recovered 2

Shahla looked at the vase on the table without saying anything for a while.
All Dad's fault. Keyvan's as well, who so adoringly wanted to follow in Dad's footsteps. They had dreams enough for their next fifty years. Emperors of paper palaces with plaster servants! That was why a little gust of wind peed down all those almighty majesties, and reduced them to nothing. Every single one of them has been thrown onto a rubbish tip in some corner of the world, and we've been following around after them ever since!
She took her cup of coffee, gulped and leaned back again in the armchair; "Our role was to guard the castles and the ramparts of thousands of years of masters."
She touched the warm cup with her palms.
- "... at the beginning I really hated myself for accepting everything like a lamb and coming out here with Keyvan. But now I think that was the one wise decision I made in my life. For a long time, even when I wanted to sign my own name, I expected someone to guide my hand... To hell with that life!... Leave me alone... I don't even want to think of it."
They were both wondering what to say. It was Shahla who broke the irritable silence again.
- "That's sweet".
Shirin looked at Shahla and the vase on the table. It took a while for her to get her self together. She almost mumbled: "That stupid piece? Ehsan liked it."
- "Why do you put the sad side to the wall?"
I looked at her ready to apologize if she was hurt.
"I hadn't thought about it…" she said first. Then she read my face change to mischievous disbelief. Her eyes hung on a vague area out of the window and a small noise came from her throat:
- "I don't like the other side."
- "Mum, can we take the rabbit out of the cage?"
Shirin looked impatiently at Roozbeh, who was standing at the door.
- "No my son, it's going to run away..."
- "No, we'll look after it, promise... "
- "You'll hurt the poor creature..."
- "No, we won't. Pegah wants to pet it, only one minute Mum, please ..."
- "Only a few minutes. Be careful".
Roozbeh was almost in the yard when he said, "all right Mum". Shirin was still looking at the doorstep where Roozbeh had been, with a sad shadow of an expression; "He is not saying anything about Ehsan but I understand that he keeps every thing in his heart, just like his father. They were very close to each other. He knows how to steal people's hearts".
I didn't understand why her eyes gleamed for a while, until she hadn't said about a trip to Iran; "...I may take the children to Iran for a month or so."
She possibly thought with her talking about Roozbeh and Iran, my mind would be drawn to somewhere else! To her old lover maybe! She looked directly into my eyes, saying: "Mum misses them very much. They miss her as well ..."
She paused for a while. She was not sure if I still remembered her old relationship or not.I directed my gaze elsewhere. She seemed so fragile! No need to tell her that I remember every thing... that she always loved Roozbeh ... hes' a boy and a fruit of love! I think she said something like: "... Maryam has become a little distant..."
And she looked at me, as if needing sympathy.
When you were pregnant with Maryam, you had the name chosen already: Babak! You asked me to buy the book about "Babak and the Khoramdins" for you, to find out who Babak was and what he had done. Two hours after you had given birth, you opened your eyes, questioningly, anxiously... I said, it's a girl. You closed your eyes to not let me to read the disappointment. But the wrinkles on your nose reminded me of the second day after that Nowrooz, when we were in ninth class. All our family and relatives were gathered in our big hall for lunch. Mir, the steward came in announcing that the cow had given birth. " To what?" aunty asked joyfully. When Mir answered, a female, then wrinkles appeared on her nose, her lips went up and we all heard her say, a bad omen!
Shirin saw the smile on my lips and she again thought I was laughing at her.
After the lunch, under the weeping willow by the river, you retorted angrily that you hoped to give birth to twelve daughters, one after another until the relatives' eyes popped out onto their cheeks! We were still schoolgirls, Miss Davis's pupils. Then when Ehsan appeared in your life, you donated your notebook of Miss Davis's aphorisms to me and left your grand plans of education and activities in our little maid's room. I have often thought, that had I not been left alone after you married, as we are again these days, I would never have accepted Keyvan as a husband.
She gazed at her sister's face in pity. Shirin's eyes were following the movements of the trees and birds out the window. She put her long finger's top on the edge of her coffee cup.
You are still so beautiful, but suddenly alone. That tree was the only glory of your life. You were happy and settled in its shadow for years, looking out on the world as a green vision, through the leaves and the long branches you drew around it. And now, suddenly naked and shadowless, under this all so sudden rain and hail, you believe you have been barred from your chances to know yourself and reach somewhere.
She noticed Shirin's make up, as she had on several occasions during the last few days.
Even at home you don't forget your makeup. You look like fractured porcelain. An aching for warmth; a naked love calling out from under that tired skin. What we've been deprived of, convinced us that it's all so sinful.
She gulped deeply, filling her lungs, letting out the burnt air in a sigh. I looked at her listless eyes. I'd seen this woman somewhere. She hadn't asked once about my life during the last 2 days; "How's your job? You wanted to transfer to another hospital, didn't you?"
- "No, it's not that easy. They shifted me to another department a couple of months ago. I'm not involved with elderly or handicapped patients any more. It was really tiring. I'm better now. It's difficult to get a job, you know, especially when you are not educated in Germany. I was lucky. This hospital is close to where I live and the people are nice."
- "What happened to that, about-to-become-a-doctor?!"
Shahla was expecting the question. Nevertheless, she felt the blood rushing to her face. She forced a smile; "Wolfgang, is that right?" Shirin asked.
Shahla, back in control, nodded.
- "What an odd ugly name!"
She thought she had annoyed me and apologized with a trite laugh.
Shahla smiled, trying to give the impression that she had nothing against talking about him; "He's still around. I see him almost every day... at work."
She was still thinking that I'm annoyed and tried to comfort me. She wanted to show me that she is still confident of herself. Like she did in her school days, she changed her voice, and smiled: "Is he still asking? ..." she giggled mischievously.
I was happy that she is finally smiling and seemed a bit happy.
- "In a way," I answered. "He wanted to come with us... he may call at some point..."
With the same voice, and smiling, she continued: "Then, there must be progress!"
Her laugh was like a big man's laugh has suddenly fallen in front of some children.
- "... you little sneak, you didn't tell me. When is the wedding ceremony?"
That was too much. I said: "No, it hasn't gone that far... "
She paused for a while.
- "... I don't know. Pegah gets on really well with him, ... but somehow I'm not sure ..."
A pang of fear moved inside her; she wanted to show sympathy: "Sometimes I think loneliness, with all it's problems is much better."
An abrupt laugh drew two small wrinkles in the corners of Shahla's eyes.
- "No, it's not loneliness. I haven't felt loneliness since the divorce; it's been three years now."
I thought, I'm lying; "... yes, some evenings when Pegah goes to bed early and I don't feel like reading or watching TV, then I feel some kind of ... nostalgia. But when I think about all the disasters during those last 2 years - the hell that it was before we got divorced - then I feel quite content. No, that's actually not what makes me uncertain."
- "Is Pegah the problem?"
She wanted to find something in common.
- "That's the most important part of it. If they should fall out one day..."
She looked at me up and down, victoriously!
- "Then you advise me to jump into the situation, to not be afraid of living..."
- "Well," I said. "I come from the same area you come from, my dear sister. But..."
The worry of breaking her temporary happiness, stopped me from arguing. Shirin considered my silence as acceptance: "I think it's really hard to live with these people. One should be well armored. Every time I talk to one of them, I get confused and nervous... they fall heavily into your life... delving and pressing you to reveal everything..."
Shahla didn't hear her any more. She stared in amazement at Shirin's face; Shahram is right. How you look like Mum, a cat in a lion's coat. I wish I could rest my head on your knee and have your kind fingers stroke my hair. When I'm far from you, I miss you so much. Stop being so hard with yourself, for God's sake! We are thirty-seven now.
As if looking in the mirror, she examined the corners of Shirin's eyes and forehead. The softness of skin and the wrinkle lines were quite familiar.
My dear sister, the strong one is always alone. For once come out and see that it's not shameful to be a cat.
As if I had spoken aloud, she said: "... Sometimes I think that for the last thirty-seven years I've been wrong. Poor children, trapped between us and them ..."
- "... People think a lion doesn't need to be caressed."
Shirin looked at me curiously: "What?"
Shahla shifted position in the chair. She seemed like she wanted to say something she had kept silent about for years: "Whatever the past was, it's over now."
- "Mum, come here a minute."
She half saw Pegah.
- "What is it now?"
- "Please come."
- "Where? Can't you let me be for a while?"
- "I want to show you something."
As Shahla was standing up and walking along the deck, Pegah was excitedly, babbling about many different things at once. The slide, the Lego, the playroom, full of elastic balls that children could roll on...
- "Be careful to not get lost. Anyway, I'm not in the mood today. Let's for once get home without any getting upset, ok?"
Last year, when they visited Denmark for Ehsan's funeral, Pegah got herself lost at the station, the moment they arrived. After a frantic two-day search, they found her together with Danish, a boy in a room in an old building. Oblivious to the disasters that her mother, aunt and others had been through in searching for her, she excitedly explained everything. About how Søren was stealing crisps and chocolates from supermarkets, how she had tidied up all the mess in his room, how many chewing gum packets she had collected, how many chocolates she had eaten, how much they had laughed in those days ...
- "Didn't you think your mother, others and I would be worried?"
- "Yes, swear to God I did, Aunt Shirin. But I was sure that Mum would find me".
Shahla looked at Pegah who was still talking, smiled, and patted her hair. Pegah pushed back her mother's hand, angrily.
- "Stop it mum; I'm talking to you".
- Sorry, I'm sorry".
To be continued