Aban's Accension

Chapter 7: Atasgah

Chapter 7: ATASGAH

by Shireen Jeejeebhoy

The sign is what distracts her. Nailed above the peeling painted door, in cerulean blue it reads, “Atasgah.” Aban stumbles on a board and lands on the front door with a knock. She straightens up and looks behind her. No one has seen her. She turns back to see a pair of arms coming at her, enfolding her. And a joyous voice booms into her ear, “Welcome Aban!”

For a moment, bright light as if from the sun, flashes into her eyes and fills her, and then she is being released.

The strange man smiles into her face, holding her out, the better to see her, “Welcome Aban!” Sweeping his arm back into the house, he adds, “Welcome to Atasgah.”

She blinks at his bright white shirt, speechless.

“Come, let me get your suitcase.” He bends down first to retrieve something shiny, and she feels her flaccid hand being taken and turned, a key being dropped into it, her fingers being closed around the key. He grabs her suitcase, takes her other hand, and leads her in. She stops where he drops her hand to close the door. He strides by her, carrying her suitcase, heading towards the staircase in front of them, against the right-hand wall.

“Your grandmother told me many stories about you,” he says as he climbs the stairs, in expectation that she will follow. And she does; her feet moving without her will.

“She was fond of you and treasured her memories of you and her together. When she felt her time was near, she gave away much of her furniture. She wanted to leave you her house, but she did not want to impose her taste upon you. Here is the kitchen,” he sweeps a hand in front of him as they reach the top of the stairs, but he continues on, turning left and walking down a narrow hallway with the staircase balustrade to his left and doors on his right and ahead. “And here is the bathroom, and next to it a guest room. And in front of you is the living room. You will love the light in there. It brought much joy to your grandmother. She would sit in the sunshine for hours, reading.”

He doesn’t halt as he talks. He enters a doorway at the end of the balustrade and says, “Come, we go up these stairs.”

Aban gropes her way after him up an enclosed narrow stairway.

“Your grandmother liked to sleep on the top floor. She said it gave her a feeling of being closer to heaven, of being part of the beauty of the cosmos. She also said it was poetic somehow to walk through the cramped dark to get up to the light. Ah here we are.”

They have reached the top of the stairs. He passes the open doorway ahead of them and again turns left and walks down a narrower hallway towards a door on the right. He swings it open and gestures her in. She enters to see a softly lit room, for though the sun is high in the sky, this room faces west protected by the trees standing outside. Before her is a bed with no headboard, no footboard, no skirt. Yet it’s welcoming with its cover of red and blue and green and yellow patchwork quilt. Next to it on the east wall is a pine nightstand with a cosy lamp nestled on top. To her right on the other side of the door, on the north wall, is a small dresser glowing with the warm honey tones of pine. Past it on the west wall is the window dressed with long, gauzy drapes and a cream-coloured blind rolled to the top. Beside it at the end of the bed is a chair with a floor lamp bending over it. She hears a soft fall behind her and turns to see him straightening up from placing the suitcase next to the bed.

Aban stares at him. He seems to read her confusion.

“I’m El. Your grandmother’s tenant. I’ve been waiting for you your whole life and hoped you would come today.”