Fiction in Translation

     She watched Adam’s apple move up and down with every swig he took from the beer; watched the manner of muscles on his arm and shoulder under thin shirt plastered to his damp skin, how it revealed the curve around 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 breath, 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, without sizing her up, asked her how she was fairing. They walked without a word and reached the café, sat on the worn wooden chairs in front of the still sea. Reflections of sun light spread on the surface of the sea, blended in with the majestic gray, rocky shore, filled the four o’clock P.M. with 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 on their sandwiches.

     “Close to the 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 her life, she said.

     The doctor looked at her with dry eyes and 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. The 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 went for walks together. They 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 her 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 previous time. In her next dream she begged more, didn’t want to let go. Her daughter, with a face that looked unhappier every time, said there was no use persisting.

     The doctor said the dreams were rooted in her unconscious, about the heart being left somewhere. He said she must come to terms with the fact of her daughter’s death. Must agree to 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 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 let go of her.

The doctor agreed, the man did, too. On the phone, he had listened to her and said that a visit would be 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 had felt calm, in harmony with the outside, as the storm caused turmoil in the street. 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. Now 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

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