Take What You Can Carry by Gian Sardar (superbooks4u .TXT) 📕

her that in Ireland, oak trees were once called daur, the origin of the word door, and it was believed that if you fell asleep beside a certain one, you could wake in the magic realm of fairies. This was back in the day when Ireland was covered in oak trees, she adds, and then realizes that of course Lailan might have no idea where Ireland is, and so on the wall, she traces countries and continents and oceans.

When she adds that she and Delan live in a place called California, the girl becomes delighted with the mistake. “Hollywood,” Lailan corrects proudly. “Delan lives in Hollywood.” Her laughter is a giggled, joyous spill. “You said wrong.”

Olivia tells her she’s right, that they live in Hollywood, and that back home, when Delan’s onstage, he’s all anyone watches. She talks and talks, pausing to listen for new voices downstairs, and then watches as the pendulum of the girl’s energy takes a drastic swing, and suddenly her blinks become longer, heavier, until her eyes shut and she’s out. With a finger, Olivia brushes her bangs aside on her forehead, watching her sleep that complete, encompassing sleep of a child. When finally Miriam’s windows brighten, Olivia walks carefully down the stairs, Lailan’s comforting weight on her hip and her small chin on her shoulder.

Three days. Now three nights.

And then it’s two a.m., and she hears a noise. Someone down the hall. Water is running.

Delan has returned.

In a flash, she’s out of bed. Delan’s name gathers from her lungs, is on her tongue, her mouth open and about to call for him when she finds Soran running a bath. He laughs, fully dressed but embarrassed just the same. “I did not mean to wake you.” He shuts off the faucet and averts his eyes as he explains. “I bathe at night.”

“Why?” This will catch him, in what she’s not sure, but she wants an answer to where he’s been during those times of hazy explanations.

“Delan does not still bathe at night?” he asks. “He did for a while. I thought maybe still. But you would know.”

“Why would he?”

Taking a seat on the edge of the tub, Soran seems to debate. Weighing pros and cons of whatever story sits within him. At last he leans back against old ivory tiles.

“People in our family, they’ve always been political. So even in peace, we had problems. Arrests. Imprisonments. But then the kingdom was toppled in ’58 and the republic created. From then on, no Kurds had peace. And the government bombed during the day.” He stops, as if this is all that needs to be said, but then sees that’s not the case. “Imagine, not having clothes on when the sirens go off or when the ground starts to shake and you have to run. Imagine soap in your hair when you see the shadow of the plane.”

She nods, a guilt at having even made him say the words.

“We learned to live at night. To work, to bathe. When the time came, you had to run. Take what you could carry to the mountains. That is where we would go. The mountains were safe.”

Head for the hills, she remembers Delan saying. Such a common saying, so reduced from its meaning that never once did she truly understand what it implied. And never, she realizes, did he admit he himself had made the journey.

“Two, three, four families hiding in a space below a big rock. Or a cave—if lucky, a cave. We are blessed with these mountains; they have so many caves; they take care of us. I remember Delan, he had a suitcase. In it, he kept his treasures. A flute. Magnifying glass. A couple of books. I can’t remember all. But really, truly, it was the suitcase he loved most. Blue like the sky. He cleaned it every day. Polished it, if you can believe. It was shiny, like a new car. But this, this suitcase he would drag up the mountain.” There is a brief smile, and he continues. “One day, the bullets were too close, and we had to run faster. So he left the suitcase by a tree. There was no choice. When we went back down, it was gone. Someone took it. Friend, enemy. It did not matter. It was beautiful. Someone wanted it.”

Soran continues, testing the water with his hand and shaking the drops from his fingers. “The next day, he went to school. Four of his friends were not there. They had not made it to the mountains.”

Wordlessly, she tries to absorb this. A loss that would’ve upended everything. Delan, at school, alone at a desk. Eye on the door, waiting. How strongly did he believe they would come? How long did he listen for their voices before understanding? Beside her, Soran studies his hands, avoiding her eyes. And that, his evasion, makes her realize that his words tell only his brother’s story, though his own, as a child, had treaded right alongside.

“His best friends, killed,” he continues. “What do you do? He came home that day and the next, upset about the suitcase. Because he could not think of what he’d really lost.”

A faint rust-colored stain rings the bottom of the sink. With her finger, she traces its outline. “He does that still. Said it’s a choice, what to let your mind think of.”

“A choice? The choice might be to see it as a choice. It would feel good, would it not?” A pause. “What do I know? He could be right.”

“It’s what we fought about. Before the picnic. Our differences in where we’re from and how we see things. He told me I didn’t have a right to judge him or tell him I thought he was wrong. That I could never understand him, because of where I’m from. Because of my life.”

In a blink, the room plunges into darkness, the power out. All that’s left is a weak trapezoid of light from an upper window. Piercing the silence,