There's Been a Mistake

Translated from the Persian original.

Looking for a picture frame, I wanted to stop by the old basement of my mother's house, which has long been a storeroom for things no one uses anymore, all the things that no longer seem to be of any use but aren't for throwing away either: books, albums, some dishes, tools and the like were down there. Parts of the hall hadn't been touched at all; cloths had been drawn over some of the things. I didn't really know where to start searching. You know, basements have rules of their own: they all smell of damp, they're all dim, with low windows up near the ceiling; half-rotted pipes and cobwebs around the pipes surprise no one; if the paint on some part of the ceiling or wall hasn't peeled, it's as if something's missing. But this time something was different. I don't believe in these things, but I felt someone other than me was there. You know, the silence there wasn't the silence of objects. Just as you can tell people's sounds from the sounds of objects, you can tell their silence from the silence of objects too. In a corner I saw an old rusted tank that reminded me of a day in my childhood when, for some insolence, my father locked me in the basement for a few hours. At first I was angry and pounded on the door, then like all kids I lost hope, and little by little fear came for me. But I wasn't the begging type, so I thought I'd find some way to come to terms with it. After some struggling my eye fell on a small window. I tried to push the tank over to the wall that had a window near its ceiling onto the back yard, so I could climb up on it and, with my small body, with effort and difficulty, save myself through the window. I remember well the deep feeling of freedom I had when I got out into the yard. When I went back into the basement I no longer thought of it as a prison, because I knew that window would always be there. You must be thinking I'm talking about a wide, green, level yard. No. This back yard was even smaller than the basement; it had high walls, and the shadows of the surrounding houses, which hemmed it in all around, packed against each other, kept it dark for many hours of the day. On the floor tiles you could see the bones of birds; it seemed to be a safe place for cats to eat their prey at leisure. Even so, I had escaped from the basement to there, and my father didn't know. I remember that after that, every time I felt low and the world felt too tight for me, I'd go down to the basement without anyone noticing; each time I'd drag the tank to the wall and spend an hour alone in that small, dreadful yard. I'd go over all my big dreams; sometimes I'd add things to them and fill in the details, and sometimes I'd take away from my wishes. Wait, there must be some mistake. Why don't I look like those dreams? Why didn't I get to any of those wishes? And if I didn't, how come these days I think I have no wishes? I must be imagining things. It's as if either those dreams weren't mine, or I'm not that person at all. Sometimes I'd plot how, when I grew up, I'd kill the people who hurt me or the ones I loved, or hurt them back. Sometimes that made me feel better; sometimes I'd cry and feel better; and sometimes it would get late, and worried that someone would notice I was gone and come looking and my hiding place would be found out, I'd cut things short, climb back down through the window, put the tank back in its place and go from the basement into the house. There must be some mistake. Why is the tank still under the window? As if the last time I forgot to put it back. I went over to the tank. I was grown now; I didn't need to climb on the tank to open the window anymore. The basement was dark, and the smell of damp was getting to me. I wanted to open the window to let some air in. The window, thick with dust and grime, was stuck so tight it was as if it hadn't been opened in years. I forced it open. I'm not the fanciful type. The moment the window opened I felt someone had found me, like a child whose hiding place has been found out; a feeling of insecurity and childish fear told me to leave the basement. Not much could be seen on the other side of the window. I looked more closely, so that maybe my eyes would make out more in the dark. There must be some mistake: I was still sitting there. I had been left there for years. The last time, I never climbed down from that window. There must be some mistake: I was stuck on the other side of that narrow window frame, alive, looking just the same. There must be some mistake: my childhood wasn't the size of the world on this side of the window. There must be some mistake.

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