My Bird

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29 12 I tell Amir, “I am not leaving this place.” ”When I leave, you will be leaving with me, and when you come, you’ll be thankful because I have saved you from this place.” His voice is gradually growing louder. As if he is addressing ten people. “Nothing improves by staying.” “Calm down.” I point to the children. He says quietly, “You’ll stay here and rot. There is no future here for you, neither for you nor for the kids. Do you understand?” I realize that today Amir is planning to do something about our future. “You’ll travel for the rest of your life. You should thank God that I am providing this opportunity for you, the possibility of traveling, experiencing life, seeing the world, living.” Amir comes closer and, as if he wants to say something private, he becomes more quiet and intimate. “I say this for your own sake. Maybe when you are there, you won’t even love me anymore. You may want to go your own way.” Snapping his fingers, “You’ll start a different life.” When the future is in Amir’s hand, it can take any shape. “What keeps you here? What attachment? Shahla?” 30 | Fariba Vafi Amir knows that although my last name and Shahla’s are the same and that Father and Maman are our parents, we have nothing in common. Shahla is fat with a very beautiful nose. Her eyes are like hazelnuts, round and dark, and her double chin is the first thing you see. Everybody says Shahla takes after Maman. I am bony and I have inherited Father’s nose, which is always the topic of conversation. “Wouldn’t it be better to have plastic surgery?” I’ll do it if I have the money one day. But before that day, I have to do a thousand other things with the money. Shahla is the master of giving advice. “Before your surgery you should buy a few dresses for yourself and get rid of your clothes. They look like they’re from the ancient Sassanian dynasty.” Amir says, “It’s this kind of behavior that makes me call you a polar bear. You are afraid of change. You are afraid of moving. You like to stay put. You think the world remains the way you want. Anyhow, is this any good? Answer me. Is it what you want? You’re so withdrawn into your own life that you have forgotten there is another way to live. This is not life you’re living.” Where was I the day Amir started thinking about a different kind of life? “Even Mahin who was your mother’s one and only darling , and dependent on her, cut loose and left. But you!” Amir knows well that I am not attached to Maman. It doesn’t bother me not to see her for days. But he doesn’t know that I always think about her. He doesn’t know that I M Y B I R D | 31 can’t stop thinking about her. He doesn’t know that Maman is like a mystery to me. I ask her, “Tell me about Vitamin.” The orange that Maman is eating is perhaps sour enough to make her pucker. She says, surprised, “The vitamins in the orange?” “No, Father’s Vitamin.” I have caught her off guard. She knows well that I don’t want to hear about lice, dandruff, and a thousand other incurable diseases. About the water that was brought from far away, and cold nights, and the fire that was impossible to start in the wood stove. She knows that I have no interest in remembering dirty baths and unpaved dusty roads, or the few and far between cars in the streets of those days. “Bless your heart. I don’t even remember what I ate yesterday . You want me to open a grave?” I want to say that inside me the graves are still open. I haven’t covered them over with dirt yet. The dead are lying with their eyes open. Maman must talk. Otherwise, how can I find out why she didn’t go downstairs that night? Why did she lie down like a corpse with her eyes wide open and remained still for hours in the dark? Aunt Mahboub says, “I married Jafar only to be able to wear lipstick.” Jafar was her...