Foreigner

Foreigner

Foreigner

Nahid Rachlin

For

Howard and Leila

Foreigner

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

1

As I boarded the plane at Logan Airport in Boston I paused on the top step and waved to Tony. He waved back. I pulled the window curtain beside me and closed my eyes, seeing Tony’s face falling away, bitten by light ….

In the Teheran airport I was groggy and disoriented. I found my valise and set it on a table, where two customs officers searched it. Behind a large window people waited. The women, mostly hidden under dark chadors, formed a single fluid shape. I kept looking towards the window trying to spot my father, stepmother, or stepbrother, but I did not see any of them. Perhaps they were there and we could not immediately recognize each other. It had been fourteen years since I had seen them.

A young man sat on a bench beside the table, his task there not clear. He wore his shirt open and I could see bristles of dark hair on his chest. He was making shadow pictures on the floor—a rabbit, a bird—and then dissolving the shapes between his feet. Energy emanated from his hands, a crude, confused energy. Suddenly he looked at me, staring into my eyes. I turned away.

I entered the waiting room and looked around. Most people had left. There was still no one for me. What could possibly have happened? Normally someone would be there—a definite effort would be made. I fought to shake off my groggy state.

A row of phones stood in the corner next to a handicraft shop. I tried to call my father. There were no phone books and the information line rang busy, on and on.

I went outside and approached a collection of taxis. The drivers stood around, talking. “Can I take one of these?” I asked.

The men turned to me but no one spoke.

“I need a taxi,” I said.

“Where do you want to go?” one of the men asked. He was old with stooped shoulders and a thin, unfriendly face. I gave him my father’s address.

“That’s all the way on the other side of the city.” He did not move from his spot.

“Please … I have to get there somehow.”

The driver looked at the other men as if this were a group project.

“Take her,” one of them said. “I would take her myself but I have to get home.” He smiled at me.

“All right, get in,” the older man said, pointing to a taxi.