He’d found his blood-drenched white polo shirt soaking in the sink. From his fingers dyed crimson to drops of light red trailing down the sink and covering her tiles, she was staring at a man who couldn’t even wring out his own laundry based on the mess he seemed to be making.
Jonny stopped yammering in Swedish and froze, staring at her. “Hallå? Hallå?” a female voice screeched on the other end. He disconnected the call with a quick tap.
Their mute stare-off stretched on until Jonny broke it with a step forward, and Brittany reciprocated with a step backward. He inched forward again, and she took another step backward.
“Please, I need your help,” Jonny pleaded, continuing his advance. “I don’t feel well in my head.”
She stared at him as he stumbled out of the bathroom on unsteady feet. Without warning, Jonny fell to his knees, his phone flying out of his grasp. He gripped his head tightly and winced in agony. Like he was being assaulted by a frequency he alone could hear.
When she bent closer to examine his head, she smelled herself on his breath and bolted to her feet. “I-I-I’ll take you to a clinic.”
Fifteen minutes later, they were sitting at the twenty-four-hour urgent care clinic a few blocks from her town house in Alexandria. Jonny had reluctantly donned one of Jamal’s T-shirts while Brittany had tidied herself up, replacing the slip with jeans and a long-sleeve cotton shirt.
She sat across from Jonny on a blue plastic chair. The waiting room was sparse at this hour—an older man was in a corner sitting with a younger man who appeared to be his son. The night nurse, a Black lady well into her fifties, was escorting a geriatric woman with a walker out of the doctor’s office. She seated the woman in the waiting room and repeated several times that a taxi was on its way to take her home.
Then she turned toward them—Brittany sitting with arms crossed, and Jonny with a forlorn look on his face that screamed domestic dispute. With pursed lips, the nurse waved them up to the reception desk. Brittany didn’t get to her feet. There was only so much humiliation she could take. Jonny would have to explain his way out of this one by himself.
With fingers rapping maniacally on the countertop, he impatiently answered the nurse’s questions.
No, he didn’t have insurance. Yes, he was European. Yes, he didn’t mind paying everything up front. No, he hadn’t been mugged.
Yes, he’d been in a fender bender…
Brittany saw Jonny’s eyes dart left and right at the lie. He couldn’t hold the nurse’s gaze anymore. The nurse could probably deduce he was falsifying details. But she let him carry on.
No, the other driver sped off. Yes, it was a rental car.
No, he wasn’t on any drugs. He hadn’t been drinking either.
“Looks like you got banged up pretty good,” the nurse said, her focus on the screen as her fingers typed at freakish speed. His own fingers continued their tap dance. Loud enough to draw an irritated glance from the nurse once again.
MUNA
“Muna… Muna…” A voice softly tried to wake her. Muna responded with a purr and a feline stretch, slowly fluttering her eyelids open. Khadiija’s face peered down at her on the couch.
Muna eased into a sitting position. Darkness streamed in through open blinds on curtainless windows. She felt a cool draft around her face and noticed the top half of her jilbab was missing, leaving her abaya beneath. Her lean fingers rushed into her hair, feeling freedom around two foam-soft, woven cornrows, and she glanced at Khadiija. The one with the high cheekbones.
“How long have I…” she started in Swedish then switched to Somali. “How long have I been sleeping?”
“It’s past midnight. Yasmiin is already asleep. I wanted to move you to your room.” Khadiija fought a yawn before shuffling to her feet and handing Muna a familiar ocher-orange ball of cloth. She pointed in the direction of their shared bathroom. “Shower and toilet.” Then she twirled a one-eighty and pointed. “Your room. See you in the morning. Habeen wanaagsan.” Good night.
Collecting herself after a few seconds, Muna got to her feet and immediately closed the blinds. They couldn’t be careless with such things. Her duffel bag was still sitting close to the front door. Her memory was jolted at the sight of it. Panicked, she ran searching palms over her midsection until they settled on that familiar bulge. Ahmed.
Her room was a narrow wedge with a single bed decked in clean white sheets, two pillows, and a throw for warmth. A smoky-gray towel, matching their sofa, was folded neatly and resting on its edge. In the corner was a small, bleached wood desk with a chair stowed beneath it and a magnet board on the wall above it. Rounding out its sparseness was a freestanding wardrobe with double doors.
This was hers. A place with lock and key where she could steal away to whenever she wanted. She covered her mouth to squelch a giggle. Hers. Hers. Hers. In her modest home back in Mogadishu, she’s had her own room—a similar sliver of a space—because sharing one with her preteen brother would have been inappropriate.
Her nighttime routine was hurried. A tiptoe to the bathroom to brush her teeth and splash warm water on her face. She would shower in the morning. Back in her room, she switched her abaya for a loose-fitting, cotton nightgown and carefully placed Ahmed’s worn-out sack on her bed, its roughness in stark contrast to the smooth bedding. She pulled her own sack of valuables out of her duffel bag and set it next to his.
She had never seen herself capable of such discipline. Weeks had gone by without her so much as peeking at its contents. Temptation had gnawed at her, but she’d been wiser. Whatever was in there was worth more than a careless look.
“This was my family.” Ahmed’s Arabic words had sounded weak to her before he killed himself. Whatever it held, she had to protect.
When her apartment crumbled in Mogadishu, her father—Mohammed—had been in bed for over a week up to that moment, battling a chronic cough that never eased. Caaliyah was worried that her husband’s work as a laborer, inhaling cement day after day since Muna’s birth, had caused his sickness. Muna pictured the dust coalescing within his lungs, forming concrete blocks that slowly suffocated him.
“Don’t worry about me, habibti,” he’d reassured his wife, wheezing before being seized by another whooping fit. “As long as your stomach is filled, this is a small sacrifice.”
Caaliyah had often lifted his hand to her cheek, quietly transferring her warmth to him, showing—in her own small way—that he meant the world to her. “InshAllah.” Caaliyah had always ended that intimate gesture with this phrase, rubbing his hand between hers. God willing.
Mohammed was a poor man when her mother had met him and an even poorer man when he died under slabs of his own roof as Mogadishu went up in flames. Now there was no one to turn to. Her maternal family, flush with wealth from trading cattle, had promptly disowned her mother the day she brought home a cement carrier—a man old enough to be her own father—as the person she wanted to marry.
Muna was born and brought home from the hospital into a destitute cocoon of poverty filled with nothing, save the love her parents shared, and her father doted on her.
Pulling in a deep breath, Muna emptied the contents of Ahmed’s sack onto her bed. Out came crumpled photos, silver chains, a stack of passport photos in varying sizes held together by a slack rubber band, several misbaha prayer beads, pewter rings, burnished pieces of jewelry, a palmful of sheared sheep wool.
A small, folded cloth striped red, white, and green with a flaming yellow sun in its middle caught her attention. She assumed it was the flag of Ahmed’s land as she unfolded the cloth to assess its bold design. Then came brown, cinnamon-colored sand. Lots of sand she hadn’t anticipated on her pristine, white sheets. It had trickled out of a clear plastic bag he’d wound tightly. Sand from his country.
She started straightening out the rumpled photos. A picture of five yo
ung men positioned stiffly around an older man who sat in the middle, their eyes regarding her with a golden intensity even Ahmed’s amber stare hadn’t been able to match. All born of the lean-faced man with a long, gray beard and a black-and-white jamana scarf tied into an elegant turban on his head.
Five handsome men with varying lengths of luscious, chestnut-brown hair. She remembered that soft feel when she’d taken strands of Ahmed’s hair through her fingers. She studied his face, much fuller, and clearly much younger than the rest.
She continued smoothening out more family photos. A woman with arms around a young teenage girl; she assumed they were his mother and sister. Subsets of the brothers together. She giggled at one with Ahmed carrying a black-faced sheep with matted wool around his shoulders mid-laugh, his hair wild, picked up by the wind. Then a close-up photo of him staring intently at his viewer. The smile that made his eyes sparkle was gone on purpose this time, and she fawned over her beautiful Ahmed in his photo.
A few minutes later, she pushed Ahmed and his family away and grabbed the stack of passport photos. The rubber band snapped out of its misery before she could untwine it. She started laying each photo out side by side. Faces tanned by the sun, some austere, some jolly. Some caught in stark surprise by the flash. They all seemed to be official-looking photos—it looked like Ahmed had found all their identification cards and painstakingly ripped these photos out of them.
As she was laying them out, one accidentally flipped over, and she saw a full name scribbled behind it. She started reexamining the photos. They had all been labeled with names. Full names. Varying last names.
Why hadn’t Ahmed just gathered their Syrian ID cards instead? Then she would have had their full details. The complete cards would have been more useful than cutouts of the passport photos. Unless he wanted them to rest in peace this way, Muna thought.
She laid out 104 passport photos of different people with different family names. Then she looked behind Ahmed’s own family photos. Names. Full names. Of his brothers, his father, his mother, his sister. He’d immortalized every single one of them in ink.
Including himself. Ahmed Tofiq Rahim.
Muna fell to her knees by the side of her bed and wept. Her tears streamed silently as she muffled each sound, not wanting to wake Khadiija and Yasmiin at this hour. He’d given her everything, his entire life, in that small sack.
“I think you like to look for trouble, Ahmed. I can see it in your eyes.” She remembered her words to him one morning as they sat on their verandah. He’d smiled at her mischievously as he often did whenever he moved into his jovial space.
“Trouble always seems to find me.”
She wasn’t sure how long she sobbed into her bed, but when she felt those tears start to dry up, she lifted her head and assessed the forensic evidence spread out in front of her. He had left her chunky breadcrumbs to his past. As she reached for the sack once again, she heard a crumpling sound and reached back in to pull out a browned piece of paper with sloppily scribbled Arabic.
Al Zawr village, 2013,
Kurdistan. North Syria.
His scribbling included his name too. Ahmed Tofiq Rahim. Nothing more. As if the pen had run out of ink or his fingers had simply given up.
“Ahmed Tofiq Rahim,” she said out loud, breathing life back into his memory. “Ahmed Tofiq Rahim.” Realization flooded in.
“Why?” she mouthed. Why hadn’t Ahmed given Migrationsverket all this? They would have allowed him to stay instead of denying his application. They would have understood that he was the victim. That his entire village had been destroyed. He wouldn’t have had to kill himself out of hopelessness.
Yet, she hadn’t relinquished Ahmed’s sack to that crimson-faced officer whose eyes spat what his mouth couldn’t. The same reason, she deduced, Ahmed hadn’t offered his life to the migration agency to secure freedom.
The only person he had trusted was Muna Saheed.
Six
KẸMI
“Kemi!” Ingrid cooed, ready with a hug, as Kemi approached the reception lobby of von Lundin Marketing from the elevators.
Kemi was waiting in a white V-neck shirt paired with black pants, her striped blue-and-white nautical blazer resting over the ensemble. She wore simple pearl studs, and her crocheted braids were packed neatly off her face.
Wearing baggy pants and a boxy top with a high collar, Ingrid leaned in for their embrace. Kemi instantly felt overdressed.
“Hej, Ingrid!” Kemi greeted. “I’m so excited to finally be here.”
“And you brought excellent weather with you!” Ingrid said, hooking an arm through Kemi’s. “The team is thrilled to have you here. They can’t wait to meet our new director of diversity.”
Arm in arm, they marched down gray-blue halls decked out in Scandi-chic lines. Simple curves interspersed with sharp angles. Chairs looking deceptively impractical but ergonomically designed. Meeting cubes like space pods. Low-hanging bulbous lamps. Splashes of greenery to break up the futuristic vibes. Large, narrow windows looking down onto wealthy district Östermalm’s busiest street.
When Ingrid ushered her into a conference room with views of lush, green Humlegården Park from spotlessly buffed windows, there was an immediate lull in the low-key conversations being held in Swedish. Eight colleagues sat around a modest table fashioned from recycled plywood. A quick scan revealed an even split between men and women, all white, all fair-haired.
“Kemi, meet your fellow directors. Welcome to your team!” Ingrid declared, and they all got to their feet, in varying states of casual attire. Kemi took a deep breath upon realizing she was the sole person of color at the meeting. For all of the faults within Andersen & Associates, their rooms had color and range. She was reminded again of what had caused the IKON fiasco at von Lundin and why she was here.
She went around the table, exchanging firm handshakes, repeating first names and mentally associating them with their physical features—different shades of blue eyes and fair hair—so she could quickly fish them back out later.
Björn Fältström, head of business development. Bearded.
Patrik Mölander, head of finance. Plump.
Greta Ljungström, head of operations, or COO, she casually reframed for Kemi. Golden.
Espen Wiklund, head of client services. Elfin.
Rikard Sundström, head of investor relations. Ruddy.
Ann Childers, head of communications. British.
Pernilla Dahlgren, head of IT, chief information officer. Petite.
Maria Larsson, head of media relations. Tall.
“And, of course me, Ingrid Johansson, head of global talent management, or as you know, human resources,” she wrapped up before pulling out a chair for Kemi. “And you, our global diversity and inclusion director.”
Before everyone settled back in, Ingrid pointed to pots of coffee, freshly baked cinnamon buns, red grapes, and honeycrisp apples that had been set out on a table. The directors made their way over to the stash, pouring fragrant black coffee into mugs, its nutty aroma permeating the room.
Espen Wiklund picked out a nicely shaped bun, placed it on a recycled cardboard plate and brought it to Kemi as an offering. He bore a smile, which wrinkled the corners of his peridot eyes. Freckles dotted his beguiling face, and low-cropped reddish hair crowned his head. “These are from the Green Turtle and are the best buns in town.” Espen’s English was tinged with a British accent.
Espen, charming in an understated way, was the first director Kemi was going to remember—images of Connor’s ginger coloring flashed before her. Kemi thanked him, accepting his gesture.
There was one person missing from the room. She inquired after Jonny as she raised the pastry crowned with sugar pearls to her mouth.
“I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you.” Ingrid’s face took on an uncharacteristic
seriousness. “Jonny has been involved in an accident in the U.S.”
“Oh my God, what happened?” Shock washed over Kemi.
Ingrid started fidgeting with the projector. “He’s going to be okay,” she replied. “He had a mild concussion after a minor car accident. No one knew he was even back in the U.S.”
As Ingrid punched buttons, their other colleagues settled back into their seats with a nonchalance that suggested Jonny disappeared often.
BRITTANY-RAE
Brittany sat in a corner of the examination room a wretched mess. Jonny had begged her to come to the back room with him, in case the doctor used medical terms in English he didn’t quite understand.
“Yup.” Dr. Patel pulled away, switching off his small flashlight. “I suspect a concussion.”
At that proximity, Brittany was certain Dr. Patel could smell sex on Jonny’s rank breath. The good doctor turned to her with a knowing look. He probably knew the signs of domestic abuse. One second, enemies, the next moment, lovers. A bruised face with a mouth that was once filled with her.
“Fender bender, huh?” the doctor questioned, skimming his chart. Jonny dropped his gaze. Brittany bit her lower lip and nodded. There was nothing she could say to convince him that they weren’t together or hadn’t been sparring violently.
Dr. Patel scheduled Jonny for an MRI so he could further assess if there was any cerebral damage or internal bleeding. Jonny thanked him, averting his eyes, and Brittany knew full well he was hightailing it back to Sweden on the next flight home.
This is ridiculous, Brittany thought to herself as she stormed out of the clinic and toward her Honda, Jonny trailing her in a slow gait, running fingers through his hair repetitiously. She didn’t even know how to dissect what had happened.
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