my sides hurt from laughing and I finally ate. A moment of bliss. Then she gave me a pen and a white sheet of paper she had torn from her notebook and told me to draw something nice for mom and give it to her tomorrow at the hospital while she went to clean up in the kitchen. I decided to draw the moon for her, happy in the night sky with all his star friends. I was really trying my best and I was very frustrated that I had to use just one color. How was I supposed to draw the stars and the moon with just blue? But before I had a chance to ask for more colors, the phone rang, an old, ugly loud telephone with one of those ringing sounds that you don't hear, but feel them drilling in your brain. RING RING, RING RING. Anna came out of the kitchen, smiling and half running to shut the noise of that yeller of doom, and picked it up. Immediately her smile faded away and she turned away from me, speaking as quietly as she could so I couldn't hear. But she didn't need to; my heart was pounding so hard I couldn't have heard anything she said even if she shouted. I shut my eyes and kept on drawing as fast as I could without opening them. I saw the sun coming into the night, burning everything. The moon tried to hide all the stars behind him but the sun was getting closer and I knew they were all going to burn. My whole body was shaking and my arm was moving frantically, trying to put everything I was seeing on the sheet. I kept at it until Anna grabbed my arm and shook me till I opened my eyes. Dad was coming to take me to the hospital, she told me from behind a wet face that didn’t belong to an angel anymore. Mom wanted to see me. She wrapped her arms around me and pulled the paper from under my hands. I couldn’t give it to mom. It wasn’t a drawing, just a torn-up piece of paper, all blue with ink and wet with tears.

Outside, it was raining. Dad came running and I jumped into his arms. I pressed my face to his. He was crying and the tears were falling from the sky.

Mom was dead before we got there.

2.

“Where is she?” I ask when I see her empty bed. They will be taking us to work in the garden today. I'm not going to get another chance. She has it. she told me she'd be here. She is always here. “She got in a fight with the crazy bitch from the kitchen. Had her jaw broke, so … infirmary, I guess. Maybe they’ll give her some of the good stuff.”

We buried mom a few days later. She had been hit by a bus a month before and apparently, it was a miracle she held out for that long. Everybody came for the burial, all her relatives from around the town, people that we hadn't seen for years and would continue to avoid us forever if it wasn't expected of them to show up for her burial. It was a sunny and windy day and I remember looking around and seeing a lot of old, wrinkled men and women with moles and hooked noses, all in black, standing straight and looking ahead, trying their hardest to keep as still as possible as the sun hit them in the eyes and the wind messed up their hair. I could feel their eyes on me, on dad. I wished they would go away. They were all my mother's relatives, the whole lot of them current or former army members or government workers who never liked dad and looked at him as if he was her murderer. Dad didn't have any family left; they had all died before he met mom. He had been a simple, lonely school teacher with no money or anything in his name except for a small house he had inherited. Now he was standing over her grave, holding a five-year-old's hand, feeling the weight of that barely breathing terracotta army's gaze on him. Thankfully they weren’t the type for chit-chat and offering condolences and so pretty soon everyone had left except for aunt Lisa, my mother's sister, and Anna. She was her only family member that didn't hate dad. She stood next to him and grabbed his arm while Anna came and sat next to me by the grave where I was following some ants by my finger. I'm not sure I knew what exactly death was, but I knew mom was under that mound of dirt and couldn't come back up, even if almost all her bones hadn't been broken. I looked up at the sun. Maybe it could use its rays and burn the dirt away. "We have nothing left here. Not anymore" Dad said, his hollow voice coming from somewhere outside his body, not his own. "We're still here. I can help you take care of her." Aunt Lisa said and glanced at me. "We've got nothing left. I sold the house to pay for the surgeries. There is no future here for either of us. Only memories. Bad ones." Dad didn’t look at me. The sun wasn’t going to help so I looked down again. The ants were moving crusts from some half-eaten cookie, all the way over mom to a small hole on her left, between her and a grave with a stone. All the graves I saw had stones. Maybe she could still get out from under dirt, but if they put a stone on her… "you'll both be alone wherever you go. You’ll be a single father in a foreign country with no one to help you. To care for you. Or her. What if you don't find a job? And if you do, who's going to be taking care of Emma, somewhere she can't even speak the language?" She said in a quiet voice. They both were speaking in hushed voices now, trying to hide their words from me, or maybe from mom. "I've already found a job in Germany. I wanted to talk to Mary about it, convince her to go. That was before… " his voice faded into nothing. Mary. When they put a stone on her, that's what they'd put on it. "Are you sure it's the right time for a decision like this? and with your…condition" She almost didn't say the last word. “Who's going to take care of you? And if God forbid… at least here you have us!" They both fell silent for a while. Someone was now crying over a stone a couple of rows away from us. Was her mom in the ground too? "That's the other reason. We have to go before it gets worse. It's free over there and I don't have a penny left." Anna gave me a sandwich. I pulled small bits from it and put them around the hole so the ants didn't have to walk over mom. Would she get hungry down there? I asked the ants to give her some.

3.

Infirmary… They won't let me in there. I get back and sit on my bed again and look outside. Most of what I have been doing these past couple of months in this place has been reminiscing about the past, trying to make some sense of my life; how I became this person, how I got here. Some memories are more vivid than the rest and keep repeating in my mind; like the memory of the campus or the day we moved into our own apartment, the one where I spent all my childhood, and dad spent his last breaths. It wasn't so different from this place.

About six months after mom died, we moved to Berlin, where one of dad's former classmates had gotten him a job as a teacher in some third-rate university where they gave us a room in the campus until dad could find us a place of our own. The few months we stayed there passed very quickly: dad going to work, coming back with lunch, running back to work for hours, then coming to our room to prepare dinner, working on his papers, and spending whatever time he had left sitting me down to teach me German before passing out from exhaustion. And I, well, I spent those months mostly staying in our room shying away, crying, afraid of everyone and everything. I didn't know anybody, there were no children around and no one talked to me; not that I would understand them if they did. I would stand at the window, holding my baby, that's what I used to call my doll, and watch those pretty, tall, blond students walk in and out of buildings or sit on the grass facing our room, always carrying books or pads. Sometimes they were in groups, laughing at something, and sometimes they would walk in pairs, holding hands, occasionally even stopping for a kiss. Once when the sun was going down and the campus was almost empty, I saw a couple walk hand in hand till they stood right under my window. They stared at each other for a while, and then the boy wrapped his arms around her and kissed her and the girl's long golden hair unraveled in waves, glowing under the sun. She was beautiful. She looked like my baby: long blond hair and blue eyes. I remember I tried to draw her right after they left. I didn't know why. everyone was blond, outside, on the TV, they all looked like dolls! We had a picture of mom in the room, with short black hair and eyes. I looked like her. Only my hair was long.

Dad took me outside a few times to see our new country. We walked in the busy streets with all those cars moving so fast and making so much noise. Everything was so loud and the people were always in a hurry and when they talked, they sounded so harsh! Even the cartoons on the TV sounded angry! It was as if everybody was fighting all the time. I preferred to look at them through my window. When I told dad, he laughed and came back the next day bringing some CDs. They were full of songs. They were German too but they didn’t sound angry. They were beautiful. After that, I would play them all day and when I looked at the pretty girls outside, I imagined them speaking in songs.

It took me months to finally learn the language. But even then, no matter how much dad insisted, I wouldn't go outside to talk to people. It was safe in the room and I had no idea how to talk to strangers or even what to tell them. Anyhow, I sounded funny when I spoke German to dad and I didn't want them to laugh at me. I’d rather watch.

4.

No no no no no… I need that pen… what if they change the guards… or if it doesn't rain in a month or a year or… no. I can’t wait. It has to be now. I must find a way in.

It was early summer when we finally got our own apartment, a small dingy one on the third floor of some ancient building that was supposedly built when that part of Berlin was still a part of East Germany. I was finally able to speak some German and could understand most of what people said on TV. We packed everything we had, got in a cab, and left campus forever. I sat the whole way in the backseat with the side of my head against the car window looking outside, the cold of the glass against my forehead. Berlin was beautiful! We went through wide streets with trees on either side and I saw beautiful palaces and skyscrapers, children playing in huge parks, and people in pretty dresses walking along a river with clear water that shined under the sun. But the closer we got to our new home, the streets got narrower and busier, the buildings older and less colorful, and the people looked less happy, more serious. "It's only temporary," dad said as we were standing on the sidewalk, looking at that grey chunk of cement that was to be our home, holding all our belongings in our hands: two suitcases in dad's hands and a pink panther backpack on my shoulders, and of course my baby in my arms. We were still staring at that eyesore when an old man in a grey suit, almost the same color as the building, shouldered through us, muttering something in German that sounded harsher than anything I'd heard before and entered the building, punishing the floor with his cane hatefully with every step. He was so tall and big that to me he seemed like a giant! Dad tried to say hello but he kept on walking and muttering. "That's our neighbor then. I'm sure he's very busy. We should introduce ourselves later. Come on, let's go inside."

The stairway was narrow though wide enough for two people to walk side by side, but the old man was standing right in the middle so no one could go past him, or so we thought at first; because we soon saw he wasn't standing, but climbing one step at a time, one step per hour. We stood one step behind his wide shoulders, climbing and stopping when he did. I was getting tired and looked up at dad, and he made a face at me that meant I should be patient: his eyes got twice as big, his eyebrows went so far up they went on his scalp, and bit his lower lip with his teeth. He made that face so often that I think half the time he didn't even mean it, it was just something he did. Finally, after a couple more minutes or so, I got frustrated, pulled my hand free of dad's, slipped past the giant, and sat down on the top stair looking down at him, my right hand supporting my bored chin. He groaned something under his breath and avoided my eyes. I kept looking at that grey giant, leaning on a faded brown cane, struggling to move. He had thick white hair, carefully combed to one side, and was very cleanly shaved. He kept his eyes down and away from me for as long as he could, but when he finally reached me, he stopped and looked down right at me. He had blue eyes too, like the girls at the university, but his were different; they were bored and attentive at the same time. He didn't say anything, didn't even groan; just kept me locked under his eyes as if remembering something he had seen before. Dad used the opportunity; moving clumsily pressed against the wall and apologizing at the same time, he managed to get past him. Then picked me up with one arm, and ran up to the third floor.

Dad put the suitcases down to find a rusty iron key in his pockets and turned it in the lock, but the door wouldn't open. He turned the key again, pushed, then turned it the other way and pushed again, but it wouldn't budge. I stood on the stairs and watched him battle with that door for so long he was all red and sweaty. All the while with every thump that echoed through the building, the old man was getting closer, punishing another step as he climbed. "You have to push it", The old man said, very cool and calm, towering over dad. "I'm trying!" Dad shouted, then started coughing. "I'm sorry sir, I didn't mean to yell at you," Dad said, when he stopped coughing, to the old man, who had stopped right there, looking at him. "Move aside," he stepped past dad, gave me his cane, and put his shoulder against the door. With one easy push, the door fell wide open. He took the cane back from me and restarted his slow ascent up the stairs. "Thank you, sir." dad said, looking a little embarrassed. "So, he's our upstairs neighbor. Come on Emma, let's have a look at our new castle!"

The first thing we saw in our apartment was, well, dust. It had been vacant for God knew how long and everything was covered with a thick layer of dust. Dad put our things by the door and walked five steps across the living room, the whole length of it, and opened the windows. When he turned around and faced me, I saw a smile appear on his face and thought for a moment he was going to say something when a sneaky wind that had been waiting for its moment rushed inside and raised all the dust. For a few seconds, our new home was a desert hit by a sandstorm. I was blinded; only my ears worked and I heard the most terrifying sound that I had ever heard. I thought it was a monster, a desert monster brought here from the Sahara hundreds of years ago, sleeping for all this time only to be woken by us. what else could make that sound? But as the dust settled, it was just dad, kneeling, his hands on the floor, trembling and gasping for air. I was scared, of him, for him, and wanted to run away; but then he slowly raised his head and looked at me and I saw in his eyes, teary with pain, that he was scared too; I didn’t want to run away anymore. I wanted to protect him. I held his head in my arms and pressed it to my chest as tight as I could till he found his breath again. That was the first time that I saw dad having one of his coughing fits.

When he got a little better, I went into the kitchen and after searching all the cabinets my hand could reach, found an old stained glass and brought him some water. He was already regaining his color. “This dust… it took my breath away for a second. I’m fine now.” He paused for a moment to stare at the floor. Then, as if finding in between the ceramic tiles something he had lost, looked up, smiled, and said: “if we are going to live here, we need to really clean this place up, don’t we? I mean not that we’re going to be here for long but in the meantime might as well make it nice, no? The way mom would have liked.” He got up and took out mom’s picture from our suitcase and put it on the kitchen counter. The only decoration our new home needed.

After doing some cleaning with whatever we could find in the apartment, we went outside to get some sandwiches and have a look at our new neighborhood. “From now on our home is here Emma. These people are our new countrymen. You’re going to go to school very soon so you have to learn their language much better, and more important than that you need to fit in and find friends. It’s very important to fit in. They need to see you as one of their own. Otherwise, it can get difficult.” I was watching some kids, blond, bright, happy, playing in a small park on the other side of the street. They were running, laughing, throwing, and catching balls. Two were sitting on swings while their mothers pushed them. At that moment I didn’t like them. I didn’t want to fit in with them. I wanted to go back to my room behind the window and watch them from there, where they couldn’t see me. Or better yet, go back to our old house with the stone walls where no one could come in and find me except Anna. We could play together and I wouldn’t have to learn a new language. We could sit and draw for ages. I missed her.

When we got back, we found the door open and there were some metal bars and wooden boards laying against the wall inside the apartment. Then the old giant came downstairs holding some sheets and pillows in his arms. “You didn’t lock the door. You should.” He said to dad. “I don’t have any use for these anymore. Come help me set them up.” It was a double bunk bed but they somehow made it into two separate beds. In our one bedroom. “Thank you, sir. I’m David and she’s Emma. We’re from…” the old man didn't let him finish. “I don’t care. I’m Finn. If she needed anything tell me. Otherwise, I don’t want to be disturbed. Is that understood?” He turned around at the door and looked at me before he left. I think he tried to smile.

5.

“What's with her?”

"How the hell would I know?” They're talking about me. I'm holding my head with both hands; my heart is trying to jump out of my throat. I can't take this anymore. It has to be today…

"Why is she swinging back and forth like that?” I know they’re looking at me; thinking I’ve gone nuts. I don’t give a damn anymore. “I told you she looked kind of crazy. The pretty ones always are.”

Things went from bad to worse very quickly. Dad couldn’t keep his job at the university for more than two years. He had kept quiet about his condition, fearing how they might react if they found out. However, when he started having his coughing fits in front of his students, they found out and fired him for keeping it from them. He still hadn’t told me what was wrong with him; always finding some excuse for his coughs. But when he could finally use public insurance and start treatment, he told me he had lung cancer. “It’s just a sickness like anything else. The doctors are going to help me and I’ll be good as new very soon.” He spoke as if he had a cold and it would be over in a week. But after beginning the treatment he had been waiting for, he began losing weight, hair, and all his energy. He was still working though, whenever the disease was a little better, whatever job he could find, for as long as they would keep him.

The first time he got chemotherapy he took me with him. We walked into a white room that smelled of medicine and old people. He sat for two hours in a chair while something colorless like water was going into his vein from a hung bag. I sat down on his lap and looked around. There were a few more people sitting there with similar bags. They were all old and bald and seemed very tired. Almost all of them had their eyes closed. Dad wasn't old, he wasn't supposed to be there. But as liquid poison made its way all the way through his body, he looked more and more tired every minute even though he wasn't doing anything. He was just sitting down. I snuggled up to him and closed my eyes.

In my dream I was in the cemetery again, standing over mom’s grave. The ants were still walking over her but this time they were going someplace else. I followed them to a new stoneless grave. They circled the dirt mound and then brought me a magnifying glass carried over their backs. I picked it up and held it over the new grave. The sun then came out from behind the clouds and the concentrated rays moving through the glass burned away the dirt. I looked down and saw dad lying there.

I woke up in his arms screaming and sobbing uncontrollably.

I started school a couple of months after we moved. The first year wasn’t that bad. Our teacher, Mrs. Krause, was a very nice lady who tried her best to make me fit in. She made sure I was in every game and activity and would even help me after hours so I wouldn't fall behind. But in the third year of elementary school, everything changed. Mrs. Krause got married and had to leave school. She was replaced with an old, bitter lady who just didn’t give a damn anymore. But what really made things worse was that, somehow, in the space of that one year, the kids all changed. Suddenly no one wanted to have anything to do with me. I didn’t know what was different about me or what I had done wrong, but that didn’t matter. I was singled out. I was different and now that they were fully aware of it, they simply had to establish their superiority. It’s in our genes; I can’t find any other explanation. I knew it too. They didn’t have to tell it to me, but they did. Now I would stay away at recess and watch them play. Once in a while one of them would feel the need to come and tell me I wasn’t welcome to play with them. I’m not sure what it was that triggered them; my looks? I didn’t look that different from them, though my mom had olive skin and black hair, and every day I looked more and more like her. Maybe it was my accent. I didn’t speak that different, or at least I didn’t think I did, but that was enough for them to mimic me and make fun of me. So, I stopped speaking unless I had to. Or it could have been that I was still wearing last year's uniform and still carrying my pink panther backpack because dad couldn’t afford to buy, well anything really, other than food.

In the first grade, some of them had looked at me with a little fascination when they found out I wasn’t German. Like I had come from another planet, but in a good way. They were curious. But suddenly I was the weird unpopular alien who had overstayed her welcome. Maybe it wasn’t so sudden; maybe I just missed the signs. So, I found a spot in the schoolyard behind a chestnut tree where they couldn’t see me. I would sit there, waiting for the next class to start, then go and sit at the end of the room and stare at the clock to make it go faster. My new school experience.

The only person I could possibly call my friend was a fat boy called Peter who lived a block away from us and would sometimes wait after school, a safe distance away, of course, so we could walk back together. He talked to me the whole way and offered me his cookies. I barely ever said anything back but that didn’t matter to him, he'd just keep talking. He either liked me or just didn’t have anybody else to talk to, but I liked the company and his mom made great cookies.

Things at home weren't much better. Dad was having one of his bad years and was mostly staying in bed, only leaving the house to go to the hospital or to buy groceries. That year he had bad weeks and not so bad weeks; no good ones. He tried to talk as little as he could because as soon as he opened his mouth, he would either cough, or start apologizing which at first made me sad, but very soon all it did was annoy me and I wanted to avoid him as much as I could. We had an old TV in the living room in front of which I’d sit and watch cartoons for as long as I could before going to my small room at night. I couldn’t sleep so I would put my doll next to me and open dad’s books to read while covering my ears with my hands to block out his coughing. Dad slept in the living room so I could have the only room to myself but I even could hear his breaths through the walls. Except for the books, there wasn’t anything else to do in that room; I didn’t have any toys other than a baby, no computer, and obviously no phone so most of my time in there was spent on those books or daydreaming. There was a world map in one of our school books and I would stare at it sometimes for hours, deciding which places I wanted to go and what to do there. I had drawn a circle around our own town, a very small circle in eastern Europe, and I would sometimes look at it and talk to mom. Other than that, I had no interest in that place. It was where people died.

Gradually, the kids got worse and more aggressive. I remember it was computer day at school and I was very excited. Something that I could play with but wouldn’t talk to me or make fun of me! What could be better? There were only three computers and we were more than twenty and I was hanging behind to spend a few minutes with it alone. One of the computer monitors had a puppy in the background playing with balloons and that was the one I wanted. Finally, it was my turn and I was walking toward the puppy when one of the girls came up to me and started talking: “Why are you here? My mom says you shouldn’t be. She says you’re a foreigner and that your dad doesn’t even work. You don’t have a mom, do you? She says you’re a dirty leech and that we’re paying for you!” that was the first time I heard those words, the first time I was called a leech. It took me a second to see what was happening: everyone had circled around me, whispering, giggling. It was more interesting than the computers. The teacher had stepped out and now was coming back inside to see what was happening but I couldn’t wait; my heart was racing and something in my head was screaming at me to run and get as far away from them as I possibly could; so, I did. The next thing I remember, I was hugging my knees behind the tree, sobbing. “You’re not a leech,” it was peter’s voice. I hadn’t noticed him coming but there he was, sitting next to me. “I mean, I’m not sure what a leech is, but I’m pretty sure you’re not it.” Then he offered me a cookie. I took it; they were delicious. “They were talking about you before but I didn’t know what to do. I said you’re not bad but no one ever listens to me. Everyone just says Peter you talk too much. Even my dad. You’re the only one who never says that. But you barely say anything. Say, why don’t you talk? Don’t you have anything to say?”

“Not really,” I said, still crying and chewing simultaneously. He was right; I never talked unless I had to. I didn’t like the way people looked at me when they heard me. They almost always asked: where are you from? Some things still haven’t changed. Anyway, from that day Peter was my friend and he would come to the tree with me every recess and sit with me at lunch and just talk and talk. The other kids mostly shunned him but he didn’t care. “They didn’t let me talk anyway.”

That was the start of my only real friendship. Peter, sweet little Peter. He was lonely too and after that day he wouldn't leave my side. Maybe he thought he had saved me and now felt responsible for me. I had been accustomed to being alone at first and it was annoying when someone invaded my silent life but I didn't mind him. At least not after that day. After school, we went to Peter’s. Initially, I didn't want to go but he wouldn’t give up and I didn't want to upset him. I went along while he enthusiastically told me about his room and his computer and all the games he had on it and of course he told me about his mom. "My mom is the best. She's like the best cook in the whole world. She can cook like, literally everything. Yesterday she made me pizza while I was playing crusaders and I didn’t even ask her to! It was so delicious but I got some on my favorite shirt and she got a little mad about that but then we had cake and I didn’t spill any of it. She'll make you your favorite food too. Anything you want. You’ll see. You’re going to love her."

Their apartment was a lot nicer than ours. It was a purely white three-story building that shined among the rest of the neighborhood. Their courtyard was small but decorated with pretty snowdrop flowers on either side. As soon as we went up his mom opened the door with a big smile and the smell of freshly baked cookies hit us in the face. She was a tall lady with the nicest, warmest face I had seen in this cold country. “Wow! who's your friend Peter?” she said when she saw me, genuinely surprised. But before her son had a chance to say anything, she raised her hand and interrupted him “Oh no! There is no time for one of your long speeches now. Let's eat before everything gets cold. I’m sure you and your little friend are very hungry. Then you can tell me how you managed to bring home a pretty girl. Come on in dear there is plenty of food!” Then she took our backpacks and coats and told us to wash our hands and go to the table. “Wait a second, you are Emma, right?” She said when we were sitting at the table. “Don't look surprised now. Peter has been talking about you nonstop for the past couple of months. It’s always Emma this or Emma that!”

“No, I don’t! I barely said anything about her I just said she is in my class and that…” Peter said turning red. That was the first time I saw a boy get embarrassed.

"Alright, alright, I’m sorry!" She said, smiling and again raising her hands as if she was surrendering to someone with a gun. “Anyway, I’m glad you came, dear. I'm really glad that Peter has made a friend and you're always welcome. Now eat up.”

I didn't know what to say or what to do. I think I somehow blurted out a thank you; but it felt like I had walked into a new, different world. Peter’s home was like the ones on TV: it was calm, clean, pretty, and more importantly, there was a mom who welcomed you when you came home, cooked warm food and asked about your day. The closest thing to a real hot meal that we usually had nowadays was dad’s omelet when he less bad than usual. He used to cook before cancer got so bad but nothing like this. But here I was, getting to watch some delicious smelling redfish on my plate that I hadn’t seen before, with all kinds of vegetables and mashed potatoes and nobody was coughing. I wanted to stay there and never leave. I guess I had been staring at my food for a while because Peter’s mom looked up and said: "It's Norwegian salmon. We get it sent over here especially. See how red it is? It’s all-natural. No added color."

"Yeah, my uncle sends it for us. He lives in Norway." Peter mumbled with his mouth bursting with food. "We're Norwegian too. Well, I was born here but mom says it doesn’t matter where you're born but who you truly are."

"That's right but what did I say about speaking with your mouth full?" She said shaking her head with disappointment. “Where is your family originally from dear? Peter tells me you're not from here either."

That kicked me out of that world. I suppose it's a regular question to ask someone, but I never liked answering it. I didn't like to be reminded of my few memories there. These people were proud of where they came from. They had family and friends over there and probably many happy memories, but for me, it was just the place where I lost mom. Even now when I think about it the only image that I see is a vast graveyard. And Anna. I remember her too. I don't even like to say her name.

"It's… uh… It's somewhere in eastern Europe… you probably haven’t heard of it… I don’t really remember it."

"Emma never talks about that to anyone mom. She doesn’t it." That was the second time he came to my rescue in one day. Then he got up from his chair, cleaned his mouth with a napkin that at some point he had put on his lap, stood straight, and said to me: “If you don't want to eat anymore let's go to my room Emma. I want to show you, my posters." Sweet Peter. I meekly followed him out of the living room as his mother stared at us with a half-open mouth, probably doing her best not to laugh.

6.

Nobody cared that I got into this place. No one comes to see me. Not one person. Peter would come if he knew. Or maybe he knows and he just doesn't give a shit. Maybe he's forgotten me already. No, not Peter. He'd come. Yes. If he knew he would be here every day. Yes. Sweet Peter. If only he knew.

Things were getting better. Those days, I spent most of my time with Peter. Not counting the nights, I probably spent more time in his room than my own. His room was filled with posters and action figures of medieval Norse kings and Vikings and with long braided beards holding swords and axes and small wooden ships that were hung from the ceiling. At first, I just sat on his bed while he told me about them all and I did my best to look interested; but that boy knew so much and he told those stories with such excitement and enthusiasm that I became genuinely interested in them. Like when he told me how the Vikings crossed the sea to get to England, searching for their fortune. "When they landed in England with their long ships, which looked exactly like these, my dad and I made them ourselves! anyway, when they got there, they put on their armors and their helmets, which didn’t have horns! Why would they have horns? They were more interested in practical things. They did pain their faces though. But that was warpaint to scare the enemy. And it had religious purposes. Have I told you about Odin? He had one eye and was always followed by ravens. Anyway, no one on the battlefield would be scared of stupid horns. Then, when they were off their ships, they just attacked, men and women, fearless, taking everything, they wanted. It was all theirs." Then he got silent, looking with dreamy eyes at one of the ships. I was fascinated by his enthusiasm in those stories and how he saw a connection between himself and those people because of his heritage. I didn't care what people did where I came from, now or a thousand years ago. Actually, I couldn’t imagine being interested in anything that much. After a moment of unusual silence, he finally raised his eyes and said: “I wish I was born back then. I could have sailed all around the world in my own ship! I think you would have liked it too. You would have been a shieldmaiden and we could go everywhere together and fight together! We'd go on adventures, looking for hidden treasures, or we could attack castles and sack cities, take whatever we wanted from anyone, and then, when we were old and tired of adventures, we would take a piece of land from some king and settle down and rule as duke and duchess! wouldn't you like that?"

"I think I would.” I never saw him more excited.