Saïd Sayrafiezadeh - New American Stories

“I would have gone to medical school,” our mother said to Leala. “I was a biology major in college and I got all A’s. I wanted to be a doctor, and I am still interested in medicine to this day.”

Which is just to say that Leala was not the only, but she was the first and the cause. She accepted this. At five years old, Leala set the table for dinner. She’d walk down our half-mile-long driveway to get the mail and bring it back. She would dust all the windowsills, all the banisters and furniture, and then fold the laundry, and if my mother said, “It’s time to comb your hair,” Leala would sit and wait for it. Our mother would yank. She’d yank yank yank as she combed, and Leala would sit there with her legs crossed and tears streaming down her face but she wouldn’t move, at most she’d say, “Ow,” or, “Go softer, please,” and my mother would say, “Sit still ”; and by the time she was done, Leala might have said, “It really hurts!” but she’d still sit there, her face puffy and streaked.

Not me. The second I felt a yank I was up and running. She’d say, “It needs combing,” and I’d say, “I don’t care!” and she’d say that as soon as my father came home he would spank me, give me the spanking I deserved, and so forth; I didn’t give a shit — though in the end she might catch me and spank me herself and I’d say I hated her, it was not untrue, and she’d say, “I’m not going to comb your hair, you don’t deserve it,” and in the end, if it ended my way, Leala would comb my hair.

I sat in the middle of the dining room, and Leala stood behind me and combed. If she caught a snarl she stopped, held the chunk of hair carefully, tight above the snarl, but loose from the head, and took the snarl out with a pick. I only ever wanted Leala to comb my hair, and this fact, which was mirrored in everything — if it was bath time, only Leala could bathe me; if it was night, only Leala could put me to bed — enraged our mother. Sometimes she gave in to it. “Fine, Leala can comb your hair.”

Other times she’d say, “Leala’s not your mother, I’m your mother, and I’m combing your hair.”

Leala was the one who, when the house was a mess and our mother was on the couch with a headache, said to me, “Let’s clean up the house before Dad comes home,” and, “Mom’s tired, let’s make dinner.”

She was also easy to take advantage of. I wanted nothing more than to play with her all day long. We had a wooden dollhouse, four feet tall, handmade and painted red, and we’d play Barbies. I’d take the two new Barbies that were hers and give her two old scruffies, I’d take Ken, and my Barbies would rape her Barbies. My Barbies got the Barbie car, the horses from the ranch — which they had sex with — and the gauzy pink gowns. When Leala got tired of Barbies I’d say, “No. More Barbies!” and she’d say, “Ohhh-kay,” and my Barbies would rape her Barbies again.

Other days, we’d play Monopoly and I’d buy everything I landed on and lose money until Leala went upstairs to pee and I stole cash from the bank. If we played checkers, when I lost I’d point and yell, “Look out the window!” and when Leala looked out the window I’d move my pieces to better spots, and when she said, “Why’d you tell me to look out the window?” I’d tell her there’d been a deer outside but that she’d missed it.

She was the only one I allowed to comb my hair, which I’ve said.

But it occurs to me now that I’ve remembered wrong, or re-pasted another memory over this one, because Haven arrived, and both our hair was uncombed, and this was part of — if not all of — our mother’s anger and shame.

“Their hair’s not combed,” our mother said. “They wouldn’t let me.”

“Oh,” Haven said, “they’re adorable,” and “What’s your name?” and “How old are you ?” and so forth, which Leala answered politely, I grudgingly, and eventually Haven said, in a halting voice, “I’ll comb their hair, if they’ll let me.”

“They would love for you to comb their hair,” our mother said, “wouldn’t you, Leala?” and Leala nodded.

(Who was this woman? Her godmother. She’d received gifts wrapped in glossy, thick paper. Atop them, slipped under velvet ribbon, there was a hearts-and-glitter-decked card, inside of which was written, “To Liora Leala, from your Godmother, Haven.” “I want her to be my godmother,” I said when the presents came. A doll with a white porcelain face and real black hair and a turquoise Spanish dress — the best doll either one of us had — sat on Leala’s bed, and I wasn’t allowed to touch it because it was from Haven.)

That morning, several hours later than expected, a tan sedan had made its way up our driveway — slowly, as if not sure it’d got the right house — and a tall, elegant woman with shoulder-length, silky brown hair that turned up at the ends stepped out. She wore a cream-colored suit: a narrow skirt and a tailored jacket that cut in at the waist and dashed out and bore a shiny band around its smallest part. The jacket had cloth-covered buttons.

Our mother wore a plaid skirt — which she’d made herself from a pattern and fabric bought at Fabric Mart — and a turtleneck.

Leala and I pressed our faces against the den’s windows when the car came.

Our mother went down the path toward Haven and said, “You’re here!” And Haven paused, threw her arms open as if to indicate the world — the empty field around the house, the forest — and said, “What a wonderful house!”

The two hugged, they came inside, tea was made. Haven made much of us, and Leala allowed Haven to comb her hair. I refused, and this was the worst thing that happened during the visit, it was the thing to which our mother later attributed its failure—“You were rude to my friend Haven,” she said. “It’s inexcusable.” And I replied, “I didn’t want her to comb my hair.”

Haven, at the time, had said, “It’s okay, I don’t have to comb her hair…she doesn’t know me, I’m a stranger.” Haven was seated in our dining room. Her back was straight in the suit, her legs were elegantly crossed. Her tea sat unsipped beside her. She had not wanted ice-cream cake. Had they run out of things to say? I don’t know. She’d been taken upstairs and shown the rooms — that took five minutes — and she had seen the strawberry garden. Leala sat at the dining-room table, having had her hair combed, and drew with crayons on paper, a tall, big-eyed woman with pretty hair who was probably Haven, and a short, fat one who was our mother. Our mother stood nearby and watched.

My mother yelled at me: “She wants to comb your hair, let her comb it!”

Her voice was very angry. I knew quite well that she was concerned about the impression her friend would have of the house, her rude daughters, a miserable failure, tangled daughters, messy house, plaid skirt. I knew how she wanted Haven to love her.

“No,” I said.

Haven said, “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

Our mother said, “If you don’t let her comb your hair you are going to get a punishment when your father comes home.”

I said, “I don’t care.”

Pause.

I said, “Leala can comb my hair.”

“Really, it’s fine,” Haven said, “really.”

Our mother said, “Leala’s your sister, she’s a child, let Haven comb your hair, she’s an adult. Now go sit still so she can comb it. If you are rude to my friend Haven”—her head had lowered like a bull’s—“I will take you up to your room and I will spank you so hard that you will be sorry.”

Haven was handed the comb. I steeled my nerves. I cannot describe the pain of being a little girl and having your hair combed. Why it is so painful is a mystery. The fact of the pain invites disbelief and seems ludicrous.