If You Only Could Love Me

By Ella Zupcsek-Rhine

The Clarks Tooley boots are lost inside the ocean of people waving in one direction or another as the planes depart and arrive at Denver International Airport. On the spur of a moment, Elisa remembered! It was just beyond any belief what was happening! That chapter of her life she thought was long buried or cremated and ashes spread into a long ago dead past, was, in fact, creepingly reopening its door. Not just to alarm and panic, but to threaten, like a brute, the present and the near future. The past is back! The hijab had dropped down to the feet of the pedestal. Caution: sharp teeth primed to bite!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 27, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543473667

Ella Zupcsek-Rhine

Ella was born and educated in Romania where she achieved her nursing degree before relocating to the United States. Ella has been a nurse for thirty years and still comes to work singing. She believes she “woke up late in life.” With life being short and well worth living, she pours herself wholeheartedly into all she does, including being a mother to her three sons and connecting with the community she lives in. Ella greets each day with energy and compassion and is loved for the positive experiences she creates for her patients and for the wisdom and joy she brings to those around her.

Book preview

Copyright © 2018 by Ella Zupcsek-Rhine.

Library of Congress Control Number:         2017919294

ISBN:                      Hardcover                         978-1-5434-7364-3

                                 Softcover                           978-1-5434-7365-0

                                eBook                                 978-1-5434-7366-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 12/21/2017

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CONTENTS

Chapter 1     The End Comes Only Once

Chapter 2     I Am Back!

Chapter 3     Mille viae ducunt homines per saecula Romam and Women to the Rom(e)-anian Embassy in Kaifan

Chapter 4     Vladimir, Where Are You, Vladimir?

Chapter 5     It’s a Long Shot, but Can I Reach to Your Heart?

Chapter 6     Love Is a Mirage

Chapter 7     Abu Mahmood and the Theory of Everything

Chapter 8     Thursday Stands for

Chapter 9     The Day the Sun Stood Still

Chapter 10   It’s a God’s Miracle, and I’ll Take It

To Dick Aspinall: From your astral location, I hope you enjoy seeing this happening. Thank you for your persuasion and for utterly believing in me.

To my dearest Matt, Danny, and Chris: When you find love or love finds you, nurture it and nourish it. Treat it as one rare, shrewd, and most sensitive perennial blossom.

Chapter 1

The End Comes Only Once

The Clarks tooley boots are lost in the ocean of people waving in one direction or another as the planes depart and arrive at Denver International Airport. On the spur of a moment, Elisa remembered it was just beyond any belief what was happening. That chapter of her life she thought was long buried or cremated and ashes spread into a long-ago-dead past was, in fact, creepingly reopening its door—not just to alarm and panic but to threaten, like a brute, the present and the near future. The past is back! The hijab had dropped down to the feet of the pedestal. Caution: sharp teeth primed to bite.

Vladimir was just a toddler when she returned, heartbroken after an unwanted but inexorable divorce, with not a penny in her pocket (you may read Kuwaiti fils, Romanian bani, or Euro cents instead of penny). Unfinished business, put on the back burner, was screeching to be taken care of in the capital of one of the most controversial places on earth: Dawlat al Kuwayt. From beyond senses, the humid air of an oppressively hot Kuwaiti late evening completely overcame her mind in concert with the screaming lights of the luxurious airport, hard not to be noticed even from miles above.

This is the first time no one will be waiting for us, she thought, looking from her shabby luggage to the sweet face of the sleepy boy trying to keep up with his mother’s marching style.

Theoretically, the plan sounded perfectly achievable: I demanded nothing out of the nine years of marriage with your father but you, my bundle of joy and recipe of happy motherhood. In my dictionary, no woman can be a better mother to you than me, and no family atmosphere may replace, totally and without repercussions, the presence of the only one whom, by blood and birth, by care and love, and everything else in between, you will ever call mother. The plan was to take you with me, not to leave you behind but nothing further—no other details, no correlated links, not even a vague idea of where the heck we are going to sleep tonight. So here we are: an all-shaky-inside mom and her innocent firstborn, walking toward an airport exit and unto the unknown.

Let’s see, said a still young and still ambitious Elisa, bringing an unlocked Motorola RAZR V3 out of her ragged, old, and inseparable purse. We could try Nida—Babe, remember Auntie Nida? See if she could mooch by the office of the matron on duty and open the front door of the hostel’s gate for us. I’m pretty sure the girls will be, by far, delighted to hide us and house us, at least for tonight. They adored you before, when you were just a newborn. I bet they will dote on you now, with your drooping blond curls and the charming Romanian English dialect you chatter.

The phone rang, and it rang far too long and only to disappoint. When the voicemail picked up, Elisa hung up posthaste and without leaving a message.

"No, it’s too late. Most probably, she is in bed, fast asleep, preparing herself for a you-never-know-what-kind-of-day shift tomorrow. I need someone tonight, now. I’ll call Dr. Amina—she likes to read at night. She may still be up, and even if she won’t take us to her palace from The Arabian Nights, at least she will find us a clean and safe place to spend the night. A room at a friend’s house perhaps. Tomorrow, inshallah,¹ we will figure out a more comprehensive plan of survival."

But before Elisa finished punching in all seven digits of her doctor lady friend’s phone number, a familiar jovial face approached. The six-foot-tall guy, wearing an impeccable dishdasha,² complete with a perfectly placed white shemagh³ and dark egal⁴ on his head, started with a loud and almost correctly conspicuous Romanian, Welcome back, Vladimir! Welcome back, Elisabeta! Such a pleasure to see you again!

Of course, his amiable tone elicited heads to turn and eyes to drill into privacy. Or attempt to drill anyway. You may put it to the musicality and exoticism of this romantic language, born sometime during the sixteenth century into the Danubian-Carpathian geographic space, an open gate to the heavens and an oasis of relaxation and vacationing for the twelve Olympians.

Today, Romanian is spoken by probably twenty-four million people as mother tongue and another four million people as secondary spoken language; I am not including in this census our sidekick Ali, who toured Europe fishing expressions here and there from his transitional and seasonal girlfriends. Or boyfriends—doesn’t really matter. Not in this context, and definitely, not to Ali.

"Mashallah,⁵ Ali! It is really great to see you! What are you doing here?" exclaimed with surprise a cheerful Elisa (who, from now on, we will refer to as Elisabeta, the official name in the Kuwaiti Ministry of Public Health records), beating way to the fact that the meaning of Ali’s name in the Muslim tradition is, in