Neda was becoming famous, yet infamous. There were many articles had already written about her in every literary journals. Some people thought she was too young to be a good poet, some praised her for what others hated, others chastised her, women envied her; nevertheless, females bought her books more than males. Neda welcomed praises and ignored criticism. She became a household name since she had left her parents home, almost overnight. However some of the disapproving remarks about her had nothing to do with her poetry, but her life style, her freedom, her divorce, and almost everything that she worshipped. No one yet had written anything about her child. She prayed that the existence of Ariana would never be known by these unmerciful people!
In a few months after she was able to send her bother to college, she bought a type writer. She taught herself how to type, but she only used two fingers, one from each hand. She began sending her manuscripts typed written now instead of hand written.
She wrote merely naturally and cleverly, but ingeniously and without pretense. She attached no value to her ideas. She wrote about energy. She said that energy based on love and love would not come as legacy; there was no forcing love. She believed in a higher power that brought the energy to everything; but this higher power was not the God of Islam or any documented religion for her. This energy came from nature, from sun and moon, stars and planet.
People bought her books, though they did not know why! Her poetry, each and every one of them, were connected to each other; each one of them was the continuation of the one before it; yet each one by itself was meaningful and stood apart.
In her writing, she always saved something to fear, as long as there was something to love. Words like Love, fear, courage, will..., were words that she used the most. She connect fear to love. There was no love without fear, and outside fear, there would not be love. But when she wrote about love, it was not love between men and women; although people who read her writings thought that was what she meant. But how could she? She did not know anything about love between a man and woman. Without saying or speaking her name, it was Ariana, her daughter that portrayed love for her. It was with a wrench and pang that they had taken her child from her, and it was with a mother's emotion and love that she wrote her poems. She had carried the sound of her daughter, her breathing, the touching of her cheeks, the smell of her newly born body mixed with blood with her; and these she transferred to her poems.
Both Sohrab and Maryam were frightened that people would find out about Neda's child through her poetry. She disagreed. She was smart enough to form Ariana like a lover than a child. Then she wrote with ease. It eventually became her style. She wrote about an unknown lover that was hard to reach; but in fact that lover was her child. All poets wrote about love. So she felt safe. She knew, in fact, she had found out later that they had registered her in the hospital with a different name. Father had covered all his track very well. So according to hospital doccuments, Neda had never been in the hospital, or had given birth. There was no where in the country that anyone could know that Neda had given birth. Would anyone question Mitra, Mansour's wife, in future that how was it possible that she had two babies four months apart in age from each other? They all knew that at time of Ariana's birth, Mitra was pregnant. Did they bribe the authorities to get a birth certificate for Ariana in a way that would not betray them for the act of stealing her baby? Or had they gotten Ariana a birth certificate that showed her older, perhaps five, six months older? Neda did not know the answer. She was sure that her father knew; but she was not talking to her father, so there was no way for her to find out.
To Be Continued
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