As Neda was turning in the balcony to get back inside the apartment, she heard whispering of Sohrab and Maryam beneath their home in the parking lot. Being curious, she looked down at them. The big drops of rain fell on lovers and distinguished her cigarette. She opened the big umbrella which was always there, and hold it over her head; she put down her glass of wine which was in her hand on the table. Sohrab has his jacket wrapped around Maryam. Neda heard, hating herself for intrusion:
"My love!" Maryam almost cried, moved her face up to look at Sohrab. Neda could feel that she was frightened and panic stricken, yet amiable with fascination of euphoria. Neda thought to herself: "Is it real?" Then at once she considered their ages, twenty six. They were not sixteen, when she had thought she was in love with Mansour. Neda knew that her brother's eyes were beautiful at that point. In the dark, cloudy, and rainy night, her soul of a poet could see that Sohrab's eyes were dreamy, insusceptible, and free from any affliction or incitement!. She could imagine that he was smiling buoyantly to her or with her. Then she noticed that Maryam hid her face in his bosom. She saw that as Maryam hiding herself from him, Neda guessed, she perhaps knew that Sohrab could see her entirely. She was sure that they loved each other. To Neda, Maryam was more like afraid than at ease. It seemed to her that her cousin was in a foreign medium. The rain that was falling was a new heaven to Neda. Wasn't Maryam's fear because of her one bad experience? Sohrab, among the three of them was the one that had not gone through betray of a lover. She thought about her short marriage. She wished that she had a chance to tell Mansour before the divorce: "I wish that you loved me more and wanted me less!" This was what she saw between the two lovers under the balcony. How lucky they were!
Sohrab and Maryam married on September with the blessing of both families in a very small ceremony. Only the immediate family attended the wedding. It was more like a party than a wedding.
Sohrab would start his new career as an English teacher of the secondary school in a week. They had rented a small apartment close to school and also near where Maryam worked. Neither one used the the one old car that Sohrab had had for many years to go to work. They walked to work. In the evenings since Sohrab would get off work earlier, he would go with the car and pick up Maryam when ever she called him that she was done.
Maryam refused that her parents, as it was customary, to give her household and furniture. She bought very modest things herself with the money she had saved and with the money that Neda gave them as wedding present. Both of them were sad to leave Neda. They knew that she would be under pressure from her father to move back to her patents' home.
All along this second searching for freedom and independence, the anxiety Neda felt and the pressure her parents put on her, kept lingering with her like the memory of a bad song. By the time she regained her authority and was able to stand her ground against her father and made him to listen to her repeated no answer, that bad song no longer echoed in her head.
She was in her apartment. She was alone again. From time to time she went to her parents' home only to please them and to keep the peace. Those visits were always rather artificial and always sad. They were like verification of separation than introduction of reunion.
To Be Continued
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