It was cold and suddenly I knew I had to visit my grandmother who lives in Nydalen. She and my father, her son-in-law, don’t get on so she can’t live with us. I don’t know why they fight. We gather at every holiday and once every other month she comes over to eat: Ramadan, the end of Ramadan, all of these holidays we celebrate together but otherwise she and my father never want to see each other. I looked in on my parents before I left; sleeping people always make me nervous, they seem so unreachable as if they are already dead.
I can’t remember the last time I went out so early in the morning. There were no people anywhere. I walked over to the tram stop and there was a man there called Johansson and he’s Swedish, although I think he’s originally from Russia. He gets drunk every Friday and he hangs around the tram stop, never going anywhere, just standing there as if he were waiting for someone who never comes and the whole time he mumbles to himself. Me and my sister tried to get really close to him one time to hear what he was saying but all we heard was ‘Trouble, trouble, too much trouble.’ It is as if he were saying his Friday prayers there. He must be close to a hundred years old, maybe he’s already dead and doesn’t know it, maybe he has no relatives to bury him.
The tram was almost empty. I sat in the very back. I like it when the cars are empty; it’s like riding in a white luxury limousine. It seems to make the trip last longer and you can imagine that you are on your way to anywhere, like Hollywood or New Zealand, which is a place I’ve dreamed of because it’s on the other side of the earth. I’ve seen it on maps in school and on a computer: Auckland, Wellington, and all the sheep. But I know I’ll never get there.
The tram line to Nydalen goes through the city centre. It’s like travelling from a country called ‘Stensgården’ to another called ‘City Centre’ and then crossing the border into Nydalen. Maybe some day we’ll have to show our passports when we get on the tram; whenever I go to the centre on Saturday night it’s the same thing. I don’t feel welcome, at the very least I don’t feel as if I belong.
