I take the battery out of the doll and squeeze it again. I say, “See, if you don’t make a sound, you are as bad as a doll without a battery, without a heart. Then it is possible to hurt you because nobody will even find out.”

I hit the doll hard. Pull on her hair, and ask Shadi, “Do you understand?”

I sound too harsh. Shahin is looking at me approvingly, but Shadi bursts into tears. I caress her hair and the doll’s, and end my speech.

Shadi starts talking, “Ida buys fruit roll ups and ice cream; she buys candy. But I don’t have any money.”

I feel like a defeated speaker who has talked about art for an hour to hear the audience ask questions about economics.

“Ida has sunglasses. She has a bicycle, but I don’t have anything.”

I tell Shadi that she has a lot of things too. Shahin says, “She doesn’t have any brains.”

Shadi says, “You don’t have any.”

Shahin has found an excuse. He is getting ready to attack. “Come on. Tell me what I don’t have?”

Shadi opens up her fist and laughs. “Nothing.”

Chapter 8

8

Maman left our house without saying good-bye. She was either too sick and forgot to say good-bye, or she thought about it and ignored us on purpose. Right by the door I have hung a rectangular mirror on the wall where I could see Amir’s sneering face. He doesn’t like Maman, and at times like this, he even despises her. Maman knows this. I know she is leaving our house with this understanding.

Tonight Maman went to the bathroom more than ten times in an hour and wept.

“You shouldn’t have mixed cream into the soup. My blood pressure has gone up.”

Trembling, she pulled the blanket up to her shoulders. “If I were home, I would have brewed mint tea. Perhaps the soup didn’t agree with me.”

Without saying a word, I went to the kitchen and came back. But in reality I was thinking about the mint and her high blood pressure. I didn’t say anything. Wondering about my silence right at that moment, it felt like noticing suddenly that I was wearing a borrowed dress.

I remembered that my silence has a history. I have been praised for it time and again. I was seven or eight years old when I realized not all children have this virtue. My silence was considered my best asset. One day Father took me to the basement and asked, “Where did you go with Aunt Mahboub yesterday?”