Hana Shudders and goes as white as a sheet. She is speechless, motionless, not hearing, unseeing, and unfeeling. The shrill, frantic cries of all her memories ring in her ears like so many farewells. Her eyes fill with tears and at last they drop like streamlet down her face and neck. She buries her face with her hands. Hamid retaliates with a look which crushes her has she not been completely crushed already. His agitation increases rapidly, while this time she can not recognize it. There is a film of tears inside her eyes that will not let her to see anything. She is exhaustively bewildered. The letter falls from her hand on the floor, and Hamid immediately grabs it. He stands there vacantly and hesitantly while reading it. After finishing it, he pulls a chair and sat on it to prevent the sudden shock affecting his body. When they both finally come to their senses, Hamid with a voice that is barely audible, says:
"This is terrible. I've always liked Behroz."
Hearing the name of her favorite uncle and ever lasting friend brings Hana to another hysterical cry; and she thinks despondently: "When will my turn come?" Where is the great, just God who has taken so many people she loved from her? Where is the wisdom and endurance to confront the misery of all the losses? Constant sleepless Hana, tries to remember dad, Saied, Van, and ... But somehow all their faces fade away in a cloudless horizon of her mind which is out of her reach, The memories of Behroz float in the room; the days of their "Secret Society", and the days of their sneaking books out of the locked cabinet; however, one thing Hana remembers the most. As hateful as Hamid has always been towards everyone, he has always liked Behroz. In fact, Behroz was the only human being on earth that Hamid did not hate.
Strange! Behroz, a soft spoken, gentle, and self educated man at age forty two, who had lost his life in a car accident, in his own way, was more powerful than Nabi, his brother, who was named the brain of the family. Behroz's penetrating eyes, deep and profound, softened uproarious soul of a maniac like Hamid; something that his powerful brother, Nabi could not do. He was gifted by a magical power that gave peace to Hana when she needed it; and calmed Hamid's outrage, and fuming acts.
Suddenly, exasperated Hana recalled Saeid's desperate suicide. If he had trusted behroz's promise, he had never killed himself. Hana ponders even more that if Saeid had returned to his home town, Behroz probably was able to soften all the bumpy roads, and they eventually would had married. She does not know what to believe at this point. Have people's lives been predestined even before they are born; or they take their courses later? She is not sure! Nonetheless, she is certain that Behroz's death was not the result of an accident. For some intuitive reason, she just can not believe it. Why don't they write her the truth? After her so many unanswered letters to Behroz, now they tell her that he had died in an accident! When did it happen? She does not know. Big Dallas becomes the graveyard of her loved ones, who all are buried in Tehran. Not in her speaking voice, but in her mind's voice, she growls like an angry dog:
"A big ocean of graves remains calm at all the times, so far away, so distant, and so cold. They howl from within the earth to living people to not forget them. The spirit of dead will survive in my memory forever."
Tehran-
On Hana's twentieth birthday, two months after the meeting with Amir, when he had told them that Van was in Evin Prison, two other events happened. The first one appeared to be blissful and rapturous at the time; and the second one was the supreme torture that caused an excruciating anguish along with utmost pain for all the family. What became of the second one which happened later in the evening, many hours after the first one, was a despairing powerlessness and fragility for the older member of the family which they would never find a cure for it; and changed most younger members to stony, impenetrable unbelievers.
!!!
Hana saw Hamid in numerous occasions between the meeting with Amir and her birthday. Hamid, who showed a great, impassioned fervor for Van's case, made it difficult and almost impossible for Hana to tell him her decision. She endeavored many times to bring up the issue of breaking up, but each time, words came out of her mind's voice not speaking one. Meanwhile Hamid vehemently spoke of future plans and insisted on engagement on Hana's birthday. His evocation of energy brought Hana to a bordering collapse. Every night at home, she chided herself for giving more hope to Hamid by delaying to tell him what she really felt. In her hallucinated nebulosity, she called Lila, her other- self, only to see her valiant face. Then she discussed the very important problem of her life with Lila. How to reject Hamid? Lila, in her own way of rectitude, set a fire by her true, sardonic, and provocative presence in Hana's entire existence; which persuaded Hana to get it over with the next day when he saw Hamid. However, when the next day came, she in a lingering manner, postponed it again. Hamid's ardent sobriety to marry her, made her to believe that he truly loved her; and she, who had learned for the last couple of years to be supportive and protective of others, felt a displeased responsibility towards the destitute young man, who was begging her love and most likely her support.
Struggling with her mixed emotion, finally a vision struck her. There were many people out there who needed someone and it happened that Hamid was one of them. She could not and would not act upon her sense of obligation to save all the insolvent people of the world. She decided to tell Hamid right away her true feelings. That thought relieved her of many tormented anguishes; and a spiritual solace slowly entered her body and eased into every nerves of her existence. She thought hard and deep about her feeling for him; and sadly she discovered what she felt was love, was only the feeling of being sorry for him.
To Be Continued
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