Persian
Four
months after the news of Khalegh’s death, Homeyra’s belly began to swell.
Khalegh had gone to Iraq to settle his father’s land. Azizeh said: “my child
had gone to to sort out his misfortune.” When I went to see Azizeh, she had
scratched all over her face; she rubbed her hands against each other. She said:
“my child was buried alone; those scoundrels killed him. They didn’t think that
he would go there to settle his father’s affairs.” She kept on cursing them;
she hit her chest with one hand and pointed at Homeyra with the other. Homeyra
was sitting on the stairs, hiding his henna-dyed toes under her black skirt
while crying. Ghasem had cut her forehead with a brick because of her swollen
belly. Homeyra is sitting on the stairs and her tears fall on her swollen
belly. She says, “ I’m still wearing black for Khalegh and they are accusing
me. They accuse me because they are afraid to support me. Azizeh,” she says, “
Khalegh should have taken me to Baghdad as well; he shouldn’t have left me with
two strangers. I belong neither to this part of the border nor to the
other.”
Azizeh left one morning. She told Ghasem and Abed that she goes to Ghom with some other women. They have come back but Azizeh hasn’t. When they inquire, the other women said that she was not with them from the beginning. Now Homeyra is sure that Azizeh has gone to Baghdad. “She has the right to go; what use do I have when her son is not here? She wanted to be there on the 40th day after his death. I’m afraid she’s dead on the way like uncle Ra’ad.” Ra’ad died on the border. He was returning to Baghdad to be hospitalized cause he couldn’t undergo chemo without residence permit and insurance, in this expensive situation.
Homeyra is sitting on the stairs, talks to me rapidly, cries and chews her nails, just like the days that she was sent from Iraq to live with her uncle Ra’ad and his wife, Azizeh; the days when she talked to me rapidly and pulled her hands out of my hands because I could only understand “ um”[1] from her words. I knew that her parents were killed in the war. Now eight years have passed from those days. Homeyra is sixteen; the war is over but Homeyra is wearing a bride’s gown and is married to her cousin, Khalegh. The war is over but Ra’ad is dead on the way back at the frontier. Khalegh has gone to Iraq instead of his uncle, to settle his father’s inheritance. The war is over but Azizeh’s heart was sore; she had told Ghasem and Abed that she’s going to Ghom but Homeyra is sure that she’s gone back to Iraq. The war is over but Homeyra doesn’t know if Azizeh arrived safely in Iran or died on the way like Ra’ad. Now it’s eight years after those days. Homeyra is sitting on the stairs and is talking rapidly. Suddenly she shuts her eyes, presses her eyelids together and puts her hand on her belly. My eyes catch her tears which fall on her belly. I ask her if her child is moving. She puts my hand on her belly. This time, unlike those days, she doesn’t pull her hands out of mine, cuz this time, I understand all her words except the meaning of “um” and her becoming a mother. The war is over but the sixteen-year-old Homeyra has become a mother. Homeyra belongs neither to this side of the border, nor to the other.
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