Mehri somehow influenced her children by her extreme goodness, beauty of her soul, and religious belief. She was a woman with its complete meaning to the eyes of an Iranian man, a guileless, unassuming woman. Sometimes she was even childish, always tender hearted, and often naive. She would and could not see evil in people. She believed all humans and the world in its entirely were in good manner and order. She was a candid and true devotee of Muslim Religion; and except the prohibited time for women, like when they were period, she never missed her five times daily prayers, or the fasting in the month of Ramadan.
Then it was the grandpa, her mother's father, before he died. Neda adored him. All his grandchildren called him Agha which meant Sir. She had five grandchildren, three boys and two girls. Each of his three children had a son; and then one of his son and Mehri also had a daughter. The other granddaughter, Maryam was Sohrab's age and her father, was Mehri's older brother. Neda was the youngest grandchild. She had a special place with grandpa. Agha always read her stories, sometimes even made up stories in order to see the excitement in Neda's face. He was single; His wife, Mehri's mother had died of breast cancer even before Neda was born. Not like many other men that they would marry again, he had stayed single. He had taught himself how to cook and shop and...
He was so good at knowing many stories, especially the ones from the Shahnameh (The Book Of King) by the great Persian Poet, Ferdousi. He would read those odes with so much passion to Neda, as though he was an actor. She always wanted more. When he finished one story with his own style of reading, as though he would become the character of the book, Neda would beg for more.
"Please Agha, read more!"
She never stopped asking for more even at age fourteen right before grandpa died. It was apparent that grandpa loved Neda in a special way and more than his other grandchildren; and everyone knew it. His sons and their wives complained about it and accused him of favoritism; but he was not a man to be swayed by this kind of petty talk.
Neda spent a lot of times like Summer and holidays at grandpa's. He was leaving alone until death took his life. Neda's visits were always welcome news to him. He taught Neda to help him cook dinner; and they would sit in a yard under a mosquito net in Summer time and had their dinner. Mehri, his only daughter, would go there once week to clean up his house. He welcomed other grandchildren but Neda was the one who had her own room there and spent days and weeks there.
He was so contented with his books and grandchildren, specially Neda, that life could not be any better for him. His daughter, Mehri was a big help. His sons very seldom visited him; or their wives never helped him out; but that was not the case with Mehri. Without his daughter's help, he would perhaps had to hire a servant to come and clean the house. He would come to Mehri's home for dinner a lot. He had a very good relation with his son- in- law, Jalal. They exchanged ideas about Persian poetry and World's Politics. Neda enjoyed his company no matter he came to her house or she went to his.
After spending time with Grandpa when Neda returned home, she dreamt about all the stories that grandpa had read to her. Sometimes she pretended that she was the hero of those stories or odes. She would become princess or the queen, and sometimes she would become the maid servant just to feel how it felt to be in that low level in the palace. Grandpa's death put an end to all those made up characters. It appeared that grandpa's death was the end of her childhood and the beginning of her adulthood when all her misery would soon begin.
She could never forget her childhood. Breeze, light, rain, and birds occupied her early years. She became light in a breezy afternoon, and flew like a bird to sky to see how rain was made. her imagination was so beyond every other child, her age, that when she told her friends at school about her flying to sky or becoming light or a bird, they could not understand her. Most of them made fun of her. Some of them called her crazy. None of them thought that one day she would become the greatest poetess of their era.
In her early teenager years, she used to go to her mother's chest, where she kept all Sohrab and her childhood clothes. She searched in the pockets f those clothes for the trace of childhood memory. Her mother kept all their clothes from childhood. She could not get rid of them or donate them to charities. Neda might have taken after her mother in looking back to past and remembering and reliving them in her early writings. Some how touching those clothes, that some day in past were hers, would bring her back the memories that gave her a sensation of shock. Suddenly she would see herself as a child again, innocent, naive, and without disturbing thoughts.
To Be Continued
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