Issue #98

The Pink Scale

by Parvaneh Ravadgar

Apparently, the woman upstairs has been replaced by another woman. The previous one was noisy, and this one is quiet. Last year, the upstairs man went to the ocean with his previous wife and came back with another woman. Now it seems he keeps the new woman in the house with a heavy chain. The previous woman had no chain. I think that is why she ran away.

My husband says the new wife is as light as a feather, but the previous one was like an elephant. The man is afraid the wind will carry her away. So he has put a heavy chain around her. The downstairs woman, who is a witch, says the new wife is involved with a dragon. The dragon put the necklace around her neck to make sure she remains faithful.

I have never seen her face. Only once did I see her from behind, climbing the stairs. She had her blond hair gathered on top of her head, and a heavy chain was visible around her neck. Sometimes I only smelled her perfume lingering in the hallway.

My husband and the downstairs woman have seen her and have spoken about how beautiful she is. I have only seen her husband, with his even teeth and mysterious smiles that made my heart tremble.

Yesterday, the ceiling of our apartment was very hot. I think the dragon had come in through the upstairs window for lunch. The door to our apartment was open, but I didn't see anyone. I left the windows open to let the house cool down. A wind came through and carried a pink feather into the apartment. I think it was the upstairs woman who came in with the wind.

The feather turned in the air and came to rest on the kitchen floor. I picked it up and held it over the gas flame. The same perfume from the hallway rose from it. The feather burned.

I put it in the trash and tied the plastic bag tightly. I was unsettled. I watched television, but it did not help. I went for a walk, but my heart was beating so fast that I couldn't go any farther. I returned home, out of breath.

I untied the bag again. The burnt feather was still there.

That night, the upstairs man came and asked if I had seen his wife. The color drained from my face. The next morning, the police were standing outside our apartment. It seemed they were saying that the woman had taken her chain with her. But the feather had no chain.

My hand still smelled of burning. I was afraid.

Little by little, the nightmares began. Every night, the upstairs woman came to me in my dreams and threatened me. If I married the dragon, she said, she would tell everyone that I had killed her. I began seeing strange shapes, and sometimes I talked to them.

One day at lunch, the shadow of a flowerpot fell on the wall beside the kitchen. It looked like a dragon. I told my husband. He took some time off and suggested that we go away. I was afraid I would get lost there.

"No," I said. "You go. If you get lost, it doesn't matter. Someone better than you will come back in your place, just like what happened to the upstairs woman." My husband did not smile. He only called my mother.

My mother came, and my husband and I went to an office. They gave me a clean, orderly room. A doctor came to see me regularly. I thought it was a police station. It seemed everyone there knew what I had done; they simply didn't say anything.

I thought the man who called himself a doctor was actually an interrogator. He wanted to find out how I had killed the woman. But I said nothing.

After a while, I became tired. I wanted someone, finally, to take me seriously. I told him, "I killed that woman." He smiled. "I killed her myself," I said again. He said nothing.

I repeated it several more times. Each time, he only nodded and changed the subject, as if he couldn't hear me.

One day, my husband came to take me home. On the way, I said, "I killed the upstairs woman." He said nothing. "I mean it," I said. Still, he said nothing.

We arrived home. That night, I insisted so many times that finally he said, "Come." We left the apartment and climbed the stairs, going toward the upstairs woman's floor. But we reached the roof. We were on the top floor.

"Where is the floor?" I asked. "There has never been another floor," he said. I turned inward. I felt that the whole thing had been a nightmare, a nightmare that had come and gone.

A year passed. I could no longer live with those feelings and memories. We moved to a better neighborhood. I was feeling a little better. My birthday was approaching. My husband bought me a necklace, exactly like the one the woman had worn.

"Where did you buy it?" I asked. "From the Pink Dragon Jewelry Shop," he said. "At the end of the main street, behind the house." For several days, I was confused. One day, I went out for a walk and, out of curiosity, found myself standing in front of the shop.

The jeweler was at the back of the store. I waited for a customer to come in. A man came and stood in front of the display, waiting for the jeweler to show him the piece he had chosen. It was the same man.

The jeweler looked at me and smiled. I lost my nerve and hurried home. A few weeks later, I went back to the same office. The doctor—or the interrogator—came in. I waited for him to ask again how I had killed the woman. But he didn't ask. He simply closed the file and said, "You can go home."

On the way, I did some shopping. I arrived late. The lights in the apartment were on. I put the key in the lock. This time, my husband was not waiting for me. The upstairs man was sitting on the sofa.

I think my husband had gone to the ocean alone, and the upstairs man had now replaced him, just as the woman upstairs had been replaced. The new man was turning a large, shiny pink scale in the palm of his hand.

I looked at him. He smiled and said quietly, "This one doesn't have a chain... yet." My mouth went dry. He held the scale out to me and added, "The dragon said it should be yours."

Now I am looking for a house with no upstairs and no downstairs. The real-estate agent looks at me. His eyes are bright and sharp, as if he is looking at me from behind a scale.

A young woman comes in, too. She has the same perfume, black hair, and an earring with a pink scale. Her hand smells of burnt feather.

She is looking for a house like mine.