Neda told her brother:
"If you write simple things, then they wouldn't be poems."
She had changed her style from old, typical Persian poets who used rhyme, meter, and equal syllabus to a new style that had not been sued before. She called it, "New Wave". She explained all these to Sohrab and he absorbed all from his little sister with so much fervor. Sometimes Neda practically translated her poems to her brother. On those occasions, he would say:
"Oh, now I understand!"
She loved her brother. She always did. But he finally got his assignment in the infantry somewhere in suburb of Tehran. It was a good deal for someone, who only had high school diploma. By fall, Neda enrolled again in night school to finish her high school. Just having a legitimate excuse to leave home every day and go to school was such a relief for her. Her parents were still treating her like a little girl. She had gone from girlhood to womanhood, motherhood, and back to girlhood again.
Sohrab was gone, so was Neda's heart and soul. The empty place in her stomach was not just showing that she had given birth, but was showing that she had given her baby away, her Ariana; or her baby was taken away from her. Her relationship with Sima for a reason unknown to her had gone sour. She was suspicious that her father had something to do with it. So these days since Sohrab was gone, Sima treated her like a stranger, and mother was back to her old self- pitying, she practically had no one to talk to. Once or twice a weak she would see Maryam, her cousin. She was the only one that knew Maryam's story. How the two cousins' lives were affected by the black law of the land! Their destiny in a dissimilar and distinct way had come together in a web of complexity. Her case was her child that her former husband had the right to her not her; and Maryam's case was that she had given to the want of her fiance only once and lost the chance of having a family of her own forever. The two cousins had become one in the body of women's oppression!
Her mother told her once that she was suspicious that Sima was pregnant. Neda knew all about it. It was not very far away that she had gone through it herself; so she began paying attention to Sima's behavior, her eating, and her attitude in general. She was not sick like her. If she was, no one knew about it. Neda put it in the back of her mind until one morning, very early , when she left her room to go to bathroom, she saw the light of the bathroom was on. She could see the gleamer from under the door. She put her ear on the door. Someone was there. She listened intensely. She heard the sound of vomiting. She ran back to her room; but stayed behind the door. After a few minutes, she saw Sima leaving the bathroom; her father had her robe on his arm. He put it on her shoulders and and positioned his arm around her to help her to go to their bedroom. So they had been hiding this from everyone. How long could they do that?
That morning at breakfast table, Neda gazed at Sima's stomach. Non one noticed that but Sima. She averted her eyes, but it was obvious that she knew that Neda's eyes were on her. Being very uncomfortable, Sima finally said:
"Why are you keep looking at me, Neda?"
Everyone stopped eating. Father turned so red on his face all the way to his neck that it could not be hidden from anyone. Neda continued her stare and finally said:
"You're pregnant, aren't you? How long can you hide it?"
To Be Continued
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