All the birds of the time disclosed the story of butterfly

From: Mantiq-ut-Tayr (Speech of the Birds) by Attar Neyshaboori

One

• I have no doubt that I had lost my child that day. I had followed it to the inside of this house. Yes it was just this house.
• Good. You remember something.
• Yes. My brother had taken the child without telling me and he had taken it to one of the corridors of this house to play.
• So, you can remember that you have a child and a brother.
• Yes I have a child and a brother. I remember the day my child had been lost and this house of course.
• What else you can review?
• The thing which is currently very important and had caused me dizziness is that I have been at this house and I know that the beginning and end of these corridors are not clear.

The woman told this and took one step back. The man said: “So, we’d better return to the yard.”

• Yes. I am almost certain that we cannot find the exit way through this maze.

The man walked to the doorway and the woman followed him. They turned right in one of the corridors. A few steps forward they reached the stairs from which they had came up when they were looking for an exit way. “Ok, that’s the same wooden door that we thought it opened to the alley”; said the man as he running down the stairs.

He took the door lock and turned to the woman before he opened it. The woman had stopped in the staircase. “Why don’t you come?” the main said.

The woman with her long pleated margin-embroidered skirt seemed taller than before from where the man had stopped. Her voice echoed in the staircase, “We are wrong sir.”

Then man had taken the door lock as if he was taking the tether of a horse that had been stuck in the mud. He seemed exhausted. The woman said: “Open.”

The man pulled the tether of the stuck-in-mud horse strongly. It was large but hollow and light. The door leaves hit the wall noisily. The man shouted: “Oh God”.

The woman calmly came down the stairs. The man said: “I am sure we came from this way. it was this door. It was in the yard.”

“Now you’ll see that we have reached the roof. This is where I found my child and my brother that day”, said the woman as she passed through the doorway.

With her filigreed skirt, the woman in the middle of that thatched roof seemed like a tree in bloom that had wrongly grown in the middle of a desert. With her long skirt she went to the edge of the roof and stood. “Come and see the yard from here. There are two other wooden doors on the opposite.”; said the woman.

The man went and stood by the side of woman and said, “I’m quite confused. My forehead muscles are being separated. I wish you fondled me.”

“Come and put my head on your chest”; the man continued as he bent his head.

The woman walked to the door. The man followed her and said, “I prefer to jump to the yard from here but I don’t return to those moist and narrow corridors.”

The woman was stunned just few steps from the doorway while the man was behind her. Then she hastily walked to the south of the roof. She lied on her stomach on the edge of the thatched wall.

“You said you were ready to jump to the yard from here?”

The man who had come and was standing beside the woman smiled and said, “Yes, if you wish so.”

Then he took the woman’s hand and said, “Why don’t you let me take you in my arms? Look at that willow tree. Don’t you still remember me?”

The woman was standing face to face to the man. She took her hand out of his.

“When you said you were ready to jump to the house I remembered one important thing. My brother wanted to jump to the other roof. I mean the roof of the opposite house. And he did so.”

Really?

Yes. That day when I arrived at the roof I saw my child. Of course my child had become a pigeon. You know, when a pigeon has not become a homing pigeon, it will go if it jumps. My child had not become homing yet. I was worried. I shouted to my brother, “Why did you take my child to the roof? It has not become homing yet.” My brother was confused. He didn’t want to lose my child. My brother went to it slowly and tried to take it, but it jumped and went away. It jumped to the opposite roof. My brother followed it immediately. As he reached the roof edge I feared lest he fall and I screamed. Although he was guilty, I did not want him to put himself into risk to return my child. Just when he was falling down from the roof, he changed to a pigeon. He flew and then he landed beside my daughter. He returned my daughter. He went and took my daughter with him.”

The woman put her hands on her face and began weeping. The man said, “Ok, everything ended happily. Is that right? You had your child once again.”

He wiped her tears and tried to take her into his arms but she stepped backward and said: “As my brother reached the roof he changed to a human. But my child who was a pigeon at first changed to a large white bird, something like a very beautiful swan. She was fat and soft. She was heavy. I took her and came to this doorway. It was just at the threshold of the door that I heard the cry of an infant. Then I looked and saw that my daughter was in my arms and she was healthy. She was a very beautiful girl. I stuck my face to hers. Her cheeks had a unique perfume.”

At this time, the scream of an old woman who had stood in the middle of the yard shocked the man and woman.

• What are you doing above there? I have been looking for you in two houses all day long.

The man cried: Sorry madam.

The old woman said with that scream-like voice: Come down. Why have you taken the girl over there? Come down.

The woman asked: How can we come down? We are trapped here.

The old woman who hardly took her head upwards due to her hump said: You stupid guys.

Her face was wrinkled and one should guess where her tiny eyes were in her face. She knocked her stick to the ground for a few times and cried: Saadoon! Saadoon!

At this time a giant man run out from the small room on the corner of the yard. “You are perfectly useless”; said the old woman as she took her stick up to show the woman and man. “Go and take the daughter down.”

A few moments later the giant Saadoon was on the roof. The old woman was standing in the middle of the yard and was mewling. Saadoon took the woman’s hand and pulled her with him. The man followed the. Saadoon went upstairs. There was a porch above there that the man and woman had not seen it when they came down. The porch had a short dome-shape ceiling with a small hole in the middle of the ceiling. They passed through an almost dark corridor and went downstairs. There was a two-leaf wooden door down there. Saadoon opened it with a kick. The woman became surprised to see a building on the other side of the yard with its windows in front of them. She felt as if her feet had been melted and she had sunk down into the yard until waistline. She couldn’t move. She muttered: “Such a fantastic house.”

Saadoon turned to the woman and said, “Why have you stopped? Come on.”

The old woman said, “You can only eat and gain weight. You are nothing but an inept guy. No servant is like you. Didn’t I tell you to keep an eye on the girl?”

Saadoon put his head down and released the woman’s hand. The old woman said to her servant, “It is getting dark. Go and light the lanterns.”

Saadoon ran to the lanterns which were hung from the wood poles near the colonnaded porch.

“It is going to be one of the darkest nights tonight”, said the old woman as she was taking the woman to the building.

The two sides of the high porch of the house ended to the garden by 10-12 steps. The woman who was following the old woman stood on the last step and turned back but she could not see the man. The old woman entered the building through the door which was just at the middle of the other doors and left the long narrow door open. The woman heard her who said, “I will show you if you go this side and that side at this house without taking my permission.

The woman looked at the dusty colorful glasses of the windows and old chairs that had been arranged around a round table. She wanted to step inside that she saw the rubber galoshes of the old woman. She felt as if her brain had changed to a hot and heavy liquid which was full and should overflow so that she could remember something; something that could take her out of that lethargy and dizziness. Just at the threshold she smelled naphthalene, pickles, angelica and oil. The liquid in her brain froze just when it was going to overflow. As soon as she wanted to remember something, that hot liquid froze and put her skull under pressure like a large stone. She took out her shoes and put them beside the galoshes of the old woman. When she stepped inside, she saw an antechamber which was full of books. The sharp and dumb voice of old woman was coming from the back of the closed door of a room. The room was at the end of a corridor. She wanted to open that door and asked the old woman to help her. She should tell the old woman that her memory did not work well and that all the smells, faces and voices destroyed her soul like leprosy. She could not understand what the old woman was saying and to whom she was talking. It was almost dark. Two oil lamps were burning on the niche. There was also a low-light lantern on the middle of a table made from raw, virgin and zigzag table. She thought that someone in the primitive times should have built the table; someone who could not have thought of an ax or another simple tool, someone who has assembled pieces of wood with the same sizes without cutting them. She took the oil lamp and went to the room. A yellow dim light had lit her way. As she took a few steps in the narrow and long corridor the old woman suddenly opened the door and stood at the threshold. The woman stopped. The old woman had taken off her kerchief and her woven cotton-like hair was on her shoulders down until below her small breasts. “Sit down there. I will come to you later.”

Then she went into the room and closed the door. The woman told herself “You should go and knock at the door and shout. You should empty yourself or you will die. Look how heavy is your chest. Walk. Talk. Shout. Blood is being frozen inside your vessels.”

She returned to the hall of books. She took the oil lamp on the table and raised its wicks. It began to generate fume. She went to the books. They were all manuscripts. She took one. The letters had been written in Persian they but they were nonsense. She looked at the books one by one under the light of oil lamp, but it was useless. She said to herself, “This orthography seems to be similar, but I cannot read that.”

She remembered that she wanted to go out of the house but she did not know where to go. She thought it would be better if she could take a few of the books and escape. She muttered “This damn house is not my own house.”

In this country, as soon as it is getting dark, the city is ruled by bandits. Go wherever you want to go, but believe me you will never ever reach your destination.”

The woman was shocked. She turned to the voice. The old woman was standing at the corridor. Her stick was more for decoration purposes than an assisting tool for walking. The woman took the books in her hand on the table. The old woman had leaned back to the wall and was looking at the woman.

• How did you come to know what is in my mind?

The old woman closed her eyebrows and said: “It seems as if she considers me guilty.”

The woman got closed to the old woman and said with a low voice “I only want to return to my house. I have a baby in my house. I must return.”

The old woman laughed. “You can go my daughter. Is anyone hindering you?”

• Actually, I do not know why I feel so. I can’t.”

The old woman took her hand firmly. The woman jumped and took one step backward. The old woman took her out of the room. She was walking fast. “Now I will tell you why you can’t and why you pretend like this.”

They had reached to the book hall.

“Come with me” the old woman repeated.

She took the lantern off the table, opened the door with her foot and pulled the woman to the porch. She was looking down and moving ahead. The woman had to walk more quickly lest she lose her shoulder. They were on the stairs. The old woman said: “I have lived for 150 years but I am still aware. Don’t think that I am old and I cannot understand anything.”

The woman saw the man in the dim light of lanterns crouching in a corner. The man crept to the fencing and watched them who had just arrived at the yard. The woman’s wrist was pulsing under the old woman’s claw. She was scared, both from the strength of the old woman’s tiny and old body and her words. She did not understand when the old woman had put on her shoes. But she herself was barefoot. They passed the yard. Went through a narrow paved road and reached the backside of the building. It was completely dark. The woman felt weak and hungry. Her souls were burning. The old woman stood opposite to her. There were several rooms beside around the backyard with sash windows. The dim light which was flickering from one of the rooms had lightly spread the design of arabesque window on the yard floor. The woman was panting. The old woman put the lantern down. The woman said: “You scare me.”

The old woman rounded her tiny and bright eyes and said: “If shovel did not have anything to do with the land, it would be assisted with a piece of wood. Haven’t you come here for the manuscripts?”

The woman took the shoulders of old woman and said: “No. I swear by God. I suddenly thought to take the books and go. I had no previous intentions.”

“How do you know about your previous intentions? Don’t you say you have lost your memory?”

“Not as much that you inculcate any bullshit to me.”

The old woman took herself out of the woman’s arms. Then she stood and gazed at the woman such that she could not escape from her eyes. If she wanted, she could put into confusion any creature at the deep of her penetrating eyes. Her tiny eyes which were like those of the birds and so unbounded in ugliness that were competing with a kind of virgin and terrible beauty. The woman could not move or say any word until the old woman stopped looking at her. Those looks were sufficient for the woman to think that maybe she had come there to steal the books. She hardly took her eyes from those of the old woman. Then, she took her thin and soft hands as she was looking down. She needed to touch her. She should constantly threaten herself of the reality of the old woman. Just like an infant that takes anything to his mouth to know and understand it. A strong and unknown force made her to take the old woman’s hands to her mouth and taste them. It seemed as if it was the only way to know her. She thought it was wiser to kiss her hands. Kissing was the closest way to the force by which you begin to know the world. It was a return to an initial understanding, a kind of thin eating.

But the old woman did not take their hands off and did not let the woman to do so. Then she took the oil lamp. It lit her face and showed her projected cheeks more than before.

“It seems as if it is useless to advice you.”

Then she took the woman’s hand and pulled there to one of the rooms. The woman did not move.

She said, “I am on barefoot. Let’s go and take my shoes.”

The old woman took off her galoshes and pushed them towards her with her toes.

The woman followed her without putting on the galoshes. They went to a room out of which a dim light had saved the backyard from absolute darkness. The old woman stood at the threshold and called Saadoon. The door was opened. The room was 2-3 steps lower than the yard surface. There was nothing else there except a worn red rug and a few oil lamps at the corner. Moisture mixed with burned wood could be smelled. There was a very short door on the other side of the room. It was so short that the old woman bent to pass through it. One could clearly hear water drops.

Saadoon sat on the knee, bent himself and hardly passed through the door. The woman followed them. At the back of the door and in the darkness she thought with herself that no one would ever understand they killed her there. She thought that they could do anything to her. She had stuck to the large buttocks of Saadoon lest she falls. Saadoon said “Do not be afraid. It is going to get light and then everything will shine like a diamond.”

The woman said “It is impossible. At the most, it has passed two or three hour from sunset.”

Her voice echoed in that space. But Saadoon’s voice did not echo RESONATE. The woman felt that Saadoon was not at that damp basement. It seemed as if they were somewhere and he was somewhere else. She could not understand whether her eyes had got used to darkness or it was really getting light.

Anytime the old woman changed her direction and turned left and right in the corridors, more light lit KINDLE the space. The sound of water drops and the smell of damp and burned wood had increased. She thought with herself as if it was nearly morning and that was not possible unless they had turned the earth.

She could see around. She smelled the damp weather. They were in a corridor. A few steps ahead there was a small porch with a dome-shaped ceiling and three small skylights from which three light beams lit the corridor. In the porch, the old woman turned to the woman and turned the lamp off.PUT OUT OR EXTINGUISH Her face seemed younger and it seemed as if her hump had died down. After the porch there was a large and covered roofed space with short and treed windows around it. The woman could guess the large trunk of old trees from behind the windows. The sultry space and deformation of glasses had displayed a dumb design of full and wild UNTOUCHED nature on the other side of the wall. The old woman turned to the woman and said: “Go into the apodyterium (the primary entry in the public baths, composed of a large changing room with cubicles or shelves where citizens could store clothing and other belongings while bathing).”

They were in the middle of an old bath. There were two octagonal pools inside the apodyterium. Round columns with spiral bodies had held PICKABACKED the zigzag arch of the bath. The old woman said “Follow the water pipes and come forward or you will get lost.”

“You mean these clay pipes?”

The pipes continued until the hothouse like the huge snakes under the sand. The woman could not understand why the old woman insisted her to follow the water pipes. The old woman had sat beside one of the pools and could be clearly seen in the light of that unexpected day. She could just take a few steps to reach her, either from beside the water pipes or elsewhere. But before hearing that sentence, she repeatedly felt that she was in another place. Therefore, she went forward along the clay pipes and stood opposite to the old woman. She was looking at the bath arch. The woman looked up and saw that all through the ceiling had been painted. Just in the concave center of the arch, the face of a woman had been painted who was wearing a kerchief which had been pinned under her chin. Her head was like a human and her body was like a bird, a large bird that had opened its gray wings and its nose was like an eagle. The old woman had gazed at her.  (با چشم های پیرزن به او خیره است) Its wings were in between the leaves. The woman in the paining that was integrated in the background had been mixed in the tree such that the border of their bodies could hardly be identified and separated. As she looked down to compare the eyes of the bird with those of the old woman she saw that her dress was in the pool and its black color was penetrating in the water. The black color was going ahead and was darkening the clear water to a marble with no streaks. The old woman had put her palms on the pool edge and had gazed the arch.

“Come and sit down” said the old woman.

The power of thinking had been taken from the woman in the world of words. She saw things without any word interfering in her mind. Everything was empty and virgin. This feeling changed her world in 1% of a second and at the beginning of kef it slipped from her hands like a fish and went away. A deep navel had been opened in the middle of the water and had made a small whirlpool. The old woman put her hand into the water and said, “This damn cloth stains everything. I have washed it for several times but it is useless.”

She took her hand out of the pool and turned to the woman and continued: “Now do you remember here?”

The woman had bent her head on her shoulder and was looking at the old woman helplessly and desperately. The old woman almost screamed: “Don’t mimic the oppressed people. You always behave such as if everything that has happened to you is the guilt of anyone except you.”

Before Saadoon gives her a nudge and says “Where are you? Be aware” she had already done that. She closed her half-open mouth and had changed the status of her head and neck. The old woman said: “You know, if an oppressed individual is not more nefarious than an oppressor, he will not be less than that. He has only put on another cloth and he pretends, whether or not he knows. He either pretends or aims at masochism. Therefore, an oppressed deserves any disaster the same as an oppressor. I told you this not to pretend that you are not guilty.”

The old woman stood up and hooked her hands at her back. “Now tell me why you wanted to take those books and escape?”

The woman thought that she was better not to dodge. “I don’t know. It seemed as if someone told me to take a few of the books. I thought they belonged to me.”

– These are all the faults of that unbeliever man.

The old woman turned and sat on pond edge. She put one of her leg on the other and said: “A few nights before I dreamed that a thief had come to my house and had disarranged anything. It was strange that Sadoon was at home. I remember that I opened the door with the key and when I stepped inside I saw that everything was in a mess. I shouted at Sadoon and said: Where on the hell were you when the thief came? And he only grinned and shrugged his shoulders. I didn’t know what happened that I suddenly found that I had a neighbor who lived in the upper storey of my house. He had substituted my furniture with his. I hardly climbed up the stairs which were very high and saw my furniture in his house.”

The old woman again stood up from the basin edge and went to the woman. She stared into her eyes and said: “Do you know who that neighbor was in my dream?”

She raised her voice and said: “This damn man Emad.”

The woman who felt weakness in her knees sat on the floor of changing room. “Emad?”, she asked?

– I swear by God if you did not like him, I would never let him step into this house.”

The old woman gathered the lower part of her skirt and squeezed it firmly. A track of dark water began to flow towards foot-bath of the basin. Then she sat down opposite to the woman and said: “He had placed his odds and ends in my house and had taken my furniture to his own house. Isn’t it ridiculous? But he had done such a stupid work. He had placed my furniture in a corner without any arrangement and had sat in the middle of such mass. My furniture had live and strong colors. Purple crystal vases, turquoise cashmeres, shiny copper pans, red Turcoman cushions, porcelains, etc (حذف بشه بهتر نیست؟. But his furniture was just in one color. All pieces of his furniture were in golden color, a kind of pale golden color near to silver color. It seems as if a tasteless Arcadian had gone to the market and a poor dealer in second-hand goods had sold his worthless dusty things to him. I tried to return my furniture. I remember that I took that purple vase and came downstairs.”

The old woman sighed and began playing with the edge of her skirt. Then she looked up and continued: “Such a stupid boy. He ruined both his life and mine. Suppose that my furniture was better than his, but what can he do when he cannot put the furniture in order? What can he do when he doesn’t know the relation between the things even if he has so much property and knowledge? In such case, he is just confused and causes such as destiny for you and his. Isn’t it right?”

As the old woman stood up she told Sadoon: “My dream is the example of my life in these days.”

Then she went and leaned back to the greenhouse wall and said to the woman: “And my dream was interpreted. It is my entire fault. I made a mistake to let him inside and find everything. If you didn’t support him, if you didn’t love him, I would throw him outside.”

The woman who found herself desperate and trapped stood up face opposite to the old woman and said: “I don’t know what I’ve done. But whatever I have done, a great grand woman like you forgives me. Am I right?”

The old woman turned her face from the woman and said: “Despite all the bad things you and Emad have done to me, I owe you for something that I learned because of you. In the meantime, I could see my furniture once again from your view and I found that I loved it. The furniture that was the interpretation of whatever I had and I knew.”

The woman whose mouth had become open involuntarily repeated: “You forgive me, don’t you?”

The sharp voice of old woman was reflected in the space: “I have forgiven you that you are standing opposite to me right now. But your problem will not be solved by my forgiveness.”

The woman was delighted by the echo of the old woman’s voice. By the reflection of her voice under the domed roof of the bath she no longer had that sense of separation. Instead, she felt a kind of confusing lethargy that hindered her from understanding the words of that old woman. Did she say that my problem would not be solved? I should go to my child.

“If you want to see your child, you should remember the clash between your father and brother on the roof. If you cannot understand some things, you can never see your child and I swear by God that I cannot do anything for you. This is out of my power and it is only related to you.”

The woman with protruded eyes took a step backward and said: “What is the point with that? How is it related to my father and brother?”

“I took you here to understand the relation. Don’t you remember anything?

The woman looked up again at the ceiling while she was turning around herself. She cried: “No, I don’t remember.”

The old woman turned to Sadoon and gave a hint to him. Sadoon immediately took the woman’s hand and said:”Let’s go to the yard. Madam said to prepare breakfast for you. Come with me. Come and sit under the berry tree and I will prepare your food.”

The woman scrambled and took her hand out of Sadoon’s and cried: “I want my child.”

Sadoon took her hand again and pulled her to the yard. The woman cried: I want my poor child.”

Sadoon was controlling the woman and whispered in her eyes: “Don’t worry. I will help you see your child.”

The woman who had been waiting for this sentence stopped scrambling and stayed calm in the large arms of Sadoon. She let the huge servant put his hand on her back and lift her from the ground and take her upstairs through the steps that ended to the yard. The strong sunlight in the yard disturbed the woman’s eyes. She took her head deep into Sadoon’s chest like a bird. Sadoon took the woman on a bed which had been floored by an old rug and went away. There were blue fimbriated cushions all around the bed. The strong smell of mulberry made the woman take her head up. Having seen a mass of large fresh berries, she suddenly remembered that she was so much hungry. She stood on the bed and began picking and eating the berries one by one. Suddenly she saw Sadoon that was carrying a tray of food in one hand and a copper pan in his other hand coming down the stairs. She sat cross-legged, displaced the cushions and leaned back. Sadoon took the pan down. There were a cup of tea, pieces of bread and cheese and a dish full of fresh basil and mint leaves in the tray. Sadoon had not completely put the tray down that the woman cut a piece of bread and put it with her two hands into her mouth. Sadoon poured a little honey into the cup of tea. The woman immediately took the cup of tea and drank a sip of that. Sadoon squatted beside the bed. As he was cleaning his hands with the towel on his shoulder he said to the woman: “Put your feet into the water.”

The woman picked a handful of mint and immersed her feet into the warm water. She felt that the water was penetrating from her soles into her body making the cold and stagnant blood have a fast and pleasant flow. She could not remember when she last had experienced such a pleasant feeling after excessive tiredness. She didn’t know when it was. She said: “Water is running up from my soles like a large number of ants and removes my insentience. It is so good.”

The woman’s feet were like rhubarb stalks in Sadoon’s hands. Sadoon said: “I believe that some people are born several times to become women and to die women. I don’t mean that anyone who has completely become a woman will return to God, but she has the opportunity.

He looked up and smiled to the woman and said: “I told all these so that you understand that I like women very much. Please appreciate yourself.”

“You promised me to help me find my child.”; said the woman with full mouth as she was eating the last morsel of bread and basil.

Sadoon spread on the ground the towel he was carrying on his shoulder and took out the woman’s feet from the pan and placed them on the towel. “Didn’t you listen to my words?”

The woman drank the remaining of her tea and said: “I don’t understand what you say.”

The water in the pan had become dark. Sadoon dried the woman’s feet and placed the pan beside the small blue tiled basin in the middle of the yard. When he saw the old woman coming down the stairs of the building, he went to the woman and said with a quiet voice: “Maybe Shahrbanoo seems to talk angrily, but she is very kind-hearted. Just don’t bother her. You will see your child when it is appropriate.

The woman sat cross-legged on the bed. Sadoon took the towel and folded it and put it on his shoulder. Then he went to the small room at the corner of the yard. The woman asked:”Her name is Shahrbanoo?”

“Yes. She is one of your relatives.”; said Sadoon without turning to the woman.

When shahrbanoo sat on the bed, the woman said to her: “I think you are my grandma. Aren’t you?”

“No.”

“Sadoon said that we were relatives.”

“No. We are not blood relatives.”

“As far as I remember I have seen this house once before. I know that I have a doughter and a brother. But I don’t know you. I don’t remember my father. What happened between him and my brother and what does it have to do with my daughter?”

Shahrbanoo took out a book. The woman who had never seen that book before felt that that act of that old woman was something like jugglery. Shahrbanoo said: “Read the book.”

The woman took the book.

Shahrbanoo said:”Can you read?”

The woman opened the book. Again she could not read the words though she could distinguish the letters. She said: “These letters are Persian but the words do not mean. Or maybe they do not belong to our language. I can read. For example, this word is Adnaraf. There is no such word at all.”

– But it may exist.

– Yes, but it is meaningless. One can write extreme words with these letters, but the point is that they are meaningless.

Shahrbanoo took the book from the woman and said: “If you do not understand the meaning, it doesn’t mean that they are meaningless.”

She closed the book and said: You are not sufficiently literate right now to read this book. I don’t know what I should do so that you can remember the forgotten words.”

– When I can see my child?

– She is in a safe place, such a safe place that you can never think of.

– Why can’t I see her now?

– You should wait. You should wait until the meanings of the words become clear to you.

The woman got closed to shahrbanoo and said: “I don’t understand. It is terrible. I don’t understand what you say.

– I know it is painful.

– No you don’t know. You don’t know what I feel. This house the beginning and end of which is not clear, those narrow corridors, that bath, you and these books are all bothering me.

Shahrbanoo stood up and said: “Wait.”

“What is my name?”; asked the woman as she was coming down the bed.

Shahrbanoo laughed and said: “You had another name when you came here. I called you Mah.”

The woman stood in front of Shahrbanoo and said: “What was my name?”

Shahrbanoo Laughed: “That’s my choice. Maybe one day you remember your name.”

The woman stepped more quickly and walked shoulder to shoulder with Shahrbanoo. Shahrbanoo hooked her hands at her back and said: My father had put another name on me. I am ashamed of saying that. He was engaged in joviality. Do you know what that is?”

– I don’t know.

– He made people laugh with funny words and acts. He was not a man of good reputation. People said that he made obscene gestures in the parties and meetings of nobles. He was paid good money but whatever he received he spent it for pleasure. When my mother died, he sent me to work in a rich Armenian’s house called Hartoonian. The last day he told me that he had no money otherwise he didn’t let me work as a bondwoman.

Shahrbanoo went upstairs and the woman followed her. They sat in the porch on those old chairs that had been arranged under a fabric-made canopy around a small and round table. The woman did not know when they had placed the canopy over the table. Shahrbanoo cleaned the dusts on the round table by margin of her sleeve. The woman had frowned and was looking down. Shahrbanoo said: “Don’t worry. Listen to my story and you will find yourself in a part of my life story.”

The woman looked up and said: “I’m listening.”

Shahrbanoo said: “I was 12 or 13 that I became the maid of honor of Hasmig who was the daughter of family. Hartoonian sent me to Armenian school with her daughter. Before that, I had been somehow trained by Molla Baji. But such school was a different opportunity. I even couldn’t dream such a school. I was the only Muslim girl who studied at that school. I went to school every day and I taught Hasmig carpet weaving in the afternoons. When my mother was alive, I learned carpet weaving from our neighbor’s wife. She was called Aunt Sedigheh. I still remember the songs she sang when she wove carpets. One year later my father came to me and took me with him. He wanted me to marry a man. He had already promised that to that man. He took me straightly to Seyed Mousa’s house. It was a very large house. After that, Hasmig Hartoonian and her father came to me one or two times. They wanted to take me back to the Saint Minas Church to study there but Seyed Mousa did not permit. I didn’t know that I was going to marry. I thought he wanted me for working. I remember that day quite well. The first day that we went to Seyed Mousa’s house. We were sitting and waiting in one of the rooms. It was an aristocratic room with green velvet curtains and expensive rugs. A woman came in and spread a white embroidered cloth in the middle of the room and sat me on that. She wept and combed my hair. The next day I found that she was a rival wife. Before she brings cosmetics, she sent my father out of the room and it was the last time I saw that poor man. He left the door open and stood there looking at me furtively. Later I found why he was looking at me regretfully. I did not see him again until I heard his death. He had progressed in his work and had been introduced the king’s palace. But it finally resulted in his death. People said that he had stolen the audio recorder set of Nasereddin King and that was why he was killed.

– Audio recorder?

– Yes. You call it phonograph.

– King’s men beat him to confess where he had hidden the audio recorder but he didn’t say anything. They beat him so much that he died. I heard the story from other people and as the result of people’s words a wild animal was born inside me that showed its teeth to me moment by moment and wanted something to rip. I didn’t know whether I was not able to sacrifice someone else for that wild animal inside me by harassment or it was not in my heart. Anyway I had to cut myself into pieces and put the pieces inside the mouth of that wild animal. I could not do anything else. I was not in such a condition to do bad things to anybody.

After that I found that damn phonograph in the basement of Seyed Mousa’s house. For a long time I didn’t know when he had hidden that there until at last I heard everything from Sadoon. I have put it in my room. Come with me to show you. Although you have seen it several times, I have never told you its story.

– Why have you kept that? To remember that your father was killed for that? To suffer?

– Forgetfulness is the greatest torture. Most people believe that it is a gift and serves as a balm to make life easier, but I don’t think so. I have never been agreeable with such false comforts. Forgetfulness will finally cause damage to human. There are so many great forgetfulness instances that man agrees with them from his birth.

The woman immediately stood up from the chair and went to the porch fences as she heard the man who called Shahrbanoo.

The old woman said: “It is Emad again.” And she went to stand beside the woman.

– Lady Shahrbanoo, I want to see Mah if you let me. I have been sitting here in the corner of the yard to see her since last night.

The blood that had run to her face had reddened her cheeks. Before Shahrbanoo says Emad loves you she had no feeling to that man. But at that time she felt that she had been waiting all her life and had been suffering to spend some moments beside him. She wanted to run down the stairs and to throw herself to Emad’s arms. The woman got it from Emad’s worried looks to Shahrbanoo that everything depended on the permission of that tiny and quick old woman. She stared at Shahrbanoo’s eyes. Shahrbanoo returned and sat on the chair. The woman turned to her. Shahrbanoo said: “You are not a child so that I put her hands into a sac lest she inures her face by her nails, but believe me girl; you have nothing less than a child. I see that you are in love. I don’t want you to feel regretful for that man’s love; otherwise, it’s easy for me to put him off.”

The woman ran towards the stairs. Shahrbanoo raised her voice a little: “Don’t hurry. Do not let him do anything more than kiss. Come back soon.

“Ok, sure.” said the woman as she was running downstairs.

Emad had come and was standing down the stairs. She took the woman in his arms, kissed her neck and said: “At last you come. You don’t know how much that old woman torture me to let me see you. What has she told you)  چه وردی به گوشت خوانده that you don’t know me honey?”

The woman put her head on Emad’s shoulder and said: “I think she wants my good. She is a benevolent woman.”

Emad took her hand and said: “Look how she is standing in the porch gazing at us. I don’t know how we can get rid of her.”

The woman turned and looked at Shahrbanoo. “This house has so many parts.”

– And this old woman has thousands eyes. Let’s go over there under the branches of the weeping willow, on the memory of those days.

– Please tell me whatever you know about me.

Emad took the braches aside and leaned back to the tree trunk. He took the woman to him. The woman put her head on Emad’s chest. Emad fondled her black hairs and said: “No one can prohibit you if you want to come with me. Everything depends on you.”

– I asked you if you knew anything about my past.

Emad took the woman’s shoulders. She understood that she must take her head from his chest because the lover wanted to see his beloved’s face. Emad took the woman’s hand to his mouth and kissed it as he was fondling it.

He said: “Can I forget that? You have never been a lover Mah. A lover never forgets his love.”

– Mah? Is that my name?

– When you came here you were only 15-16 years old. You told everyone that Shahrbanoo had told you not to tell your former name to anybody. You said that your new name was Mah. We have been living in the neighborhood of Shahrbanoo for several years. Shahrbanoo is even older than the oldest neighbors. The old woman had no child. She had adopted you and your brother. People said that your father was insane and that he had killed your mother. Shahrbanoo took care of you and your brother. A summer day I saw you in the yard from the porch. You had come from the school. You took off your clothes and went into the basin with a think shirt. After that, every day when it was near your arrival, I secluded like a crow in the corner of the porch and I watched from above the wall stealthily so that you might go to the basin for bathing. You had become my everything in life. I sat several hours opposite your house to see you when you come out. I did the same for three years, thinking of you and counting the time to see you. You knew that I loved you. One day….. I remember well it was Friday, when you saw me watching you, you changed your dress. You wore a white dress with red tiny flowers. Then you came to the yard and began dancing. You were the most beautiful girl I had seen until that time. On the afternoon of that day you left the door open for me to come inside. We hid ourselves from Shahrbanoo under this weeping pillow and you let me kiss you as much as I wanted.

The woman looked down. Emad took her chin to take up his head and asked with smile: “Did you remember anything?”

The woman frowned and said: “Nothing.”

Emad took her in his arms and fondled her hairs and said: “After that we used to do the same until one or two months. But one day I waited for you for a long time but you didn’t come. I sat at the corner of the porch until evening and kept an eye on the yard. Finally Shahrbanoo felt sorry for me and came to the wall and said: Go home you poor child. Mah’s father came and took her and his brother. Then she began weeping and went away. I didn’t see you again until a few days before. I swear by God that I couldn’t think about anyone else except you during these 10 years. When I found that you have returned, when again…..”

Emad and the woman heard Shahrbanoo’s voice calling: “Where are you? It is noon.”

The woman got far from Emad and said: “I must go. I don’t want to make her angry.”

Emad didn’t release Mah’s hand. He said quickly: “Ok, listen. Shahrbanoo is insane. For many years she has been living by the same style as people lived one hundred years ago.”

– Leave it for another time.

– She fears from telephone, electricity and everything. She has not changed the appearance of herself and this house. She lives like a primitive animal.

Mah took out her hand from his.

– One cannot completely trust this old insane woman.

The woman ran to the porch without saying good bye. Emad watched her getting far and then he left shahrbanoo’s house. Shahrbanoo was standing in the porch with her stick in her hands. When Mah came up the stairs fast and reached the porch, Shahrbanoo said: “It’s very hot. I have prepared a juice. I have told Sadoon to add rosewater and sugar and bring it to the bookroom.”

It was hot. Shahrbanoo sat at the same deformed table that had attracted the woman’s attention. Then she knocked down her stick and cried: “Sadoon, we are dying of thirst.”

Then woman squatted at the corner of the room and said: “You were telling me the story of your life. Tell about your wedding day.”

Shahrbanoo leaned the stick to the wall and continued after a long yawn: “Well, that day Hannaneh, the rival wife, applied kohl to my eyes and put a white shirt on me that was very loose. She told me that it was her own wedding dress. When I looked in the mirror, I didn’t know myself. My eyebrows had become long and narrow and kohl had been applied on my eyes. I could not stop watching myself. I was so happy. I didn’t know what it meant to become a woman. I thought it only included makeup and a white shirt. Like many other girls who married at that time, I experienced menstruation in my husband’s house. Hannaneh looked at me and said :”Two pieces of bone.”

People said that Hannaneh was not fertile. She herself had given her consent for remarriage of Seyed Mousa. I don’t know if it was truth or lie. Hannan never talked to me about such things. Hannan’s father was a literate and popular man. He had assisted Seyed Mousa and had taught him business and had let him to marry her daughter Hannaneh. Seyed Mousa could marry a better girl who had a family and who had dowry, but he had wanted me. I did not know where he had seen me and how he had told my father. Whenever I asked him about that, he never gave me an exact answer. I think my father himself had shown me to Seyed Mousa and had asked him some money to let the old man marry me. It was not unlikely.”

Sadoon arrived with a big jug full of juice. He took out two glasses from the cupboard at the back of the old woman and put them on the table. Shahrbanoo filled the glasses with juice and told Sadoon to go. Then, she turned to the woman and continued: “After a few months, Hannan became pregnant. It was me who was infertile. I thought that he would divorce me and I would be displaced. But Seyed Mousa had told other people that I was a little girl and it was very soon for me to become pregnant.”

Shahrbanoo drank her glass of juice and cleaned her mouth with her sleeve and continued: “Those times, if you did not become pregnant after one year, you would be finished. Everybody understood that you were infertile. And in this way, anybody became a doctor and came to you to treat your infertility.”

She stood up and gave the glass of juice to the woman. Then she went to the door and gazed at the yard. “No father, no mother and no child. I made myself busy by playing with Hannaneh’s children. She gave birth to two sons one after another. They named the first one Mohsen and the second one Mohammad. I spent each day after another worrying lest I made a mistake; otherwise, I should not only leave Seyed Mousa’s house, but I should lose myself from the world. At last, someday I became upset. I should understand that I didn’t dare to make that wild animal to the people or I didn’t want to do so. I hate being undecided. I was worried all the time lest someday they tell me to leave that house.”

She returned and sat on the chair and continued: One day I decided to gather my luggage and leave the house. I had an old aunt who lived in a rented room in Mowlavi St. near the grave of Agha. I was 17 when I decided to leave Seyed Mousa’s house with all its things. Anyway, he found me before night. It was just stupidity. He beat me. My aunt had secluded in a corner like the addicts and was watching me being beat by Seyed Mousa. I swore that Hannaneh had not bothered me. No, she had not bothered me. It was me who wanted to tease her but I couldn’t. And I was angry because of that. In fact, she was like a sister for me. We only quarreled once or twice. One time it was for Sadoon. Seyed Mousa had two servants  دو تا جن را بندی کرده بود. They were both Muslims. One of them was called Farough and the other was Sadoon. When Sari died young…”

The woman stood up from the corner of the room and put the glass on the table and asked: “Sari?”

– She was the third child of Hannan and Seyed Mousa. That poor girl died on delivery. After Sari’s death, Seyed Mousa separated from the world. He either prayed or spent his times smoking opium. He had become dissociable and did not talk to anyone. He gave Sadoon to me and Farough to Hannaneh. Sadoon was literate, but Farough’s only pride was that he had lived in Zell-Al-Sultan’s garden and was his stoker.  He was a foul-mouthed and unbeliever person. Sadoon made much effort to teach him alchemy but he did not learn. However, Farough did not do anything without Sadoon’s permission and he was Sadoon’s henchman. Seyed Mousa did not make any difference between me and Hannaneh. But in the last days of his life, he punished Hannaneh and deprived her from Sadoon.”

Hannaneh frowned for a few days and after that she became the same punctual inoffensive woman. Punctuality and inoffensiveness. I thought to myself that those features belong to such people and not to a girl like me who had no family and had worked in people’s house as a bondwoman and finally she is not bad because she is a poor woman. If Hartoonian’s nephew flirts with me, she says nothing because of adversity. It is because of fearing from displacement that when Seyed Mousa with his huge body comes to the bridal chamber and looks at her, she sticks to the wall weeping and saying no word.”

The woman sat at the table opposite Shahrbanoo and took the old woman’s hand. Shahrbanoo continued: “My sick mother died and my father sold me and then he was killed. This was a summary of my life until that time. But Hannaneh had a well-known father and a kind mother, she was rich, she had children, she had not lived with Seyed Mousa due to fear and misery. The power that made me tolerate the vicinity of that wild animal inside me and not to surrender against devil was the belief that I had inherited from my mother, a valuable inheritance that made me happy that at last someone in this world had left me something and I am not so much lonely and poor. And it was the ability to understand the disasters we have in common, majors and minors, rich and poor, and it is an adversity called Life. I say adversity not because of the miseries I have experienced in the world. No. We are alone and the same in our suffering from life. Substantively, life is so painful and we are disabled to a high extent. We are continuously dependent and we are deprived. The first dependence is mother’s breast. Whatever you do, you must finally leave it. The last dependence is your body. You should leave it as well and go, irrespective of whatever happens to you in the meantime. We are continuously dying, death in one moment and becoming alive in one moment later. Is there any torture more grueling than this? And that’s why it has been quoted that the burden of a trust cannot be tolerated except by ignorance. How can one be aware and tolerate such pain? These similarities between the humans and this common disaster are not an insignificance issue to wait for a little bit difference. Worthless properties and assets, being more beautiful and having stronger horses, etc.; you feel ashamed when you compare these differences to greatness like living and dying. This very common share is sufficient for you to believe in God’s justice. It is unwise to ignore those common disasters for the sake of differences which are ridiculous when compared to these similarities. There is no rich person that doesn’t stop lactation of his child or does not delay the inevitable death for the sake of his money. But I could never tolerate the heavy load of this concept. Life is flagrant. One day you will say to yourself: Ok, it is sufficiently shrew, but the condition and situation of asset and power can decrease its abomination. It can place you in situations in which you can choose either to control that ugly animal or to open the cage of devil wild animal and let any predatory animals out. You should not feel ashamed. You should tell yourself: I could do but I didn’t. When Seyed Mousa came to pick me up and returned me to the house, I became certain that he loved me. That night he was so happy. It had rarely happened that he smile and droll. But that night he was happily whirling around the room and signing happy old songs. Mohsen and Mohammad was following him and laughing. I continuously said to myself: Seyed Mousa loves you. Now it is the time to offend Hannaneh. I offended her a few times but it could not control the devil animal inside me. It wanted me as well. I understood that the more I feed it, the more will it want. I was continuously thinking about something. Money. I should earn money to know what to do. I asked Seyed Mousa to install a carpet weaving scaffold beside the patio so that I could be busy with that. Of course it was an excuse. As soon as I had time, I constantly worked on it. Weaving rows after rows I felt that I had the world in my hand. It had filled my mind. Weaving and weaving and weaving. It took a few years for me to become expert in weaving carpets with special and beautiful designs. As soon as I finished one rug, I immediately began weaving the next rug. Sadoon bought yarn for me and he was the one who put the first rug on his shoulder and sold it in Tehran market. I had promised myself to control and protect myself from that wild animal inside me. I said to myself: Let it threat you. Don’t be afraid. Just weave, weave and weave. Each time Hannaneh became pregnant, I always reminded myself the similarities and common points between humans to be virtuous. Hannaneh’s third child was a girl who was named Sari. Hannaneh loved that name very much. I was a midwife for her birth, such a good midwife. I was almost 20. The first moment that her red and small body slipped into my hands my heart beat such that I had never seen before. I had never thought that I might love Hannaneh’s child so much. Our life changed as Sari was born because she was so sweet. But she died when she was still young. As I said, she died upon delivery. It was her second delivery. I blamed myself several times that I myself should go and help her in her delivery. The first thing that Sari touched in this world was the air and my hands. At that moment, I said to myself: Your hands are like the air for this child. You should never deprive her of your hands. I thought that if I had gone to her bed for delivery and I did not deprive her of my hands, she would have not gone. I was busy with weaving carpets and I always thought when the yarns would change to carpets and when carpets would change to money and when the money would be sufficient for buying a house. For 20 years, it was all my concern to leave Seyed Mousa’s house. Interests and relations never damaged my belief that I was a lady. I was a bondwoman in Seyed Mousa’s house and the bitterness of being a burden had stuck to me as I was a child. What did I do in that family? Suppose no one dared to say anything and to ask me what I did there. I was neither a stepmother, nor an assistant to Hannaneh or a bondwoman, etc. I should go and mind my own life. It was very near for me to have a house. When Sadoon saw that I worked hardly, one day he called me and said: “Do you want that when you apply one node, you have ten nodes?” I certainly wanted that. Sadoon said: “Go to the basement as soon as the sun rises. There is a small closet in the corner of basement. Isn’t it?” I said: “Yes.” He said: “The closet which is empty. Push the wall and go ahead.”

The next morning I ran to the basement and I opened the closet. As Sadoon had told I pushed the wall. It opened like dough. As I took a few steps forward, I found that there was an empty space behind the wall. I bent to pass through the way I had opened in the wall that I suddenly saw a clear and open space. I didn’t know from which hole that light came. I saw around basement 11 carpet scaffolds like broad-shouldered ladies who had leaned back to the cushions in a square. The maps and the color of yarns could not be made by a human. I sat at one of them and began working and singing, but not slowly in my heart, that time I began singing loudly the same song I sang with aunt Seddigheh: I weave carpets day and night with a tired heart, I weave carpets root by root, little by little, if blood flows from my fingertips, drop by drop, if my eyes become tired, … and the son was repeated.

As I heard the voices of some women that echoed in that basement, I wove the rows and I got accustomed to the voice of weaver who could not be seen. The voices echoed: “Little by little.” Every day I got up and ran to the basement. A few months had passed from Sari’s death. Sari’s husband, Mahmoud, left the baby and the 4-year Asieh for Hannaneh and went away and never asked for the girls as long as Seyed Mahmoud was alive. We named the baby Sari, although I didn’t want them to do so. I knew that later the baby would be uncomfortable as she remembered that she had come in place of another person and her life had coincided with the death of another person. Let me tell you something right now. This baby about whom I am talking is your grandma, the second Sari.

The woman stood and said: “Sari? My grandma? Have I ever met her?

– No.

– How about my mother? Emad said that my mother had died. He said that my father had killed her. Is that right?

– This is the point that I want to know as well. You see, your tribe has not seen any mother after Hannaneh. The only one who remained in your life and served as a mother for your generation after generation is the very old stepmother who is sitting in front of you.

– Do you believe that you served us as a mother?

Shahrbanoo answered promptly and firmly: “Yes.”

– And for me too?

– Yes.

– Tell me about Asieh and Sari. I want to know everything about my family.

Shahrbanoo collected her hairs from her shoulder on her back and said: “The noises of Seyed Mousa’s grandchildren and the           happiness they had brought to that house could not force the lethargy of death to leave that house. The life was not as before and it had been eradicated like a frozen tree. Seyed Mousa did not do anything else except sitting in chamber and smoke opium. In the afternoons when he came home, he went directly to a corner and sat there praying. Hannaneh knew what I was doing in the basement. Once she followed me. I did not hinder her. I sat at the scaffold. She sat beside me and said: “Sadoon has prepared all these, hasn’t he?” I said: “Say nothing to Seyed.” She asked me what I was going to do. She said: “You want to leave?” For 20 years I had repeated to myself that I would leave someday. I would leave Seyed Mousa’s house. The life was nothing to me but leaving. My soul was full of this word. I did not know why. I only knew that I should go and I had nothing to do except that. I was so tired. I was tired of serving someone because of fear. I took one of the rugs and gave the ten others that I had woven to Sadoon to sell in the market  bazaar. That year everybody said that 10 carpets with 10×12 dimensions which have been woven by Jinns are being sold in Tehran market. They told that it could not be done by a woman and the colors could not be found anywhere. They told that the paints had been prepared from plants to which no body have any access. A foreign merchant had bought from another person the rugs four times the price Sadoon had sold. The day when Sadoon gave me the money I could then think that I never wanted Seyed Mousa and whenever he came to me, like the first day, I shuddered to see him and something had closed the way of my throat. Maybe it was for the same reason that Hannaneh and I were not like other rivals. Seyed Mousa was not the one for whom I fight with Hannaneh. Sadoon bought this house for me by that money. I kept some money as saving. One afternoon, I squatted beside the prayer carpet of Seyed Mostafa and I gazed at him. His eyes were sunken and his face was broken. Within two years after the death of Sari he had become old as much as 10 years. As he was playing with the prayer beads, he had frowned and was looking down. I didn’t say any word. But I thought that he could hear my farewell. I think that he knew I wanted to leave. The next morning, I left Seyed Mousa’s house with Sadoon. I didn’t give my address to anybody even to Hannaneh. Sadoon sometimes got some news from Farough about Seyed and Hannaneh. He said: “You were naughty that you did this. You don’t know what people say behind you. Seyed Mousa thinks that you had secret relations with someone.” At that time someone had told him that Shahrbanoo gets lost in the days. Then Asieh said: “Mohsen told it to the dad.” Seyed Mousa had doubted. If it wasn’t for Hannaneh, the things were going adversely. Nobody knew except Hannaneh that I went to the basement and wove rugs. She had told Seyed Mousa about that to exculpate my name from the shame of betrayal. He had shown the old man the scaffolds in the basement and had calmed him down. Seyed Mousa had told other people: “My second wife was infertile. She could not come along with Hannaneh and for this reason I divorced her.” It was five years that I have lived in Baharestan house. I taught carpet weaving to the women and I earned my life. If someone among them wanted to become literate, I would teach her to read and write. But those five years passed with worry. I knew that if Seyed Mousa was younger and he had not the sorrow of Sari’s death in his heart, he would certainly look for me and found me and behaved me badly. But it was unlikely to look for me considering his situation. But I was still worried. Whenever I went to the street, I thought that he was following me. I thought that as soon as I unveiled my face to take a fresh breath, I saw him standing in a corner looking at me and them he would come to me and twist my wrist and would take me to the house by force. One day Sadoon told me that Hannaneh had been sick for about two months. I didn’t think that she might die by that disease. But she died. She had asked Seyed Mostafa to find me and to give the two children of Sari to me. Seyed had said to Farough: “I wish God makes her to show herself and take the daughters. I don’t want to disrespect the will of a Muslim woman.” I wanted to go and take the daughters. Farough always said to Sadoon that Seyed Mousa is waiting for Shahrbanoo. One day about noon I went to Seyed Mostafa’s house despite the fact that I was afraid of him. I knocked at the door. There was no longer a woman in that house to call her. But Asieh came to the door and opened it. She was wearing a white sari. She had become a young four-shouldered woman. She was not even 10 years old, but his body was like 15-16 daughters. If you had a large body, you were forced to marry before you could enjoy your childhood, but if you were tiny and thin, you had a chance because they said that she cannot afford marriage yet. I thought that if Seyed Mousa agrees with Hannaneh’s will and lets the children to come to my house; I will not let Asieh marry very soon. I would let her go to school and become a great woman. I had read in the newspaper that a school had been opened for the girls. Sadoon sometimes brough me a newspaper and I read that for those women who came to me to learn carpet weaving. Sari was playing in the yard and Farough was accompanying her. When I found that Seyed Mousa was not home, my heart relaxed and my chest that was coming up and down like Sari came down. Asieh brought me a cup of tea. Farough took Sari in his arms and gave her to me. He said: “You have children in the last days of your life Lady Shahrbanoo.” I said: “Is that the last days of my life man? I don’t intend to die soon. I am only 35.” He said: “God bless Lady Hannaneh. She was not so old. She suddenly died. I wish a long life for you. Death informs no one.” He squatted beside me and whispered: “I told Sadoon that Lady Hannaneh was sick and that she was near to death. I thought that as soon as you heard the news, you would come to visit her.” What should I tell? Should I tell that I hadn’t received the news? Or should I tell that I had received the news but I had not believed that Hannaneh was near to death. I should tell the truth. I should tell that I was scared of thinking about looking at the eyes of Seyed Mousa. I should say that at that time I had accepted the risk of coming over there and tolerating those bitter looks and quibbles because of Hannaneh’s inheritance and I had smelled like a Hyena. I was busy with the girls until afternoon before Seyed Mousa came. We sat there in the yard and chatted. Asieh was a quiet and bashful girl but Sari was talky, tiny and quick. She did not sit quiet at all. She was very similar to her mother’s childhood. I bent my head and looked at her face and caressed her head. A power had returned to my hands that had revived me, a power which could be dedicated to fondling. How much empty I was, like a deep hole that I didn’t know when it had been excavated inside me and now it was open and was showing itself to me. Why didn’t I say anything? Like any other woman I wished to have a husband and a baby but destiny had failed to meet my wishes. Even those times when I lived in Seyed Mousa’s house, I did not believe that I had a husband, a man that I loved him. It is certainly enjoyable to have a husband and children but I was deprived from those pleasures and I am certain that the said hole had been excavated inside me as the result of such deprival. But now I had the chance to serve as a mother for those two girls though I was their stepmother. The only important thing was that those two girls revived me as a woman. The same kindness I had to Sari had come to me again. I always thought that such love was beyond my will and intention and that it was a gift granted by God to serve as a salve on my painful soul. Now, does it worth enough to take a risk coming here to take the two children if Seyed Mousa slaps me in the face and says: “Why did you escape? Had you asked me anything that I did not provide it for you?” I was concerned lest Seyed Mousa feels sorry and doesn’t let me to take the children with me. When she opened the door and stepped inside I felt so worried. He had become so much older. As you see his thin body, you think that he is taking his body with himself like a parasite. As soon as he saw me he got angry and went to his room and closed the door. I said to myself: “He will certainly not let me to take Asieh and Sari. He will die in this large house without his two grandchildren.” He may say to himself: “Hannaneh spoke in delirium when she was near to death.” It was stupid of me to come there. Why should he give his grandchildren to a woman who had left her husband and had escaped and nobody knew what she did and how she earned her life? When I saw those worried and scared eyes of that huge man who was watching me I found that I had been trapped. I could not breathe easily and I froze as if someone had given me a punch in the chest. Suddenly I found that Farough had cheated to bring me to the house of Seyed Mousa. I ran to the door but Farough reached it before me and closed my way. He cried: “Seyed Mousa! She wants to escape.”

Seyed Mousa shouted like a think hungry wolf and ran to the yard with bare feet. I didn’t understand what happened at first. Then, I felt a stroke at the back of my head which was very painful. I don’t remember anything until I found myself in the corner of basement of Seyed’s house. I gradually remembered what had happened to me. I hardly sat. I still felt dizzy. I opened my kerchief and touched my head. Coagulated blood had stuck my hairs. I tried to stand up. As I was trying to stand up I saw that malevolent phonograph between صندوق قدیمی حنانه و یک صندلی شکسته which had caused the death of my father. I touched it and it was interesting that it was not dusty. I said to myself: “He wanted to die but not to disclose the place of this damn phonograph? Why should he make me and himself miserable for the sake of this useless trumpet?”

When I stood up I was scared as I heard the voice of Seyed Mousa. He was standing behind me. I put my hand on my chest. I thought if I didn’t do so, my heart would move to my throat.

He said: “You were wearing ill-matched shoes when you came to this house.”

I turned to him. His eyes had sunk and an insane was waiting in his eyes for a tragic event.

He said: “You had no family and no home. Whatever you have is for the sake of Sadoon. I taught Sadoon to serve you. What would you be without me? Only a bondwoman in different houses.”

He took one step toward me. I immediately ran to the corridor that as long as I remembered had a small window to the basement and a door to the yard. He didn’t follow me. He was sure that I could not escape. He shouted: “Hadn’t I married you, your father would have defamed you…”