UNFULFILLED- Eighteen- The Price

The apocalyptic nature Neda's childhood had been, appeared to be reborn. Father's death had somehow taken the animation, the glow, the meaning of everything. Her life in no way or shape had changed; however, her existence was wearisome, like an old dress that no longer worth wearing it but one kept on holding on it. Her face at that moment was an utter effigy of confusion which she never thought of hiding it.

She bit her lips convulsively, trying to hold back and to even hide from herself, as she would have done it from others the harsh reality, the emotion, the tearing. Now her eyes were brimming with tears.

She let her mind meander to her birth home, to her girlhood; and she tried to find out which spring was different than others in her life! Then she realized that she, herself, her present self was in every way different than her other- self in other springs.

She went home. It was seven in the morning. Kasra questioned her with his eyes. She looked thin, dirty. Her hair was oily. She had the type of hair that needed to be shampooed everyday. Now it was eight days without changing clothes, or bathing, or shampooing her hair, eating proper or enough food, and smoking three times more than normal time, if there would be any normalcy for her at all and ever! She did not speak a word to Kasra. She just went to her room and closed the door. She had not been home but once and only for ten minutes for the last eight days.

She lay on her bed with all her clothes on, shoes and everything. She lay at the top of the bedspread. She brought her knees to her chest. She slept but a few hours. Those hours were troubled and agitated; filled with disturbing dreams. Those dreams felt intangible and escaped her. They left very little impression. She was awakened by something unattainable. But her awakening felt like a renewal and it was done by Kasra, who was trying to make her to wake up. The family needed her for the funeral arrangement and some other things that Kasra was saying and she was not hearing. She finally sat up. The troubled and short sleep was over.

"Find me some black outfit." She told Kasra and then started shedding her clothes off in front of him until she had nothing on. She walked into the shower.Too many emotions had swept through her in that short, flustered sleep, she thought standing under the warm water. She did not comprehend most of it. She told herself: "What am I thinking? I'm just thinking aloud!" She said it to herself. Then she said again:

"Almost all my life, I've thought about father and Ariana. I've spent the long intervening period with people I didn't know, in a society of publishing and promoting and media that I've faintly cared for and hated ; and in a condition I never completely understood. I guess all these have gone by like the memory of my youth..."

To Be continued

UNFULFILLED- SEVENTEEN- ✍✍✍✍✍ The Old Man

The noon of the seventh day in hospital, The entire family of Jalal, both wives, the three children, and Maryam gathered there. Even Mina, his fourteen years old daughter from Sima was there. Neda was more upset for her than anyone else. She was a little younger than her when her father, threw her under his feet in order to have a peaceful marriage with Sima. The doctor let them to use a privet room to talk about this painful issue, the killing or the letting go of the old man. They all sat around. They all looked at Neda, who had spontaneously taken over. They all knew what was about to happen.

Neda, as if giving a lecture, said with eyes that were red and burning of not sleeping and not being able to cry, began talking. Her voice sounded like someone who was suffering from sour throat; but in fact it was because of smoking too many cigarette, and not being able to shed tears for so many suffering:

"You all know what the doctor had told me!" She stopped, looked at all one by one with her intense look. The only one, who was crying was her little sister, Mina. She was the same age as Neda when she had had the days of her extreme wonderment with her father, unaware that in a very short order, all would be gone. She pointed to Mina:

"Come on Mina, come and sit next to me. I know you'll suffer more than anyone else."

Mina automatically obeyed her older sister and went and sat next to her. Neda for the first time noticed how much she looked like her when she was fourteen.

"The doctor wants us to end dad's misery, to disconnect all these machines. He says that he would never recover or come out of coma; even though he thinks he is aware and knows what is going on around him. That is why he thinks dad is suffering. He says that without those machines he won't be able to breathe on his own, too many scar tissue, too much damage down to his lung. He says if he had come much, much earlier to the hospital..." Neda stopped at this point and looked first at Sima and then at her mother. " He suggested that we need to end his suffering, misery. The man knows what is going on and he wants to end it. I, myself saw it in his eyes. The doctor says it's the right thing; it's the Godly thing. Sohrab and I agree with him!"

A long silence ensued. No one knew what the others thought or felt. No one talked. There was a horrific hush in the room, the only sound was Mina's calm crying. Then it was Sima, who broke the silence:

"Don't you think that is for me to decide Miss loose poetess ..."

Suddenly Sohrab's eyes blazed. He answered Sima's uncouth remark with his fiery eyes and bitter tongue:

"How dare you to talk to my sister like this; call her loose. You're the reason that her life is ruined. In my opinion you are the loose one, being an old mate, selling your body to our father only because he was bored..."

"Stop it Sohrab!" Neda cut in and stopped her brother from going on with his outrage.

"It is not time to fight. We have plenty of time for that. I don't care what she calls me. I know who I am and that's all it matters. All I care now is to save our dad from suffering." She hugged her little sister, Mina, who was crying real hard at this moment, and made her to sit on her lap. Then she turned to Sima and said:

"I wouldn't act the way you do in front of my child! Actually it is not up to any of us. Sohrab is the one that needs to make that decision; and he's already told me that he agrees with the doctor. Now, one by one, you can go and say your good byes to him!"

This was like the last thing she would say that day; but no, she said something else:

"After we all say our good byes, everybody will go home, and only Sohrab, me and Mina, oh not Mina, will stay. Even Maryam will go home. She needs to be with Aria!"

The order of father's death sentence was suggested by the doctor, was given by Neda, and was carried by Sohrab. Late that night, Father was no more! They pronounced him dead at two in the morning; a man, who had just turned sixty nine.

Sohrab insisted to take Neda home. She stayed in her brother's bosom a long time and after seven days of torture was finally able to shed real tears! The both were in the room with the body of a man, who was a good father, a bad father, a vicious father, a fair father; but he was their father nevertheless. They said many farewells to their father. Sohrab would not leave Neda alone even for a minute.

Outside in the lobby, after the old doctor finally left them while even he was crying, Neda begged Sohrab to leave her, to let her stay a few more hours. This was a place that her story had begun. She did not want to finish it with a hurry and go home right away. She was still looking for her lost daughter, and many unanswered questions. When Sohrab finally left her at four in the morning, Neda returned to the privet room that they had had a family meeting the evening before; and wrote while watching the pouring rain through the window.

✎

"Here I am sitting where the old man died,

Looking at the pouring rain,

Hearing the siren

Of an ambulance, which just came in

The siren of some one's misery!

How do I feel?

I feel black as my heart.

Today the color of my heart is the color of my feeling.

Today my heat is black.

Hang on to the cruel life

Because there are unfinished businesses.

I tried to sooth the old man's helplessness;

To sooth his hopelessness,

His disappointment.

But rage had made me a fool.

And I was too late!

We were all too late!"

To Be Continued

UNFULFILLED- SEVENTEEN- ☘☘☘☘ The Old Man

Neda stayed in hospital with her father for the next six days. The old man was hooked to all kind of machines, what ever was available to them those days. It came a day that the old doctor told her that nothing could save the old man.

"my recommendation is to remove all these tubes, and disconnect the machines. Your father is suffering this way a lot more. He is a dignified man; I don't think that is what he wants."

Neda looked at the doctor with dry, scratchy eyes. She had no more tears to shed.

"We need to talk to everyone about it!"

"I know!" He said and then added:

"I get all the legal papers ready in case everyone in the family agrees. I don't want any dispute. But you know it is Sohrab who needs to sign these papers not you or his wives!"

Neda thought for a moment and suddenly and unexpectedly said:

"You're very good in altering papers, changing birth dates, changing the the name of the mother who gives birth, who carries the baby for nine months..." She wanted to go on but the poisonous knot in her throat stopped her. These were the words that she wanted to tell the old doctor for many years. She found this moment suitable.

"You'll never forgive me for that?!"

She thought for a moment and then with difficulty said:

"How can I? But as I've forgiven my dad, I perhaps forgive you, too, when you're on your death bed. My life has been like death or better yet, like dying all these years..." She walked away.

She regretted what she had said to the old doctor, but on the other hand, she wanted to say these things to her father which she never had a chance and she could not anymore since he was in comma. So in a very intelligent way, she told the doctor, who was about the same age as his father, that his life would come to an end, like her father's life, one of these days. She knew that the doctor was suffering from some form of cancer. She knew that he was planing to retire so he could do more intense treatment.

As she walked outside of the hospital to smoke a cigarette, she thought how could she put this burden on Sohrab, her older brother, which in reality, she acted older than him? But that was the law, the black law for women, and the good and ugly for men!

That night in the dim room, while watching her father's labored breathing and his other vital signs, she put a small light on and began writing on some hospital paper. She could always find paper, and Kasra would take care of the rest.

✍

"O' daddy, remember your little girl,

Remember the days of her depression,

Remember how much you loved her,

Remember how you made that big mistake!

I believed in you, but I became a nuisance!

You suddenly forgot me, got rid of me!

O' daddy, remember that cherry tree,

Which you planted the day I was born!

And when I returned to see you,

Mom said that it died when I left,

And it was chopped down to become a stand for a pot.

O' daddy, remember that you made me marry;

And I returned pregnant and sick.

And you gave away my little baby.

O' daddy, how can I let you die,

Even though you killed me long ago.

You ruined my life to have a life for yourself

But we're from same root, same blood.

I can't hate you, is that strange?

And now I want to protect your son,

Who became my dad, my brother, my friend!"

✍

Early in the morning, Neda called Sohrab and told him what the doctor had told her the night before.

"I know this is a huge burden on you, but we must save our father from this misery. When you sign, just think it is me that is signing."

Sohrab was obviously very upset. No one would like to do something like this especially to his own father; even though he had betrayed both him and his sister. But he knew that Neda had made a right decision; he knew it was the right thing in his mind, but his heart overruled it.

To Be Continued

UNFULFILLED- SEVENTEEN-✥✥✥ The Old Man

In the hospital, they admitted Jalal at once. The old doctor, who was seeing all the members of this family for everything, from delivering a child, to curing adult or children, being an expert on tonsillectomy or appendectomy since Neda and Sohrab were children, or being a good friend to this family in good or bad time, and knowing all their secrets or having a hand on covering their secret, could not believe his eyes to see that it was Neda and Sohrab, who brought their father to the hospital. He remembered that he had told Sima, the second wife of "AGHA" (which meant sir), that was how he called Jalal, only a few days before that he needed to be in the hospital. Sima, with her hands on her waist had told him:

"It is no big deal, we can take care of him at home."

He had visited him at home, and again had said that the environment Agha was in with all the dust and no air, was not good for him. Again Sima had said that was her decision to make. So having known the devilish mind of Sima, and Mehri, his first wife being completely pushed aside by Sima, this event of the two adult children of Agha to bring him to the hospital was puzzling to him. He knew of many years that the father and children had not communicated; he knew that Agha had taken Neda to court. He was very surprised but happy that finally somebody had brought Agha to the hospital. It were many years that the father and children had no relationship. He was the one that had arranged to get a birth certificate for Ariana, Neda's daughter, that showed she was born six months earlier, since Mitra, Mansour's wife was pregnant at the time of her birth. How was it possible that Mitra could have a child only six months after the birth of Ariana? He had arranged that Ariana was Mitra's baby in all the legal paper. This Doctor, a friend of family, had adjusted all the documents in a way that Neda's name was not mentioned anywhere. It had been Mitra who had a baby, named Ariana, not Neda. And again It was Mitra, who had another baby only ten months after the birth of Ariana.

But now there was no time for any of this reminisce!

They took Jalal to the Intensive Care Unit and immediately hooked him up with all kind of the machines. The old man's breathing was weak and labored. They x rayed his lungs. They drew blood. The did whatever was available to them at the time. The doctor came to a private room that the family were waiting. All of them, including mother, Sima, and Mina, his little girl, who had come with a taxi, were there. But the doctor walked to Neda and Sohrab and said:

"His lungs are filled with water. There is not much hope. He had never recovered from the pneumonia he had in winter. Much scar tissue... so..." The old doctor was obviously very upset.

Neda walked away from everyone. She went outside through the heavy metal door of the hospital. She leaned on a square post; then she began a cigarette. Tears like a storm of spring began flowing down her face. Her mother came outside after her.

"Sima is very angry with you!" She said.

"Mom, all you're thinking about is her! What about your husband? He's dying."

Mehri wiped her daughter's face with a tissue.

"Maybe he deserves it." She said it as if to herself. "How come you, all of a sudden are so concerned about him? You didn't even want to come for visit!"

Neda gave her mother an angry look. Her eyes were blazing.

"So you two were planning his death! Is that it? No matter what he's done to me, I've never stopped loving him."

Mehri did not answer her daughter's accusation. She went inside.

✍

"Lonelier than a leaf which is blown;

With the load of rare happiness which is unknown;

I've flown to the land of death,

I've inhaled the autumn's breath.

When night turns, dizzy breeze

The nostalgic sky of no ease

Remind me of the nights we were alone;

Our souls shivered, we heard a moan.

We pollute each other's day;

With our breath full of dismay.

Now that you're finally here;

Scattered like scent of a rose so dear;

We see nothingness on our way;

We close our lips, we don't say! "

To Be Continued

UNFULFILLED- SEVENTEEN- ✐✐✐The Old Man

Neda sat on the floor, massaging her dad's feet, dangling in the pot of a water, her head was bent almost into her chest, her hands were at work, and tears were gushing down her face; but no one could see those tears since her loose long hair was covering her face which was bent low, low, almost at the level of the pot of water. Her father knew she was crying. All of a sudden she was his little girl again. He put both his hands on her shaking shoulders. She looked up. He saw her teary face. She saw his deplorable eyes. He stooped enough to hug her.

"I feel better, sweet heart." He kept saying with a voice that was unrecognizable to Neda. Was that change for his getting older or for his being sick. But Neda noticed that how hard it was for him to breathe and speak.

"No, dad, we're taking you to the hospital now!" She looked towards her mother and Sima and then continued:

"No one can stop me!"

She Stood up to get her father ready. Sima had moved. Now she was next to Neda.

"No, you're not. This is my house and it's my decision and responsibility what to do and how to take care of him!"

Neda fired back:

"I know it is your decision and responsibility to kill him. Haven't you done enough damage? You've torn are family apart since your arrival!"

Sohrab and Maryam came to Neda's aid. They could not believe her passion, her capability for forgiving her father! But after all anything was possible from Neda. To them she had a passionate heart, a heart of a poet!

Neda was busy to get her father ready for removal from that house of horror. Sima wanted to fight her! She was terribly offended. Mother had gone to Sima and Jalal's bedroom to bring fresh clothes for the old man. Maryam also came to Neda's aid. She pushed Sima aside, stood in front of her so she could not interfere with Neda. Nobody had noticed that Mina, the fourteen years old daughter of the old man and Sima, the present occupant of Neda's girlhood room, had come to the room and standing by the door and crying. She was clung to Mehri instead of her own mother. Mehri knew that Neda was very serious.

"Do you want anything else, sweet heart?" She asked Neda

Neda by now was done drying her father's feet. She was putting clean socks that her mother had brought only a moment ago, on him. She turned to her mother and said:

"No, mom, we don't want to waste time. Just put some clothes for him in a bag. We just wrap him in a blanket. Some fresh air is not bad for him." Then she turned to Sohrab:

"Honey, get the car key from my bag and go start the car."

Sohrab did not object to anything his sister did. Neda with Maryam's help lifted her father. Now that he was standing, she noticed that he weighted almost nothing. She wrapped the blanket around him, helped him to put his sleepers on, and then the two women, each on one side of him, practically carried him down the stars. Mehri was a few step ahead of them. Sima had stayed in the room. Mehri was crying uncontrollably and involuntarily. When they were in first floor hall way, Sima showed up. She revealed no emotion or nothing that was visible to others. She was only red in face and neck. Maryam and Neda helped the old man to walk to the yard. Others followed. Neda looked one more time to the empty place of the cherry tree, where the pot of plant was sitting on the stump of the cut tree. Was that what happening to her father?

Mehri wanted to go with hem, but Neda said:

"Mom, we have no room in the car. You know where we're going. Just call a taxi!"

Sohrab drove Neda's Fiat. Maryam sat in front. Neda in the back seat had her father's head on her shoulder while touching his face and kissing him anywhere she could!

To Be Continued

UNFULFILLED- SEVENTEEN- ✚✚✚✚ The Old Man

Neda was standing close to the door, motionless. She looked like someone that for the first time seeing that room, not someone who had practically raised in that room. Then slowly she began moving towards her father. The few steps that she took, seemed like eternity to others; that is how slow she was moving. She finally stood next to her father's head while staring at the old man. A film of tears covered her eyes. She then sat on the floor, actually knelt down. She brought her right hand up and hesitatingly touched her father's forehead. Her face turned red. The old man was burning up with fever. His face was wet with sweat.

Suddenly she stood up and without saying a word, ran out of the room and to the bathroom. She took a towel and put it inside the sink, opened the cold water on it. After the towel was completely soaked in cold water, she twisted it to remove the excess water. Everyone in the room was curious to know what she was doing.

She returned to the room. Half of her clothes were wet. She shook the towel. Sprays of water flew every direction. Then she began wiping her father's face and neck with it. The old man opened his eyes. Something was happening to him that felt good. He was dreaming of Sima, but when he opened his eyes, he saw his daughter, the much older version of Neda, who had made him feel good, and was helping him.

"You guys just sit downstairs, and drink tea, and don't even care what's happening here! The room is filled with dust. There is no air in here. It feels like you don't care if he is even dead! Do you call yourselves wives?"

Then she turned to Sohrab. Her eyes were blazing and fiery.

"Sohrab, go get a pot, a big one, and fill it up with warm water and put some salt in it and bring it here. Please hurry!"

Mehri wondered how her daughter had learned these old women's trick for bringing the temperature down. Maryam and Sohrab together, left the room to do what Neda had asked them. They did not know how many times Neda had used this method of bringing the temperature down on their son, Aria when he was sick. In fact Kasra was the one that had though her this.

"You don't take the kid to the doctor every time he has a little fever." Neda recalled Kasra's words.

Sima got up from sofa. While waiting for the return of warm water and salt, Neda helped her father to sit up. She put the pillow behind his neck. She opened his shirt buttons and removed it from his body. She threw the blanket with much anger to the other side of the room. Her father's eyes widened, his eyes were ashamed. Neda made him to hang his leg down the sofa. She rolled up the bottom of both legs of his pants and took off his socks. his feet were hot and fiery. Mehri and Sima were standing next to each other in complete astonishment. Sima finally said:

"We do this, too, when his fever goes high!'

Neda gave such a dirt look to Sima, that her mother knew that look was also was for her.

When Sohrab and Maryam returned with a big pot of warm water and couple of big towels, Neda was ready to use her old women medical expertise that she owed it to Kasra. The salt was completely dissolved. She pulled her sleeves up and stirred the water with her hand. The she picked up her father's feet and put them both in the water. She heard a sigh from his lips. She began rubbing his feet gently, calmly, and with so much love and passion that brought shame to the wives. How was it a daughter, who was abandoned from her father's home, was sued by him, was not spoken to or seen by the old man for so long, could show so much love and emotion? Was this Neda the poet, or Neda the daughter?

To Be Continued

UNFULFILLED- SEVENTEEN- ~`~` The Old Man

So with a lot of fan fair, one weekend, the three companions without Aria, went to Neda and Sohrab's childhood home. Mother wanted them to go for dinner, but Neda thought after all these years, and after her father suing her in court, just a short visit would be proper and enough.

Mother opened the door before they rang. It seemed as though she was standing right behind the gate which opened to the yard and from there to the building. In fact this gate was the only entrance to this house. Those days most houses in Tehran were built that way; you first entered the yard, or garden as they called it, and then from there, entered to the building.

Neda's first glance was for the cherry tree. She noticed something strange about the yard. She saw the bench, the famous or infamous bench was where it had always been; but the tree was gone; it was cut down. What was left of it was a short about half a meter trunk which they had put a fancy pot of plant on it.

"What happened to the cherry tree, mom?" She asked, almost disturbed.

"Like everything else, it died. We had to cut it down." Mehri, her mother answered with a voice that was ready for a good cry.

"Like everything else!" Neda repeated after her mother; and then she asked:

"Where is father?" Mehri noticed that she did not say dad.

Mother was not able to answer, since at this time Sima walked from inside the building to the yard and joined them. As always she was dressed with make up and high heel, as if she was going to a party. She had not changed much except she was heavier, much heavier, as though she had settled in her passion for the old man. She said:

"I've made a bed for him in his study. He likes it there more than anywhere else in this house."

"Me, too!" Neda said as if to herself.

"Let's go see him." Sohrab broke in somewhat abruptly.

They all went upstairs. Mehri and Sima carried the cups for tea and sugar cube dish in a tray and the basket of fruit and a dish of pastries they had on the table of the living room. Sohrab helped his mother. Neda said some unrecognizable words under her tongue. She passed the others that climbing the stairs slowly with their loads of TRADITION ( tea, fruit, pastries ). Then she climbed the stairs two steps at a time. She wanted to look inside her girlhood room before the others would reach the floor. In front of her old room , she hesitated for a few second and then opened the door. Mina, her half- sister was sitting behind the desk. Nothing had changed. It was her room with a new occupant. The furniture were the same. The bed covering was changed. That was the only obvious difference Neda noticed. Mina rose her head for her studying. Neda put her hand on her lips to indicate to Mina to stay silent. Before she left the room, she noticed that Mina was wearing the gold necklace that she had given her a while back. "So she liked it!" She told herself while standing behind her father's study room. Waves of nostalgia swarmed into her. She recalled the days that she had spent more time in that room than any other place in that house. She recalled the time that she had sat on her father's lap while he read to her. What did happen to the old man? Was he this way from the beginning or was he changed because of his second marriage?

The rest finally reached where she was standing. Sima was the first.

"Why are standing there? Why aren't you going inside?"

Neda looked at her step mother with an intense stare. She wanted to say to Sima:

"My dad threw me out of this room when you came in. I was almost raised in this room!" But those words stayed in her turbulence mind. Sima opened the door and went inside herself.

"Jalal, everyone is here to see you!"

Jalal was dozing on the sofa that had replaced the love seat. He was lying down, a pillow with white cover under his head, a blue blanket was his cover all the way to his neck.

Neda followed Sima. She was shocked to see her father so frail, so thin, unshaven, and unaware. The rest came in, too. Everyone found a place to sit or to stand. The room had not changed. The books and shelves were still there; except perhaps these days no one was picking them up, or reading them. The smell of dust overwhelmed the room. It was coming from all corners of the room and pages of the books. Mother and Sima put the eatables on the coffee table, the same coffee table that had been there for ever. However nobody felt like having a party and eating or drinking tea. Mehri stood by the door. Neda noticed she was crying. Sima sat at one end of the sofa where the old man's feet were. She lifted his feet up and put them on her lap. Maryam stood next to Sohrab, who sat on the chair behind the desk.

To Be Continued