(Story Summary)
By Sadegh Hedayat (Translated by Farzaneh Milani)
Farzaneh Milani’s translation, published in the book Veils and Words, focuses on conveying the “sense of suffocation” and the “internal conflicts” of the characters rather than providing a word-for-word translation.
The room was dimly lit. A single oil lamp, its chimney clouded with soot, flickered on a shelf. Abji Khanom sat in the corner, her prayer beads clicking rhythmically between her dry fingers. Every now and then, she would let out a long, heavy sigh that seemed to carry all the bitterness of her thirty years.
She was not like her sister, Mah-Rokh. Nature had been cruel to Abji Khanom. Her face was pitted with smallpox scars, her eyes were dull, and her body was thin and angular, like a parched branch. In the neighborhood, she was known for two things: her extreme devotion to religious rituals and her sharp, stinging tongue.
Mah-Rokh, however, was everything Abji Khanom was not. She was fifteen, with skin like milk and eyes that sparkled like the stars over Tehran. When Mah-Rokh walked into a room, it was as if a window had been opened to the spring air. And now, the house was buzzing with the news: Mah-Rokh was to be married.
The preparations had begun. The sound of laughter and the clinking of tea glasses filled the courtyard. But for Abji Khanom, every laugh was a needle prick to her soul. She spent more time at the mosque, her forehead pressed against the prayer stone until it left a bruise. She spoke of the vanity of this world, the sinfulness of beauty, and the impending fires of hell for those who neglected their souls for the sake of the flesh.
“It is a shame,” she told her mother, her voice trembling with repressed rage. “To give a child away to a man she hardly knows, just because she has a pretty face. Beauty is a curse, a trap set by Iblis.”
Her mother didn’t look up from the silk she was sewing. “Abji, let the girl be happy. Her time has come.”
“And mine?” Abji Khanom wanted to scream. “When was my time?”
On the night of the wedding, the house was a whirlpool of color and music. The scent of rosewater and roasting meat hung heavy in the air. Abji Khanom stayed in the shadows, her black chador wrapped tightly around her like a shroud. She watched her sister, draped in fine lace, looking like a queen. The groom, a handsome young man with a confident smile, looked at Mah-Rokh with a hunger that made Abji Khanom feel physically ill.
As the ceremony reached its peak, Abji Khanom slipped away. No one noticed. They were too busy celebrating life to notice someone retreating toward death.
She walked toward the backyard, toward the old, deep well that stood near the pomegranate tree. The water at the bottom was black and silent, mirroring the void she felt inside. She looked up at the moon one last time—the same moon that was shining on her sister’s bridal bed.
The next morning, the house was quiet, exhausted by the night’s festivities. It wasn’t until the sun was high that they found her. A single slipper floating on the surface of the well was all that remained of Abji Khanom.
When they pulled her out, her face was calm, the smallpox scars softened by the water. For the first time in her life, Abji Khanom was the center of attention. But even in death, the neighbors whispered, “What a pity she chose such a sinful end after a life of such prayer.”