These days the world looks indifferent to me.

At the age of forty-two, it is no good

to be rejected after years of love and patience. In the morning, when I look through
the kitchen window and see the mountains far away, an intimate grief burns inside
me. At night, I look at the moon through my bedroom window. I pray to God and I
believe deep in my heart that he listens to me and that there is a reason for everything.
I tell everyone that God has created heart and mind, and he has put a boundary
between them, as long as you move on that boundary, you are a real human being
who has taken the control of your mind and emotions. There is no end to the grief
and it seems that my only love in life is God. No matter what I did for the others they
left me, one by one, all of them…
I am out of my mind tonight and I am looking for a way out. I feel suffocated. I
remember my childhood in my grandfather’s house that was cozy and bright. I
remember caterpillars, laughing from the bottom of my heart and thinking of
beautiful wishes as well. We used to gather together, and my grandfather recited
poems.
I saw my grandfather’s house after many years again, it has not changed, but my
imaginations looked far better. I used to make fun of those who talked about their
happy childhood but now I yearn for those happy days.
I remember twenty-six years ago, I made fun of a woman in our neighborhood,
because she had been married three times. I used to believe that one marries only
once and must keep that until death. I was only sixteen at the time. A year after that,
at the age of seventeen, when I came home from high school I saw a man at the door.
We lived in a two-story house back then, with the owner upstairs and us downstairs.
The man was the owner’s friend and when he met me, he liked me and a week later
he proposed to me.
I did not want to get married at the time, I liked having boyfriend and hanging out
with him. But unfortunately, I had a boyfriend whose father was an oil company
driver and since we were financially inferior to them, he told me that he would never
want his son to be in a relationship with me. So, my boyfriend left me at his father’s
request. I was sad for a couple of days until the suitor came by. I used to have many
suitors when I was a teenager and my parents dismissed all of them. Back then,
parents decided for their daughters’ future and marriage. My parents just like the
others inquired in my suitor’s neighborhood and decided to let him marry me. I
insisted that I did not want to get married, but they told me I should leave house if I
did not get married.
At that time, it was not common for girls in this country to be independent or to
work, there were a lot of restrictions for them. No one in the family would support
them. They said you should listen to your parents because they want your best. No
money, no support,…
I was depressed because I had lost my boyfriend, and I got even more depressed and
gave in. I married the stranger. The day after our wedding, everything changed. After
marriage, his main job was to beat me. He lied all the time and beat me for no reason.
We were living in poor housing conditions; we did not have gas, washing machine
or hot water. On a cold winter day he came home, he touched the clothes and beat
me because they were wet. “Why are the clothes wet, what have you been up to since
morning?” Asked he. “It is winter, the water is cold, the house is cold, my hands
freeze when I wash your clothes, I do the other housework to warm up my hands, so
it takes time to do the laundry”, I answered. But it was pointless and he beat me for
no reason.
One day, when my hands and face were bruised I went to my father’s house and told
him everything. My parents said he had no right to do so and that they were going
to do something about it. But at night they took me to my husband’s house, they
smiled and said, “All couples quarrel and that is normal, try to treat better”, and they
left. My husband looked down upon me and said “even your parents do not support
you and bring you back. No one wants you, they do not mind even if I kill you. So,
do not humiliate yourself” and he laughed at me.
My husband was a welder and fulltime work did not interest him. So, he was
unemployed for half of the year and he could not pay the rent. So, after a few months
he returned the rented house and took me to his mother’s house and said “from now
on you have to live here. His mother’s house was a one-story courtyard house where
his divorced siblings lived with their parents. They gave us a forty foot square room
to live. We lived in my mother-in-law’s house for two years and a half. Living there
made my problems worse. I would wake up at two in the morning, go into the
courtyard and look up at the sky for half an hour and cry. I had to wake up early in
the morning, do the housework, wash the yard and obey my husband’s family.
Instead, they made fun of me. I had to sleep with and satisfy a man, whom I not only
hated, but I had to tolerate his rough sex as well. When I woke up in the morning his
parents told me “you are an indecent woman, we can hear you at nigh”. Later, by his
own confessions, I learned that he had raped little boys. They did not know what
their son was doing to me. When he came back from work he tied my legs and arms
with cloth and hit me. I still do not know why?! Sometimes, he tied a scarf around
my mouth, and I did not know why. When my mother-in-law heard my groans she
would shout from the other side of the room “you must have done something to be
beaten like this, you deserve it”. I had no right to go out or talk all day. So why did
I deserve it?
When my husband was out of work we were hungry, we did not any food to eat.
Sometimes, I was very sick, but he did not have enough money to buy medicine. Out
of pity, his parents sometimes fed us, but it seemed like I had to pay for what they
had done.
One day when he came back from work I told him “I want a poem book, please buy
me one”. He consulted with his mother and she said “never! You must not buy books,
you are a married woman. You can buy cups if you want”. My husband took me out
and bought cups for me. When we came back I washed those cups reluctantly. Her
mother came to me and said “I see you came to your senses. Books are not good for
you, women who read books abandon men”. And I cried again.
In the morning, my retired father-in-law used to leave home about half an hour after
breakfast and my mother-in-law made me clean the yard while he was out, because
he did not like it when I cleaned yard. One day my father-in-law came back early
and saw me cleaning the yard. He started yelling and I was beaten up again. Why?
What was my fault?