Princess of Waltzes By Fevziye Rahgozar April-Sept. 1999 Lemar-Aftaab A new morning was beginning, innocent and bright. Nahid woke up among the jumbled voices and noises of a hundred different nations, who were waiting downstairs in the logger lobby to receive their daily breakfast. All of the days started the same. The discord and the thin voice of Ms. Eli, who was responsible for the meal distribution of the refugees, joined the disturbance along with the angry screams of kids and the screeching sounds of pans and plates. All residents of the logger had to get their breakfast in two hours, between seven and nine o'clock in the morning, and if they had a good reason, they could take their breakfast to their rooms and at least dine in a quiet atmosphere. This was a privilege usually granted to the elderly and families with small children. Nahid got up from her ragged bed, only God knew all the people it had hugged each night up to that moment. The noisy springs of this mattress always disturbed her. Every night, each time she turned from one side to the other, this terrible noise troubled her while the sharp ends of the springs hurt her back and sides. She tried hard not to turn so often, not to move so frequently and would shift her position like a feather until she managed to fall asleep. She came near the window and to her amazement, the sun was shining after weeks of rain. One could say, the sun was smiling, as if she was far from the sorrows of humankind. The green forest right across from Nahid's window was graceful under the caressing fingers of the sun. Nahid looked at this beauty for a while and remembered how she was scared, and trembled in fear, every night from the gloomy shadows of this thick forest. Her room was on the third floor of this huge, abandoned building. The larger rooms on the lower floors were given to families with small children. Suddenly, she felt an ache in her heart. She had to go downstairs and join the queue of destitute, hungry people and pick up her sour, old cheese, bread and bitter, cold coffee or tea. She felt unsteady. The picture of a long line of hungry foreigners: Yugoslavians, Romanians, Russians, Indian and Pakistanis, Iranians, Turks, Kurds, and who knows how many other nations shaped up in front of her eyes. The terrible glances of some ugly, dark Pakistani men along with the terrible smell of the logger residents, who only had two baths to wash themselves, and the awful stench of the invented food of the logger cooks, which Nahid had never seen before, all blended together and she thought this rotten odor which filled her small room was going to suffocate her. She pulled the curtain aside and opened the window. The pleasant incense of the rain-washed forest covered her face and body like a pale chiffon . She took a deep breath instantly and remembered a nice poem: The lonely girl sat by the window and said, O you! The daughter of the spring! I envy you, Whatever you want I may pay for your essence, roses, songs, and happiness! She could not remember the poet, but she loved this poem and murmured it quite often. She thought how the girl in the poem resembled herself. She was the lonely, sad girl sitting by the window who had brought the beauty of spring on the other side. With a deep grief, she watched the tender dance of newly-dressed green branches outside the cold and gray stone building of the logger. Every day, groups of people were leaving this melancholic building while new ones arrived. She did not want to be the target of the stupid glances of the unmarried, thirsty men of the logger. She preferred loneliness by all means because she had no choice. It rained almost on a daily basis. She imprisoned herself in her small room and listened to the melody of rain while she watched the dance of the rain drops on the window. Sometimes, the hungry birds would come near her window, but without sitting they would fly away as if they knew that Nahid did not have anything to give them. Sometimes, she watched the joyful and saucy plays and jumps of small, lovely squirrels among the branches. But inside all these moments, there was a screen of her past memories, her happy childhood and then her sorrows that suppressed the earlier sweet days. Where were the days going? Each day was a repetition of the one before, boring and lifeless. Then, the nights would arrive. They always seemed darker, colder and lonelier than the prior ones. Nights were the times that Nahid shared the sad stories of her life and the remembrance of her loved ones. Many times, she tried to create some fantasies to overcome her fears, but it was not possible. Fantasies were more cruel than the painful reality of her life in limbo. They never came true. Many nights she could not sleep. She just felt like she was pulled into a deep and dark eddy. A kind of unconscious dizziness separated her from the world and she saw the dark end of the meaninglessness of life. Suddenly, a dim light would sparkle at the very top and she would find the desire to come out of this eddy, but when she eventually came out, there was no light. There was sadness, isolation and desperation. During the three months of her journey which took her from Kabul to Vienna, she had heard many stories of wandering and exile. She was so fed up with all these stories that she could not find the power to form and tell her own drama to anyone. She was unusually silent, with no charge, lament or protest. She never wanted to share her agony with those strangers who just wanted to find a new theme to gossip about and she did not care about her future either. She simply thought that almost all of the exile stories were the same, just like the arrival of the new days and nights. Every night, when she saw the shaking shadows of the branches over the curtain of her window, which resembled the dried fingers and hands of a skeleton, or the movements of a restless, sinful ghost, she unwillingly remembered death. Then, she thought of the deaths of all of her loved ones. They had passed away in a twinkle. Her beloved father; her best friend, her mother who only knew how to love others, and her friends, who all had terrible ending to their lives. "What a short distance between life and death," she thought and felt that it was perhaps the best way. At least there would be no endless suffering. People were coming and going within a blink of an eye. Was life a kind of infant game that laughed, cried and then monotonously ended? Sometimes she felt that she had sunk in a slumber, no more guns, no more bombs and bloodshed, but sometimes she had fearful and non-stop nightmares. They stroked her, they pushed her from the top to the very bottom, she was fading or falling, and then was being taken into the hollows of the skies like an untied balloon. Breakfast was finished. The crowd of refugees departed in a rush, as if they had something important to do. Maybe this revival was due to the sun which was shining so generously. Nahid, who had forgotten the advice of her grandmother and others regarding religion, said to herself: "Everybody should worship the sun! It makes people so cheerful and lively." She moved slowly towards the old stairs, with their ends almost waxy and slippery. She had nothing else to do. There was a big, old crystal mirror standing in silence at the corner of the second floor. She wondered how old it could have been. It was fragile, but had lived longer than many living things. She looked at herself carefully. Purple halos circled her hazel eyes. Her long, auburn hair was hanging in two braids from both sides of her pale cheeks. The dark color of her dress made her look even paler. Everybody knew that mirrors were reality-tellers. The realities of Nahid's life were so awful that she thought she did not want to see them through the mirror. She came closer. Removed the dust from the surface with her elegant hands and at the very depth of her silent and gloomy eyes, she saw a fantastic dream: A pretty princess was laughing heavenly in the secure arms of her father. Waltzes were flying beyond the ancient walls of Vienna towards the boundless blue skies, and there, in that white and peaceful top of the sky, nobody was in the captivity of the walls of the sanitarium. A leper? Not at all! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - This edited version was first published on the Afghan journal CRITIQUE & VISION (issue 6: Autumn 1997). Permission for re-publication was granted by CRITIQUE & VISION. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Other work by Fevziye Rahgozar: Paa-e Chobin-e Omar (short story) Jan-March 1999 Three Love Poems (poetry) Jan-March 1999 Dukhtar-ak Maasum hast (poem) Oct-Dec 1998 Copyright © 1999 Aftaabzad Publications. All Rights Reserved. May not be duplicated or distributed in any form without permission.