A short story: Concealed

At the point where my grandmother’s house once stood, a carriageway is built. With its loud presence it announces the ownership of the space, as if the faraway world never existed outside my memory.

My most vivid memory of my grandmother is about an incidence that I’m not proud of. It happened when I must have been around five or six years old. On that occasion, my cousin Behnam and I were staying at my grandmother’s house.

Her house was situated on a main road. A row of sycamore trees stood between the road and the narrow pavement, as if they were protesting the proximity of the passing traffics. The house had a square entrance hall that doubled up as a room. It was connected to the back garden through a pair of French windows and together with two rooms at either side made the main part of the house. The room on the right hand side of the hall was used less often and was reserved for special occasions where it was used as a guest room.

The most beautiful part of the house was behind the French windows. Two steps lower than the entrance hall the cobbled garden started.  It was surrounded by a raw of rooms. This was the older part of the house. The ceiling of the old building was deteriorating, and we were not allowed to enter the rooms on the far side of the yard. Despite the imminent danger, particularly in the heart of the summer those rooms that where cooler than the rest of the house provided a refugee from the heat waves. If no one was looking I would pop in, and inhale the coolness of the air with a few deep breaths. Perhaps that was my first encounter with forbidden joy.

At the opposite side, stood the kitchen and an outdoor toilet was built in the corner of the yard. In another corner the most unique feature of the house was hidden. Through a hatch connecting to a spiral staircase going at least three meters under the ground rested the house’s cold room. Cold rooms used to act as natural fridges in the olden time. But when my grandmother was living there, the cold room was used for keeping loads of watermelons and honeymelons. The garden had a magical tree that yielded two types of fruits. I never understood if it was an apple tree grafted to pear or vice versa. 

That particular day Behnam and I were looking for something to do to keep us busy. We decided to play hide and seek, we hide away from our grandmother and wait to see if she realises that we are gone and if she could find us. Towards the end of her life, my grandmother lost her eyesight. That made hiding from her less of a challenge, still we were too bored! We went to the guestroom and hide under the sofa. Sometimes lapsed, on realising that the house was quieter than normal, my grandmother started calling us.

At first, she went from one room to another kept calling our names. From our hiding place I could hear her voice getting closer until I could see her foot.  By then she was screaming our names nonstop, “Behnam, Shahireh, where are you!” At first it appeared very funny and we both found it difficult to hide our laughter, after a while though everything started to get a bit scary. The panic in my grandmother’s voice was spreading in the air and like dust particles was settling down on every existing surface.

I wanted so many times to come out of hiding but every time Behnam persuaded me to hang on for a bit longer. I didn’t want to spoil our game but alarm bells kept ringing in my head, my grandmother’s voice was getting horse. She opened the door and asked one passer-by if there had been an accident in the road. She must have thought that we have left the house and with the road being too close she was concerned for our safety.

I could not take it any longer; jumped out from under the sofa and run to my grandmother saying that we were just playing hide and seek. I never saw my grandmother that angry, and of course I was punished.  Although Behnam got told off as well, but he got away lightly, as by the time that he came out of hidden my grandmother’s rage was somewhat subsided and she was glad that we were not harmed. I don’t recall how our parents reacted.

A few decades later I was standing at the corner of a much busier road looking at the traces of the room where I hid away without considering how this seemingly harmless play would scare my grandmother. I tried to imagine the map of the house as it once was. The main road was jam-packed, and cars were all over her furniture and in every room. Pedestrians were crossing over the cold room and cars couldn’t wait for their green light permit to break the paved garden with their heavy weight. No one was caring for the mysterious pear and apple tree.

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