Banthology by Sarah Cleave

Author:Sarah Cleave
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781941920749
Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing
Published: 2018-03-21T16:00:00+00:00

By the time I finally reached your grandfather, I was exhausted. The journey had almost finished me off. All I wanted was to bury myself into his chest. I threw my arms around him, but he was stone-like, unfeeling; it was like hugging a concrete column in an emergency ward in the hospital. I felt his hand move upwards and touch the top of my head. He was distant and cold.

‘Where’s your hijab?’ he shrieked. ‘Did you take it off?’

It wasn’t the reunion I had imagined. Instead of being happy to see me, your grandfather was furious, reeling off threats and insults, and rehashing every fight we’d ever had. It was almost as if he’d planned the whole thing the night before! I cursed him under my breath, repeating, ‘Oh Allah, how did I ever love such an odious man. Oh Allah, intercede on my behalf.’ But on he went; no stone was left unturned. I stood there dumfounded, waiting for him to bring up the time we fought over a TV show covering the election results of a country that shall remain nameless. I tried to calm him, asking him for forgiveness in my most pleading voice. He fell silent. I felt as if your father was in my belly, looking up at me, gobsmacked, demanding that I find him a new father, anyone but this sharp-tongued and unfeeling, bitter man. He kept repeating these words over and over, and then plucked from himself the only resemblance he held to his father; the hair on this head.

They broke my husband’s trust in me when they removed the scarf from my head, and they plucked out my son’s hair forever in that same moment.

They never think about the outcome of their actions or understand how they affect us. But I suppose the real disaster would be if they did know and truly understood, and still did nothing to change.

And so, this was how the first family get-together started and ended all within the walls of the airport. To make matters even worse, when your grandfather discovered that I wasn’t wearing any underwear, he flew into another rage, divorcing me on the spot. This time, I really did hug the closest cement column I could find. I hugged it and cried, refusing to let go, as the planes took off, and landed in the distance, days merged into weeks, months into years. That airport became my home, never once did I cross the threshold. Instead, I became a woman without a past or a future, standing by the gates, going from airport to airport, without underwear, carrying an unborn child that pulled out its hair in protest.

I slept on the chairs in the waiting area a thousand times, selling tissues to travellers until I could buy a return ticket to Schrödinger.

My dear grandson, you will only truly understand the value of Schrödinger when the airports of the world search your heart, your pockets, the very pores of your skin, and leave you to waste away in their never-ending queues.

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