Trafika Europe 4 - Armenian Rhapsody

sweaty hair stuck to her forehead. The midwife came too, holding me in her arms, and Paul took me without the slightest hesitation. He held me close and safe, as if he had spent his whole life doing only this. He gazed at me and beamed.

“My daughter”, he whispered.

“My little one”, he said, looking ecstatically at the midwife.

“My goodness. How tiny she is.”

Then he cried a little bit, out of emotion, not knowing that he was going to shed many more tears that day. Right then, he only knew that everything was going to change, that everything was already different because a new life had irrevocably begun with me in the world. My father sat in the Ruffini, wondering over his cup of coffee whether he could afford to invite the fifteen other café clients to a glass of Prosecco but then he remembered that he’d have to shout a round for Max and Irene too. And for his mates from volleyball. And for the man from the grocery store. Suddenly he needed to recall what I looked like. What was the colour of my eyes? Was my mouth heart-shaped like his, or straight, like Aza’s? It startled him because he couldn’t remember and this immediately drove him back to the hospital, with a completely new urge, even

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