Things We Left Unsaid by Zoyâ Pirzâd Page A

looked at his mother.
    Arsineh tugged at my skirt from the other side. ‘Ask her grandma!’
    Mrs. Simonian, after ascertaining which cinema and which film, with whom they were going and when they were coming back, and heaven forbid that they eat any sandwiches or chips, finally gave her
permission.
    The twins, holding each other around the waist, crossed the street ahead of me and Artoush and Armen. Once or twice they turned back to Armen and laughed. I opened the front door and turned on
the light in the hallway.
    Arsineh said, ‘Ahh! It’s so nice to have a bright house!’
    Armineh said, ‘Ahh! And it’s nice and cool, too.’
    ‘That was fun,’ added Arsineh, ‘but their house is very dark.’
    ‘That was fun,’ agreed Armineh, ‘but their house was very hot.’
    Artoush took off his tie and headed for the kitchen. ‘Do we have anything to eat?’ Armen went to his room and slammed the door.
    I sent the twins off to their bedroom, took off my high heels and went barefoot to the kitchen.
    Artoush was sitting at the table, staring at the flowers on the ledge. ‘Poor guy. Now I know why he doesn’t seem normal. With that mother...’ A small lizard on the outside of
the window screen was staring into the kitchen. I made a hard-boiled egg sandwich. Eggs, whenever and however prepared, were my husband’s favorite food.
    Just as Artoush was about to bite into the sandwich, Arsineh yelled, ‘Tell me where Ishy is, or I’ll tell why you were coughing!’
    I was about to get up from the table when Artoush caught my hand and said for the umpteenth time, ‘Don’t interfere. Let them fight. They’ll make up afterwards. They’ll
keep on fighting and making up. Let them be.’ Then he smiled. ‘Don’t worry, they won’t kill each other.’ Still holding my hand, he stroked the back of it with his
finger. I didn’t move. How long had it been since he had held my hand? He let go, picked up his sandwich and took a bite. ‘Your skin is so dry.’
    I looked at my hands. At my close-clipped and unpolished nails. When I shook hands, did Mrs. Simonian notice how chapped my hands were? What about her son? I felt embarrassed at the thought of
his kissing my hand. The kids were quiet. Half an hour later, when I looked in on their rooms, all three of them were fast asleep and Armineh was hugging Ishy.

 
8
    On Fridays, when we did not have to rush off to work, we always ate a big breakfast.
    The radio was on. I cracked the eggs into the frying pan and told Artoush, who was getting the cheese and butter from the fridge, ‘I’ll set the table. Go wake Armen so they can make
it to the cinema’
    From the kitchen doorway Armen said, ‘Awake and at your service. Go wake up your lazy daughters. And, by the way, good morning to you.’ His hair was all wet and his face all rosy.
Artoush looked at me and arched his eyebrows. We both stared at our son.
    Armen took a seat at the table. ‘What’s the big deal? Never seen anyone fresh from the bath before?’
    Artoush slid the spatula under the egg, sunny-side up. ‘We’ve had occasion to see a freshly bathed face or two in our day, but not usually a freshly bathed Armen.’ He put the
egg on Armen’s plate and we both laughed. Since the age of ten, getting Armen to take a bath was one of my hardest chores.
    Armen was complaining that he didn’t like runny eggs when the twins bounced in, wearing their red and blue plaid pinafore dresses over white blouses. They said they didn’t want eggs
and both asked instead for toast with butter and jam, and chocolate milk.
    Over the radio came the pinched voice of the Iranian radio announcer, Forouzandeh Arbabi: ‘These are the days of spring blossoms and the rain in Tehran...’
    Armen declared loudly, ‘These are the days of scorching heat and mugginess in Abadan.’
    Arsineh asked, ‘What are you talking about?’
    Armineh mimicked in a nasal voice, ‘He’s talking like Forouzandeh Arbabi.’
    Arsineh, convulsed with