Lemar-Aftaab October - Dec. 1997- Arts - Short Stories - "Were We Bad?"

Were We Bad?

By Roya Khorshid

We were bad? Well, we didn't think so back then, but we were everyone's nightmare, especially our Russian neighbor, Mr. Kredovsky. He had lived in our building for a few months when my friends and I made him our target. We used to call him shaigham (turnip) for he was as round and pink as one. The poor man used to take our teasing as child's play, until we really crossed the line -- several times!

The first month that he moved there, every evening he would give us cookies and chocolate and let us play with his big, white cat. We used to spend hours on the hallway stairs, teaching him Dari and leaning Russian. After a few weeks, we were tired of all his food and friendliness and wanted to spend our evenings in more exciting ways. We were going to do that by bothering him.

After holding one of our childish meetings, we decided to ring his doorbell several times and then run and hide. We did that a few times that evening and he would come out and ask with his thick Russian accent, Keey bood?(Who's there?), while we held our breaths under the staircase. I don't know why, but we took joy in his misery, so we continued doing that for weeks until one day.

It was my turn to ring the doorbell and I did, but as I was running away, I slipped and fell in the halfway. He came out of his house, with his face red and angry, picked me up and took me to his apartment. He put me on the couch and went to the kitchen. I sat there as scared as a cat, remembering the horror stories that my friend, Rodaba, had told me about our Russian neighbors.

She used to tell us that if they catch you, they would cut your ears and tongue, and then send you to the Russia where you would have to peel potatoes for the rest of your life. I kept on thinking to myself, "Oh my God! I want my mommy... I don't wanna go to Russia and I hate peeling potatoes!"

Now that I think about it, I laugh, but if you are six years old, you believe anything your cool friends tell you. So I held on to my ears tightly, thinking that he went to get his knife from the kitchen. Tears were rolling down my face when he came back.

He sat next to me and asked me why I was crying. I didn't want to answer him because I thought as soon as 1 opened my mouth, he would pull my tongue out and cut it. I continued sitting, holding on to my hot, sweaty ears. He attempted to tell me something in Dari, but the only phrase that I understood was that he had called my mom to pick me up; my mom came in a matter of minutes, apologized to Mr.Kredovsky and took me home. We were all punished and had to spend a whole week at home after school.

That long week passed and we were out again, stronger and more prepared. We were going get him back! We stole a bucket of yellow paint from the manager's office and before he came from work, we painted his door yellow, and poured the rest under the door so that it would get inside his apartment. Were we proud of our deed! We went to the market near our buildings and celebrated our victory with ice cream. After spending a few hours outside, we all went home.

When I entered the apartment, my mom was in the kitchen with Rodaba's mother. The second my eyes met my mom's, I knew she had found out. Rodaba's mother left to go home and punish her, while my mom was standing at the kitchen door staring at me. I hated when she did that. I really preferred being hit, but she would never lay a finger on us because she knew her eyes were enough. This time, we were punished for a whole month of staying home after school, and doing extra reading and math.

The month was finally over, and if you think we learned our lesson, then you are dead wrong! We were going to do something extremely bad to him this time, even if it meant that we were going to spend our whole life at home.

Rodaba was the one who always came out with dangerous plans. Feraidoon, Jamshid, and Nelufar were the ones that provided us with all the necessities to carry on the plans. Asad and I usually ended up executing the plans to the end. This time we spent days, thinking of the perfect plan, and finally, one evening, we were all sitting under the big tree, when Rodaba came up with the idea of stealing his cat. It sounded good for a few minutes, but what were going to do with the cat? Nobody could keep it, so we had to think of something else. It was then that I came up with the most sickening plan that I would ever make. I told them to catch his cat, cut his tail and then let him go! Wow! It wasn't going to get any better than that, so the decision was made in my favor.

We spent about six days wafting for his cat to come out of the apartment into the halfway. On the evening of the sixth day, Mr. Kredovsky left his cat in the halfway to go inside once. Jamshid grabbed the cat and ran to the back of the building. Nelufar had stolen her mother's big scissors and had hidden them under a bush a few days before. The minute I saw Jamshid, I took out the scissors and we all started following him. We went to side of the building, away from the lights, and made a circle around the cat.

I gave the scissors to Asad and told him to do cut his tail. He swallowed his spit and took the scissors from me. Jamshid and I held the cat while Rodaba held up its tail.

“Come on! Hurry up!”, Rodaba yelled. Asad's face turned red and then pale. Tears filled up his eyes and he shook his head.

“I will not do it!”, Asad said as he dropped the scissors.

“Roya, here you do it”, Rodaba said as she handed me the scissors.

"Oh no!”, I thought to myself. 1 couldn't do it, but I wasn't about to let them know that. So I picked up the scissors and held them so tight that blood circulation to my fingers were cut off. I looked at the cat which was trying to free itself, moving from side to side.

"He is going to come any second now, look for his cat, so H U R R Y!", Nelufar yelled.

My hands were shaking and my face sweating. I gathered every bit of courage in my body and put the scissors around the cat's tall and cut it!

I heard a scream. I can't remember if it was the cat's or mine, for I passed out in a matter of seconds. And when I opened my eyes, I was at home, with my mom and most of my neighbors, including Mr. Kredovsky, all looking down on me in a circle. My head was spinning and I felt nauseous.

"I think we should go and let her rest", said Rodaba's mom, and everyone followed her out of the apartment.

"How are you feeling, Roya ?", asked my mom.

“My head! It hurts-", I answered as I put my head on her chest and fell asleep.

I saw Mr. Kredovsky two more times before he moved back to Russia a month later. He had completed his duty there and wanted to go back home. I was too embarrassed to talk to him or even say good bye. I always thought about the cat and what had happened to it, but I never asked anyone about it.

A year passed and my mom bought a house and we moved. I went through a lot of changes and had to deal with new people and areas, but one thing that never left me was the guilt that I carried for hurting the poor cat.

When I was in seventh grade, I saw Rodaba one day in the bus. We both had changed a lot. For the first few minutes, we looked at each other with disbelief; then we started talking about all the good times that we had and all the bad things that we did. As I had anticipated, she brought up the last story that I wanted to hear: Mr. Kredovsky's cat.

I told her that I still felt guilty for doing that and that I wish I had never done in the first place.

She looked at me with questioning eyes, and asked, “Your mom never told you what really happened?”

Well, t was a good thing that I met Rodaba that day or I would have carried a big burden throughout my life. Things had happened a bit differently than I was told. The truth was that I had passed out before I had a chance to cut the cat's tail; however, my mom had insisted that they shouldn't tell me anything to teach me a lesson. Well, I have to give my mom credit for being such a strong teacher. I learned the lesson too well for now every time I hold a pair of scissors, I start shaking.