SARAY/SARAH (1st part)

 Dear readers,

I am joyful to finally introduce you to the story of Saray and Angela, a story that I’ve had in my heart for a very long time now. Two notes first: this story plays in my head like a movie, (and was supposed to be a movie script, but time didn’t agree), and secondly, it was supposed to be written in Spanish - time didn’t agree with that either. So please be gentle. 

Apart from this, Saray/Sarah is meant as an homage to the women in my history who taught me what it is to be fully woman and to my spiritual mother, without whom I would not know how to live my life. Thank you for giving your life for me. 

SARAY/SARAH

PART 1.

Imagine a bus station, somewhere in a city in Spain, before 2020. As you look at it, it is bustling with people of all sorts and colours. It’s sometime around late spring, beginning of summer - it’s already pretty warm and the sun is shining brighter than your eyes would like it to. Everything seems covered in a sort of white, warm light but you can still discern the colourful crowd unveiling in front of you. Busy people, hurried people, SO noisy people. Talking over each other, dragging bags around, fluttering money in the air at cranky bus drivers with their cigarette in the corner of their mouth, too cool to care. Somewhere on the side you see a cafe and a terrace, the type you only see in bus stations. As you look closer, you see a girl with long brown hair. She is looking at her laptop, cigarette in her right hand, luggage close by, and her left hand is pressing on her lower abdomen. She’s wearing a long, large, floral dress and a pair of light beige boots, paired with long black, wooden earrings that move along with the wind. Around her neck you can see a leather string holding a small wooden cross - every now and then, she touches it and then quickly retracts her hand, as if she is trying to get rid of a bad tic. She’s staring into her laptop, all frowned and her lips are curved in what you can tell is an unsatisfied grimace. She is looking through a series of airbnb long-term accommodations, constantly lowering the price range in an attempt of finding something that will still leave her with money for cigarettes. Last attempt: she sets the price range for the cheapest version possible. One listing. One room. A small village up north in the mountains. A woman host, Angela, with short dark hair and an authoritative look. “Doesn’t seem very friendly” Saray thought. She looked at her bank account again: nope, she couldn’t afford anything else. “One month” she thought and booked it, still looking thoroughly dissatisfied with this outcome. Shutting down her laptop and hardly shoving it in her bag, she got up, picked her baggage and started moving toward the ticket booth. Her left hand still pressing on her lower abdomen, she walked limping, in what looked like a lot of pain. Like always, one of the wheels on her trolley bag got stuck in the pavement. “Oh, for fuck’s sake!” she sighed, exasperated, as she was trying to pull it out without taking her left hand off her abdomen. “Come on, you worthless piece of shit!” she mumbled through her teeth as she finally managed to drag it out and bump into a pair of nuns walking by her. The salutation came out of Saray’s mouth as automatically as someone would say hi to their mom: “Laudetur Jesus Christus!”. As soon as she heard the words, she rolled her eyes away from the smiling nuns who nodded back at her. “Great.” she mumbled. “I guess old habits really do die hard.” 

The bus was half-full as Saray struggled to get to her seat through the narrow aisle. She sat down on the right side, by the window, leaning her head on it as she closed her eyes. As soon as the wheels started turning underneath her, she could feel her breath calming and her pulse slowing down. She finally took her left hand off her abdomen. Her fingers hurt from being so tense for so long. And just like a flicker of light, the image of a doctor’s office flashed before her eyes. Saray opened them and took a deep breath. “It’s done.” she said. But the flashes would keep coming back to her. A doctor’s office. Saray in a hospital gown. A hospital room. Saray struggling to get up in her hospital bed. Nurses holding her down. Saray screaming. 

After some hours and very few cigarettes for her preference, she got out of the bus in the middle of a small mountain village. Angela’s house was on a street at the edge of the village. The house was small but the garden was wide and green. A wild mountain garden, with a small coffee table and two wrought iron chairs, that used to be white but now they weren’t so sure about it. A relatively short woman came out the front door. She measured Saray from head to toe. (And between you and me, it seemed she was finding her wanting...) “Welcome!” she said, with just the hint of a smile. Saray quickly discovered that Angela also had a cigarette in her hand, and that, providentially, she smoked just as much as she did. “Come, come, don’t stand there!”. Saray gathered all her force and walked straight to her room, without limping. She was determined not to let this strange woman know anything about her. The room was small, but full of light. Two large windows looked out to the garden, letting a lot of green light in. There was a large bed, a wardrobe, an old writing table with a chair and a small mirror. Right above her bed there was a painting of Our Lady of the Forsaken. Saray’s eyes fixated on it. Angela was still measuring her up with her deep brown eyes. Saray turned and looked at her but was lost for words. “You can ignore her, you know. She won’t bother you if you don’t want her.” Saray stared at Angela. She was taller than her but somehow she felt small whenever she looked into her eyes. You can ignore her… why would she say that? How could she know just by looking at her? She still didn’t say anything. “Hm.” nodded Angela, as if she was responding to one of her own thoughts and left the room. Saray laid down on the bed and realised she could still see the Virgin in her peripheral vision. She took a few deep breaths and fell asleep.