The Tragedy in the Bakery

It was the night of negotiations when I saw my guest off. With a weariness in my body, I sat on the cushion on the floor and gazed at the candles flickering softly in the corners of the house. The snacks on the plate still sparkled, my head was heavy and my heart full. I started crying, as if every time a guest comes or goes, I wait for a (different) someone to open the door for them or close it for their sake. The sound of the news came from my phone, and every few minutes, the word (negotiation) was repeated. I pick up my phone and write to him:

“Mr. so-and-so, indirect negotiations between Iran and the US took place, but there was no message from you for negotiations, communication, sending smoke, whistles, shots, sounds, bells, bangs, or any kind of news. If you think you're clever, you're not. I'm still on the cold wooden stairs, watching with my head tilted right toward you. You in the hut, and I in the narrow house. I am sweet, you are the good Khosrow. I cried a lot... I mean really a lot. If I'm alive, it's just because I want you to be less and for your fears to fade into the ground. Otherwise, I've been pulled back into the Adenosine injection again! I was in the hospital. See, I'm going to die! Don't feel bad, okay? If my letter reached you, how could you be so cruel not to write a single line in reply? Since (so-and-so date), I've been missing you like lightning struck me. Why, man? Why did you hurt me? Why did you break my heart?

‘We’ve washed, with the blood of the liver, the robe of the soul / No thread of his remains, nor any warp, O cupbearer!’

I am the stone of the kick,

Your production."

I sent it, thinking how I wish I could ride on the wings of technology and send it into his phone or into his ears at that speed! I remember Saadi’s poem: "There is peace between infidelity and Islam, yet you still fight with us."

My head is dizzy, I pick a piece of cheese with my fork and eat it. I light my cigarette, go to the window, and as I puff on the cigarette, I think to myself: why did I send this message? Didn't the doctor tell me: 'You, my sweet, perfect lady, a fragile glass, a pearl of mine, why are you even thinking of him? This man has no existence outside, no life, no soul. You're imagining him. He doesn't even have a heart. He is not alive! His lack of response means nothing to you.' I hear the doctor's voice in my head, and I remember telling him, 'You, who have no existence, something has settled in my bones...'

Dr. Hiz's eyes always lingered on my hennaed hands. Once he asked me where else I apply henna besides my hands, and I said, "On my feet, a little above my ankles, on my chest, my lips, my hair, and on both hands a little above the wrists..." And he said, "How has this man not been enchanted by a woman as ethereal as you?" I replied, naïvely like Baytai Hejiri, "Well, he likes whiskey." The doctor said, "In your letter, you called him a superman, but he's not even made of clouds, cotton, or sponge. He's just a joker. Forgive him." I replied, "I won't forgive him." All of these conversations paraded in front of me, and I struggled within myself because, as Mokhtari said, a human being’s bag is not milk; it leaves a place for pain.

The ash from my cigarette fell to the floor and crumbled. I crushed it under my shoe on the tiles. Without paying attention to this mess, I reached for the bowl on the table and ate the remaining chips. When I came to my senses, my face was wet with tears. The blue flickering lights in my home slowly turned off and on again, inviting me to sleep. "Oh woman, come, sleep, you’re so tired." But "What’s sleep to the eyes of a lover?" I am a servant of long nights. I am a woman of the night. If there is any light in life, it's a tiny spark that warms my heart during these nights, insomnia, and madness.

The bruises on the skin of my left hand, where the veins from the IV needle had been connected, were still visible. A bruise like a violet flower had made its mark on the whiteness of my skin. I thought of deleting my message, as I’m a writer in this country and being left without a response crushes my heart. But I was too tired to do anything, so I told myself, “To hell with it! One day, I will die, and everything will be read all at once. A day when it’s too late, and the tea has gone cold.”

The next day, I wake up. I feel weak, and my blood pressure is low. The air is turning dark. I quickly get out of bed, eat a quick breakfast so I don’t faint from weakness. In the hallway, the smell of fresh bread fills the air, and even though I haven’t eaten bread for years, I crave going to the bakery to buy a piece of hot, oven-fresh bread. I put on my cotton jacket and tightly fasten my belt so my pants won’t fall down from my thin waist. I angrily check my phone, and I see my message still unread... I curse myself. I walk out of the house with firm steps. I tell myself, tonight I won’t let my feelings control me. I’ll open my ears and let myself be humiliated as much as he wants. Maybe I’ll become a better person. As he said, “Maybe you haven’t been humiliated enough yet.” No... the traces of the important men in my life have been so deep that I haven’t been humiliated enough.

I run my hand along the springtime hedges and breathe in the scent of blossoms. My hair is tied up in a cherry-colored bun, and for a piece of bread, I’m going out of my way, hoping my soul doesn’t melt from the craving for fresh, hot bread. The night falls. The call to prayer sounds, and I find myself in the bakery with my shoulders slumping in the dusk. I want to call him from there and tell him, “Mr. so-and-so, stranger, good-for-nothing, you left me behind. Is this how you treat people?”

But his voice rings in my ears:

"Ah, I saw you called, but when my photo pops up on my phone, I just turn it off. Ha ha ha."

I think of my face. How seeing my photo bothers him or how easily he opens his mouth to lash out at me. I tell my guardian angel, "You are my witness." This man, like those who have drunk magic water or locked their seven bonds, did everything in his power to torture me. The thought of the tears I’ve shed, the nights I stayed awake, and the cigarettes we never shared together disgusts me. I wish I could scoop all these ruthless words from my memory and throw them into the well, but alas...

I’m in the bakery now, and the heat from the oven touches my face. I think my heart is burning like the oven, and I miss him terribly. The kind bakers with smiles on their faces, far from the weakness of the wealthy and obsessed with money, invite me to sit with them. I’ve seen one or two of them before. I had brought them sweets, and we had kneaded dough together and talked about flowers. The bakery, where life flows among the pure-hearted people, I turned to them and said, “I came for a fresh, hot loaf, but first, can someone lend me their phone to make a call?”

Like in gangster movies, five phones appeared in front of me. They said, “Call anyone you want, say whatever you need. Go ahead.” I laughed. It felt like an old film. I chose the oldest phone and said, “I want to call my teacher who’s mad at me.”

The baker said, “My phone is yours, sister.”

I turned my back on them and dialed his number. My hand trembled as if connected to electricity. My eyelid began to twitch. On the second ring, he picks up, cheerful and carefree, waiting to talk to an unknown number. Without saying hello, I say, “We washed, with the blood of the liver, the robe of the soul / No thread of his remains, nor any warp, O cupbearer... I won’t wait to see what he says. I continue, ‘Not a moment passed without me thinking of you, not a page of the calendar turned without me writing about you...’” It seems he’s starting to understand. He falls silent and greets me, saying he’s been busy, very busy. I say, “Everyone’s busy, I wrote to you, you didn’t reply. I called, you didn’t answer. Is this how it works?”

He shoots me down, a professional marksman, saying, “Nothing happened, we only met twice.”

It feels like snakes twisting inside me. I get sick thinking of those nights, of all the laughs we had, and suddenly he looked at me and answered my question about whether he truly didn’t love me with a laugh: “Ha ha, no, I really don’t love you. Ha ha ha.”

My hand shakes, the juice of my soul pours out, and I can’t look at the bakers. Suddenly, he asks, “How are you?”

What should I say? That I’m dying? Does it even matter to someone who doesn’t make time for you? For someone who doesn’t care? So I censor the truth and only, relying on my latest test results, say, “You could have prevented this from happening with my test results!” And I remember my grandfather and continue, “I never thought after my grandfather, a great sorrow would knock me down. But you did. You turned your back on the light.”

I don’t continue. To someone who has fallen asleep, talking about energy, karma, dharma, and how tomorrow is too late, how tea is cold, and how indifference to others' suffering is useless – it wouldn’t help.

I want to hang up the phone abruptly, but to my surprise, the baker holds up a large frying pan with an omelet and offers it to me. He says, “It smells good, come eat with us. Don’t go, we’d feel indebted.”

I think about how the people here, with hearts as pure as crystal, embody nobility without attending philosophy or mysticism classes. In the same sacred bakery attire, with their white aprons, they are a true example of grandeur.

Months ago, I had wished to break my vegan diet on the Chalous road and treat myself to a couple of eggs or a roadside omelet. Now, why would I want to interrupt this moment for a little bread? From the other side, the phone asks, “Did you take the baker’s phone – and of course, laughing, like a gazelle in a pasture – ?”

I say, “I don’t know...” I turn to the bakers and ask, “Who is the baker here?”

My mind starts spinning. I feel like I could burst from joy. It’s like I have wings on my shoulders. Wow, I’m someone important enough to be asked!

I say, “Learn from these bakers, who are people of heart and purity...”

I hang up the phone, feeling braver than ever. As always, I’ve never owed or been indebted to my heart and feelings. I take the fresh bread in my hand and leave, thinking how much I want to go to that place where we smoked together and I sent my birthday balloon to the sky for him.

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sanaz seyed esfahani

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I was writing the date out of habit when I mistakenly wrote "seventeenth of Farvardin"—you can see the scratch on my handwriting, but it's not a problem. Last night, I dreamt of you, which was the fourth time, though last night I dreamt within a dream. I rolled out of one dream and into another. In the first, with an unwarranted pride—like the pride of a unique creation—you were giving your travel speeches. I, sitting in the corner of your sleep, reached out for you and the wing of the airplane, which I said was too far to reach, and everything became a shadow of Hitchcock’s works—hope you've seen his films, I wish that if you haven’t, we could watch one together one day. Then, I crawled from under the shadow to the second dream where you sat alone in a corner, holding your two knees and from the windows of your eyes, rain poured. Surely, it is a good omen. I wanted to lift your hands from your face, but behind you, in a multicolored stable of your horses and vinegars, they stood like silent fans, and in the dream, I was afraid of them. You were troubled by a thought that was tied to your childhood. You shrank down, and I thought, "This child must be comforted." I woke up to find my hands clenched into fists. When I opened them, your tears had dampened the lines of my palms.

We have reached the eighteenth of Ordibehesht, twelve minutes past three... it’s now three a.m. I think, even if you were the Prophet of God, you shouldn’t have been this distant. I’m finishing Abbas Maroufi’s Symphony of the Deadand am reaching the part where leprosy comes. While reading the book, my patience and strength break, and my thoughts leap from Ardabil and Shorabi to today: “Do I have leprosy? Why don’t you take me to your farm and share a cup of tea with me?” I wish, just once, I could plant a Kashtree! I wish you would fall asleep within a dream and see me in your sleep, and when you wake, your palms would turn the same auburn color as my soft hair! I wish I were a tree in your farm, spinning around without expecting anything from you.

This notebook is almost finished, and I’ve been watching you all these days and nights, without your permission, from the tiles on your stairs, from the sturdy wood of your house, your gaze, like a spirit. I think you understood. I sent countless kisses your way. My dear Mazdak, I’m referring to when you showed me a photo of your house and asked where the carpet was placed, and then, with so much joy, you held the video of your home before my eyes. I was standing on tiptoes outside your car, excitedly watching your phone and your beautiful home video.

I wish I could record the sound of the elephants’ trumpet as they pass over my chest in the morning and send it to you. I wish I could weigh their pressure and show it to you so you would know the discomfort of my writing hand, how my heart is broken. How much crime is there in drinking a cup of tea? It’s the story of a heart that feels trapped when its owner is about to wake up from a deep slumber.

Letter to Marcelo

11th of October, 2024

To Marcelo,

If you come to see me, bring your whip.

You went all out; I said, if you come to see me, bring your whip, and you didn’t fall short, you fully embraced the spirit of a rogue! In my writings, there’s no struggle to preserve your presence. Should I write about keeping the scent of your horse in my skin cells, or should I write about mourning the word "cry"? Neither, I won’t write about them. I only indulge in squeezing out a few missing measures of the unknown.

22 years ago, on the second of October, I fell in love, and from the various stages of perhaps loving, I reached the peak. Every second of October, with the memory of that moment of our meeting, passed in such a way that it was immeasurable. Our wedding should have been on the second of October. Every autumn that came, we awaited a small celebration for the second of October. But in the years that followed, when he became a disciple of the oppressors, and the street-fighter spirit of his grabbed my throat, his betrayals left marks on my devotion, and his addiction drained my soul, even his subsequent marriages stripped my dignity. This date became the most bitter day of the calendar for me. Like a star that turns to powder and smoke, it had neither light nor love within. Later, I grew to despise this second of October. One day, in my refuge, I wished for the light of a man, a waking male, to break the curse of this second of October in my life. I wanted to sit and write of a sweeter second of October, more delightful than a new season’s fruit.

When, by chance, the time of our meeting was the second of October, I woke up at eight in the morning, opened the attic window, and let the light spill over my sheets and blanket. I burned incense and frankincense, and in the circular bathtub of my home, I sang loudly. Around the mirror screen partition in my attic room, colorful birds had gathered and were watching me. A gentle breeze passed under my arms, and I, being a woman awake at night, prepared myself for an embrace with you, even at this early hour, when most people were still asleep, and no sound of any carriage wheel could be heard in the cobbled streets.

So, I didn’t sit even for a moment in anticipation and walked the length and breadth of the room, counting every second. I walked for eight hours, continuously going to the mirror to look at the red gown with a long train and the 16th-century lace bodice. I wished that the sunlight wouldn’t shift and wouldn’t leave my window. I wanted time to stop, and the sun, like a coin, to stick at the same point in the sky, so you could come. For eight hours, I didn’t sit on a chair. All this was from eagerness, not from heartache or disappointment from your absence. You sent your messenger, telling me your carriage had broken down in your relatives' farm and that you couldn’t make it. Once again, I couldn't create a real second of October with a beautiful memory.

And then, on the 17th of October, when the man on horseback, who was you, wrapped in the noble scent of a horse, appeared before me, I couldn’t contain myself. I looked at your hands resting on the paper, ready to draw around them. I stared at the edges of your nails, and my eyes moved over the dryness of your skin. I connected the crayon as if crossing a border between this beloved part of you and the paper. If you had any taste, you would’ve taken the lines from my fingers as well. Just like I drew lines around your fingers, you would’ve traced mine.

I gather the remnants of my taste and put them in my closet to show you. I choose a fish-scaled dress and wear it. Hey! You! After you shot me in the eyes and saw me fall into your embrace, did the fish scales on my body flutter well?

On our drawing paper, you wrote a poem by Mehdi Akhavan Sales: "The breath that comes from the warmth of the chest, turns into a cloud, darkens..." and I was stunned by the beauty of your handwriting on the paper. I wished that this empty canal would fill forever. Even though you didn’t write that poem for me, seeing it felt like witnessing a naked body, both sexually thrilling and terrifyingly beautiful.

I had drunk a sip of wine, and I wasn’t so drunk that my mind wandered. Just like reaching the woman’s lips, igniting the flame of life after coupling, that heavenly orgasmic moment. When you picked up your phone to film me, did you see that I was playing coy? Did you see that you had to record our laughter with my phone? Now that same film, with the explosion of laughter set to the mournful music of " Ne me quitte pas " by Jacques Brel, accidentally stayed in my phone. How did you turn that beautiful moment of laughter into hell, you, the lion of courage? How did you strike me with your whip, after all the chatting, dancing, and laughter under the flashing blue lights of my house? I, like an innocent child, sat before you, wiping the wet laughter from my eyes with my palms, looked at you, and asked, "Don’t you love me?" And you, laughing, stared at my eyes, unblinking, clearly and transparently said, "No! I don’t love you." To write how I was destroyed in front of you, I’d need a lifetime, not a few hundred notebooks. Alas, being a writer is something one can never truly become. I had never felt more helpless than in that moment, and you, like a filmmaker playing the lead role, both whipped me and gave me, the fish, as a gift to the moon in your painting!

I’ve seen how in your circus stable, you embraced and kissed your horse, Sabita, in those restless moments to deliver a message to your former lover.

No! You are not the one who’s been kicked and rejected. What does it matter that I read your back with my wet eyes and broken heart? "Hero!" Ha! A hero who, with all his heroism, gifted autumn to its host, gave his rain and his twilight pains to it, turning the time when two people could seek refuge in each other’s souls and bodies in the aftermath of a war-ravaged period into hell.

I loved you, selflessly. I’m sending you this film so you know how I lived through it, like the anxiety of a condemned person waiting for the verdict at the gallows.

You said, "Why should we take the rented off-road car to travel? Don’t I have a car?" Which road were we going to visit? I saw you at a magnificent level because I wanted to become a horse for you, but you never allowed my soul and body to be part of yours. For me, just seeing the dry, multi-colored autumn road with its anklet and sinking into the branches of its trees was enough.

This letter is not for you, Marcelo. It’s for October, whose hell passed through me. For11th of October, for the "M" not the month. For the man whose animalistic nature I fell in love with, but who was enamored with his epaulettes and wept for the women who loved the gleam of their clothing, not the sharpness of his heart.

In all these letters, I praised you, but in this one, let me moan a little! Huh? "Why did I give you my heart, only for you to break it, or what did I do that you won’t look back at me?" Shajarian's voicesing this.

Sorry that I "exist."

Sorry that I left my heart in your eyes and the broken bones of your nose.

They said, "Don’t inform men about love, they’ll run away," and I thought you were a legend, not an ordinary man.

I thought you had anchored yourself in the shade of poetry. The virtue of companionship and the pleasure of it, not everyone understands.

For you, who gave me neither a single flower, nor ever hosted me, nor poured me a cup of tea because you didn’t have the conditions, my friend.

A poem byMehdi Akhavan Sales– "Winter"

Mohammadreza Shajarian – "The Song of the Meeting"

Sanaz seyed esfahani