NINE
Hosn-e Yousef. The fineness of Joseph. The most popular of Coleus family in Iran, they are such giving plants, in love with light. They grow leaves that are mixed green, purple, and red under direct sun. Rarely such lush plants survive the piercing sunlight of Tehran. We call it Joseph due to its unmatched beauty. But also perhaps because Yousef was on the lookout for the sun, from below the ground, in the well for days, hoping for his father to remember him. Plants are the only creatures that move while grounded, rooted. Hosn-e Yousef branches reach out for the sun so lustfully. “They can multiply fast. Fill the dead patio in a month.” Says she as she mixes formula with hot water in a bottle for her little Delara. How can she still be so perfect after so many years?
We are similar to Mortal Kombat characters. We can either be fast or strong. Nifty or hulky. Sharp or hard. She was all the above. Agile, brainy, and beautiful, my best friend seemed invincible. Even my savage brother admired her. We must have been no more than eight years old. He had put up a tent next to the staircase on the first floor, and taxed me every time I wanted to climb the stairs to the second floor, to our shared bedroom. “You need to pay me so that burglars and bandits don’t hurt you on the road.” Said he. Even at that age, he was taller, stronger, and had somehow managed to withhold to so much anger inside. I reluctantly compensated him with erasers, marbles, and mechanical pencil leads except for the times that she was with me. Whenever she was around, he would turn into a puppy. So needy of her attention and approval. He would invite us to the tent, take his marbles out from the pouch, and show them to her one by one. Black, pink, and white marbles. Showing no sign of interest in his toys, she would instead make us play hopscotch for hours in the front yard. She always had colorful chalks in her pockets, that she had gotten from the school teacher. Even teachers and the principal loved her.
How confident she was, as if she knew how the shine of her black her brightened the room as she entered; as if at seven years of age, she was fully aware of her elongated neck and her artful hand gestures that communicated arrogance and perfection. Her father adored her, in the strictest possible sense. He would do all her drop offs and pick ups himself. Every afterschool program, every swimming lesson, he was perpetually watching us from the half rolled down window of his big black car. He gave her everything. In return, she excelled in acquiring super human qualities for him. That was her Achilles heel, the need to be admired.
Boys, even girls were her emotional toys. Before that incident in the green patio, my brother was one her favorite ones. But I and my brother, we were always a bad combination. Like black walnuts and roses. So destructive to one another. I loved our trio however. She made me feel closer to him. She would make us work together to build a Lego tower so that she could put the princess Lego on the top of it. I would be her maid and he would be her knight. Being her ally was the only thing that could bring us together, however ephemerally. But after the accident it all changed. Evens she lost her power over him.
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. It didn’t kill him. Nor did it make him stronger. It turned him into a ghost instead, on the threshold of visibility. First he said that he saw God, then he said that he was God, and after that, he started to dematerialize slowly.
When he finally left the house, father began to put Hosn-e Yousef plants on the indoor staircase fanatically until the staircase was filled with their purple, green, and red leaves. He put one wide clay pot on each step so that every time we climbed the stairs, we would be reminded of his absence. How could we forget? I moved continents away, and still no day has passed by without remembering him, or the loss of him. Mother wants me to call community members in search of his trace. Twenty five years later and she is still looking for him. I don’t want to call nobody but somehow it feels right that he would show up after the passing of father.
She helps me take the Hosn-e Yousuf plants out from the lower basket of her stroller. We put them in a straight line by the windows of the green patio. We both sit back at the kitchen table. The dash of colors start to twinkle under the sharp rays of sun, next to the barren patio.
