The Immigrant Girl Goes Back

I cannot truly recall what time we arrived because Transatlantic flights somehow rob you of the ability to tell time and date. It happens every time without fail and my brain is not good at counting back and forward so the whole deal of figuring whether the destination is ahead or behind and by how many hours glitches and leaves me lost and disoriented. When we arrived to Baku I remember that it was dark and the city was deserted.

I was overwhelmed with all the lights we saw on the way to our new home – lights accentuating the buildings on both sides of the six lane road leading you to the city; lights of gas stations that made it look like some Christmas decoration in Houston’s Galleria district; lights of skyscrapers adorned with flames and that familiar buta shape, lights illuminated with colors of the Azeri flag; flags everywhere, on balconies and commercial ads and even on the windshield of our driver’s car.

The driver’s name was Aliovsat, a mouthful even for me. He kept looking in the mirror and wondering if my childish excitement will die down. It didn't. He gave me a "aren't you married with children?" look or so I thought. Somewhere in the back of my mind I recalled, like an old record, an ancient stereotype from childhood, that once you bore children you could not really remain a child. It was not a dramatic one, not something that constantly bothered you. This belief was more like a thin veil, barely visible or audible, but always there, always present, always showing you the “right way of things”. I caught myself thinking this and wondered if this was an invention of mine or was I really spot on with it.

Aliovsat complained about the upcoming construction of a key bridge that already made driving hell in the city center and now it was going to get worse. Complaining about life in the city, its congestion, the unexplained phenomenon of random but monumental construction projects recited by taxi drivers or corporate drivers or any drivers, really, was almost a tradition of some sort. It had to happen as you entered the city, I guess, so that excited ladies like me could get a glimpse of the price that had to be paid for all this sparkle and glamour by ordinary residents of the city.

He parked the car by a tall building that turned out to be pink (I found out in the morning) and opened the trunk. We had 16 suitcases, ten of them very large. I took the smaller ones and rolled them towards the building. In an attempt to stop me Aliovsat opened his eyes really wide and looked at Kamran who didn’t really react, so then he resorted to words. “This is Azerbaijan” he said and added “Ladies don’t lift things”.

Amazing. I managed to break the rule as soon as I landed. Two hours later, when we somehow managed to shower the kids and put them to sleep, I lay in bed and thought of the driver and the suitcases. The truth is I was strong enough to lift the suitcases. I’ve dealt with my own suitcases my entire life even after I got married. Under any other circumstances, I wouldn’t’ve cared what the driver thinks. I would forget the incident and pass out, but here I was pondering the question. “This is Azerbaijan” I thought and, yet unable to decipher what that meant for me and my family, I fell asleep.