Does Not Want the Hill to Die

Featured Image photo courtesy of Mandana-r at en.wikipedia

A Short Story by Fereshteh Rostami

We’re pleased to introduce a new voice from Iran to our international Coffee Club membership. Fereshteh Rostami’s native language is Persian, but she wrote this transcendent story in English . . . with a little editorial help from her husband. “Does Not Want the Hill to Die” is a very contemporary narrative, yet one which explores some of the oldest and most fundamental issues humans confront: the nature of life, the delicacy of our relationships with other people, and our responsibility to the land on which we live.

Does Not Want the Hill to Die

Forestgirl knows that she is gnawed bit by bit; not just her, everything, from the time she was a little girl, she knew. That time things were fine; birds did not forget to sing, the god of rain knew what to do, forests were dense, the sky was bright, her grandfather’s sack was full of edibles and hand-made dolls. All was perfect; since then she has been afraid of the days to come; she wanted to see something lacking so as to feel assured.

She wants to get to the top of the hill to plant the dead body of her tree. Her mother used to say, “The Forestgirl plants, she has the blood of her grandfather . . . she must plant.”

The grandfather was a ranger. Whenever he returned home, his sacks and pockets were full of the gifts from the kind female peasants over the forest line; however, the saddlebag would be torn up and left somewhere to disappear. The kindness grew; he quit going to the jungle, and became the janitor at the mosque. Gradually, the forest receded and all those dense trees were replaced by various colorful villas. In that time, the sky was made of water, it was not so dry, and Forestgirl intended to plant two hundred seedlings each year. What was she going to do now?

No bird’s singing is heard. The neighbor’s lovely child says hello; as they pass each other, she can see the child’s wide eyes following the spade in her hand. When she was young, little girls in the alley or the street used to stand on her way to say hello; it had been a rather long time since such a thing happened, so when the child said hello, Forestgirl forgot that her eyebrows had some white threads and she felt she could even split the sky and make it rain if the coughs would only leave her alone. It was not such a long way to the hill now.

**

The day they decided to buy the house in the quiet suburb it was not such a big deal. There were some trees in the yard and the top of the hill could be seen above them. The house and the hill were so well matched that she felt apprehensive. She could see the hill as a combination of stones and soil surrounded by purple lichen. It was as if the sky had grasped its top and dragged it out of the earth so that it could have all things moving around it. That was not just the city or the lichen revolving around the hill. Forestgirl’s imagination was circling too.

She could imagine cavalries galloping around the hill and sacrificing their lives for their country; could see the stones of the hill as the remnant of the cursed people of Noah’s time; she might even see the hill as a piece of stone taken from Paradise by Adam. When the rain became rare, all the trees and the soil lost their breath; only the walnut tree was left. She was now going to bury its cut branches.

Forestgirl does not know if it is cold or hot; out of habit, she stops, puts down the branches and the spade; blows into her fingers; not far away, a few mountaineers moved up or down the hill. For years she has seen how mountains gradually diminished in size and turned into slabs to cover the walls of beautiful or ugly houses. It was not that she imagined the forests being replaced by devouring the mountains; she saw them both happening simultaneously; they were vanishing.

She limps slowly; there is warm cow dung nearby; she stops, wets her fingertips in her saliva, touches the soil and tastes it. It is sweet and salty. Her throat is burning with bitter mucus; it cannot be swallowed or spit out, as it scratches her throat; they say air pollution made it so. Forty or fifty days ago she had caught a cold; this little lump of mucus remained in her throat. It was the time the new neighbors upstairs moved in; their unusual noises attracted other neighbors’ attention. Among them was Forestgirl who asked, “Aren’t they a little odd?” She went upstairs carrying some sweets to welcome them into their new apartment and she heard someone said, “Like a fish mouth, say . . . mm . . ..”

The mother, wearing a faded colorful veil, came to the door. A little girl, seven or eight years old, was grabbing the veil, moving a turbah round her head. A boy, thirteen or fourteen, as tall as his mother, stood next to them. His bright, transparent skin revealed his veins; he was well dressed; they were all smiling. The boy taking the plate did not look into her eyes directly and said, “Have you heard heart to heart?” The mother, twisting the veil around her body said, “He means he likes to eat sweets; wherever he goes it brings good luck.”

It was exactly at that time Forestgirl tried to soften her throat, but the mucus was petrified there.

When the noises got too loud the neighbors began to complain; the boy’s father was ashamed; those who did not know what the problem was gave some suggestions but the father said, “Violence makes it worse . . . this boy is the apple of his mother’s eyes.”

No one else was at home when the boy locked up the old man neighbor in the basement; the old man shouted for help and the boy asked, “Were you supposed to repair my hair?”

It was Forestgirl who ran barefoot to unlock the door. The second time the boy repeated it, he laughed behind the door and said, “I am nuts.” The neighbors did not sigh and Forestgirl was anxious to know what would happen the next time.

Her grief neither reduced nor increased; it was revolving through her mind. She never assumed herself to be one of those people who troubled others or annoyed anyone. Like helpless people, she asked herself, “Why me?”

**

From the day the new neighbors bought the apartment upstairs, they knew they would bother the ones below. That was enough for Forestgirl to have a grudge against them, no matter how honestly the boy’s mother said her prayers or covered her hair completely.

During high school days, Forestgirl had read in a book that to love one’s fellows was superior to saying prayers. Now she could see it was all a pack of crap; God prefers saying prayers to loving one’s fellows; He was just bragging like so many others. Whenever she wanted to mention the boy, she would refer to him as the boy; this way she felt less annoyed.

She did not care about the little girl’s harsh screams or the boy’s stamping around the apartment; she did not care about his loud shouts through the windows of the building saluting any human or animal passing by; even his intruding into the next-door neighbor’s yard and frightening their daughter was not important for her. The boy got into any parked car in the alley, prevented cars coming out of the parking and pushed to open any door available; however, she did not care about any of these.

But she was horrified by the possibility of his slipping behind her car and her running over him unintentionally. She asked her husband to do something; his usual habit of scratching his nose was followed by his seemingly informative statement that while your father is always looking for oddities, you cannot tolerate anything odd; be patient, it may cause some favorable consequences.

Blowing into a nylon sack and twisting it firmly, she responded, “I want you to do something now, and you say ‘be patient.’” The sack was on the verge of bursting.

Two days later, the boy found a pickaxe in the basement and started breaking through the other neighbor’s wall. Looking into the alley through the dirty window pane, she averted her eyes from the terrible sight and thought to herself, “What if, using the pickaxe, he broke into our apartment?”

Forestgirl imagined the boy with that transparent skin, through which his entrails could be seen, coming to break the door and rape her. She was hesitant about calling her son; the university was not far away, but it would take him two hours to get home.

She told to a female counselor that he was neither a child nor a man, but behaved like both at the same time. The counselor believed there was no reason to be horrified; she winked and added raping is not always so bad if it is done ceremoniously. Forestgirl told herself the boy was an overactive, retarded homosexual

**

Her throat itches, her breath rasps firmly; she rubs her eyes and the sun looks like a gray metal scarecrow that burns and dries the cold, frozen soil. She can’t walk forward or backward; neither can she sit; like the weather, she is fickle. The mucus either comes up or goes down her throat; it makes no difference. The only relief left for her is the hill, and she would do her best to keep it safe. She presses the branches in her fists.

The walnut tree was not so tall yet; there was no snow to cover the roots and let them grow better in the spring; however, she was hopeful for the young tree and the sky.

She saw the boy hanging on the branches; she wanted to stick him to the tree, twist the branches round his body or to drag his entrails out of that transparent skin and fasten them like a rope round the tree; instead, she browbeat him, kissed the trunk of the tree and came out of the yard.

The boy and the rainless cloud followed her; for a moment she thought she could get rid of him somewhere but she knew her anger was not of him but of his parents and at the same time she felt a little – only a little – pity for him. She turned round to say something but the weeping boy was going back home. He saw his sister and went to play with her; she screamed sharply. Forestgirl whispered to herself, “He weeps like an overactive, retarded homosexual.”

Again she saw sober-suited men near the hill with their tools; she had no doubt that the hill was their next victim. They would gradually cut the hill to the last piece, and would not care that the Earth had lost one of its anchors. She did not know how many years it would take for the boy to devour her mind and soul or for those men to destroy the hill.

She screamed in a way that she herself could never scream again; her voice sounded like one uttered by a caveman. It was as if a pressure from her mind was oozing out all through her body to break it into pieces. Some of the men looked at her; the one whose suit was darker patted the other one on his shoulder; their heads got close to each other, but changed their positions very little. She ran towards them; the hill rose high; the sober-suited creatures scattered toward her. She could see the dust-colored air rising from their bodies. They said the project could not be so easily left off; there is no resignation or postponement; it should be done. Again they scattered around as rapidly as they had gotten close to her. They did not notice the rest of her words. She sucked the air into her lungs and wanted to help the hill to escape; she told herself, Who knows, if hills grow, they may escape as well. The old, little hill moved imperceptibly.

**

She returned home and saw the cut branches of the walnut tree here and there. The boy was handling a saw on his shoulder, wearing a mask on his head. He was smiling. Forestgirl did not know how long she stood there but a pain made her conscious, a pain as if her whole body was covered with thumb tacks.  It was like the way one felt when the soul returns to the body; the one that wants to kill and plant simultaneously; a feeling like that of a forest finding out it is the last rain.

She complained to the boy’s father; he said all these years he has been waiting for the son’s death, and he is horrified by the thought of his own death while the son would still be alive. The son, wearing the mask, handling the spade, was digging in the soil. The father said, “He loves tools; whatever makes his hands busy. He also loves drawing.”

Forestgirl looked at the boy. He had a mid-fade haircut. She looked at his foot on the spade. As he pressed with his foot, a little hole in one of his gray socks appeared; the socks were covered by handwritten 7s and 8s in ink.

Her husband fetched a glass of water. She poured half next to the tree and drank the other half. As she stared at the wet soil she was reminded of the Far East and said, “There, the soil and water move together and people have constructed floating schools and hospitals; here the sky has gobbled up all the water.” 

Her husband, rubbing his nose, responded, “There are storms and salt water there and sometimes a leaf does not thrive.”

She answered, “If they had mountains, water would not cover everything.”

**

They decided to sell their apartment but she asked herself, Who would buy an apartment with such a neighbor upstairs?

Forestgirl went to consult with a lawyer to see if they could find a legal way out, but nothing could be done. They had bought the apartment. She cursed the parents, not the boy. She cursed so much that coughs drowned her voice. She muttered imprecations and waited to see if they were effective or not. If they had effects, she would conclude that God still cared about her.

She went to the other neighbors to do something together; with the new family in the alley, the price of all the houses had reduced somehow. She thought she could tempt the father of the son with her feminine charm so that it would force the mother to think of selling their apartment. She even consulted the manager of the school for the retarded; keeping the boy for hours in the school may give them all a little mental comfort. She could hear children in one of the classes who were trying to say, “Down with . . . Down with . . .” in unison but they could not. One stammered on “down” and the others did not know how to follow the motto.

The manager, who smelled of bananas and nettle, was short and agile. She found the boy’s file and said, “He was expelled! he could not stay in the class; he could neither read nor write. He couldn’t count to ten, skipping seven and eight.” She looked directly into Forestgirl’s eyes and said, “Don’t be kind and stupid; no need to trouble yourself; it is mentioned in the file that he is calm whenever it is cloudy.” Forestgirl remembered the sign at the entrance of the city:

Welcome to the City of the Sun

The children in the class could not sing harmoniously and she muttered, “Down with trees; Down with hills; Down with the rain.”

**

On her way back home, she saw an ambulance moving towards their alley; she told herself, “I wish they were hurt.” The alley had no asphalt; her car’s wheel stuck in a pit and was spinning in the air; she slammed the accelerator but the wheel still turned in vain; clods were beaten into the wing and smashed. She slammed on the pedal. The wheel turned faster. She held the steering wheel tightly. Now the other wheel was screeching; nobody came to help; dirt and soil were thrown about. The accelerator, the wheels, the smashing of the clods and pebbles. She realized it was all because the pit had been made by the boy.

Since that night, she thought of killing him. She took her courage in both hands; she had to finish him off. She could take a plate of poisoned food to them every day; a few drops of antifreeze in it could be enough. She turned her pillow round; she could lock the apartment door and set it on fire; she drew the blanket over her head; no, the building should be safe. She could use some poisonous tablets; she rubbed her face on the pillow. She felt trapped and was going to do something. She thought how this wicked boy had intruded into her life and made her feel helpless; she wanted to commit suicide. Underneath the blanket she felt out of breath, so she threw it aside and took a deep breath.

The following days she did not kill him, or herself, but while driving she did not allow anybody to overtake her. That day, she parked in a way that the other car could not move. She went shopping and two hours later the driver of the other car was ready to start a quarrel. She, however, ignored him, started the car and departed. Another day, a teenage male beggar followed her to a supermarket, asked for some money claiming he had to pay for the MRI scan. She let him down. He cursed her. she said, “No need to curse, God has already forsaken me; you know He is up there enjoying our plight.” The salesman sent the beggar out.

Once a woman told her a friend, a twenty-two-year-old girl, had been arrested by the police in a demonstration. She was set free on heavy security; she could not be employed, could not stay in or leave the country. With a hair dryer in her hand in the bathroom, she had a deadly heart attack.

 Forestgirl calmly answered, “At least she was neat and clean.”. She stared into the stagnant, smoggy, yellow sky.

She used to go near the hill, return home and sleep. She used to think she had left something at home and wanted to fetch it; while at home, she believed it was left near the hill; on the way, she could not distinguish if she were going or coming; days vanished; she wanted to count them but she could not remember more than ten; numbers seven and eight skipped in her mind. Her moments were devoured; in the mornings she took pills to feel fresh and at nights she took them to sleep. She wanted to jump down people’s throats.

**

The excavators, loaders and bulldozers came one by one. Men in uniforms looked around. Forestgirl forgot that she wanted to keep the hill untapped. Her husband said, “You smell of your father’s house.” She said, “It is not that; it is the odor of helplessness.” He went on, saying, “Your father’s house smells of hopelessness; let yourself go!”  It was not possible.

She wanted to drag out the corpse she felt within her ribs; she wanted to plant something; to put her fingers deep into the soil. She could hear the hill screaming even when she kept her ears covered tightly. She could see the shadow of the vanishing hill even when her eyes were closed.

The excavators were working on the hill; she was at home and could measure the torn pieces; she could not go there, fearing the hill wouldn’t be there anymore. The hill that used to cleave through the clouds did not know, but she knew that hills pass away.

**

She loves trees and goes to bury herself down the hill; she takes the spade in the right hand and the branches in the left; she coughs; the stuck mucus in her throat worsens the coughs; her underwear gets wet as she walks the path. She hears the boy with transparent skin behind; he is mumbling something, probably a song to himself; some notes to make him feel happy. He takes some pleasant-smelling pills; his mouth, though, usually smells of garlic, cabbage and trouble. He wants the spade; his hands’ skin is rough and layered; she feels the thumb tacks over her body; she does not want to give up the spade but the mucus in her throat has made her feel exhausted.

The boy puts the spade on his shoulder, talks incessantly, takes pills out of the box and puts them in his mouth. They reach the hillside; she looks for a suitable place to plant the branches. She wishes she could have her grandfather’s eyes to recognize the best points.

The boy’s mother and her daughter catch up with them. The girl asks her brother to give her some pills; the mother’s face gets pale and red; she pulls the daughter’s hand, hides her behind her veil.

The boy digs a hole; the noise of the excavators and bulldozers is heard from a distance; they are tearing the hill on that side and she is planting on this side; they feel tired. The boy takes a pen out of his pocket and draws a tree and a leaf on his own skin; he imitates playing with the mud in the hole that used to be a puddle and faintly sings, “The sky should be repaired.” He throws away the empty pill box; the mother gives him some water. The boy sits in the hole and draws on his hand and foot.

Forestgirl wanders among the mother, the daughter and the son. The mother fastens the veil around her own waist, whispers some prayers, expands the hole, stretches the boy’s legs; the tree and the leaf painted on the boy’s skin unfold; the son falls asleep. The mother, without looking at her daughter, tells Forestgirl, “He got too close to her . . . too close.” She asks the daughter to go home and cover the mirrors in black.

Among them, Forestgirl is but does not exist. The sky looks muddy; it is not above her; it is in front of her. She thinks, I can see the horizon. I know how to lay the branches next to the boy; I know soil corrodes everything and he will vanish soon. I know the excavators will break; I will get rid of the sticky mucus; I feel assured the hill is not perfect anymore; if it rains, there will be mud. I touch my fingertips on the soil and taste it. I know the sky is on water; water on winds and I now know him by his name: Does Not Want the Hill to Die.

***

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