“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina (1878)
It’s a family chaos, but in the morning after it. It’s post-earthquake. It’s definitely about a year of wandering, meandering, and drift and becoming for Nona, for Dora, for Doris, and of course for me. How much writing and the writer are separated from each other? How much of the experiences and feelings and ideas and inspirations are separated from each other? I don’t know.
What I know is that it’s not about this grand narrative or a magical big event that happens as the characters set out on a journey. The steps are very small. The realizations are subtle, but deep. And it’s about the moment of arrival of a transformation, but also the art of knowing how to exist and be in the in-between phases.
Nona says, “I would sell my soul for a real conversation.” So would I.
I have to ask myself: Is it the act of the unspoken? Is it a matter of confession? Is it about something deeply held that comes with a dash of shame of any sort? Is there a second chance to explore a new place or a new point of view of life, or of this particular life? Is it a sort of exploration of an upward or downward pull? Like the image of Yves Klein leaping into the void. It’s a psychogeography. I’m really interested in psychogeography.
I’m finally arriving home to my apartment. I have to try, try, try to allow myself to see, see, see freshly. Not through image-driven story bites, not limiting myself to the allure of murder in the Hammam or trench-coat catalysts, nor the geocacher clue. Nona just wants to have a real fucking conversation. So, she buys a mynah. She talks to it, hoping it will talk back, but the bird refuses to talk. But I can’t seem to find what happens with Nona. What does she want? Please tell me, Nona. I have no idea where I should take you. I just have these snapshots of moments, as if I live inside her mind. But I don’t know what to do with this collection of images, mental images.
Maybe her character is born more from these images than from atoms and molecules and blood and water.
And meanwhile Dora and Doris are in their teens. In a way it’s a story of their coming of age in Tehran. And Mateen is nowhere to be found, and that’s good, because we have this feminine space to explore.