"90 seconds exactly" (Translated from the Catalan original “Tot just noranta segons” with the author, Antoni Cardona)

 

Photo: https://www.corneliakraft.com/

When Nadia was running downstairs

from the 6th floor, doing up her dressing gown,

cursing the wind and her mistake

she came across the boy from door 4, floor 4

the one who never says good morning

She put the brakes on her crazy run

having seen the second floor was wet,

she was about to fall near the front door:

her slippers were loose

and she hadn’t found the money nor time

to go to the shoe-repairer

…her precious headcovering flew

and landed at Magda’s feet

the new postwoman, who took it and put it

with sound judgement on a parked motorbike.

Then Fatima, from the halal supermarket, fell

in love with its bright colours,

and although she didn’t wear it,

against her mother’s advice,

she took it thinking to give it

to her close friend Raissa,

who would never dare to go outside

without a hijab covering her hair.

And from the doorway, when Nadia sees

Fatima taking the headscarf off the motorbike,

and the great joy she had on her face

she gave up her claim on the very thing

that Karim, her husband,

didn’t know

was a gift from a clandestine love

with whom, years before,

in Morocco, Nadia had dreamt of a future.