Empty frames

1.

I know. I know. It is not a good habit. It's so disgusting to look into the other houses and try to find out what other people are doing in their own privacy. I know. This is total ignorance and carelessness. I can be criminal. But I can't help it. I know, please stop it. Yes, I can lose all that I've earned in my life: my status, my friends, my PhD and the little bit of money that I've saved. They will kick me out of this country and I have no way but going back to my parents at least for a while, the place that everything started from there.

My parents have been living in one of the high rises in Tehran for 18 years now. It is located in north-west of Tehran in a place called Shahrak-e-gharb, which can be translated as West County. It is a nice area which I quite like it and I don't think that I can live in any other area of Tehran anymore. West County is famous for its high rises, fancy shopping malls, doll girls and muscular guys, and the most important identity that it has: Iran Zamin (Iran Land) street. the long circular street which is all days full of expensive cars and sissy silly boys and girls chasing each other's cars and show off their parent's wealth. Sometimes the Basij paramilitary forces close the street and stop the cars. They might make a couple of buses full of these guys (one for girls and one for boys, a common sexual discrimination) and take them to their headquarter and release them afterward by some money (and of course hassles), to arrest them again sometimes in near future and this circle will continue again and again like Iran Zamin street.

But it was not as bad it is now when my parents had moved to the area. I was 12 years old on that time and we were like 15 boys and girls with 1 or 2 years differences in our neighborhood. From that group just three are still living in Iran. Although president Ahmadi nejad announced that we have no homosexuality in Iran, I should reveal that one of them is homosexual and she was very good friend of mine but I haven't known about it till just 5 years ago, the last time that I met her in a party. We were both shocked by seeing each other. We talked a little bit and exchanged our numbers but we never call each other. I just know that she is still in Iran.

In 2006, I heard about another girl in our group from a mutual friend in Canada, who is a very good friend of mine. He was mentioning a friend of him who is now a homosexual activist in Iran. In the middle of our talk, suddenly I discovered that she is my old lost little girl, the first girl in our teenage gang who had left home. I don't want to put her in trouble so I will call her by her initial which is S. S is 2 years younger than me and she was (and still I think) so so beautiful. When I was 14, we had a football team and we were playing with nearby areas teams and she was always one of our hooligans coming to every single match that we were playing. Many times, the match ended up with fight and I am sure the most important reason was her. When I was 15 we went to sort of regional football league. I was the captain of that team because I was the oldest guy. We did three games. We lost 7-5 and 5-4 in the first two matches. The last match was between us and the first team of the group which had won both teams who had beaten us. They had a forward who was at least 18 years old but the organizing committee had assumed that he was less than 16 because his brother was one of the committee members. We were already disqualified. I hated this guy and I really wanted to win the match. The reality was something else and we lost it 3-0 but I could have satisfied myself by sending him out of the pitch with a very nasty foul in the beginning of second half. I just got a yellow card but he couldn't have played in the tournament anymore and their team disqualified in the next stage.


When we were coming back from the match, S for the first time took my hand. Her hand was so soft and small. I had liked these hands from the summer before when I had started looking to her room from our balcony during the night. Her room was in opposite side, in front of our balcony, in the same level. I had thought that she didn't know about it but she told me at one of our earliest meetings (just 2 of us sort of meetings) that she had known that from the beginning and actually she confessed that she had kind of liked it. I think her feeling was like this sort of girly thing that I can never ever manage to understand. From that time up to the time that her parents moved to another place, it was something very private between us. It had been started by my suggestion and then her approval after a week. It was a pain in the ass, but I could have convinced her to switch on her lamp while I was in balcony. The yellow light of the room was converting her to an angle in pajamas laying down on the bed. After a while, we started to talk with the phone as well during our nightly hidden dates from distance.


She moved from C2 building when I was 16. She stopped calling me after 2 months, when she had been informed that I was flirting with a 17 years old girl who was kind of her first enemy in the building. She was so jealous of S from the beginning that she couldn't have stopped teasing her; although S was always respecting her at least for being 3 years older. But she had an advantage for me that S didn't have. She was one year older than me and that was the main reason of my attraction toward her. I was so passionate to discover an older girl. So I sold S to her. The last time S cried on the phone and she told me that I have to select one of them, either her or that old witch and I replied her that I have to think. She hanged the phone immediately.


She had never called back again. 6 months after I heard that her parents had sent her to France to study in a private art high school in Paris and we completely lost contact and it was the time that I terribly had missed her. The new girl that I had been flirting, ended up 1 month after S last phone call with a 20 years old guy who was the Don-Juan of the whole West County.


The new owner of S room used to close the curtains in the night. After 6 months, I was again in the balcony but this time staring at the closed curtains and imagining her marble body in a room which was occupied by a 7 years old kid.


This kid is now 21 and he is a friend of my brother's ex-girlfriend. My brother told me in July 2007 during my last travel back home , that he heard about S through his ex-girlfriend. Apparently, She is not any more back home but no one knows where she is. She had no way but to flee.


During these years that the 7 years old kid has passed to become the new Don-Juan of Shahrak-e-gharb, I have been looking in the other people's house wherever I have been living. Up to 10th June 2007, I completely had forgotten the origin of my anti-social behavior, the day that I dreamt S just in few minutes that I could have slept.


2.

The room was so simple and a bit dark. Apart from a simple desk, simple bed and a simple jar was nothing in the room. It was early November and it was already snowing....No one was in the room apart from her picture in an antique frame.

3.

She turned to the main street. The street was full of cars and people. She was going to see the room, but she didn't know that up to the time that she saw the corner cafe.

It was long time ago, when she was still young and slim. She was still junior student with lots of hopes and emotions and more over, she had been starting to have a feeling, something mysterious and strong.

He used to play in the corner cafe on Fridays from 6 to 12 which was mostly continued till 2 AM. He was 28 young post-grad musician from NYU, but she didn't know that up to the last time that they've met. It was no necessity for knowing that. For her it was not a big deal if he was a big name or just an unknown Banjo player.

Later on, she has realized that it had been indeed important.

Their meetings were so simple. She was going there all Fridays alone, listening to the music and ignoring men who were flirting with her. She was always the first and the last customer. When the owner was locking the door she was already in the musician arms, going to his place and in the morning when he was opening the place he knew that he is going to see them twisted together waiting for the cafe to be opened.

The Sunday breakfasts were always free.

She looked inside from the window. The picture of the fat owner was in a jazzy frame over the bar with a black ribbon on its left hand side.

She remembered the last time that she met him. It was Friday but the NYU musician was not there. He didn't have a clue either, up to the time that he received a phone call from his mom informing them that he can't make it today because he should meet up with an improtant friend.

- Did she tell you the name?
- Well, I didn't really hear the name. It was something starting with S. Sam?, Sal? I don't really know.
- OK, See you later.
- You haven't finished your coffee.
- Next time
- If there is any

She went out without looking back. The fat owner was trying to memorize her steps, because he has no hope of seeing them again.

She has never realized that.

4.

The room was so simple and a bit dark. Apart from a simple desk, simple bed and a simple jar was nothing in the room. It was early November and it was already snowing....No one was in the room apart from herself and her son’s picture in a cheap plastic frame. She was fixing the holes on his T-shirt with a red S on it.

The boy had a same T-shirt on, in the picture.

5.

When I woke up, Yannis was still sleeping and maybe still is...

I was walking to my office when I remembered the last time, few days ago, when I had remembered S but in the reality and more over in my neighborhood through a random house watching: I saw her when I was looking into her room. She was naked, in front of the mirror. It was early November but it was not snowing.

After some minutes, she switched off her lamp.

The cold british night was flavored with fireworks and huge BANG BANG in the sky, which completely destroyed the Banjo sound from Barrie's house.

I carried on walking. She slept and I think the empty frame on her desk did the same.