{"id":7366,"date":"2022-11-17T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-11-17T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sum.malmostudenter.se\/?p=7366"},"modified":"2024-10-18T12:10:22","modified_gmt":"2024-10-18T12:10:22","slug":"jesus-carving-2-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sum.malmostudenter.se\/index.php\/2022\/11\/17\/jesus-carving-2-6\/","title":{"rendered":"Jesus’ Carving (2\/6)"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

Photo: A. Elmi<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t

Jesus' Carving (2\/6)<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

By: A. Elmi
<\/strong><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

17th of November 2022<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

Maryan was very fond of screens of various kinds, which is to say that she liked anything she could hide behind, from a door to a human back to a blanket. For no sooner did a door close her into an empty room or someone turn their back to her than she would relax and smile and do whatever it was she usually did. It was hard to say exactly what she did during the days, except try her hand at cooking and failing each time, because seeing her you couldn\u2019t have guessed at it and speaking to her you\u2019d rarely elicit a reply. Although her behaviour was comparable to a thief\u2019s in many ways, I believe she was simply more comfortable doing things secretly. Maybe she was one of those people who couldn\u2019t handle the pressures of social interactions and could only think, speak, and act freely when alone. I often wondered what her full voice sounded like, and also why she favoured tattered dresses when she had the option to wear new ones. Everything, from her silence to the clothes she wore, begged you not to look at her, to pretend she wasn\u2019t there, so she could live and breathe unbothered by people and their demands. But, of course, this wasn\u2019t possible at all. She was Grandfather Kaahin\u2019s primary carer. For obvious reasons, we had to talk with her and get to know her, know he was safe with her. And though Grandfather vouched for her character, none of us really knew enough about her to say for certain that she was this kind of person or that. It made all of us, save Grandfather, guarded and more than a little mistrustful.<\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0For these reasons, I was sprinting through the hard rain down the road to Maashaven Station hours later to meet up with Mum and my two brothers. They were huddling together inside the station, waiting for me, waiting to start our secret meeting.<\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u2018She burned Awoowe\u2019s <\/i>food again,\u2019 I panted at them as they shifted a little to make room for me in their circle.<\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Mum inched closer, her right shoulder touching my left. \u2018Did you feed your Awoowe<\/i>?\u2019 she asked me, her hands grabbing for mine.<\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I took her hands and smiled at her calmingly. \u2018I did. And I made boxes of food for Maryan to heat up in the microwave for him tomorrow and the day after.\u2019<\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0My oldest brother, Xirsi, scoffed. \u2018Well, let\u2019s hope the mute doesn\u2019t burn that too.\u2019<\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u2018Does she even know how to work a microwave?\u2019 my youngest brother, Idris, asked.<\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u2018I\u2019ve shown her plenty of times,\u2019 I said, letting go of Mum\u2019s hands, \u2018but she seems a bit slow.\u2019<\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u2018I\u2019ll have a neighbour come round to help her, then,\u2019 Mum said tiredly. \u2018This can\u2019t go on forever,\u2019 she went on. \u2018Your Awoowe <\/i>is a diabetic. His health depends on regular, well-cooked meals.\u2019 The hiss and patter of the rain filled her ensuing silence, and her eyes went gradually distant. \u2018But it doesn\u2019t look like I have much of a choice but to train her,\u2019 she said eventually, resigned and unlike herself.<\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u2018We can\u2019t train someone who doesn\u2019t speak, though,\u2019 Idris commented, but it was as much criticism as observation. And maybe that was why he took the edge off his words, making his voice soft and gentle. He watched Mum until she became aware of him and met his gaze, her eyes becoming alert. \u2018Awoowe<\/i> swears she could cook back home in Ethiopia,\u2019 he continued with a full voice, \u2018but now she burns every single food she touches. So, is the problem that she can\u2019t cook or that she won\u2019t? What if she burns the food intentionally? Whatever it may be, she won\u2019t tell us because she won\u2019t speak to us. So, we should send her away before something bad happens to Awoowe<\/i>.\u2019<\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Mum watched him for another moment, her face unreadable, then turned to me. \u2018Safia, dear, you\u2019re the only one Maryan speaks to. If anyone knows why she burns the food, it\u2019s you.\u2019<\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I started to nod in agreement but then broke off to grimace hesitantly. \u2018Well, she told me she doesn\u2019t know why she does it.\u2019 My eyes narrowed in sudden recollection. \u2018But then, after a while, she smiled.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u2018She smiled?\u2019 Mum echoed, shocked. She looked across at Idris again. \u2018Maybe we should<\/i> send her away.\u2019<\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u2018How?\u2019 Xirsi asked us all.<\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0My mind had already travelled back to the smile, and it was a small leap from there to our conversation about her mysterious fianc\u00e9. \u2018I have an idea,\u2019 I said, instantly earning everyone\u2019s attention. \u2018She\u2019s involved with some man. She doesn\u2019t know his name, or she won\u2019t tell me, and she\u2019s never met him in the eleven years they\u2019ve been talking, or so she tells me. But here\u2019s the thing: they\u2019re engaged now. When she marries him . . .\u2019 I trailed off and swept my eyes over them meaningfully.<\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Idris\u2019s face brightened up. \u2018When she marries him, she\u2019ll<\/i> leave<\/i>.\u2019<\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Mum nodded and then clapped her hands together once. \u2018Listen closely, now! We have to speed this marriage along. Safia,\u2019 she said, looking at me, \u2018talk with her some more about this man and tell her we\u2019re happy to arrange the wedding and anything else she might need help with. Our goal,\u2019 she continued, \u2018is to get her out within two months, at most three.\u2019<\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u2018Haye, Hooyo<\/i>, Okay, Mother.\u2019<\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0About the only thing that was harder than getting Maryan to volunteer some words was perhaps finding her. She was like one of those wily little flies that has a way of disappearing the moment you try to catch it and reappearing only after you\u2019ve returned the swatter to the cabinet. Our house wasn\u2019t ideal for a game of hide-and-seek. It wasn\u2019t big, cluttered, or adapted with hideouts, and yet she\u2019d found a way to vanish inside it, either camouflaging against something, like that ring of hers, or hiding in one of those air pockets where she kept her thoughts. Just as with her speech, you had to wait, wait, wait until she was ready for you.<\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Even if I could find her and make the offer this evening, I doubted we could send her away anytime soon. For if there was one thing I knew about her for sure, it was that Maryan would leave in her own time. She did everything at her own pace and on her own terms, and Grandfather was the first witness to this behaviour. His private chauffeur had just narrowly skirted a collision on Meskel Square, the wildest intersection in the world, and Grandfather was slumped in the back wiping sweat from his brow. The car had been stationary for about ten wild heartbeats when a skinny, grimy child threw the door open and scrabbled up onto the seat next to Grandfather. She closed the door shut and locked it, then stiffened into a statue. As though she were an actual statue, no one and nothing could move her so that she was fixed as firmly as ever even as the car pulled up hours later in the driveway of his Addis Ababa home. That was when the girl-statue regained life for a flickering instant, launching herself from the car and into his garden where she turned into a sort of gnome. When she wasn\u2019t doing this, she\u2019d drift about in his garden staring around at everything or nothing or pass in and out of the house, conjuring up wonderful meals, scrubbing things clean, and predicting Grandfather\u2019s needs. She would bury her bare feet in the garden soil and pile stones over them whenever Grandfather so much as hinted it was time for her to leave. She clung to him for the next twenty years and transformed from intruder to adopted daughter, caring for Grandfather in exchange for food, shelter, and pocket money. And it was in this last role we welcomed her together with Grandfather to our home in Rotterdam last year.<\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I was about to turn in for the night when I heard soft footfalls in the hallway outside my bedroom. I stuck my head out and saw a stocky shape disappearing into Grandfather\u2019s room. I followed it and saw Maryan slipping into her mattress at the foot of Grandfather\u2019s bed and blanketing herself from head to toe. I made to approach her, hoping that a person such as she who hid and whispered might feel more comfortable talking in the dark. Perhaps she could convince herself she was talking to the empty air and speak more freely. I froze partway to her mattress at the light shining through her covers. The light angled towards her ear before it attached to it. Before long, whispers, pitched to carry to the mobile glued to her ear, trickled out through the covers. I stood in the dark straining to catch any semblance of words until my yawns grew and almost cracked my jaws.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This mysterious short story in six parts will be published every Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7334,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[333,332],"tags":[294,304,291],"class_list":["post-7366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-creative-writing","category-literature-film","tag-creative-writing","tag-mystery","tag-short-story","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sum.malmostudenter.se\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sum.malmostudenter.se\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sum.malmostudenter.se\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sum.malmostudenter.se\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sum.malmostudenter.se\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7366"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sum.malmostudenter.se\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7371,"href":"https:\/\/sum.malmostudenter.se\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7366\/revisions\/7371"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sum.malmostudenter.se\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sum.malmostudenter.se\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sum.malmostudenter.se\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sum.malmostudenter.se\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}