My Bird Read online

  Years ago, Amir was able to go from Baku to Turkey and from there to the Greek border. He has talked about that foolish risk he took at least a thousand times. He got off at a train station to get a cup of tea, only a cup of tea. But before taking a sip, he experienced one of the most important moments of his life; he felt the humid air, the store window full of colorful drinks, the green bench where he was sitting, and then a heavy hand landed on his shoulder, and the harsh voice of a Turkish policeman asked for his passport.

  Years had to pass for the barbwire at the Turkish-Greek border to prick him but not hurt. “Oh, I would die for those barbwires now. If I get there ever again, I would be gone forever. I wouldn’t even look back.”

  Shahin sighs like Amir, looking at the ceiling and gesturing like him! “I wouldn’t look back either, if I went.”

  We both look at him.

  “Because I don’t have anything here, no bicycle, no skates, no computer, no nothing!”

  Amir says, “A bicycle is not what you need. You should study; education is what you need to make a living these days. You need a skill.”

  Shahin wants to have a bicycle.

  “I don’t want you to run around in the streets. I want you to grow up.”

  Shahin says, “I don’t want to grow up. I want a bicycle.”

  “You need to get a job and buy the bicycle with your own money.”

  Shahin does not want to work. He wants to ride a bicycle.

  These kinds of things make Amir angry. He raises his hand as if he is going to slap Shahin hard. But all three of us know that his hand will not touch Shahin. Last week when Amir’s hand did come down, without trying to run away, Shahin said, “When we move to Canada, you cannot hit me. I will call the police.”

  Shahin does not run away. He slowly gets up and goes to the backyard.

  Amir starts ranting and raving, and to make up for not hitting him, he runs after Shahin. Suddenly, it starts raining. Shadi and I follow Amir. Big drops of rain beat on the aluminum awning rhythmically. The single beats of the drum get louder. I tell Shahin and Shadi to go in and do their homework. They both disappear. Amir moves away from the awning and stands in the rain. The uproar created by the rain and the drum fills the backyard.

  I go inside to the kitchen and say, “Come in.”

  He doesn’t see me. He doesn’t hear me. He squats out there, clasping his hands behind his head. The cement wall behind him is covered with rain spots.

  “Get up and come inside.”

  Where is Amir? Maybe back to the barbwire or somewhere on the other side of the world. Don’t know. He is no longer in this house. He is gone.

  7

  I call Shadi. She doesn’t answer. With all the noise coming from the parking lot, I can’t hear her. I look out the window. Shadi is not there. I send Shahin to look for her. Shahin returns, holding on to her arm tightly, and tugging at her. Shadi is screaming.

  “I told you to find her, not to beat her up!”

  I sit Shadi in front of me and give her a little lecture—what Maman should have done with me and never did. If I wanted to say something, I would pace up and down the room seven or eight times. I felt my heart in my throat and could not talk because it seemed like my words were stuck at the bottom of a deep well.

  I have to teach Shadi to be careful. Maybe someone will show kindness to her. There are a hundred types of kindness, and she should know the difference. I want to teach her to watch out for the big boys who are going in and out of the building all the time. I don’t know how to tell her tactfully that someone might want to touch her body. That she should scream. Shahin asks, “Why, Maman?”

  “Because it is important.”

  The kids look at me. I grab Shadi’s doll, and squeeze her stomach. The doll cries. I say, “Like this.”

  I take the battery out of the doll and squeeze it again. I say, “See, if you don’t make a sound, you are as bad as a doll without a battery, without a heart. Then it is possible to hurt you because nobody will even find out.”

  I hit the doll hard. Pull on her hair, and ask Shadi, “Do you understand?”

  I sound too harsh. Shahin is looking at me approvingly, but Shadi bursts into tears. I caress her hair and the doll’s, and end my speech.

  Shadi starts talking, “Ida buys fruit roll ups and ice cream; she buys candy. But I don’t have any money.”

  I feel like a defeated speaker who has talked about art for an hour to hear the audience ask questions about economics.

  “Ida has sunglasses. She has a bicycle, but I don’t have anything.”

  I tell Shadi that she has a lot of things too. Shahin says, “She doesn’t have any brains.”

  Shadi says, “You don’t have any.”

  Shahin has found an excuse. He is getting ready to attack. “Come on. Tell me what I don’t have?”

  Shadi opens up her fist and laughs. “Nothing.”

  8

  Maman left our house without saying good-bye. She was either too sick and forgot to say good-bye, or she thought about it and ignored us on purpose. Right by the door I have hung a rectangular mirror on the wall where I could see Amir’s sneering face. He doesn’t like Maman, and at times like this, he even despises her. Maman knows this. I know she is leaving our house with this understanding.

  Tonight Maman went to the bathroom more than ten times in an hour and wept.

  “You shouldn’t have mixed cream into the soup. My blood pressure has gone up.”

  Trembling, she pulled the blanket up to her shoulders. “If I were home, I would have brewed mint tea. Perhaps the soup didn’t agree with me.”

  Without saying a word, I went to the kitchen and came back. But in reality I was thinking about the mint and her high blood pressure. I didn’t say anything. Wondering about my silence right at that moment, it felt like noticing suddenly that I was wearing a borrowed dress.

  I remembered that my silence has a history. I have been praised for it time and again. I was seven or eight years old when I realized not all children have this virtue. My silence was considered my best asset. One day Father took me to the basement and asked, “Where did you go with Aunt Mahboub yesterday?”

  I went mute, not out of wisdom but out of fear. My instinct told me that the answer to a question asked in the basement without turning the lights on would bring disaster. Father looked at me suspiciously. I didn’t look like a mischievous and scheming little girl at all, and since he was not a persistent person anyway, he gave up very quickly and left the basement. The reward I got from Maman’s gentle tone an hour later turned my simple and cowardly act of going mute into a meaningful and wise silence.

  In later years, I was repeatedly admired by the women in the family for being reserved, for being secretive. I soon realized that I was like a chest full of secrets with a tight lid.

  Aunt Mahboub praised my silence, and later on others echoed her praise. If a secret was exposed, if something was revealed, all eyes would turn toward Mahin. I was immune from all suspicious looks.

  It was after Father’s death that I broke my silence by screaming. I was sick and tired of my assigned role. I wanted the whole world and everybody to know everything. I didn’t want to be anybody’s accomplice, even my mother’s. That’s why I screamed. Father had died lonely and like a child. This was tormenting me. Maman answered my screaming with more screaming. Shahla and Mahin took Maman’s side. They said I had become foolish and I’d better shut up, but I kept screaming. Father had died like a child. His head had slipped off the mattress and he had died. Mahin had to kiss my face, begging me to leave the basement. I had never felt as close to Father as on the day he died.

  Shahla said, “If you remember how mean he was, how oppressive, you’d calm down.” But I kept screaming that if he was a bully, why didn’t he die like one? Maman was shouting too. That morning of screaming made me feel absolutely helpless. I realized that there would be no truth exchanged between Maman and me.

  When I moved from Father’
s house to Amir’s, my secretiveness had no use. Amir was frustrated with my silence. He wanted me to talk about everyday events, about the neighborhood news, about Shahla, about Mahin. There was no room for secrecy in our new life. It would create distance and cause suspicion. If something was discovered later than it should, a fight would break out. Amir wanted everything to be transparent. My silence scared him. Slowly I got used to rambling, even when it wasn’t necessary. Years later, I learned that talking can even be a better cover than silence.

  But even with years of practice, my inside dialogue was never completely revealed to the outside world. I am still considered a quiet person. Maman says, “Bless his soul, you take after him. Your father would hardly say two words.”

  We both remembered at the same time that he did talk in his final days. “Too much talk,” Maman stresses. “Nothing worthwhile.”

  Tonight I didn’t brew mint tea for Maman even when she said, “God, my blood pressure has gone up.” I didn’t say, “You can take a pill.” As Shahla would have said. I was busy. The fridge door was clean but I was wiping it again and considering cleaning the old spots on the stove. Right then I knew I should say something no matter how irrelevant or stupid.

  My silence was bothering me like a tight woolen dress in hot weather. I wanted to take it off. Maman was weeping while putting on her shoes, and I still couldn’t play the role I expected of myself. I remained right there at the door. Maybe everything would go back to normal; a routine good-bye between mother and daughter. I needed this old world ritual that sooths the pain like a balm. But Maman disappeared in the stairway and didn’t even glance back.

  9

  Maman doesn’t cry only when she is in pain. She cries when the phone rings a lot or the television is too loud. She cries when she is cold and can’t stop her shivers with blankets, or when Shahla comes from work and goes straight to her room. When she goes to the bathroom, you can hear her wailing as if she has a burning infection. Maman cries even in her sleep.

  Her wailing is not related to old age. Years ago, when Father brought company home and ordered dinner, her wailing echoed in the basement. It echoed in the rooms. It echoed in the backyard. Then Father would inevitably throw something at the wall to stop the wailing.

  But the noise never stopped. Father sold the turntable and bought a radio. He turned the volume high, but the weeping didn’t stop. Maman carried this noise with her like an electric device.

  When Father was on the road, her weeping subsided. Our ears no longer felt like ears. They were merely soft pieces of flesh attached to the sides of our head without any specific function.

  After Father became housebound, Maman’s weeping escalated, as if now it was intentional. It wasn’t the sound of crying. It was disgust. It was hatred. It was pain. Her weeping felt like an electric current passing through your body and drying your blood instantaneously. The noise was unrelenting, and no other noise, from Father’s screaming to the sound of the water fountain in the little pool, the clinking of the soda bottles, or Aunt Mahboub’s laughter, could compete with it.

  Father took refuge in the basement and stayed there until the end. Maman’s wailing passed through the doors, the walls, and our bodies, and continued in our dreams.

  10

  The problem was that Father’s heart was healthy, but his legs didn’t move. The brain didn’t communicate properly. His speech was troubled, and he was confused. Amidst all this, his heart was like a general who continued to give useless commands in a battle that had already ended.

  The first time he got lost, like all things that are good only the first time, he received everyone’s attention for a few days. We told everybody the story of his getting lost, and he laughed more than anybody. But nobody felt like laughing the second time he got lost. An older man brought him home and delivered him to us in a humiliating way. His pants were wet, and he said he’d taken to the road.

  In days to come, it was the longing for the road that brought him out of the half-lit basement. Shahla wrote the home address on a piece of paper and put it in his coat pocket. Father thanked her like a respectable gentleman.

  He then asked for “that stick.” He meant his cane. He came back and said he had forgotten to take the thing that has two lenses and is worn on the eyes. Mahin gave him his glasses. His speech was like a riddle that each one of us loved to solve first. But this habit got old pretty soon too, and the puzzles of his final days were never resolved.

  11

  Aunt Mahboub didn’t have any children. Sometimes she needed a child in her life, and she’d borrow one of us from Maman. Shahla was too old to be a child. Perhaps she had previously played a child for Aunt Mahboub. Mahin was too much of a brat and unruly. I was more suited than anybody else.

  Aunt Mahboub would give me a bath before anything. She put me between her strong legs and would wash my head as if there was nothing soft in it. She used all her might. Changing my clothes, she’d say, “Your mother is sloppy.” In a few hours, I was transformed so much that I didn’t know what to do with my new self. That’s what she wanted. She wanted to cleanse me of my old ways and to mold me the way she liked. She taught me how to eat properly, how to give thanks in a clear voice after eating, and how to wash myself in the toilet so I wouldn’t smell.

  When my training was over, Aunt Mahboub would allow me to treat myself to the chocolate on the coffee table.

  She said, “Think of this place as your own home.”

  I wanted to but I couldn’t. It was not my home. Uncle Qadir, like an old doorman, was always watching with his half-open eyes. He smoked a water pipe day and night and stopped only when he wanted to confirm what Aunt Mahboub had said or to give me an unfatherly wink. As if he couldn’t wink without removing the hookah from his mouth.

  It wasn’t only Uncle Qadir who obeyed Aunt Mahboub like a devoted servant. There were a lot of people who smiled at Aunt Mahboub’s remarks sheepishly and nodded their head for no reason.

  Aunt Mahboub knew how to do a lot of things, from concocting remedies and medication to telling fortunes, praying, magic, and sorcery. At the right time, she even knew how to sing and dance. Neighbors would come to visit her. Even Maman turned off her weeping machine for a few hours and looked young and happy when she visited. Aunt Mahboub would torment Uncle Qadir to the point that he’d quickly turn purple. She made him keep the hookah’s tube in his mouth and not even raise his head to acknowledge her comments.

  Aunt Mahboub could go anywhere, something Maman couldn’t do and was always envious of. Aunt Mahboub’s return from her trips was different from Father’s. Father always brought all the road dust with him. He would collapse in the middle of the room asking us to spray water on his chest and to massage his arms and legs. The smell of his sweat filled the house. Maman had to wash the rags from the car and his dishes that looked like they had been used by a dog.

  Aunt Mahboub brought with her the kinds of things that smelled like perfumes from unknown lands. Aunt Mahboub was generous and brave.

  “Mahboub has a big heart,” Maman said. “Mahboub could climb up a straight wall. Boys in the neighborhood were terrorized by her. She was never drab like me.”

  The first time I went to the movies with Aunt Mahboub, I watched two films at the same time; one with my entire face and the other with half my face. I didn’t understand much of either. When I described the movies for Maman and Shahla, Shahla understood the one that I had watched with my entire face and Maman the one that I had seen with half my face. That evening, Aunt Mahboub sent me back home for the first time.

  “I don’t like tattletales.” She pressed her hand on my bony chest. “A woman should learn to keep everything here. Do you understand?”

  I understood.

  12

  I tell Amir, “I am not leaving this place.”

  “When I leave, you will be leaving with me, and when you come, you’ll be thankful because I have saved you from this place.”

  His voice is gradually growing l
ouder. As if he is addressing ten people. “Nothing improves by staying.”

  “Calm down.” I point to the children.

  He says quietly, “You’ll stay here and rot. There is no future here for you, neither for you nor for the kids. Do you understand?”

  I realize that today Amir is planning to do something about our future.

  “You’ll travel for the rest of your life. You should thank God that I am providing this opportunity for you, the possibility of traveling, experiencing life, seeing the world, living.”

  Amir comes closer and, as if he wants to say something private, he becomes more quiet and intimate.

  “I say this for your own sake. Maybe when you are there, you won’t even love me anymore. You may want to go your own way.” Snapping his fingers, “You’ll start a different life.”

  When the future is in Amir’s hand, it can take any shape.

  “What keeps you here? What attachment? Shahla?”

  Amir knows that although my last name and Shahla’s are the same and that Father and Maman are our parents, we have nothing in common.

  Shahla is fat with a very beautiful nose. Her eyes are like hazelnuts, round and dark, and her double chin is the first thing you see. Everybody says Shahla takes after Maman. I am bony and I have inherited Father’s nose, which is always the topic of conversation. “Wouldn’t it be better to have plastic surgery?” I’ll do it if I have the money one day. But before that day, I have to do a thousand other things with the money.

  Shahla is the master of giving advice. “Before your surgery you should buy a few dresses for yourself and get rid of your clothes. They look like they’re from the ancient Sassanian dynasty.”

  Amir says, “It’s this kind of behavior that makes me call you a polar bear. You are afraid of change. You are afraid of moving. You like to stay put. You think the world remains the way you want. Anyhow, is this any good? Answer me. Is it what you want? You’re so withdrawn into your own life that you have forgotten there is another way to live. This is not life you’re living.”