by Fariba Vafi
I feel his body against mine. I have not opened my eyes yet, but I am awake. It must be almost morning. Amir has come to bed. I put my arms around him and rest my head on his neck. Reconciling silently is the best way. Amir is back and he does not know from where I have got him back.
19
The second time Aunt Mahboub sent me back, I smelled like urine. The night before, I had wet my bed, and Aunt Mahboub was fed up with me. Maman told me to go to the basement and wait for her. I was happy to be back at our own house. I did not like Aunt Mahboub’s house. I was terrified of Uncle Qadir, constantly winking at me. In my nightmares, a big locust would come toward me, with a stick in his mouth. Uncle Qadir would take the hookah out of his mouth for three reasons: when he wanted to butter up Aunt Mahboub, when he wanted to wink at me, and when he wanted me to pour tea for him, so that he could hold my hand as I was serving him and blow the smoke in my face.
“You don’t like your uncle?”
“I do.”
He would wink. “Then why do you run away?”
“I am not running away!”
I took a step back. Maman turned the water on. Told me to get undressed. Maman was weeping and swearing. I did not know who she was swearing at, but I had learned who they were meant for by the type of swear words. Maman held the hose with cold water on my feet. I got goose bumps and shivered. The swear word that Maman used was meant for my father. Then it was her parents’ turn. Aunt Mahboub had her share, too.
“Hurry up. Sit down!”
Swear words and the weight of her hand hit my bare back simultaneously. I jumped up like a frog because of the cold water, my body shivering from the cold as if I was electrified. I cried. Maman had made me black and blue.
“Stupid, hopeless girl!”
I did not say that I was scared of Uncle Qadir. I saw him searching Aunt Mahboub’s purse. By moving the mouthpiece of the hookah across his neck, he let me know that if I said anything, Aunt Mahboub would cut my throat.
I had seen Aunt Mahboub beating him out of anger. She would be so angry she would hit her own head against the wall first, and then attack him. Pieces of Uncle Qadir’s old white undershirt would fly in the air like the feathers of a dead bird.
Maman’s swearing at people ended, and now she was cursing the heavens and the earth. She wrapped me in an old sheet and left me crumbled up in a world of fear.
20
Friday means the rumbling voice of the salt peddler, the basket vendor, and the loudspeaker of the truck that sells guaranteed sweet watermelons. Friday means loud television and Amir’s long yawns. Friday means changing the old faucet and fixing the broken flush. Friday means long afternoons and picking up fights.
Like a sieve, the ceiling transfers music through its bricks and mortars and iron beams. Mr. Hashemi’s daughter is dancing. You can tell by the sound of her fast steps. Amir looks at the ceiling as if he’s watching a complete orchestra up there.
Shadi asks, “Maman, do you like me better or spices?”
I say, “You.”
Shahin says, “They bought the tape player today. It’s one of those newer models.”
“Poor Hashemi, he is at the end of his rope, and they buy the latest model tape player.”
Amir has discovered a new fetish, finding contradictions in people’s lives.
“They rent their apartment, but go around in taxis. They are constantly fighting over money, but you can smell their expensive perfume in the stairways.”
“Maman, me or ants?”
“You.”
The music gets louder. Now it is not just coming through the ceiling. The walls are beating with fast foreign music.
“No matter what, we are peasants and have a village mentality. Even if they stuff every one of us inside a room, only our bodies would stay inside, our swear words would be heard outside. We hear ourselves fighting each other through the windows and the walls.”
“Daddy, do you love me more, or a stone?”
“A stone. Yes, we hear each others’ crying. Even our least important hopes and dreams pass through the cracks of the wall.”
“Daddy, what do you love more, sugar cubes or me?”
“Sugar cubes. We know whose phone is ringing. We know who sleeps until noon, and who is awake past midnight.”
“Daddy, me or a period?”
“The period, the word, the line, and the sentence.”
Shahin leaves quietly.
“Do you love me more, or Ida?”
“Ida. You haven’t run down batteries yet?”
“Do you love me or Ida’s mom?”
“That’s obvious, Ida’s mom.”
Ida’s mom is at the door. Amir whispers, “She must have sensed that we were talking about her!”
“Can I borrow a couple of onions?”
I give her a few onions and close the door.
“There you go. All that gold on her neck, all that makeup, and she’s here every day asking for a couple of onions or potatoes, or some oil.”
Shadi goes to the backyard. Ebi is at the entrance of the parking lot. The kids have all gathered in the backyard and offer him coins. Ebi collects the coins and sings one of Googoosh’s songs. He imitates the sound of a fire engine, the roar of a lion, and the sound of a police siren. Ebi has long hair. He is wearing an old oversized coat and cuts all the songs short. “As much as you pay,” he says.
The kids clap for him and laugh. A banknote is thrown from the upper floor, and a woman says, “A Bandari dance.”
Amir says, “The others pay money to enjoy it, but you get your enjoyment without paying. Haven’t you had enough already?”
I move away from the window. Where should I go? Where shouldn’t I go? There is no good reason to wander. If I am not standing at the window, there are only two other places I could go—either the living room or the kitchen. The backyard is at the other end of the building and the high wall there makes me feel like it’s the end of the world.
I say, “I’ve had enough, OK?”
I have said it too late.
Amir says, “Enough of what?”
“Of everything, of this life.”
Now that I have named my feeling, I realize how sad I am. Sadness has blown up like a balloon inside me. My eyes are full of tears. “Of this house, of these Fridays.”
“I keep telling you that we have to leave this place.”
I want to say, “ . . . of you.”
I don’t say it. That would ruin everything. Because I don’t say it, the word knocks around inside my head, “You, you, you.”
“Now you agree with me.”
I don’t know what it is that I am agreeing with. But I feel guilty for being so fed up with him. Damn this feeling that is always with me, closer to me than a sister. Mahin and Shahla are not always with me, but this feeling never leaves me. I get close to Amir and put my head on his shoulder. It is too hard. I bring my head down to his chest. Amir caresses my hair. I think I always mislead people. Amir cannot even imagine that I am so fed up with him.
21
When Amir has had enough, he walks around the room with heavy steps like a giant. Opening and closing doors noisily. He sings in the shower, and when you least expect it, he recites poetry by Hafez.
In the mornings, he puts on his best shirt to go to work. Fixing his hair, he doesn’t mind using my leftover hair color to cover his gray.
He smiles at himself in the mirror.
When he has had enough of me, my belly reminds him of a drum, and my legs of a camel. Sometimes I am transformed into a crocodile, but I always end up as a polar bear.
When he has had enough of me, he turns into a bachelor who has mistakenly become a guest in a crowded house. At times like this, the kids are no longer smart and curious, and they have not taken after their father at all. They are in the way and annoying. They eat at our brains with their irrelevant questions, and no doubt they are only my kids.
Amir treats himself and promises to do more.
He shaves every morning and leaves the house as if he is living in a third-class motel. His cologne stays in the air for hours.
When Father had enough of Maman, he would bring home Vitamin. Vitamin was the name Father had given her. Vitamin would sing. She laughed loudly and snapped her fingers briskly. She had long black hair. Mahin said, “If she didn’t have all those blemishes, she could be pretty.” But Father saw the blemishes as beauty marks and recited poetry for Vitamin, and Maman took refuge in the basement because she had crystal-clear skin and no one ever read poetry to her.
Aunt Mahboub would say, “If a woman really wants poetry, she can find it even in a hellhole.” She would laugh thunderously, “A woman can even make mice sing for her if she wants to.”
Aunt Mahboub did not need poetry. That is why she looked at herself in the mirror a hundred times a day, not one kind of look, but a hundred; the look of a neighbor who would enter momentarily, the look of a stranger who would pass by and glance at her. Sometimes she’d look at herself as carefully as a caring and diligent doctor. She would delicately press the puffed-up bags under her eyes and would caress her neck with the same gentle touch.
When Maman had had enough, she would throw the furniture in the yard and clean everything for days while weeping. She would wipe off the doors, the walls, and the floors. She cleaned every corner of the rooms and the basement, washing everything repeatedly. Maman did not allow anyone but Shahla to go to the basement while cleaning. She said, “It is filthy everywhere. I have to disinfect the morgue.”
She got rid of Uncle Qadir by using housecleaning as an excuse, and did not let him in the basement anymore. This is how Maman slowly cleared our house of the shadows. She got rid of all the ghosts, all the friends and guests, Vitamin and all the other strangers. Everything was clean and quiet after Maman was done, and Father was in the basement lying on the bed all alone, like a corpse waiting to be washed.
When Shahla has enough, she goes on a diet. She eats only almonds, pistachios, and filberts.
Maman says, “Isn’t it a pity to make so much money and eat only some nuts?”
When Mahin has enough, she marries a man she doesn’t even know and moves to the other end of the world.
I must be the most miserable for when I have had enough, I put my head on the stomach of the person with whom I am most fed up and listen to his stomach growl while feeling ashamed of my unhappiness.
22
Only death can turn life back to its original state. If suddenly I have a heart attack and collapse in the middle of the kitchen, Amir will notice me at last. I don’t want to have an accident and end up with a deformed face. I don’t want to get cancer and become weak and turn yellow. Heart attacks are better than other kinds of death. I am spread out on the floor, probably holding the spoon that I was using to stir the milk. I stare at the ceiling, but I am not dead. Amir does not know that yet.
We did not know Father had died, either. We thought he was alive, but he had died in the basement, all alone. Father loved women, pistachios, and music, but he didn’t want them any longer.
“My son, bring me a piece of that red juicy thing.”
Maman would sigh, and Father would say again, “Son, are you getting that red juicy thing? I am thirsty, very thirsty.”
He would not remember the word for watermelon, even if his life depended on it. Mahin wanted to leave.
Shahla said, “In this cold, and at this time of the night?”
Mahin did not pay any attention to her, always trying to do the impossible. Maman blocked the basement door with her body. “He gets everything messy.”
He would make a mess even without eating watermelon.
“He has left a trail. Clean him up.” He had lost control before making it to the bathroom.
He would drag his feet on the floor because he could not climb the stairs.
Maman became exasperated by Father’s sickness. Father should have realized by now that he could not get any sympathy by playing dead. He should die for real.
Amir should look at me now with the same concern that he had years ago, with the same love in his eyes. He should see the small wrinkles around the eyes of the woman that he will soon lose forever, and show some sympathy. He should see my eyebrows that for months everybody except him has noticed have not been plucked or shaped well. Surely he would hold my hands, and even if it wasn’t a good time to compliment me, deep down he would remember that these are the same hands that got him excited once.
“Hey, where are you? The milk is boiling over.”
With despair, I come back to life. I stir the milk while feeling a world of self-pity. Holding the spoon, I turn toward him and look at him with disappointment. He is bending over and examining his little toe that is dry as a bone. I wonder why a man that calls you “hey” shouldn’t die. Death would certainly make him dearer, the same way that it had with Father. Mahin described him to her husband-to-be as if she was talking about Jean Valjean in Les Misérables, a symbol of honor and honesty. Maman also gave alms to the poor in his name.
I would cry for Amir. I would hit my chest and tear my scarf into pieces. “Amir, come back. I will die for you Amir, come back.”
The women would hold my shoulders and give me sweet drinks, but I would scream, “Amir, come back. What am I going to do with these kids, Amir?”
The women that would hold my hands wouldn’t know that I wanted Amir back as he was ten years ago. The same Amir that when you looked in his eyes, you would say, “Oh my God, what a beautiful color.”
Amir says, “Why are you looking at me like that? Are you going crazy?”
23
I am looking out the window. I tell Amir, “Hurry up.”
Amir reluctantly comes to the window, and we both look out at the man who practices tambour in the afternoons, and now he is playing with the lock on the door.
Amir says, “I didn’t think he would be so thin. He looks grumpy, too.”
I say, “I don’t think he’s grumpy. He is just sensitive.” And I want to say that he has strong hands, but I stop myself just in time. Noticing two positives at the same time is an exaggeration, and any kind of exaggeration on my part upsets Amir. I go to the kitchen.
According to Amir, people watching is a bad habit. It does not match his personality. But I love it. That’s why I find the window and the peephole very useful. But now it is Amir who is not moving away from the window and is holding the curtain back.
Quickly I go to my own corner, the other side of the curtain. It is the cradle robber who is shading her face with her hand and looking at the end of the alley.
There goes a well-dressed, beautiful woman, and it is not hard to guess what is going on in Amir’s head. But he always makes me doubt my talent in reading his mind. While still standing at the window, he says, “Poor thing.”
“Poor who? The cradle robber or the baby?” His answer is important for me.
Amir says, “Poor me who is looking at the world through this small opening.”
24
Amir wakes up and is asking for the tape that he brought back from Baku.
I say, “I’ll find it later.”
“No, right now.”
“First sit down and have your breakfast.”
Amir does not want any breakfast. He wants his tape.
I ask, “Did you have a dream?”
He does not answer, and like someone who is in a hurry, quickly goes through the drawers. I find the tape. “Here you are.”
I think he should at least give me a thankful look, but it is as if I don’t even exist. He puts the tape in the tape player and turns it on. The Kamancheh is playing. I sit by him. I can’t ask him what he is remembering. It is impossible to figure out where Amir is right now. Is he alone or with someone else? In a concert hall or on some street? But wherever he is, I am not there. I want to bang the dishes together and make noise. I want the power to go off so t
hat the tape player stops. A secret has crept into our house like a small animal that I don’t recognize. I cannot even pet it.
I say, “It is late. Don’t you want to go to work?”
He does not hear me. The echo of an ululating voice has filled the house. It’s not like the birds singing. The music has brought down even the sky.
I say it louder, “You are late.”
He moves away from the tape player, like a kid who is still hungry and is forced to leave the table. He wears his shoes, and looks at me as if it’s my fault that I don’t look like a woman he could passionately love at this moment.
25
I write:
Dear Mahin,
Yesterday morning Shadi got your letter from the mailman and brought it home screaming happily. But she got into a fight with Shahin over opening it. I told them whoever opens the letter the other one gets to keep the stamps. Shahin immediately backed down. Shadi opened the letter. Amir said, “Let me read it.”
I didn’t like him reading your letter, especially out loud and full of errors. It’s not a newspaper. It’s a letter written only for one person. However, I didn’t say anything. But the letter lost its excitement.
Dearest Mahin, I must say your letters always create a small crisis in our home. After finishing your letter, Amir says, “What a dreadful life we have.” This remark belongs to evenings, when he comes home after an entire day of overtime work and collapses in front of the air conditioner, moaning. Not to the morning when it’s time to go to work, and there is still opportunity to change the world.
Girl, in your letter you talk about a U.S. where everybody is living happily. Everybody thinks, talks, and lives as they wish. You talk about old women who feel young and strong, and you write about the young women who have the most beautiful smiles in the world. Shahla says, “Mahin has gone to Hollywood, not to the U.S.” My problem is that I can’t even imagine such a world, let alone believe in it; a world without contradictions, without suffering and regrets. But Amir believes in it, because the West, especially Canada, is his life’s sole obsession. As a person who doesn’t believe in anything, even if he sees it with his own eyes, now he buys any right or wrong idea about the West.