translation from my book published in french " The Ring"

nilofar mehrin <whiteonwhite100@gmail.com>	4:16 PM (1 hour ago)
to Jahan

At the age of 21, Minou flew to Europe in the middle of summer of 1982. She had just celebrated her 21st birthday in Karachi where she stayed with her beloved aunt and her cousins. She loved this aunt because when she was a child she had spent some months staying in her house with their family. The first thing her aunt had done when they had arrived in London was to take her sister and her niece to a local english  jewellry store and she had  choosen  little flower shaped earings for her niece .  She had then helped her put them on and looked very pleased with her choice !   

 Her aunt was married to a Pakistani engineer and lived as a house wife while they lived in the UK.  After she was widowed she had lived with her children in the same house with her younger brother and his wife.  

 They had moved to the UK  after the separation between India and Pakistan. Her aunt loved the colors of the subcontinent and  especially Karachi where she had spent her childhood,  and she and her family  loved to go there on vacation. This was her way of keeping in touch with friends and relatives.

 Minou had received a beautiful gold ring from her aunt.  This ring had an amethyst of a deep violet color.  She had loved it and worn it immediately .  She loved dressing up and adored glittery things and elaborate costumes and had all sorts of cheap costume jewellry. She had dressed up in eccentric theatrical clothes, using what she had, when once she had gone to the Venice Carneval with her school friends ....  she was already envious and desiring  the diamonds  her cousins wore and she was looking at her friends engagement rings

At the time it seemed as if nothing could have shaken Minou´s happiness . She did not foresee that something extraordinary was about  to happen on this  lovely  day.  There wasnt a cloud in the sky and a gentle breeze coming from the sea  kept the temperature down.  She was relaxed and felt safe with the people around her.  She was the proud owner of and  wearing her very special  ring on her middle finger.  The whole group of friends and family went for a walk along the coast. She was wearing her turquoise swimsuit and rushed out towards the beach,  like a child, gleefully  running  for a swim in the sea. She was clutching the ring, and was sure that  nothing would happen to it if she was careful while it was on her finger.

The water in the sea was pleasant  and warm, she could hardly feel it when she sat down  and not far from the sandy beach .....   she sat there looking around at the  scenary and was rocked gently by the small waves  ....  she  did not hear nor notice the big wave which was coming towards her. The big wave hit her shoulders and splashed into the air; drops of water fell down shinning in the sun like little diamonds spreading out in the air and then dropping down on her like coloured cristals glittering in the sun.

A few minutes later she was jolted out of her whimsy,  and she  realized that this last wave had taken her ring off her finger as if it were a mermaid, a creature  who had desired her ring  ....   she imagined that it must have been ....  it couldnt have been the wave ! And in an instant her beautiful gold and amethyst ring disappeared forever  under  the sands of the Indian ocean. 

      Sitting on the plane, she was thinking  about  what had happened  and was sad about it . She thought  about her uncle and aunt living in  London,  She had already stayed with them as a child and now would be staying with them again as an adult . She  would be  studying for her A levels.  Her uncle living in  London felt  very responsable for her and wanted her to improve her language skills quickly.   He  was married to a Swedish woman.  Minoo was lucky because they were both teachers and  both  willing to help her. Her uncle and aunt got on well with each other even if they were from different continents.   They didnt have children of their own and they enjoyed each other's company and that of their nieces and nephews .....  they were happy living in an extended family. 

 While she was staying  in London, her uncle had been criticizing her and trying to shake her out of her good-natured  disposition.  He thought she had been too sheltered because she was of the opinion  that people had "guardian angels" who protected them. He was a sort of "secular leftist" and didnt like to hear airy fairy religious ideas at his table.  He had lost both his parents when he was still a little boy and had been brought up by his relatives .  That was why he was telling her that she had to be practical and down to earth .....   it was a working career that she had to be thinking of because, angels didn t exist and it was her own effort which counted most.  

He told her that you had to work hard in order to achieve things in life .... just like he had done !  He had completed his university education thanks to his supportive wife who had stood by him while he got his degree. He would say his favorite quote  in French "il faut souffrir pour etre belle"  !
  ie "You have to work hard in order to be beautiful" . He considered himself to be  a"self made man" and didnt believe in the traditional values of his ancesters   He  would have liked to see his niece do brilliantly  at school. 

Recently, they had a conversation at the dinner table  about angels. Minou had read some chapters of the Quran , there was a whole chapter about them in religious writings.  Her cousins who had been brought up by their uncle had the same ideas as him. His uncle had denied their existence because he thought that reality was more than enough to deal with. 

 She had quoted the sacred Qur'an where it is said that God sent angels disguised as people. "Then we sent him our angel and stood before him as a man in every respect" (K.19: 17)  Like her mother had told her many times : "people can be angelic at times" !

As a child she had been told and knew how her grand  parents had both fallen ill and had died young , leaving her mother and uncle and aunt on their own .  The four brothers and sisters  had then had the support of  relatives. Their family had survived because well-meaning people had worked to allow  them to stay  together.   They had been fortunate and "a guardian angel" had certainly sent them generous people who had been good to them.

In any case how could she not believe in the angels knowing that there was a description of them in the Koran :

"Praise be to Allah, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, the one who made the angels messengers with wings, two three or four ... "

 She had had a good opinion of her mother's family because they were people who were dedicated to good causes. His uncle in London was his mother's brother, and since he had decided that he  didnt want  children, he and his wife welcomed other peoples children to their home. They were a very hospitable  and regularly invited friends for  Sunday lunch.

In another conversation  around the table, he told her discretely  that she was dwelling too much on the idea of being a traditional stay at home house wife because now in the modern world they were living in she would soon have to go out and make a living even if she was married.  

 He would have liked to hear her say  that she would go to a nursing school rather than to an Art school because one of her aunts had studied as a nurse in the UK and had found work immediately.

Nobody had criticized her choice  to attend an art school, but she now knew what her uncle was thinking. She thought being an artist was risky in an uncertain future.

in the last years of 70ties, she had spent two weeks, in the English countryside. She had gone on a trip with her school, it was for her Alevels in Biology and  she had enjoyed a lot of freedom back then.

All the students were  staying in a beautiful old cottage at the place called Flateford Mill. Legend has it that there was a ghost under the stairs.

This summer she had a lot of fun walking around and eating huge amounts of sandwiches at tea time and enjoying the country air.

The teacher was a blonde and dynamic young woman. She had told them that they were visiting the country of the painter Constable.

Like the other students Minou had put on big boots to walk in the high grass and discover the tadpoles in the ponds. These ponds contained millions of tadpoles, the teacher shouted at her because she was walking with her boots into the pools and was going to crush them .

That day, Minou had entered the world of " the birds and the bees" and had felt lonely for the first time in her life.

It crossed her mind that people were talking about her and that soon she would have to grow up and become a woman and  would  have to think about marriage. This thought also crossed the minds of her close friends.

It was depressing to think that she had to fit in with  social expectations.

These thoughts ocurred to her because of the way people looked at young women who were students like her.  Her friends at school too felt the weight of social etiquette  expected of them. 

Mahnas  and Leila were her intelligent girl friends who were trying to get a higher education in the UK . Eventho they  were quite different from each other, they were exchanging notes about how they felt about their life as 20 somethings .  Leila was a very bright girl , they had met at the university in down town London. She was from a  large family of 10 siblings and had the gift of the gab. Leila spent a lot of time chatting with people and enjoyed being in the middle of a crowd. She was a  small girl  with lots of  curly black hair that fell into her face and sometimes covered her big expressive black eyes. She usually wore  a winning smile which put people at ease . She may not have been be as beautiful as Mahnaz but she could charm everyone with her warmth.

Once Minou had seen Leila chatting with a worker who was delivering her television, she was sure she couldnt have been so capable herself , but she knew that her friend  had a friendly word for every body she met , it was her special gift. She had been accepted into an excellent school because of her good grades in mathematics and was starting university going into studying  IT .

Mahnaz  on the other hand, had oriental eyes and a sweet and sensual expression. She looked like a sexy movie star. She had always been aware of her appearance . She had started taking care of her looks when she was a teenager because she had an older sister who  she looked up to. The girls were very pretty in her family. The two sisters started to  date before all the other girls of their group. Mahnaz  was very popular with Minou's group of friends because she was fun to be with. Many people wanted to be around her.

Minou had known Mahnaz since childhood, where they had met at nursery school. At the time Mahnaz  was a tall little girl and very pretty.

They bonded  because their parents worked in the same company.

Later on Mahnaz had come to study in the United Kingdom before Minou. Her father wanted her to be a secretary and wanted her to work in a law firm. She had to stay in the United Kingdom for this training  and then she would leave to go to the United States.

Every one was surprised when they heard that her elder sister Mitra, who was in great demand because of her good  looks, did not marry her long-time boyfriend Farid. The couple had been the talk of the small group of teenagers.  They all looked up to Mitra and she  was much  admired by her friends and her entourage. At the age of 25 she married a man chosen by her father. who was was opposed to Farid because he did not have a university degree. Even though Farid had money and social connections he had not fit the requirements of the family .  She had finally married a man who looked less trendy but who had  a very good university education.

 That  summer, Minou was invited by Mahnaz  to go to Cambridge to the wedding celebrations at their  place.

They  had gone on a boat trip for Mitra's wedding party. It was also Mahnazes  birthday, which is why Minou gave her a gift.  She had loved the movie and had bought a record .  It was a  Bee Gees hit called  "Saturday Nignt Fever.".