It all looked like the fragments of a shattered dream—the dusk, the dark indigo sky, and the way the airport mini-bus drove them through an endless road with the speed of light. He craned his neck, but couldn’t see the driver. It was as if the bus drove itself. He clawed the front seat and ignored his daughters who sat on either side of him, looking at him lovingly, studying his aged face. The twins hadn’t seen him for many years.
Could this all be true? It was more like one of his recurring nightmares: a remote land with long roads, fast-moving cars, tall buildings, dark corridors, and elevators which always stuck between floors. Now the bus drove through a crooked street, making several rights and lefts before it finally stopped.
The girls helped him out, held his arms, and walked him through a sand-covered courtyard to a basement. Everywhere was dark. He couldn’t see, but could hear chains clinking. He wanted to remove the eyepatch from his bad eye, but his daughters held his arms tightly. He couldn’t speak. In this dark basement there was an elevator. They took him inside. The elevator didn’t have a door. Someone pushed a button and the metal box first squeaked, then groaned, and took them up to the house. He wasn’t even sure whose house this strange place was. Did it belong to Abi, the daughter who was a teacher and had a husband, or, Bibi, the other one, who didn’t have a job and was divorced? But it didn’t matter. All he needed was to be alone, to remove his eyepatch, to let the light in. He had to let the light inside his head.
So this was America. And this place was where he had to stay "for a little while," as they were saying, until his son-in-law would find him and his wife a house. "A house," he murmured; then he said, "Home…" and repeated this word so many times until it lost its meaning.
"Home, home, home, home…" he murmured, and limped from one room to another, peering through all the six windows of his daughter’s house. He stood at the bedroom window, looking at the neighbor’s yard. The black man’s roof was cracked, sinking, almost falling on his head. In the middle of the yard, he had a big bathtub, yellow enamel chipped. He had gathered some rain water. Why? The old man wondered, but again he didn’t want to think hard to find the answer. He stood in front of the kitchen window and looked at his daughter’s yard: a big sand-covered space, with only one small flowerbed on the left. The fresh dark soil showed that the bed had been recently and hastily prepared. Now the dog was digging the pansies out. He peered from another window and saw a bar with blinking red neon. Some men in tatters went in and out. Where was this house? He wondered. Was his daughter poor? He looked around to see if anyone was there, if he could remove the eyepatch. But his wife sat close to him unpacking the suitcases. She took their son’s framed picture out, lay it in front of her on the table and then started to fold or unfold clothes.
Mr. Parvin sat at the kitchen table to eat. His daughters, Abi and Bibi kissed his cheeks. In a flash of memory he remembered them as little girls, twins, sitting on his lap; one on his right leg, the other on his left. He remembered the scent of their hair too, sweet and grassy at the same time. But he didn’t want to remember more. All he wanted was to be left alone but they wouldn’t leave. What if they wouldn’t give him a chance to be by himself? What if they’d stick to him all the time? Now they were talking about finding a place, a house. His son-in-law was going to show them a house with a yard, so that Mr. Parvin could sit on a bench and watch the plants. "House," he said, smiled, and bent his head low on the plate, almost touching the food with the tip of his nose. He ate as fast as he could, making munching and gulping sounds. He felt everyone’s gaze on himself. His wife’s burning eyes pierced his head. He raised his eyes. She motioned to him to lift his head and eat properly. He smiled and this time lifted the spoon so slowly that midway the soup spilled out. One of his daughters burst into tears, mumbling between sobs, loudly, hysterically, the way she used to cry and mumble when she was little, upsetting everybody. This was Bibi.
(illustration by Victor Velez)
"What’s…happened…to Baba?" She asked between hiccups.
Living in his daughter’s house "for a little while" seemed like an eternity. So where was this house his son-in-law was about to show them? When his wife scrubbed his back in the bathtub he whispered, "The house…" and she whispered back, "Soon, soon." He didn’t say anything, just touched his black eyepatch with his wet fingers, as if wanting to remove it. His wife told him not to touch it. Then he sat motionless and let his wife remove the patch and shampoo his hair. All this massive white hair, this mass of useless hair. He vaguely remembered himself with his thick black hair, combed back and set with Vaseline. But he didn’t want to remember more. He listened to the hollow sounds of the bathroom. His wife’s heavy breathing, gasping almost, toiling to wash the heavy bulk of his body and his thick white mane. Through the curtain of water covering his face he glanced at the bathroom window with his good eye. His bad eye was shut tight. He was tempted to open it and let the light in, let the colors happen, let the bricklayer come. But he didn’t; he kept the bad eye closed and his wife covered it with the patch again.
Since that first day he avoided the doorless elevator. His son-in-law insisted that he should use it to go down to the yard—it was safe. He was an engineer, designed and built the elevator just for Mr. Parvin’s convenience, so that he wouldn’t have to use the narrow steps. But the old man avoided the squeaky elevator. What if it would stop between the first floor and the basement, in the middle of the dark nowhere? He used the narrow stairway, took one step after another. Holding to the cold wall, he placed his good foot first, dragged his bad foot behind, and secured it next to the good one. It took him forever to get to the yard. He thought he’d lost most of his morning and felt angry. Mornings were when everybody finally went to work and his wife became busy with cooking and left him alone for a little while.
At last he was in the yard; he could enjoy himself. First he made sure that Gorgi, the huge gray dog, was chained. Then he limped up and down the yard several times, listening to the crackling of the sand under his shoes. He glanced at Gorgi several times to make sure he was asleep, or peacefully lying down, resting his head on his paws, watching him with sad eyes. He counted his trips to the gate and back to the steps—ten times. Then he sat on the steps, watching the flowerbed. In the empty place of the pansies that Gorgi had dug out and chewed they had planted some more. He always loved pansies; he used to have them in his previous houses back home; maybe that was why his daughter had planted them. But now he didn’t want to think about the pansies or his daughter. He just watched the blossoms without feeling anything. They were carefully chosen. The colors were dark and light shades of blue-purple, the lavender of dusk. The large but fragile blossoms bent under their own weight, as if a row of shy girls stood in front of him, posing self-consciously. But enough of them, he thought. His precious morning was passing by. His wife would call him any minute to go up and have lunch.
He was alone, the sun was in the sky, the dog was asleep. Now he could remove the eyepatch, allowing his guest to appear. But first the lights would come. Back home the doctor had explained that the reason he saw these lights and images was because of his torn retina. The light hit this crack, creating many colorful shapes like a kaleidoscope. He had a kaleidoscope in his eye and he could entertain himself any time he wanted. Just by sitting in the sun and removing the eye patch he could have the whole world before him. When his wife first saw him doing this she scolded him for damaging his eye even more. But then she left him alone. She didn’t know about the rest, though. No one knew that someone visited Mr. Parvin.
The bricklayer was simply called the bricklayer. He had no other name. He came into Mr. Parvin’s life after he possessed the kaleidoscope, after he didn’t speak much. He was a man in his forties with a sun-baked face, creased forehead, dark, piercing eyes, and wide brown hands, clay and mortar dried on them. He was broad-shouldered. A worker.
"Good morning, my friend!"
"Good morning Mr. Parvin!" the bricklayer said.
"Sit here, on these steps."
"Thank you, Mr. Parvin."
"What’s going on at home?"
"The same, sir. They’re arresting more and more, locking people up."
"Even the old people?"
"Even the old ones like yourself."
"They arrested me once."
"I know, don’t I?"
Mr. Parvin sighed, sat with the bricklayer and said nothing. His visits with the worker were like this. Relaxed and informal. Neither of them forced the other one to talk. They talked if there was a need to. Now he wasn’t thinking about the prison or the prisoners. He didn’t want to. Gazing at the pansies, relaxing, he just felt good and safe. His friend was next to him.
Evening at the dinner table, where his family sat around him, all talking at the same time, Mr. Parvin suddenly hit his knife hard on the china plate to make them quiet. For a second, the shrieking voices of his daughters echoed in the silent kitchen; when finally everybody was quiet he stood up. Behind him, the kitchen window framed the orange glow of the fall sunset. Everybody stared at him, standing at the head of the table against the dusk. He could hear his wife’s heart pulsating and see the blue vein on her temple throbbing with anxiety. What was he going to talk about? He hadn’t said a full sentence since they’d arrived. Only a few scattered words now and then. His daughters thought that their father had lost his speech after the stroke.
"Grandpa wants to talk!" The little red-haired granddaughter broke the silence. This was Abi’s daughter, the four-year-old freckle-face Mr. Parvin had tried to avoid since they’d arrived. Someone hushed her. He listened to the silence again. The dog down below rolled on the sand, his chain rattling. This constant sound of the chain made Mr. Parvin remember why he hit his knife to the plate. He had to tell them the truth. He had to tell his daughters everything.
"They took me there," he said. "Back home. They hit the heavy book on my head. The man said, ‘Are you trying to become a hero, old man?’ I said, ‘No, sir!’ Then they hit the book again. Here, let me show you!"
He rubbed the right side of his head. His daughters rushed to him. They took turns touching the spot, like when they were little and took turns sitting on his lap playing with his hair. Under their fingers, the bump felt like a hard walnut.
"They didn’t hit him," his wife said calmly. "He always had that swell. When he was a kid, he fell off a tree or a wall or something," she said.
"They took me to the dark room," Mr. Parvin still standing against the window, said, "They asked me where my son was. I said, ‘My son is here, with you!’"
"What is all this about, Maman?" Bibi burst out.
"Why haven’t you told us all this?" Abi echoed.
"After your brother escaped, they arrested your father," Mrs Parvin said. "It was just a brief interrogation. They wanted to know where your brother was. That’s all."
"They beat him!" Bibi said, sobbing loudly.
"With a heavy book! Here!" Mr. Parvin added.
"He is making this part up. They didn’t hit him," Mrs. Parvin insisted.
"But his retina tore—" Abi said, and wiped her eyes.
"That was six months later," Mrs. Parvin explained. "Your brother was hiding for six months. Finally, they found him and locked him up. Your father had the stroke after he heard the news. The stroke did this to him, damaged the right side of his body and his right eye…" Now Mrs. Parvin wept into her napkin. "What a nightmare I went through. My son under torture, my husband paralyzed, none of you were there to help me."
"With a heavy book!" Mr. Parvin repeated. "And the man said, ‘Are you trying to become a hero, old man?’"
The twins took their parents to the bedroom, gave them each a tranquilizer, and sat in the living room with the TV on, but mute. It was raining outside. They could hear the water pouring into the neighbor’s bathtub. Sometimes a drunk sailor sang, coming out of the bar, sometimes Gorgi, now wet and impatient, shook himself, clattering his chain. The sisters sat for the long hours of the night, even after the red-haired girl and her father went to bed. They lit a candle in front of their brother’s picture, remembering him in silence.
Now Mr. Parvin didn’t mind if Gorgi sat at his foot, rubbing his wet muzzle to his pants. He said a few words to him and then removed the eyepatch. When he looked around the yard with his eyes open he felt anxious. What if it wouldn’t happen this time? Now he talked about this with Gorgi.
"Gorgi Khan, I’m going to cover my good eye and uncover my bad eye. Do you know what it means? It means that the lights and colors will come in. Aha ... I’m covering the damn bastard. Oh, Gorgi, poor dog, I’m sorry for you. All you can see with your doggy eyes is black and white, isn’t it? Do you know what I’m seeing? Hundreds of diamonds, circles, triangles, and nameless shapes in hundreds of colors. It’s unbelievable! He is coming now. He is pushing the shapes aside and getting closer to me. You have to leave me, Mr. Gorgi; go, my friend, make some space for my guest!" He pushed the dog and when the dog didn’t move, he nudged him gently with the tip of his shoe. Now the bricklayer sat where the dog was sitting before and Mr. Parvin felt excited, overjoyed.
"You’re here again, my friend. Welcome!"
"I’m here all right, Mr. Parvin. I’m here whenever you really want to see me."
"That’s good. Very good. I’m not alone. You are my companion. My comrade. Now tell me about home. What’s new?"
"Nothing is new, sir. The same things. Yesterday they stoned a man and a woman in a market place. They buried them up to their waists so that they wouldn’t be able to run away. They stoned them to death."
"What’s happening in prison?"
"Executions. Every day."
"Early mornings, huh?"
"Any time now. At sunset, too."
"How are they? The boys and the girls?
"They are heroic, Mr. Parvin. They sing till the last minute."
"Did he sing, too?"
"He sang."
"You’re saying this to make me happy, huh?"
"No. I was there, sir. He sang."
That evening at the table Mr. Parvin hit his knife on the plate again, making another brief speech. He told his daughters how the authorities executed their brother. He described the whole scene as if he had been there and witnessed it.
"Around five o’clock, they blindfolded them and took them out of their cells. They walked them through the long corridors and led them to a big hall. There the boys waited on their feet for a long time. In the dark. That’s when your brother started to sing."
"Okay, that’s enough now!" Mrs. Parvin dropped her spoon.
"No, it’s not enough. There’s a lot more," Mr. Parvin said and continued. "Do you know what he sang? ‘From the blood of our youth, tulips are growing, tulips are growing, tulips are growing…" He raised his voice, singing off tune.
Bibi rushed to the bathroom; everybody heard her sobbing violently, coughing, then throwing up. Her sister followed her.
"Sit down now," Mrs. Parvin said. "You ruined the dinner. Eat!"
"But I haven’t said the rest of the story."
"No one wants to hear it. It’s all in your head. No one was there to know how it happened."
"I have a source there. I trust him." He said this and immediately regretted it. He shouldn’t have said anything about the bricklayer.
Everybody left the table. He could hear them arguing in the other room. At first it was a quarrel between the mother and the girls. Then they started to shout at each other. The girls blamed their mother for withholding the information about their father and brother, not letting them know what really happened. Then something broke. The little girl cried and rushed to the kitchen where Mr. Parvin sat alone against the dark window. He called her for the first time, asking her name.
"Do you know me?"
"You’re Grandpa," the girl said still crying, rubbing her eyes.
"And who are you?"
"I’m Sharah."
"Sharah or Sarah?"
"Sharah," the girl said strongly.
"Can I call you Shahrzad?"
"Okay."
Sharah’s father came and took her to bed. Mr. Parvin stepped out on the porch. Holding his right hand to the wall, he descended the steps down to the dark yard. He sat on the last step for a long time with Gorgi lying down at his side. He didn’t talk to the dog, but listened to his breathing, smelled his woolen smell, felt his warmth. It was too dark to see anything, but he could feel the pansies dropping their heads, giving out a faint sweet scent.
There was a family meeting late that night. Mr. Parvin’s son-in-law was trying to find a "logical solution" for everything. The old man could hear them from behind the wall. Although they had given him a pill, he couldn’t sleep. He could hear the black neighbor, too. Down in his yard he moved the old bathtub, making a scraping sound.
"I’ve made an appointment for his eyes," Mr. Parvin’s son-in-law was saying. "After the surgery, the house will be ready, too."
"You may fix up his eyes, but what about his brain? He’s gone insane!" Mrs. Parvin said and wept.
"He is not insane, Maman. We have to let him talk. Why do you shut him up?" One of the girls asked.
Mr. Parvin heard his wife answering and the sisters talking back at the same time. Things became confused again. Out of control. They raised their voices and the little girl burst into tears. Mr. Parvin pulled the blanket over his head not to hear all this. But he heard the bedroom door bang. His wife entered. He pretended to be asleep and from the crack of the blanket saw her standing before the bathroom mirror wiping her tears. She was tall and skeletal, but a bit stooped, as if starting to lose bone tissue. Mr. Parvin remembered his wife’s youth, when she was a beauty. She never wore high heels not to look awkward walking with her shorter husband. Now she was crying in front of the mirror. This was her old habit. Mr. Parvin remembered her crying before many mirrors when she was young. She’d cry whenever something would go wrong. Then their daughters became crybabies, too, and now little Sharah was crying her lungs out in the other room.
"Cry, cry! Let’s all cry!" Mr. Parvin threw away the blanket and sat in the bed. His long white hair was disheveled. His pajama buttons were open, showing his old red skin creasing on his neck and chest like the spongy skin of a rooster’s wattle. One of the twins ran in, sat on the bed and hugged her father tightly. She wept on his shoulder. This was Bibi, the dramatic one. Abi, carrying her crying girl in her arms, rushed to the bathroom to embrace her weeping mother. The son-in-law stood in the frame of the door, watching the Parvin family. He wiped his tears.
Down there in the neighbor’s yard, the black man pulled his broken chair close to the bathtub, sat there as if sitting by a pool, and opened a can of beer. He sang a sailor’s song with an accent Mr. Parvin could not understand. But the song was so sad that it made the old man weep in his daughter’s arms.
"Where is this place you’re living, huh? Is this really America or is your husband poor?"
"I don’t have a husband, Baba. This is Abi’s house. I’m just staying here— temporarily."
"Is your sister poor?"
"This is the only place we could afford, Baba," the son-in-law said from the frame of the door. "I’m an engineer, but I’m making keys in the corner of a grocery store. We’ve been trying to save some money—to move to a better neighborhood. But now we have to think about your home, sir. This is our priority."
"Home," Mr. Parvin said and sighed.
The next day, sitting on the last step of the porch, before the pansies and next to Gorgi, and now Sharah on his lap, Mr. Parvin told the bricklayer about the last night. The bricklayer repeated the word "surgery" several times.
"Why do you repeat this word, my friend? You don’t mean to tell me…"
"It’s all up to you, sir. See if you can avoid the surgery. But if you can’t, then I may be able to come, or I may not. It’s going to be harder. Much harder."
"I want your company, bricklayer. And it’s not just because you bring me news. I like you, my friend. You’re wise."
"I have to go now. There is a wall I have to finish back home."
"May I ask whose house you’re building?"
"It’s a new penitentiary, sir. I’m raising the walls."
"What an awful job, bricklayer. Couldn’t you say no?"
"If I’d say no, they’d put me inside the walls."
"I understand."
For a few days Mr. Parvin couldn’t call the bricklayer. It rained day and night, the basement flooded, and he heard his son-in-law walking with rubber boots knee-deep in the water, trying to sweep the flood out. The old man sat most of the day by the kitchen window, watching the gate. Gorgi was in the flooded basement. Mr. Parvin wondered how the poor dog could lie down. He thought about the surgery and what the bricklayer had told him. "See if you can avoid it." How could he avoid it? They would take him by force. He fantasized about escaping, going somewhere his family couldn’t find him. He daydreamed about a sunny place, where he could remove the eyepatch and call his friend.
It rained and rained and rained. Mr. Parvin’s wife ironed, cooked quietly, now and then glanced at their son’s picture and sniffled. Bibi, the jobless one, locked herself up with a migraine headache. Abi went to school with high rubber boots and a long rubber raincoat, returning later with wet grocery bags and the flood news. Sharah was in and out of the kitchen all day, hugging a bald doll, or licking on a lollypop. Sometimes she sat on her grandfather’s lap. Mr. Parvin whispered into her ears, "Are you my Shahrzad?" She nodded. "Tell me a story, then." Sharah shrugged her shoulders, left Mr. Parvin’s lap, wandering in the house.
"Rain, rain, rain…" Mr. Parvin muttered and vaguely remembered the many sunny days back home when his children played in the yard and he watched them through the window, feeling proud of himself. He was a history teacher, wrote articles now and then, published here and there. But watching his children in the sun, he bragged to his scholar friends, "My best works, my masterpieces are my children!"
Now a gust of wind opened the yard’s gate and as if the whole thing was a scene in a foggy, half-forgotten dream, Gorgi ran toward the gate and left the house. He whispered, "Gorgi!" but no one heard him. Since his last speech at the dinner table he hadn’t talked much and it was hard for him to make the effort. With difficulty he rose from his chair. Holding his hand to the tables and chairs, to the walls and doorknobs, he dragged himself inside the room where his wife was ironing sheets and pillowcases. He whispered, "Gorgi…" but his wife didn’t pay attention.
Mr. Parvin heard the squeaky elevator. His son-in-law came up all wet, water dripping from his hair and eyeglasses. The old man said, "Gorgi!" several times, motioning to the gate. His son-in-law rushed back inside the elevator and down to the yard.
"My head! My head is bursting! Please don’t run that damned elevator!" Bibi banged her head to the wall. She was sitting on a cot, wearing a black scarf around her forehead and eyes like a pirate.
Which of my daughters are you? He wanted to ask. But he didn’t, or couldn’t. He guessed this must be the homeless one, the jobless one, the one without a husband. He tried to remember who her husband was and what happened to him, but he couldn’t concentrate. Limping to the bathroom, he closed the door and turned the lights on. There were eight bulbs around the mirror, he stared at them and removed the eye patch. Light poured inside his head. Closing his good eye tightly, he looked at the colorful shapes. He blinked; the shapes changed their forms and became something else. Now from behind the red and purple diamonds the bricklayer appeared. First as a midget, then taller, and finally the size of a tall man. Mr. Parvin closed the toilet lid, motioning to him to sit down.
"Sorry, friend. We can’t go out. Sit on this. My wife has cleaned it. How are you?"
"As good as I can be."
"Something wrong?"
"The same."
"How is the wall?"
"The wall is rising. I’m working on it."
Mr. Parvin sighed and said nothing.
The bricklayer, who looked very gloomy today rubbed his face as if he was tired. "When is your surgery?" he asked in a matter of fact way.
"The surgery? Oh, the eye surgery. One of these days. Should I be worried?"
"They’re going to sew up your retina, you’ll be able to see with your right eye."
"No colors and shapes?"
"No."
"And you?"
"It all depends. Let’s see. Now I must go." The bricklayer stood up, stretched his long body, peering through the window. "A nasty place, isn’t it? Look at your neighbor down there. His umbrella is full of holes. Is he crazy?"
"He is not the only crazy one around here, my friend. I’ll see you on the first sunny day. Bye."
Turning the lights out, Mr. Parvin stepped in the bedroom. His wife sat on the edge of the bed staring at the bathroom door. Her eyes were wet.
"I … was washing my hands…" he mumbled.
"I know. Come, let me comb your hair."
She sat him at the dressing table, combing his thick, white hair. She always did this gently and tenderly as if she was still in love with him. She ran the comb through his hair slowly, taking her time, prolonging it. She didn’t’ put anything on her husband’s hair. She liked the soft, silky feel of it.
"Did you hear me in the bathroom?" Mr. Parvin asked guiltily.
"No, dear, I didn’t," she said in a whisper.
Mr. Parvin’s son-in-law didn’t come until eleven that night. His dinner grew cold. His wife walked back and forth restlessly, chewing her nails. Sharah burst into tears every fifteen minutes. Pressing his forehead against the cold windowpane, Mr. Parvin curved his hands around his face to see the dark yard. Finally his son-in-law entered the open gate, dragging a heavy sack on the ground. The twins wore their identical raincoats, made of shiny yellow rubber, and rushed to the yard. Mr. Parvin saw them taking Gorgi’s corpse out of the burlap sack. Now the black neighbor appeared with a shovel. It was pouring as if the sky was a sea upsidedown. Mr. Parvin had to make an effort to see what they were doing.
The whole thing was like fragments of a dream. The black man digging a grave along the wall of the yard, Mr. Parvin’s daughters and his son-in-law, lifting the heavy carcass, dumping it in the hole, burying the dog. In a minute they came up in the doorless elevator, muddy from head to foot, bringing the black man with them to the kitchen to eat. The girls sobbed, blowing their noses. Gorgi was their companion since the first days in America. The black neighbor said something no one understood. He shook his head in regret. The son-in-law opened a can of beer for him. Mrs. Parvin fed him warm soup.
It rained for one more week and when they sat at the kitchen table or in the living room they heard the tides of the flood water hitting the walls of the basement. Mr. Parvin’s son-in-law gave up on sweeping the rain water. He sat all day, pulling the prickly hairs of his thick moustache, thinking about a logical solution for all this mess. The schools were all closed. Abi, the teacher, didn’t go out anymore. The twins sat in front of the silent TV, watching the maps and charts of the weather channel. Most of this week Mr. Parvin limped the length of the house from one window to another, waiting for the rain to stop. Now standing for a few seconds at the bedroom window, the black neighbor raised his head up, waving to him. Mr. Parvin waved back. The neighbor sat on a broken chair, by his overflowing bathtub, holding a crooked umbrella over his head, drinking a beer.
On the first dry day, Mrs. Parvin combed her husband’s hair back and splashed some cologne on his face. She wore her good dress, the black crepe skirt and jacket she came to this country in. She put some lipstick on. The daughters dressed up and little Sharah wore a big pink bow on top of her red curls. They all crammed into Abi’s small Toyota to take Mr. Parvin to the hospital. Although the sun was not out and it was a cold day, they felt a vague joy.
Sitting by the window next to his wife, Mr. Parvin, turned his head toward the street and gently removed his eye patch. He shut his good eye. The car moved fast, the images of the kaleidoscope whirled, turned, and changed shapes rapidly. Mr. Parvin saw the bricklayer approaching from the margin of the freeway. The old man motioned to him to stop. The bricklayer shouldn’t enter the car. They couldn’t talk now. But it was too late. Mr. Parvin’s friend was already sitting on the front seat, managing to fit himself between Sharah and her mother. He turned back to look at Mr. Parvin.
"The surgery, huh?"
Mr. Parvin nodded.
"I just came to say, don’t worry. I’ll be around."
Mr. Parvin smiled and pulled the eyepatch on his eye.
This was the first happy meal in a long time. The whole family sat around Mr. Parvin’s bed in the small hospital room. Sharah sat at her grandfather’s feet. Mr. Parvin leaned against the pillows with a thick bandage around his head. Everybody was biting on fat sandwiches, the thick mayonnaise dripping on their hands and wrists. The twins talked at the same time with full mouths. The jobless Bibi was reporting about the possibility of a new job in an Italian restaurant. The owner had told her she looked Italian, she could pretend to be one. The son-in-law was saying that the house was almost ready. Mr. and Mrs. Parvin could move in within a week.
Mr. Parvin didn’t finish most of his sandwich. When they asked him why he wasn’t eating, he said he was keeping a few bites for Gorgi. The girls looked at each other and burst into tears. Sharah cried too, spilling her soda on the hospital blanket. The family ate the rest of their food in silence. When they all left, Mr. Parvin looked at the window and saw the clean blue sky and the top of a white tower. He touched his bandage. He was tempted to remove it, but he didn’t. He feared blood and pain. He closed his open eye, tried to see the image of the bricklayer in the darkness of his head. He saw it for a second, but then the image blurred and disappeared. This was seeing him with his mind’s eye. Mr. Parvin wanted the real man.
That sleepless night Mr. Parvin spent most of his time watching the head of the white tower swimming in the darkening sky. He wondered who lived there.
When they removed Mr. Parvin’s bandages, Sharah screamed, "Grandpa has two eyes!" Everybody laughed.
Leaving the hospital, Mr. Parvin took the last glance of the white tower. He wanted to know where that place was, but he didn’t ask. Now both of his eyes were open. He had to wear a dark shade to protect the sensitive eye. No kaleidoscope, no diamonds and circles. In the car, he looked silently at the fast passing views. His son-in-law took them to see the new house.
