by Kimia Eslah
Bitterly, Taraneh had stormed off to her bedroom after she had chastised her mother curtly for calling Jennifer a stranger — Jennifer, the best friend who became a stranger shortly thereafter. That had been the moment when Taraneh had heard her father refer to her as a freak. From the hallway, she’d heard him advise her mother to not waste her energy on Taraneh because their daughter had become a deviant who was beyond redemption. “She’s become a freak, Mojegan!” he had declared loudly enough for Taraneh to hear.
Indignant at his name-calling, she had rushed back into the living room. Taraneh hadn’t bothered to appeal to her mother. Instead, she had confronted him with her chest out, shoulders back, and face scowling. Only steps away from his body, she had felt repelled by the amalgam of perspiration and morning breath that was unique to him.
“You’re calling me a freak?” Taraneh had yelled back. “I’m the fucking normal one.”
“Taraneh! Watch your language,” her mother had protested.
Taraneh had shot her a contemptuous look and returned to glare at her father.
“Look at yourself. You’re a degenerate,” he had said scornfully, glowering at Taraneh.
“You’re crazy!” Taraneh had screamed wildly into her father’s face.
“You’re revolting,” he had sneered in return.
“You’re fucking revolting!” Taraneh had screamed again, stomping her right foot wrathfully.
“Taraneh! Show respect for your father,” her mother had objected with disgust, from her seated position.
Overwhelmed, Taraneh had turned to go pack her backpack. It was eight o’clock on Monday morning and she had planned to get to her class on time. Before she made it to her room, her father had ordered her to get her things and get out of his house. She had paused for a moment but she hadn’t turned around. Instead, she had continued past the closed bedroom doors of Nassrin and Omid. Taraneh had imagined that they were sitting anxiously on their beds, wondering when it would be safe to emerge. In her bedroom, she had stuffed her backpack with binders, textbooks, and clothes. Her mind raced and her heart beat furiously as she tried to sort out her next step.
“Taraneh,” her mother had called out from the doorway, with arms crossed.
Taraneh had faced her with dead eyes, limp arms, and a sombre expression. In spite of her zealous opposition to her parents’ values and tactics, Taraneh had never desired living apart. She had battled with them to change their ways and accept her differences, but she had never intended or expected to be cast out. More than anything, she had been perplexed about how her parents had arrived at this decision. Frequently and aggressively, her parents had expressed their disapproval of Taraneh’s choice of fashion, music, and friends. Taraneh had ignored them. She had assumed that she could balance the scales by doing housework and maintaining decent grades. Taraneh had reassured herself that despite their reoccurring clashes, her diligence could restore her worth in their appraisals, and when Khanome Talebi had commended Taraneh on her kindness and helpfulness, she had felt vindicated in her pursuit of success on her own terms. If their friends can see that I am a good person, Taraneh had wondered as she stared at her mother in the doorway, why can’t they?
“Here,” her mother had said with her right hand held out to Taraneh.
She had worn the same resigned expression as her daughter. In her outstretched hand, there had been a pair of twenty-dollar bills. Taraneh had stared at her mother’s hand. Worried that accepting the money would be considered a sign of condonation, Taraneh had felt uncertain how to proceed. She had continued to stare at the money, even as her mother placed the two banknotes in Taraneh’s bag.
“And your keys,” her mother had said as she extended an upturned palm toward Taraneh to receive her house keys.
Taraneh had wanted to stomp, scream, and shake her mother. She had wanted to call over one of their friends, or the neighbours, or the police. Desperately, she had wanted someone credible to explain to her parents that they were being unreasonable, that their daughter was a worthwhile person, that arguments were part of raising teenagers, and that it was their duty to care for her despite their arguments. Taraneh had wanted someone to defend her, but she knew it would horrify her parents to involve an outsider in their private affairs. It had been simpler to leave.
Taraneh had unhooked the Mickey Mouse keychain from the metal ring that held her two house keys and placed the pair of keys in her mother’s palm. Her mother had closed her palm, crossed her arms, and turned to leave. At the doorway, her mother had faced her once more.
She had said mildly, “This isn’t a movie, Taraneh. You don’t need to be so dramatic.”
Taraneh had fought back her urge to scream and stomp in defiance of her mother’s statement. She had curled in her lips, clenched her jaw, and glared angrily at her mother, but she had not spoken.
“We’re not your enemies. We’re not some religious fanatics from some cliché film,” her mother had continued. “I’m not telling you who to marry or trying to keep you from seeing your friends.”
Taraneh had continued to bite her lips to keep from reacting to her mother’s seemingly reasonable speech. Livid, she had wanted to explain that their conversation was exactly like a scene from a movie but not an over-the-top drama in which the overbearing immigrant parents isolate their independent-minded daughter and force her into marrying a stranger. Instead, Taraneh had felt like the protagonist of a horror movie in which her parents refused to believe her warnings about the dangers lurking in the deep waters. She knew that she lacked the charm and tact to communicate effectively with her parents, but she was also tired of failing to make them understand her lived experience of their persistent and unexamined misery. She had served as their counsellor, peacekeeper, and nurse for years before she had begun to yell and scream. Taraneh wasn’t sure what had changed to cause her anxiety to manifest in anger but she had known that she could not return to being calm and quiet.
Before her mother retired to her own bedroom, she had advised, “You might consider seeing a counsellor.”
Struck speechless by her mother’s suggestion, Taraneh had felt a mixture of vindication and resentment. It was unlike her mother to propose discussing family affairs with strangers. Taraneh had interpreted it as a sign that her mother, who typically dismissed her children’s grievances, acknowledged the severity of Taraneh’s pain. In Iran, Taraneh had deliberated whether her anxiety and the discord in her family was abnormal or commonplace, an experience universal to all families. When they arrived in Canada, Taraneh had grown increasingly anxious that something was profoundly wrong even though her parents had attributed the incessant family arguments to the negative influence of the permissive Canadian culture, which had spoiled their children. Hearing her mother’s advice had caused Taraneh to speculate, Am I the problem?
As she packed her bag and left for school, she had vowed earnestly to isolate the cause of the dysfunction in her family, even if she turned out to be the cause. Guilelessly, she had assumed that her quest would lead her to the one flawed person and they would express their gratitude and set about correcting their faults. After two years of thinking in circles, she still hadn’t pinpointed the cause of their problems with any certainty. For all I know, it’s me, Taraneh had admitted to herself with an overwhelming sense of shame and guilt.
“Hey, you downed that Orange Crush fast.” Sam nudged Taraneh, breaking her agonizing ruminations.
Taraneh grimaced at him, crossed her arms, and turned toward Avanti.
“I can’t make it to the Groundhog tonight,” explained Taraneh in a hushed tone. “Just really tired from exams. Another time, though.”
Before Avanti could reply, Sam shimmied between the two women and exclaimed playfully, “Come on! I had exams and I’m up for fun.”
With knees bent to reduce his height and bring him eye-level to Taraneh and Avanti, he grinned goofily and oscillated
his gaze from one woman to the other with exaggerated interest. Taraneh recoiled and stepped back farther than necessary.
“What’s the matter with you?” she asked.
Seemingly unfazed by Taraneh’s abrasiveness, Sam shrugged. “Just saying. You should come out.”
Taraneh glared at him. She considered how to extinguish him without coming across as a brute or, worse, a spoiled child.
“Time to head up,” announced Danny, stubbing out his second smoke.
Avanti locked arms with Taraneh and they walked to the lobby together. Sam trailed behind, keeping a respectful distance.
“I can cover your tab tonight,” offered Avanti softly, “if that’s the problem.”
“No, no,” Taraneh replied in a gracious tone. “Thanks, but that’s not it.”
Along with a few others in the lobby, they waited for the elevator back up to the call centre. The two stood in the corner where two faux marble walls met.
“Then?” prompted Avanti, tactfully looking down at the speckled grey wall-to-wall carpeting.
“I’m just tired and I don’t want to bring you down,” Taraneh tried weakly.
“Bring me down?! Sure, when cock get teet,” Avanti expressed her doubt. “How about for an hour?”
The elevator door chimed open, and Taraneh lost all drive to extricate herself from the night’s plans.
“Yeah, okay,” she agreed and followed Avanti into the elevator. “I’ll come for an hour.”
“You will? Totally awesome!” remarked, Sam who stood at the back of the elevator, behind a row of people.
Taraneh sulked and wished she had called in sick.
CHAPTER 12
“WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU, HER MOTHER?” slurred the man whose left arm coiled around Taraneh’s waist and kept her upright on the sidewalk in front of the Groundhog pub.
“Yes! Yes, I am. Now get your hands off my daughter,” barked the woman who held onto Taraneh’s left arm with both her hands.
Taraneh felt her limp body being pulled in opposite directions. Looking through the narrow slits that her heavy eyelids begrudgingly granted her, she saw the pavement and her boots. They didn’t look like her boots; they were soiled with something peach-coloured. She wanted to ask for a cloth to wipe off the mess. Using all the energy she could muster, she lifted her head to speak. That sudden movement triggered an overpowering sensation to vomit, which she did, all over the pants of the man holding her upright.
“Fucking bitch!” he cursed and shoved her away.
Doubled over, Taraneh stumbled sideways a few steps before she felt herself anchored once again by what she assumed to be a large box, possibly a mailbox or a phone booth. She rested all of her weight against that large box. Having emptied her stomach, she felt at peace and ready to sleep. In the moment, sleeping on the sidewalk against the box seemed like a reasonable and attractive idea. Before she passed out, Taraneh heard that same man yell and the same woman threaten to call the police.
***
When Taraneh awoke, it was Saturday morning. She jolted out of sleep because she needed to vomit. She found herself alone on a single bed, in a dark room. When she threw her legs over the side to run to the nearest bathroom, her feet kicked a bucket. She grabbed it and placed her face over it. Her entire torso heaved and lurched forward painfully, only to produce a thin bitter fluid. After the last spasms seized her gut but led to nothing, she wiped her mouth with her sleeve and fell back to sleep.
Sometime later Taraneh awoke to the sound of a woman laughing in a distant room. Cautious of glaring light, she kept her eyes closed. She heard birds chirping and a lawnmower starting up. She raised one eyelid hesitantly and saw daylight creeping in from the edges of the pale blue curtains that, mercifully, were drawn. When she rubbed her eyes, a sharp pain on her right brow shocked her. Using just the tips of her fingers, she touched a blood-encrusted wound, half the length of her eyebrow. In spite of the headache that gripped her, she decided to get moving. The taste in her mouth was foul and she was desperate for a drink of water. Sitting up was an effort and she paused to stop the room from spinning.
Awakening in an unfamiliar room wasn’t an unusual experience for her. When she had done drugs with the street kids, she awoke often in a jumble of tangled bodies, staring at the stained ceiling of a putrid rooming house. Rancid odours, bold cockroaches, and blood-smeared walls, she expected; the room she lay in unsettled her.
The small, minimally furnished bedroom smelled of lilacs. A shelf held several science fiction novels and a few hand-painted figures of space monsters and space ships. Overhead, two model space shuttles, each at least three feet long, hung suspended from the ceiling, with their noses raised upwards optimistically. The desk held a beige computer labelled Macintosh Plus, along with an orderly stack of hard disks and a framed photograph of a young woman accepting an award on a school stage. The banner behind the young woman read Computer Science Talent Search 1984. The bedroom walls were white and bare, except for a movie poster for David Lynch’s Dune. Sting, dressed in a silver costume, holding a foot-long dagger, and staring at her menacingly returned her to the present moment.
Taraneh tried to remember how she arrived in that room, in that house. Then, she tried to think of how she could leave the room and the house without being discovered. Shit! Where are my boots? Taraneh quizzed herself crossly. She scanned the corners of the room for her footwear. On the bedside table, she found a glass of water and a bottle of acetaminophen. Taking two tablets, she drank greedily and sighed with relief. She noticed that a square patch of bloodied gauze lay on the pillow and the pillow case was stained with her blood. When she picked up the used gauze, she remembered having her cut cleaned.
A woman had tilted back her head and warned, “Terry, this is going to sting but it needs to be cleaned.”
“Thank you so much. You are so nice,” Taraneh had tried to say but it had come out an unintelligible mumble.
She remembered recoiling as the alcohol-soaked cotton ball pressed against her brow, but her main concern had been that she was wearing her boots on the woman’s carpet. “My boots are dirty, sorry,” Taraneh had managed, genuinely apologetic.
She remembered that as she tried to take them off, the woman had said, “I took them off. They’re in the mud room. It’s okay.”
My boots are in the mud room, Taraneh realized just she heard a soft knock on the bedroom door.
“Hi,” said a woman. “Can I come in?”
Startled, Taraneh’s gaze darted about for anything she might need to hide.
Don’t be stupid, Taraneh chastised herself. You’ve made a fool of yourself already.
“Yeah, sure,” said Taraneh, in a soft voice.
When the door was open halfway, Taraneh was surprised to see an Iranian woman in a white mom’s costume. Dressed in a blue and white Toronto Argonauts jersey, grey track pants, and tube socks, a middle-aged woman with large eyeglasses, a green scrunchie, and no makeup smiled at her kindly and confidently.
“You probably don’t have an appetite, do you?” she asked.
“Uh, no thank you,” replied Taraneh. “Thank you for helping me ...” she eked out before faltering.
“You can call me Nilou, and you’re welcome,” the woman said unassumingly. “The bathroom is the second door to your right, and you’ll find new toothbrushes in the cupboard.”
“Uh, I think I’ll just head out,” Taraneh said as she tried to stand. She managed to rise halfway before the room began to spin again and she quickly sat down for fear of falling forward.
“Hm,” said Nilou with pursed lips and head nodding.
Taraneh examined Nilou’s expression for signs of disapproval, or worse, derision. Gratefully, she found neither, only empathy.
“You are welcome to continue sleeping until you feel ready to leave, or eat,” Nilou offered, crossing her arms and leaning with
her shoulder against the doorjamb.
“I … uh, I’m supposed to be at my parents’ place,” Taraneh remembered aloud. “What time is it?”
“It’s just past ten. You can call them if you like. There’s a phone in the kitchen where you can have privacy,” Nilou said, motioning toward the kitchen with a nod.
“Yeah … okay … thanks,” Taraneh said sheepishly, feeling ill at ease for involving a stranger in her personal affairs. Immediately, she realized that she was in no condition to visit her parents. She felt for her bandaged brow to corroborate her memory of the cut.
“I can put a new bandage on that,” Nilou offered plainly. “If you want. Everything is in the bathroom cupboard, if you prefer to do it yourself.”
“Hm, thanks,” Taraneh smiled slightly to show her appreciation. “And, thanks for the water and pills. I’m sorry but I stained the pillowcase. I can clean it, or replace it.”
With a humble shrug, Nilou replied easily, “No worries.”
“Okay, sorry,” Taraneh apologized again. “My boots?”
“Oh, they’re drying in the mudroom. They’re clean now but still wet,” Nilou pointed a finger over her shoulder to indicate the location of the mudroom. When Taraneh nodded her appreciation but stared silently at the floor for another minute, Nilou gave a small smile and turned to leave. Before she closed the door, she said, “I’ll be in the living room, if you need me.”
“Thanks,” Taraneh managed to say before Nilou shut the door. Her headache had dissipated, her thirst had been quenched, and her curiosity had been subdued. Having received encouragement to rest, Taraneh decided to lie down for a few more minutes before she called her mother. Just a few minutes until the dizziness is gone, she promised herself.
She awoke a while later to soft knocking at the bedroom door. Her second awakening was less perplexing given that she was somewhat familiar with her surroundings and her host. Also, when she sat up, she felt no spinning, no nausea, and no headache — only an intense thirst and hunger pangs. She rubbed her eyes and shocked herself again with the pain from her right brow.