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46
In all the excitement over the impending birth, it hadn’t
occurred to Paul to unpack the overnight bag, which was
still standing with locked zippers on one of the visitors’
chairs in the hospital room. Hence, nobody realised that
Aza was swiftly and stealthily equipped with passport, a
return ticket, wallet, toothbrush, toothpaste, skin cream,
hair brush, shampoo, two sets of underwear, a sweater and
jogging pants, to disappear from our lives forever, without a
word or as much as a backward glance.
Paul didn’t suspect anything. He’d sneaked out of the
hospital room when I was asleep and Aza was pretending to
be because he urgently needed to be out in the fresh air,
away from the stench of disinfectant, away from squeaky
nurse steps on polished linoleum floors, away from the
mouldy smell of bunches of flowers which visitors plonked
down on every available surface. He walked the two blocks
down to the café Ruffini, asked for a coffee, bought a packet
of cigarettes from the vending machine and sat down by
the window. It had stopped raining. Occasional drops
splashed from gutters, beaded on bicycle saddles, and
dribbled down windowpanes. Aza hadn’t wanted him to be
present at the birth and he, as if this was some bad
seventies comedy, had waited in the passage, pacing up and
down, smoking out the window and chewing gum. It had
seemed like an eternity before Aza was at last trundled out
of the delivery room, semi-conscious and with strands of