6

Aida

In the century leading up to my birth, Iran had seen two revolutions and two coups d’état. This was modern Iran, the back-and-forth power struggle as the monarchy, the mullahs and the mercantile circled each other for supremacy. The reality is the stuff of Hollywood movies – exiles, betrayals, the CIA lurking in the shadows – though Hollywood has yet to tell this tale without the pizazz and licence that make fiction of fact. Yet for most of my childhood my head swam with tales of old Persia, fuelled by the stories from my father and grandfather of the time before the Arab invasion brought Islam to our nation. This was when the Persian Empire spread from the Indus River in the east to modern-day Ethiopia under the rule of Kourosh – Cyrus the Great – when our stories were equal parts history and mythology.

My grandfather would tell me tales of the mighty Achaemenid descendants of Cyrus – Darius, Xerxes, Artaxerxes – building brick by brick their glorious new capital in Persepolis. He took me there once during a family holiday down south, my brothers running off in search of undiscovered treasures as the two of us wandered hand in hand through the ancient city buried for centuries under dust and sand and forgetting. I posed for a photograph before a statue of the homa bird, a griffin-like creature thought to live its life in flight, never resting permanently in any one place. In this picture my arms are spread wide as if I myself am flying, my mouth pouting in a narrow, funnelled attempt at a hooked beak. I remember how my grandfather laughed at this, his thin body rocking back and forth in the way my father’s does now. Those thin bodies that were once as tall and handsome as cypress trees, before time left them wilted.

I was far more fascinated by Naqsh-e Rustam, the ancient necropolis carved deep into heavy rock high up in a nearby cliff face, for I knew the name Rostam from the stories told to me by my father. Here the great Zoroastrian kings were laid to rest, their bodies placed in the rocky burial chambers touching neither earth nor fire. Did I want to ride a camel? my grandfather asked, indicating to where my brothers mock-raced each other along the road despite the scowls of the weathered camel handlers. But I was more interested in scrutinising the gaps in the rockwork and the fine bas-relief accompanying them, imagining myself prone inside as the vultures picked my bleached bones clean.

‘Does it hurt?’ I asked him.

‘Does what hurt?’ he replied. ‘The camels?’

‘History,’ I said, and he had no answer to this.

My happiest memories are of visiting my grandparents in their small village near Kashan, where they retired after my grandfather made his money in Tehran. The joyful anticipation that radiated between my brothers and I as we tussled in the back seat of the car, bidding farewell to crowded, cramped Tehran. The carefree whistle in my father’s exhalation as he returned to the home of his ancestors. My mother’s stoic brow, steeling herself for my grandmother’s questions and critiques. Sometimes Damavand, the tallest mountain in the Alborz range that hugs the north of the city, would manage to peep through the pollution long enough for us to wave goodbye, and then we would be on our way, stopping only in Qom to dodge the mullahs and buy sweet sticky sohan for my grandmother. My grandparents’ village lay in the desert – not the golden soil of Yazd or soft dunes of Maranjab – but hard, rocky desert of stone and shrubs that was dry yet fertile given the right conditions. The houses in their tiny village were squat and block-like, stacked side by side like a child’s plaything. There had been a school once, and a factory for making hinges, both now closed as the village shrank. A doctor visited the clinic once a week to tend to the ageing occupants, who were all related to us in one way or another (and sometimes both), for this was a place where cousins sometimes married cousins to build up their real estate. Despite its appearance, the village soils still thrived, and with the help of hired youth from a larger village nearby produced pomegranates, walnuts, figs, almonds, apricots, plums, blackberries, tomatoes, eggplants, cucumbers and turnips. Roses, too, with rosewater forming the backbone of their income.

We’d pile out of the car, the sharpness of the air hitting our lungs so different from Tehran’s bitter chemical fug. My grandparents’ house had two main rooms, both lined from wall to wall with carpets of all colours and styles: Mashhadi, Kashani, a bold nomadic weave depicting the tree of life. Here we would sit down to eat and later to sleep, half in one room, half in the other, all haunted by the apnoeic snoring of my uncle Asadollah, who never seemed to be roused by the frustrated manhandling of the would-be sleepers around him. Huddled together around the korsi, its coal fire fighting off the cold desert night, my father and grandfather would take turns telling us stories from the Shahnameh. Of wise Sam, abandoned Zal, and of course the mighty Rostam, each trying to outdo the other with poetic phrasing and flourishing details, as Uncle Asadollah prayed hastily in the corner because he’d forgotten to do it earlier. His belly tucked into his striped pyjamas, he wheezed and panted each time he lowered himself to the ground in a secondary soundtrack to our evening. And often this is how I would fall asleep, my head resting on my mother’s shoulder as familiar voices sung me into sleep.

It was early still but late enough to pull herself out of bed after another restless night. Aida closed her notebook, sliding it beneath her pillow. After she dressed, she crept out of the house. As usual the letterbox was empty, save for some flyers and junk mail. Sometimes, even though she knew the postman didn’t call until the afternoon, Aida checked it in the morning just in case. Just in case she’d missed it the day before, just in case it had landed in a neighbour’s letterbox first. Just in case she was losing her mind. She chided herself, looking around to see if there were any neighbours about, but thankfully the street was clear of anyone who might puzzle at her incessant routine. This is what I have become, she thought to herself. A degree from one of the best universities in Iran and her day revolved around checking the letterbox and giving out résumés that went straight into rubbish bins.

She pulled the sleeves of her jumper down over her knuckles. The weather was changing now, autumn settling in with a mild chill that had plunged their little house into premature winter. It had been raining, too, a light drizzle that was steadily building in purpose. She looked up as the front door slammed. Elham stood wrestling an umbrella open as Niki steered a course straight for the nearest puddle, her face set in maniacal determination.

‘Niki!’ Elham called warningly, just as Niki landed, showering herself with stale, dirty water. She looked utterly impressed with herself. Elham greeted Aida, tilting her head towards the letterbox.

‘Nothing?’

‘Nothing.’

‘No news is good news,’ Elham offered, her nose wrinkled. ‘What will you do today?’

‘Keep looking for jobs,’ Aida replied, her eyes on the heavy clouds. ‘Rain, hail or shine!’

Elham made a clicking noise with her tongue. ‘You’ll drive yourself crazy, all this looking. And you want to work where? In some shop or café when you are a journalist who studied English?’

Aida shrugged. It didn’t work like that. Here she had no contacts, no understanding of the system. No permanent visa, which was the most important part. Elham clicked her tongue again.

‘Give your mind the morning off. Come drop Niki at kinder.’

Aida began to decline the offer but stopped. Elham was right. It was getting to her, day after day of silence and rejection fuelling the uselessness that permeated her entire being. It had been enough before, when none of them had work rights, but now to have the right but not the opportunity – this was far worse.

‘Okay.’

Elham raised her eyebrows, surprised. ‘Really?’

‘Areh,’ Aida smiled.

Beside them, Niki was eyeing the puddle again, considering a rematch. She raised a boot-clad foot in the air.

‘Let’s go now, then,’ Elham said, smiling back. ‘Niki! Nakon!’

Niki watched her mother, a single foot still hovering over the water. Elham raised a stern eyebrow and Niki lowered it, guiltily, until it rested at the edge of the puddle.

‘Berim,’ Elham announced.

And off they went indeed, Aida and Elham huddled beneath the umbrella and Niki stomping through the rain. They walked the few blocks to Niki’s kinder, joining the hodgepodge procession of patterned umbrellas and prams advancing in caravan towards the building. At the entrance, Aida watched Elham key in a code to release the gate. Niki paused then turned to Aida.

‘Come,’ she commanded in aloof English, marching into the building.

Surprised by the attention, Aida followed her. Torn between her usual state of wilfully ignoring Aida and her innate desire to showcase her kinder, Niki toured Aida through the building, pointing out various areas, barking their names with casual indifference.

‘Kitchen – toilet – painting – playground – naughty corner,’ she rattled off, her hands gesturing casually as if she were welcoming a film crew through her newly renovated home.

They paused before a large glassed area that looked out onto the play equipment outside. Its surface was peppered with the smudge and smears of a hundred little hands. Oblivious, Niki pressed her nose against the glass.

‘Rabbit,’ she announced, pointing to an A-frame hutch in one corner. ‘Detention.’

Aida glanced at the wire mesh that kept the rabbits inside, but Niki had already resumed her tour. They viewed the reading area and the art cupboard before Niki suddenly bored of her new occupation and raced off in the direction of the other children without a backward glance. A tall girl with dark braids was throwing a ball to another little girl, and Niki leapt between them, delighted. The three of them dove for the ball, giggling and tumbling, then chased each other across the room. Elham watched them, her face momentarily pained.

‘They can’t put her back in detention. Look at her here.’

Niki successfully wrestled the ball from the others, hysterical with power and joy. As Aida and Elham made their way towards the exit a brightly dressed woman caught up with them. She was soft and round, her open face anxious to please.

‘I’m Heather,’ she introduced herself. ‘One of the centre managers.’

Elham nodded hesitantly at Heather then looked to Aida with uncertainty. She reminded Aida of her own kinder teacher, Parisa-joon, and she wondered for a moment if they were all pumped out of a floral-scented perennially nervous mould in a factory somewhere. Heather rested one hand on the other, both atop the curve of her stomach.

‘I just wanted to have a quick chat about Niki,’ she said, a jolly fake smile on her face. ‘Is that . . . do you . . . is that okay?’

She looked at them both nervously and Aida’s mind filled with images of all the terrible things Niki might be responsible for: never-ending tantrums, her fascination with casting things into the toilet, the rabbit – please don’t let it be anything to do with the rabbit, or the toilet, or both.

‘What is it?’ Elham asked in Persian and Aida shrugged.

She nodded for Heather to continue.

‘Let me start by saying that Niki is a lovely little girl. Just lovely.’

Aida translated for Elham, who looked sceptical.

‘My Niki? Are you sure she’s got the right child?’

Aida smiled at Heather.

‘She says thank you for saying such kind things.’

‘And she’s made lots of little friends here,’ Heather continued. ‘Oodles of them.’

Aida translated and Elham frowned.

‘She has the wrong kid. Here, show her the picture in my phone.’

Aida ignored the phone. ‘Elham says making friends is one of Niki’s strong points. That and demonstrating patience.’

‘What is she getting at? Who is this woman? Find out what she wants,’ Elham commanded under her breath.

‘Just like her mother,’ Aida continued. ‘The whole family thrives on their warm and trusting nature.’

Elham elbowed her.

‘I know you’re not translating what I say.’

Heather watched, confused, then reset her uneasy smile.

‘There are a couple of things I’m a little concerned about.’

‘See! I knew it,’ Elham said in rapid Persian. ‘It’s the tantrums, isn’t it? She never listens, either. Or the pinching. She knows she’s not meant to pinch but you think she’ll listen to me?’

‘Her speech isn’t as advanced as we would expect at her age but more than that . . . it’s . . . the drawings, mostly,’ Heather continued, her gaze shifting away from them in discomfort. ‘They’re, well, we can’t put any of them up on the walls, if you get my drift. Some are . . . troubling and, well, we’ve had a complaint. Nothing formal yet, but one of the parents . . . Niki can be . . . rough. I’m sure she doesn’t mean it. But we need to ensure all the children feel safe. And it makes me wonder about how things are for Niki. I understand your situation, and really we want to support you. Those times you’ve been late to pick her up and she’s joined the long day care kids, we’ve not charged you for that. But the pictures and the rough play and, well . . .’ She trailed off, her discomfort filling the gaps for Aida.

Aida translated for Elham, who fell silent. It was a long silence, punctuated only by the incongruous giggle and shriek of children playing nearby. Elham’s voice was small, her eyes set on the ground before her.

‘You think I don’t know this?’ she asked. ‘I see this. I know it isn’t normal for her. But how is she supposed to understand normal when all she has known is detention? When all she has seen . . . You think I don’t feel shame about this? You think I don’t feel like I am failing her? Mothers are meant to protect their children but how can I do this for her? I tell her to be gentle but what can you expect? What do I tell her? No, Niki, draw rainbows and pussycats instead. Nice things. Just forget everything else. How do I do this? There is nothing I can do.’

Tears filled her eyes and she turned away from them, ashamed. Heather clasped her hands in front of her, waiting uncomfortably for Aida to translate. Elham turned back to Aida suddenly, her eyes full of fear.

‘What if they take Niki away from me?’ she whispered. ‘You hear all those stories of Child Protection . . . Don’t tell her I said all that, Aida-joon. Please.’

Aida cleared her throat.

‘Elham is a good mother,’ she told Heather. ‘It is not easy for people like us. She is doing her best.’

‘I . . . I didn’t say she wasn’t,’ Heather said. ‘It’s just, well, we can organise something. Some help perhaps?’

‘Can you get her a visa?’ Aida asked sharply. ‘Promise her she won’t go back into detention?’

Heather’s face fell. ‘Now, look, I . . . my concern is . . . I care. I’ve signed the petitions online. My husband too. But I have no control over those things.’

The woman was red-cheeked, wringing her hands nervously.

‘I’m sorry,’ Aida apologised. ‘That was very improper of me. I’ll talk to Elham about getting someone to help with Niki.’

As if conjured by some spell of coincidence, Niki appeared beside them, casting her arms around Elham’s legs.

‘Of course,’ said Heather, offering them both what Aida now knew was a smile of hope and pain. It was the one given by anyone employed to help them. ‘When you’re ready, of course.’

As they left, Aida thought of all the children she’d seen, caged and anxious and not knowing any better. No room for their imaginations because of the abundance of reality. Then she tried to think of them no more.

*

When Elham returned home with Niki that afternoon Aida had a surprise for them.

‘It’s a bed, Niki. A late birthday present. A little mattress just for you. So you don’t have to sleep crammed together on that single bed anymore.’

Niki gave the mattress a cursory glance, her eyes drifting over the purple daisies and stars of the sheets.

‘No,’ she replied shortly, coiling herself around Elham.

‘Niki-joon, look at the lovely gift khaleh has given you!’ Elham gushed, but Niki refused to.

‘No,’ she said again, her voice muffled by Elham’s thigh.

Elham gave Aida an apologetic look.

Aida waved it off. ‘It’s nothing.’

She watched Niki huff out of the room. She had missed Niki’s birthday the week before and only now had the money to buy her a gift. Aida didn’t mention that because of the mattress she would be eating noodles until her next payment came through. Nor the difficulty she’d had lugging it home from the high street, balanced beneath her umbrella, after spotting it in a store while dropping off résumés. Nor the particularly strange breed of catcalls this had produced.

‘We’ve never slept apart,’ Elham confided, her voice low.

Aida was mortified that she had not considered this.

‘Of course,’ she assured Elham. ‘It’s there whenever you need it. I’m sure the cats will love it, anyway.’

Later, Aida wandered into the kitchen to find Elham scraping the remains of Niki’s meal into the Cyruses bowl. Elham glanced at her a moment, shaking her head at the wasted food, then her face suddenly lit up.

‘Oh, something happened to Niki today! Niki-joon!’ she called. ‘Come here! Come show khaleh.’

Niki wandered back in, heavy-footed.

‘Show her. Show khaleh,’ Elham insisted, and Niki reluctantly opened her mouth.

‘She fell off the play equipment,’ Elham explained. ‘Knocked a tooth right out. But she’s such a brave girl, aren’t you?’

Niki nodded stoically, her tongue working the new gap in her mouth. ‘Tooth fairy,’ she informed them.

Elham and Aida exchanged confused looks.

‘She was saying this before,’ Elham said. ‘What are you saying, azizam?’

‘Tooth fairy,’ Niki insisted, her voice rising with frustration.

‘Fairly?’ Aida guessed. ‘What’s not fair?’

‘I don’t understand you, azizam. Maybe it’s the missing tooth or maybe she knocked her head when she fell. Niki, what are you saying?’ Elham asked again, prompting the child to flash red.

‘TOOTH FAIRY!’

The two women looked at each other, lost. Somewhere in the back of Aida’s mind a distant memory shuffled its feet.

‘Wait, this is sounding familiar.’

She pulled out her phone and typed tooth fairy into the search engine. She opened the Wikipedia entry and scrolled down. When she was finished, she began at the start and read through again. Elham watched her intently.

‘What? What does it say?’

Aida looked down at the screen, bewildered.

‘Tooth fairy . . . A pari. When children lose their teeth the tooth fairy comes in the night to take them away.’

Elham’s face squirrelled in confusion.

‘What? The children?’

‘No, the teeth.’

‘It takes the teeth? Oh, like the little mouse! My mother used to tell me that. The little mouse comes at night to take your teeth away.’

‘Yes, but the tooth fairy leaves money in return.’

‘For the teeth? Who gets the money? The parents or the child?’

‘The child.’

Elham considered this.

‘The little mouse makes more sense. Mice are always hoarding things. But why would a pari want to buy teeth? A jinn maybe. A jinn would exchange your teeth for money, except it would be an ancient dirham that turned out to be cursed, and would ruin the fortunes of you and your descendants for generations.’

Aida could see her mind ticking over.

‘But we’re in Australia now, so pari it is. Okay, Niki-joon. Time for bed. Let’s leave your tooth out for the tooth pari.’

Niki threw back her head to protest but Elham raised a finger.

‘You want your payment, don’t you? You better get into the new bed khaleh gave you or the tooth pari might accidentally give your payment to Maman and take away my teeth.’

Niki eyed the two women suspiciously, processing her options. Finally, she nodded cautiously.

‘But Maman help me sleep,’ she countered.

‘Okay, azizam,’ Elham agreed. ‘You go put on your pyjamas and I’ll be there soon.’

Niki sauntered off, casting a prudent glance over her shoulder, the little tooth clasped firmly in her fist. In the kitchen, Elham opened her purse.

‘How much do you think this jinn leaves? I have no coins.’

Aida checked her own purse.

‘Me neither. I have a ten-dollar note. Is that too much? It seems like too much. Surely a child’s tooth isn’t worth much?’

Elham shrugged her shoulders sceptically.

‘Who knows in this country? You pay five dollars for bread so ten doesn’t seem unreasonable for a human tooth.’

‘Maman!’ Niki called out from the bedroom.

‘You go settle her,’ Aida said. ‘I’ll find somewhere to get some change.’

‘You sure?’ Elham asked, her face uncertain. ‘It’s raining.’

‘Of course. Imagine what would happen if she woke up to nothing. Go.’

The rain was heavier now, bucketing down in great powerful slabs. Aida huddled under the umbrella, her shoes soaked through. Water coursed through the gutter beside her, leaves and garbage barrelling urgently down the street. The little corner store was still open, a bucket waiting expectantly by the door for umbrellas. Aida’s was the sole lodger. It was a small store, poky and labyrinthine, the shelves housing an eclectic assortment of products, many of which were coated with a preserving layer of dust. There were loaves of white bread on the counter, a selection of videos for hire, and a handwritten sign advertising the option of dry-cleaning services should patrons be that way inclined. It reminded Aida of the little stores at home, the one near her parents’ place where she’d go sometimes to pick up jam and herbs and pofak cheese puffs if there was change to spare. An elderly woman, wizened and bored-looking, stood behind the counter, a feather duster keeping busy over the easier-to-reach stock. Such was her height that only two of the four shelves were dust-free. Aida approached the counter, pulling the ten-dollar note from her pocket.

‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t happen to know the correct amount of money the tooth fairy leaves, would you?’

The woman stared at her for a moment, her face expressionless, before she called out something in another language through the open doorway behind her. Aida thought it might be Vietnamese, and for a moment wondered if this woman too had come by boat. Soon a young man came skulking out. The woman said something to him and his face contorted in confusion.

‘What were you looking for?’ he asked Aida, stepping up to the counter.

Aida smoothed the note in her hand.

‘I was wondering how much money the tooth fairy leaves. For a tooth. A small tooth, maybe this big.’ She squeezed her thumb and forefinger close. ‘Three, no, just turned four years old. Knocked out in the playground, if that makes a difference,’ she added helpfully, unsure whether the tooth fairy modulated payments like insurers did.

The young man thought for a moment.

‘It depends. I mean, in this economy, you wouldn’t want to go for anything lower than a dollar, I reckon. It’s not like the old days when twenty cents would buy you a decent bag of lollies. And any higher is just excessive, because what’s a four-year-old going to do with all that coin? A dollar, I reckon. Just to be safe.’

Aida held out the note.

‘Thank you. Could I trouble you for change?’

The woman looked annoyed and stepped forward to say something, but the young man brushed her away.

‘It’s fine, Ba Noi. Look at the rain.’

He fished some coins out of the register.

‘Here, take this too.’

He handed Aida a small chocolate bar from the counter.

‘Just think of it as the tooth fairy making an investment for the future.’

His unexpected kindness unsettled her, and she turned her face away.

Aida arrived home to a smell both familiar and faraway, her mind lost for a moment as she scrambled to place it.

‘You’ve been burning esfand!’ she exclaimed, the oaky smell reminding her of her mother, who would routinely wait until guests had left before flushing the house with the burning seeds in case they’d inadvertently brought bad spirits inside. It brought seventy-two angels, her mother insisted, who purged the house of evils.

Elham looked embarrassed.

‘It’s all this talk of jinns . . . I know it’s just a children’s story but better to be safe than sorry. We need all the luck we can get.’

Aida smiled, and placed a coin and the chocolate bar in Elham’s palm.

‘Here.’

Elham pocketed them.

‘I’ll take it in later, in case she wakes up before morning. You hungry? I’m reheating some tahchin from yesterday.’

Aida held up a hand.

‘It’s okay. I have leftovers.’

‘You mean that monstrosity that stank out the kitchen? The smell of it – like Mashhadi perfume but cheaper. I gave it to the cats.’

Aida glanced into the kitchen. Cyrus and Shahrzad had distanced themselves from the leftovers, eyeing them with disdain and mistrust.

‘You see? Even the animals won’t touch it. You cook like we’re still in the camps. Please, just eat some real food with me.’

Aida hesitated. Cyrus was prodding at the leftovers with his paw, forcing it from his dinner plate. A chunk tipped over the edge onto the linoleum and he stepped back, satisfied.

‘Fine. Thank you.’

They sat at the table, Elham’s delicious food before them.

‘I’m exhausted. Look at the time,’ Aida sighed.

‘Just like home, right?’ Elham said. ‘None of this dinner while it’s still daylight business they have here.’

‘I have an idea,’ Aida said, leaving the room and returning moments later with a sheet.

She spread it on the floor, a makeshift sofreh, then took her plate from the table. She sat down, legs crossed, and began to eat.

‘Just like home,’ she smiled.

Elham let out a whoop of laughter, her eyes bright, then joined her.

‘You know what would make this more like home?’ she said. ‘My mother complaining about the traffic on the way to the bazaar. ‘Ai, nothing but red lights the whole way! And the man beside me in the taxi looking into my bag like a pervert!’

‘The price of saffron!’ Aida cried, clutching at her cheeks in pantomime of her own mother. ‘And you wouldn’t guess how long I had to wait in line for this sangak! You’d think it was the bread of the Shah himself!’

Elham snorted with laughter.

‘And this rain! It’s like a horse’s tail! I remember just before I left going to buy meat and it was twice the price it was the week before. Twice the price!’

Elham’s face changed and she stared into her rice.

‘It’s funny the way you don’t think about how it might be the last time you ever do something, but then it is. The last time I buy meat from the butcher in the bazaar. The last time I squeeze into the crowded bus. The last time I hug my mother and kiss her cheeks. You don’t realise how big these small things are.’

Aida stopped eating. Elham seemed suddenly shrunken by her grief. She knew what was coming next. Her heart started to race as she settled her spoon on her plate.

‘You know . . .’ Elham started, but Aida cut her off.

‘You know what I do when I start to think like that?’ she said, and Elham looked at her expectantly.

‘I think of three things different and three things the same. My father taught me this. It makes things less scary. Reminds you of the things you have. Why don’t you try?’

Elham looked dubious. ‘Your father is a psychologist?’

‘An academic, but he figures it’s the same. Just try it,’ Aida insisted. ‘Three things that are different.’

‘Fine,’ Elham said, picking a grain of rice from her lap. ‘One – people eat dinner very early here. Two – the tooth jinn, obviously. Three – people say confusing things here like, “How are you going?” What does this mean? How am I going? By train, of course, but I’ll probably be late because they’re never on time.’

‘Good.’ Aida smiled. ‘Now three things the same.’

Elham sat back, stretching her feet before her and rubbing her thighs.

‘This is hard.’

She thought some more.

‘One – I’m still scared to walk the streets at night. Two – most television is silly. Three – saffron is just as expensive.’

‘Do you feel better?’ Aida asked, and Elham lifted her shoulders.

‘Distracted, I guess. It stops you thinking what you were thinking. Your father is a clever man.’ Elham pulled herself to her feet, her arms wrapped around her body. ‘Does it help you hold off those thoughts forever?’

‘I suppose so,’ Aida replied softly, but her voice was drowned out by the rain.

*

Later that night, as she lay in bed listening to the rain pound down upon the roof, Aida checked her phone. There was a message from her mother. Back to the doctors. More tests. Have you heard anything? Sending you love. Her stomach tightened at this, her chest, her muscles, everything retracting with cautious resistance. Everything was okay. Of course it was. It had to be. Because she was here and not there, and if something happened she couldn’t be there, so it had to be okay. Her heart started beating out a new rhythm, one of panic and dread, and she squeezed her eyes shut to disrupt it. Three things, she thought, but nothing came. She raised herself from bed, pulled a cardigan over her pyjamas, then padded softly out of her room. The air was cool and sharp as she stepped onto the porch, mist rising from the thundering rain and settling across her exposed skin.

Three things different:

The colour of money

The tooth jinn, obviously

The spaces between people

Three things the same:

The smell of rain

The colour of night

The stories. The ones that people tell, that follow you for always.

She stared out, the world constricted under the pressure and closeness of the rain clouds. And she imagined them, all those stories, breaking out from the well inside her and pouring liberated into the night.