Sister Jaan
I hear something outside on the balcony.
Two beautiful doves, as white as snow, have perched on our railing. Doves often make me smile. They remind me of my childhood, and the long nights when my great aunt would visit. Ezy, as we called her, was a great storyteller with a thousand tales.
“Tell us another one,” us children would plead with her as soon as she was done telling us a story.
Ezy never refused, never complained that she was too tired. We stayed up well past midnight while she told us story after story. Many of her stories included doves as part of the cast. The great white doves in her stories could speak, but only to each other. It was as if they were the storyteller’s special helper. The doves had a specific mission; they would offer the listener bits of information that the heroes and heroines didn’t have access to, but were going to learn later in the story. A clever invention of the old storytellers, which made us feel smarter than the cast. The story doves always came in twos, and they were always sisters - smart, clever, and intelligent sisters.
Now, a pair of white doves is sitting on my balcony, looking at me in that funny way only doves do, moving their tiny heads from one side to another. I stare right back at them.
“Hello,” I whisper. “Can you tell me what happened at our house that summer day in 1953?” I smile. “You could if you were Persian Story Doves. But you are just doves,” I say to myself. “You can’t even understand me, which is fair since I can’t understand you either.”
I recall my grandmother’s words whenever she would tell us stories: “A long, long time ago, when people were still good and kind, they were able to understand the language of animals.”
“But I guess the world is now changed and is filled with bad people who are not good enough to understand your tongue,” I say to the doves.
I turn toward the TV again. A commercial about some sort of male enhancement breaks the street clashes I am watching. As if we need more testosterone in this hawkish world! I close my eyes; the poor things are so tired. If I am smart, I will keep them closed no matter how many bullets pierce the screen – and now I am clearly delirious because of lack of sleep. Then again, who am I to complain while sitting on my comfortable sofa, when so many innocent people are the victims of savage conquerors of this world?
“The world is full of bad people now who not only can’t understand animals, they don’t even understand each other,” I say to myself thinking of my grandmother. She used to tell us the reason we no longer understand animals is because we, the human race, have become unkind and have turned away from nature.
Something brushes against my face, followed by a tiny breeze tainted by an odor, reminding me of an old suitcase or a barn – I can’t tell which since I haven’t encountered either for a long time. I open my red burning eyes.
In front of me, on the coffee table, sits one of the doves, looking at me the way they do, with beady eyes and her tiny head moving from side to side, back and forth – with the smallest pause in between each movement.
I turn toward the balcony.
The other dove is still sitting on the railing. I look back at the first dove on the coffee table and close my eyes, keeping them shut for a second or two before opening them again – just like the heroines did in the stories Ezy told us.
“Why are you surprised? Didn’t you ask for me?” The dove sitting on the coffee table says in a voice that I am certain only I can hear.
I can’t believe I am falling for this! I tell myself. Nevertheless, I play along.
“I didn’t dream up this Story and I sure didn’t make up the rules. You did!” says the dove looking surprised. “Do you want to hear the story or not? I haven’t got all day,” she continues while flapping her wings to demonstrate she is serious about leaving.
“Oh, no wait.” Even in my own story I am a pushover. “I do want to hear the story but what about your sister? Shouldn’t she be part of this too?”
“She is not my sister. She’s more my sidekick; just an amateur,” the dove exclaims as she stretches her neck and turns her head away from me, making me think she is rolling her eyes.
“I thought you were sisters. The doves in Ezy’s stories were always sisters.”
“Not all women who call each other sisters are blood sisters, you know that, right?” the dove says with a wise gleam in her eyes. “For example, after the revolution everyone started calling each other brother and sister, remember?”
I do, indeed. “I wish they hadn’t. They cheapened the concept of being brothers and sisters.”
“It all depends on what kind of relationship you have with your blood relatives. Sometimes a good friend is like a sister, or even better.”
It takes me only a second to recall my mom saying that very same thing. She was an only girl with four brothers and always dreamt of having a sister. Later in life, she had a few very good friends whom she said were better to her than real sisters could ever be. Or perhaps she only said that to make me feel less deprived – I grew up as an only child.
“Are you telling me that all those doves in Ezy’s stories were also just friends?”
“Well, not exactly. First of all, she and I” she glances at the other dove sitting in the balcony “are just co-workers, not friends. She has just started and is already a prima donna. She is --”
“Let’s not talk behind her back,” I interrupt. “You guys sort things out on your own.”
This has been my problem ever since I was a kid; everyone tells me things I have no interest in knowing. Or bring their problems and complaints about others to me. I don’t know why but they always do, even perfect strangers. Without me probing, or even showing a hint of interest, people have told me their entire life’s stories in doctors’ waiting rooms, at bus stops, and even in professional offices – a receptionist once asked me for advice about her relationship as I was waiting for my client, and this was the first time she had ever met me. “You have one of those faces.” I have been told. One of my friends advised me to work on my back-off face.
“Okay, fine. You don’t have to be mean. I get it. This is about you, not me,” the dove cuts my stream of consciousness. “This is your story, after all. You decide what you want to cover.” The dove looks hurt, and the pushover in me feels bad for hurting her feelings. “I will call her now,” she says.
In no time the dove on the balcony turns towards us and gently opens her wings. She takes off gracefully and passes through the balcony door – as if it is made of water instead of the glass – and lands on the coffee table to the left of the first dove.
“Were you calling me, Sister Jaan?” the second dove asks with a degree of elegance, which I have to admit, is missing in the first dove.
The second dove’s grace plus the fact that she has stayed close to the scripts and used the word “jaan” – a term of endearment in the Persian language meaning “soul” or “life” – makes me wonder how much of an amateur she really is. I don’t dare ask, as I am sure I would be opening a can of worms, which might derail the Story even more.
“Yes, I did call for you,” the first dove, which I am going to call Dove One, says as she turns to Dove Two. “We are to tell the story of that summer day in 1953 to this lady. If you don’t remember it, we can take five, and I can go over your lines with you.”
I am turned off by being called “this lady.” – it makes me feel old but I am even more turned off by the way Dove One is acting. What a schmuck I’ve got for my main Dove part. I wish I could swap her for Dove Two; she fits the role much better.
Dove Two stretches her neck and wiggles her body, the way doves do, as she changes positions so she can look directly at me.
“Sister jaan, of course I remember. How can one forget that awful summer day?” Dove Two asks in a magical tone, taking me back to Ezy’s stories.
What The Doves Said: The Saboteur (Book One) Page 2