The room, meant to be a mere storage space in the house for things that didn’t fit anywhere else, never became just that. The evening Kivan moved in, as he struggled with an ironing board and clothes hanger in each hand towards the room, he was struck by an odd, orange light seeping through the half-open door. Dropping what he held, he pushed the door open with his fingertips and stepped in cautiously. The room faced west, the furthest point on the top floor of a tall building, its wide window providing a communion with the sun and sky. The setting sun, resting on the last moments of the day, gradually sank, lengthening the shadows of evening. The walls, warmed by the red hues of dusk, performed their magic. Kivan picked up the ironing board and hanger, moved them to the kitchen, and leaned them against the wall. To Sima, who had come to help him settle in, he remarked, “Did you see that small room? It has a great view. I was going to dump my junk there. But it’s too good for that. I’m making it my study…”
Sima, busy opening a box of books, shrugged without looking at Kivan, “Isn’t it too small?” Her question lingered unanswered in the air as Kivan had already returned to the room.
The small room, rather than becoming a storage area, became Kivan’s sanctuary. An empty room scattered with books and a small wooden table, or rather an end table repurposed for those moments when Kivan felt like writing. A small cushion, left over from the wicker chairs at his father’s house, always rested near the table for him to sit on while writing. Later, a small Turkmen rug with predominant red colors was added. The allure of the sunsets in this room was so compelling that Kivan made sure to be home at that hour, a time he preferred to be alone, seriously contemplating his solitude. Once, Sima came with two cups of tea to enjoy the sunset together, but he curtly turned her away and later drank his tea in silence outside the room…
Sima visited Kivan a few days each month. Three years had passed since their relationship began, and Sima never felt she could get as close to him as she wanted, still stuck in the early pages of Kivan’s multilayered personality. The small, secure new boundary for Kivan, where writing was his greatest solace, became his favorite place in the world. It offered him a sense of security reminiscent of hiding in the wardrobe of his childhood home—a mental space that belonged solely to him and no one else in the world.
Like a lover that he retreated to after a day’s mundane office work, and each evening, it dressed seductively in garments of fire. On the last evening of spring, the room wrapped in a crimson shirt and Kivan, a cigarette perched at the corner of his mouth, was engrossed in writing. Occasionally, ashes from the cigarette fell, but Kivan, narrowing his eyes to keep the rising smoke from bothering them, continued to write. For a moment, he was distracted by his shadow on the opposite wall—a man hunched over a small table, elbows propped up, smoke swirling above him. He stared at the shadow for a while, then bowed his head and resumed writing. But soon, his attention was captured again by what the sunset rays sketched of him on the wall. This repeated so much that he lost his concentration. Eventually, he put down his pen, stared at his shadow bewildered, and gave up writing. The next day was the same, and he had to face away from the wall and towards the window to get any work done, shifting his work hours to the evenings. On the fourth evening, Kivan, with a large cup of tea in hand, went to the room. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, he placed the cup on the table and brought his face close to it. The steam moistened his face, and the sweet scent of cinnamon pleased his nose. While in this pose, looking over his glasses at the opposite wall, the shadow was there, seemingly sneaking a look at him. Kivan smirked and sipped his tea.
The spicy, woody taste of cinnamon swirled in his mouth. He thought maybe next time he should use a cinnamon stick instead of powder. But suddenly, the shadow on the wall surprised him—or perhaps he caught the shadow in the act. While Kivan’s hands still cradled his tea cup, the shadow, with a swift movement of its right index finger, began scratching its ear, a childhood habit of Kivan’s. Kivan stared in disbelief at what was happening, and only one thought crossed his mind: “Finally, the schizophrenia gene has hit someone in the family…” But this was not his only reaction. Fear gripped him, pulling him out of the room so hastily that he stubbed
his left foot against the table and the tea cup overturned. From the hallway, he saw the spilled cinnamon tea darkening the red rug under the table…
Dr. Masoud Taghavi, a high school friend of Kivan’s who had become a psychiatrist, was seeing patients at the end of the day. The wait wasn’t long, and they soon began their conversation. Once they got through the initial pleasantries, they moved on to the main issue. Kivan recounted everything in detail. Dr. Taghavi, with his wheat-colored hair neatly combed and a dark green tie knotted around the collar of his white shirt, seemed calm and assured. After Kivan finished, Dr. Taghavi took off his pince-nez glasses, linked his fingers together, and spoke of schizophrenia symptoms. Finally, he added, “If you’ve had two of these symptoms for six months, you could be diagnosed, my brother. Go and don’t stir up unnecessary trouble…”
Kivan returned home more distressed than before.
The next encounter with the shadow was the following day. With Sima, he drank the coffee she had made and they talked about her new job while their shadows, alongside each other, behaved as all shadows do in the world, reasonable and orderly—Kivan felt slightly relieved thinking it was just a passing hallucination.
However, the shadow was still there. Alive and flamboyant, with gestures all its own. The next day, it waved at Kivan in fright, and the day after, it nodded sadly. Every day brought a new game, a new scheme…
Running from the shadow seemed to empower it further, and denying it led to Kivan’s greater surrender.
Gradually, fear gave way to curiosity, and the presence of the shadow became a matter of fact. So much so that Kivan no longer felt the need to visit his psychiatrist friend.
Their encounters slowly gained a voice. It was as if words from the shadow were lodging themselves into the particles of Kivan’s consciousness. Kivan could even sense its tone. Like the day he was thinking about Sima, how much he cared for her, and that it was time to take their relationship seriously, the shadow, with a sneer as if typing on a typewriter in Kivan’s mind, said: “What love, you serious man. You’re just eyeing her father’s money…”
Kivan’s fist clenched on its own. It seemed that was exactly the shadow’s purpose—to unapologetically reveal Kivan’s true motives, in the most direct and sometimes harshest ways.
The day Kivan hung up the phone on his older sister Katayoun, muttering curses under his breath and running his hand through his thinning hair, the shadow casually said, “Damn yourself. Are you mad because she won’t let you fool her?” And then it added, “And your baldness isn’t even hereditary. You have the baldness gene from both your father and your mother’s side…”
The shadow was present in all aspects of Kivan’s life. It had ideas for his writings, suggestions for his romantic relationships, and continuously corrected him…
Despite everything, Kivan felt a strange kinship with it. In this newfound companion, he saw the decisiveness of his father, the clarity of his mother, and the stubbornness of Katayoun.
It remembered specific moments of Kivan’s life well. Like how Mrs. Saemi, his first-grade teacher, had humiliated him in front of others for wetting his pants. It remembered the vague feeling of nausea mixed with fear, sadness, and anxiety he had felt the night he had inadvertently witnessed his parents making love on his tenth birthday. It even remembered the auburn hair of Ghazal—that day he had crouched down beside the bookstall outside the university. Kivan, drunk on the sour taste of wine and mesmerized by the color that matched her raincoat and the scarf with red blossoms that seemed to continue the color of her hair, felt a fire in his heart that he never found again…
The onset of autumn was the beginning of Kivan’s lostness. That year, the autumn was rainy, meaning prolonged absences of the shadow and Kivan’s increasing disarray, having become heavily dependent on the shadow’s power to decide and control, now feeling a void inside that swallowed his confidence.
This intermingling and solitude pulled Kivan further into himself. He socialized less. Even his presence with Sima lacked its former quality, becoming more silent. The only thing that slightly organized his disturbed mind was writing. He remembered the deepest and forgotten feelings he had experienced and wrote them down. It was as if someone had stirred a calm pond with a walking stick. The settled mud clouded all the water, and his repeated writings reflected the endless murkiness of his heart…
One clean, clear day in the middle of autumn, while the sky, after two days
of non-stop weeping, had steeled itself and swallowed its sobs, and the autumn sun shone more than expected, Kivan felt he had regained some of the energy he had lost over time. He tidied up the house and took a warm shower. It was planned that he would host a small, intimate birthday celebration for Sima that afternoon, an attempt to rekindle their relationship. It was around this time three years ago that their relationship had begun. They had had many good days together, except for these recent months when Kivan had retreated into himself. Now was a good opportunity for making amends.
As dusk slowly approached, the house was ready to welcome its cherished guest. Kivan’s gaze wandered around the home and then settled on his face in the mirror. His black and white hair was equally matched. He tried to tidy up a few curls with his fingers and cover the balding spot. Time seemed to pass slowly. He reached for his pack of cigarettes and lit one with the brass lighter that Sima had given him as a gift. He touched the raised letter “S” embossed on the lighter and put it in his pocket. He went to the shadow’s room. He opened the window. The cool autumn air rushed into the room. The sunset seemed more beautiful than ever. He let out the smoke of his cigarette through the window and glanced at the shadow that was also sending rings of smoke into the air. It was something Kivan liked to do but never managed to do well. Halfway through his cigarette, he felt the whisper of the shadow, “Come closer…”
With a few steps, he reached it. The shadow slid its hands along the wall. “Put your hand on mine…” Kivan left the cigarette hanging from his lips and placed his palms on the shadow’s hands. His hands felt a burning warmth. An odd attraction. A powerful pull that seemed to burn his soul. An attraction that seemed to suck all the darkness within him and call him to itself…
Sima rang the doorbell for the umpteenth time, annoyed that Kivan was not at home, and decided to leave but a moment of hesitation struck her heart. She had the spare key to the apartment. She opened the door. Her eyes searched the calm, tidy house and settled on a bunch of red roses next to a cake on the small kitchen table. “Kivan! Are you home?” She cautiously entered. While continuing to call for Kivan, she peeked into the bathroom and restroom. No sign of him. The bedroom too was dark and tidy, asleep. What remained was Kivan’s beloved room. She slowly moved towards the room. It was empty, and the wind from the fully open window had scattered Kivan’s writings. Sima closed the window and started gathering the papers. She bundled them up and turned towards the door. The sun had cast an orange hue on the wall. She saw her shadow with a bundle of papers over Kivan’s shadow. Quickly turning her head back to the empty room, the papers slipped from Sima’s hands, fluttering back to the floor as her hurried steps left the room and the house.
Kivan’s shadow from above watched Sima’s shadow. Gently, it rose and embraced her. The sun softly disappeared on the horizon, and the image of the shadows’ embrace faded on the wall, lighter and lighter…
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