Odyssey...{}{ 18- commotion

Dallas-

Rain, what Hana has adored as a life giving element of nature is painful today. She wakes up in the hospital bed after the mental collapse she had earlier. She is not aware why she is there and what has happened to her. All she can see or hear is lightening, thunder, and hammering sound of rain outside. When she is gradually able to recall the fight of the three men, her joining to her father, and falling asleep in the middle of the quarrel which was supposed to save her children and her, she is astounded. She looks around to see a human face. All she can see, lying on the hospital bed, is a thick curtain with some missing hooks which is separating her from the other side of the room, and two windows with dark glasses. However she can hear the pouring rain and thunder outside. Disoriented, she tries to remember the time of the year, and after a great effort, she says loud: "It's July." Slowly she introspects and recalls Hamid's traveling to Canada, her effort to stay conscious, and her disgraceful discovery about herself. Not knowing the exact date, she wonders how many days she has been there; and what has happened to the three fighting men! She tries to get up but a terrible headache stops her. Looking for an alternative, she finds a small equipment next to her with many buttons on it. One of the buttons on it says, nurse, so she pushes that one and soon an old nurse shows up.

"You're awake! How do you feel?"

"Where are my sons?"

"They are in the family room with their father. I can call them right away."

"How long I've been here?"

"Since yesterday,"

"What happened to me?"

"I'm not your doctor, but I think it was a panic attack."

Hana remembers her mother's breakdown and for the first time she understands her.

Seeing the three fighting men frightens her to a degree of shaking uncontrollably; but when she finally realizes they are not fighting anymore, she begins to relax. They do not act like each other's enemy anymore which surprises her; nonetheless, when her brain starts functioning again, she recognizes they are afraid for her well being. Hamid's smiling face trembles her; and for the first time she understands what this man has put her and her family through. Trying to show her discomfort of him being there, no words can come out of her mouth. The three men, who see her struggle for talking, touch her for comfort which she accepts it from her sons but tries to remove Hamid's hand from her forehead. Hamid, afflicted, says:

"Honey, I love you. Let's not fight again. Things will change from now on."

Farhad and Sam give him a dirty look; and Hana finally finds the courage to babble a few words:

"Get out of our lives!"

Hamid feeling destitute, turns gray. Lost in ambiguity, he searches for proper words to disarm this little woman, his wife, who has suddenly become so big, stubborn, and inflexible.

"We talk at home. Everything will change, promise."

Hana, feeling stronger, turns to her sons:

"Why did you bring this man here with you? Who is he? Do you know him?"

Farhad and Sam squeeze their mother's hands; and Farhad says:

"We didn't bring him here. He came himself. He's begging us since yesterday to forgive him."

"Can you forgive him? Do you believe him?" She looks straight at her sons.

They seem bewildered; however, they both shake their heads for no. She strangely gains a different kind of vigor, the kind she had at the time of the Revolution, and squeezes back her sons' hands and turns to face Hamid.

"Out of our lives before I call the police. Remember we are not in Iran. This is America."

Hamid's ashen face twists of an unwanted pain while his familiar expression of anger is shown in his eyes. Deep in his heart, he knows his wife is serious and he is nothing, nobody, not even a cell without her. He has even refused to learn English and except a few words that suits him for the degenerated things he does, he depends on Hana or his sons to do the speaking for him. He can not even function on his own. He knows he is not even capable of any action as he has pretended for so many years; and for the first time, he feels that his tricks are not working anymore. Hurriedly, he is searching for a solution and the only thing he can think of is to delay his wife's and sons' demand.

"Please give me another chance. I'll change. You can throw me out anytime you want. Just give me one more chance for now. Let me prove myself to you. You know that I love you all."

Hana breaks into a hysterical laughter.

"You want another chance? How many chances you have had. Now you want another chance so you can kill us, as you've said many times. Besides people don't change; especially you. No, you've had all the chance in the world and you did not change. We won't give you another chance; and we can't argue our family matter in hospital. Just leave."

Hamid gives Hana's words back to her by saying:

" See that's what I mean. We are family; and here is hospital. Let's go home and talk about it."

"No, you want me to have another nervous breakdown. I may as well have it while I am in the hospital. If you don't leave now, I ask the nurse to call the police."

Hamid has nothing else to do or to say but to leave. In the elevator, he thinks of revenge. "If they don't want me, they can't want themselves. How could she do this to me after all these years. She is just like my mother. All women are horrible."

Not knowing where to go, in the torrential rain, he gets into the car and drives away while his diabolical mind plans a plot to destroy the entire family.

Hana is awed by the unmistakable strain of hate that her words have carried while gaining back her full energy; and is ready to go home. Her meticulous vigor startles the young men, her sons, who already feel the weight of responsibilities to take care of their mother's emotions on their shoulder.

"Let's go home." She impatiently says.

"Your doctor needs to release you; and besides dad took the car." Farhad responds.

"Go find the doctor; and then call for a taxi."

To Be Continued

Odyssey...~~18- commotion

Religion, the only element left for Gol, gave her a sense of security and serenity. Using rosary (string of beads used in Muslim religion for praying) for counting the prayers in the recitation, she begged God to watch over her children specially Hana. She, who had never missed her five times daily praying, spent more time in praying position and felt God's message. Her pure and innocent spirit, humbleness, and simplicity amazed Hana, who was reaching more and more to become a unbeliever.

Hana always respected her mother's point of view concerning either religion or other issues in life; nevertheless, watching the Revolution's strange twist and turn to religion intimidated her enough to question her mother's belief.

"If God watches over us, why Van is dead and the people who killed him are alive? Why dad has to die at such a young age with a large family he was supporting? Why these new people are stealing the revolution from us, the educators, and I am sure they won't be any better than the Shah? They'll be only after money and power! they'll be as corrupt as others! Don't you think when Khomeini comes to Iran, he will be worse than the Shah?"

Of course Gol did not have any answer for her educated, angry, and hopeless daughter. However by knowing Hana's point of view, she understood the danger which was surrounding her daughter from two sides- she was against the Shah regime as well as the new regime when they would take the power. She was targeted by both. Knowing that frightened Gol to a degree of becoming ill. She could neither function nor think straight anymore. Her adamant daughter would not listen to her or anyone else.

Hana's fervid effort to prove her ability, dignity, and equality that had taken away from her long ago, enthused her to work harder than before by educating her students about the corruption and dishonesty of the existing regime and the newer one to come. To answer her students' intelligent questions of what she believed then, she would vehemently say:

"We need a system by the people and for the people. We need the freedom to criticize government when they don't do the jobs we hired them to do. We need an ethical, virtuous, and incorruptible system which considers Iranian's need not their own need. And above all we need to keep religion away from government since their baseness has been much worse than any politics for so many years. They have tried to sabotage people's mind by what had been told and ruled fourteen hundred years ago; therefore, they can continue permissible prostitution by marrying four legal wives and many other temporary or limited ones (Seighe) and put women in a vulnerable position of being used or abused and treat them like dirt and second hand citizen and call them imprudent sex and watch over them as though they are not capable of doing so for themselves."

Smarter students then asked her:

"What do you call or name such non- existing government?"

Hana impetuously answered:

"I don't understand why you call it non- existing; because it does exist. I call it Democracy. In such regime, people are treated equally because they're people not man and woman. Gender, race, and color of skin won't be an issue in such regime. If a woman is smart and knowledgeable enough, she can be a leader. Do you know we had women kings in ancient Persia, do you? In such regime, people can get what they really deserve and work for not what government think what they should get because they are related to a politician or descendants of the aristocrats."

Then another student asked:

"So you're against the Shah and against the newcomers!"

"Yes, I am. Because the Shah pretended we have democracy and the newcomers want to have theocracy. Neither one is a good way of running an ancient, beautiful country like ours. Do you know that Iranian people are one of the smartest race in the world? We're drowning. We're going deep to an abyss of a terrible cataclysm."

Hana's impassioned speech gave a glow to her cheeks.

"Do you know of any leader who can deliver an ideal system, according to you?" A male student asked.

"I don't personally. But remember we have many political prisoners; and I am certain we can find one among them."

"Then how do you know they won't become unscrupulous when they take control, like others?"

"They can't, because we write a new constitution; and if they don't act as what it says, the representative of people can impeach them and then we choose, by voting, others who don't rule unethically; and we do repeat this process as many times as it requires until the leaders know they are chosen by the people and must govern by being faithful to our new written constitution."

What made that big hearted teacher, yet so little in her own personal affairs, very special for many of her students was her indefatigable energy, penetrating eyes, and ardent personality. However, those qualities antagonized small numbers of the students, who were under the influence of either religious regime or the Shah's rule. Soon the students against her point of view reported her to unorganized authorities of the revolutionaries or chaotic the Shah's Savak. Nevertheless, since the life of the Shah's regime was about to end, it was the newcomers who came after her.

Dallas-

To Be Continued

Odyssey...18- commotion

Dallas-

Solitude, the essential, uncorrupted, and priceless element of human beings, the virtuous nature of world and one's self awareness can not be reached for Hana in the bizarre environment she lives. Her mind and soul are not free to capture that liberty, when people create, compose, paint, or write. When she is alone, thoughts and feelings encircle her in a noisy way, as unseen crowd; and when she is among people, their talk and action resound in her ears as if the whole world is mad at her. She just can not find the peace she used to have in solitude anymore. Earlier today, she wrote some verses, as she always does when no one is around and then burn them so Hamid can not find them.

"Among the walls of the room,

Gasping for air in gloom,

I sigh, then take a glance

To many chapters of my life in dance.

Being chained, I want to be free.

If I am free, I disagree."

Now these words, showing her obscure state of mind, do not mean what she wants them to signify. Nothing has ever given to her. All she is or every thing she has done, are the result of her own struggle and hard work.

In the mist of the current commotion, she looks at the three men, two of them her own flesh and blood, in the room. Their faces have lost all human traits; and their behaviors are not predictable anymore, It seems the fight has neither a beginning nor an ending. All she can see, sitting on the sofa, is three foggy, hazy, blurred figures, who move, become bigger or smaller, and scream at each other. In this indistinct moment, she is not certain when and why the war has started. In that state of consternation, she feels oppressed and stifled as though so many inquisitive eyes are watching her. The vague helplessness of that position makes her think about the position of unsatisfied desires that have turned inward, and fever of hesitation that has strongly thrown her out in a space of bewilderment and befuddlement, where she discerns the regret of the decision she has made which follows quickly by the realization that she has lied to her sons. She instantly suffers a delusion after this morbid discovery and feels the most fear in her life. Wondering in fright, how she has gotten to that abyss of deprivation! Feeling that she can no longer resist the rumbling of her stomach, fear, anxiety, and confusion, she wants to flee and at the same time to stay for ever. Her ashen heart, which has resisted the strongest blows of sad realities, is compressed by the need of being apart. Suddenly she feels the waves of nostalgia and the need of being a child again on her mother's lap. A great uproar immobilizes her in the center of her existence, which does not give her any time to alarm the three fighting men that her defense is being demolished and she is on the way to plant herself in the indistinguishable earth.

Tehran-

The Revolution out there and within her began when she least expected them. The same people that had tortured and executed her brother and had driven her mother to a temporary insanity, were under question those days. People screamed slogans about unfairness of the regime; and most organizations were paralyzed by the commotion. (A detailed description of Iranian Revolution can be found in the book published in 1997, entitled "THE RAIN STOPS IN TEXAS" by the author of this book.) Soon the agitation took a different direction ; and angry people captured garrisons and barracks and got hold of many weapons. The dirty fight resulted the loss of many lives of innocent people; one of Hana's cousin was among them. He was just a bystander.

While Gol was terrified of losing another child, Hana enjoyed being a small part of anti government educators. Van, her dead brother, was in her mind at all times; and she wanted to find the people who had killed him. Hamid, as usual, did not care what others in his family were doing while he had found a new entertainment, collecting weapons. The Savak still had power and its agents were scattered in most governmental organizations like Ministry of Education.

Hana, who had no courage when it came to her personal life, used all her new found bravery to hand deliver anti government flyer to people and spoke freely to her students about corruption of the regime, while the monstrous spies of Savak were most certainly in her class. This act put her in a great danger. Gol, her mother, knew very well of her daughter's activities; however, this time her soft spoken almost begging, did not change anything.

"Don't put me through another misery; and besides you have two kids. You're responsible for them and nothing else."

Hana's lying to her mother did not fool gol; and she knew that their lives would take another mournful twist soon if Hana would not stop what she was doing. While feeling powerless, Gol connected more to her grandsons and did not let them out of her sight. She would take them to school and stay all day there to watch over them. That gave her a power she had lost so many years ago. She knew deep down why Hana was so adamant to do participate in anti government activity; first, she had felt guilty since the killing of Van because she had not said a word to anyone for the longest time of what she knew; second her powerlessness in her marriage gave her the courage to show that power elsewhere.

Gol prayed more than before that nothing would happen to her favorite and most miserable child, Hana, a woman so much in need for love yet so loveless but strong, her first born, who at times, mothered her, taken care of her, and had kept the family together after the death of her husband and killing of her son.

To Be Continued