The whole time Soraya joon talked, we were as silent as the dead. She started to speak again, breaking the silence. This time she didn’t speak about the fortune teller and what Maman had told her; instead, she talked about the past we all shared, and about the present. She told us that she was going to retire, and that her sister was going to come to visit in summer time after so many years, about her mother who wasn’t in good health. She talked about many trivial things. No one else opened their mouth to say anything—it was as if we were all mute. Maman still had her head down, even though her tears had stopped running. I thought of serving them something, tea or coffee, but I was rooted to my spot on the sofa, mesmerized by Soraya joon’s voice, and it seemed to me that the past was present and that Taraneh was still with us—in the kitchen, perhaps, brewing coffee. I shook my shoulders slightly and got up, but then I saw Taraneh enter the room with a tray full of cups of coffee. She moved like a ghost around the room, wearing a long white dress, like her shroud, offering each of us a cup. Then she sat beside Soraya joon, sipped her coffee, then handed her the empty cup and said, “Soraya joon, will you please tell me my fortune?”
Things were exactly like they had been in the past. Whenever Soraya joon came to visit, she made coffee for us, and we would sit around the kitchen table, laughing and chatting and sipping from our cups. When we finished, Soraya joon would read our fortune from our cups. The first thing she used to say about Taraneh’s and my fortune was: “You two, well, you will both live a long life—eighty or ninety years or more.”
If You Were I
If he were I, he would do what I did.
—Sylvia Plath
I WAS CROSSING THE Fairview Mall food court when I saw Anna sitting on one of the padded benches. There was a small table in front of the bench, and usually there would be a single chair on the other side of the table. Really, I didn’t see her, she saw me. I was several tables away from her when she called out my name. I turned and smiled at her. She waved for me to come and sit by her side. I smiled and decided to make my way over and say hello.
Anna and I have known each other for a long time. We are among those immigrants, or I should say refugees, who know each other very well, and know about the bad and good of our lives. Anna used to write short stories when she was a newcomer but she doesn’t anymore, or if she does, she doesn’t send them, as she used to, to the various the Iranian publications. She only feels sorry for herself.
She says she writes, but no one notices her writing and nobody reads it. Sometimes she reads her stories out loud to me and then says, “You see, it doesn’t work.”
When I see her sad face, I feel sorry for her and I want say, “So, why do you write? If it makes you unhappy, don’t do it and be happy.” But I know if I say this, it will seem as though I have cursed her; that I have implied she doesn’t have any talent and doesn’t have anything to say. When she gives me her writing to read, I don’t say anything to her because I am not an expert in commenting on short stories or on any piece of literary work.
When we first got to know each other and both of us were newly arrived in this country, she often gave me her work to read. I had told her that I had read only a few books. When she asked me my opinion of her work, I didn’t know what to say. Actually, I didn’t have an opinion. I mean, no one had ever asked my opinion before. And I didn’t have any comments to make about the few books that I had read. And frankly, I didn’t know that a reader could make comments on a writer’s work. I thought that writers and artists work to please themselves.
Anna always said to me, “Damn my heart! Writing has prevented me from doing anything useful. I have gotten nowhere with this writing.”
I would look at her and not know what to say. I couldn’t say, “So, if that’s how you feel, forget about writing.” I was sure that if I had told her that, she would have been devastated.
I was fully aware that writing played a big role in her life. She had been a writer in Iran, and had published a collection of stories. She said, “It was the beginning of my career. I had just started to write and I had a collection of short stories published, but the book didn’t get any reviews. Don’t think that I was looking for a name or for fame.” I looked at her and said nothing. She must have realized that my knowledge of literature was meager. I have never worked outside the house and, as I said, I haven’t read many books. I have raised four children.
Anna used to say, “You’re lucky because you weren’t forced to work in this country.” Anna works in a big laundry, though she never talks about what she does there, and I haven’t asked her, either. For a while, she had a lot of pain in her arm and she stayed home; she was covered by workers’ compensation, although she was expected to return to her job in less than a year. She said, “I wish I could retire, but I still have ten or more years ahead of me.”
I tell her that when she’s retired, she can work full-time on her writing. She looks at me dumbfounded and says nothing.
When I get to Anna’s table, I don’t see the chair that is usually there. She tells me to grab a nearby chair and sit down. I do, even though I don’t have too much time. I have to be at home in an hour to make dinner for Hamed.
Anna says, “You’re one of those happy immigrants.” There’s no jealousy in her words.
I say, “God has mercy on me, but not on Hamed. I have to carry the burden of his pain as well. Do you think that’s happiness?”
She says, “You’re right.”
I say, “In Iran, Hamed was the manager of a big company and he had more than five hundred people were working for him, and here…”
She interrupts, “It doesn’t matter.”
I say, “Everyone here is trained for a special job. Hamed is not made for this job he’s doing here.”
This dialogue between us never reaches a satisfactory conclusion. I lean forward in my chair to face her directly and ask, “Why are you so upset?”
She says, “Upset? How did you know?”
“I can tell by the look on your face. You started writing something?”
“I wanted to write but…”
I know that Anna is once again trapped in what she usually calls writing blindness. She believes the words are not there anymore—that she cannot see them. Then she says, “There’s another problem, though, ” and pauses, as if to reassure herself that I’m waiting to hear more.
I ask her, “What is it then?”
She says, “You know that it’s been a while since I left aside writing, but I read. Reading gives me peace. I feel free and I can get away from my situation here and travel to new worlds.”
When she mentions travel, I feel sad. I know how much she loves to travel, but she can’t. I’ve just come back from Los Angeles; we went to visit one of Hamed’s aunts. We took a trip to San Francisco by train as well. When I had talked to her about my trip, I noticed immediately envy and pain in her eyes, so I stopped. She had said, “Tell me everything. Don’t cut your story short. Tell me what you’ve seen. I can dream about what you tell me and imagine myself in your place.”
Today, there’s a new sadness in her face, a pain like a wound that is not old yet. An old wound has a special colour, but a new one darkens the face. I look at her, but she steals her eyes away from me and says, “Don’t look at me that way. I’m not a good person.”
Surprised, I say, “What do you mean? Are you crazy?”
She says, “I came here to feel the vastness.”
I laugh and say, “Here? Vastness? Here is suffocating.”
She says, “My apartment is what’s suffocating.”
“Your home is beautiful,” I say.
“What kind of beauty does a thirty-square-metre apartment have? I am suffocating there,” she says.
I say, “But it’s yours—you own it. You have spent money on it, money that came from your hard work and your sweat. You’ve decorated it beautifu
lly, like a garden. It looks like an art gallery.”
I try to remember the word in Farsi for art gallery, but I can’t. Whenever I use English words instead of Farsi, Anna always finds the Farsi word and corrects me, but this time she says nothing. I can see that she’s sad.
She says, “I’m the slave to a thirty-square-metre apartment and you think of it as my little garden or my art gallery?
I say, “We are all slaves. Aren’t we? Isn’t Hamed a slave as well? Hamed is a slave of one-thousand-square-metres and you are a slave of thirty-square-metres.”
She puts her hand up and says, “Enough philosophizing.”
“Tell me why you are so upset?” I say, gently. “You have never been so sad. You are usually the epitome of joy, work, and effort. Maybe I can help.”
She says, “My conscience hurts me. Today I did something against my conscience and now I feel I don’t have a conscience.”
I look at my watch and at the people who are sitting around us. I don’t have more than half an hour. I look at a man sitting beside us. He is scratching a lottery card with a coin. He hopes to win a big chunk of money. And I imagine that right now, in his dreams, he is flying over the clouds.
Anna asks, “Are you listening to me? I have to confess. I have to talk about the sin I committed today.”
“Sin?” I repeat. “Do you believe in sin?”
“I’ve always believed in sin,” she says.
I say, “Well, tell me.”
She doesn’t look at me, doesn’t want to see in my eyes what I might be thinking about her at this moment. She looks this way and that way, at the food booths, of which there are many, at the two Chinese women sitting beside us who are talking non-stop, at a man who has a bunch of lottery tickets and is erasing the numbers with a coin; it seems he hasn’t won anything yet. She looks farther away, where people are coming and going.
Anna says, “It happened today, less than an half an hour ago. I came here to feel vastness. I couldn’t walk outside; it was cold, it was cloudy, snow was forecast. There was nowhere to go except here. I didn’t want to eat something or even have a cup of coffee. I didn’t have money to spend, nor an appetite for anything to eat or drink. You know that I have to stop myself from these kinds of luxuries, so as to be able to pay my mortgage. And God only knows how many more years it will take before my little garden truly will be mine.
She laughs but I don’t. I see her sad face, and can’t smile. I just look at her and wait for her to finish.
She continues, “So, I chose this cozy corner and sat. I had brought my notebook to write in, just randomly. I mean, to jot down whatever came to my mind. Just for myself. Then a person who wasn’t exactly like a person, either—I suppose he was a little sad, or maybe even devastated—he stood in front of me and wanted to sit in the chair you are sitting in now. I said, my friend has gone to get a coffee…. I looked up at him and saw my own reflection in his eyes. He looked shattered. Then the man left. I got up, took the chair, and placed it at the next table. A few minutes later, the man came back. He looked at me, noticed the chair was gone, and said, “Your friend…?”
I said nothing. He realized that I didn’t want him sitting in front of me. I watched him as he walked around the food court. He couldn’t find anywhere else to sit. Nobody wanted him to sit at their table. He left and I said nothing. Then I asked myself, “What happened to my conscience? Where has it gone? Do I really have a conscience? Wouldn’t it have been better to have stayed in my own apartment and not look for vastness?”
I nod but say nothing.
She says, “Is it selfishness or lack conscience?”
I say nothing.
She says, “I know that to judge is difficult.”
I say, “Yes, to judge is difficult.”
*
After supper I tell Anna’s story to Hamed. He says nothing. I ask him, “What can be done?”
He asks, “What do you mean by that?”
I say, “Do you think Anna is a person without a conscience?”
“What a question! How do I know? Am I to judge Anna’s conscience?”
“If you were in her place, would you have given a seat to that person?”
He says, “If you knew how exhausted I am and what a dirty day I’ve had, you wouldn’t be asking me these silly questions.” He gets up, leaves the living room, and goes into the washroom, then turns on the faucets so he can’t hear me if I say something.
*
A week goes by and I don’t see Anna or hear from her, but I think about her and that man with his unpleasant appearance, as if it was I who hadn’t give him a place to sit. After a week I call her to ask how she is.
She says, “What has happened that you are asking about me?”
I say, “I always ask how you are.”
She says, “You probably want to know what I did with my conscience and how I got rid of the torture.”
I ask, “How?”
She says, “So, you still remember our conversation?”
I say, “Yes, I remember it.”
She says, “I see him in my dream and I dance with him. We don’t hate each other any more. I mean, I don’t hate him. I tell him I’ll always keep a seat for him and he has promised to get a coffee for me. He says he usually has enough money to pay for one or two cups of coffee. He says he’s not worried about mortgage or rent. He sleeps wherever he finds a place, and during the days…”
I continue, “He keeps looking for an empty seat.”
Anna says, “I hope he doesn’t run into anyone like me.”
I ask her, “Have you seen him again?”
She says, “I told you already. He appears in my dream and dances with me.”
Snake
SORAYA SAYS, “Dr. Doostar is sick.”
“Sick?” I say, surprised. “I don’t think he’s sick. Yes, he’s old. It might be his age—late eighties—that has affected him and perhaps he doesn’t look as well as he used to. But he certainly is not sick.”
We were invited to Dr. Farhoodi’s place to celebrate Yalda. Dr. Farhoodi is a physician who’s now retired. We were about eight people. The youngest of our group was past fifty, so we were all of a certain age. Our children were grown up and had their own lives. And as folks say, all of us had experienced both bad and good in our lives.
It was after midnight and we were almost done discussing politics, literature, society, the Iranian community, education, family matters, and anything else that came to our minds, especially our health problems, which currently tend to dominate our conversations. A visible fatigue had spread over our faces. I don’t know how our talk turned to dreaming and its connection to real life. Hamid, Soraya’s husband, who had studied psychology when he was young and was now writing articles about the subject for Iranian newspapers in the city, said, “Dreams in many ways have some connection to the individual’s consciousness.”
Akbar, who is a chartered accountant and works at a well-known company, didn’t agree with Hamid. He argued that dreams had nothing to do with real life and that they only relate to the individual’s unconscious. The discourse between the two was becoming heated; no one else could get a word in.
When Hamid mentioned Carl Jung, the famous psychologist, Dr. Doostar coughed loudly and everyone turned toward him. The entire night he hadn’t uttered more than a few words; he had thanked Dr. Farhoodi’s wife, our hostess, and made a few casual and flattering remarks. His silence was unusual, because at many other gatherings he had always been talkative and witty.
By the time the Dr. Doostar’s coughing fit had ended, Akbar and Hamid had forgotten about their disagreement. Dr. Doostar cleared his throat and with his coarse voice, which sounded like banging on a rusty pot, said, “Do you want to hear a real story?” as if he was addressing a group of his medical students. Dr. Doostar told us that he had been a university
professor in Iran, but it was hard to believe him because he didn’t seem to have a medical specialty. Without giving us a chance to respond, he continued, “It’s a story that when you hear it, for sure you will say, ‘It cannot be true.’ Or ‘It was a dream or an illusion.’ But the fact is that this story is true and and it really happened to me. For years I forced myself to believe that what had happened to me had been a dream, to help me to deal with it and not go mad. But my story…” and here he paused for a moment. “I don’t know why I call it a story. The word ‘story’ diminishes the reality of my memory. Yes, I have to say that what happened to me was pure fact. After you hear it, I leave it to you to believe it or not, to think of it as a dream or as reality…”
The doctor’s preamble took so long that Dr. Farhoodi permitted himself to interrupt him, “Dear Doctor, you’re making us impatient. Please don’t fly from one subject to another. We are…”
Dr. Doostar obviously didn’t hear Dr. Farharoodi because he simply continued, “First of all, promise that you won’t interrupt me. It’s true that I’m old and sometimes I mix things up and become forgetful, but the story that I’m going to tell you is one of those…”
Again, he didn’t finish and instead looked blankly at us. It seemed that he didn’t notice us. His expression was distant and his eyes were searching beyond us. He said, “No, I shouldn’t call it a story. But in some ways it sounds like fiction. Yes, it has crossed my mind many times that I could turn this experience into a story. If Sadegh Hedayat were alive, he might have written a fantastic novel based on this story.”
Dr. Farhoodi’s wife interrupted him again and said, “Minoo is a writer, too.” She was referring to me.
To show my humility, I wanted to say, no, I am not a writer yet, but Dr. Doostar, without troubling to look at me, as if I didn’t exist as a writer or even as a human being, said, “No.” His “no” was so forceful that he made me believe I’d never be a writer.
The Street of Butterflies Page 10