Day 6
Cemetery. A Stone cross in the middle of the stage. The woman stands in front of the audience, looking at them for a few seconds in silence. Then, she goes toward the Cross and kneels down.
The Woman: Akh Baba! Baba! Forgive me for all my sins. Forgive me for failing to be a good daughter for you, for not praying as much as you expected me, for not being what you wanted me to be, for not wearing hijab,. Forgive me for having a boyfriend …actually boyfriends…. Forgive me for telling you I would go to my friend’s house for studying for a week , but went to India. Forgive me for escaping and going to a distant country and not calling you for over two years. Forgive me for the red clock on the tower. Forgive me for the rude words I used against you in my nightmare. I called you “a liar,” and I am so sorry. Please forgive me.
Pause
For what else, do I have to beg your forgiveness?! There are lots and lots of other things…But maybe there is only one thing for which I should ask for forgiveness. Please, forgive me for not understanding what happened to you during the war. I was too young to realise how you suffered in the war and how the shell-shock disturbed your brain, your thoughts, your dreams. Please, forgive me for not trying to speak with you. Please, forgive me for not trying to love you. Please, forgive me for being scared of you more than loving you. Forgive me for being a girl and not a boy. If, as your last chance for having a son, I were a boy, perhaps you could talk to me, and I could understand you.
Oh father! father! Please forgive me…
Pause.
Oh! Sorry I forgot the most important thing…Forgive me for daydreaming so recurrently about killing you. Yes! Sorry! I imagined killing you a hundred times and every time in a different way…a knife on the back!… poison in your tea!… pillow on your deformed, sleeping face !…but at last I found a very unpredictable way to kill you.
I had a boyfriend in London, who was from Iraq, an Iraqi boyfriend. The country that you fought with for years… Can you believe it?…I thought that was the best way to kill you without approaching you. OK! That is very complicated: Half of the very first cell that made me was from you. So whenever he touched me, he touched you. Or better to say, half of you. That way I let your enemy touch you.
Pause.
In my own superstitious way, I thought it would work, and it did work. Eventually, the telephone rang and Aunt Aghdas, my fairy godmother, was crying:
AA-W: “Hi! My dear”
W:“Hi! Ammeh joon (Dear Aunti) Why are you crying?”
AA-W: “How can I tell you?”
W: “Please, do!”
AA-W: “I can’t”
W: “Did Something happen to my father?.. Ammeh joon, do you hear me?…Please stop crying for a second and tell me… is it about my father?”
AA-W:“When will you come back? You must be here.”
W: “What do you exactly mean by ‘here’? Hospital or …”
AAW: “ OR!… OR!”
And then I realised that I was not happy about your death, that I would never see you again…, that I was no longer angry with you … and that I could no longer live with my boyfriend. I realised ‘I am Who am I ?’ nothing but an eternal question.
Pause
I have to leave you now. You are not here in this grave…but it doesn’t matter! A grave is a grave! The soil, the earth is the same earth! and the sky is the same sky!
Father! Please forgive me for not coming to your funeral. I couldn’t leave this country. If I had left I could have never come back. And If I could never come back…I don’t know!…I don’t want to …I don’t know the word…I mean… what a soldier does, when there is no chance to defeat the enemy… I mean ‘going back’… ‘re-… something’.
And something else…Please, forgive me for speaking in this language to you. I know that you don’t understand me at all, but I couldn’t say all these things in Persian. The only thing I ever did in Persian with you was to argue and fight with you. I could not beg for your forgiveness in Persian…and now…now I am happy you could not understand me. Why should I have reminded you of those horrible memories? Why should I have…actually…why did I beg for your forgiveness at all? I was as right as you were, or even more…
I have to go now…
دلم برات تنگ می شه … و فکر می کنم … کاش می دیدمت قبل از این که بری
Bye!