“December does not depress me. January does not please me. One is a false end, the other a false start. Spring is the real beginning. When a thousand colours grow out of the frozen earth. And the air is fragrant with hopes and desires,” Raza said to himself as he looked out the window.
It snowed last week. He could still see white patches along the pavement. It was almost black with soot and dirt, not white and shiny like early snow.
“On winter nights Henry and his parents … loved to take walks. They loved to see the winter stars … (and) sparkle of the moon on the white yards. One night they even saw a shooting star.
“Make a wish,” said Henry’s mother. Henry’s father wished for peace on earth. Henry’s mother wised for her favourite basketball team to win.
Henry wished for chocolate pudding every day for the rest of his life. They all wondered what Mudge (their dog) wished for. “Probably for half of my chocolate pudding,” said Henry.
Raza got up to go out as his granddaughter, Fiza, finished reading her book. Raza always enjoyed his grandchildren. He lured them into the living room with candies and persuaded them to read.
“Dad, it is time for your walk,” said his son Adeel as Fiza finished her reading.
Adeel dropped him at a nearby mall where Raza walked with his friends, three South Asian men of his age, an Afghan, an Indian and a Pakistani. After the walk, they went to the tavern where politics always dominated the conversation until somebody forced them to change the subject.
Tonight, it was Foroud, an Iranian member of the group, who said he was not in the mood to discuss politics tonight. Why?” someone asked. Instead of responding, Foroud recited a poem, as he always does. “The night is dark. The night is awake. The night is abundant. It is the most beautiful night to die.”
This was a 20th century Iranian poet, Ahmed Shamlu, he said. “And why are we listening to him tonight?” asked another person. Foroud ignored the question.
“Tell the sky to give me a dagger made of the brilliance of its stars. The night, the entire night, remained sleepless. The night learned this habit from the quarrelsome sea, an empty, poor sea,” he recited. “The old jungle breathed heavily and shook itself. A bird flew from the sandy shore and perched in the dark swamp. The swamp stirred uneasily but the sea’s bland lullaby put it back to sleep.”
“But why are you reciting this sad poem? Is everything okay?” Raza asked. Foroud looked at him and said: “No, everything is not okay.”
After a brief silence, he added: “Remember, my friend Farhad, he came here once or twice? His son Kaveh killed himself, jumped into the sea from the Delaware Bridge.”
The news had an immediate impact on this group of elderly men, and a few women. They stopped whatever they were doing and stared at Foroud. A strange fear filled the room.
“Why?” asked Raza. “The same old story, differences with the parents,” Foroud said. “He liked alcohol, perhaps a little more than others of his age but he was not an alcoholic or anything.”
“And?” enquired Raza when Foroud prolonged his silence. “Well, his parents did not understand or did not know how to deal with it. So they used coercion, even forced him out of their home.”
“His home too,” corrected Shahana Zaman, aka Suzy. She too was a regular at the tavern, although some wished she was not. She smoked, laughed loudly, never hesitated to offer her comments even on subjects they thought a woman should not. And she liked wine.
Her habits irked this group of mainly South Asian men but they could not do anything to stop her. “This is a free country,” she always reminded them.
“Are we going to accept that we no longer live there? We live here in the United States. Our children are Americans, not Pakistanis, Indians or Iranians,” said Suzy.
Tonight nobody challenged her. They knew she was right. Everybody knew someone who was having problems with his or her children. Not all stories ended in a death, as Kaveh’s did, but they all knew this pain.
Later at night, while returning home, Raza thought he was lucky that he did not have a crisis in his family, although all his children – two sons and a daughter – grew up here in America.
They were scattered across the country, Virginia, California and Florida. They all wanted Raza to live with them but he preferred living with his eldest in Virginia.
On Saturday, he got up early and went out for a walk with his grandchildren. He walked in the morning only during the weekends when others in the family could join him. During weekdays, he walked at night with his friends, inside a mall in winters.
“So, another year is coming to an end,” thought Raza as he saw a “Happy New Year” sign in a window. It was the last week of December.
“It still has a few days left. Why are they in a rush to push it out?” he thought as he struggled with the cold. He looked at his grandchildren to make sure they were properly covered. Fiza smiled at him and said: “It is not very cold, grandpa.”
He smiled back and said: “It is. We do not want you to catch cold, do we?”
“No, we do not,” said his grandson Hasan, “she keeps me up whenever she is sick.”
“Do you also want the new year to come early?” he asked his grandchildren.
“Yes, yes, grandpa,” said Fiza. “Why is it taking so long?”
“Because the old year is not over yet,” he said.
“But why not?” asked Fiza.
“Yes, why not?” Raza said to himself. He did not understand this obsession with the new. “Let me stay wrapped up in last year’s blankets. The new year too borrowed these blankets to cope with the cold.”
Later, while having tea in his room, Raza said to himself: “Do not greet me yet. There’s snow outside my door. And I have to shovel it before I go out to buy milk, bread and eggs. I still have to walk to the metro, braving cold and icy rain.”
Then he realised that he no longer uses the metro and does not have to buy groceries. His children do the grocery for him and take him wherever he wants to go.
“Wake me up when spring comes. It is the real beginning,” he said to himself. “And autumn is the beginning of the end. Wiping away colour and glory. Sucking out fragrance and happiness from the air.”
He remembered how autumn turned the last marigold in their little garden into an ugly brown lump. “Do not greet me, as I hurry to the metro, wrapped in layers of clothes, struggling to balance my hat and a large scarf with gloved hands. Wait for the spring to wish me a happy beginning.”
Raza felt awkward talking to himself. So he rushed out to ask his son if he was going crazy but met Fiza near the kitchen.
“Hi grandpa, have a cup of hot chocolate,” she offered.
“Do I look okay?” he asked her.
“You look fabulous,” she said and asked him to bend. As he did, she kissed him on both his cheeks.
“You are the best grandpa ever,” she said.
“No, I am not crazy. Spring indeed is the real beginning,” he said.