Trafika Europe 4 - Armenian Rhapsody

taught Paul how to feed me, to change nappies, bathe me, and the nurses were good to me. They rocked me in their arms, tickled my tummy and nuzzled my belly rolls so they’d remember my baby scent. I was visited by our flatmates Max and Irene, who bent over me with respectful distance and argued about who I’d look like. Paul already knew, but he kept it to himself. Later I’d spend hours in front of the mirror trying to imagine what my mother looked like, taking all the bits I didn’t get from my father and fitting them together. Freckles and red hair for example. Dark skin. Otherwise ... Well, I’d have to wait. There were no photos. There would be no memory, no stories.

“From here she looks like Aza”, Max said and immediately regretted having mentioned her name.

“But if you look a bit from the right, she looks totally like you.”

Irene said, “Hey Paul, so crazy, right?”

Then they were silent for a while.

“Who’ll look after her now?”

When my grandparents came, Grandma immediately offered to take me to Mathildesberg, a village seven

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