Hana adores her American friend. Somehow she identifies her with Mina, her younger sister, who she has not seen for over ten years.
"You've helped me a lot. Don't underestimate yourself. Your kindness has cured many of my wounds. Just be yourself and be my friend, Valery." Hana'a soothing words are like a cool breeze in a summer day of Texas.
When they go home, Hana finds Farhad in his room, lying in bed. Valery senses Farhad's rude distance and does not stay. Feeling a little better after being with her friends for couple of hours, she does not know whether to talk to her son or not. Ironically, she decides to let things take their normal course. She thinks if she ignores Farhad rather than insists on talking to him, she will not put herself in a vulnerable position. As hard as it is for her to do so, she does not go to his room begging him to talk to her or calling him for dinner.
Farhad hears her mother roaming around the rooms and waits and waits. He is almost in a shock. "Why isn't she coming to my room? What is the matter with her?" And he blames Valery again and again for taking his mother away from him. Around eleven o'clock, when he sees the light of the living room goes off from underneath of his door, he impetuously gets up from bed and rushes out of his bedroom. Hana is still in the kitchen when she notices her son's rushing there. Her heart pounds as though is about to stop.
"Mom, I want to talk to you."
"I was waiting for that!" Hana tries to act calm.
"What is the matter with you? You're not acting like a mother anymore."
Hana sits on the stole by the bar and starts a cigarette.
"How mothers do act, son?"
"You've changed. You ignore me, you..." he stops. He does not know what else to say to this calm woman who used to get upset in similar situation.
"Sweet heart, we all change. Life is a process of changing for all human beings. You've changed, too. And you you will change as you grow older. No one can stay the same forever. Our experiences change us."
"Don't talk to me like a teacher! I don't like you this way. You're scaring me."
"Son, I don't blame you. For a long time you've seen me without any changes, now that I'm trying to have a life, too, it scares you. What I was before was not healthy. Listen, I am a human being like you and besides I'm not doing anything wrong."
"You're ignoring me. You're not the same."
"Farhad, you keep repeating yourself. You're not a child anymore. You're a twenty three years old man. I can't treat you like a child; and even if I do, you wouldn't like it. You're my son and I love you to death, but that doesn't mean that I have to treat you like a baby. Even if I want to, you won't allow it."
Farhad thinks about what his mother says; and even though he knows deep down that she is right, he protests it:
"I know since you and Valery have become friends, you've changed. She did that to you. I don't like her."
She looks at her son, who desperately blames the world for his vague reasons.
"Listen Farhad, every human being needs friend. This simple need was taken from me by your father. He was a jealous, suspicious, and possessive man, who used me and didn't let me to breathe. Things are different now. I feel lonely. I need a friend. My family are in Iran and half of them are dead. What do I supposed to do? Just go to work and wither to my bones until I die!" She is about to lose her control.
On the other hand, Farhad, who was pampered by his grandmother in Iran and by Hana here all his life, thinks as his grandmother was taken from him by death, he is about to lose his mother, too.
"You don't cook as often as you did before. If you have a day off, you want to be with Valery. She is just a whore. I hate her. Because of her you came home late last night. You've never done this before. It's all her fault."
Exasperated Hana gets up from the stole and walks to the living room. She can not believe that her son calls her friend a whore. She feels that there is no energy left in her neither to fight this battle nor withstand this part of her. She can not resist the pain to see her son becoming like his father. She conjures up the torture and agony of her marriage to Hamid for so long, when the simplest need of human being was taken away from her, when she could not even write her feelings in papers, as though talking to a friend in fear of Hamid finding them. If she gives in to unreasonable demand of her son, not only she will face a continuous misery for the rest of her life, she also, without speaking, agrees with him; and he eventually will become a hateful person like his father.
"I just can not believe that you call my friend a whore. This is not acceptable. When it is in your benefit, you're an American, and when it's not, you're a mean Iranian. It's all right for you to have friends, come home late, and bring a girl friend to our home to live with us which we know what happened; but it's not all right for me. Young men, your age, are supporting themselves and have a life. I don't know how long more you want to depend on me and make my life and yours miserable. All you do is going to work, if you feel like it, and come home and lie down in bed. You never help me financially. I think you're capable of cooking a dinner if I work hard once in a while. Tell me who are you, an Iranian, or American? And don't try to be manipulative."
Farhad looks at this impetuous woman and somehow he does not recognized her anymore.
"I'm an Iranian who lives in America." He stammers.
"Just hold on right there. An Iranian man never brings a girl friends to his parents' home. If you're still an Iranian, which I don't believe it, you're not allowed to bring girls here anymore. Is that clear?"
"This is my home, too. I can do anything I want."
"Wrong dear! This is my home. I pay the rent and as long as you live with me, you must obey my rules. you want to make my life miserable and I refuse to take it. I've had enough misery. You became an American Citizen. I didn't force you for it. Act like one."
"A lot of people become American Citizen, but doesn't mean to change identity." He tries to disarm his mother.
"I don't want you to change identity. I want you to act like a human being. You can have the best of the two cultures, not the ones that suit you. That is arrogant and selfish. You're becoming more like..." She stops. Her anger causes her to lose control.
"Why don't you finish your sentence. I'm like my father! Is that what you've wanted to say? You drove him crazy and caused him to die. You never were a mother when grandma was raising me. Where were you? Your stupid political actions caused her to..."
Mother and son are shocked by things they say to each other. Hana is so hurt by what her son just told her that she breaks into tears and while sobbing, she says:
'I can't... tolerate this... anymore." And she goes to her room.
There, she throws herself on the bed and cries for hours until the gloomy dawn glimmers the room, and then she falls asleep.
To Be Continued
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