Trafika Europe 4 - Armenian Rhapsody

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

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