from Issue #5, Fall 2014 - Spring 2015

an excerpt from Vis & I

by Farideh Razi, translated from Persian by Niloufar Talebi

[ Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 ]

[ continued ]

Look at how I reemerge stronger and fiercer the more I burn in each fire that I fall into. Look at how I efface each era inside me in order to see its cruel face. Each person somehow learns what it's like to burn. It's common. I must resist, or else I will be destroyed, my name consigned to oblivion. Do you know how time would pass without me? Me, the only harbinger bearing a message of light, steadfast to my vow. Hear my message: I am Vis, Vis.

I had to return to myself. I drove thoughts to the deepest recesses of my mind, focusing on my fingers stinging from scraping the car seat's leather, and its pieces jammed under my fingernail. The driver's glaring eyes are peering at me in the rearview mirror. I turn away to watch you occupying the space of my mind. What are you waiting for? An incident? The incident is on me, we're heading towards you. Don't you know who I am? I don't either. I keep wondering, What I am, or what I am supposed to be! A particle that separates from others spins uncontrollably in the orbiting space, and in this turning, the I is created, comes into being.

The driver's cruddy eyes watch me incredulously from the corner of the mirror. The ring of my voice echoes in the car cabin, I've probably been talking out loud to myself. I mustn't allow myself to get lost in myself. Streets, signs, and branches hanging in the wind pass me by. Stars burst into pieces in the heart of the sky, join together again, meteor-like, to form a bigger star, and rest on the car's windshield. The car speeds along, the scent of the streets change. Each street has its own, as with each person. There's one hour left until takeoff. If the car doesn't go any faster, and if the driver doesn't keep his eyes on the road, rather than eyeing me, we'll never make it. The monument of freedom slowly emerges in the scented night through the dusty haze of lights. Excited, I think: We're almost there, we'll get there and I'll feel your figure next to mine, and we'll laugh together. Right now, you're sitting at the top of the Freedom Tower,* having strung a rope around the groove of its neck, pulling to take it away with you! Do you hear its voice from the top? It's shouting: Don't take me away. Let me stay here where I've been planted, I've grown roots here. Where are you taking me, considering all the curve and grace of those raised fists! Have you forgotten how majestic I was when throngs of people gathered around me, sought refuge in me, called me by the name? What days and nights they didn't spend under the shadow of my protection. I'll be forgotten if you take me away, and no one will ever hear my name again. I don't want to be forgotten, don't allow it! . I closed my eyes and leaned back in the seat, envisioning you.

Loads of people had spread picnics around the Karaj dam, radio in hand for the latest news.* The wave of their commotion echoed through the desert. People were looking at one another without seeing each other, passing through one another without feeling the contours of each other's existence. One could hear the toll of destruction from their invisible intersections. The radio announced: Attention, Attention, the sound you are hearing now. and it means an attack. is under way, which would intensify their scampering. Soldiers-whose status as to captured or free, bound for home or the front was unclear-appeared around the bend of the road. They traveled in groups under the round milky moon, hunched inward, with transmogrified faces devoid of any emotion. Some dragged others by the underarm, unconsciously striving to observe order. They weren't going on their own, they were being taken, belts hanging loose, boots sloshing along as if soaked with water. The only people laughing, gloomlessly and unawares, were little boys with hairless girlish faces, playacting snatching guns from one another as if it was a silly game.

We had all left town, now sitting together around blankets we had spread on the hills. I looked for five small and uniform stones to play knucklebones with together with the children. Khosrow said: "Auntie, we have to bet that whoever wins. "Siamak cut him off: ". Whoever wins must tell a story!" Everyone agreed and we got playing. Your car was visible around the bend of the mountain. Looking at it calmed me. You were probably composing a song in your head, under these circumstances: commotion and anxiety. Khosrow shouted: "Auntie, auntie, where are you? You're ruining our game! Ok, so you're not in the game anymore, move over! Guys, don't play with Auntie anymore." He flung the stones and went to a corner and sulked cross-legged. Just as I was about to say something, the radio announced a state of emergency again. The announcer's voice had a peculiar tone (Would I be able to forget this voice one day?). Siamak gathered the stones and went and sat down by Khosrow. Playing didn't make sense anymore. All heads were tilted back skyward searching for a fire-flower that was about to blossom in the wide heart of the sky and crash onto our heads. I looked at the children. They were staring at us, eyes bulging, a thousand questions flinging from the waves of their gazes.

It was verging on dusk. You swung an arm around my shoulder and started talking without looking at me (Were you talking to yourself or to someone imaginary?): "Do you see, the days come and go, every day loses itself into night. Just as you're about to know yourself, your neighbor, your child, someone gets bored somewhere and points an authoritative finger in some direction and issues an order. On the other end, perhaps it's you or me, whose life, happiness and hard-found peace they destroy, without. "

I said: "Look at these heads that have turned like sunflowers towards the sun! They are in search of smoky dust clouds coming from missiles that launch and destroy, waiting for the rain of death, and you want them to think of other things!"

You said: "Someday, someone or other will write all this down, and that will bring us peace-albeit it might happen when we will no longer need peace of mind."

"What good is that? Each person writes from their own specific point of view."

One by one the lights went out, the people-paved street fell into a slumber, and voices hushed into low whispers. Knees to chest, I waited for everyone to fall asleep. Vis was sitting on top of a rock across from me, luminous moon dust sprinkling across her face. I so wanted to avoid looking at her, to be free from the temptation of her very existence, but she disallowed it with her murmuring. When the last light went out, she stood up and listened to the symphony of breaths under the burgeoning shadow of night. I watched her with dread. She started on her way, chin up high and without looking at me. Vis, Vis, stop, I'm talking to you! I extended a hand to stop her. She quickly pushed my hand away and slid down the hill, sand and gravel tumbling after her. A few people raised their heads. Vis lay in the shadow of the towering mountain to elude the moonlight. When the commotion died down, she got up and ran, fist at chest clutching her heart. I was witness to the currents of joy that emanated from her into space. Just imagining the incident that was about to happen was causing her to laugh. The closer she got to you, the slower she ran. A waft of your scent permeated the fantasy-inspiring terrain of night. Freedom from me and union with you in longing's raging fever! The moment that was about to happen was dazzling. Come, let's forget war, forget cruelty, be forgotten, this very passing moment takes my crimson color away with it, clipping my path to oblivion, let's shine, become the sun, isolation wilts us, let's come together and fill the world with us, until perhaps! .

continue to Part 6 >>

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