Carried by the Wind

Chapter 2

It's been said that the one truly unforgivable crime is matricide. No one is more loving than mother. No one can provide that closeness, that feeling of home, but mother. I would've done anything for her. For her every finger there was a thread attached to a fishhook that pulled the skin from my flesh, in my eyebrows, my arms, my legs. I betrayed her.

Until now I had been quiet as a mouse. Not asked too many questions. Ten years in Iran, eleven in Sweden. Twenty one years of obedience. I was a mere aspect of her, reduced to my most beautiful traits; translucent skin, green eyes, dainty, silent. Mom let me take Dad's last name, Paknejad, since it had a race biological ring to it that she found national romantic. But I was always hers.

My life shifts from the villa in Fereshteh in uptown Tehran with the tree branches filtering the sun light and the butterflies dancing and the clock flowers in the front garden to sitting on the airplane with Mom. Mom and Dad had fought. Dad stayed in Iran. Mom and I sought refugee status in Sweden, and ever since, it had been just her and I.

The elderly care facility Mom had gotten me a part-time job at was surrounded with sweet-smelling lilacs. All the patients had gathered downstairs for afternoon coffee and sandwich. The senior living facility was divided into private apartments that we visited to care for the patients, and a common area were the patients could gather for meals and socializing. Esther was telling everyone about her daughter who had married a gynecologist and moved to Norway, where everyone and their dog had better salaries than we had in Sweden.

One of the nurses pried up an old man's rheumatic wrists from his chest and firmly planted his palms on the table. "You have to eat now, Sven-Olof", she said in a loud and clear voice. Sven-Olof's sealed lips turned white.

I went upstairs and helped Mom change the diaper on one of the bedridden patients. We had perfect coordination in the lifts. Mom did the talking, the niceties. I sucked at being nice.

I smeared chapstick on my lips, followed a few steps behind Mom down the corridor to the next patient, my feet going without my command.

"Karin is awful with the washing. I took over yesterday and poor Mrs. Ali had gunk stuck behind her ears. It was just too much. It must've been accumulating for years!" Mom said, complaining of another nurse.

"Mom," I began.

"Did you learn about ear infections in your course, Elika? Maybe you should take a look at her", Mom said.

"Mom, you have Dad's number, don't you?" I stopped in my tracks, my trembling hands hidden in the pockets of the scrubs.

"Hm? Why are you asking?" One of her thin, tattooed eyebrows twitched. She didn't look at me.

"I just want to talk to him." I shrugged.

"He barely remembers you, Elika-joon", she said in her usual bright Farsi and continued down the corridor. She called everyone dear. Everyone believed her. Mom had all the charm and wits I lacked. Same green eyes as me, but her features and body more robust. Her hair was a lush bush of brown curls and her skin always sun-kissed. She had told me she was from Rasht, from the shores of the Caspian Sea. She had single-handedly come with me to Sweden during the Iran-Iraq war and raised me. Her life before that was a blank sheet. Everything about us was untold. It was unfair. I wanted to know. She didn't talk to me for the rest of the shift. Instead she communicated in a series of grunts and sharp looks. I had upset her again. I knew I shouldn't have asked. If I apologized and did the house chores, maybe she would forgive me. Anxiety ate at my insides at the thought of her being upset again. I didn't know what hurt more; mom's anger or the possibility that my own father might've forgotten me.

It was when we had parted that I realized I was so unlike Dad. He was a dark skinned Arab from southern Iran, Bandar Abbas, the warmth of the climate emanating from his very skin and smile. From my mother I had inherited beauty, coldness and a bitter disposition. From my father I inherited nothing at all. I hadn't spoken to him since we left Iran. I had become without family, without friends, without father. Mother was the only one with me, and she spent most of her time locked in her bedroom. I was ten when we landed in Copenhagen and took the train over the newly built Oresund bridge to Malmo. We were tired, sat quiet and watched the sun reflect over the solid surface of the waves. I just couldn't remember why. Why had we come in the first place?

It was the same feeling that whole parts of my memory had disappeared when I tried to pry into what Mom knew. It was all so close, almost in my grip, but it passed between my fingers every time I grappled.

In a bid to get away from Mom's awful mood, I went to see Mrs. Ali, a Somali woman who had forgotten but two words of Swedish. Her eyesight had deteriorated from cataracts and she sat plump and wrinkly in her wheelchair in the kitchen of her rooms.

"How are you today, Mrs. Ali?" I forced a smile. I bit the skin off my cuticles. I wasn't the most charming of the nurses, or very charming at all. Mostly people ignored me. I worked hard to keep my friends. Annette was the friend who had stood by me the longest. And now I was sleeping with the guy she should be with. I didn't even like him much. I couldn't figure out what he saw in me, other than how easy I was. It must be disgusting for him to see my naked body, the hollows where flesh should be, the bones protruding in every joint, the dry skin. It just felt so good to be wanted, even when I knew that Oliver longed for someone else as he held me.

Mrs. Ali grunted in reply. I snapped back to the moment. Realizing it was all I was going to get, I began cleaning her ears. It did look rather awful. She needed a visit to the doctor. Mrs. Ali sat quiet as I went about braiding her hair. As I collected the hair off her shoulders, my fingers scraped a wound on her neck. She hit my hand away.

"I'm sorry," I said and reached for her hair again. She grabbed my hand and squeezed hard. I pulled, but she wouldn't let go.

"Djinn!" she shouted loud enough for her voice to crack and slapped me across the face.

"Ah!" I gasped and tumbled backwards, holding my cheek.

She erupted in a torrent of curse words after me as I ran out, my heartbeat in my throat. I locked myself in the bathroom of the main hallway. Illness hung in the stuffed air of the small space, an odor that made me clench my Kegel muscles in disgust. The voices of two nurses walking past came through the door. I sank onto the toilet seat. Nausea grabbed hold of me again. My breasts were aching. Why did she call me djinn? I looked at myself from every angle in the mirror but couldn't detect a difference in my demeanor other than fear and a red cheek. Dark circles under my blood shot eyes, dry skin and hair. I wasn't falling apart more than usual. What did she see in me that I couldn't face? 

A/N: Niki is such a hippie! Gotta love her.