Neda's eyes were fixed on sky. Her heart beat was slowing down. Her tears were dried out. She did not know anything anymore.
"This road I've chosen, as you put it, leads to nothing." She said.
"This road you've taken is long and it ought to lead to something." Maryam answered.
Nothing was good anymore; even Maryam's soothing words that used to relax her, now were like a bitter reality check that agitated Neda even more. How could anything be good to her while she knew that she, herself, deliberately had thrown her life away? On the other hand what Maryam had just told her about her parents and their shame of finding out about the breakage of a marriage before its beginning, startled her. She finally knew that she had to be Mansour's wife.
"You know, we human beings, face so many dissatisfaction and agony in a single day." Neda began almost in a verge of tears again.
"We hold back our disgust, we hide our desire, we even smile and pretend the opposite of what we feel with our pale and unsmiling faces; and when someone asks us: 'what is the mater?', we just say: 'oh, nothing, everything is fine!' Look at my poor mother. She does all these all days and pretends what she truly is not. Perhaps it's our pride that makes us to experience pain so we don't bring pain on others; and that is what I intend to do, hurt myself not others; because I'm proud."
Neda put her hands behind her neck and brought her knees down on the ground and stretched herself to the extent that she looked like lying down.
"I couldn't say it any better my sweet Neda!" Maryam responded.
"But I have one condition!" Neda said after a long pause.
"What is it?" Maryam asked.
"I know I've asked you to do many things for me. I hope this is the last time. But this one is the most important to me. I want you to persuade my mother that aunt Zari, your mom, would not go with us tonight to our place. This custom is so disgraceful to women. One more thing, I want to be alone for a little while in my room here."
"Okay! I talk to your mom. I promise that I convince her not to send my mom with you for your wedding night custom. I agree with you hundred percent. This is a disgusting custom, so degrading for women! But why do you want to be alone? I hope you don't have any crazy idea in your mind! It's two in the morning, very late."
Maryam's promise brightened Neda's heart a little. But her suspicion that she might harm herself, or run away, was unfounded.
"Don't be frightened, Maryam. I'm not brave enough to take my life. Besides by doing that, I harm others more. Remember I am proud. I hurt myself by living and don't afflict others by dying. I just want to write my last poem of girlhood before going to my womanhood home."
They both went inside, Neda to her room, and Maryam to the kitchen where all the women were. She took a glimpse at Mansour sitting in the living room with Neda's brother. He looked at her with his questioning eyes and she answered him with her eyes and hands that everything was fine.
In her room, Neda first took the wedding gown off. She removed all the pins off her hair, and went to the bathroom to take a shower. It took her a long time to shampoo her hair and get all the fuzz out of it. Her hair was all tangled and was very difficult to smooth them out. Then she wrapped herself in a towel and went to her room. She put a simple dress on. She sat on her bed, touched it, watched through the window into the dark of night. She glanced at everything that soon she would abandon. Most of her clothes and personal things were already taken to her new home. After inspecting everything that belonged to her short life of girlhood, she finally sat behind her desk and wrote a poem. The love of poetry was all she had left. She realized that two people could never be whole; but poetry was her friend. When she read or wrote poetry, she knew that she could talk freely. Poetry was her complete mate. It was a window that connected her to life. She said to others: "Poems are like a window to me that every time I look through it, it opens by itself for me." She was not searching for something in her poems, yet she found herself in her poems. Poetry had gradually become something serious to her. Now she found the answer to her own life in poetry. Poems were her complete mate. Everything else was pretension.
"I can remain calm.
For long hours I can be numb.
With my cold, frozen hand,
I can pull the drapes where I stand,
To see the torrent of rain in that frame.
To see the persistent of a child in his game.
To see a car races in empty street;
And splashes water on that child's feet.
I can loudly scream;
With a voice foreign, untruthful and extreme;
And say: 'I love my dream, I love my dream.'
With cleverness I can despise
Every and each surprise.
In an empty picture frame,
I can place a photo of lost dream,
Or anyone I can blame.
With each unwelcoming hand shake,
I can scream for no reason and fake;
That how very lucky each morning I wake."
To Be Continued
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