This word has made me feel important. I am not miserable any more. I am not without a home any longer. These walls are ours. The staircase is ours too. This bathroom and the shower are ours. The magic of this one word stays with me for quite a long time. I can’t believe one word could do this to a person. I never knew ownership could be so exhilarating.

“Do you hear what I am saying? I am going to sell the house. I need the money. The real estate agent will come to see the house some day soon.”

One of the benefits of getting older is that I don’t get thrown into a frenzy right away. I take a few seconds and choose from possible responses. There is no need to get up and scream. I can protect the house while seated.

“You will not sell the house.”

I like the sound of my voice. It is neither shaky nor worried. It is confident.

Chapter 4

4

I go. He goes. We go. “To go” is the only verb that Amir is constantly conjugating.

Damn this luck! We have not quite had a taste of staying in one place, and he is thinking about going again.

Shahla says, “Amir’s elephant is dreaming of India again.”

I say, “His is not an elephant. It is a rhinoceros. The rhinoceros always goes alone. I wish I also had an elephant that was dreaming of India or some place closer.”

Amir is moving toward the future. He loves the future. He dislikes the past. Especially a girlish past that does not include climbing the walls, riding a bicycle, or neighborhood kids playing soccer, a past full of whispers, gossip, and women’s games, a past that ends in dark basements and closets. Amir is not willing to take even one step back with me.

I don’t like the past either. It is sad because the past likes me! Sometimes it climbs up on my back like a monster, with no intention of ever climbing down. I thought that after marrying Amir I could knock the monster down. I wished getting rid of it were as easy as losing my virginity.

One night, one of those nights that fantasy overpowers reality and sincerity rules, I told Amir about the creature hanging onto my back. I felt like a hunchback that wanted to reveal the secret of her hump. Amir interrupted my ramblings. Have I loved anybody before him? He got his answer and lay down like a happy man. But I was not finished yet. I was still talking when, half asleep, he covered my mouth with his hand.

“It is not important who the others were, and what they did. Only you are important, and from now on you are mine.”