After a week of mourning, a few fights with mom and Sima, who had no respect for the dead man, and were using the situation to laugh and catch up with the old friends, Neda returned to her normal life; if there would be a normalcy in losing one's father, who betrayed her all her adult life, yet at the end, she realized the love, the bonding, which was rooted so deep from early beginning, strong and passionate, which she had unconsciously carried deep inside with her even the days that she had thought she could not tolerate the betrayal anymore. She had had a chance to follow Mansour to find out where he lived, who knew him and his family, and from there perhaps to find her daughter, but she had not. She tried to convince herself that her father's death was without violence. She thought:
"He was dying for so long. He was ready. He was sick mentally, and nobody knew, nobody did anything about it; because everything for him was provided and prepared for. No one gave him a chance to know that he had double personality."
Neda's eyes were brimming with tears, but they were not blinding tears. She left her father's home, looking through the tears at the beauty of that spring day, at the glory of the nature. the sweetness of the violets fragrances. How was it some thing so magical be so cruel? She wanted to know how her father looked beneath all these beauty, wrapped in a white cloth! She said to herself at random something only to hear something; but that was not what she wanted. The world that day looked so large, so open around her. The sky was so close at hand, as if a big load weighting it down, down, so close to earth that she could reach it, touch it. She thought she could float in that divine sky as if it was a body of water.
Kasra and Maryam though that Neda's responsibility now ended. Did that mean that she had nothing else to do? The father, she knew now, she loved so much, was gone. Her mother and Sima shared the house. No one knew how the old man's will was drafted. Did he even have one? If he did not have a will, that meant that his wealth would go to his children, mostly to Sohrab and very little to the wives!
One day mother called. They had found the will. Everyone again was called to the house. Her father had a lawyer, the same man that Neda had seen in the court when he had sued her for her money. The lawyer recognized Neda. But he was respectful to her. He looked at her with admiration. Neda did not know why! He was there along with the family to read the will. The scene looked something from movies. It was drafted and signed only a few months before his death; just about and around the time he had gotten sick; and at the time that he had lost in the court of law the law suit against his own daughter. She wished, if she knew that her father would be dead soon, that he had won. So he knew that he was dying; or he was angry because he had sued Neda and had lost. They all sat in the living room, some like vultures, others just out of respect. As usual tea was served and the lawyer began reading, after a few coughs, the will. Neda later remembered bits and pieces of the will, the way bearded lawyer read it:
"I with clear mind...give everything I have equally to my wife, Sima and my daughter, Mina...Mehri, my first wife should stay in the house as long as she lives... Sima can never sell the house as long as Mehri is alive." Neda thought a good reason for Sima to poison her mother. "For the information of law, so they don't think I'm forgetful, I admit that I have a son, named Sohrab, a daughter, named Neda, and a grandson, named Aria; but with clear mind... and willingly... under no pressure, I cut then off from obtaining any of my belongings... The reason for it is the way they have treated me." "Should this bitter announcement be in the will?" Neda asked herself. " They cut me off from their will and I cut them out from..."
Sohrab was outrageous, not because that he was not getting anything, but because his name was dragged into mud by his own father. The old man had practically called him and Neda unruly children. Bitter to the end! Neda and Maryam tried to calm him. Neda hugged him for a long time and then said, almost whispering:
"What did you expect my sweet brother?"
"I did not want his money; but I did not want him to drag us in the dirt either!"
"Forget it Sohrab. Leave your life!" That was the last thing she said in her childhood house before leaving.
To Be Continued
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