Their marriage was three months old. They fought almost everyday. However some days the fights were more hateful and spiteful than others. On those days Mansour left home; but he always returned, most of the time drunk. Neda watched with horror the greediness with which he ate, and did everything else. He always brought food from some restaurant home and never offered her any. She looked at him from the bedroom so as not to be seen. Now he openly drank straight vodka, sometimes almost half a bottle with his food. She hated the way he ate and drank almost every night before going to bed to assault her. When he ate, he made a lot of noises since he wanted to be noticed by her.
She thought: "Why can I hear the grass grow, the leaves of trees move and I enjoy them, but when I hear him, I try not to notice it because it makes me sick." But she was noticing it.
Every time he left home, she told herself: "If he returns, I'll be okay, if he doesn't, I'll be content."
He was trying intentionally to show her that he did not care for her or of their fighting. " Come on, let's fight." He knew how sensitive she was about men who drank excessively and particularly when he wanted intimacy in his drunken state. Therefor he made sure that he drank every night. He knew that she was watching him from bedroom. For that reason, he would wear a grimace of a chilly smile on his face for her to see. He would leave all his dirty dishes and empty bottle of whatever he was drinking on the coffee table for her to clean off. She always cleared them off in the morning.
At night, he always would throw himself on bed with his drunken attitude, ignoring she was perhaps sleeping. The smell of vodka on his body nauseated her. He always came to bed completely naked. All these gave Neda such an aversion that she wished she could run away, disappear, or even kill herself. It was war; and he was winning this war. He took her every night; sometimes even a few times before the dawn of a new day would come. He slapped her face when she tried to resist him or to get up from bed; and then he put his hand on her mouth so neighbors could not hear her scream for help. The things he did to her was like a savage boor or barbarian. Soon after he would fall asleep, if Neda would make an attempt to get up, he would wake up and assault her again. So she waited for a long time until she was sure he was soundly asleep. Meanwhile she quietly cried for her doomed life, for the choice she had made. She damned her father. When she was sure that he would not wake up, she would get up gingerly from bed, wrap herself in the pink and red, crochet shawl that belonged to her dead grand mother. She would go to the window and sit on the chair she had placed it next to the window. She listened, frightened, and wretched to outside noises, but all she could hear was his drunken snore. She had an internal cry for help. She needed help to endure this night and its nightmare as every night that had passed and the nights to come. She needed guidance to bear this life which her own effort to solve its problem had come to standstill of dread. But she knew nothing would happen until she would become brave. She wished she could talk to Sohrab, her brother; but she also knew getting Sohrab involved meant tragedy. Staying sleepless for her and sleeping without any problem for him not much speaking could not resolve her dilemma.
To Be Continued
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