And as Mariam watched Jalil shake these strangers' hands, as she saw him cross his palms
on his chest and nod to their wives, she knew that Nana had spoken the truth. She did not
belong here.
But where do I belong? What am I going to do now?
I'm all you have in this world, Mariam, and when I'm gone you'll have nothing. You'll
have nothing. You are nothing!
Like the wind through the willows around the kolba, gusts of an inexpressible blackness
kept passing through Mariam.
On Mariam's second full day at Jalil's house, a little girl came into the room.
"I have to get something," she said.
Mariam sat up on the bed and crossed her legs, pulled the blanket on her lap.
The girl hurried across the room and opened the closet door. She fetched a square shaped
gray box.
"You know what this is?" she said. She opened the box. "It's called a gramophone. Gramo.
Phone. It plays records. You know, music. A gramophone."
"You're Niloufar. You're eight."
The little girl smiled. She had Jalil's smile and his dimpled chin. "How did you know?"
Mariam shrugged. She didn't say to this girl that she'd once named a pebble after her.
"Do you want to hear a song?"
Mariam shrugged again.
Niloufar plugged in the gramophone. She fished a small record from a pouch beneath the
box's lid. She put it on, lowered the needle. Music began to play.
1 will use a flower petal for paper, And write you the sweetest letter, You are the sultan of
my heart, the sultan of my heart
"Do you know it?"
"No."
"It's from an Iranian film. I saw it at my father's cinema. Hey, do you want to see
something?"
Before Mariam could answer, Niloufar had put her palms and forehead to the ground She
pushed with her soles and then she was standing upside down, on her head, in a three point
stance.
"Can you do that?" she said thickly.