Inside their one bedroom apartment with a very small living room and a combined kitchen and dining area, Neda found Mansour sitting on the sofa. Her father had bought all the furniture for each room of the apartment for them. She looked at him. It seemed as though he was dozing. It was five in the morning. It was another day. They did not know what to say to each other or how to act. They became two strangers all of the sudden, that they had married only the day before. Neda went directly to the bedroom without saying a word to him. She changed, but not to the white silk, lacy night gown her mother had picked for this first and special occasion. She just put on her night gown of her girlhood, the pink, cotton, long one which was faded for so many washes. She laid down on bed, covered herself with the blanket in that hot May morning and closed her eyes but not before looking at the clock. It said five thirty. She was physically and emotionally tired. She wanted to fall asleep and go to dream world without interruption. But she heard that he came into the room. She did not open her eyes, but she heard him changing clothes, brushing his teeth. "Oh, he'll come to bed any minute! What will I do?" The bed moved. He was there. Lights went off. She felt his body brushed hers. She trembled. Her aunt had explained to her what the wedding night would be like! She had to go through it! If only her shaking would stop for a minute!
Mansour gently turned her over to face him. He put his hand under her neck and pulled her closer to himself. He slowly used her free hand and touched her in places that she had never been touched. She shivered more. Sweat covered her body. She both were shivering and sweating. He suddenly sat on the bed and put the light on.
"What is the matter with you? Why did you marry me if you hate me this much?"
Why did she? But she did not hate him. She hated the situation.
"You really feel heart broken for this, don't you?" He said it with so much anger in his voice that she thought he was going to burst.
Neda opened her eyes. He had nothing on. She almost felt sorry for him.
"You just want to blame everyone, like your brother said, for this; but you're the one needs to be blamed. No one forced you to marry me!"
Neda's large brown eyes were gazed to the streak of light coming from the night stand. She was crushed to discover that she was a mere slave of her feelings. At that moment, she did not know anything but her slavery. All her judgement and ingenuity were dispersed in convulsion and bursts of confusion and desperation. The image of her rejection and abandonment, altering her in a way that instead of renouncing what it was, she thought that she should accept this hard condition as a duty.
"I don't hate you Mansour." She murmured. "I don't know what I feel!"
"I have a bottle of wine. I brought it here yesterday. Let me give you some. It relaxes you."
Neda thought if wine would help her to go through it, she would try it even though she had never drunk it before in her life.
"I've never had wine!"
"I know. But it is different now."
He put his pants on, but stayed shirtless. They both went to the living room. He brought the wine he had chilled in the refrigerator with two glasses. They were regular glasses. They did not yet had wine glasses. After opening the bottle, he poured the red wine into the glasses. He raised his and told her.
"Look at the color of it; look at it in the light. It is like the color of red grape. See how smooth it is. That is what you call good wine."
Neda raised her glass and looked at it the same way as he had done. She loved that color. She thought that she should buy a dress that color. The first sip burned her throat; however, she liked the act of drinking. That would make her look older and like grown ups. That feeling at her age gave her the courage to ask for more. She drank fast. He asked her not to do that. But she drank more and fast. He again told her that wine needed to be drunk slow. The regular glasses they were using were twice the size of a wine glass. She finished her two glasses fast and without thinking. He was still on his first one.
To Be Continued
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