How much faster did I have to run? I was out of breath and could hear my heart pounding. I felt a shadow behind me and quickened my pace. I reached my street drenched in sweat, and I finally began to feel at ease. I slowly looked back at the university from behind a nearby wall. The crazy woman was still staring at me, her eyes blazing with an anger I could still see from this far away.

My mother was in the kitchen and greeted me. She looked tired and happy to see me. It’s good you’re here, she said, once you’ve finished your dinner you can wash the dishes. I wanted to tell her about today’s strange incident, to sit down for a minute, catch my breath, and share my feelings with her. But it was my turn to do the dishes. All right, I thought, I’d better do them, or they’ll just pile up.

My mother went to her room. I had no appetite, so I began the washing up instead of eating. My hands were tired. I was angry with myself. If I was too tired to do the chores, why didn’t I just tell my mother that I would rest for a little while and do them later? I find it hard to say no. I feel rude when I do, and my mother might feel let down if I don’t help out when asked.

The image of the crazy woman was still on my mind. It was the first time in my life that I had been afraid of a woman. How excited I had been at the start of the day, the second of my second semester. But she had ruined it. My family had moved to a new house near the engineering faculty, which meant I entered the university through a different gate from the one I had used during my first semester. Otherwise, I might never have met her.

My mind drifted back to the moment I heard the guard’s angry voice by the university gate.

“Hurry up, take this periki and leave,” he yelled. I wondered which poor cart vendor he was chasing away. As I passed him and approached the gate, I heard her voice—I stopped in my tracks and spun around. My eyes fell on a woman wearing a red blouse with ripped sleeves, and jeans that had only one leg. She was holding a stone in her hand.

“Come near me again and I’ll hit you. You can keep your periki! You think you can chase me from here? This isn’t your father’s land,” she yelled, seething with rage.

I had inadvertently walked close to them. When the woman saw me, she aimed the stone at me and, in a frightening voice, said, “I’ll break your head if you come near me.”

“This woman is insane, don’t go near her or she’ll hurt you,” the guard warned. As soon as I heard the word “insane,” fear gripped my heart. I turned and rushed home.

As I placed the washed plates on the dish rack, I remembered the fear and a shiver ran down my spine. I quickly looked around; thank God I was home.

I was shocked to find myself afraid of a woman. I consider myself a brave girl, and I don’t scare easily. When I do get scared—when I’m walking down an empty street and a man is walking behind me, or when a group of boys comes toward me, staring at me as if I were naked— it shows on my face. But today, I’d been frightened by a woman. And to be this frightened? I felt strange. New questions ran through my head, piling up on top of the many that were already there.

When I finished in the kitchen, I went to my room and threw myself on my bed. As the fear started to leave my heart, I felt a sort of connection forming with the crazy woman. There was something about her body, her words, or her behavior that drew me toward her. A thought briefly crossed my mind: what if I was like her? I laughed at myself. What else could it be? I must like insanity. Ha! Insanity. Such a strange word. Until today, I had never imagined myself as crazy—or maybe it was just that I hadn’t really looked into the eyes of a crazy person before.

I didn’t understand my feelings. Why was I thinking so much about a woman I’d been frightened of an hour before? Does insanity mean a complete lack of awareness? If so, why did I see something profound in her eyes? I chided myself, Suddenly you’re a philosopher. But no matter how hard I tried, I still couldn’t get the thought of the crazy woman out of my head.

I prepared my dress and headscarf for the morning, mixing two of my favorite colors. The excitement of clothes somewhat took my mind off the crazy woman and, finally, I fell asleep.

As I was getting ready in front of my mirror in the morning, my mother popped in.

“That scarf is too small, dear, wear a proper headscarf,” she observed.

I frowned. “Mori, this dress looks good with that scarf,” I answered, irritated.

“I know, dear, but if you wear a bigger scarf, you’ll be safe from the prying eyes of the men outside, and no one will bother you.”   

My mother was right: if my scarf was even a little small, the boys would harass me and stare at me with their devouring eyes. I grabbed another scarf from the closet and went on my way to the university. Even though it was only one street from our house, that day it felt like the walk would never end.

At the gate, I looked around but couldn’t see her. I suddenly felt sad. It was strange that I wanted to see her so much.

After my first class I returned to the gate, and there she was. The crazy woman was wearing a dress exactly the same shade as the scarf I’d originally wanted to wear. The dress was knee-length, and her legs were bare. If boys stare at us when we wear big scarves, I thought, how much must they harass this poor woman? How can she take all those insults and still walk around like that?  

The crazy woman caught me standing there, staring at her. I quickly looked down. My heart, however, was drawn to her. Perhaps the feeling was mutual. I gathered all my courage and walked toward her. As I got closer, she pulled a stone out from under the thin shawl she was sitting on and raised it to me.

“No, no, I don’t want to hurt you. I just want to tell you something,” I said soothingly. Hearing my calm voice, she lowered the stone. I told her that she was wearing my favorite color. She started to laugh, and the laugh was so hysterical that it filled my heart with horror. Then, tears started streaming from her eyes and she began to sob. I panicked, not knowing what to do.

“I’m sorry, I just wanted to make you happy by telling you that you’re wearing my favorite color.”

“Your favorite color? Can you even have a favorite color?” she replied.

I wasn’t sure what to say, but in a low voice I responded, “Yes, I have good taste in clothes and colors.” She took the shawl, wrapped it around her shoulders, and got up to leave.

“Favorite, haha, she says ‘I have a favorite color,’ crazy girl,” she kept repeating, and walked away.

On hearing myself described as crazy, my knees went weak and my mind was conflicted. Crazy girl? Crazy woman? I call her crazy, and she calls me crazy? No, no, clearly, she’s the crazy one. According to society, I’m the normal one, I tried very hard to convince myself, but a part of me had become so rebellious that I could not even listen to reason.

On the day of my midterm, it struck me that I was already going through the hardest mental challenge of my life: trying to understand the crazy woman. My heart told me there was something significant between her and me, as if knowing her had become as important as understanding my own feelings.

When I got home, my mother had prepared dinner for me, as usual, and I could see that she was exhausted. I gazed deep into her eyes and saw that just like the crazy woman’s, there were many untold tales within them.

“Why are you staring at me like that? Did you miss me a lot today?” she asked.

I didn’t hear her question.

“Why did you name me Malaika?” I asked. Her eyes lit up. She left the dishes and sat beside me by the eating cloth. It was the first time I had seen her so passionate.

“I was twenty-one years old and studying at the university,” she began cheerfully, “when I first realized that you were in my body. Your father was very pleased, but I was terrified. In my heart, next to happiness was fear. I don’t know what I was afraid of, but my fear was stronger than my happiness. Yet, the moment I stroked your little hands and held you in my arms, I felt calm. I called you Malaika. Angel. You’re my angel of salvation, my confidant, and you’re also a woman like me. That fear still exists in my heart.” Her smile faded.

“Fear of what, Mori?”  I pressed. She caressed my face with her hands.

“You’re a girl, and a girl’s life is full of hardship, a girl has to be very brave and have a lot of patience. Men can be careless, but girls must be careful in every aspect of life.” Before I could ask another question, she stood up and said, “You’ve started again with your questions. Eat up and sweep the rooms, it’s not good for people to see the place in this state.”

My mother’s words made me more restless. There was a difference between her eyes and those of the crazy woman: in the former there was fear; in the latter, none. 

The conversation had made me lose my appetite. All my troubles had started with this question: why is my heart filled with fear? It had taken away my sense of peace. I wondered whether it was natural for a person to be afraid when they had an emotional connection with another. To fear losing their loved ones is to fear feeling pain, to fear society. The crazy woman might not have emotional connections, or she might not be able to form any, and perhaps that’s why she’s fearless. Then, my thinking continued, what if the crazy woman had a daughter? She could be my age, called Lemar, instead of Malaika, and, like the sun, she would be equal to all the planets in the galaxy. Maybe Lemar doesn’t fear anything, and asks for whatever she wants. Lemar, my favorite name . . . I got angry at myself. Am I now so ungrateful that I consider my mother’s love and protection a weakness? But I had no control over these thoughts, I didn’t even know where they came from.

The days went by, and each day I tried to talk to her a little more, but still, everything she said provoked more questions than answers.

Finally, the day came when I decided to sit with her for a long time, to tolerate everything she said, and to find answers to my question. My heart kept telling me that they lay with her.

I rushed to the university entrance, and there I saw her sitting on a small rug, the one I had given her. I was happy to see her using it and went to sit next to her. She looked at me and I could see that there was more happiness in her eyes today. I felt that today was going to be a good day for me too.

“Crazy girl, won’t you buy me a periki today?” she asked.

“Why not. But first, tell me: why do you call me crazy?”

“Don’t you call me crazy?”

“Me? I don’t call you crazy to your face.”

“Ha, everything you people do is behind others’ backs.”

“But I’m not crazy,” I insisted.

She laughed, looked at me, laughed again, and said, “Why do I look crazy to you?”

“I don’t know, but according to society, you’re not a normal person.”

“Society? What’s that?”

“Society—rules, behaviors, customs.”

“Oh, so you mean slavery?”

“No, why would it be slavery?” Now I was puzzled.

“What else is it? Dressing the way people like, controlling your laughter, your crying, happiness, sadness, and every other emotion, only for others. What else is living for the benefit of others called, if not slavery?”

I tried to say something, but I was at a loss for words. She kept repeating “insane, insanity, insane, insanity.”

“Anyway, what’s your name? Don’t you like people to call you by your name?” I asked. Her eyes lit up and she answered in a tone I had not heard her use before.

“Nazanin, Nazanina, someone’s beloved, a cherished one of her dreams, Nazanin.”

“What a beautiful name. From now on I’ll call you Nazanin. If you had a daughter, Nazanin, would you have called her Malaika, as my mother did?”

“Daughter? Daughter is a perfect name in itself. If I had a daughter, I would’ve simply called her Daughter, and I wouldn’t have restricted her with any trivial name. She would’ve been my Daughter, and that would’ve been enough.”

Her words touched my heart. I looked at her in amazement. Nazanin and my mother were about the same age, but whereas my mother felt constant fear for me, Nazanin didn’t feel afraid at all. Why was that? I felt like my heart was about to burst. I looked at her. She was lost in deep thought. I asked her again, “Nazanin, do you know everyone calls you crazy?”

“They started calling me crazy when I stopped caring. It’s been many years since that moment. Now I see the truth about life.” She gazed at the university gate, and her joyful expression gave way to sadness.

“Since what moment?”

“Do you know why you’re so afraid of them and I’m not? Do you know why you can’t wear your favorite color, and I can? Do you know why they still don’t leave you alone, even when you dress the way they like?”

My heart was pounding, and I wanted to scream loudly, “No, no, I don’t know! This is exactly what I want to understand!” But before I could say anything, she continued.

“In that moment, rebellion showed me the truth. At the time I was a student in the science faculty, while Ayaz was an excellent engineering student. We were about to be engaged, but this oppressive society we live in robbed us of our fate. We were leaving through this gate when attackers on a motorcycle drove by and threw acid in the faces of some girls. Ayaz protected me—he rebelled, and they killed him for it. Ayaz rebelled and died. My rebellion was to become insane.”

Tears flowed down her cheeks. She stood up, wrapped the thin shawl around her, and kept repeating “insanity, rebellion, freedom.”

A wave of cold ran through my body. My hands and feet began to shake, and tears streamed uncontrollably from my eyes. I tried to get up, but I could barely stand. I began to drag myself home, muttering in an anxious voice, “Are the crazy people crazy, or are we? Am I crazy, or is the crazy woman crazy? She’s right, why do we pretend this much? Am I free? Are we crazy, or are the crazy people crazy?” I felt breathless and started running, all the while repeating, “Am I crazy, or is the crazy woman crazy?” Wrapped up in these thoughts, I reached home. As always, my mother was busy with housework. We greeted each other, then she said, “When you finish eating, sweep the place—we have guests tomorrow.” I wanted to hug her tightly, tell her, Mor jani, don’t be afraid anymore, this fear of others has grown in our minds, but it’s not that strong. I wanted to rip the fear out of her heart and fight it, but in that moment, it was time for my own battle. I raised my head and said to her in a calm tone, “Mor jani, I’ll rest for a couple of hours and then come help with the housework.”