"Did
you know that she's been hating air conditioners for the last 30
years?"
the-man-who-hasn't-seen-your-daughter-for-more-than-25-years-but-knows-her-better-than-you
asks you and all you can do is shake your head. Still it makes you
remember the first time your daughter was about to die. Spending too
much time in pretty dresses that did nothing against the cold from
Arabic air conditioning caused heavy pneumonia. Three weeks she had
to spend in the hospital. Two of them you spent with her, sitting at
her bedside, holding her head. Even singing to her when the pain got
too bad. But when she could breath normally again and the pain and
the fever had become less you remembered what had brought you to
Arabia and it made you bolt off again to chase after the dream of a
lifetime. Which you didn't find.
"Not
only air conditioning but dark alleyways, too."
When
she was 14 she was attacked by a man in an alley behind a bar. A gay
bar, you were told later by a nosy Italian Commissario, and that the
attacker had probably been out there to hurt a lesbian. Which your
daughter wasn't and you should have been with her that night. You
were supposed to go see a movie together to which she had looked
forward for weeks. Instead you received a phone call that made you
head out to the British embassy and your daughter to a gay bar.
"She's
never been to an opera house again either"
The
Semperoper. Dresden. La Traviata had been scheduled when you arrived
in the city. You said it was too much of a cliché and that both of
you had already seen it at La Scala but she wanted to go. She was 16
years old. You watched a superb performance together, talked about
everything and nothing during the break, laughed, had fun, were
mother and daughter. Then, on the way home, you saw someone you
really needed to talk to so you ordered the driver to pull over and
bring her home but she jumped out, too, and ran after you without
looking when you crossed the street. And right in front of a car.
Now you look your daughter's hair that looks soft even now that she's dead and you know that you killed her by forcing that life upon her. A life that was unsteady. That made her feel as if she wasn't wanted or loved as a child. The life of a wanderer when she had grown up. At every time a life she didn't want to live. You are the one to blame that she sat behind the wheel of a car you paid for, insanely intoxicated with alcohol and painkillers and sleeping pills and whatever else. Because although Emily had always said that Saudi Arabia felt like her real home you didn't find the love of your life there. And the phone call saying that they had found a dark haired, dark eyed woman that looked exactly like the one on your photo had been nothing but a mistake and the black Audi that you saw on the street in Germany with the license Plate DD-EP-64 had Emily's initials on the plate and also an uniformed driver but still wasn't hers.
"You killed her", Will hisses.
And you agree.
