Mansour, the unresponsive man was hard to deal with. The abhorrence of this life was insufferable for Neda and inflicted unbelievable pain on her. The words "inflicting pain" might sound too strong, but not strong enough for what she felt. People normally would call the newly weds' struggle only a trivial, only an adjustment period, but in this frivolousness, the ever lasting hatred was seeded and the infinite happiness was lost. They both could look around with her pale face and his disappointed mind to the suffering this union had created. They even came to decision that sweetness could not exist.
In her deliberate struggle, she would sit away from her family or anyone else who might ask her a question about her married life; while the day became evening and evening was darkened be night fall. A few times her brother and her cousin questioned her state of mind! She always tried to escape those curiosity so as not to answer since she knew even if she lied, it would be mixed with her tears. Conflict within her would change constantly. Her mother, whom she needed most, could not even see her misery since she, herself, was always miserable. Neda tried to avoid her mother since not only she would not get what they used to have, but her mother complained about her own life and agony.
Neda's emotions always began with extreme anger as though she wanted to scream; then they ended with her containing her disgust and fury and buried her scream.
Formerly her poems had been like an escape, perhaps from life. She used to feel that without her poetry, life would be so gloomy. Now she needed them so life would not be so uniformly disgusting and boring. For her, poetry was part of life itself. She would not imprison herself so much to writing if she had a friend who would listen not judge. To her, poetry was all of her life, and all the moments of life were when she wrote. She had always thought when someone dedicated herself to some form of art, first she got to know herself by dedicating her soul to that art, then she should get out of her shell and watch herself as part of the existence until she could put into use the universality of all her understanding, thought, and feelings.
Because of poetry, she was called abnormal. Now poetry was her real mate and friend. She was a woman now not a girl or human being. She wanted to say things that she could not in ordinary talking because others wanted to close her lips and extinguish her breathing in her chest; so poetry was her breath, her talk, and her scream.
The newly weds had slowly become like two objects in each other's eyes; while their souls were still aware, and their hearts were still desirous. She was puzzled and abhorred with this strange situation which was so far away from all she cared for, so hatefully foreign from all she wanted, as though all the happiness in her life were hiding behind bushes like many enemies without she knowing them; and they were ready to attack her.
She did not dare to discuss her disastrous situation with her family. She did not know what to do herself. However she thought about different paths to free herself. What she did not know was that any ending would not be available by waiting and doing nothing; but it would be reached only by a sudden explosion. The thought of an acute eruption and blow out to end this misery came to her one night sitting on the chair in bedroom next to the window. That terrifying thought brought beads of sweat to her face. She got up and began walking in the room. A glimmer from street gave the room a little shade of light. She looked at Mansour, in the depth of his sleep. One of his leg was uncovered and showed his hairy nakedness. Neda wondered if he had always slept this way or this was something he did to irritate her. She went to the living room, then to the kitchen. She tried to make some tea for herself in dark. She wanted to be quiet. She murmured some words while waiting for water to boil: "How can I sleep?" She decided that the reason for her constant insomnia was her terrible life. Her justification seemed reasonable to her. Water was boiling now. She poured the boiling water in a glass cup and put a tea bag in it. What she really wanted was a well prepared tea on samovar, but that would take time and required for her to put the light on.
To Be Continued
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