ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF PERSIAN LITERATURE PERSIAN-­‐LITERATURE.ORG THE BLIND DEER Shahriyar Mandanipur Father asks, “Are the tanks still in the street?” We ask, “Which tanks?” He yells, “The coup d’etat tanks…get going you imbeciles! Go and check what’s going on.” We go outside. Zarir laughs, and one shouldn’t laugh. Sons shouldn’t laugh at fathers, and Zarir laughs. He goes to the office, according to him, in order to file a thousand and one letters, and un-­‐file a thousand and one letters…the springs, the May of springs when the orange blossoms bloom. The sun is like a lion. It is like velvet, but only until the time when the red four o’clock flowers bloom. Until they bloom again, the jaundice of the winter passes from father’s face. He goes to the cellar and opens the fountain of the pool so that at sunset he can sit and stare at the silvery water, listening to all of its sounds. “Everything has departed with the wind, life is a day…so now what can we do about it? We weren’t thinking about that at all.” Zarir says, “There is no tank in the street, dad. All of the stores are open. People are walking on the sidewalks, shopping for clothes, bread…” 1
ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF PERSIAN LITERATURE PERSIAN-­‐LITERATURE.ORG Then, he says, so that we impassion father, let’s take the three wooden platforms out from the cellar, surround the courtyard pool, and spread the carpet out on them like before. Zarir hoses down the courtyard. I mix the green and white of the cucumber and yoghurt. I place the four plates of china left from our mother’s dowry on the tablecloth. The scent of the fresh sangak bread mixes with the scent of the stones of the water around us. Then we call father. “Father, come and have a late afternoon snack.” He comes up from the cellar. He is amazed at the courtyard. Father claps his hands and yells, “Zarir! Esfandiyar! Come here for dinner you rascals!” We sit on both sides of him. Zarir on his left, I on his right. Like him, legs crossed, with two open elbows, we bend our wrists on top of our knees. He likes it. “When you grow up you will be like me.” We say we want him to tell us a story from the Shahnameh, the famous Amir Arsalan… but mother speaks. Mother says, “These twins of yours will be the end of me with their mischief.” And she shows father the baby sparrows that had been stolen from their nest; Every four are dead, eaten by ants… Father says, “No, not your mischief; the yellow apricots, the color of the yellow four o’clocks that become red on one side from the sun, killed your mother. Be afraid of these, they suddenly cause vomiting and fever. Be afraid.” 2
ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF PERSIAN LITERATURE PERSIAN-­‐LITERATURE.ORG After drinking sekanjabin1 he says, “We’re thankful that we still have a house, that we’re together, and that we’re not hungry.” Zarir laughed hysterically. “How can you laugh when there are hundreds, maybe even thousands of youth like you under torture right now in the “Shah’s garden”?2 I’m sure all of them are at fault for Zarir’s laughs.” “That’s enough dad!” shouts Zarir. “What do you want us to do? I mean, you named us after Shahnameh heroes so that we could become what? We haven’t become anything. We haven’t been able to position ourselves anywhere. This thirty-­‐five year old big oaf…” But I should go on the sidewalk and sit behind the door. If a car were to stop in front of the house or some people came around the side of our house, I would knock four times. The street is dark, from its depth comes the sound of a cry. The shadows of those who used to be father’s friends come one by one. They always walk close to the walls, they come alone, and they come quickly. They can’t be mistaken for any other. If they were to say, how are you little naughty one, they wouldn’t be mistaken for others. They come in the house. I am consequential. If I knock four times all of them run away from the roof. Father asks, “Last night, which one of you was in the courtyard?” Zarir is confused, “You didn’t see anyone, did you?” 1
"sekanjebin" [serkeh angabin] is a syrup made with sugar and vinegar and flavored with spearmint. It is mixed
with cold water and served as a refreshing summer beverage.
2
"Bagh-e Shah" was an army barracks to which the government took large numbers of political dissidents,
especially after the fall of Mosaddeq.
3
ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF PERSIAN LITERATURE PERSIAN-­‐LITERATURE.ORG “Yes, I did.” “You were imagining it, dad. Instead of talking like this, go and maybe now after the revolution, they will take care of your retirement salary.” I am his Esfandiyar. I turn my face because I cannot bear preparing myself to see the tear drop in the corner of my father’s eye. All night I can’t sleep…all night father’s panjdari3 light is on. He periodically comes from behind the curtains. He is awake, sitting by the bed of the sick one. The sparrows are asleep in an old orange tree. If anyone passes under the orange tree they get scared and fly away. Father also, would bellow, in the middle of the night, throwing whatever was in his hands at the door. “What happened, dad? Say something.” These days one corner of his mouth droops, or not, it is possible one of his lips scrunches to one side. I don’t know for sure, I don’t like to look at him. Zarir, rapidly turns the pages of a recently published book in front of him. “Look, dad! It was thirty-­‐four years ago. Those days, in…in…the textbooks they used to write that it was an uprising of the shah and the people. And we would memorize it and respond like parrots. Now that the revolution happened we know it was a coup d’etat. It was thirty-­‐four years ago.” Father is not someone who holds a grudge. He has always liked everyone in every place to talk with us. When he spoke his nice teeth would shine. 3
A large room with five windows, typically elevated and flanked by a balcony.
4
ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF PERSIAN LITERATURE PERSIAN-­‐LITERATURE.ORG We say, “Talk about uncle.” He flicks Zarir’s knee and says, “This rascal has become like your uncle. Your uncle is a skilled horseback rider and he doesn’t miss a shot. One sunset he shoots a deer in the fields and when he stabs her he goes above the deer’s head, his eyes meeting the deer’s eyes, her massive legs languishing. He kneels down. The look of the deer was like the look of a virtuous woman was left in the body of a deer. Your uncle saw a teardrop fall from the deer’s eye. He saw that a fawn stood further away and wasn’t going away. He brought the fawn home, but every time the little animal would see your uncle, it would shed that very tear in its eyes. Because of this he brought it to our house, for you two fawns and your mother who at the peak of her fever was crying for you. In the mornings, father sits in his panjdari, reading his newspapers. I also like reading those newspapers whose sheets had gotten yellow and brittle. I sit, waiting for one of the ones father throws on the floor, pick it up, and read it. Every piece of news he reads is important, because of that, I read it. Zarir doesn’t understand. He grumbled, “That’s it. I’m setting these old papers on fire. I swear on mother’s grave right in the middle of this courtyard…” I bring father’s lunch. I open the spout of the underground pool and sit facing him. The nocturnal insomniacs fall asleep at the foot of the tablecloth. I listen to the sounds of the water. The water has a thousand and one sounds. A thousand and one laughs, a thousand and one cries…Then, at three in the afternoon, Zarir comes home from the office. I spread the tablecloth out in his room. He hasn’t yet eaten a bite when he says, “I want to get a wife. I can’t bring her to this house. With this dad, with you…I need to separate from you.” 5
ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF PERSIAN LITERATURE PERSIAN-­‐LITERATURE.ORG “Is your woman beautiful?” “Nobody would give a pretty angel to an underdog file clerk. I looked everywhere to get a working woman. Her salary for the rent, and my salary for a living substinence…you get it?” I say, “I understand, eat, it will get cold and unappetizing.” He pushes his plate away. “Do you get it?” I say, “If you had kept your dragonflies you could have given them to your kids. One plump little boy, we will name him…” He yells, “You don’t get it, you miserable wretch. If I’m to leave I can’t manage taking care of you and dad. Think of getting a job!” I leave his room. The red four o’clock flowers, when the sun was there they would close, how yellow they were, how red. They had life. Father would take the black seeds from the bottom of the dried flowers for the following year and say, “This here is misfortune that you see. Four o’clock flowers always grow from four o’clock flowers, and wheat from wheat.” Zarir says, “Tell us about all of uncle’s adventures.” “The year before last when the Kazakhs swarmed into the coup d’etat of Tehran, a group of them happened to come across your uncle in the middle of the night. They had gotten lost and had asked for the way to the telegraph office. Your uncle had led them to the cemetery, had said they were all sleeping and got away. The Kazakhs start shooting at everything in the cemetery, a few of their horses get their legs broken there. Then they looked for him. If 6
ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF PERSIAN LITERATURE PERSIAN-­‐LITERATURE.ORG they could catch him, they would hang him. But where was your uncle? Who could ever catch him? He went to the mountains. He had become a rebel.” Zarir winks at me and says, “If the Kazakhs had been caught in my net, I would have taken them to the cemetery. But the thing is, dad, that those unfortunate fellows have been laid up in the cemetery for years now.” Modern stoves are lit in the corner of the courtyard, near the cellar that was full of firewood. Two big pots were on top of them. The scent of rice and saffron was in the air. At the foot of the orange tree, Blood seeps into the ground to provide nutrition for the tree next year. Before now, the religious Day of Sacrifices, lamb was quartered, its ankles and skin hanging from the hook of the orange tree…On one side is its hoof, the green of the grass still on it. On another side, it is like a white shell, white and glossy. Father yells, “The Kazakhs, there were no more than three, four thousand. The youth were a thousand times more than them-­‐-­‐Cowards! Cowards!” Zarir says, “I’m going to go mad in this blasted house.” Father says, “We need to buy some locks for the doors. You’re not at all in your right mind. The lambskin falls near the stoop of the house. The butcher cleans his bloody knife with the white wool and puts it back into its case on his belt. Mother comes down the stairs from the living room in a good mood. Her satin frock, her satin hands, the clinking of her gold bracelets, like the chirping of a yellow canary…The air is sweet as if has become like the cooked sweet rice inside of one of the pots. I look for the fawn. I don’t see it. I am certain that all of it is from the sin of dismembering that lamb. 7
ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF PERSIAN LITERATURE PERSIAN-­‐LITERATURE.ORG Zarir says, “That fawn you keep talking about, I don’t remember it at all. When was it? How did it happen?” Father ignores him. He goes and peeks into the cellar empty of firewood. I should go to the alleys, the dark alleys where there are tall windowless walls on both sides. I pass the awnings that always flash two yellow eyes from underneath them. It is heavy, this bundle that father has entrusted in me. For me it is heavy. Alleys have a way about them, all of it is getting lost. I would like it if there were lights in every place, there are not, only sometimes, one yellow light, one place. From that which becomes far my shadow becomes long and I see my head get grinded on the stones. You can’t throw father’s bundle at an entryway and then run away. This is the way I go and all of a sudden one hand pulls my collar from behind. “How are you, little naughty one? My hand comes to my face. I passed on the bundle. I tread on two. Behind my head, at the end of the alley comes the sound of a cat’s claws on stones…After that, as in right now, father is staring at the four o’clock flowers in the courtyard. The four o’clock s, full of buds, were blossoming, half in the shade of the orange tree, half in the sun. Behind her head, toothless chatty elderly women are sitting near the kitchen and taking the sour grapes off the stems. Mother pulls up her skirt. Wrinkled, hennaed hands are submerged in the clusters of sour grapes and each pair picks up a cluster. Wrinkled lips laugh. Hands pour green sour grapes in the blue ceramic pan. Mother’s knees bend. Her white legs go up and down in the pan. The sound of squashing the beads full of sour grape juice rises from the soles of her feet. Shif shif…shif shif…As if someone is rhythmically scratching a 8
ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF PERSIAN LITERATURE PERSIAN-­‐LITERATURE.ORG tambourine…shif shif…The rising and falling of mother’s legs gets faster. The berries are bursting, bursting and the sour grape juice gushes out, down mother’s legs. Mother’s hair bounces up and down above her shoulders, up and down, like the flapping of a pigeon. The old women lift fistfuls of the sour grape juice into the basin. They push in the saucepan. The greens gush out between their fingers. Mother gets hotter. The shiny beads are sweating to her eyebrows and sticking them together. She puts her weight on one leg and then the other. She puts her hands on her sides and as if she were dancing…at sunset the bottles are filled with juice and are arranged by the wall. Mother puts salt on her legs and sits near the old women. Relaxed, she drinks her tea. I say to father, “I’m not afraid. At night, I have the guts to stay awake until morning.” His eyes were hollow. One side of his mouth droops down. I say, “Zarir wants to leave us and go.” “I know. What can I do? One becomes lonely and says this is the end, he becomes more lonely and he says this is the end, and again…" The electricity cuts out. The darkness takes the house. I take my father’s hand. I go down the stairs. In the courtyard, Zarir turns on battery-­‐powered radio. The siren of an airstrike is like the siren of an ambulance. Zarir goes to the cellar. Father is looking upward in the middle of the courtyard. Zarir yells, “Come down! The bomb is not a joke.” Father pushes me so that I wasn’t near him. The sound of the explosion increases and the ground shakes. The glass and little doors shake and the sparrows fly away. The wave of the explosion comes from above our house. Father shakes his fist at the sky, “Bastards! This isn’t Berlin!” 9
ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF PERSIAN LITERATURE PERSIAN-­‐LITERATURE.ORG The rest of his words get lost in the second explosion. Zarir yells from the cellar, “These are Iraqis, dad.” Father, like an epileptic, shakes his hands and hollers, “Ah, why? Aaah…” I yell, “What sickness has overcome you?” He falls to his knees. Zarir shouts, “They are Iraqi. It’s an Iraqi bomb. Do you understand old man?” I look up at the sky and I am afraid. The stars may not be stars and they may fall upon our home. The shells of the airstrike defense bullets, one by one, extinguish in the middle of the road. They never reach the stars. I take my father from under his arms. “Get up.” He looks to his knees and at the sky. He shakes and his teeth have locked. Zarir come up from the cellar. “He better not have a heart attack.” The lights come on and father snarls through his teeth, “They want us to fall to our knees.” Zarir says, “They dropped a couple of bombs and proclamations on your heads, and you surrendered." Foam is oozing out of Father's mouth. He says, "They are coming… Zarir yells, “Are you role-­‐playing? And what happened to that fawn by the way…if it actually existed?” 10
ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF PERSIAN LITERATURE PERSIAN-­‐LITERATURE.ORG “The hungry ones took her away. They took her to a place where they filled their bellies with her.” He lurches over to Zarir and takes him by the collar. “You’ve always been like this. Who had ever wanted you? Who said you would ever be Esfandiyar’s match? You’re a disaster.” Zarir said, “Go ahead, say it again.” Father’s knees are bent, and he is hanging off Zarir’s neck. From the corner of the courtyard comes the sound of clinking bracelets. I take him to his bed. The sound of the ambulance sirens comes from the street. They are carrying those who died from the bombs. Soon after, come the sound of a backhoe and truck. They quickly go and collect the damage and rubble. All of it is the fault of those bundles that I had taken to the alleys at night. “They sewed his lips shut. With needle and thread, his lips…” The May of springtime is the month of dragonflies. Blue and red dragonflies fly onto the pool. They flirt in the air. Every year Zarir takes some of them and puts them on the wall with pins. Their blue flies away. Their red flies away. Their glassy wings shake, their thousands of seeing eyes become tattered. Zarir changes them year after year. We are sitting on the bed, Zarir on the left and I on his right. The breakfast table has not been cleaned up yet. “They aren’t buying our oil? To hell with them! We’ll survive on bread alone. Are you man enough for it?” 11
ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF PERSIAN LITERATURE PERSIAN-­‐LITERATURE.ORG The dragonflies are flying over our heads. Zarir clasps both hands. I hear the sound of the flapping wings in the cage of Zarir’s hands. “I got them, dad. I got them.” “Now you can kill them or let them go.” Zarir ran up the stone steps so that he could get to his room. My father put his hands on my shoulders. “If it were you, you would have let them go.” In the middle of the night I heard the “hey, help!” cry of my father. It seems to me like I am dreaming. I think it has been awhile since I have not dreamed a good dream. I hear my father’s voice again. It has lasted so long that I realize it isn’t a dream. I run to his room and turn on the light. He has gripped Zarir’s hands, shaking him. Beads of his sweat spatter on my face. Father yells, “What did he do?” “Leave me alone! You’ve gone mad.” He frees himself from father’s hands. He says to me furiously, “I came in the room because of the noise and he grabbed me by the collar…He’s totally become unscrewed.” He leaves. Father tells me to search everywhere in the room to find the knife that Zarir had had. He crouches up in the corner of the room. I search. 12
ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF PERSIAN LITERATURE PERSIAN-­‐LITERATURE.ORG “And you? Are you with him too?” Father also cries at the funerals. We hear the sounds of the wailing from the street. We go to the front of the door and sit down. The funeral procession of our war martyrs occurs at the front of the house. They come every Thursday. They come quietly from the end of the street. I hear the cymbals. They have wrapped flags around the caskets. I hear the sound of the wailing, some of the soldiers gripping the banners. The green of the orange leaves, the red of the four o’clocks…Father, with damp eyes, disheveled hair, and trembling hands, stares at the men beating their chests and at the women crying. The street opens so that the caravan can pass and the coming and goings of the cars begin. “How many were there today? “Fourteen.” “The Arabs better not step a foot here in this country. Zarir didn’t come home last night?” “He didn’t come.” His mouth comes near my ears. “They have always opened the gates of our castles from the inside.” He gets up and goes inside. He has a long bent stature in the silvery waves of the pool. The house has become desolate without Zarir. We sit and read our newspapers. However, our ears are set at the door of the courtyard for when it opens with a groan and Zarir comes and yells near the pool, “Hey, where are you all?” We don’t know how it became nighttime, at night we didn’t have anything to eat for dinner. Father says lunch was heavy and he has 13
ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF PERSIAN LITERATURE PERSIAN-­‐LITERATURE.ORG no desire to eat dinner. I don’t remember having eaten anything for lunch. If Zarir doesn’t come tomorrow I have to take the four o’clock flower candlesticks that are in his room and sell them. But I don’t know how I would do it. I wouldn’t do it; just as I wouldn’t sell the bundle of dried red four o’clocks. These days, sometimes father goes to the roof and looks around the city. He waits to see the smoke from the fires. He says, “They set the fires at the beginning of the city until it gets to the end of it. Fire brings the people out of their homes, and then they kill everyone in the alleys.” The nights when there is no moon there is no distinction between shadows. Father says, “Zarir blinded a baby deer. He is an evil child. He only wants to stop life. Where is he now?” “I don’t know. Somewhere around here.” “They train hawks to get their food from the eyes of deer. When they are young they put meat in the eyes of a stuffed deer. They get it used to using his beak and eating like that. When he grows up they take him hunting in the desert. So that the deer would see, he dives for the eyes, blinding him…the blind deer…do you get it?” I get it. This is why the month of October is the month of bitterness. The leaves of the orange tree lose their glittering shine. They become dark. The moisture of the rain remains underneath the pavement of the bricks of the courtyard, getting green. If there were no clouds it could have been better. At nights I huddle near the kerosene heater with father. We turn down the wick of the heater as much as possible to use less kerosene. Sneezing, we wrap the blanket around us and listen to the courtyard. The sound of something crashing comes from the courtyard. It isn’t the sound of making grape juice, but it sounds like it. 14
ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF PERSIAN LITERATURE PERSIAN-­‐LITERATURE.ORG Your mother has invited the women of the family. I take you to the cinema which has put on the new Charlie Chaplin movie. We laugh a lot. I take the edge of the blanket higher up to my mouth so that the warm air from my breathing is not wasted. “Your fever has gone up quite a bit.” His dark eyes are staring at the door. “It rains on the heads, hair gets wet.” The door opens. Mother comes in with a porcelain bowl that has red flowers. Steam rises from the bowl. “All of you need to eat. When you get up tomorrow the illness will have gone.” I can’t do it. I know that I can’t sell mother’s wedding mirror. I am sure that Zarir will come by the end of the week. There are still the funeral processions. Father and I still sit in front of the door of the house. Father says, “How are we going to drink water after this. How could we enjoy quenching our thirst after all this? Why wouldn’t the waters of the world dry up when they were killed?” And he does not drink water any more. I insistently put the rim of the glass between the layers of his torn lips. He spits and turns his head away…the sound of shots firing come from the street into the house. From the street. The sound of shots firing shouldn’t be coming in the house. The sounds of honking horns should be coming in, the sounds of selling beans, the sounds of children crying who wanted toys. 15
ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF PERSIAN LITERATURE PERSIAN-­‐LITERATURE.ORG “Dad, they kicked me out of high school today.” “That’s okay. What’s wrong with that? Knowing less is better. You’re better off…” “Was it seven kilograms or seventy? Do you remember when I told you?” Now we have no money to use the coupons to buy goods.4 I sell our coupons and buy bread. I say, “It’s snowing.” The old woman clad in black laughs. Her toothless mouth is red. Then she points to the door of the courtyard. I know what she means. All of the comings, goings, no-­‐shows, all of the misfortunes of no news is from this very door of the courtyard. Near the pool there was something that was covered with snow. Perhaps it was someone crouching down with snow on top of him. A hunter in the mountain who didn’t come down and was frozen stiff. “Has Zarir not come back yet from the office?” “No.” “Okay, he has other business too, doesn’t he?” “Yes, but wherever he is, he would come by this afternoon.” “When he comes we need to talk to him, and tell him to think about himself a little.” “Yes, he should take care of himself.” “Is it still snowing?” 4
Coupons were used during the Iran-Iraq war for rationing necessities. Since they were subsidized, it
meant that you could only buy a certain amount.
16
ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF PERSIAN LITERATURE PERSIAN-­‐LITERATURE.ORG “It’s still snowing.” It snows until nighttime. I sit on the stone steps outside father’s room with a blanket around me. I listen to the sound of the snow. The snow has a thousand and one sounds. I know that I can’t sell father’s shotgun. We need it these nights. The moonlight glows from the snow. The icy grains have become like sprinkled silvery powder shining everywhere. I want to go sleep. I get sleepy and then I get very sleepy. I close my eyes and I read the news in my mind. It is possible to post the news written in the large headlines on the wall of the room. They are like the wingless dragonflies that cannot move, having no eyes to fall. “Did you see? Didn’t I say so?! I’m saying there is no safety anywhere. You don’t believe me. They have even killed people in Qom . Now, tonight, the fathers whose young sons have been killed…” We see that a casket has been placed near the garden. The elderly women clad in black are standing in line at the end of the courtyard. They are waiting. Once in awhile the whiteness of a snowflake rests on their clothes, immediately turning into water. I say, Mother…no one answers me. I say, Zarir, but no one answers. I see several footprints in the snow. I yell, “Who is lying in the casket? Where is mother? Where has she gone?” Nobody answers me. I throw the blanket and I run to my father’s room. He is sitting next to the window. A serrated grunt is coming from his throat. On one side of him the heater is burning in high flames…I see an iron rod in his hand. I scream, “What did you do? What?” 17
ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF PERSIAN LITERATURE PERSIAN-­‐LITERATURE.ORG I don’t understand from what is the redness of the rod. He raises his head. His eyelids are compressed. He laughs painfully. I kneel before him. His head is trembling. His teeth are grinding. The rod falls from his hand. “What did you do?” His eyelashes are burnt. The bloody fluid from his eyes is gushing out. He laughs gruntingly and grunts laughingly. “They are no match for me.” He yells and tightly presses his eyelids shut. “What should I do father? What?” “Shut up! It’s done. Shut up!” “I’m afraid.” He shouts, “It’s done…say it! Say one thing. Be a man and say one thing.” The trembling of his head lessens. He brings his face close to my face and groans, “Say it! Say it faster!” “Until…until…you come in the late nights…until you come, Zarir and I will watch the door…sometimes. We are afraid. Sounds come from the cellars. Someone sneaks a peek from the roof. Yesterday you took me and Zarir to the cemetery…not yesterday, the day before yesterday…you went far away and didn’t see what that magician was doing. There was no one and it was raining. There was no one to watch him and his whole stall had gotten wet. A basket that had a two-­‐headed snake in it had gotten wet. He ate a paper 18
ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF PERSIAN LITERATURE PERSIAN-­‐LITERATURE.ORG bullet…for Zarir and me, from here to Tehran, he pulled out a paper chain from his mouth. I wished that you saw it too…we knew that you left to someone’s grave.” “Say it! Say something! Hurry…where are you?” Gropingly his big hand grabs my head. “Will you ever leave me by myself?” “Never.” “You’re my true son. I leave the house in your name. Everything I have.” “Yes, I am… always am” “They can’t anymore…” He yells again. His fingers puncture my head. Smoke comes from the heater. The room has become full of chains of smoke. “What…?” “Don’t speak. Don’t tremble. Don’t wail. Don’t tremble. Sit tight.” But I have never cried. “Your eyes…” Trembling, he laughs, “I had my hands on them.” The electricity cuts out. 19
ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF PERSIAN LITERATURE PERSIAN-­‐LITERATURE.ORG “What other plague do they want to scare me with?” The moonlight has fallen on father. I look at his pale lips, I am afraid and don’t want to look. I say, “All of the misfortunes came when…tell me a story, father…” The baby deer shuffles around on the snow in the courtyard and the bright dragonflies spin around his head…father doesn’t know and now I am sure that all of the misfortunes come when mother is no longer. Translated by Somy Kim 20