Birds In A Gale
Ata Nahai
Translated by Chiya Parvizpur and Hourieh Maleki Qouzloo
ONE
A rending scream jolted him awake. He frantically scanned his surroundings. The room was dark. Through the eyes of the windows and behind the wavy curtains, he saw scattered yellow and red lights. They were too faint to illuminate the room or cast a dim glow on the opposite wall. He rushed to one of the windows. And from there to the balcony . . .
Outside was as dark. Nothing caught his attention but the bitter movements of the tree branches in the courtyard. He cocked his ear in case the scream came again—or another wailing noise. But he heard nothing beyond the rustling of leaves and branches. He stepped back and closed the window. The ticking of the clock was the beating heart of the room. It ticked loud and fast. Was he frightened too? He groped around, trying to turn on the light. The room smiled bright. Did he see it or not? The beating heart had slowed down. His eyes hooked on the clock at the heart of the wall. Its hands were missing. He searched for his wristwatch but could not find it. Sleep had been driven from his eyes. He did not return to bed. A half-full glass of water from last night was still on his desk, and he drank it to the dregs. His cigarette pack was there as well. He dragged one out and lit it. The echo of the scream still churned in his ears. His body was shaking, and he could feel it. Was it out of fear or cold? He was in two minds. He sat on the chair behind his desk. “Farhad,” he asked, “did you hear that chilling scream?”
No one answered him. Farhad was not in the room, nor in any other room of the house. Only his name lingered in his mind—his name and the fragments of his life and past, all tangled in his thoughts with no order.
He drew on his cigarette. The smoke stung the tip of his tongue, and he exhaled a cloud of smoke over the papers on his desk. He had scribbled on a pile of papers. He had been writing for a week . . . yesterday, the day before yesterday, and every other day. Day and night. Since Farhad’s birth. The first day of autumn. “The first day of autumn in which year was Farhad born?” he asked me. Then he went on, “If I ever get around to writing his story, I need to know his age. I need to see him. One day, with you . . . why don’t you take me . . . ?”
“Farhad doesn’t leave home. It’s been years since he last left the house,” I said.
“It’s been years since he stepped out of the house?” he asked, surprised, wondering if he was old enough to be homebound. It did not cross his mind that, in this land, one did not need to be old to be confined to their home.
He snubbed out his cigarette and stood up behind his desk. He walked across the room and stopped beside the bookshelves. A collection of new books . . . ones bought upon his return. He wondered if his old books still remained . . .
“When you left,” his brother Baram said, laughing, “one night, our father gathered all the books, piled them in the courtyard, and set them on fire. They created a big fire. It brightened not only the courtyard but the whole neighborhood.”
But his sister, Monira, spoke with grief: “Roonak and I sat by the fire, weeping till dawn. The next day, when the neighbors asked about the fire, we told them we burned the dry leaves from the trees.”
Dry leaves from the trees? Was it autumn when he left? He looked at his books. He had not read any yet, just thumbed through a few pages. “When I go back, I’ll take them all with me. The lonely nights of homesickness . . .” he thought.
He chose a book, A Chink in the Dark. It was the sixth or seventh memoir he had bought that week. The memory of those men who once tried to revolutionize the world—through their efforts, by leaving their families behind, by enduring prison and torture . . . but they failed. The world has not changed. Has it not? They have simply aged, grown exhausted, and, afraid of being forgotten, they have recorded their memories. A Chink in the Dark, a prison memoir. He knew its author, though they never met in person. He spent more than twenty years in jail. He opened the book in the middle. It was the day of prisoners’ visiting time. Which day, which year? He could not remember. And it did not matter. What mattered was that the prisoners were allowed to take a shower, to shave, to wear the clean clothes folded under their blankets, to put on the perfumes gifted by their loved ones, to polish their shoes . . . they had done it all. As if they were invited somewhere. They were guests. Guests of their families. Perhaps they talked about that young man whose fiancée had sent him perfume? The meeting of an engaged couple on either side of the iron bars, under the watchful eyes of a young cop with a thick mustache, black eyes, and eyebrows . . .
He closed the book and put it back in place. As he walked around the room toward his desk, the thoughts of the prisoners and their families slipped away. “Farhad,” he said, “I’m sure you heard that chilling scream too.”
Farhad was not in the room again. He was not in any of the rooms in the house. He gathered the papers on the desk and looked at the first page. A tangle of cold, lifeless words, worn out and repeated. He crumpled the paper and tossed it aside. The second page . . . the sentences seemed alien to him. As if he had not written them. He tore out the second page, then the third . . . and the fourth.
“What do you know about Farhad?”
It was me who asked the question. My voice did not surprise him. He lifted his head but did not seem bothered by my sudden entrance into his room or by me standing beside him. “Many things,” he answered. “But scattered and disorganized.”
I laughed. He saw a line of black, dirty, and ugly teeth, and it filled him with nausea. Was it the first time he saw me like this? Had I never laughed before? Surely I had. I would laugh many more times.
“You laugh too much,” he said, angry and resentful. But he regretted it in the blink of an eye. “Of course, laughing’s not bad.”
He said that because he did not mean to displease me. Perhaps he feared I would sever my ties with him. But I would not. I looked at the crumpled papers. He must have exhausted himself writing them. Yesterday, the day before yesterday, and . . . he crumpled everything he has written that week and tossed it aside. Hopefully, to start over. He began Farhad’s story again but remained stuck on the first sentence. The first sentence was a window into Farhad’s life. “Choosing the first sentence is the first and last choice of a writer,” he said before. “A hard choice. The first sentence determines the life and fate of the character.”
“Where does Farhad live?”
He already knew what my answer would be.
“I must see him. He should . . .”
He wanted to say: He should tell me whether he has heard that chilling and piercing scream. But he did not say that. Instead, he continued, “He should help me choose the first sentence of his story. You gave me your word to get us to know each other.”
I turned my back on him and walked to one of the windows in his room. I stood there, pulling the curtain slightly. It was still dark outside.
“I’ve given you my word, and I’ll do it,” I said.
I did not mention when.
Birds In A Gale is forthcoming December 2, 2025 and available for preorder