Their stories and the stories of Others

Persian
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Sometimes I get frustrated being sceptical about all the stories; but this is a truth. Those who survived just by secrecy and mistrust are for sure good storytellers. These people don't tell stories to impress us or to arouse our pity. These stories are told cuz they're a means of liberation, sometimes maybe the only lifeline. If little Setareh's mum doesn't tell the story of her drug addict husband, she may not walk comfortably in streets and live in her neighbourhood. The story of a drug addict husband can save her from perverted eyes, from harassment and from a dozens of other dangers. And maybe we never know if these stories are true or imaginary. Even if they are imaginary, as long as the teller and the listener believe them or are convinced of their existence, the stories are true.

If Maryam says that the two young men, accompanying her, are her brother and uncle, that someone stole their travel bag on the way, that they don't have any document, this is a true story; because Maryam believes it and if I believe it too, it becomes a truth. Because I am the only woman with whom she is in touch, Maryam asks me for money to buy sanitary pad; then she tells me she bought painkiller with the rest of the money. But what if later I realize she uses methadone? It's here that the line delineating the truth is lost. 

There are still other ‘what if’ questions. What if Maryam told her story till the end? What if others didn't suspect the truth of her story? What if Maryam didn't feel ill in the immigrant camp?
 

But sometimes the undefined truth will reveal itself to us, whether or not we believe it. Maybe it's because of this, that we cannot always believe our own stories. Someone might even question believing our story; and maybe it's then that the story changes. It is then that Maryam's story becomes the story of a drug addict girl who came from Iran to Afghanistan with two young men. We can't even know if Maryam is Afghan or not! We can't even know if she had a bag at first place to be stolen. We can't know what her relationship is to the two men accompanying her. We can’t even know if she has any identification card with her or any money for that matter. 

And so Maryam's story is only a bunch of unanswered questions. The complexity and bitterness of her story, forces Maryam to leave the camp. In truth, she is asked to leave because she believes in her story but others don't.

It is not possible to have the same understanding of two different stories or to have two standpoints to a common story. Others, who don't believe in Maryam's story, give credence to their own story: Maryam is lying. With clichéd and predefined reasons, the number of those who don't believe in Maryam's story, grows, but in my opinion, her story will not be believed because Maryam is a lonely woman; because she belongs to a class of society who has always been exploited, because this class has never spoken out and is easily condemnable; because Maryam is an immigrant and has never had any rights; she has always been downtrodden but has never ceased to believe in her own stories. 

Apart from all the predefined and clichéd convictions, how can we say that we don't believe in Maryam's story?