Day 18

Naghmeh Samini
Wednesday 20 February 2019

The Woman and the Man are both in the basement. They are sitting on a mat facing each other. There is a candle in the middle. They look exhausted.

The Man: When I saw you for the first time in that small bookshop, leafing through The Name of The Rose, looking at the pages with those shiny eyes and flaming cheeks, I felt I had known you for years. Then, I felt something unusual in my body. Not just in my heart, but my whole body. I felt I was being divided into two pieces…It was painful and …Oh! Impossible to explain. The last time I had such a feeling was when my mom received the news of my father’s death in the war, and began to wail. I was 5 years old, and I felt I was being cut into two pieces. One piece was burning, and the other piece was cold as a piece of ice.

When I saw you in the small bookshop, I felt I was simultaneously burning and freezing . At first, I had no idea where you were from, and I didn’t want to ask you. I remember the moment when after 5 days , we dared to speak about our nationalities.

M-Where are you from? Let me guess first…From Turkey…

W-Nope!

M-From…Gojira…

W-Nope!

M-Am I too far?!

W-Too close…But let me guess first! With this Arabic accent you have to be from Lebanon!

M-Nope!

W- Egypt?

M-Nope !

W-I hope you are not from Iraq!

M- I hope you are not from Iran!

W-Well, I am from Iran!

M- And, I am from Iraq!”

The Woman: In the blink of an eye, the lovers evaporated, and the warriors appeared.

The Man: Love bed evaporated, and the battlefield appeared.

The Woman: We evaporated, and our fathers appeared.

Pause

The Woman: What is the next step?

The Man: Every war in the history has to come to an end, with a winner and a looser.

The Woman: In Iran-Iraq war there were no winners; they both lost.

The Man: I know.

The Woman: So…?

The man doesn’t answer. Long pause. and then Darkness.

 

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