Girls' Stories: We Too Shall Have a Smile

It was near the end of the day—the time I would always call my brother. Farah had arrived. I could hear my mother’s voice from inside the room saying:

“Narges, call your brother.”

I said: “Let me light the fire first, then I’ll call.”

She said: “Where’s your phone? Bring it, give it to me, then you can go on with your chores.”

I said: “Inside.”

She said: “I’ll bring it.”

She handed me the phone and stood waiting to hear my brother’s voice, to be sure he was well. That’s a mother—she can’t rest until she’s heard it with her own ears.

I took the phone and tried to turn on the internet, but no sign of it appeared on the screen. I tried again. Nothing. I turned the phone off and back on. Still no sign of the internet. I saw my mother still standing in front of me, her fading eyes following me wherever I went. I went to ask my sister why the internet wasn’t connecting, but she just stared at me, worried.

I said: “Why don’t you say something?”

“I can’t connect either.” She said.

I asked: “Why?”

She replied: “I don’t know.”

My heart couldn’t bear it. I went to the neighbor’s house. Marzieh was pacing in the courtyard, fiddling with her phone.

I said: “What’s going on?”

She said: “The internet’s not working.”

She looked at me in astonishment. Anxious and distressed, she sat on the edge of the porch and said in a choked voice: “It’s only been three days since my university classes started.”

I asked: “Why are you so worried?”

She responded: “They’ve cut off the internet.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked wondering.

She said: “Haven’t you heard the news?”

I listened for a moment. From inside her house came the sound of her father’s radio. It seemed Marzieh was right. The internet had been shut down across the entire country. We couldn’t make calls. We didn’t know how your loved ones were on their journeys. We couldn’t attend online classes. We couldn’t do anything—total silence. Lost in a strange unknowing. If we died, our relatives wouldn’t even know.

What an unfamiliar feeling. As if we’d been thrown back into some distant past. A lamp of awareness had been snuffed out. Every moment restless. Every moment worried.

I returned home. My mother was frozen in place. As I opened the door, she gave me a look full of pain, as if all her unspoken words had gathered there—anxious, fearful eyes.

I said: “They’ve cut the internet.”

In a thin, grief-filled voice she cursed the Taliban.

She said: “God, what a day you’ve brought down on your servants.”

I remembered my brother’s last words from the night before. He had said: “Take all your medicine, I’ll send you the money.”

But today my mother’s worry had doubled. No news of the money. No news of my brother. She was more anxious about his safety.

And me?

Ah, what can I say. When you’re forced to live under a tyrant’s shadow, you even fear the mist of your own breath in the cold air. When waiting becomes the only option you have for living, you are left with no path at all. I had no path either. Wherever I turned to keep my torch of awareness lit, I faced a dead end. There has always been a barrier, a fence in my way. I have never had the life I wanted—not my childhood dreams, not the goals I set in my youth. None of them took shape. As if someone has always been striking at the trunk of my dreams with an axe to destroy them.

Just like the other day. I had just started my literature class, but I couldn’t study. I couldn’t even call my friends. For two days breathing felt like whipping my own soul. Sighs spread like a carpet across my scorched chest. Every moment, every minute I checked my phone hoping things had gotten better. My contacts list was filled with failed calls. No reason, no answer that could explain why this had been imposed on us.

It was four o’clock on Wednesday when the antennas came back. Laughter and joy rose from every corner. More than anything, I saw my mother’s smile as she said: “Thank God! Call your brother.”

I wasn’t as happy as I was heartbroken—for myself and for my people. We are the oppressed, tossed about in every direction. When oppression intensifies, you cling to the smallest scrap of news to bring you joy. I thought of the neighbors across the border. Of the happiness and freedom they have.

But us? Every moment a new event. A heartbreaking incident. For two days one line from Mahmoud Darwish kept running through my mind:

> We too shall have a smile.

Maybe it’s on its way.

Maybe it forgot us for a moment.

Maybe.

Maybe…

—Nikbin