Odyssey... {}} 16- Different Paths

Hana believed that Nader was intelligent enough to be the head of her group; nevertheless, it was his shyness or silence that deceived the professor to choose a woman, Hana, over a man, Nader. In their enthusiastic discussion about any subject of the course, Nader always listened and seldom spoke. However, when they turned their papers in, he and Hana always had the best grades. Their was a difference between their debates for that course and the discourse she had had with her four young friends many years earlier. Then, those people, who had turned their back to the society and to some extent to their families, had found a sense of being, comfort, and acceptance among each other; and they had freely been able to discharge all their unresolved angers and emotions in that little room while believing they could change society, culture, and even the government to some degree. Now in this classroom, where life had shown its strange twist to everyone of those seven men and one woman, Hana, the systematic contest of their argument evolved only around the material of the course; therefore, their heated disputation was mostly analyzing the attitude, reason, style, and philosophy of the poets and writers, who had lived and died centuries ago. They, as students, had to discover what the poet had meant of saying certain word in a certain way; and they were expected to know it in a graduate level. That mental game for some was a torture and for a few was a bliss. Hana had always loved to challenge her brain in order to be number one. She had been this way at six years old and first grade, and had not changed ever since. But that study was not only a confrontation with her mental power but it was also a battle with her inner self.

She was falling in love with Nader, just in a same quiet way that had happened with Saeid. Without speaking, as she had known Saeid's feeling for her, she knew Nader's too. Frightened of her wild feeling, she feared for her dignity, honesty, loyalty, and may other restrictions which were made only for women, married or unmarried. However, that overwhelming, powerful, and blossoming love within her made her to believe that disloyalty in special cases was all right. She had never loved her husband. She just wanted to take care of him as mothers do their children. She knew that her feeling for Hamid was sick. She married him only because he had pretended that he would kill himself if they did not marry. She had never enjoyed closeness with him. In fact, their intimacy was nothing to her but torture. The only thing she could think about their relationship as a husband and wife to her was that she was stuck; as her mom had told her. This new feeling had never before entered her body so it had to be love. Her love to Saeid had been a real one, but then she had been only a teenager. Now at twenty seven, things were different. She suddenly felt how much she needed a man, a loving, gentle man. But what if Nader was not what he appeared to be, what if he was another evil. Her silent debate over this new overpowering emotion caused her the strangest behavior in her life. While she was at work, college, or home, she was not in any of those places.

Riding in the bus, going home every evening, she tried to bring Lila, her other- half, back to life even though she had pushed her away for so long. She really could use her advice this time. It took her a while to bring Lila out of her shell, since Lila's feeling was hurt of the long ignorance. Finally when Hana succeeded, Lila's attitude began to agonize her. To answer Hana's question for all the uncertainties, Lila said:

"Go for it, Hamid does it, you can do it,too. Let's have some fun."

Was that all about fun? When finally Lila realized Hana's seriousness, yet ambiguity, she said:

"I know you. If you do anything, guilt is going to kill you. If some one finds out, you're dead."

How right Lila was. She knew Hana better than anyone in the world. On the other hand, what could she do with all those feelings? For how long she had to suppress all her emotions because she was a woman, an Iranian woman!

Few days later, when she was drinking tea in the cafeteria, Nader walked to her only for one reason. He had to tell Hana how he felt for her, and he did, as Saeid had done under the tree near the Ministry of Education Building. Hana looked through the mist of her eyes to this young, shy man. His hair in front was thinning, and his thick glasses did not make him anymore attractive. She sighed and lost, dried tears for so long, found a way to flow.

"I'm married."

"I know."

"I have two sons."

"I know."

"What do you want from me?" Hana babbled.

"I love you. There is no need to interfere with your marriage or children. We can give each other comfort, tranquillity. I'm married, too."

"I have reasons not to love my husband, what is your reason not loving your wife?"

"I don't hate my wife. She is a very nice woman, a simple woman; but I didn't choose her. I never loved her the way a man and woman supposed to love each other."

Hana stayed quiet for awhile to digest the misery of other people's lives. She had always thought that only women were victims but now she was proven otherwise.

"What you're saying is so hard for me to understand. I can't live with myself if I do such a thing." Hana stammered.

"Yes, you can. There are many people that have secret lives, I mean women. Men have always done it and believe me many women do it, too. Take my word for it."

It was an instant proposal with obligation. Hana was tempted beyond belief.

Their visit in the cafeteria repeated again while Hana falling more to the adventure of infidelity. However, her unbelievable fear of being caught, stopped her of pursuing the proposal any further than just a normal visit in the cafeteria and in the class. She, who had always boasted about honesty and virtue, did not want people think of her otherwise. The opinion of people was so important to her that she used to be nice when she did not want to just to here praises like, "oh, what a nice girl she is. I wish my daughter was like her". However the sabotaging feeling for Nader was becoming equal to everything else she had so far believed in.

Would she go for it?

To Be Continued