Learning about her husband's infidelity, Mehri was appalled. She trembled as though with an invisible blow. She practically twisted in pain and broke out in sweat and also against her normal tranquility into a series of hateful and sour words as she ran out of the room. The mysterious, yet amicable veil which appeared to be wrapped around this family had fallen. No one ever knew any flaw about them. People imagined that behind this serene and enigmatic shroud was the grandest, most tender, and possibly the ultimate impeccability.
The tormented restlessness of childhood reappeared worse than what it had been for Neda before. It reached such a climax that she feared she might fall apart under that unendurable and excruciating pain and twist. To see her mother's tame feebleness, even in her young age, was not acceptable to Neda. She could not bear her mom's groaning, and feeling sorry for herself. Mehri used her daughter, Neda, to complain about her situation instead of showing some courage to complain and show her disgust to her husband, Jalal. Instead of telling him that she wanted a divorce and she wanted her inheritance back, what was rightfully hers, she would go to Neda's room and would say all those things to her daughter. Neda, only fifteen, thoughtfully told her mother more than once:
"Why don't you get a divorce? Why don't you do something? "
Mother's response was:
"I can't get a divorce! I have two children. What can I do? He won't give Sohrab and you to me! I have no money!"
Neda responded almost with hostility:
"First of all Sohrab is nineteen years old; and dad can't make me to live with him. I make his life miserable. He willingly wants to get rid of me anyway because I'm the only one with guts in this home that tell him things. The other day, he threw me out of his room. And secondly, why did you give your money to him in a first place? You just put your money in a tray and handed to him as though serving him tea. Now the money is all in his name; and you have nothing!"
Mehri wished she had the wisdom of her fifteen years old daughter; but it was too late for money issue.
"What could I do? How could I have known? No one in our either families is ever divorced! I married him to stay with him always!"
She wiped her eyes with he corner of her skirt, and then with an ominous venom continued:
"Besides, he won't divorce me. He doesn't want other people know about our problems. He just want to have another wife..." Mehri stopped here since her silent weeping had changed to a loud cry. Neda wished to tell her mother that "always" did not exist. Nothing was for always.
Sohrab, her brother, did not discuss this menacing subject with his mother, or father, or even Neda at all. He was drawn into himself and was trying to avoid everyone. Besides taking some classes to prepare himself for college, and still working for the father, he spent most of his time either in his room or out with his friends. Neda wanted to talk to her brother like old days, but Sohrab would not want to get involved in anything that had to do with their parents' problems; therefor, he refused talking even to Neda since the affair of their parents was hard to avoid. Nobody knew whose side he was since he refused to talk and get tangled in this ugly web.
Talking to mother was useless. Neda's anger towards her parents was immeasurable. Mehri's two brothers lived their own lives and had no worry for their only sister. Both of them were married. One of them did not even live in Tehran. Their wives mostly were gravitated towards their own families. Mehri had no sister. Both her parents were dead, her mother when she was pregnant with Sohrab and her father only last year. She practically had no women friend to talk to and tell them about this terrible misery in her life. She had dedicated her life for the last twenty years to her marriage and children. She had married Jalal at age eighteen. Now she had become like an old handkerchief that her husband had crumbled and threw it out after using up all her money, wealth, and youth. She had no skill to work, never had worked, just as women in her era and family type never had. She saw herself as a victim. In the last few weeks since the news of her husband's infidelity was broken, she had aged so much that no one could believe that she was only thirty eight years old. She continued praying, as though the great God would come to her rescue. However, her praying these days always began with a flood of tears. She started questioning the God's fairness for her grievous misfortune.
On the other hand, Jalal, who at age forty nine had found a new kind of love and excitement in Sima, the twenty nine years old woman, who was the daughter of a friend, did not pay attention to neither what Mehri felt or suffered from, nor what his children thought about him. Sima was a virgin woman. No one knew why she was not married yet. People called her an old maid behind her back. She was a beautiful woman and had a very respectable family. It was a mystery why she was still unmarried; a mystery that Jalal's family would never find out about it. Sima's parents did not mind that their daughter would become the second wife of an older man with another wife and children.
To Be Continued
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