by Thordis Elva
The Mother City promptly responds. In the entrance, Tom stops dead in his tracks and points to a giant sign above our heads.
I look up and read out loud: ‘Doesn’t it feel good to move forward?’
Tom reaches for his camera, speechless.
I gesture towards the sign with a beaming smile. ‘That’s for you, Stranger.’
He nods and takes a picture.
After Tom checks in (my check-in hasn’t even opened yet), we sit down at a restaurant overlooking this part of the airport, ordering one last drink on South African soil. ‘Cheers to Nigel,’ he says with a grin. ‘I love the fact that you’ve been looking for a turtle all week and on the last day, you’re given one!’
‘Cheers indeed.’
We touch glasses. The smile on Tom’s face fades. ‘The South African friend I’m going to visit now is one of my closest. It feels weird to not share with him what I think about his amazing home town.’
‘Then tell him.’
He cocks his head. ‘Yeah. We’ve come too far for there to be any lies at this stage, haven’t we?’
He pulls out a pretty card from his backpack. ‘Better get started on this.’ The front is decorated with various African animals made of clay and glued to the paper along with patterned pieces of cloth. He writes ‘Vidir’ on the envelope in delicate handwriting.
I leave the restaurant to complete my check-in. As I wait in line, I watch Tom through the glass as he writes to the man who did the most heroic deed of all this week by staying at home, trusting Tom and me unconditionally.
He arrives just as I accept my boarding pass from the clerk and hands me the envelope. It’s sealed, and I don’t ask. In fact, I’m glad that he felt up for it on his own — and even more glad that I feel the same way.
After an uneventful security screening, we enter a tidy Duty Free full of African souvenirs. I’m shaking my head over a wide selection of ostrich eggs (won’t they become extinct soon?) when Tom holds a beige, hand-painted linen cloth up to my face. The smell is strong and musky. ‘Earthy, you know?’ he says, excited. ‘I’m buying it.’
A little while later, we follow signs down a staircase and into a smoking lounge that turns out to be a stylish glass cage. Tom lights a cigarette before pulling a plastic bag out of his backpack heavy with change. ‘Here, can you take this for me and give it to a local charity or something? It’s almost thirty rand in there.’
‘Sure.’ I play with the throw he bought from the souvenir shop, admiring the hand-painted pattern.
‘My mother will love that,’ he says, eyeing the throw. ‘I’m thinking about keeping it at my parents’ house, so they can enjoy it too.’
‘That’s where you … told them, right?’
‘Yes.’ His eyes darken. ‘I’d decided I couldn’t keep them guessing any longer. I asked them to sit with me outside. It was a lovely clear night, and I tried to look up at the stars while talking between sobs. I explained the events of the night to the best of my recollection, the cab ride to your place, carrying you to the room. I stopped at the point when I said that I undressed you … I couldn’t say that word. Instead I said something along the lines of “there was no consent”. There was silence. Then, my parents spoke of making their own “mistakes”, and of forgiveness, and how long I’d kept this in and hurt myself. They moved closer and spoke of unconditional love. I told them we had been in contact for years, and they said I was very fortunate to be able to be speaking with you around this.’
‘You’re fortunate to have them as parents too.’
He smiles. ‘I know. It’s a night I’ll never forget.’
‘Can you give them my best regards?’ I ask him. ‘And … no.’ I bite my tongue. ‘Never mind.’
‘Hey. No stopping in the middle of a sentence.’ He pokes me playfully in the shoulder.
‘It’s just … do you think you can find a way to convey to your mother that I don’t blame her in the least?’
He frowns. ‘I don’t think she blames herself.’
‘I think she may, Tom. I’ve seen my own mother search herself tirelessly for explanations to the things my siblings and I have been through. Just like your mother did in the letter you read out loud to me, when she questioned whether her anxiety during the pregnancy could’ve had a negative effect on you. I’d appreciate it if you could find a way to tell them that I wish them nothing but well.’
‘I will.’
I get a sharp stab of anxiety when he puts out his cigarette. I want to rewind, whirl the ash out of the ashtray again, blow it back onto the cigarette between his fingers, watch it grow longer and longer until the ember turns into a flame that’s sucked backwards into the lighter, leaving us with five more precious minutes.
He shrugs awkwardly. ‘I should probably get going.’
As we reach the top of the staircase, his gate awaits, where the last passengers to Australia are boarding the plane. Twenty more steps until we part. Nineteen. Eighteen. Seventeen …
After twelve steps, we stop simultaneously before throwing our backpacks on a nearby bench. My jacket goes the same way along with my sunglasses. My heart cracks when he locks his arms around me.
He shivers as he whispers to me: ‘I thought about what I’d be leaving in Cape Town, and it is being left here. I am not distancing myself from it, but thanks to you it is now being held by the big, beautiful tree of life. I’m not scared any more, Thordis.’
We both sob. He hugs me tighter and lowers his voice. ‘I’m so grateful for this week. Thank you. You saved me.’
For a few eternal moments, we’re standing still. I bury my face in his neck and enjoy hugging him wholeheartedly, without hesitation or fear. At last, I muster the willpower to let go of him.
‘I don’t have much to add to that,’ I tell him. ‘Thank you too, Tom. Be yourself. Be safe. Be happy.’
He nods, suppressing a sob.
‘Text me once you get there.’
‘I will. You too.’
I wrap my arms around him one last time, whispering: ‘We’re going to be OK, Tom. More than OK.’
He picks up his backpack from the bench. I gather my things too. Finally, we’re standing face to face, and I can see an impatient stewardess waiting for him at the end of the gate.
‘Don’t be a stranger,’ are my last words to Tom Stranger.
‘I won’t. Goodbye, Thordis.’
‘Goodbye.’
My ears are ringing as I watch him walk towards the gate. When I’ve realized that he isn’t going to look back, I turn around and go back to the Duty Free. Inside me is a void. The jars that used to be full of unspoken words are now empty. There’s nothing but marks in the dust where the bitterness and chaos used to be. The wrappings from my forgiveness are scattered around my heart.
I am here. Unmistakably here, in this body, within the shifting clockwork of this very moment. Alive. One. Whole.
The feeling is novel, and I sink down on a bench, examining my hands as if they’ve taken on a new shape. Minutes turn into hours of contemplative rearrangement of my self-image; a quiet inspection of the voids within, and the conclusion that they will soon be replaced with new images, sounds, sensations. When a couple with a bright-eyed toddler interrupt my solitude, loneliness comes crashing in full force. It’ll be another two days until I see Vidir and Haflidi, on the other side of an inhumanly long trip. And who knows if I’ll ever see Tom again? How can this be, dear life? How come I feel like I just lost a precious friend?
When I get on the plane to Istanbul, my inner stockroom worker pulls up his sleeves, yanks the numbness out of my heart, lines the tear tanks up in the front shelves, and uncaps them all. The first tears hit my lap as the words you saved me echo in my head. My lobster shawl comes in handy and I pull it over my head, where it forms a private tent around my overflowing emotions. My tears stream unhindered for th
e next few hours until the stewardess brings dinner in a lukewarm aluminum tray. The woman next to me turns out to be vegetarian. I disappear back into my tent to cry some more.
Eleven tear-stained hours later, an exhausted and emotionally drained woman walks into the Istanbul airport. Coffee. Now. Can we make it intravenous, please?
I shuffle into a café where a nerve-racked waiter takes my order. I can tell it’s his first shift as he rushes towards the kitchen with large sweat stains under his arms. Please let my coffee arrive soon, though. I start up my laptop but find myself staring blankly at it for the next half hour, the cursor blinking in a word document as empty as I am. Typical. When I finally have nothing better to do than write, I’m blocked. If I weren’t so empty, I might even find it ironic.
Suddenly, my phone beeps. My face lights up when I discover it’s from Tom. It must mean he’s landed safely in Australia.
Got to tell you, just sat by the ocean and told my friend our story. He listened. I cried. I said the word that I haven’t been able to whisper. He thanked me, spoke of respect, mistakes, and a second chance at life. He sends his warm regards. Can I call that a small semi-graduation test?
The joy that shoots through me hits the café like a shock wave, jolting the sweaty waiter who straightens his back, looks around in surprise and sees me. He gulps. ‘I’m so sorry, Miss, here’s your coffee,’ he says, bringing me the cappuccino I ordered forty minutes earlier. I give him an understanding smile, preoccupied with my reply.
Wow, that’s not small nor semi, Tom! Congratulations. My heart is swelling in my chest. Happy for you, glad you have such a good friendship and deeply moved that you’re stepping out of the cage. To quote the sign in Cape Town: Doesn’t it feel good to be moving forward?
The text lifts my writer’s block and I pound the keyboard for the next few hours, until the screens around me scream at me to go the hell to my gate. I’m still writing away in Stockholm airport, a bit perkier after a short nap on the plane, a strong cup of coffee, and a bowl of fruit, when I see a collection box from the International Red Cross at the end of the hall. It has a picture of a distraught man running with a child in his arms, under the headline: Do you have humanity? We accept donations in every currency. I dig up the bag with Tom’s change and empty my own pockets too. No less than a pound of coins lands in the collection box, topped off with a bill sporting Nelson Mandela.
Humanity turns out to be the theme for my 36-hour-long, four-plane ordeal to Iceland. In Istanbul, a woman saves me from forgetting my passport at the café. During the flight, I give a little girl my unused earphones from the tourist bus, happy that they can be of use to someone. Both times that I manage to nap, my seatmate accepts a bottle of water for me, awaiting me like a salvation when I wake up. We’re all vulnerable during flights, I note to myself. We all have to put up with long lines, uncomfortable seats, rigid security measures, and an interruption of our daily routine. We’re all equally doomed if the plane crashes. And out of all this unpleasantness, compassion grows.
Sitting on the last plane from Stockholm to Iceland, I entertain the hope that the newfound lightness in my chest will root itself there, permanently. The past still happened, but the thought of it doesn’t come with the claustrophobic feeling of being locked inside the memory any more. Not even the subsequent string of misery hurts as much, in recollection. Funny how a chain reaction can go both ways, I note, gazing at the foaming Atlantic miles below me. A ripple that once was destructive has been reversed, pulsating backwards through my life, leaving clean streaks in the mud. Leaning back into my seat, I enjoy the novel feeling of not having to dig around in the past. Beneath the celebration, my realism raises her gray head and scoffs at the self-congratulations. Think it’ll all just go away now? she says in a rusty voice. It’ll always be a part of you. Not just the scars left by Tom, but by the others too.
I know, I tell her. But look on the bright side. If ghosts from the past come charging, I now have an empty room in my head that can be turned into an armory.
Iceland is not a popular tourist destination in early April, and, as a result, the other seats in my row are empty. After sitting for more than thirty hours, my back feels like it’s been pelted with bowling balls. I lift the armrests that separate the seats and attempt to lie down, only to have the seatbelts stick mercilessly into my thigh and ribs. Oh for crying out loud. Suddenly, I’m jealous of Tom and his luxuriously brief 14-hour flight to Australia. Blink of a goddamn eye.
At least he’s used the spare time wisely. Admitting to a friend what he did all those years ago was no small step. I wonder if he was the first in a long line of friends and family that will now be let in on the truth, one by one? Tom’s words from the rotating restaurant echo in my head: ‘Because I couldn’t speak to anybody about my past, it seemed futile to hold on to it and collect it as part of my self image.’
Will it be a part of him from now on?
I close my eyes and try to ignore the relentless humming of air pushing past me at eight hundred feet per second. Something was born that night in ’96, a sickness that we suffered from for years before having the guts to accept the diagnosis. Both of us shouldered the blame and shame, manifesting itself in similar symptoms. Fragmented and sweating from self-medication, we stumbled through the worst of it, but the tumor kept growing until it filled our mouths and the words that managed to squeeze past it were malignant. Saturated with the lie that stemmed from not being able to share our single most influential experience with a living soul.
Breaking my silence took me a long time and yet I’m years ahead of Tom, having made his violence toward me publicly known. Ridding myself of shame was the hardest part, but I eventually got there by accepting the truth that evaded me for so long: the fact that I was not responsible for Tom’s choices that night. He will not have that at his disposal. What lies ahead for him, I wonder? Is there a possibility that both of us had grown dependent on our roles and that Tom, too, will have to separate himself from everything I represented in his life until now? He told me that self-blame was a pattern he’d grown addicted to. I battled that same addiction myself. Blaming oneself and taking responsibility for one’s actions are two separate things. The former leads to self-flagellation that feeds the self-pitying ego; the latter looks beyond the self and acknowledges one’s role in relation to others. I wonder if taking responsibility will set Tom free? Will it loosen his grip on the whip and help him reason with himself, even when guilt beckons? The man I parted with at the airport was a changed person, relieved by my forgiveness. Will it become the foundation on which he can build his own absolution? Curling up on my plane seat, the ultimate question rings in my head: Will he ever be able to fully forgive himself? As much as that would make a grand finale to our story, I realize that there’s nothing more I can do. From now on, Tom and I will be writing our separate narratives, independent of one another. When faced with the uncertainty of the future, I find comfort in the fact that although the past will always be a part of us, our former survival strategies will become unnecessary after the detox of Cape Town.
The floor in Keflavík airport billows beneath my feet as I text Vidir and Dad that I’ve landed safely in Iceland. As I’m fighting my jetlag in the Duty Free check-out line, with standard sweets for the family in a shopping basket, a rack of rune necklaces catches my eye. Reaching out, I grab the Thurisaz rune off the rack and read the back: ‘The meaning of this rune is that you undergo suffering to learn from it, and with discipline and contemplation you will succeed in turning your life around. Something that appeared at first to be negative and hard will be a blessing and will renew your life.’
Indeed, it feels good to be moving forward.
My last fellow passenger yanks a dark-blue suitcase off the baggage belt and hurries away. Knowing that my suitcase isn’t compliant enough to show up twice in a row, I still wait dutifully until the same cardboard box has rattled past me three times befo
re filling out a lost baggage form.
I call Vidir as soon as I’ve settled into my seat on the fly-bus. Hearing his voice makes me melt like butter, only to break out in a cold sweat when he tells me that my stepdaughters Hafdis and Julia are on their way. I’m startled. Is today Friday? Is it our weekend with the girls? My fatigue hits me full force at the thought of a family-of-five action weekend. For the first time in hours, I feel like crying again.
My self-pity dissolves when I arrive at the bus station and hear a voice I’d recognize anywhere in the world. ‘MOMMY!’ A three-year-old boy comes running and throws himself in my arms. He looks at me with beaming excitement, flaps his blonde butterfly wings in my face, and asks in a hopeful voice: ‘Can I come with you on the plane, Mommy?’
Before I’m able to answer, he looks at the fly-bus behind me. ‘Or are we going on the bus, Mommy?’
Anywhere with me.
Standing behind my child is the man who loved me, trusted me, and respected me enough to support me on a crazy journey across the globe. My knees turn into spaghetti when he hugs me tightly. ‘Welcome home, honey,’ he whispers into my hair. Knowing that we only have a few precious moments to ourselves for the next few days, I drink them up like a desert flower. His scent. His arms around me. The warm smile on his lips.
The first thing that meets the eye as I walk through the door to our apartment is a banner that says ‘Welcome home,’ decorated with clumsy drawings. Hafdis, my 14-year-old stepdaughter, appears with brand-new freckles that she got in Florida, where she went with her mother to mark her confirmation and spend some (if not all) of the money she was given by relatives on the occasion. We hug and take turns in welcoming each other back home, and I note a pink iPad and iPhone sticking out of her pocket. I lock eyes with Vidir and mouth the words ‘Thanks, Jesus’. He grins and rolls his eyes.
A bouquet of roses and freshly baked banana bread await me on the kitchen table. ‘You’ll have to excuse that I can’t give you any souvenirs yet,’ I tell Vidir in an apologetic voice.
