Behind the Last Window

Behind The Last Window

The outside world was unknown to her, but she could see a glimpse of it through the window in his room. After all these years she still felt an adrenaline rush when she had a chance to to sneak away from being under the watchful eye of her young protector, her secret love, for even a few minutes. She’d make the furtive journey from one end of the huge barracks-like building to creep into this bedroom, the bedroom of the stranger who she surmised was her father.

She loved to look through his belongings, trying to glean some sense of who this person was, this person who ruled her life and kept her locked away, this person who was a complete stranger to her. She was always extremely careful to put everything back in its original position. Not knowing him, she couldn’t be sure of course, but guessed that he would know if someone had been messing about with his possessions.

The only thing that gave her any sense of who this man of mystery was seemed to be a framed photograph on his bedside cupboard, a middle aged man in uniform holding a swaddled newborn baby in his arms, standing in front of a snow covered building. She could only guess that this baby was in fact her and the man holding her was her father. Her imagination ran away every time she picked up the photo. He was a handsome figure with dark skin, black hair and greying beard and moustache. No matter how hard she looked she struggled to find any sign of tenderness in his embrace of the baby, no glint of paternal love or softness in his eye. She let her mind make the excuse that, because the photo must have been taken almost fourteen years ago, it would have been at the end of the Global War, in the middle of the world wide Relocation, and he must have witnessed horrors that she had only read about in the news when nobody was watching.

All her schooling had been done in the library by an elderly teacher, Asad, who treated her kindly but strictly, always under the eye of her protector Zain. The butterflies in her stomach started fluttering whenever she thought of Zain or saw him when he came to her room every morning to wake her to prepare for the day ahead. Zain was also kind to her but strict. He was only a few years older than her but looked much more mature dressed in his military uniform. She was sure in her heart that she would wed the handsome soldier one day.

She liked to look out the window of her father’s room, the last window looked out onto a grove of olive trees, green grass growing around their bases. There were usually a few workers caring for the garden, people she had never met and probably never would. Her first memory of looking out this window was about six or seven years earlier. The view had been vastly different. Then it had been a view of a wasteland, nothing but dirt with wrecks of military vehicles everywhere. Over the years she had seen it change, had seen it after the burnt and rusted metal hulks had been taken away, had loved seeing the workmen there day after day converting it to an orchard where the olive trees and other plants had gradually grown. It was different to the only other view she ever saw, from the windows on the other side of the building - a huge flat area, half of it grassy, scattered with one or two small shrubs and assorted potted plants, a table and chairs in the shade of the one large fig tree, the other half a yellow clay area used as a military parade and training area. She had no idea what was on the other side of the ten metre high stone wall surrounding that whole area, she had no idea what part of the world she was secreted away in.

She quickly scrambled back from the window and dashed across the room to the door. She’d let the time run away, Zain’s break would be over about now. She couldn’t let anyone know that she’d been in her father’s room. Putting her ear to the door she breathed a sigh of relief when she didn’t hear any footsteps in the tiled hallway. Quietly exiting the room and closing the door behind her, she tried to calm her breathing and ducked back into her bedroom before she heard Zain marching down the hallway and calling for her to return to the library for her lessons with Asad.

“I’m coming Zain, I just need to use the bathroom first.”

“All right Annika, be quick, Asad’s waiting for you.”

In her private bathroom she used the toilet then gazed at her reflection in the mirror as she washed her hands. Blue eyes looked back at her, eyes framed by blonde eyelashes and eyebrows. Her skin was as fair as her father’s was dark, she often mused on this fact, wondering if this was unusual.

“I must ask Asad today”, she whispered.

She tucked a stray lock of blonde hair back into her hijab and hurried to the library. The only windows in the library were high, running the length of the room affording lots of light but no view besides the perpetually blue sky. An occasional cloud skittering across the azure expanse would give Annika a lift whenever she sighted one.

Today’s lesson was again history. It always disturbed her, the story of how so much of the world had been destroyed during the Global War and the upheaval of the world-wide Relocation. After the War it was decreed that, owing to the hatred and racism throughout the world that caused the War, everyone was to reside in the country of their genetic heritage. It broke her heart to think about the families and communities torn asunder by that globally decided edict. Apparently before those horrific pages in history the world had become a small place, people travelled and resided in whatever country they wished. She marvelled at what that would have been like. The mind of a young girl who couldn’t step outside the property, couldn’t see any of the world outside of her quarters, had no contact with any person aside from her protector, her teacher and the kitchen staff, wondered at the sheer magic of it. She often daydreamed about it while she was supposed to be listening to Asad’s voice droning on and on, until she would hear him shout at her.

“Young lady, you must listen and learn. You must be educated about history and Allah’s part in it if you expect your husband to have any respect for you at all!”.

She would blush and glance at Zain who would be sitting in the front corner of the room, she’d imagine her wedding and wonder if he was thinking the same. He never met her glance though, always busily studying and seeming to deliberately avoid looking at her.

“Asad, can you please tell me who and where my mother is? I’ve also never met my father. Can you please tell me all about my parents?”

Asad would try and control his anger.

“You must not ask these questions Annika, you must concentrate on your studies. You have no parents, you are under the protection of the great Abbas, the Lion. Do not dwell on who your parents are, it is of no consequence. You yourself will wed when you turn fourteen years of age, you must be prepared.”

But she didn’t want to be married, she was surely too young.

“Who will be my husband Asad? Can you tell me that? Surely it will be Zain?”

Asad looked at her and snorted in shock, stifling a laugh. He then looked at Zain and roared at him, “What have you done or said to put this foolish thought in Annika’s head Zain?”

Zain stuttered “N-n-n-nothing great Asad! I have not spoken of these things at all, I do not know why she says this. Please believe me!”

The angry teacher yelled at the shocked young soldier, “The Lion will hear of this and you can be sure you will be losing your head if you have done anything to get in the way of Annika being wed.”

“No, no, no Asad! No, please, no, Zain has said nothing to me nor done anything to make me believe that.” Tears rolled down her cheeks as she came to the realisation that her beloved Zain would not be her husband. “I just thought that he is with me all the time and he is young like me, I always have thought he would be my husband ……..”

“We will not discuss this any more, you will concentrate on your studies, all in good time you will meet the man who will be the one you will obey and gift with many sons.” Asad gave her a kind look and proceeded with the lesson.

It felt so wrong to Annika that she would be marrying someone she had never met. Would her father be at the wedding? Would she eventually meet him in person? He was always gone in the morning before she awoke and never came back until she had been escorted to her bedroom by Zain in the evening.

How was she going to ask about her father without letting on that she had seen the photo in his bedroom? What does Abbas the Lion have to do with her father? Did her father work for him?

The next day’s lessons were nearly over and Annika made the decision to push for the answers to her many questions.

“Asad, please tell me about my parents. I am begging you. I’m old enough to know that I somewhere have parents that I have never met. Why do I look so different to everyone else? Why is my skin and hair so fair when absolutely everyone else is dark?” She wanted to say “Like my father in the photo” but stopped herself.

“Please tell me Asad, please. Tell me or I will run away, I’ll escape this place and find someone to help me find out who they are. I will, I swear I will.” Her features were set like stone, she was determined to find out.

“Is it my father who lives in the room with the last window? I hear his footsteps in the hallway sometimes after I’ve been put to bed. Why does he not want to see me? Surely any father wants to talk to his daughter, wants to hold her as he did when she was a new baby?”

She had to stop before she gave away too much, no one must know she’d been in his room.

Asad barked, “Oh no, now you are making me angry! No more questions, no more questions or I will see to it that you are whipped and you will be in too much pain to talk!” He would of course do no such thing, he was fond of this beautiful blonde headed young girl who he had watched grow up from a babe in arms. He wished she would stop asking questions that he was unable to answer, it would be the end of his life if she found out the truth from him.

She couldn’t control her emotions any longer as Zain led her to her bedroom after the evening meal. Her sobbing started in the hallway outside her room and Zain tried to shush her and quickly opened the bedroom door and pushed her inside, shutting it quietly after them.

“Hush Annika, hush. You must not get so upset. You must stop thinking about these things. Soon you will be wed to a good man, you will be safe for the rest of your life. He will give you many children.”

Through her tears Annika sobbed, “But Zain, I thought you would be my husband, I wanted you to be my husband so much. Why can’t you be my husband?”

Zain felt tears well in his eyes. “Hush Annika, don’t cry.”

He wrapped his arms around her and held her in a comforting embrace, softly rubbing her back. “It’ll be all right little one, you will be happy, you will be safe and never want for anything.”

“But I was wanting to marry you and be free from here Zain, I wanted us to have a home and I could have your babies and look after you. You would keep me safe as you have over the years. I love you.” She sobbed, “Why can’t this be so?”

Zain pushed her away from him and wiped her eyes with his thumbs. He couldn’t tell her that he felt the same, that he loved her as she did him. His heart flipped over as he looked into those beautiful blue eyes as she begged,

“You have to help me meet my father in person Zain. I know that’s his room at the end of the hall. I’ve been in there lots of times when you’ve been on a break, I’ve looked out the last window, I’ve seen the photo of him holding a baby in the snow, it must be me. It must be my father. Please help me. I’m going to go in the room again tomorrow, please go on a long break so I have more time to look at his things. I want to know who he is, who my mother is, why the photo is in the snow, why he’s not stopping me from being married so young to an old man. Help me Zain, please. If you love me you’ll help me.”

A tear coursed down his cheek as he said,

“You know I can’t do that my love, I would be beheaded for doing something so disrespectful and disobedient.”

“Well at least give me some time tomorrow to look around. Please Zain, I will be forever grateful to you.”

“All right, in my break I will feign a stomach ache and stay in the bathroom for fifteen extra minutes. But you must never let them know that I have helped you. Do you agree?”

“Yes Zain, yes, thank you so much. I will love you forever. Maybe if I meet him I can plead our case and he will see that we belong together.”

Zain then left her to her thoughts and plans. She clambered into bed and fell into a fitful sleep full of images of old men and lions and her beloved Zain.

It was hard for her to concentrate in the next day’s lessons. There seemed to be more clouds than usual scooting across the metallic blue sky. The clock ticked slowly towards the time of Zain’s break. When that time came Zain and Asad left the library and she was free to go along to her room. She opened and shut the door of her room to make it sound as if she had entered it and then quietly skittered along the hallway in stockinged feet, opening the door to her father’s room and closing it quietly behind her.

She knew, or hoped, that she had an extra fifteen minutes to hopefully find something. Instead of spending most of the time gazing longingly out the window at the olive grove or the framed photo she started by opening the built-in wardrobe doors until she came to a section of drawers. She carefully rifled through each drawer, mostly containing socks, singlets and underpants, checking there was nothing hidden under anything. She moved then replaced each pair of shoes one by one to check under and in them. She quickly and carefully felt in the pockets of all the jackets and uniform blazers. Nothing. She was running out of time. Her blood ran cold as she heard the door open and then softly click shut. She was too shocked and afraid to turn around.

Zain’s soft voice said, “It’s only me, I’ve come to help you. We must be quick though.”

Annika let out a sharp exclamation, spun around and threw herself into his arms. She motioned for him to check the dresser drawers under the window and she began to search through the bedside tables. Glancing once more at the photo of her father and the baby, she moved stuff around in the drawer, trying to put it back exactly the way she had found it. No luck, only old newspaper clippings and a few old pens and other little things that moved around as she shut the drawer. She opened it again and put them back the way they were and very slowly shut the drawer again.

“Nothing over here but there is a drawer that’s locked. I can’t see a key anywhere here Annika. Do you want me to try to open it with my knife?”

“No, no. You might damage it, then he’d know someone had been here ……. wait, wait, I saw a key in the other drawer here, let me have another look!”

Sure enough, when she carefully opened the top drawer again she saw the small key and took it out. She hurried over to Zain and handed it to him. The key opened the drawer. Just more newspaper clippings, photos of a small blonde child, presumably her, and a large envelope. Annika pulled the envelope out of the drawer. She looked at Zain and he nodded. She opened the envelope and there was a birth certificate. A Swedish Birth Certificate translated into English. All official documents now had to be in English since the world-wide Relocation, that being decreed the most widely spoken language.

The birth certificate was dated almost fourteen years earlier and named the female as Annika Elsa Svensson. Was this her birth certificate? Was she actually born in Sweden? Was her mother Astrid Svensson? Annika felt like she couldn’t breathe, her chest felt like her heart was bursting through it. Then she looked to see who her father was. The name was printed on there. Gunnar Svensson. Her parents were both Swedish. How could this be?

“Put it back now Annika, quickly. We have to go, they’ll be looking for me. Here’s the key, lock the drawer.”

They were both back out in the hallway near her room before Asad came out of the library and called out to them to get back in their seats, the break was over.

Annika felt like she was floating, nothing seemed real. Her thoughts were tumbling over each other in her head in an attempt to be the first one to be given attention to. It was all such a puzzle. The dark man in the photo holding her as a baby did not look Nordic like her. He looked like Zain and Asad, an Arabic appearance. She had never heard the name Gunnar spoken in her life. Her life would never make sense to her unless she gleaned the truth about her parents. After class she was determined to find out more from Zain. As he turned to leave her at her door she asked,

“Zain, do you know anything about this? Have you heard my father being called Gunnar? Why do I not look like him in the photo? How can this be, I don’t understand, I just don’t …. “

He spun around and gruffly said,

“I cannot answer any of your questions little one. I just can’t. I am your guard, my job is just to protect you, I am to know nothing of you except what’s needed to protect you. I’m so sorry.” He strode away without looking back.

Annika was in turmoil. She didn’t sleep a wink, her brain just would not settle and let her rest. She made up her mind that she would find out the truth if it killed her.

The next morning started with Zain waking her and waiting while she bathed and dressed. They made their way down the hallway to the kitchen to have their morning meal. No words were exchanged. Zain acted standoffish, almost fearful, as if he was worried about what they had discovered yesterday. He knew that they would never be able to talk to anyone about it for fear of retribution.

The lesson started with the usual lecture by Asad about the Almighty and his plans for the world.

Annika could stand it no longer. She stood up, her eyes bloodshot, dark rings under them.

“Asad, I must know, who is my father?”

“Sit down and listen to your lesson!”

“No, I must know, I have seen the photo of my father holding me as a baby. Why do I look so different to my father?” Annika ripped off her hijab. “See? Why am I so fair when everyone else here including my father is so dark?” She swung her thick blonde hair from side to side. “See? See Asad? You must tell me! Who is my father?”

“Sit back down this instant, I cannot answer any of those questions, I am forbidden!”

Annika’s face crumpled and tears flowed freely down her pale cheeks. She sobbed incoherently. Asad’s heart broke to see her like this.

“Oh no sweet child, how did you see that photo? Have you been in that room? Even though you have been forbidden? Did Zain help you?” He turned and looked fiercely at Zain who dropped his head and couldn’t meet the old man’s eyes.

“No Asad”, sobbed Annika. “No, no, Zain has nothing to do with this. I found the photo by myself. I just wanted to get to know my father. I want to know my father. Is that unforgivable?”

The teacher’s shoulders sagged and he spoke kindly to Annika. “My child, I have told you again and again that you do not have parents, you must just be thankful that you are under the wing of Abbas the Lion. Think no more about it, be happy with your lot.”

“But Asad, who are Astrid and Gunnar Svensson?”

“What? What is that you say? Where did you hear those names?” Asad looked wildly around at Zain. “What is the meaning of this? What have you done young man? Guards, guards, come here now!”

The library door was flung open and two guards dressed in military uniform with rifles over their shoulders rushed into the room.

“Guards, take this young miscreant away and lock him up!”

The guards each took one of Zain’s arms and marched him out of the library. Annika ran after them, tripping on her long skirt. She fell forward and wrapped her arms around Zain’s legs.

“No, no, don’t take my love away. No, he has done nothing. Please, please let him go.”

Zain cried out “Annika, leave me, go back in the library, go!”

One of the guards wrested her arms from around the emotionless young protector and left her sobbing uncontrollably on the cold unyielding floor as they manhandled Zain through the kitchen and out of the building. Somehow Annika knew that she would never again see her love, her love that she had dreamt of marrying and building a life with.

Another guard came and helped Annika to her feet and walked her back to her bedroom, standing outside to prevent her leaving. She flung herself on the bed and cried, her heartache unbearable. She eventually slipped into a deep sleep and didn’t wake until the morning. The guard who had brought her to her room knocked on her door and told her to prepare for the day. So it had really happened, they really had taken Zain away. Fresh tears welled in her eyes. How could she possibly have more tears?

She trudged to the kitchen then into the library. She found it hard to meet Asad’s eyes, her horror at his treatment of Zain and herself leaving her bereft.

“Young lady, I have had discussions with your benevolent guardian Abbas about what has happened and he has asked that your marriage date be brought forward. He was willing to wait until your fourteenth birthday but your actions have made him rethink. You will be wed on the next Sunday. I will present you to your future husband.”

Annika’s heart broke. What had happened to Zain? Will she ever know? Who was she to be married to? All she could do was submit.

“Yes Asad. But shouldn’t my father present me?”

“It is decided Annika. You will have help from the women in the kitchen to prepare for your wedding.”

Annika was forlorn. “But Asad, please tell me, why am I so different? Who are Astrid and Gunnar Svensson?”

Asad blinked as he made a decision of his own. “I think you are owed some explanation Annika, so I will tell you as much as I know. During the Global War over a decade ago, our soldiers fought on many fronts in many countries against super-powers, racism and fascism. We were in fact fighting in Sweden when you were born. The hospital was destroyed by a missile and you had miraculously survived, your parents had died holding you and protecting you from the explosion. A soldier found them in the snow and heard you crying under them. Your birth certificate was in your father’s jacket pocket. You were smuggled back here and have been hidden to save you from being sent back to Sweden in the world-wide Relocation. The photo was taken that day in the snow of Sweden. You are very lucky to be alive. Now just be thankful for God’s mercies and attend to your lessons. Today I will teach you what will be expected of you as a wife and mother.”

And so Annika had no choice as a girl but to do what was expected of her.

The following Sunday she was prepared by the kitchen helpers for her wedding. They giggled and joked with her. She found it impossible to be happy, she should have been marrying Zain. But it was what it was, she had to be happy with her lot.

It came time for Asad to introduce her to her husband and exchange vows. It was a small gathering, only the people who knew her already were there. As she entered the library which had been decorated for the ceremony, she clung to Asad’s arm and looked around at the familiar faces.

And there at the other side of the room where they were headed was a familiar face but older than she had seen in the photograph.

“Oh Asad, he’s here, the man I thought was my father is here. Is he here to give me to my husband? Where is my husband?”

Not brave enough to look her in the eye, Asad spoke softly, looking straight ahead.

“As you now know Annika, that is not your father. That is Abbas the Lion. He is to be your husband, he has patiently waited many years for this day.”

Annika’s world crumbled around her. Her heart shattered and knew she would never be the same person again.