Shaghayegh Akbari – “The View from the Kitchen Window” (English)
My kitchen window opens onto the street; it faces the dust, smoke, and the constant comings and goings of strangers who I do not recognize. These people are numerous, they walk often, honking and complaining.
I need to change the view from my kitchen, install a view that, while I drain the rice, instead of seeing the mechanic’s corner across the street—where Torx wrenches and multimeters are exchanged—I see a few wild geese blinking in a pond.
I am busy chopping greens for Ghormeh Sabzi, a driver in the street, as if trying to herd a group of wild zebras, sticks his head out of the car and curses all the uncultured people riding mules!
I set the sound of the scene to be the hooting of a wind that travels through the wild oak and willow branches, whispering, “whoo…whoo…rustle…rustle…”
I pour the beans into the pressure cooker and add dried limes to the stew. I also hang a cloth in the middle of the left window which, when I stand by the stove, maximizes my view and also lets me see the wall clock in the living room hall so I don’t forget the time when Aref will come home from work and Hana from school.
I gather up the rugs and dump them into the tub. Yesterday, as Hana put it, a “dust storm” came and dragged all my home life through the mud, Aref, as usual, rubbed his finger over the doors and walls to measure the dust and muttered something about escaping chores…
He didn’t finish his sentence, or maybe he did and I didn’t hear it. Ever since Aref has become one of those men I was always afraid to end up with, my thoughts have grown horizontally, more and more; they’ve taken over the whole house, even the whole world. Perhaps if Aref had been more supportive, their growth would have been vertical like the vines on the courtyard walls, then they might have reached up to the seventh sky.
The cloth flaps in the wind. As I sit floating on a cushion of imagination, I throw myself into it where there is silence and trees and solitude.
I back up, pick up my notebook to write down what needs to be written. I see that the clock has passed twelve. All the twelves in the world are made for speeding up. I’m tired of these noon accelerations and not getting things done, as tired as all the alleys and streets in Tehran. It seems it’s not me who has been here on this crowded planet for thirty-seven years, going and not reaching and going to reach.
I know wherever I go, it ends, and the fantasies run out, the Hanas unravel the illusions, and the Arefs tear up the beliefs.
Perhaps it will not end, I had read somewhere:
“I had read or Aref had said, ‘Causality in infinity is impossible.'”
Today, I must decisively erase Aref, if he even exists his name spoils the breadth of imagination, it reduces its length and width and lowers its ceiling.
But the onslaught of Aref has reached the bone. The onslaught of people drives me mad. The onslaught of Hana’s tasks, the sizzling eggplants in the frying pan, the onslaught of Sa’eb who fills his mouth and says, “Time makes us tools, not ungrateful axes!” The onslaught of the Great Wave of Kanagawa that stands fixed behind the sofa on the wall and does not fall to wet the carpet flowers. The onslaught of news that talks of bullets and fire and such, and dismisses my news, the news of my condition. The onslaught of the word onslaught has aged me…
The radio announcer was saying, “Every side of the world, from every angle, has something beautiful that…”
To my right, there’s a wall and a street and people. To my left, there are people and a street and a wall.
I lay my body flat under the cloth and hear the crunch of autumn leaves underfoot and the cooing of mountain pigeons.
The stew is simmering, my legs don’t have the strength to move and take me to the stove.
“When does such a distance fall between me and myself?”
I think “When does” is just like the pile of “as if” that I store in the bottom of my heart and pretend they don’t matter. It’s the flawless mockery of Aref when he laughs at Jack’s drowning and Rose’s aimless wandering. It’s the screams that Hana makes saying she hates shampoo. It’s the tomatoes that have rotted forcing me to cook snake gourd stew instead of omelet. It’s the bold crows that crawl through the disaster of the wind and their sound becomes like the scream I made that day that A
ref heard and maybe did not hear but came into the kitchen and left a Band-Aid on the cabinet and walked out while I stared at my hands that I hadn’t cut with the knife and stared at the knife that wasn’t in my hands. It’s the indifference. That, this, those, and all of them.
From the slope of the grove, I hear something, the rush of a waterfall perhaps. The scent of burnt rice comes, I step out from under the cloth to turn off the stove.
I throw the pot, complete with its contents, into the sink. I want to return to the cloth, but I lose my way, I lose myself. It’s noon and the slant of light from the left window pours into the house. I draw the curtain.
I’ve lost track of where I was, where could I have gone?
Maybe it’s now night and I’m standing on the edge of the stage facing one of those drunken poets who write poems for a few euros; I tell him to write about opportunity for me or maybe about escape, then seeing I have no euros I run off and stick to the swollen belly of Buddha until morning comes and I walk the length and breadth of Shanghai with my friend Mao, calling the bird-hunter names in our friendly chat.
Maybe it’s now day and until Aref’s daily nap is disturbed and Hana’s complaints about the difficulty of the multiplication table of seven rise, I manage to type and then edit the first chapter of my novel. Aref says I even lack the skill to edit my stories. I’m afraid to strike out a word and mess everything up, change the storyline, the voice fails to reach, the food burns, the shirts scorch under the hot iron, Hana’s homework gets messed up, wastewater overflows from the kitchen floor drain, Aref’s trousers are sewn with orange thread instead of black, the packaging of my tranquilizers is punctured and the pills are exposed, the stairwell fills with mud and Mrs. Safai gives me a disdainful look.
I fold up the cloth and hang it on one of the branches.
The wind slams itself against the window. The streets have gotten busier, people are rushing to get to their noon breaks. The school bus brakes, Hana’s voice echoes down the hallway, Aref’s key turns in the lock; I throw the view into one of the kitchen cabinet drawers to sort it out tomorrow, because my kitchen window still opens onto the street.
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