Auntie

     Women are detail oriented. They tend to grasp meaningful facts by piecing together tiny bits of information. Mostly, women don’t bother with generalities, but details linger in their mind like pearl inside the seashell and they make a necklace out of it if they find a string.

     Men – or men like my aunt’s husband – if they hear of someone’s suicide, babble for hours about inflation and depression. If they hear of some wife getting a divorce, they hand you an account on divorce rates in society. His audience, therefore go on cracking roasted watermelon seeds, or if they’re scheming through the newspaper, they sink their faces deeper in the pages and nod occasionally; the most tactless ones dose off.

     But my aunt wraps up banalities, and quickly gets to the details, each detail glittering like a shining red spark in a dark night. Women abandon their chores and follow her words closely.

     “In mourning receptions,” my aunt says, “women shed one ounce of tears and go right away to their questions. Not why the person died, but how. How he died is more important. My aunt says women don’t feel like leaving the service if they don’t find out what were the words the person said right before dying, or if they don’t hear about a relative of the deceased having a revelation, and how it was linked to the death. If they don’t hit upon pieces of worthy details, death will walk with them shoulder to shoulder on their way home, urging them to chat with him.

My aunt says nothing about the real news, which is of a little girl who set herself on fire. She talks of the flames flying high up. And of the next-door neighbor’s wife, who asked her man when she noticed the flames: “Are they boiling pitch to insulate the roof?”

Cats jumped on the roof, mewling. And then the stench filled the whole world, the stench of scorched human flesh.

The womenfolk slap the back of their hand with fury; their eyes fill with tears which drenches the eyelashes and do not drip.

Auntie points with her hands at the girl’s nylon dress spread in the air when fire caught on, and the pieces of dress landed on the branches of the walnut tree. The girl screams.

Auntie lowers her voice: “Patches of the girl’s skin was stuck to the mosaics in their yard.”

The women say: “Stop it … don’t say more…”

Mesmerized under the spell of fire, the women narrow the circle round auntie. Like a witch, she has hypnotized them.

Neighbors stick one end of the hose into the watertap and hold the other end over the girl.

Auntie says: “Have you seen a broom? The girl had turned into a dripping broom.”

The women slap their kneecaps with sorrow.

Auntie leaves the room, and walks back in. Her grim face full of creases, she brings down palms of her hands to her skull, whacking her head: “oooy, oooy, I’m ruined, oooy, ooy!” This is how the stepmother looked and acted when she saw the girl’s scorched body.

The women say in a collective voice: “May god burn you in the heart, woman!”

Auntie says that in the way to the hospital the stepmother pressed her purse to the girl’s body, and the driver banged his fist on the wheel and said: “Damn you, you don’t even leave her injured body to rest.”

The women wail bitterly.

Auntie’s husband has been in the room for some time: “They had wrapped the child in a blanket; stepmother’s purse couldn’t have touched her wounds.”

The women look at Auntie’s husband, and then look at auntie, meaning: “How do you put up with him?” The thought suspends in the air, everyone felt it. The women want to know what the girl’s father did.  And auntie is not a fool to finish her tale with a simple he cried!

The father hits his head hard to the tree trunk. Auntie says it was the same tree still sputtering with blazes. The father weeps a tearless cry. “I did not know. I did not know. I leave in the morning and come back at night. I didn’t know what was happening to her.”

A woman in black chador swallows her tears, and wails: “How would you not know? She was so sallow!”

Another black figure pours out: “If you’d looked at her hands, you’d know.”

The courtyard is buzzing with the voices now: “You’d know if you looked at the rags she wore.”

“If you looked at her hair, at her eyes.”

Earsplitting bout between husband and wife is nothing more than a pouring rain replaced by a shining sun soon after. It travels from one end to the other in the block, from wall to wall, door to door, and no one pays much attention. But, if you peeped from the keyhole and saw the baby having banana milk shake while the girl washed the dishes, thirsty, and parched lipped, you’d be sure the news would sell in the neighborhood. News of the girl being pulled by the bunch of her golden tresses is like the news of the storm bringing down trees in town. The husband, the wife, and their baby taking their threesome stroll in a sunny day could be received while cooking a meal. But the girl fallen on her aunt’s feet, begging, called for the Telly to hush down.

The women grow quiet to hear the girl’s crying: “Maamaan!  … my legs are burning… Maamaan!”

The wailing following it pierces into the backrooms of every house.

None of the men pays attention to the father whacking the girl. The red stamp on the report card is so big everyone can see. But the women see, even in their sleep, the girl pressing her burning body on the walnut tree in the yard.

The new bride of the neighboring house weeps: “Why didn’t you draw the match while still in the room, to burn the rugs down with you? Why didn’t you burn your stepmother with you? Why didn’t you burn her house down?”

Auntie’s voice is louder than the neighbor’s daughter-in-law: “Before she pours gasoline on herself, the girl sweeps the house spick and span, washes the baby’s diapers and hangs them on the tree branches.”

Auntie remembers to mention at the end, that the edges of the diapers burned by the flames.

On the fortieth day of the girl’s death, women come back to visit auntie. The stepmother has come back to her home. From the men’s point of view, all is well now. The womenfolk cook; send the kids to school; mend their husband’s socks and think about what would it be like now that the husband and wife start over. They come to auntie. She is the only one who wouldn’t say: “It’s over, the little girl is gone, she put herself on fire.”  She says: “For two whole days, the stepmother’s sisters washed and cleaned the house. You could hear them from behind this wall, sweeping and scraping the yard. They chased the cats off the roof top. Planted a couple of violets in the patch of the garden, only they withered at the end of the day… . The father came home in the afternoon, and stared at the blackened leaves of the walnut tree, which the sisters could do nothing about. The wife talked nonstop. No one could understand what she was saying, but she was heard.

The narrow alley had become quiet; it hadn’t seen a heavier silence ever. Then a wailing was heard.

The neighbors are divided.

Some say: “The father is hurting…”

Some say: “To be a woman, and a stepmother…”

Auntie’s husband says: “They hit the road; won’t be back till late night.”

Auntie is sitting in the yard: “They won’t be back.”

She listens to the voices wind carry from home to home. The walnut tree smacks its brunt branches on the wall, and hisses. The cats mew. Auntie strikes her chest with her fist, swinging with the rhythm of the mantra.

Day after, women come to visit auntie. Auntie’s husband opens the door as wide as his belly and blurts: “They’re moving out any day now… the rental office sent two people over.”

Auntie’s neighbors’ throw a look at Auntie’s husband, and another that carried a different meaning at Auntie, and go home empty handed.

 

 

Fariba Vafi 
Even When We Are Laughing

Translated by Saghi Ghahraman
2006 Toronto   

We Are Here

Baroj Akrayi

 

_______________

Eight Thirty Five A.M.

I switch on the lights.

The long hallway.. and then, there is a room, its door open, and the light from the hallway reaches to the foot of the bed.

I leave my jacket on the arm of the chair which is by the telephone table.

“Who is this?”

I am about to take off my hat: “Hello..”

A cat peeks from the end of the hall, and runs back. The walls are covered with old photos in old frames.

“Who are you?”

I turn left where her voice is coming from. She is sitting on a large, comfortable chair, her back to the window. The cat is on her lap, his head hidden somewhere in the folds of her dress.

“Good day!”

She looks up, and peers about my chest. She is wearing a red knit hat. Her gray, worn out hair is fallen on her old, blue dress. The creases on her face, tiny and uneven, have crawled down from the eyes towards her neck.

“You.. haven’t been here before, have you?”

She lifts her hand from the cat, and smoothes the folds of her dress. The band of her black bra has slipped over her shoulder blade.

I say: “No. It’s the first time..”

She turns her face from me, quickly. The cat jumps down her lap; stands by my feet, looks at my shoes a bit and runs in to the hall.

I say: “I should fix your breakfast.”

“Breakfast..”   She grabs her walking sick. Stands up with afford. Puts the tip of the cane further a bit, lifts her right foot a little and puts it down beside the cane. Then lifts her left foot, and brings it down beside the right one. Again, she lifts the cane, and puts it down a little further.

I look up: A young couple standing by a truck; wearing work cloths, hands empty; they’re smiling. She’s taken two steps. I take two steps after her. A woman is standing by a piano, her calf flashes out the slit of her long, black gown. She is looking at the camera.

“They fix breakfast!..”

She opens the door to the kitchen:

“The door to the balcony’s must always be open a little..”

I pass by the row of small photos in small frames. Open the door to the balcony. A layer of thin fog has covered the lake. Then everything is crisp and clear up to the other end of the lake where the evergreens are brown, with a thin hallo of fog round them.

I turn back.

She is sitting on a chair, at the table, which is full of dirty cups and packets of pills.

“I don’t want anything. Don’t need help, either.”

She picks up a cup to find a place for it on the table. She can’t, and puts it back again. By the sink stands a small flower pot with weathered flowers.

“Should we throw this away?”

Stretches her arm to the old radio, on the windowsill.

“What do you want for breakfast?”

Her back towards me, she shakes her head: “I don’t eat anything. Don’t want anything.”

Her arm shakes; and her fingers seem to be searching for a voice in the buzzing of the waves. *

The cat comes in from the hallway. Jumps on the chair, then on the table, and stands there. Looks at the cat, and turns to the radio. A man’s voice says something, lost in the wheezing. A young woman says something, and her laughter is heard over the wheezing. The man says something again. The woman laughs again. She pulls her hand back. Picks up the cat, lays him on her lap. The cat turns and hides his head somewhere in the folds of her dress.

“Are they speaking Russian?”

She looks at me, and turns quickly towards the radio – now a woman, as if in the wind, sings with a scratchy voice.

She pushes the cat aside with her right hand. Stairs with narrowed eyes at a dirty cup she’s picked up off the table; her nose creases. She puts it down.

“No! It must be Polish.” I fold my arms on my chest: “Yes.. it’s Polish..!”

She says nothing.

The cat comes a bit forth from under the table and stares at my shoes. The woman still sings in the wind, her scratchy voice comes and goes.

She stretches her hand toward the radio.

Turns it down.

Looks at my beret. “Polish.. it is Polish.” She turns it off.

I say: “That’s what I guessed..”

She takes her glasses, which are hung round her neck with a string, and puts them on. Her gray eyes are larger now.

I say: “I’ve been there.”

She takes her hand to her chest, pulls the slit of her dress up a bit:

“Where?”

“Verso!”

“What year?”

“Ninety.”

Looks me up and down. “Ninety years ago?”

“No, year 1990.”

Looks under the table.

I say: “It’s a beautiful place.”

She turns to the window. The lake. With that thin fog on the surface, and then the row of the brown evergreens, and the hallow of fog.

“Verso was beautiful..” She blinks facing the radio.

The cat is now standing in the doorway of the kitchen. I sit on the chair.

She scratches behind her back: “So, you’ve been in Verso?”

“I’ve been there for twenty days..”

And then, so she doesn’t ask any place’s name, I laugh and say: “Look, I ask you something in Polish, would you tell me what it means?”

She looks at me, weary.

“I’ve asked many people, they don’t tell me or..”

Scratches the back of her hand: “What?”

I say: “kurka wodna”

“Say it again..”

I say: “Kur..ka   wod..na”

She widens her eyes which she had narrowed, less creases on her face. Then, she laughs with her mouth shut. Shakes her head. And looks at my scarf: “ Was it a woman?”

“Who?”

She looks at me. Shakes her head, and laughs.

I say: “What does it mean?”

She laughs again. Then she looks under the table.

“It’s something woman only.. I mean mostly.. I think.. say to men. It has no..”

Shrugs her shoulder: “special meaning!”

“What do you mean?”

Only looks at me.

“How would women say something to men only, that has no meaning, special meaning?”

She grabs her cane. Folds her hands round the curve of the cane and rests her chin on her fist: “Coffee would be good now.. right?” She looks at the cat. The cat puts his mouth on his paws, and shuts his eyes. I hang my scarf on the chair’s arm. Take the coffee pot from the pile of dirty dishes. Pull up my sleeves.

I stand the way my back isn’t turned at her, and drizzle detergent on the sponge. “Wash only that one. I hate the sound of water..”

She laughs. “Word by word, it means soggy hen. No particular meaning. But.. women say it to men.. I think.”

I epen the tap. * “Why only women?”

She hangs her cane on the chair’s arm: “Don’t know. Or maybe it’s not so. I..” She laughs: “I haven’t heard it for ages.”

She shakes her head.

I keep the coffeepot under water. Froth slides quickly down. I fill it half way and put on the gas stow. I turn around and rub my hand dry on my pants. The cat is toying with my scarf hanging on the chair’s arm. I bend and pat him on the back. He sits up. Then falls on his back and lifts his paws up to my wrist.

“How old is this beauty?”

“Kazek?.. When I took him in he was very small; this big.” She shows the palm of her hand. “..and how long have you been in this country?”

“Ten years.”

“Ten?”

“Yes,” I sit down. “ten years.”

She wipes her glasses with the hem of her dress. Her thin, anemic thighs shows. I steal my eyes. Her tits are small for her black bra.

“But I came at the time of the war.” She puts her glasses on again. Eyes the stow – now perking of the boiling water is heard.

I get up.

“There are cups on that cupboard. On the left.”

The cups are arranged neatly, and tastefully, in single row.

“How many spoons?”

“Two. No. Three. Sugar, two spoons.”

That’s what I do. Two spoonfuls of sugar. Three spoonfuls of coffee.

I place her cup in front of her. Then I begin to pick up dirty glasses, to clear the table.

“No! Not now.” She lifts the spoon. “You’ll bring lunch, too?”

“Maybe.. I don’t know.”

“So leave the cups for later.” She spurted her coffee.

“Watch it. It’s hot.”

“But it’s good. I love coffee.”

“Ok, what do you want for lunch?”

“What? Don’t know.. whatever.. no, choose what you please.”

I pick up my scarf. Kazek jumps to grab the edge of it. I bend. He rolls on his back and lifts his paw up to my wrist.

I get up: “So, then.. Do widzaio.” *

She looks at me.

I say: “Do widzanio!”

Stretches her hand to my head. I bend a little. Grabs the lip of my hat with two fingers. Careens, and pulls my hat sideways. Hits me in the chest with her fist and turns towards the evergreens with their brown color paled in the fog.

* see you later (Polish)

Twenty After Nine A.M.

I turn on the light. Her mouth is agape, and her skinny legs with blue veins are left out of the blanket. I lean on the threshold.

“Good morning, Madam!”

I can hear the faucet leaking in the kitchen. Her mouth shuts. Her Adam’s apple goes up, down, and her mouth falls open, again.

I almost yell: “Good morning, Madam!”

She lifts her head. Looks at the window. Her gaze stretches along the walls. Slides over my face. Reaches the wardrobe on the corner, and suddenly returns and fixes on my face. She pulls the hem of the blanket up to her chest: “Who are you?” And smiles with panic.

I say: “Good morning, Madam!”

“Yeah..” pulls herself up a little. Lets go of the corner of the blanket, which she was holding on to: “Yeah,” her face lights up: “you’re the one who calls me Madam?”

“Yes, Madam. I’m the one who says Madam.”

She lifts her hand to check: “It’s chilly.. but it’s ok. No, it’s not ok. My feet’s not under the blanket.” She looks at me: “It’s ok, isn’t it? But, you say it’s very cold, right? You’re going to make coffee, right?”

I take off my winter jacket: “Yes. With bread, cheese and butter.”

“Cheese, and butter. But it’s cold. It’s raining, isn’t it?” looks at the window.

Branches of trees are covered with frost, behind the window.

“No, madam, it’s snow. It’s going to snow.” I put my jacket carefully on the arm of the chair.

She turns her head: “Don’t like snow. Now that it’s cold I don’t like snow a bit.”

Hides her face in her hands and begins crying.

“What about coffee? Don’t you like coffee?”

Pulls her hand away from over her mouth: “Coffee, yes, I like coffee, but it’s very cold again.” She is about to cry again when my cell phone rings.

“Hello..”

“Me. Where are you?”

“At madam’s place.”

“Gonna be long?”

“She’s not out of bed yet.”

“Her pill..”

“I know.”

“You know where it is?”

“Yes.”

Inhales.

“Where are you?”

“I’ll go on with my coffee, then.”

“Anything wrong?”

“No.”

“I’ll see you then.”

“Bye.”

She says: “Yes? Was it for me?”

“It was Larissa, told me to make you coffee.”

“Rings too much.”

“Who?”

“This..”   Points at the phone on the table.

“Rings all night. When I wake up, doesn’t ring. Why, you think?”

“Maybe someone’s calling you.”

“Who’d call? Besides, when I pick it up, no one talks.”

Water keeps peltterin in the sink.

I pick up the phone. The cable is cut and hanging down the chair’s arm.

“Your daughter, maybe it’s your daughter calling.” I put the phone back on the table.

“Did I have a daughter?” Looks at the window: “Is it going to be lots of snow?”

“Aren’t you going to get up?”

She grabs the blanket: “Yes! But it’s cold, isn’t it?” Pulls the blanket up: “Can I stay in a bit longer?”

I see the veins of her hands: “Ok.. I go make coffee. Then I’ll call you.”

She curls under the blanket: “Thank you for coming here later. Thank you for coming here today. Lock the front door.”

“I’m not going. I’m going to make coffee.”

She closes her eyes: “With butter and cheese?”

“Yes, with butter and cheese.”

I turn off the light.

I go to the kitchen. Open the window an inch. The lake is frozen and the wind has picked up a dust of snow, whirling along the way. I turn the tap open. Fill the coffee pot half way and put it on the stow. I turn the water off. Open the fridge door.

The faucet leaks.

“I was talking to you! Hear me?”

I go down the hall. At her door, I turn the light on: “Yes, madam? Did you say something?”

“The phone.. did you hear it?”

“No. No one called.”

“So, why is the light on?”

The faucet leaks.

I turn the light off. Go back to the kitchen. Turn the tap tightly shut. The fridge door is left open. I spread butter on the slice of bread, a slice of cheese on each bread. The buzzing of the pot gets louder and lauder. Then less, and less, then it is boiling. I turn the burner off. Pour boiling water in a yellowed white cup. Two spoonfuls of instant coffee. Three spoonfuls of sugar. Stir it. It foams. I pull the spoon out. An disk whirls and whirls and shrinks, and shrinks some more. Then it’s a bobble going round slowly. I close the window. Go back, and open the bedroom door.

Her mouth is open and the blue veins of her legs are left out of the blanket.

“Madam, breakfast is ready!”

The faucet leaks.

Louder: “Coffee’s ready!”

Her head titters a little. Her mouth shuts. Her Adam’s apple goes up, down, and her mouth falls open again.

I am almost shouting: “Coffee is ready!”

Lifts her head: “Who are you?” And keeps looking at me.

“Coffee’s ready.”

“Yeah.. you’re the one who calls me Madam?”

“Yes, Madam. I’m the one who calls you Madam. Coffee is ready!”

“Coffee is good. And you’re good too when you make good coffee and call me Madam..” She tears her grey eyes wide open: “Didn’t it ring?”

“No, get up, your coffee’ll be cold.”

“Cold coffee is not good. Cold coffee is not good at all!”

“Yes, it’s not good. So get up and drink it before it chills.”

She touches her cheeks with her hand: “It’s cold, and you say the phone hasn’t ring either.”

“No it didn’t. This phone doesn’t ring.” I start to lift the phone for her to see the cut cable, but I change my mind, and turn around: “Do you want me to bring your breakfast here? So you can have your breakfast here, in your bed?”

She lifts her hand off her face: “Coffee is not good if it’scold. How many times should I say this?”

“Yes, it’s not good, but it’s not clod yet. Get up!”

She weeps: “But when I sleep it rings.. I know.”

“You must get up now.. I gotta change your diaper, too.”

“I know I gotta get up..” She grabs at the bar above her head: “but because you’re here it doesn’t ring.” She tries: “No, today I can’t..” and lets go of the bar: “Who do you think is the caller, hah?” She opens her eyes wide.

I stand by her side: “I don’t know.”

Grabs hard at my hand: “And then, sometimes doesn’t call, comes here,” She points with her chin to the hall: “walks over there. Walks to the kitchen over and over I don’t know why?..” She looks the way I feel the fear, too: “You know what I mean?”

The faucet leaks.

“Give me your hand!” I hold her hand: “Now we count: one, two..”

She says: “three!.. but it’s not happening.”

I grab her under her arms, and lift her up in one move.

She sits up: “E.. it did.”

I exhale: “Ok?”

She looks at me: “That’s so good. Coffee is so good.” Hugs her arms: “You’re good too, to come make good coffee.”

I bend. I push her flaked feet in her slippers. Pull the wheelchair closer. Put her hands on the arm of the chair. She looks at her slippers: “No. It’s very cold.”

“Do you want me to bring your breakfast here?”

She lowers her face on her palm.”

“Yes?.. Do you want to have breakfast here?”

“But what should I eat?”

Coffee. With bread, and butter, and cheese!”

“With bread and butter, and cheese? But it’s too chilly. You said it’s raining? Yes?”

Outside the window, branches of trees are covered with frost.

“No, madam, snow. It’s snowing.”

Ten Past Ten A.M.

“Anybody home?” I switch the light.

“Turn it off!”

I turn it off and in the dead light of the windows I go in to the bedroom.

“Good morning!”

In the dark, she say: “Get out.. all of you!”

I wait till my eyes get used to it: “It’s only I.. no one else!”

When she moves, her outlines shape in the dark: “I mean all of you who come here.” She’s trying to pull her pillow up. She can’t.

I hunch over.

“Get out!”

I pull my hand back: “So.. I get you water to take with your pill.”

“I don’t take pills.” She pauses: “I said it a hundred times.”

As I go out I turn the light on. The room yellows behind my back.

“Turn it off!”

I go to the kitchen. Open the faucet. Her voice disappears in the buzz of water. I keep the cup under the tap, when it fills, I turn it off. Silence. I return to the bedroom. Place the glass on the night table. She pulls the blanket up over her withered tits: “I said, turn it off!”

“How beautiful is this woman!”

A beautiful woman sitting of the fence of a garden, smiling.

“Don’t talk about that picture at all! And turn the light off, it’s blinding me.”

“You have such pretty hair.. did you know that?”

“And you’ve said that a hundred times. And I’ve said that to all of you, it’s my daughter’s photo, and she’s gone, somewhere.”

“But she’s pretty, with that shawl over her shoulders, look!”

She doesn’t look: “So what.”

She lifts her hand from her forehead, and rubs a finger over her bruised cheek.

“When did you get that bruise?”

“Bruise?”

“Here.. on your cheek.. it’s bruised.”

She looks at my finger: “Does it hurt?”

I look at her.

“So where is my pill? Don’t I take a pill?”

“Yes, you should take your pill..” I pick up the packet of pills.

“You charge lots and do nothing. Can’t you turn the light off?”

“No, I got to see what I’m doing.”

“So give me the pill, now that you can see!”

I drop the pills in her palm.

“Five?”

“Yes, five.”

She turns and looks at the photo: “She didn’t send a letter. Never.”   And drops the pills in her toothless mouth.

I say: “Must be very busy.”

Picks up the glass: “Must be. How much do you charge to do nothing, and write no letters to anyone?”

She takes five mouthfuls of water. I extend my hand. Gives me the glass and pulls the blanket up again.

“What do you want to eat?”

“What day is it?”

“Wednesday..”

“What day is Wednesday?”

“and it’s 10:30 in the morning.”

“What day is 10:30?”

“Wednesday!.. now, what do you like to eat?”

“Don’t mix up things on the table.” She raises her voice: “I’ve told you a hundred times. All you know is to charge money.”  Panting, she sinks her fingers in her grey hair: “How much do you charge?”

“How much did you charge when you worked?”

“I never worked. Besides, my son..”  She puts her finger over the bruise on her cheek: “Did you say it’s wounded?”

“Yes. It’s wounded.”

“Did I have a son?”

“No. You had a daughter.”

“So who was the one who was injured?..” She takes her hand away: “No. It was my mother who had a daughter. And my husband had a factory..”

She ponders for a bit: “But.. I had a husband.. didn’t I?”

I don’t say anything.

“Didn’t I?”

“ Yes.. you did!”

“He must be out drinking beer, again.”

“No. He’s at work.”

“Did you see him?.. When you were coming here?”

“Yes. He was heading to work.. what do you want for breakfast?”

“Turn off this light.. I told you a hundred times but you don’t listen!”

“It’ll be dark, hard to see a thing.” I look at my watch.

She looks at the worn, filthy floor.

I say: “What time your husband comes home?”

“I never know time.” She looks at me: “Did you see him today? I mean when you were coming here?”

“Yes, he told me to come over and fix your breakfast. He’ll be home later.”

She looks at me.

“Do you want milk in your coffee?”

“Did I want coffee?”

“Yes, you did.”

“So, then I don’t want milk.” And looks at me with dismay.

I pull her walker closer: “I better change your diaper.”

She looks at me.

I pull the plastic gloves over my hands. Walk down the hall. Fill the washing tub with warm water, and go back to the bedroom. She is still looking at me. I put the tub down by her feet. I place her hands on the Walker, and grab her under her arms. She opens her mouth, but I don’t give her a chance: “We don’t talk now. You must get up.” I hold her hands tight over the walker: “One.. two.. three!” She gets up. I pull her soiled underwear down to her shaking knees. Pull out the shit-full diaper, and eye around the room for the waste basket.

“Did I shit too much?”

“Yes, not bad.”

“Can I see?”

I show her.

“Yes, not bad.”

I crimple the diaper and throw it in the basket. I tug on the curtains and pull’em back, open the window, wind blows in.

“It’ll be cold in here.”

“I’ll shut it in a bit.”

I soak the cloth in warm water. Pull a handful of tissue paper, and clean between her legs. I rub the wet cloth over her wrinkly legs.

“I’m getting tired.”

Between her legs I put a fresh diaper: “Alrighty..” I pull up her undies: “done!”

“I must sit.”

I hold her under the arms. Her muscles titter beneath my hands: “Sit!”

She lets go of the walker: “It’s cold.”

Sits down: “What day is it?”

“Wednesday. I must check on someone else, too.” I shut the window.

“Are you in a hurry?”

“Yes.”

“When people are in a hurry, can’t they write?”

“Write what?”

“Letters. Can’t they write letters.”

“No, when they’re busy, and in a hurry, they can’t write.”

“But I didn’t work. Did I?”

“No. You said you didn’t.”

“But I had a husband, right?”

“Yes, and your husband had a factory. Now, what do you want for breakfast?”

“What about photos? Can’t they send photos?”

I pull out my gloves: “Look at this! Didn’t she send this?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Ok.”

She pulls the blanket up to her chest: “..but I wanted to.”

“Now I should get your breakfast.”

“I don’t want it!”

“What about coffee?!”

Draws her feet under the blanket: “Turn it off!”

I tie up the edges of the plastic bag.

“Turn off!”

I pick up the tub.

“I said turn the light off!”

Eleven Thirty A.M.

“Good day Capitan!”

He scratches behind his ear: “You.. or me?”

I extend my hand: “You, Capitan!”

He wipes his hand with his worn robe-de-chambre. Smiles and shakes my hand: “Yeah.. I must not forget.”

I give his hand a light squeeze: “No, Capitan, you mustn’t forget.”

He looks at himself: “Ok?”

I say: “May I?”

“To do what?”

“To come in.”

He pulls his hand out of mine: “Yes, I must not forget.”

Turns towards the mirror in which a corner of the kitchen window shows.

I switch the light on: “Don’t you want to take a shower, Capitan?”

He frowns in the mirror. “Maybe..”

“Maybe what, Capitan?”

He sticks his nose closer to the mirror: “maybe today is Tuesday.”

I take off my jacket.

Points at the bathroom: “Here?”

I hang my hat on the doorknob. “That’s right Capitan, there.”

“But, are we.. I mean, am I.. going somewhere?”

“Capitan, they’ve got great menu today..”

“Good food is very good.” He thinks for a bit: “I like good food very much.” Checks his teeth in the mirror: “Maybe I brush my teeth, too..”

Turns around and stares about my chest: “But..”

“But what Capitan?”

He pulls open the drawer under the mirror. Looks for something. Can’t find it.

“Did you lose something?”

He pushes the drawer back in. Pulls it out again. Looks inside. Can’t find it. He pushes it in. “If, maybe.. Maria is going to be there, too?” He looks at me.

I open the bathroom door. “Maybe.. but, where, Capitan?”

He pulls the drawer out: “There, where they’ve got.. maybe.. good food.”

“Yes, maybe she’ll be there, too.”

He pushes the drawer back in and starts towards the kitchen. Stops midway, and goes towards the bathroom: “But.. should we pick up some flowers, too?”

“Yes, we’ll get some flowers, too.”

He stops right in the doorway, thinks for a bit, and starts again. Holds on to the sink in the bathroom with one hand, and takes off his robe with the other one. Bends, and holds on to the tub with one hand. Takes off his short, and extends it towards me. I hang the short, and the robe on the hanger. He raises his left foot and put it in the tub: “Shave my beards too.. yeah?” Raises his right foot. I hold on to his fat upper arm. He sits down on the stool. Looks at me: “Maybe? Yeah..?”

“Sure, Capitan. Sure!”

I hold up the hose.

“But see that it’s not cold..”

I adjust the cold and hot flow: “Is it ok?”

Holds the back of his hand under: “A little warm a little cold is always good.”

Takes the shower-hose from me. I put on my plastic gown. He looks at me with his dripping face. I point at the shampoo. Bends his head. I take the hose from him, drizzle a little shampoo on his thin hair.

“Claw on it!”

He claws on his head.

“Claw on it!.”

Smears the foam on his face: “I did. Now pour water..”  Lifts his face up. Looks at me with shut eyes. I raise the shower-hose to his face. He turns his head around: “It’s enough.. maybe.” I pour water on his body. He wants to get up.

“Wait..” I shut the water: “Don’t you wanna wash your body?”

He rubs his eyes with his palm: “Maybe it’s enough.. I say..”

I give him his towel: “Dry yourself!”

He rubs it on his face and his hair: “Capitan!” And laughs gingerly.

I grab on his wet arm. He pulls himself up. Puts his right leg out of the tub: “But..” Puts his left leg out: “Do we.. I.. have money?”

“Money for what?”

Sits on the toilet bowl: “If we maybe invite a lady to have coffee with us?”

“A lady?”

He looks at me: “Maria.. well, always had money.” He pauses: “right?”

“Right.” I squeeze the shaving-foam tube in his hand.

He rubs it on his face: “Maybe today they have pastries, too.. right?”

The lips of the razor blade is covered with dried foam. I hold it under water: “But, Capitan, sweets are not good for you.” I beat the razor to the side of the sink-bowl a couple of times.

“You, a doctor?..”

“No, I’m not.” I bend over his face.

“So maybe the other one was a doctor.”

“Up your head!”

He does: “The one who was tall.”

“We don’t talk now Capitan. I am shaving you.”

“If she is not here.. then maybe she’s gone to the hospital, right?”

I turn his face. “Yeah..”

“But.. maybe she shouldn’t have gone to the hospital.”

I slide the razor on his chubby cheeks.

“Right?”
“Capitan, no talking!”

“I’d never go.”

I hold his chin lightly.

“I don’t like. I mean I didn’t. Did you know that?”

“Capitan! Didn’t I say no talking? I am shaving your face.”

He gets up and rubs his face with the towel. A tread of foam remains by the side of his nose. “What did you say?”

“I said, they have good food today.”

“But hospital food.. Maria too didn’t like.”

“Today they have the New Year special. You should shave..”

“We’ll get a bouquet, too, right?”

“Yes. We must shave! And we’ll get a bouquet, too.”

“But it was nice of them to bring flowers, right?”

“Yes, Capitan. It was. I must shave you. We have no time.”

“It’d slipped my mind. Maybe because I was in a hurry, right?”

“We won’t forget Capitan! I promise!”

“So then maybe we must hurry up.”

 He picks up his toothbrush and looks at it, then drops it the sink.

“Don’t you want to brush your teeth?” I pick up the toothbrush.

“I say if we must hurry up..” He takes the robe.

“You should wear a suite!”

He walks in to the hallway.

I say: “Capitan!”  and drop the toothbrush in to the sink.

He turns right and the light turns off in the hall.

I walk up the hall: “Capitan!”

Everywhere is dark. Only a corner of the kitchen shows in the mirror.

Eleven Forty A.M.

“Let me be!”

 I push aside the empty plate.

“You know why I’m asking. Like, when you opened the door..?”

She pulls the ashtray closer to her arm: “You can say, for example, I saw her cat, or..”

She pushes aside her plate, untouched: “her slipper was left by the door..”  She turns and faces the window.

It snows in the train station.

“I saw nothing!” Looks at the empty ashtray: “maybe I didn’t want to see.”

“When you opened the door?”

An old woman passes us by with her walker. She looks at her, and then turns to look at the clock on the wall behind her.

Ten minutes left from lunch brake.

Trails her finger along on the table: “You know.. in a house with a dead woman in it, with all the doors and windows shut.. there is a weird hush.. isn’t there”

I say: “She was on the floor?”

She picks up her cigarette: “She was in her bed. I called her a couple of times. Then.. I noticed the silence. I thought she was moving, when looked again..” She looks at me.

“Yes..?”

She pulls her thin shoulders up a little. Bends her head. Her hair spreads on the table. Two old men pass by, bent on their walkers.

She lifts her head: “When I touched her hand it was ice cold!”

She fishes the lighter from her jacket pocket. Peers at it: “I called here. They told to come in and call the hospital from the center.” She lights her cigarette and exhale towards the window: “Should I say more?” And looks at me.

I say: “Even talking to someone..”

With her finger she picks speck, which is not there, form the corner of her eyes: “I don’t know. But..” she touches the corner of her eye again: “look..” laughs: “if you want to write it..”  picks a teardrop with the tip of finger: “Should I tell you more?”

“..”

“I called the hospital from here. The said I must be at her home in ten minutes.”

“You went there alone, again?”

“They had stretchers. Three people. When I opened the door, her neighbor from across the street.. you know her, don’t you?”

“..”

“She stuck her head out of the door.”

“Did you tell her?”

“She brought a candle. Her hand couldn’t hold the matches, it kept falling. A few times. Then she cried.”

“They didn’t like each other, did you know?”

“Then she threw the matchbox on the table.”

“Did you lit it?”
“Me?”  She buttes her half-way-burnt cigarette: “You know, when my grandmother was in the hospital, I was young, very young, six, or seven. One day when we went to visit..” she pulls another cigarette: “there was a lake down there. We were sitting in the balcony in the hospital. I saw her looking only at her coffee cup, and I felt her dying. Believe me? It scared me so much I couldn’t look at her again.”

She looks at me: “Do you believe me?”

I nod.

“I wanted to, but I couldn’t. Do you understand? Do you even understand me speaking Swedish?”

I keep looking at her.

“The next day when mother shut the T.V. and hastily put on my cloths, I asked nothing” She picks up her lighter. “Believe me?” She smiles and only the corners of her lips are stretched to the sides.

“Don’t write these, you see, you can’t explain things like this even by talking.”

I look at the clock on the wall behind her. It’s a bit past twelve.

I say: “Larissa.. if I write these same words, should I give your real name?”

She picks an imaginary speck from the corner of her eye: “Don’t write..”

She lights her cigarette again: “Don’t..!”

Twenty past Twelve

She pulls out her false teeth; looks older, and laughs louder: “The one who used to laugh like this.”

Then she puts the teeth back in, looks like herself.

I say: “Don’t remember, I mean, I don’t know.”

She bends her face to cry in her cupped hands.

I say: “Hello!”

She takes her hands ways from her face: “But you don’t understand.. I laughed just the way she used to.”

“Waite, maybe I remember in a little while.” I place the plate on the table. “Fish.. still warm.”

Pushes the plate aside: “As if now you understand..”

“It was Anita, wasn’t it?”

“The one who laughed like that!”

I take a seat. “The fat one?”

“Yes, the fat one with huge.. legs.”

“The one who came to the restaurant with her walker?”

She pauses: “So it was that one, not the other one.”

She picks up an empty glass and shakes it in my direction. I take it from her hand, and go to the kitchen. The window pane is clouded. I trail a finger on the cold steam. At the bus stop, woman, with a pram, is shifting on her feet.

“She used to have lots of chocolate.”

I come back in to the room with a glass of water: “Yes, too much chocolate is not good.”

“Now they’re sitting at that damn table, plying cards.”

I put the glass down on the table. She picks it up: “Who could you trust?”

“Didn’t they call you?”

Takes a mouthful: “I haven’t been there for three days, have I?”

“No. But, where?”

“To the restaurant. Haven’t I been sick?..”

“Yes.”

“So?”

I point at the glass: “You don’t want to finish it?”

“I will. What’s the rush?”

“You want your lunch now?”

“I paid more then the others.”

I walk to the kitchen.

“Do you understand? I paid more!”

I come back. “No. Paid for what, I mean.. chocolate?”

 “Chocolate?”

I put down the plate and a fork on the table: “Money.. you said you paid more then the others.”

Looks at her shoes: “I paid more then the others. Twenty crones more then all of them.  Now, they’re all sitting at that shitty table, playing cards. And no one ever knows who wins.. and who loses. And then, they didn’t call me. How would I know? Now, you don’t have to lie here, you must’ve seen it. Don’t pretend you haven’t!  And if you do, I wont believe you for a minute. Because I’ve given more money then all the others. There, in that long room by the lunchroom. You’ve seen it. Of course you have!”

“Maybe.. but I never look.”

Picks up the knife. “Cards were hers. They weren’t new, but anyway, her cards. Only here, in the corner, there is a rip..”

I put some fish and chips in her plate. She sinks the fork in a piece of fish: “Do I have to eat?”

“Aren’t you hungry?”

He puts the fork down: “And you must be in a hurry..!”

“Look..” I search for words: “I’m not in a hurry. I got to deliver lunch for a couple of others. Look..”  and I point to the bag by the kitchen door.

“So why didn’t they wait for me? Was it my fault I got sick? They get together in that eatery that doesn’t even serve decent food, and pretend they don’t know.  Well, people don’t get sick intentionally.. and no one likes to die either. They could’ve called me. They could phone. And she.. what was her name again?”

“Who?”

“The one who..” And opens her arms wide.

“Anita?”

Yeah.. who cares what’s her name! She wouldn’t like it. I mean she wouldn’t like it if she knew they left me out. Especially if she knew that I’m sick, you understand?”

“Yeah.. but you should eat. And I got to go.”

She puts the fork into a piece of potato: “How would I know if they’ve actually bought flowers?” Drops the fork. It hits the lip of the plate and falls under the table: “Of course they haven’t bought flowers. And even if they have, they haven’t taken it there.”

She ducks her head under the table: “Who would take it? ha?..” looks at me: “it was only I who could still walk.” and pulls her feet away.

I find the fork under the table: “Yes, but you must eat now..”

“Eat?”  Pushes her plate away: “No, what we have to do is to collect money again for the next one. I mean everyone should get together and pitch in. But I don’t trust them anymore. And if I do, this time I will not give more then the others.”

“That’s wise. But you should eat!”

“How do I eat with no fork?”

“I’ll get you one.”

“Would you trust them? And don’t think you’re obliged to lie.”

I go to the kitchen.

There is no one in the bus stop.

Five Past Thirteen P.M.

“I’m coming.”

I fidget about in the foyer. I know he is switching his walking stick from one to the other hand, and while steadying his weight on his other foot, mumbles.

“Who are you?”

“Seniors Care Center.”

“What?”

“I have your lunch.”

Now he is steady for sure and is trying to open the door. His cane clacks on the door: “Where?”

I say it again.

It opens.

I say: “Hello.”

His jaw wiggles.

I wait for him to size me up. He passes his cane to the other hand, and stands aside.

“I should change your diaper, too.”

He backs to the wall: “Toilette?”

“Yes.”

“Yes.”  And leaning on the cane turns and walks to the washroom.
On the wall, a picture frame wiggles. I hold it with a hand. A man, in army uniform, frowns. I pull away. It stay awry. The smell of decay, and piss, and shit and something else I don’t know sours my breath.

The old woman peeks at the toilet from the kitchen table. I walk to the end of the hall. She looks at me.

“Hello.”

“Hello.”

 I place the food on the table. “Are you alright?”

She creases her nose: “I am..” points her chin at the bathroom: “but..” she skews one eyebrow: “he is not!”

I nod.

She lowers her voice: “So, what’s going on?”

“It’ll be fixed.”

“What?”

I put my jacket on the chair’s arm: “I’ll be back.”

I go to the bedroom. Get one diaper from under the bed. Put on my gloves. And go back to the hall.

“I’m in here!”  He’s leaning on his hands on the sink bowl.

“Ready?”
His chest wheezes

I leave the diaper on the toilet seat. Pull down his dirty, wrinkly sweat pants, and his shorts. Pull the diaper without looking out from between his legs. I try not to breath. Grab a handful of toilette paper and clean him. A few times, and each time, before I dump them in the bin, I look at them till they’re paler and paler. I push the fresh diaper through his legs and tell him: “Hold this!”  He does. I pull up the hem of the diaper, pull up his shorts. And his sweat pants. I stretch back, breathless. Then I open the tap. In the mirror, he is looking at the ceiling.

“Comfy?”

“Guess so.”

I throw the gloves in the bin. Plunge my sweaty hands under water.

“I brought lunch.”

He looks at me.

I shut the tap. Go to the kitchen.

The old woman crushes her cigarette in the ashtray: “What was it again?”

I pick up my jacket: “I said, it’ll be fixed.”

“What will be fixed?” Her eyebrows jerk up.

“He’ll go.”

She lowers her voice: “Really?” And whispers: “Where?”

I bend, and in her ears I whisper: “You know where.”

She careens to the hall: “When?” and looks at me again.

I hold in her face two of my right hand fingers.

“What are you saying?” Pushes the food-containers away.

The click clack of the cane comes from the hallway. I pick up the pen and write on the corner of the puzzle on the newspaper: “In two days he’ll be transferred to the hospital.”

She takes the newspaper to her chin: “Where are my glasses?”

It’s on the table. I give it to her. She puts it on. Her lips — moves.

She lifts her head: “For good?”

The click clack nearer the kitchen. I cross over my words. Her face lights up, and suddenly her nose creases. With an eyebrow, she points at the door behind. I pull aside.

“Anything else?”

The old man hangs the walking stick on the back of the chair. Then he turns and holds on the edge of the table. “No!.. but..” he bends more and more and sits down on the chair: “I’ve lost my walking stick.”

“Your walking stick?”

“I lost it here in this house.”

I point at the cane on the chair’s arm: “Here it is.”

“This..” he swallows: “is not mine. I mean..” coughs: “my hand was used to the other one.”

I shake my head.

He shows me his palm: “The other one was mine..”

I put on my jacket.

“You know what I mean?” and looks at the woman.

The old woman has opened the container and is looking for a fork.

Thirteen fifty five p.m.

Lies back and stairs at the ceiling.

“one.. two..” I squeeze one drop in her left eye: “three!”

I smooth the edge of the table cloth, and leave the eye dropper carefully beside the tiny blossoms embroidered so perfectly on the fabric.

She tries to get up. I hold her hand. She sits at the edge of the bed. Looks this way, and that: “Where is Fredrick?”

“Fredrick?”

She laughs: “Yes. He was right here. See if he is under the bed.”

“Under the bed?”

I bend over and pull the bed-skirt up. It’s dark: “Not here, I mean I can’t see.”

“Look again!” points at the table lamp: “Use this!” she points at the side of the bed touching the wall: “Maybe he’s fallen from that side.”

I turn on the lamp. Put it on the floor. Draw the sheets back. My hand moves under the bed and comes back with the cane: “This?” I show her the cane.

“Yes, that’s Fredrick. Give it to me!” She takes it.

I put the lamp back on the table.

“Better leave it on!”

“Do you want me to warm up your food?”

“I’ve eaten. Half hour ago.”

“Do you want coffee?”

“I’ve had my coffee.. half hour ago.” She looks at me: “Have you seen today’s paper?”

“Today? No.”

“It’s there.  No! Go get it and then sit down.” She plants the tip of the cane on the ground: “Would you?” She fists her white, blue-veined hand on the curve of the cane.

I go to the kitchen.  Small flower pots are lined up on the window sill. Red, three leaf flowers. I pick up the newspaper form the table top. Behind the flowers is the forest; branches of trees are bent under the snow.

I go back: “This one?”

She takes it: “Was it on the table?” She puts the cane down on the bed.

“Yes.”

Leafs it through.

The room is warm and bright. On the night-table there is a picture of woman with beautiful lips, smiling.

“Is that you?”

She doesn’t look up. “No, it’s my daughter..”  Extends the paper: “You find it.” But she changes her mind and pulls back. Again pages through the paper: “Aha.. right here!”  She opens the page all the way, and holds for me to look: “Have you read this?”

“No.”

“Read it!”

I take the paper from her. Big headline: “Love has nothing to do with age.” And beside the article there is a photo of a man with a tie and glasses.

“It’s an article?”

“Yes.”

I pretend to read.

“No rush. You can read it later.”  She puts the cane on her lap: “For your own sake. I’ve read it. You read it too, later.”

I fold it: “Ok! Do you need it anything?”

“No!.. I’ve had my coffee.” She points at the wardrobe with her cane: “Could you open that?”

I open it.

“Down at the bottom. Under the newspaper..”

I lift the paper.

“There is an envelope.. down at the bottom.”

“Ok?..” I see the envelope.

“Give it to me..”  She hangs the cane on the bed rail. Takes the envelope: “My money..” Opens the envelope and shows it to me.

“Ok?”
She puts the money back in. Closes the envelope: “Now, put it back.” And extends her hands.

I take it.

“And close the wardrobe door.”

I do that.

“Now only me and you know.”

I laugh: “We know what?”

“Where my money is..”

“Why should I know?”

She laughs: “Fredrick knows too..”

“So what?”

“So we have someone we trust.” And runs an eye on the bed: “Where is it?”

“Where is what?”

“Fredrick!”

I say: “Right there. You hung it there yourself!”

She says: “Leave it there.” And smiles.

Fourteen Fifteen P.M.

I ring the bell.

“Don’t ring!”

I open the door.

“I have to tell you everyday not to ring the bell..”

I say: “Hello!”

She frowns.

“How are you fairing?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Shouldn’t I?”

Facing the window, she blinks: “What time is it?”
I check my watch.

“You don’t have say a word!  I eat at 1:00 o’clock, not at this hour!”  picks up the remote control: “I’m watching T.V.” and presses a button.

“Here’s the paper!” I pull the newspaper out of the bag.

She doesn’t look.

“I leave your food in the kitchen!” and as I walk out of  the room I put the paper on the table.

“Where’re you going?”

I turn around.

She’s put her hands on the arms of her chair, her fingers wrinkled and tensed.

“Shouldn’t I leave the food on the table?”

She frowns: “And you also should leave the garbage out. Two bags. Everyday I got to tell you, there are two bags. And then, I’ve been waiting for three hours.. and then, you must make the bed too. And then, if I don’t tell you, you won’t do it. and then, you wanna tell me what time is it? What time is it?”

“Would you turn the T.V. down?”

“No!.. And then, all of you, bring the food in whenever you feel like it, to put it then on the kitchen table whenever you want to.” her voice rising with every phrase: “then, one gets impatient of course, and you, all of you, instead of doing your job and be on time, hover over my head and command: “Turn it off! Turn it down! What’s this?! What’s that?! No sir, I can’t!” and shuts the sound completely off.

“Why are you yelling? I hear you fine!”

“No you don’t! I yell if want to. I stop yelling when I want to. You can’t choose when I’m not suppose to yell..”   out of breath: “I ask what time is it, and then..”   coughs: “the (chamber) pot is under the bed. You should make the bed, too. I haven’t had my coffee yet. Arriving at four..”  covers her legs with the blanket and looks at the T.V.

I go to the kitchen. Leave the food on the table. Watch her from the kitchen. Facing the T.V. her chest heaves. A woman in her nightgown turns her finger in the number disk of the phone. Lifts her head and tucks her hair behind her ear. Sits down on the table edge. Her lips move without a sound. At the other end of the cord, a man is holding the receiver clutched between chin and shoulder, and at the same time, pours himself a drink.

She turns and looks at me: “Why are you looking at me?”

I smile.

“Why’re you laughing?”

I go back to he room: “Is it a good show?”

“How would I know?” and turns back: “I only watch!” and yells: “And you, instead of coming to work three hours late, at four thirty, and standing idle looking at me and the T.V., go about your chores. It’s four thirty and you’re still..”

I say: “No! no! no! you’re wrong. They have omelet tomorrow, not today!”

She looks at me: “Really?.. No omelet today? It wasn’t you the other time.. it was the girl.. what’s her name?.. the one..” shakes her finger towards the window: “who delivered the food late. All of you come late! All you know is to arrive at four thirty. All of you deliver food late.”

I pull up my sleeves.

She looks at my wrist: “What’s today’s lunch?”

“Look! It’s twenty past two.”

“The clock is there.” Points at the T.V. with her chin.

 There is an old manual clock on the T.V. top. The tall hand is lost and the face is cracked at the corner. The small hand is on the four, and the minute-hand is on the six.

I pick it up. “This one is not working. It’s broken!”

“You’re not working.” She swallows: “All you know is not working. None of you know how to work. I called a few a people today. I even called my sister.. they all said it’s only this neighborhood.. it’s only you guys who don’t know how to do your job..”

I put the clock back.

She turns the sound up.

“It’s a good music, isn’t it? You wanna dance?” and extend my hand. Puts her hand on her chest: “Me? With you? Never!.. I’ve had three boyfriends, and I married one but..”

“You don’t know how to dance?” Sill I haven’t pulled my hand back.

“Don’t know how? I’ll never with you! Besides.. my legs.. “ and points at her hair. She fixes her hair with her fingers, and points at me to draw my hand back.

I draw my hand and point at the picture on the cupboard: “Did you marry him?”

A man, with a fishing rod, smiles at the camera.

“Him?” she points at the picture: “Yes, I mean I don’t know, this one. Or, it was the other one. You know. Maybe I’ve told you. No, I haven’t told the other one. These things are private. I shouldn’t tell. And you.. I mean you should only do your job around here. Not arriving at four while I’m staring at T.V., starving.  Because, I believe it was him, yeah! He liked only men.” Looks at the T.V: “I found out later..”

A young woman in a blue suit is standing by the map. With a stick she points up and down on the map, and smiles.

“Did she say minus fifteen?”

I haven’t been listening: “Yes, very cold!”

“Is it?” So where is my food? You don’t do your job right.  Did you take the milk out of the fridge?  No!  Did you make the bed?  No!  Did you leave the food on the table?..  How many times do I tell you..?! You should put it on the table.  With a glass. It’s four thirty again, and you’re still talking.”

“Alright. It’s not the one you married.”

She looks at the photo: “Marriage..? I guess it was him. Because he wore the ring for one day only. He’d go only with men. But he was nice, too, because he died soon. Maybe it was him. Isn’t that Philip? I don’t know. Anyway, his ring is right there,” Extends her cane to the cupboard: “in the bottom drawer..”  pulls the blanket up on her legs again: “and he didn’t work. None of you work. The African guy doesn’t work at all. Did you empty the pot? Don’t you come here to work?.. And you don’t work. Why you keep looking at me?”

“I’ll empty it right away.”

“And don’t forget the milk. Did you make the bed?.. You should take the garbage out..” She turns the sound up.

A fat Santa Clause with white beard and white hair, and his red costume and a —-  mangule hat, in a snowy night walks towards a house. A light from the window is splashed on the snow.

I walk passed the hall, open the door to the bedroom. The pot is turned over, and it’s shit all over on the floor.

Ten Past Fifteen

“And here is the spoon!”

Whit her left hand she holds the edge of the plate: “Isn’t it cold?”

“No!”

Mounds the rice in a corner of the plate. Plunges the spoon in, and lifts her head: “Is the light on?”

I nod.

She looks at the whole of my face: “Is it?”

“Yes, it’s on.”

“What time is it?” Takes a spoonful up to her mouth.

I pull up my sleeve: “Ten past three.”

She puts down the spoon. While chewing, lifts her left hand. Pulls her worn sleeve up a little. Presses her finger on a black surface wrapped round her wrist.

“It’s fifteen, and twelve minutes, and twenty three seconds. Fifteen, and twelve minutes, and ..”

Pulls the sleeve down: “Are you looking at me?”

I shrug.

Stares at my face: “Are you?”

“No!”

I turn around.

The light is on in the balcony. Candles blink in the neighbor’s apartment.

I turn back.

Her hand fumbles on the table.

I put the glass of milk closer to her hand.

She picks it up. “Did you say the light is on?”

“Yes, it’s on.”

“Are you the one who’s got a Latin American wife?” Takes a sip.

“No, he’s away on holiday.”

“Don’t you go away on holiday?” wipes her mouth.

I get up: “Not for a while..”

An old clock, in the shape of a wardrobe, is on the window sill. Its face has been white, long ago. The hour-hand is a bit past eleven, and the other hand is frozen on four. The second-hand stumbles. Every time it pulls back a speck, titters, starts, as if it can’t.. and then jumps forth.

“Are you in a hurry?”

I turn around.

A whitish patch has seeped in on her wrinkly cheeks.

“No..” I am searching for words: “No, not in a hurry..”

“I thought you were.”

“No.”

“Did you put it by the bed?”

“Put what.. by the bed?”

“Did you hear what I asked?”

“Yes, but what?”

“My pills..”

“Yes. I did.”

“And a glass of water?”
“I’ll do it now.”

   I take a glass under the tap. It fills to the rim. I walk in to the hall. Cold, and white. Without any photos on the walls. I turn the light on in the bedroom. A bra with worn bands is thrown on the bed. I put the glass of water, beside the pills, on the night table. I lift the lead of the pot. Smells of shit, but it’s empty. I go back. Lean on the door frame of the kitchen.

“Did you?”

“Yes.”

I press my back to wall. It gets dark everywhere. The sound of spoon scraping on the plate. I turn around to switch the light, but I change my mind and stay still on the spot. Specks of snow hit on the pane. She is sitting with her back to the blinking candles. Panting.. and the sound of chewing and swallowing.

“Did you say you were in a hurry?”

There must be no trembling in my voice. “No!”

“Where are you?”

“Here!” I switch the light on. “Want some milk?”

She spoons in rapidly in the plate: “Is it gone?”

I look at her glass: “Yes.”

I take milk out of the fridge. Fill up the glass. She picks it up. I put the carton back in the fridge.

“Did you say the lights were on?”
“Yes, they are.”

I sit down at the table.

“Are you looking at me?”

“No.”

I sit down, lean forth and press to the table edge. Fondle with the leg of the table. It’s attached to the top with peech’o’mohre.

I grab the mohre between index and thumb. Try to turn it towards myself. It doesn’t turn. I press harder. Turns a little. Chews and swallows, and pants heavily. It turns. It turns easily to the end. About to fall off. Now I turn it the other way. It closes up. I turn it again, open it, before it falls I turn it again, the other way.

“Are you in a hurry?”

I say: “No.”

Five Past Sixteen

Across the street a fat, dark figure is searching his pockets. By the time I get to the pedestrians line he’s turned around a couple of times. I cross the street.

Turns around and looks at me.

“What are you doing here?”

Steps back: “Me?”

“Shouldn’t you be at home?”

He lifts his trembling finger up: “I..”

“Want me to take you home?”

“I.. I should confess..”

“Let’s go.”
Lights of a car titters in a distance.

“Don’t you have mittens?”

The car passes us by, and our shadow runs on the walls.

I grab his hands: “Put them in your pockets!”

He pushes away my hand: “I confessed, didn’t I?” and looks defensive.

“Confessed what?”

“That I don’t know where it is?”

“You should be at home.”

“Do you know where it is?”

“What?”

“My home.. do you know where it is?”
Wind blows.

“Yeah.. I know.”
“Do you live around here?”

I start ahead.

“You’ve a car?”

I grab at his arm: “I don’t. This way!”

“He had one!” pulls away: “Did you use to have one?”

“Let’s go.”

“Didn’t you?” Looks at me. “Did I know where I lived?”

Wind hits on my forehead. I lower my head: “Yes, you did.”

“And do you know were you live?” searches in his pockets: “Does he know where he lives?”

We walk side by side.

“My paper..?”

I pull at his sleeve: “At home.. you’ve got many at home.”

If we take a short cut we’ll have to walk up-hills, and there is a short flight of steps.

“Really? So why do you say it wasn’t in the papers?”

“Let’s go. The newspaper is at your place.”

“Instead of stairs upwards, they should’ve made stairs downwards.”

No more than ten stairs now.

“And there shouldn’t have been any snow, or it should’ve been much less..”

We reach a dark and narrow street. Lights of a car stretch our shadow along. We pull aside. Our shadow falls in the hole; moves on.

He searches his pocket.

I say: “You have one.. you have one at home!”

“But there wasn’t anything in it. I mean my neighbor said there wasn’t anything in it.”

I turn right, and pull on his sleeve.

“But I waited for too long, right?”

“I don’t know.”

“I didn’t see.. right?”
I don’t respond.

“They must’ve written, if they say so. And I say I haven’t seen, because I haven’t, right?”
My feet are frozen.

“Did I know where my home was?”
“You did. Yes..” I pull his sleeve: “This way!”

“That time that I knew where it was, it also turned this way?”

“Yes. It did.”

We go towards the old building. There candles and fake-stars were burning lighted behind the windows.

“Did you see his car?”
“It’s late. Let’s go.”

“Late for what?”
“To go to bed.”

“Yeah.. but you’re rushing.. maybe because you know where it is.”

I shrink my neck inside my yoke: “Maybe. Let’s go.”

“Did I have of those, too?” Points at the windows.

“Yeah.. you did..”

“Are you sure I had those?”

“I am.”

“Do you know how to make those?”

Candles turn off, and on again every few minutes.

“No. I don’t”

“So how did you know where I lived?”

“Let’s go. I know your house.”

“Is it far?”

“No. We’re almost there.”

“Had you gotten there?”

“Where?”
Covers his mouth: “There..” coughs: “I didn’t go. Then they said I couldn’t make it. And they said it was in the paper..” pauses: “Did you say I had one?”

I stand by the steps: “Yes. You have.”

“Do we have keys?”

“It’s open. You don’t need keys.” And I hold the door for him.

Turns around and looks at me.

I press the button for the elevator.

“It’s not too long since he didn’t come that time, right?
I press the third floor button.

He looks at me in the mirror, and turns around: “Do you know me?”

I step out of the elevator. The lamp at end of the hall is half dead. Blinks.
“If they said accident in the paper.. then it’s correct.. right?”

I press on the door knob.

He walks in, in the dark.

I turn on the light.

He is searching in his pockets: “I don’t have it! I knew it.”

I go to the kitchen: “It’s here..”

He walks in.

I turn the light on: “Look..!” A mound of newspaper is on the kitchen table.

He stands beside me: “It’s written in these?”
I nod.

“Even a photo will do. His car was red. I recognize it.”

I look at my watch.

Goes and sits at the table. “Do you want to take a look?”

I forgot what time it was. Maybe didn’t even look. I look again: “No. I got to go.”

“Where?”
“Home.. my home.”

“Do you know where it is?”

Sixteen Thirty Five

And with all respect to Hushang Golshiry, “Where is home?”

A Novel by Baroj Akreyi
Translated by Saghi Ghahraman – 2007

Baroj Akreyi
Wars Are Permanent Around Here
Balinde Poetry

The Visit

     She watched  his Adam’s apple move up and down with every swig of beer he took; watched the manner of muscles on his arm and shoulder under the thin shirt plastered to his damp skin, and  how it revealed the curve ’round his breasts.

He followed her gaze.

     “With my shirt on, scars of surgery don’t show.” He smiled shyly and wiped his damp forehead.

     “I’m sorry I’ve wasted your young daughter’s heart.”

This was the first long sentence he uttered during their visit; at the end of the sentence, he exhaled. The woman could hear his breathing, which seemed to be hardly managed, and blended with a gentle whizzing. She didn’t know what to say. She had dreamt of this visit and this conversation day and night, awake or asleep. And now his whizzing in the intervals of sipping his beer had emptied her mind of all the other sounds. She wondered why she wanted to see him.

     He didn’t ask questions. In the station, as if knowing her for years, he walked to her with intimate body language, and without sizing her up, asked how she was fairing. They walked without a word and reached the café, sat on the worn wooden chairs in front of the motionless sea. Reflections of sunlight spread on the surface of the sea, blended in with the majestic gray, rocky shore, filled the four o’clock p.m. with a dull, white light. The shore and the café were vacant. Farther away, sat a man and a woman with a little girl on a bench, biting into their sandwiches.

     “It’s almost end of the summer; almost no one comes here these days.” He took a breath, took another sip.

     “Water is too salty for a swim, the view, not so great.” After a short pause, he continued. “But I come here every afternoon, I like this place.” Without looking away from the sea, he added. “Maybe because it’s a good for nothing spot,” He looked at her, and smiled, “Like me!” His voice was soft and monotone. No vibration disturbed the gentle flow of his words. Only the whizzing, when he paused, gave it a halt; then it kept streaming on again. The cadence in his voice was so in harmony with the silence that when a sentence ended, the melody of words kept on to the next sentence with no tremor disturbing the perpetual calm in his tone. From the start, when she called and asked to meet with, no hint of surprise or suspicion seeped into his voice. He accepted.

     The doctor said it was of no use. That she had donated her daughter’s heart to another person, and it was best that this other person remains a stranger. That she’d better accept the fact that she had donated her daughter’s heart unconditionally.

     She didn’t want to donate her daughter’s heart; didn’t want to sign the papers. She said to the doctor that she couldn’t possibly sign the permission to her death. A mother gives life; cannot consent to end the child’s life, she said.

     The doctor looked at her with dry eyes, a pallid face, and repeated that her daughter was no longer alive. That her daughter would not live, and her heart was working only with the help of the machines. That it will stop beating in an hour. His fingers drummed on the desktop, his tone of voice getting in a quicker pace, he said he wondered how a mother would prevent her daughter’s heart from going on beating.

     She said she needed to think whether it was a good idea for her child’s heart to pulse in someone else’s ribcage; she needed to think, couldn’t decide just now. Doctor’s fingers stopped drumming. He knotted his hands together, and with a softer voice repeated that there was no time. She had to decide what to do with her daughter’s heart.

     She didn’t want to decide for her heart. An hour later asked her husband to sign for both and donate the heart. She didn’t ask who the receiver was. For months she never thought about it until in her dreams her daughter started to keep away from her.

     They would go for walks together. Ate together. They talked. Her daughter walked close, very close to her. Suddenly she began to keep her distance. She would look at her watch and say that she had to go; had given word to be somewhere, they were looking for her, she had to go. She begged her to stay longer; her daughter said she couldn’t, not even a minute longer, and in a rush, she’d walk away every time.

     Every time she woke up from her dreams, her sorrow was heavier than the one before. In her next dream she begged more, didn’t want to let go. Her daughter, with a face that looked more unhappy every time, said there was no use persisting.

     Doctor said the dreams were rooted in her unconscious, about the heart being left somewhere. He said she must come to terms with her daughter’s death. Must accept and disconnect, otherwise mourning will turn into hallucinations. She tried to analyze her thoughts, cut through her imagination, wipe away the image of the stolen heart from the depths of her mind. But her daughter’s urge to leave got more rapid in the dreams, her face unhappier.

     She was afraid she’d stop visiting, not come see her again. She was afraid her obsessions with the beating of the heart in some stranger’s chest, fall on her thought like a sheet of nightmare, keeping her daughter from entering her dreams.

     Finally, she decided to meet with the stranger, hoping her worries over the heart would let go.

Doctor agreed, the man did, too. On the phone, he listened to her and said a visit was a good idea; the way to confront a temptation is to plunge into it, he said.

“Doesn’t watching the sea, calm with no tides, calm you?” He asked the woman as he looked peacefully at the far edges of the sea.

       She said it did so before the accident. But after that the peaceful outside world reminded her more vividly of her distressed inner-side. She said she had found this out one night when a horrible storm uprooted trees; she said as the storm caused turmoil in the street had felt calm, in harmony with the outside. Then she asked if he had always been so calm.

     Without an answer, he drank the last drops of his beer, placed the glass on the table, and asked the woman to go for a walk along the shoreline with him. “At this hour, the breeze lessens the moisture in the air.”

     He took her arm in his and they went towards the rocky shore widespread amid the horizons and the sea.  He had let go of her hand and walked with his back stooped a little, his hands hanging idle on his sides. His up-right neck was in contrast with his bulging belly and arched back. His heavy stature looked limp and tired, his head, happy and energetic. His breathing seemed lighter. When they sat down, sheltered by the cliffs, where the shore was flat, his breathing mixed again with a light whizzing.

     “Calm came when the temptations stopped.” He talked without looking at her. “After nights of insomnia, I slept sound and safe one night,” He exhaled. “And the night after that. Gradually my drive faded away.” He paused. “And then the last bits of it vanished; in my body and in my head.”

     For one second, he took his eyes from the sea, and looked at her. His eyes were calm; no vibration disturbed the soft melody in his voice. “First came anger, and then… sorrow…” He smiled, “then calm came… the end of all seductions, absolute calm … like death.” Leaned towards her, his eyes half shut, and whispered: Now you understand why I apologize for wasting your young daughter’s heart in my idle body?

     He opened his eyes wide and looked at her. In the dark of his eyes a sparkle shimmered and died away.

     “Can I see the scar?” She said.

     Slowly, he unbuttoned his shirt. His bulging chest and belly stood out. The scar of the stitches like a red, irritated strip above the belly button, divided a portion of the chest from the rest of it.

     She traced the line with the pad of her finger: As if your heart is fortified. Her fingers touched the proud flesh line, and the damp fine hair on his breasts; leaned closer, enough to hear the beating heart.

     He took her head in his hands gently and pressed it to his chest. The orderly beating swirled in the labyrinth of her head. Her cheek pressed to the damp breasts, she looked up at his half-shut eyes, whispered: Please—?

     Holding her in his arms, he leaned back, and held her tight.

    She felt his big belly under her, and the gentle hold of his arms on her back. Her lips touched the fleshy line around the scar; touched it with her tongue all ‘round. Sucked on the nipples. Felt the salty sweat in her mouth. A shudder ran beneath her skin. She felt with her mouth for his. Her tongue in his warm, wet mouth moved around; warmth poured in her mouth, ran in her cheeks, on the soft tissue behind her ear, slipped down her breasts. She pressed to the fleshy stripe around the wound, pressed harder. Shudder, wave after wave spread, streamed towards deepest spot in her belly, pressed to his belly, quivering with the monotone throbs rumbling in her head.
_

Shahla Shafigh
Translated by Saghi Ghahraman,
2004, Toronto

A Pool Full of Nightmare

Morteza was arrested for killing a swan, on the day of his return to his hometown after twenty years. (He was seen carrying a dead swan by its feet, its long neck dangling down, its beak drawing a line over the white snow.

Neither of the policemen – there were only two of them – handcuffed Morteza as they escorted him to the police headquarters.

The track was frozen all the way to the building – here and there thin layer of ice broke and water filled in the officers’ boots.

Although it didn’t smell like one, the courtyard of the police headquarters looked so much like the backyard of a prison.

An old hag with bright red gums and no teeth shouted: Mash Esmael? Where are you?

Morteza paused to give her a good look. One of the policemen said: Keep walking, she’s loopy.

           The other policemn said: Is your Mash Esmael still alive? The woman said: “If he was…! If Mash Esmael was alive . . .”

           Morteza pushed his hand into his long winter-coat’s pocket and pulled out a stick of cigarette.  He lit it in the hallway of the station and sat on a wood bench. Here, the policemen handcuffed him. To take a drag, Morteza had to lift both hands up to his oldster mustache, once black, now overcome by cigarette stain. By the time he finished smoking, snow had started to fall again.

            One of the sergeants walked to the foyer to usher the officer in-charge under a textile sky across the yard — the sergeant was holding an umbrella.

             Lieutenant brushed away the umbrella and took off his hat. Snowflakes, none fallen on his hair, were melting.

He said: That woman is here again!

            The sergeant said: She’s been to the teahouse. “I’ll show you my ears if you give me ten bucks”, she’s said.

             Lieutenant said: Now, did she really do that?

             He climbed the stairs three at a time. Behind him, the sergeant said: Yes, sir.

             He said: Let her go.

             Lieutenant was so tall that the sergeant had to run to keep pace with him. In the corridor, the lieutenant asked: What’s the deal with the killing of a swan?

             Sergeant said: Over there, sir.

Lieutenant paused and looked around for the swan’s corpse: Where?

             Sergeant pointed at Morteza sitting on the bench, and ordered: On your feet!

              Morteza was looking at the radiator, thinking without flames, braziers aren’t worth a god’s damn curse.

              Lieutenant walked into his office. Put his hat on his desk. In the windowpane overlooking the pool, he brushed a hand over his hair. The pond was so far away that only a shadow of the bridge, stretched from one edge of the pond to the other, and not resembling any birds, could be distinguished.

             The swan’s file was on his glass-top desk. The fan in the pink niche had its back to the winter and to the window. Lieutenant sat down at his desk and, like all the other days, puckered his face the chair screeched. He stared at the ringing phone for so long the sergeant finally picked it up.

           “The mayor, sir.”

           Lieutenant took the receiver.

           “Yes. Speaking. Of course . . . no . . . he’s been arrested . . . yes . . .”

           “You’re absolutely right . . . the swan belonged to us all . . . right away, I’ll assign officers to patrol the pond . . . rest assured. And you have a pleasant day, sir.”

The officer shouted when he hung up: Bring him in, sergeant.

           Morteza walked in wearing his winter jacket with buttons undone. He had his handcuffed hands palms-up in front of him. It looked as if he was offering a handful of air in the room to someone. He had the eyes of someone not yet used to the darkness; or of someone who looked at sudden spark of many lights at once. His mouth opened and shut like a fish just caught; he breathed noisily like someone in a deep sleep.

                 “Sit down!”

           Morteza sat on the nearest chair. Lieutenant asked: Are you hungry?

           Morteza said: No . . . but yes, now that you mention it, I think yes, I am.

           Lieutenant opened the swan’s thin file. Morteza listened to the siren of an ambulance, faraway, shrieking, and driving further away.

           Lieutenant said: Well? You were saying…

           Morteza said: Me? No, I wasn’t saying anything.

           Lieutenant said: Did you want to sell the swan . . . or eat it?

           Morteza said: Sell the swan? Me? Eat the swan?

           Lieutenant: They’ve seen you. What you did was cruel. Didn’t you kill the swan?

          Morteza: Yeah, it looks like it . . . yeah . . . I killed it, just so, how can I say . . . suddenly I saw its corpse in on my hands.

That morning, when Morteza stepped out of the bus, after twenty years, and set foot on the ground of his hometown, the smell of tea fields reached his shirt from the open collar of his winter jacket. Even though it was cold, and the air tasted like rain, he chose to walk to the motel. He kept busy, reading graphite on the walls. A young soldier smiled from a funeral photo. From inside a window, a man was overheard saying his prayers. Morteza reached the motel, rang the bell, and extended his finger to ring again when an old man, sleepy, opened the door and grunted.

                Yeah? What is it?

           Morteza said: Do you have vacant rooms?

           The old man said: Rooms? What rooms?

           Morteza lifted his head to look at the sign, Iran Motel, and said: I thought it was a motel.

          The old man said: It was, buddy, it was! And shut the door. Across the street, the clattering of washing teacups and saucers was heard. Morteza walked into the teahouse.

          Lieutenant asked: Why did you go to the pond?

          Morteza said: I didn’t want to go to the pond. I was heading to A’saed Hosein, to the cemetery. There are new streets in town, so I couldn’t find A’saed Hosein. So, I asked a lady who’d just bought bread . . .

          The woman poked the hand holding Sangak from under her chador and pointed at the white edges of a street at the end of which morning and snow were bunched together.

When he got to the corner of that street, he heard the swans. He turned and saw the lights around the pond burning indolently, thinking there remained a bit of the night.

             The pond was the same breadth and length it was twenty years ago, but they had run a fence around it. It looked different, looked shabby, and save for the reflection of the lamp posts, nothing was on the surface of water . . . but yes, the sky was there too, only it was so clouded couldn’t be distinguished.

Lieutenant said: So where were the swans?

               Morteza said: On the other side . . . I was on this side; they were on the other side.

The pond was vacant, only Morteza’s footwear was treading on snow. The water couldn’t be heard. Every step of the way, benches sat by the pond; snow didn’t let one see whether they were of wood, stone, or concrete. Morteza hurried up. He even ran for a few steps.

Lieutenant said: Why were you running?

               Morteza said: Because I could hear my own footsteps coming from behind . . . I liked it . . . it’s been years since I walked ahead of myself like that, and besides, I didn’t run more than a few steps. Maybe from your desk, for example, to that window. That’s not running really, is it?

He looked at the sergeant who was taking notes.

Sergeant said: Sir, should I write that, too?

               Lieutenant said: One can’t figure out what anyone says. . . or wants nowadays.

                Morteza was facing the window, keeping quiet. The glass panes sweated; one could write souvenirs and date it, over the fog. Lieutenant remained quiet until Morteza returned his gaze. Meanwhile he thought if this old man was killed – instead of the flesh and bones inside that coat, there would be a swan sitting on the chair in front of me – how old was he anyway.

                  He said: It’s easier to talk with a swan.

                  Sergeant said: What did you say, sir?

                  Morteza heard a door open. He saw a white cup on a tray float towards Lieutenant. As soon as the tray bearer placed the tray on the desk, Lieutenant motioned for him to take the cup to Morteza. The cup took off from atop the desk and the tea-orchards took a trip around the room. Morteza’s throat felt like sandpaper. A cough was trapped in his gullet. Dreaming of a few seconds later when he’d gulp down the hot tea and light a cigarette, he forgot about the pond, the swan, and his hands trapped in the handcuffs.

                   Lieutenant said: Take off his handcuffs, sergeant.

                   The light bulb was hanging down the ceiling, upside down in the teacup. The sugar cube stayed white even after melting in his mouth. As the hot tea went down Morteza traced his own throat, ribcage, and a patch of his stomach. Right after the last drop he drew a match for his cigarette and closed his eyes on his first drag.

                    Lieutenant, asked the sergeant, what did they do with the swan?

                    Sergeant said: It’s in the parking lot, in a plastic bag.

                    Lieutenant: What did you kill it with? I am talking to you!

                    Morteza, from behind a screen of smoke, said: With the oar . . . I think with the oar . . . I don’t know.

                    Lieutenant said: What do you mean you don’t know?

                    Morteza said: The pond was full of oil . . . full of gasoline.

To look closer at the swans, Morteza had to walk halfway around the pond. There was a boat upside down on the snow. A man, somewhere between the pond and the road was kicking at the tire of a tractor-trailer; every couple of minutes he puffed his hot breath into his cupped hands. The trailer’s hood was lifted, innards of a toolbox was laid on the snow. A broken jar – brake oil, maybe – floated neck high in the pond. Gasoline, like vomit, oozed out of the plastic gas cans fallen by the fence, were mixed with the water. Water was greasy. Oil glided over tiny waves. Gray and purple rings of gasoline expanded more and more. Morteza saw the swan when he was looking at the grime on the surface of water. Lieutenant remembered a bird he had seen on TV dragging itself out of the slime, crawling on its chest on the sand after the oilwells of the Persian Gulf were blown up. He couldn’t remember what kind of a bird . . .

                 Morteza said: And then, I . . .

                 Lieutenant shouted: Wait. All of you. Keep quiet for God’s sake. Don’t talk.

He turned around and through the windowpane, looked again at the pond and at the long bridge thrown itself on the pond. Sergeant wondered whether to look at lieutenant’s thin shoulders, or at Morteza, or at the shiny edge of the hat on the desk. The heat in the room clashed with the snowfall outside. Lieutenant undid a button on his uniform and, without turning his head, said: Well?

Morteza pointed his finger at his own chest and whispered to the sergeant: Is he talking to me?

                  Sergeant nodded.

                   Morteza said: I waved my hands towards the swan and yelled, “Don’t come closer, for the love of God, don’t come closer.” But either swans can’t hear or that one didn’t. It didn’t see me at all. That’s why I went for the boat . . .

While Morteza flips the boat over, pulls it in to the water, and paddles towards the swan, lieutenant paces the room from one end to the other and back. Sergeant struggled to take notes in pace with Morteza.

                “I was nearing the swan by then; oil and gasoline was nearing the bird, too. I forgot I was going to the cemetery. My fingers, round the oar, didn’t hold tight. It was freezing cold. With one oar, I pushed the swan away, pushed him away so he’d go back. He had bent his neck over the water just like a man . . . a man . . . like a man peering at a photo album. I told you; he couldn’t see me. With the pad of the oar, I hit him, hit him again. It took him only a notch away from the greasy water, and then gasoline circled the boat and then . . . gasoline went under the bird’s belly. Now the boat, and I, and all that shit and the swan were thrown together.

              Lieutenant paced the room; sergeant had fallen behind Morteza’s words. The oar was pulled out and pushed into the water again. The swan made splashes. Morteza bent out of the boat, stretched his hands out to the swan.

Suddenly, I hugged him and pulled him into the boat, whether I was holding him by the wings or the neck, I don’t remember. I pulled him up on my lap; he struggled so hard my clothes got dripping wet. My winter jacket reeks of oil . . . see, I smell like a wick all over!

Lieutenant stopped walking. He stood behind Morteza and Morteza said with outstretched hands: Only then did I notice his corpse was lying in my hands . . . his body in my arms his head on the floor of the boat . . . floor of the boat . . . floor of the boat . . .

Outside of police headquarter rain started.

                Morteza’s face was wet.

                Rain filled a boat lying by the pond.

                Lieutenant said: Now, why are you crying?

                Morteza said: I am not, it’s my eyes; I’ve had cataracts for some time.

               The phone rang. Sergeant picked it up. Lieutenant snapped: Put it down, sergeant.

               Morteza wiped his face with the palm of his hand. In the police headquarters’ parking lot, the swan, inside a plastic bag, didn’t even know he was dead. The pond didn’t know one swan was missing. Lieutenant mumbled.

               Sergeant said: Sir?

               Lieutenant said: I said, let him go.

Morteza left the room. In the outskirts of the city, a tractor-trailer honked at the ducks crossing the road. Horrified, the flock scampered across.


Bijan Najdi

Translated by Saghi Ghahraman
2004