Somewhere Else

Chapter 11: The Only Way Is Out (ii)

Tatiana smiles, an amused tilt of her lips. "It's mostly from a can," she says.

"I don't care. It still tastes good." I'm tearing through the meal to assuage the ravenousness devouring my stomach. It must have been all that crying – it's worked up an appetite in me.

"Feel free to have more, if you want," Tatiana says. "I cooked a lot."

"I'll probably want seconds," I say, before returning to the topic at hand. "Anyway – like I said, it's different. Tampere isn't the ultimate destination, it was just a place to clear my head for the time being. I still have to decide where to go after that."

"Aha." Tatiana pounces on my indecision with a flourish of her finger. "And that's the thing. The fact that you have to decide where to go after this shows that you haven't decided what to do yet. Where to go. And if you saw Hamburg as your only home, you wouldn't need to decide."

I'm starting to see what she means. "You mean, if Hamburg was truly home for me, I wouldn't even be thinking about staying. I would have just left."

"Exactly."

"Maybe all it says," I muse, "is that I have no real home anymore. I don't even truly belong in Hamburg anymore."

"Oh my God." Tatiana makes an impatient noise – a cross between a sigh and a snort – and drops her fork on her plate with a clatter. "Seriously, Emi, I love you, but you are way too hung up on this whole 'belonging' business. You are from Hamburg. Of course you belong there. Moving away doesn't negate your residency there, you know."

"It's different, though." I try to defend myself by explaining it in terms that she would understand. "When you move away from somewhere, you become more detached from it. And when you return, it takes you a while before you can assimilate back into the lifestyle there. Being gone does make a difference. It feels like life has gone on without you and you'll need to find a way to get back into the groove again."

"I guess I can understand that," Tatiana concedes, "but feeling out of place for a while doesn't stop you from belonging in a place, you know. Even if I leave Tampere for years, I know I can still return to it anytime. Because it's where I'm from. That doesn't change, no matter how long I've been away."

You always have a place back in Hamburg, my friends have told me. You can always come home.

"I know." I get up from the table to get seconds from the kitchen. Tatiana, still slowly finishing her first plate of spaghetti, watches as I settle back into my seat with a fresh plate.

"Okay," she says, laughing at the mountain of noodles on my plate, "that's a lot of spaghetti."

I shrug, but not without a certain level of sheepishness. "I'm hungry."

She waves a hand, "I'm just kidding. Eat as much as you like."

We eat in silence for a while, before Tatiana prompts, "So..."

"So," I say, picking the thread of the previous conversation back up, "you're saying that I should go back to Hamburg, because I'll always belong there, and that is home."

"Emi," Tatiana says slowly, "you do know that a person can have many places they call home, don't you?"

I gnaw absently on my bottom lip, instead of my spaghetti.

Tatiana catches my pensive look and adds, to drive the point home, "Just because Hamburg is still your home doesn't mean that Helsinki hasn't been becoming home for you too."

"Why does everyone keep saying that?" I stab my fork into the pile of spaghetti on my plate and twirl violently.

Gabi had said something similar – about Helsinki starting to become home for me.