That day the alley was full of people. The house, on the other hand, where there was always a commotion, was quiet. I was ironing my clothes hurriedly to get out. It was nearly noon and we had no guests. It was strange; the telephone did not ring, not even once. I got my things and came down the stairs slowly and jumped into the alley; I didn’t want to be seen. In the alley many people were standing in rows, silent and motionless, reminding me of the military service days, but why? I could walk amongst them, play with their hair and faces, or even hit them. The woman bent up to her knee once and then pulled her hands over her face; the man looked up but as I wanted to follow the direction of his eyes he dropped his head. These are no doubt lunatics from a mental asylum wandering in our alley, is it possible? But why isn’t there anybody to supervise them? Why doesn’t anybody else pass here so that we can speculate about them together? We may come to a solution.
In the house they tell me, "You should grow up." I haven’t. Or at least I haven’t the way they wanted me to. In the house there were always some guests who would stare at you – relatives coming from the provinces, my father's great aunt who was probably 100 years old – I would stare back. But a century is not a short time. And she had nothing else to do but die. God, I hate all of them; a couple of times I used the tree outside my room to climb into the alley. But it's dangerous. I may conceivably break my neck, so much loneliness, such misery.
My brother died and, well, it was disheartening. No one was told the truth… that he was found in his room with some syringes and a couple of grams of heroin. He was swollen and smelled horrible. They told everyone that he had gone to see his grandmother in another city and had an accident on the way and had died. In a couple of days they started believing their own lies, “My boy went on a journey. My son became a martyr for God.”
God bless his soul. I am older than him because I didn’t become an addict – I could’ve – but didn’t. I went to the service – the easiest place to get addicted. Our mother wanted us to become doctors, all of us, but not even one of us did. Maybe it would've been better for her to pray that we wouldn’t go mad, at least one of us wouldn’t. My sisters shoved their chadors in their bags even before turning the corner. The house was different from outside and outside was different from how people were inside. One wants things, I know, one desires. I have a friend who says, "What do you think, nothing’s for free? Try not to get the short end of the stick, you idiot…." So what was there to do? "Live…" he would reply. How? "Any old how…."
I went back inside to look at them from the window, I was frightened, but didn’t want to leave and let go. I had to see what they were up to. My mom called me.
- You're home?
- Yes.
- You haven’t gone after your business?
- I'll go; it's not late yet.
- Why don’t you have guests?
- They haven’t arrived yet, what's it to you?
- Just asking.
- Take care that your dad doesn’t learn that you're staying home doing nothing.
I wanted to say that it was none of hers or his business. I didn’t.
- Where are the girls?
- Out to buy Newspapers.
- What for?
- The exam that they took.
- Oh, Entrance Exam, I'll leave now, I had left something.
I was looking for a sentence that I had written in one of my books before leaving, something like why do people hate each other so much and finding a way to tell everyone, "Hey, see, I'm not like others, let's behave like humans; the world has gone bad, everybody knows it and all are suffering,” except my parents and their guests. This time it was the welcoming and seeing off of a Haji. Sheep after sheep had to be slaughtered. I wish I knew what would hurt them; I would’ve tried it even for the heck of it, whatever it was it wouldn’t be worse than my brother’s death. Indifferent, hell I am like their children, as my brother was, as my sisters are. I hope that the girl wouldn’t grow up, what good would it do anyways? In a family that the mother is having Koran classes from morning to night and the father is constantly in the Bazaar thinking all women are whores, even his own daughters.
That same woman again bent over and covered her face. Looking at them gives me the goose bumps, what business do they have in our alley? I went into the bathroom and splashed water over them by the water hose. They took out some umbrella from God knows where, and then suddenly there was rain, a shower.
- Good God! It was sunny just right now, wasn’t it, Mohammad?
- Yes it was.
- What enraged the sky all of a sudden?
- You.
- Me? Or, your useless body who is still home well into the afternoon.
- Mom, I'm afraid.
- What?
- I said I'm afraid, I don’t feel good.
- You'd better be afraid; this is how God becomes wrathful towards his sinful creatures.
- I'm so frightened.
- Get lost, 'I'm afraid, I'm afraid'. Say Bism Allah, the devil has gotten into you.
- You mean that there is a devil?
- No doubt.
Mom left. She left and shut the door. She closed the door to my own room. I went to the window. All of them were looking up, one of them said, "If you jump, you'll have wings"… I jumped.
* Illustration by Arefeh Riahi
