I didn’t like him reading your letter, especially out loud and full of errors. It’s not a newspaper. It’s a letter written only for one person. However, I didn’t say anything. But the letter lost its excitement.

Dearest Mahin, I must say your letters always create a small crisis in our home. After finishing your letter, Amir says, “What a dreadful life we have.” This remark belongs to evenings, when he comes home after an entire day of overtime work and collapses in front of the air conditioner, moaning. Not to the morning when it’s time to go to work, and there is still opportunity to change the world.

Girl, in your letter you talk about a U.S. where everybody is living happily. Everybody thinks, talks, and lives as they wish. You talk about old women who feel young and strong, and you write about the young women who have the most beautiful smiles in the world. Shahla says, “Mahin has gone to Hollywood, not to the U.S.” My problem is that I can’t even imagine such a world, let alone believe in it; a world without contradictions, without suffering and regrets. But Amir believes in it, because the West, especially Canada, is his life’s sole obsession. As a person who doesn’t believe in anything, even if he sees it with his own eyes, now he buys any right or wrong idea about the West.

Perhaps love is inside us. I think that with love as a visa you can go anywhere and live there. But I don’t really have such a permit in my pocket. I am afraid of moving over there and getting lost with my pocket empty. Then I have to beg for help. I am afraid of coming to your heaven and still seeing the traces of the hell that are stuck to me. You’re right. I don’t have the guts to travel. I should tell you that Amir says the same thing. When he got to this part of the letter, he applauded you.

Before I forget, I should say that Shahla wants you to write to find out if acupuncture gets rid of wrinkles around the eyes. Amir says, “Like most women, Shahla solves her problems by starting at the end.” According to Amir, “Getting married is Shahla’s first problem and her wrinkles are her last.”

Sharing a house didn’t take Maman and Shahla back to the days when they were like twin sisters and went to the basement together, whispering for hours, not fearing Father’s yelling while planning to drive strangers out of the house. Shahla has been angry at the world for some time. Maman says, “It’s too soon. Shahla is young and healthy and has a long way to menopause.”

I say Shahla is lazy.

Maman sighs, and says, “The smart one was Mahin who went away and left everything behind.”