One, two, two, and two, two, four.She counts her trees. It seems that today she intends to imitate those neighbor ladiesand be useful. Then she starts talking nonsense again: What is more important than ahuman being? What has made us think we are special in the first place? Perhaps, asher mother says, it is because we are sensible. Well, what is sense, and what use is itto us? She keeps talking and talking and talking. She never gets tired, and by talkingto herself, she also disturbs whatever little peace the others have.
She pressed her hands firmly around the little pine tree she had planted and, with herusual laziness, stretched her arm as far as she could to reach the plastic watering cana little farther away. She poured some water over the tree, then watched an antstruggling to keep from drowning. Normally, she would have rescued it with a stick,but today she simply wanted to see how hard an ant would fight to stay alive. The antcrawled out of the water and began dragging itself toward dry ground with its twofront legs, as though it were half-paralyzed. She looked at it and said, “If I were you, Iwould have given up the moment I realized how big that puddle was. Look at you now,as if you had a lifetime to live and a world to conquer.”
Then she picked up the ant and crushed it between her thumb and index finger,because she believed that living on two legs would do it no favors. She stared at theant’s body, of which now nothing remained but a memory, and said, “How does a souleven fit inside such a tiny body?”
She wiped her fingernails on the corner of her blue pirahan-tomban and beganplanting the fifth little tree, the ones her mother had given her so she could catch amoment’s breath away from her. And her pirahan-tomban? Yes, it was not consideredsuitable clothing for a girl, but Mineh was different. She did not mind. She did not evenmind playing with the neighborhood boys at fourteen, with her height and build. Shecould even let the wind blow through her head and her tangled, curly yellow hair.
She was of average height but heavily built, with shoulders higher than usual and aneven more unusual face. Her mouth appeared crooked, and her hair barely reachedher shoulders. Despite all this, she had managed to convince people to leave heralone. Ever since the day she had started dancing in the alley for no reason, talkingloudly to herself and laughing, the neighborhood women had stopped treating herkindly. They said Mineh was either possessed by a jinn or had gone mad. Of course,
because of her appearance, she had never been accepted as a normal human being inthe first place. Sometimes, she would even hold herself tightly in her own arms andkiss her own hands
Mineh herself found it amusing that they had no understanding of being alive andhappy, and interpreted it as madness. What was wrong with considering yourself aperson, talking to yourself, and kissing yourself?
She gave others the right to think whatever they wanted, but not the right to act onthose thoughts simply because they believed they were right. She thought that as longas their thoughts did not lead to action, they had no value.
Of all the things she remembered from her childhood, The Willoughbys cartoon wasthe one she understood most. She had an unpleasant sense of familiarity with it. Itreminded her of herself, except that she was an only child. Perhaps her parents hadbeen sensible enough not to risk bringing a second Mineh into the world. They lovedeach other and, at least, accepted Mineh as their child. In fact, they had brought herinto the world because she was supposed to be a boy. They were the ones who hadbeen most shocked when they discovered that the child they had brought into theworld was not only a girl but an unhealthy girl. They named her Mineh in an attempt tomake themselves love her. According to them, this unlovable creature was God’s wayof testing them.
She was not pleased with the way they looked at her, but she was comfortable with it.She had developed this way of thinking while listening to a neighboring woman whocomplained about her life to another neighbor. They spoke as though Mineh were noteven there. The neighbor, exhausted by the heavy burden of housework and being awife, glanced at Mineh in the middle of her lament and said, “In this world, youshouldn’t be sensible enough to carry other people’s sorrows; you should be madenough for others to carry yours.” The words stung, but for a moment, Mineh tried tothink about what the woman had said and came to the conclusion that she was notentirely wrong.
Over the years, she had grown accustomed to the freedom she had without ever reallythinking about it. At least in that alley, she was the only one who could say whatevershe wanted, dance whenever she wanted, and wear whatever she wanted. Besides,people gave her whatever she asked for, either to earn a good deed or to get rid ofher, like the mirror she had received from the neighboring woman. She did not evenhave to suffocate herself in a chador during the summer heat just to satisfy people. Intheir eyes, an empty head did not need to be covered.
She had come to the conclusion that a human being was nothing more than theirthoughts, and if those thoughts did not resemble those of the society they lived in, theSane • Zainab Nazari • 3person was mad.Once again, she counts her trees: one, two, two, and two, two, four.
