It was a green velvet sofa. We stood at the corner of our street, a spot where neighbours occasionally put out broken chairs or soiled mattresses.
שקופית: 5
My younger brother Reza, shouting with joy at the irreverence of furniture out on the street, threw himself onto it. The sofa took him in softly, without a squeak.
שקופית: 6
My father never was a risk taker. The first risk was leaving his country with my mother, both in their late 20s, barely out of university, with a newborn in tow.
שקופית: 7
The second risk my father ever took was to bring up that green velvet sofa into our home. As we were lugging it up, I was already thinking how a green velvet sofa such as this would change our lives.
שקופית: 8
The books I would read on it would be different.
שקופית: 9
The music we would listen to as we sat on it would be different from the music we listened to now, which was all plucky Persian strings.
שקופית: 10
"There's no space for this in our living room! Who knows who's lied down on that thing"
My mother shouted at us from the top of the stairs. The third-storey apartment also balked at the green velvet, like a body rejecting an organ not of its making. The angles of the front door proved unworkable.
שקופית: 11
"It won't go in."
My mom called our downstairs neighbour. Coming closer, he seized one of the four round pegs that served as the sofa's feet and quickly unscrewed it. Relieved of its three remaining feet, the sofa narrowly passed through the door.
שקופית: 13
During the first days, we took turns sitting or lying on it. Reza attempted to have breakfast on it before being called back to the table.
שקופית: 14
"We got the Chesterfield off the street!"
"It could have termites"
It had been ours for less than a week when our mamani came, as she did every Sunday for lunch.
שקופית: 15
The judgment of parents is impossible to avoid. Dreams of becoming a poet or a journalist, progressively shift towards mathematics, or dentistry.
שקופית: 16
"Do you see anything?"
"No, although I'm not sure what I'm looking for. They could be inside the wood."
The next day, I caught my father bent down on all fours, peering underneath the green sofa as if looking for lost change.
שקופית: 17
"Why else would anyone throw out a perfectly good couch?"
שקופית: 18
I could now see one half of it sticking out of the dumpster, its insides showing
שקופית: 19
I imagine his sudden change of heart, to defend his family, to keep his home from being turned to rubble in two weeks. But that day, I hurried past, up our steps and into our home, the dream of a new glamorous existence irreversibly deferred.
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