Foreigner by Nahid Rachlin

Author:Nahid Rachlin
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780393346565
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

11

“Maybe you weren’t very happy, or else why come back after all these years!” My father’s words had particular significance now as I lay in that remote hospital with an ulcer.

I took out a mirror from my pocketbook and looked at my face, studying it for signs of unhappiness. My hair had become stringy, my cheeks hollow, and I had dark circles under my eyes. A haunted look, what might be expected from a person who had lain in bed for so long in fear and uncertainty. But beneath those signs I saw scars. Scars of pain brushed aside. Dissatisfactions not coped with. Memories rolled before me like a rug, worn and faded in some spots and vivid in others.

I am pregnant and we have just moved to a house in Lexington. Boxes in different stages of unpacking lie around the living room. From one window I can see birds circling in the air, smoke swirling out of the chimneys of the houses across the street. Children play on swings and in the sandbox in a playground, and their mothers sit together, talking or reading.

In a way I am envious of women who are home and taking care of their children, but I cannot bear the thought of taking time off from work. There is always work to do—papers at different stages of revision, experiments, appointments, colloquia, conventions, and a book for which I have signed a contract that is supposed to be finished within the year. Then there is the course I am taking a couple of evenings a week—Japanese brush painting—which is meant to be relief from work.

Tony is upstairs, looking at the first edition of Darwin’s Origin of Species he has just purchased.

I call to him to come down and help me unpack.

“I’ll be down in a minute,” he says. “I’m just checking something.”

He spends hours sometimes checking and cataloguing these books.

“This is really not the time for it,” I say.

“Just wait one minute. I’ll be down.”

Moments pass. I hear him swear to himself a couple of times.

I open the boxes and put dishes in the kitchen cabinets, records and books onto shelves.

Tony comes down the circular stairway, holding the book.

“A page is missing,” he says. “I’ll have to go to the bookstore before it closes.”

He dashes out of the door before I have a chance to say anything.

Opening a box, I cut my thumb. I go to the sink, wash the cut and bandage it. I am on the verge of crying. This would only slow things down. Last time we moved, we had boxes sitting around for weeks, for months. This time it is important to get things out of the way before the baby comes. And all that shopping we must do for the baby. I wonder if Tony is going to cooperate or disappear all the time at crucial moments.

The phone rings. It is my assistant. Something has gone wrong with one of the experiments. I am needed immediately. I go over and stay until midnight.

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