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"What?"
"Your cola. If you don't want it, I do."
She pushed it over toward him. Her legs were longing for a bed—somewhere she could stretch out fully. Somewhere she could sleep for days.
Finally, they stumbled off the small plane and followed the crowd down the hall to the security barrier—no passports needed here, it seemed.
"Will there be welcomers?" Adil asked, gripping her hand so tightly that it hurt.
"I don't know," she said. "I hope so."
Outside the barrier there were four people waiting together in a little bunch, one of them holding a sign that read in Albanian WELCOME TO THE LLESHI FAMILY. She thought for one happy moment that the sign meant that Adil's "welcomers" could speak Albanian. Baba did, too, evidently, because he greeted them formally in Albanian and began to introduce the family.
"No! No!" they said, waving their hands in protest. And that was all the English Meli could understand, even though the welcomer holding the sign went on to say something very slowly and loudly, his mouth painfully cramped around every syllable.
Before Mehmet could mutter something sarcastic, Meli stepped forward. "Hello," she said in her best English. "I come from Kosovo. My name is Meli Lleshi. What, please, is your name?"
To her dismay, no one answered. They just kept shaking their heads and smiling. The man holding the sign kept looking toward the doors of the small airport.
"Ask them about the toilets," Mama whispered.
Mehmet tried, but the people just kept smiling and nodding.
"Idiots," said Mehmet. "Don't they understand their own language?"
Finally, the outside glass doors slid open, and a woman came running up to the group. She seemed to be apologizing to them. Then she turned to the family. "I'm sorry I'm late," she said in perfect Albanian. "I will translate for you."
"Where are the toilets?" Mama asked.
The translator guided Mama, Meli, and Vlora to the women's toilet. The man with the sign took Baba and the boys to the men's.
"No wonder I couldn't see them," Mehmet muttered to Meli when she rejoined the men. "They call them 'rest rooms,' as if you took a nap in there."
Two of the welcomers had disappeared. "They've gone to get the cars," said the translator, whose name was Adona. "I guess you have no other luggage."
Mehmet opened his mouth, but Baba grabbed his arm, so he shut it again. "We have a new life now," Baba sa
id. "Everything will be new."
"Yes," said Adona. She may have sighed. Meli couldn't be sure.
The smiling, nodding Americans put Mama, Vlora, and Meli into the backseat of one large, silver car, and Baba, Mehmet, and the little boys into a green van. Adona climbed into the van as well. The welcomers split up, a man and a woman in each vehicle, and then they took off, pausing only to pay someone at the exit of the airport. There didn't seem to be any police on guard. There wasn't a soldier or a gun in sight.
Meli tried not to panic. She told herself it wasn't Kosovo—people didn't just disappear in America—but she kept turning to look out the back window to keep the van in sight, just in case.
Thankfully, the man and woman in the front seat didn't try to talk to them. Occasionally, they would say something quietly to each other. Once in a while the woman in the passenger seat would turn and smile at them. Mama and Meli would try to smile back.
Vlora, now wide awake, was staring out the window. "Look!" she cried. Meli looked and saw, to her astonishment, mountains. She felt a great wave of homesickness for her own Cursed Mountains and the Sharr range with its high pastures where horses ran free. Was the family free now? She looked at the backs of the welcomers' heads and wondered.
The car ride was nearly as long as the last plane ride had been. They left the broad highway and took a more winding road down a hill into a town. They turned off the street lined with shops onto another lined with large trees. The leaves were beginning to change color like the—no, not like the chestnuts in the hills.
At last the car—and then, thankfully, the van—pulled up in front of a huge house. As they got out of the car, Adona came over to explain that they would have an apartment in the house, not the whole house. Mama smiled and nodded. They walked up one flight of stairs behind the welcomers. Someone produced a key, opened the door, and then handed the key to Baba.
"Welcome home," he said, or at least that's what Meli thought he said. Adona didn't bother to translate it. The Lleshis took off their shoes and walked across the threshold. Adona said something to the welcomers, so they took off their shoes as well, looking a bit embarrassed as they stood there in their stocking feet.
For Meli the apartment lacked the welcoming feel of home, but it was far better than a tent. She meant to thank the big, smiling Americans, but she was too tired to make the effort of putting her tongue between her teeth to make the right sounds, and when Adona showed her the little room where she and Vlora were meant to sleep, she fell like a rock on the nearest bed and was asleep before the welcoming party left the apartment.
THIRTEEN Strangers in a Strange Land
