by Sara Jafari
She explained what had happened. Oliver gasped in all the right places, looking more offended than she was.
Coincidentally, “Independent Women” came over the speakers then, which caused Soraya to sob pathetically, “I don’t want to be an independent woman,” while not quite meaning it.
Oliver just looked at her for a moment. “You’ve always been independent, but I agree, perhaps now isn’t the time for this.” He pressed pause on his phone. They were left in silence. She wasn’t sure which was worse.
“He’s an absolute piece of shit,” Oliver said, shaking his head. “It’s a good job you were only using him. Imagine how you’d feel if it had all been real.”
Oliver knew she had come to really like Magnus, and it was touching, really, how he was now pretending the joke had really been on Magnus. She just wished she could pretend too.
She mumbled something like “I guess.”
“And you were the one to break up with him. You didn’t give him power in the end.”
She was too deflated to think of a good response to this. She nodded, said nothing. She didn’t want to mention the other stuff. She was scared that if she told Oliver about Magnus’s criticisms of her, he would agree with them. Or, worse, hearing them spoken aloud would make Oliver realize how annoying she really was, and then maybe he wouldn’t want to be her friend anymore—because did she truly deserve a friend like him? She doubted it.
And at this point he was all she had left.
* * *
—
Soraya didn’t eat ice cream or watch romantic comedies. She didn’t rush out and get a new haircut. She was still, solitary. Her room became a fortress of misery that she couldn’t quite leave. She called in sick and didn’t return to work for a week, feigning norovirus.
During her week indoors, most of which was spent entirely alone, she remained in bed. Oliver’s internship was made into a permanent position, and while she was pleased for him, this new development was in painful contrast to her own crumbling life.
Eating held no appeal whatsoever. It was shocking, really. She had spent most of her life attempting various diets, and now, despite having nothing to do but eat, food was abhorrent to her. It was as though by eating she’d be accepting the reality of the situation, resuming normal life, and she couldn’t do that. And when she tried to eat, due to her stomach growling angrily, she chewed and tasted nothing. Her jaw hurt, swallowing was painful.
Towards the end of the week the reality of her situation hit home. She hadn’t eaten in twenty-five hours. An accidental fast.
Every time she tried to read she would zone out, and her attempts to draw were shoddy. All the things she once loved were now tainted.
In bed, light streaming in from the sides of her curtains, the air outside her duvet ice-cold, she remembered the good times.
The way Magnus’s stubble scratched her face when he kissed her. How he always held her face, like she was dear to him. How often he said she was perfect, so much so that she had begun to believe it.
It was funny, she thought, how he’d made her feel she was enough for him, when all along it had been a lie.
Soraya zoned out. Only partly from the drugs.
It was at moments such as these that she began to understand her dad’s addiction. Not that she was addicted, she knew that, but she recognized the great appeal of forgetting yourself—or rather accepting yourself. While intoxicated she became more open and people talked to her.
In the past few months, she’d rekindled friendships with people from university whose personalities revolved around their love of techno music and recreational drugs. They were not quite clean and very thin as a result of the comedowns that suppressed their appetites. But wanting to forget, and not be around people who were particularly happy, she tagged along with them on a night out. Oliver said, “I’d rather stick needles in my eyeballs than go,” so he did not join them.
The smoking area was filled with hipsters of varying degrees, both old and young. Boys and girls were wearing vintage-looking jeans with sheer tops. Soraya half got the dress code and wore a mesh crop top and a tennis skirt with fishnet tights, but one of her thighs seemed the same circumference as both of her friend John’s.
It was at times like these, when she felt most alone, that she wished she knew her lost sister. Perhaps Laleh would be on her side, would understand her in a way her other siblings never did. She resolved to get her mum alone and ask her about Laleh over Christmas, find out anything she could about where her eldest sister might be. She must at least try.
She had resigned herself to the fact that because they were a small family she would have to go home for Christmas. She imagined if she didn’t show they’d probably drive up to London and bring her back.
So she drank to blot out the thought of
Bringing up the subject of Laleh with her mother.
Enduring her dad’s presence.
Her entire relationship with Magnus being fake.
Despite everything, the last point was the one that hurt the most. She was familiar with family disappointment, but in matters of the heart this was a fresh, new kind of pain. She couldn’t decipher what was real from what was fake in her relationship with Magnus and spent many nights mulling over their dates, playing detective. When in moments of despair she concluded it was all lies, she hated him even more.
She sipped her vodka cranberry laced with MD. She smacked her lips together, finding the taste bitter. For her, taking MD was no different from drinking alcohol; it served a purpose when partying, but she didn’t need it to survive. That was how she and her dad differed. She resolutely told herself they were different. She was young with no dependents, and so her taking drugs occasionally would have no consequences for anyone else, but he had children, a wife—he should know better.
And when she thought back to Magnus, who was against drug taking, she wondered whether he saw drugs as being any different from alcohol. Yes, you often didn’t know what was in the drugs and Soraya knew she was stupid for overlooking that fact—but everyone knew an alcoholic nowadays. The damage from alcohol was as bad as from drug addiction, but no one talked about it. Perhaps she took the MD to spite Magnus, and maybe that’s why she had taken more than usual tonight.
Ungracefully, she got up from her seated position on the floor in the smoking area. “I’ve got to pee,” she lied, needing a moment to herself.
She waded through sticky bodies to get to the toilets. The harsh lighting made her squint, and the sight of her reflection made her squint further. She smoothed her hair down and used a wet paper towel to wipe away her smudged lipstick. Her eyes were completely black, demon-like. She kind of liked it.
There were other girls in the toilet, in similar states of disarray, but they were with friends. She leant against the wall as she waited in the queue, took her phone out, and held it at a distance. Focusing her eyes, she opened the Facebook app. Searched Magnus Evans. Clicked on his profile and scrolled down. He had posted a picture three hours ago. It was of him and his housemates, beers in their hands in a pub. She scrolled down further. Twelve hours ago, a topless mirror selfie. Fifty likes, with comments such as “Your room is so messy Magnus,” followed by an emoji, from the type of girl who would check him out at parties. The type of girl Soraya wasn’t.
He usually laughed when she said they were checking him out, shaking his head, saying something like “No, that’s just Beth, she’s a friend.” But Soraya knew the way a woman’s mind works. They had been waiting for him to be single and now he was.
“Why did I go out with someone hot?” Soraya muttered. “Why couldn’t he have been unattractive?”
She made a decision. She deleted his phone number. Deleted their WhatsApp messages. Unfollowed him on Instagram. She would have deleted him from Facebook but he would have known, and she didn’t want him
to think she was trying to get his attention. Instead she vowed to look at Facebook less. When she finished she breathed deeply.
A random girl asked her if she was OK.
“I’m A-OK!” she said, in that overenthusiastic way people do when they’re pretending to be fine.
When she finally had the chance to pee, she remained sitting on the seat, staring at the back of the toilet door. This wasn’t how she’d expected graduate life to be. She knew they said it was hard to get a professional job. But she hadn’t thought it would take this long. Didn’t think she’d be the only one of her friends without one. How many more application rejections, interview rejections, would it take until she caught one, just one? Her romantic life had been her only saving grace throughout the rejections, and now that had come crashing down. Her dad’s aggression was nothing new, but Magnus had made her feel like, for the first time, she wasn’t to blame, and that her dad’s behavior wasn’t excusable or something she should grin and bear.
She went back to the dance floor and feeling another wave, happily danced on her own to the techno music she usually deplored. She allowed herself to be swept up in the crowd of bodies, bobbing their heads, swaying to the beat. With her eyes shut she imagined herself surrounded by people who loved her, that she was weightless, everything fine.
When she opened them again she saw Laleh; her face was blurry but Soraya was certain it was her.
“It’s you,” Soraya said.
But Laleh ignored her. And when Soraya blinked she didn’t see her there anymore, just the backs of people dancing.
She blinked again, and promptly forgot her hallucination. Her eyes were playing with her, leaving her confused. So she continued dancing. Later when her friends found her they swayed to the music together. She wasn’t sure how long she danced, just continued until the waves ended.
They left the club at 6:00 a.m. and a group of them went back to John’s house, to watch movies and smoke weed.
When Oliver texted to ask if she was OK, she replied:
I’m fine.
In the living room were two new additions: one brown and one cream cot. Inside the brown one was a blue fleece blanket, and in the other a baby pink throw. Hossein had kitted out each cot with soft toys—which Neda wasn’t entirely sure was safe for newborns. As was his way, next to the cot were five packs of nappies—which would be too big for them—and two tubs of baby milk powder—which they couldn’t yet drink. It was at least better than when he had attempted to give Laleh cow’s milk straight from the bottle when she was a small baby. Neda’s lips twitched with annoyance all the same.
They had moved to a larger two-bedroom flat when Neda was pregnant with Laleh. But as with all upgrades, it made another one seem inevitable. Neda wanted each of her children to have their own room, like English people often did.
As Neda struggled with carrying two babies and made her way farther into the room, she saw Hossein had placed a stack of baby clothes on the sofa, the labels still attached, the prices displayed.
This was his way of apologizing, by attempting to impress her. But instead it irritated her. The clothes were too expensive and the babies would grow out of them in a week. Had he forgotten that? Or was it because he was never truly a part of the process with Laleh, conveniently working every night as soon as she was born, and then sleeping during the day, leaving Neda alone with their first newborn? He was a part-time father then, but at least he was loyal, not embarrassing or degrading her.
She had called Ali from the hospital, as promised, and he collected her and dropped her off at home. He refused to come inside the house when he saw Hossein’s car outside, but agreed to look after Laleh while Neda settled the newborns in. Perhaps stubbornness ran in the family, because Neda had insisted only Ali could collect her from the hospital, and not Hossein. She had said she would rather walk the two and a half miles home with two babies in her arms and Laleh by her side than get in a car with her husband. Her cheating husband.
Seeing his wife struggle, Hossein rushed from the kitchen and took one of the babies from the carrier.
“You’re home!” He looked at the child in his arms. “Ah, little Amir,” he cooed lovingly.
“That’s Parvin,” Neda said before putting the carrier on the floor.
He looked disappointed. “Of course, I got mixed up.” Now he looked at Parvin as though she was an object to fear, holding her away from himself, his hands under her armpits. She began to cry.
Neda took her daughter from him, rocking her against her body. The crying soon stopped.
“They need their mother,” he said.
“They need a father too.”
Hossein’s nostrils flared for a fraction of a second.
She held Parvin close. “Why are you making a fool out of me?” she said, cooing the words. She knew—or hoped—that he wouldn’t do anything in front of the babies. While he had never hit her, he had broken things when he was angry. She wondered if one day he would snap—he wouldn’t be the first man in her family to hit a woman. It was common back home for men to hit their wives, almost expected. That Hossein hadn’t done it so far was surprising. But hadn’t he done enough already?
“What do you mean?”
“Simran told me about that Englishwoman…” Her words trailed off. Something about her husband was different. He was agitated, his face an unusual shade of red. She noticed the way his hands shook. “Are you OK?”
Tiny beads of sweat rolled down his forehead.
“What’s going on?” she said.
“Nothing is going on,” he said, moving away jerkily, reorganizing the nappies, and taking teddies from carrier bags, placing them inside the cots. With each movement she became more and more aware of how unsteady he was. He wasn’t drunk; this wasn’t the movement of a drunken man.
She began to recall his behavior over the past few months. He had always been erratic, but this was different. This was the first time she’d truly looked at him in a very long time. She noticed how much weight he had lost, how he couldn’t stand still.
She put Parvin in one cot and checked on Amir before going into the kitchen. She knew Hossein would follow.
He grabbed the ends of his hair and pulled, saying nothing.
“What is going on with you?” Neda asked, observing him. “Are you on the weed? Is that what this is? You’ve gone from drinking alcohol to smoking hashish?”
He gulped, stuttering, “No, obviously not.” He turned away from her so he was in profile, fingering a crisp bag he had left on the countertop, folding it in half before attempting to rip it, but struggling.
He reminded her of Laleh then, how he wanted to be close to her with nothing to say, just needing her presence. But she wasn’t his mother, she was his wife, and he had betrayed her. She didn’t want to be a calming presence anymore, didn’t want to give him comfort. Who gave her comfort?
“Something is going on with you, you’re behaving oddly.”
“I’m not, I’ve just not been feeling that well.”
“You’re telling me because you’ve had a cold that justifies cheating on me, hitting my brother? Have you lost your mind? Just because we’re in England doesn’t mean you can act this way.”
“I didn’t know what I was doing, you have to believe me, I’m not well,” he said, grabbing her hands. His palms were damp and cold, and she resisted the urge to snatch her hands away. She couldn’t look him in the eye.
“Your actions now aren’t the actions of a sane man. I don’t know who you are anymore. Not well? What’s wrong with you? Eh?”
He said nothing.
“How would you feel if I slept with another man and then said I was unwell? That’s not an excuse! What do you even mean, ‘unwell’? Do you mean tired? You have the flu? Speak some sense.”
“I’m in trouble,” he said in a quiet voice.
“With whom?” She realized then she didn’t know him at all. It seemed he lived in an entirely separate world from her, a world in which he had English lovers, got in trouble with people she had never met.
“I’ve made so many mistakes and I don’t know how to take them back. I wish I could take it all back.” His eyes were glassy. She had never seen him cry before.
“What’s that meant to mean? Take what back?”
“I can’t stop taking it…I can’t. I’ve tried and I can’t. Allah help me.” He put his head in his hands and his whole body shook violently.
Her hand hovered over his back, but she couldn’t touch him.
“What can’t you stop taking? Alcohol? Have you become an alcoholic? What is it, Hossein?”
“I don’t remember being with them, what they even look like…that’s how bad it’s got.”
“What are you talking about, Hossein? That woman? Women?” she hissed. “You’re making no sense. Have you gone crazy?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t mean to, that’s not what I mean.” He paused. “I need to stop. I know I can stop. I do bad things because of it. I hurt you. It’s not my fault, I don’t mean to, honestly. I swear to you, Neda. I just need your help.”
She slammed her hand down onto the table. “Help with what?”
“Opio.” As he said the word he let out a sigh of relief, his shoulders slumping.
And the words he uttered made no sense to her. When she tried to repeat them they stuck to her mouth, gluey.
Yes, he had cheated on her. Multiple times. She knew that, even if he wouldn’t outright admit it. Yes. But that was beside the point now, or rather the point had changed, he’d changed it.
In the silence, his face was pained, lips turned down to expose his small teeth—the teeth she had once thought were cute. Now she noticed how yellow they were. When had this man she thought she loved decayed? And how had she lived with him and not noticed?