Trafika Europe 4 - Armenian Rhapsody

wheeled me into the room with her squeaky soles the only thing Aza wanted was to keep facing the wall, staring at the grains of the wallpaper. She felt the pattern with her fingertips, groping her way through teardrop-shaped obstacles and seeing in the twists and turns a distant land of valleys and rivers. Now she was almost tender as she picked me up and held me close but gingerly as if I was a cluster of fresh-laid eggs her parents had sent her out to gather in the chicken run. With me in her arms, she carefully sat on the window ledge and slowly swung her legs outside. She exhaled pain in ragged breaths and beads of sweat dripping from her forehead. The view over the rooftops of Neuhausen was rain-coloured. Sunbeams nudged through retreating leaden clouds, polishing up roofs and treetops. Everything smelled of earth and bark. Starlings chirruped, somewhere a dog was barking, and a cyclist whizzed through puddles on the newly washed cobblestones. Otherwise it was quiet. But then my stomach started to rumble and, gulping in a great mouthful of air, I let it out in a screech, which turned into yelling, first demanding, then angry, and with each gasp I jerked my body around like a fish snapping for air. I opened my purple mouth wide, screamed, and clenched my fists until they lost all colour, becoming bloodless and almost translucent. Aza stretched out her arms, holding me, this bawling red-faced infant fury away from her, out towards the tower of the Dom Pedro Church. It was 7 September 1994, Wednesday afternoon, six o’clock and, when the

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