Summer came with vengeance and then it was fall again. The trees lost their leaves. The leaves that were deprived of their shimmering green sheen first loosened up from their stems and then they flew to the ground. There had been a point in Neda's life that all the varieties, all the charms, all the beauties of life were made of light and shade for her. Now nothing made her to see the light or the shade; nothing made her happy. Everyday was another day, every season was another season. Her unruly dreams continued. The thinking about her father and his action continued. She was bored, tired, and extremely successful.
As she was only three years away from her fortieth birthday, she kept saying to everyone that she was forty. Sohrab would tell her:
"Don't say that little sis. You are making Maryam and me older, too!"
But it was more than the constant dreams, nightmares, unhappiness that were affecting her. She had always had an irregular period, but nowadays, she would not get one for months on end. She had constant, horrific headaches. Her physical condition was influencing the flow of her poetry. She finally listened to Kasra and went to see the old doctor she had so much history with. He had not retired yet; even though his cancer was progressing. His logic was: " What am I going to do in the home?"
She was frightened should the old doctor tell her that she was pregnant, even though it was many months that she had not had any intimacy with Kasra. But she knew in her heart that she was not, and the doctor did not say anything about pregnancy. He gave her some advice and a warning that she had not done a check up for many years. So he did a top to bottom examination and observation from her body. He sent her for a lot of lab work. The laboratory was next door to his office. He even did a chest x ray from her lungs, since she smoked a lot. "You should quit smoking!" the old doctor smoked in his office; and he had cancer for certain. Neda laughed up this advice.
It took two weeks for the result of all the lab work, x ray, and every other tests that the doctor had ordered to return. He called Neda and asked her to go and see him. She had already had forgotten all about those tests; and was just tolerating the headaches.
"It's strange; but you're going through menopause." The doctor told her.
"It's not very often a woman your age..." At this point he stopped and looked at her with true, genuine concern: "You're thirty seven, right?"
Neda shrugged her shoulders. "To everyone else I am forty, to you, only because you're a doctor, yes, I'm thirty seven. Besides you know it; you brought me to this world yourself. I am one of your handiwork!"
"Okay, okay, for a thirty seven years old woman, this is very unusual to stop completely. That is the reason of all the headache. Do you know when did your mother stop?"
"No, but I think she was passed fifty and still getting her periods."
"So strange!"
Neda smiled.
"Everything about me is strange!" Even though she always liked to show the old doctor her distaste of what he had done by cooperating with her father and Mansour, and switching the real mother of Ariana, at this point she thought that she liked the old man. He was much older than her father. How much older, she did not know. She had already forgiven him. The doctor mistook her smile for the bitterness she had always shown towards him.
"You never forget that, do you?"
"How can I? No one, not even Sohrab knows of my true feelings, of my searches. I have had no life. Everyone thinks that I've broken all barriers, that I'm so famous, that I'm this and that; but I'm nothing. I'll change all of those to have a glimpse of my daughter. Have I forgiven you? I think so, I'm not sure. Look at you, you're old, much older than my father. I know you have cancer, you're very sick. You're pathetic! How can I not forgive you? But tell me why are still working?"
The old doctor removed his glasses from his eyes and wiped his tears and then blew his nose. Then he put his glasses back on the bridge of his nose, stretched his hands from his side of the desk, where he was sitting, to the side that Neda was and tried to touch her fingers. Neda stretched her hands and allowed him to hold her both hands. Tears were rushing down her face, too.
"Why am I still working? It is because of you that I'm still working!"
"What? Because of me! What do you mean?"
"You know that my wife passed on for many years now. If I don't work and stay home, all I'm going to do is to think back to what I've done to you; how I've separated a mother and a child. How there is no trace left to find them. How much I've searched myself to find them. I know of all your searching, too. If I don't work, I'll die at home. I think about you a lot and all the time. I think about how we three men ruined your life; each of us for our own reason..." He stopped talking and repeated the ceremony of wiping his eyes and blowing his nose. Neda sat motionless, this time with dry eyes, dry throat. She wanted to say something but she did not know what... A few minutes of silence.. Then the doctor continued:
To Be Continued
No comments:
Post a Comment