Fiction

Behind the Garden Door - Love

For the most part it was the circumstances – we were literally thrown together by the restrictions imposed on us from the outside and, like prisoners in a jail cell, we turned to each other out of necessity. It was really quite ironic – the very things that should have kept us apart: our different religions, the tyrannical nature of the regime and its constant attempt to control intermingling between man and woman, the political intrigues, our very cultures and mindsets – all these were washed away in the tidal wave of the revolution like matchsticks, causing us to become closer, and, having no one but each other to turn to, ever closer still>>>

The Girl Who Didn't Know About All This

The girl who didn't know about all this knew something. I didn't even know if it was all this that she didn't know about. It may have been some of this. It seemed like it was all of it for me because it didn't matter where I went - around the campus or in the neighborhood of the university or downtown to the heart of the city, it seemed like it was the same questions about life and what was going to happen with it and whether the way I felt about people was full of love or full of something else. But it looked like she didn't know about all this because she had a notebook in front of her, and she had it in front of her sitting on a step in the city square>>>

نتيجه نهاييِ زندگيِ آن زن

همان روز بود، آخرين روز، كه وقتي آن زن به چشمهاي مردي كه دوستش مي داشت نگاه كرد، تصميم گرفت كه خودش را بفروشد. نه به او ... خريدارش را خودش مي بايست انتخاب كند. مردي براي تمامي سالهاي باقيمانده عمرش ... در نگاهش، ــ در نگاه همان مردي كه دوستش مي داشت ــ ديگر نه عشق بود، نه تمنايي براي لمس وجودش . . . وقتي زن مي گفت "وجود"، منظورش فقط جسمش نبود، بلكه چيزي ماوراء جسم. چيزي نامريي و لمس نشدني . . . در خيرگي نگاهِ مرد، تنش ناگهان يخ كرد. خيلي سعي كرد كه گرمي را به تنش بازگرداند، آن چشمها، آن چشمها كه او را نمي ديد، از پشت چشم هاي بسته اش به او زل مي زد. >>>

Sick of Goodbyes

I woke up by the morning light. It was still too early, everyone else was sleeping. I panted in silence. Our new cell had long windows with a view of the prison backyard. A view to the sky. I looked at grey clouds and didn’t worry about the rain. The shadows of the night slowly disappeared and I distinguished shapes and objects, brightened by a timid blue sunrise. On the dirty wall by the bed, I recognized handwritten messages of old prisoners>>>

خواهر مرجان

فرانسویان سخت شان است که نام مرا تلفظ کنند. "ه" را به کل حذف می کنند و نامم تبدیل می شود به "مایستی" طوری که گاهی دیگر با شنیدنش خودم را دیگر به جا نمی آورم. با لئا کمی تمرین تلفظ کردیم ولی می دانم یادش خواهد رفت. آدمها با شما آشنا می شوند با روحتان نزدیک می شوند و بعد،... دفعه ی بعد حتا اسمتان را هم یادشان نیست. این سالها خیلی ها مرا "خواهر مرجان" خطاب کرده اند ولی در سالهای اول سکونتم در فرانسه هرگز کسی مرا "خواهر مهتاب" صدا نزد. سالهای جنگ بود و جو ضد ایرانی خیلی قوی و رایج بود. بیخود نیست که مرجان ساتراپی وقتی داستان همان سالها را می نویسد در دوره ای از ایرانی بودن خود خجلت زده است و یک بار به ناچار خود را فرانسوی جا می زند و خود را "ماری ژان" معرفی می کند. >>>

Behind the Garden Door

I am sitting alone in the back yard of my house. It is summer, in the early afternoon, and the scorching sun has laid everyone low. All around me is quiet, not a car stirring anywhere in this little patch of American suburbia. I sit on a plastic chair in the midst of all the fruit trees my wife and I had planted. There are only a few and still quite young: a sour cherry, albaloo, that hangs its ruby fruit like jewels over my head, a peach, a pear and an apple tree. I look down to where a small fig is gathering root and spreading its leaves alongside the river of stone we had put down. There is a meandering path leading past a bench hidden by the branches of the California oak, and next to that, a sudden exhilarating shot of white from the stand of tall cala lilies, their petals open to the sky>>>

I Witnessed Two Murders

It was two in the morning and I was the last customer left in the bar. I decided it was time to leave and head home. Since my car was parked in the rear of the building, I decided to exit from the back door and use the alleyway as a shortcut. It was very dark out there except for the full moon that gave a silvery hue to everything it touched. As I walked toward the main road, I heard a faint cry coming from somewhere to my left. I was afraid to get involved but my inborn curiosity was too strong to overcome. Very quietly I headed toward the sound>>>

درس جغرافیا

مریم دانش آموز کلاس پنج ابتدایی ست و در تنها مدرسه ی دخترانه ی ماسوله مشغول تحصیل است.
مریم در اوقات فراغت عروسک های کوچولو می بافد.
او بافتن عروسک را در مدرسه فراگرفته است.
مریم عروسک هایش را روی تکه مقوایی سنجاق می کند.
بعد از ظهرها که مریم از مدرسه به خانه می آید، عروسک ها را کنار در خانه می گذارد و تا هنگام نماز مغرب و عشاء، روی سکوی پیش روی در، کنار عروسک هایش می نشیند.
>>>

A geography lesson

In a rather warm June morning, I buy a poppet from Maryam for 400 toomans. Maryam looks at me and the notes surprisingly. She smiles and let me take some photos of her. As I want to leave, she sends her greetings to my wife. “I don’t have any” I say. Maryam looks at me wondering, asking me: “How do you live then?” I don’t know what to say to Maryam whom in her 12 years’ life hasn’t been out of Masoule at all. Up til this moment I haven’t thought either how I could live without a wife! >>>

All birds are my friends!

Most days, during late mornings or early afternoons when I just have gotten up, with my hair still in a mess and dressed in my morning robe, a cup of black coffee in my hand and a lit cigarette standing in the balcony, I get a visit by a sparrow. He comes and sits very close to me on the edge and talks to me. He brings me news and briefings form the previous night’s adventures in the other realm, which I visited during the night in my sleep.>>>

The Spider Killings: Conclusion

Roxanne had just finished emailing her story to the newspaper office in Tehran. “The Spider Killer Dead in His Own Web!”, the headline of the newspaper would read in the special evening edition. They had found the remnants of seven bodies buried in Sharif’s garden, and they suspected that the oldest one was that of his wife, Azam. Along with the more recent victims found scattered inside and in the outskirts of the city of Mashad, the body count totaled sixteen. There was no doubt that Sharif was the Spider Killer as each corpse found interred in his backyard had the telltale signs of having been strangled to death>>>

How the hyena got its laugh

In the largest and most famous pack of hyenas in South Africa, lived over 90 dull, dangerous aggressive spotted hyenas…OK, maybe they weren’t so famous, and there wasn’t so many of them, but one thing is true though, and that is, that this story is very ancient, and that is exactly why you should hear it now, before it is lost in the mist of time. Now among them lived a playful and happy baby hyena. Now be prepared for a shock. These hyenas did not have a laugh, they never even imagined having one>>>

Dream of becoming

It is dark. Lying under my bed, touching the thick harsh wooden board that holds the mattress, touching the cold metallic bed frame, listening to the drum-like sound of artilleries aimed at invisible enemies. The darkness of night blankets the absurdity of the situation, and still knowing that does not help me to calm down. I lower my hands to the ground, pressing the floor, hard, as if I am trying to dissolve into it, to transform into cold grey vapor--smoke and ashes. My body, my fingers, my back, feel numb, but still not as numb I dream of becoming>>>

امشب لوچیا می رقصد

لوچیا ارام و باهوش و بی سر و صدا و بی جنجال است. وقتی سرش را کلاه میگذارند، لوچیا خاموش می ماند و با دستهایش، با همان دستهای فرز و مهربانش تند و تند چیزی را تکرار می کند که من دقیقاً نمی فهمم و لوچیا نفس عمیقی می کشد و دوباره همان را از سر تکرار می کند و آنقدر تکرار می کند تا بفهمش. وقتی می فمهش و از آنچه بر سرش آمده خشمگین می شوم و فریاد می کشم، لوچیا نفس عمیقی می کشد و ساکت می نشیند. >>>

The Spider Killings (20)

Ever since he had caught a glimpse of Azadeh wailing over the body of her dead friend in front of the Mausoleum of Imam Reza, Sharif, like a hungry tiger fixated on its prey, had kept close track of her. He had followed her to the police station, wondering when she would be released from questioning, hoping he could approach her for a ride then. But for the two days that Sharif kept his vigil, he had been thwarted in his plans. Coming and going, Azadeh was always accompanied by an older woman. An older woman who struck Sharif as one he had seen before. Well obviously, she must be a prostitute too. These morally ill women stuck together after all>>>