by Sally Anderson Boström

At dusk in August, a bat flies into our Airbnb. I am putting the kids to bed in a converted farmhouse in the German countryside that makes me think of escape – of millions of displaced people walking, hobbling along these roads, of famine, blisters, and rifles banging against hip bones. In the post-war years, the roads in Germany were full of displaced people walking in all directions, to a place that may or may not have still resembled home. 

This summer we are moving from Sweden to Czechia for my research. The Airbnb is just a stopover, a place to let the kids run around and get a goodnight’s sleep before we continue on the three-day drive. Inside, the farmhouse is painted bright white with high rafters and occasionally used as a gallery space. The loft upstairs has long fluorescent beams tucked into each rafter. As you turn them on,  they click over in a domino effect – da da da da. Like bulbs going off in a photoshoot, or like an automatic weapon. 

When the kids are asleep, I come up to the loft and turn on these lights I hate, just to find my way to an unfamiliar bed. Water glass in hand, I hear a swoosh beside my ear. That was a big bug, I think, setting the glass down. I hear my husband come in from where he’s been having a beer in the garden, views of fields and the stench of late-summer fertilizer. He comes upstairs and says, rather unruffled, “There’s a bat in here.” It’s the same tone he might use to say, “The door to the fridge was open.” A tone he uses to let me know something is wrong and I am to blame. Tonight, this tone may also mask genuine surprise, and he’s not sure what’s more surprising: that there’s a bat in our bedroom or that he’s still married to me. 

My husband is Swedish. When we first met, I told friends, “He’s so un-Swedish.” It was a compliment because he is sociable and not shy. But I have learned, like all good Swedish children, he was taught to cover his emotions and blame any discomfort on someone else. It takes a lot to make him show anger, fear, or cry. And over the years, I have tried. 

The bat begins to swoop around us in U-shapes. It’s scared of the lights. I find myself crouching on the floor, crying out, “I don’t like bats!” I didn’t know this, not viscerally anyway, until now. 

When I was growing up in the mountains of Southern California, we would often see bats at dusk. I could still see at dusk then. I remember the shades of palm trees at night, how they turn from green to shades of blue, until they are navy silhouettes against a starry sky. I don’t see color anymore, not like that. Or stars. I started losing my sight in my twenties. The first symptom was night blindness, but for years I thought the night was that dark for everyone. As a child, I could see bats dropping from the trees, their small shapes darting across the blue-gray sky. I remember sitting on the swings with my brother under the oak tree, watching the bats fly out over the canyon. In the fall, when it got dark early, we would see bats before dinner. 

Once, my mother picked us up from school in her vintage Cutlass convertible (yellow) and asked if we would like to get pizza. We never ate out so this was a treat. I guess Dad was in LA, he was gone half our childhood. We went to the local Domino’s and picked up two pizzas, one with pineapple and one with anchovies, then my mother drove to an overpass in the foothills. When we arrived, the sun was going down over the Pacific. Even after living in Europe for over a decade, I am still disoriented when the sun does not set over the ocean. We got out of the car and scurried down a dirt hill, her balancing the pizza boxes and a blue and orange serape she always kept in the trunk. Under the overpass, she shook sand from the blanket that smelled like tar and the three of us huddled on it with our pizza. After we had eaten, my mother passed around napkins and said, “Now we wait.” As it got darker, black shapes started to drop from above. First one, then another, until suddenly there was a noise like wind and the overpass seemed to be coming toward us. My mother laughed and pulled us down to the blanket, from there we watched the large mass of bats dissipate into the evening sky. 

I don’t really remember the pizza, but I do remember the sensation of wings above me. The elation in their release. The sense of how other creatures live for the night. How we are all here, but differently, in different times. I don’t remember fear. I wasn’t yet afraid of the dark. 

But now I’m crouching on the floor of the Airbnb, my husband irritated with me. “Go hide under the blankets,” he says. “I’ll go get something to catch it.” And, as if it were perfectly reasonable for my husband to catch a bat, I do as I am told and crawl to the bed. But just as I am pulling up the duvet, the bat drops from the rafters and flies directly at me. All I can see is something like a dark shadow until it’s in front of my face. Then I see its claws, snout, bared teeth, and two eyes glowing into mine. 

It turns out bats aren’t blind. Not like we think. I am blind, but it’s not like I used to think of blindness, and probably not how you think of blindness – an all or nothing, a light or dark, a with or without. I have no peripheral vision, but in good light, I have decent central vision. “I can see you but not him,” I usually say in groups of friends. They like that I single them out, that my vision impairment makes them somehow special. “I can still see you” is an important qualifier. People want to be seen. “But can you see this?” they might ask, “or them?” and the answer is usually no. My tunnel vision can have its perks, but the night blindness is dangerous. Unlike mine, a bat’s eyes are attuned to low light, making it possible for them to find their prey at night. Bats also have a keen sense of hearing. I am developing this. I like to think that my improved hearing is somehow helping me listen to myself. And that in the best case, my vision impairment is making me aware of blind spots in my life, of how I see and choose not to see: my husband, my marriage, myself. 

From underneath the duvet I call out, “What’s taking you so long? It’s flying around in here!” And my husband shouts back, “I have to get dressed, don’t I?” Much like our five-year-old son and my father, a retired fashion designer, my husband loves any excuse for an outfit. While he rummages around in our suitcase, I google How to catch a bat inside. 

When my husband returns, I peek out to see he has changed from pajamas to jeans and a polo shirt, and has a sock pulled up to each elbow. “Is that your bat-catching outfit?” I ask. “They have claws,” he answers, totally serious. It’s true, Google already told me they can scratch. “And maybe they can bite,” I add, thinking of the bat’s teeth. Google also told me: “Never try to catch a bat in your home.” But for some reason, I don’t tell my husband this. I watch him kneel and wait for the bat to appear. And when it does, he lunges. And misses. He proceeds to run around the loft, looking not unlike our five-year-old chasing a pigeon. I know the chase is futile. But I wait until my husband can admit it too. “Maybe we should just open the windows and turn off the lights?” I suggest. “But the mosquitos,” he groans. I shrug and say, “The bat may also suck our blood.” He rolls his eyes, “There are no vampire bats in Europe, Sally.” I google Do vampire bats live in Europe? Turns out they don’t, but they do live in California. 

That night we sleep with the windows open and when we wake up, the bat is nowhere to be seen. At breakfast I tell our children, “There was a bat in our bedroom last night.” Their eyes widen with excitement. “Where is it now?” they ask. “Daddy got it out,” I say. “Where does it live?” they want to know. “Maybe in the forest,” I answer, though their question makes me think, maybe in this house when we are not here, maybe we displaced the bat from these rafters. 

We pack up the car and leave the farmhouse, my husband reluctantly behind the wheel again, the children happily coloring in their coloring books. The playlist I made for the trip is on repeat, crooning contentment and enthusiasm for the moments when I can’t do it. For most of this three-day drive, my husband has stared at the road, completely unresponsive to me and the children. He’s been quick to tell me this move is not his choice, but also to weaponize it as a symbol of his love. “I’m doing this for you, aren’t I?” 

We drive past fields of corn, farmhouses, forest. Germany to Czechia. A reverse. I continue to think of displaced people, of how my grandmother’s family was forced out of the lands I am forcing my way back into. Our modern understanding of home is so different from what it was for our predecessors. For my ancestors in north Bohemia, home was one place, literally the same mountain village for over three hundred years. That changed with my grandmother’s generation: she emigrated to London where my mother was born. My mother emigrated to California. I think about the ripple effect of displacement across generations and wonder what is bringing me back. I don’t know yet, but I know that if we really look at the past, it can reveal something of the present. I also know that there are corners of my family’s history that are so dark, I will want to turn away. But I am trying not to be afraid of the dark. 

I look at my husband driving us to our new home and put my hand on his leg. I turn to look at my children, whose idea of home is probably everything that is in this car: their toys, their teddies, their parents. Outside the window are the rolling hills of Jizerské hory. A song about coming home plays on the speakers, and I sing along.

Sally Anderson Boström, PhD is a writer, researcher, and literary translator. Originally from California, she has spent nearly two decades living in Europe. She is currently Assistant Professor of English at the Technical University of Liberec in Czechia where she researches stories of belonging in the Czech borderlands. Her creative work dances on themes of motherhood, desire, blindness, and place. Recent poems and essays can be found in Humana Obscura, Ms. Magazine, Sweet Lit, and Elm Leaves Journal. Her debut chapbook, Harvest, was published by Kelsay Books in 2021.