He smiles at himself in the mirror.

When he has had enough of me, my belly reminds him of a drum, and my legs of a camel. Sometimes I am transformed into a crocodile, but I always end up as a polar bear.

When he has had enough of me, he turns into a bachelor who has mistakenly become a guest in a crowded house. At times like this, the kids are no longer smart and curious, and they have not taken after their father at all. They are in the way and annoying. They eat at our brains with their irrelevant questions, and no doubt they are only my kids.

Amir treats himself and promises to do more.

“I work like a dog but dress like a beggar.”

He shaves every morning and leaves the house as if he is living in a third-class motel. His cologne stays in the air for hours.

When Father had enough of Maman, he would bring home Vitamin. Vitamin was the name Father had given her. Vitamin would sing. She laughed loudly and snapped her fingers briskly. She had long black hair. Mahin said, “If she didn’t have all those blemishes, she could be pretty.” But Father saw the blemishes as beauty marks and recited poetry for Vitamin, and Maman took refuge in the basement because she had crystal-clear skin and no one ever read poetry to her.

Aunt Mahboub would say, “If a woman really wants poetry, she can find it even in a hellhole.” She would laugh thunderously, “A woman can even make mice sing for her if she wants to.”

Aunt Mahboub did not need poetry. That is why she looked at herself in the mirror a hundred times a day, not one kind of look, but a hundred; the look of a neighbor who would enter momentarily, the look of a stranger who would pass by and glance at her. Sometimes she’d look at herself as carefully as a caring and diligent doctor. She would delicately press the puffed-up bags under her eyes and would caress her neck with the same gentle touch.

When Maman had had enough, she would throw the furniture in the yard and clean everything for days while weeping. She would wipe off the doors, the walls, and the floors. She cleaned every corner of the rooms and the basement, washing everything repeatedly. Maman did not allow anyone but Shahla to go to the basement while cleaning. She said, “It is filthy everywhere. I have to disinfect the morgue.”