At this point the door opened and a servant, who held the corner of her chador between her teeth, brought a large sealed letter, gave it to Homayoun, and left. Homayoun recognized Bahram’s short, irregular handwriting on the envelope, opened it with haste, pulled out a letter and read:
Now, at 1:30 in the morning on the thirteenth day of Mehr 1311,* I, Bahram Mirza Arjanpour, of my own free will and preference am bequeathing all my possessions to Miss Homa Mahafarid.
Bahram Arjanpour
Astonished, Homayoun reread the letter and then, in a state of amazement, let it slip through his hand.
Badri, who was watching him out of the corner of her eye, asked, “Who is the letter from?”
“Bahram.”
“What does he say?”
“Do you know that he has given all his possessions to Homa?”
“What a fine man!”
This expression of surprise mixed with affability made Bahram even more disgusted with his wife. But involuntarily his glance caught Bahram’s picture. Then he looked back at Homa. Suddenly something occurred to him so that he started to tremble helplessly. It was as if another curtain had fallen before his eyes: there was no doubt that his daughter resembled Bahram. She didn’t look like him or her mother. Neither one of them had blue eyes. The small mouth, the narrow chin, in fact all the features on her face were just like those of Bahram. Homayoun came to understand why Bahram had loved Homa so dearly and why after his death he had bequeathed her all his possessions! Was this child whom he loved so much the result of intimacy between Bahram and his wife? And Bahram, a friend whose soul was in the same mould as his and in whom he had so much trust? His wife had been intimate with him for years without his knowing it and Bahram had deceived him all this time, had mocked him and now he had sent this will too, this insult after death. No, he couldn’t tolerate all this. These thoughts passed like lightning through his mind. His head ached, his cheeks felt cold, he turned a fiery gaze on Badri and said, “What do you say, huh, why did Bahram do this? Didn’t he have sisters and brothers?”
“Because he loved this child. When you were at Bandargaz,* Homa got the measles. For ten days and nights that man was a nurse at the foot of this child’s bed. God bless him!”
Homayoun said angrily, “No, it isn’t that simple…”
“Why isn’t it that simple? Not everyone is indifferent like you are, going away and leaving your wife and child for three years. And when you returned, you came back empty handed; you didn’t even bring me a pair of stockings. People show affection through giving. To him, loving your child was the same as loving you. After all, he was not in love with Homa! And then didn’t you realize that she was the apple of his eye?…”
“No, you aren’t telling me the truth.”
“What do you want me to say? I don’t understand.”
“You’re feigning ignorance.”
“Meaning what?… Someone else kills himself, someone else gives away his belongings and I am being held to account?”
“That much I know for sure: you’re not telling everything.”
“You know what? I don’t understand hints and allusions. Go and get medical treatment, you’re not feeling well, your mind is all over the place. What do you want from me?”
“Do you believe that I don’t know?”
“If you know then why do you ask me?”
Homayoun shouted with impatience, “Enough is enough. You’re mocking me!” Then he picked up Bahram’s will, crumpled it and threw it in the gas heater where it flared up and turned to ashes.
Badri flung down the purple cloth she had in her hand, got up, and said, “So you’re being spiteful to me, that’s fine, but why can’t you allow your own child some indulgence?” Homayoun got up, leant against the table and in an ironic tone said, “My child… my child?… Then why does she look like Bahram?” With his elbow he hit the inlaid frame which held Bahram’s picture and it fell to the floor.
The child, who had been sulking till now, burst into a loud crying. Badri, looking pale, said in a threatening tone, “What do you mean? What are you intending to say?”
“I want to say that you have fooled me for eight years, mocked me. For eight years you’ve been a disgrace to me, not a wife…”
“To me?… To my daughter?”
Homayoun showed the picture with an angry laugh and said, breathing heavily, “Yes, your daughter… your daughter… Pick her up and have a look at her. I want to say that now my eyes are opened, I understand why he left everything to her, he was a kind father. But you – it’s been eight years that…”
“That I’ve been in your house, that I’ve suffered every kind of hardship, that I put up with your misfortunes, that I took care of your household for three years when you weren’t here, then, later I found out that you had fallen in love with a Russian slut in Bandargaz, and now I get this reward. You can’t find any excuse so you say my child looks like Bahram. But I can no longer put up with this. I won’t stay in this house for another minute. Come darling… let’s go.”
Homa, pale and in a state of fright, was trembling and watching this strange and unprecedented quarrel between her father and her mother. Crying, she took hold of her mother’s skirt and the two of them went towards the door. Near the door Badri took a key chain from her pocket and threw it heavily so that it rolled in front of Homayoun’s feet. The sounds of Homa’s crying and of footsteps in the hall became faint. Ten minutes later the sound of the wheels of a droshky was heard carrying them off in the snow and cold. Homayoun stood astonished and giddy in his place. He was afraid to lift his head: he didn’t want to believe that these events were real. He was asking himself if he had gone crazy or was having a nightmare. At any rate, the thing that was evident was that this house and this life had become unbearable for him, and his daughter Homa, whom he loved so much, he couldn’t see any more. He couldn’t kiss her and caress her. The memories of his friend had become stained. Worse than everything else was that, unbeknown to him, for eight years his wife had been cheating on him with his only friend and had polluted the heart of his family. All of this hidden from him, without his knowing it! They had all been very good actors. He was the only one who had been fooled, and ridiculed. Suddenly he became completely weary of his life, he was disillusioned with everything and everyone. He felt limitlessly alone and alienated. He had no other choice but to be sent on a bureaucratic mission to a distant city or to a port in the south and pass the rest of his life there, or else do away with himself: go somewhere he wouldn’t see anyone, wouldn’t hear anyone’s voice, sleep in a ditch and never wake again. Because for the first time he felt that between him and all the people who were around him a frightening whirlpool existed that he hadn’t perceived until now.
He lit a cigarette and took several paces. Once again he leant against the table. Outside the window snowflakes were landing on the edge of the tin roof neatly, slowly, and heedlessly, as if they were dancing to the tune of mysterious music. Without intending to, he remembered the happy and wholesome days when he and his father and mother would go to their village in Iraq. During the days he would sleep by himself on the grass under the shade of the trees, the same place where Shir Ali would smoke his pipe and sit on the wheel of the threshing machine. Shir Ali’s daughter, who had a red chador, would spend long hours there waiting for her father. The threshing machine with its plaintive sound would crush the golden stalks of wheat. The cows with long horns and wide foreheads whose necks had been scarred by the yoke walked in circles until nightfall. Now his condition was like that of those cows. Now he knew what these animals had been feeling. He too had passed his life with closed eyes, in an endless circle, like a horse on a treadmill, like those cows that crushed the stalks of wheat. He remembered the monotonous hours when he sat behind a desk in the small customs room and continually scribbled out the same papers. Sometimes his colleague would look at his wa
tch and yawn, but he would carry on, writing the same numbers in their proper columns. He would check, add, turn the notebooks inside out – but at that time he had something to be happy about. He knew that although his vision, his thought, his youth, and his strength were diminishing bit by bit, he still had something to keep him happy. He knew that when he returned home at night and saw Bahram, his daughter and his wife smiling, his tiredness would disappear. But now he was disgusted with all three of them. It was the three of them who had brought him to such a pass.
As if he had made a sudden decision, he went to his desk and sat down. He pulled out a drawer and took out a small pistol that he always carried when he was travelling. He checked it. The bullets were in their place. He looked inside the cold black barrel and moved the pistol slowly towards his temple, but then remembered Bahram’s bloody face. Finally he put it away in the pocket of his trousers.
He got up again. In the hall he put on his overcoat and galoshes. He picked up the umbrella too and left the house. The alley was empty. Snowflakes were whirling slowly in the air. He set out without hesitation, although he didn’t know where he was going. He just wanted to flee, to get far away from his house, from these frightening events.
He came out on a street which was cold, white and sad. Passing droshky wheels had formed furrows in the middle of the street. He was walking with long footsteps. An automobile passed him, and watery snow and mud from the street spattered on his head and face. He stood and looked at his clothes. They had been drenched in mud and it was as if they gave him consolation. As he went he came across a little boy selling matches. He called him. He bought a box of matches, but when he looked at the boy’s face he saw he had blue eyes, small lips and blond hair. He remembered Bahram, his body trembled, and he continued on his way. Suddenly he stopped before the window of a shop. He went forwards and pressed his forehead against the cold glass. His hat almost fell off. Toys were arranged behind the window. He rubbed his sleeve on the glass to clean off the steam but it was useless. A big doll with a red face and blue eyes stood in front of him smiling. He stared at it for a while. He thought of how happy Homa would be if this doll belonged to her. The store owner opened the door. He started out again, and passed two more alleys. On his path a poultry seller was sitting next to his basket. Inside the basket, there had been put three hens and a rooster whose legs were tied together. Their red legs trembled from the cold. Red drops of blood had fallen near the poultry seller on the snow. A little further on, sitting in front of a house, was a boy with ringworm. The boy’s arms stuck out of a torn shirt.
He noticed all this without recognizing his surroundings or route. He didn’t feel the falling snow, and the closed umbrella he had picked up he held shut in his hand. He went into another empty alley and sat on the front steps of a house. The snow was falling faster. He opened his umbrella. A deep weariness had taken possession of him. His head felt heavy. His eyes slowly closed. The sound of passing voices brought him to himself. He got up. The sky had become dark. He remembered all the day’s events: the boy with ringworm that he had seen in front of a house and whose arms were visible from under his torn shirt, the red, wet legs of the hens in the basket that were trembling from the cold, and the blood which had fallen on the snow. He felt a little hungry. He bought sweet bread from a bakery. He ate it as he walked and, without intending to, prowled around the alley like a shadow.
When he entered his house, it was two in the morning. He fell into the armchair. An hour later he woke up from the force of the cold, lay down on the bed in his clothes, and pulled the quilt over his head. He dreamt that in a room somewhere the same boy who was selling matches was dressed in black and was seated behind a desk on which was a big doll with blue smiling eyes, and in front of him three people were standing with their hands folded on their chests. His daughter Homa entered. She had a candle in her hand. After her a man entered who was wearing a white and bloodstained mask on his face. The man moved forwards and took the hands of Homa and the boy. Just as Homayoun wanted to go out of the door two hands came out from behind the curtain, holding pistols in his direction. Frightened, Homayoun jumped awake with a headache.
For two weeks his life passed in the same way. During the days he went to his office and only returned very late at night to sleep. Sometimes in the afternoons for no reason that he could think of he would pass near the girls’ school that Homa attended. After school he would hide at the corner behind the wall, fearing he would be seen by Mashdi Ali, his father-in-law’s servant. He looked the children over one by one, but he didn’t see his daughter Homa among them, and life carried on in this manner until his request for a transfer was accepted and he was directed to go to the customs office in Kermanshah.
The day before leaving Homayoun made all his preparations. He even went to see that the bus was in the garage and bought the ticket. Since his suitcases were not packed he arranged to leave for Kermanshah the next morning, instead of going that very afternoon, as the garage owner had insisted.
When he entered his house he immediately went to the family room where his desk was. The room was disorganized and messy. Cold ashes had fallen in front of the gas heater. The piece of embroidered purple silk and the envelope of Bahram’s will had been put on the table. He picked up the envelope and tore it down the middle, but then he saw a piece of written paper he hadn’t noticed that day in his great haste. After he had put the pieces together on the table he read:
Probably this letter will come to you after my death. I know you will be surprised at this sudden decision of mine, since I did nothing without your advice, but so that there won’t be any mystery between us I confess that I loved your wife Badri. I fought with myself for four years. At last I won, and I killed the demon that had awakened in me, so that I might not betray you. I give a worthless present to Homa that I hope will be accepted!
Yours always,
Bahram
For a while Homayoun stared around the room astonished. He no longer doubted that Homa was his own child. Could he have left without seeing Homa? He read the letter again and a third time. He put it in his pocket and left the house. On his way he entered the toy shop and without hesitation bought the big doll with the red face and blue eyes and went towards his father-in-law’s house. When he got there he knocked on the door. When he saw Homayoun, Mashdi Ali the servant said with eyes full of tears, “Sir, what calamity has happened? Miss Homa!”
“What’s happened?”
“Sir, you don’t know how restless Miss Homa was at being away from you. I would take her to school every day. It was Sunday. Up to now that makes five days since the afternoon that she ran away from school. She had said she was going to see her dear father. We were in a frenzy. But didn’t Muhammad tell you? We telephoned the police, I came to your house twice.”
“What are you saying? What has happened?”
“Nothing, sir, it was evening when they brought her home. She had got lost. She got pneumonia from the terrible cold. She called you continually until the moment she died. Yesterday we took her to Shah Abdolazim. We buried her right next to Bahram Mirza’s grave.”
Homayoun was staring at Mashdi Ali. At this point the doll box fell from his arms. Then like a crazed man he pulled up the collar of his overcoat and went towards the garage with long strides, because he had changed his mind about packing the suitcases, and he could leave much sooner on the afternoon bus.
Fire-Worshipper
(from Buried Alive)
Flandon,* who had just returned from Iran, was sitting opposite one of his old friends in a room on the third floor of a Parisian guesthouse. A bottle of wine and two glasses were put on a small table between the friends and music was playing in the café below. Outside it was dark and cloudy and a light rain was falling. Flandon lifted his head from his hands, picked up a glass of wine, drained it and turned to his friend. “Do you know – there was a time when I felt that I had lost myself among those
ruins, mountains, and deserts. I said to myself, ‘Could it be that one day I’ll return to my country? Would I be able to hear this same music that is playing now?’ I wished to return some day. I wished for an hour like this when we could be alone and I could open my heart to you. But now I want to tell you something different, something that I know you won’t believe: now that I’ve come back, I regret it. You know, I still long for Iran. It’s as if I’ve lost something!”
On hearing this, his friend, whose face had turned red and whose eyes were wide but expressionless, jokingly hit the table with his fist and laughed out loud. “Eugene stop joking. I know you were a painter, but I didn’t know you were also a poet. So you’ve become tired of us? Tell me, you must have become attached to someone down there. I’ve heard that Eastern women are pretty.”
“No, it’s nothing like that. I’m not joking.”
“By the way, the other day I was with your brother and the conversation turned to you. He brought several recent pictures which you had sent from Iran and we looked at them. I remember they were all pictures of ruins… Oh yes, he said one of them was a place for worshipping fire. You mean they worship fire there? The only thing I know about the country you were in is that they have good carpets: I don’t know anything else. Now you describe to me everything that you’ve seen. You know, everything about it is new for us Parisians.”