Senjed

My hands are buried in the sand. The sand in Barcelona is rough—it hurts your bare feet. But the breeze from the sea feels heavenly. It's mid-May, and the temperature is perfect, with a gentle sun above.

As I let the sand flow through my fingers, I notice the stub of a cigarette, stained with a mark of red lipstick.

This cigarette with the red lipstick reminds me of my great-aunt—my mom’s aunt. She used to visit us for family events, traveling from the capital, the big city of Iran. This time, it was for her niece’s wedding—my real aunt. As always, she stayed with her sister, my grandmother, in the big old family house.

Sometimes I’d see her smoking at the edge of the garden. Occasionally, I’d ask her the kind of silly questions a 7- or 8-year-old girl might ask—like, “How many cigarettes are in a packet?”

But most of the time, I just stood there, listening to her chit-chat with my grandmother.

I didn’t mind most of it. It was a simple world—why should I care? I’d walk along the edge of the garden wall, risking a fall and scraping my hands or feet.

I used to run all over—along the edge of the garden, up and down the steps, through the courtyard, around the corners of the old house—barefoot, without any fear. The garden was filled with violet flowers, red roses, and patches of fresh herbs—just like the ones we served at the table.

My cousin and I used to compete with the rose thorns. We’d gently pluck the green, flexible thorns and press their wide bases into one another, stacking them into long spindly towers. Whoever built the tallest one without it falling won.

There was something else in the garden I was especially proud of—our watermelon. The last time, when our great-aunt had come again for another family ceremony, we cousins had planted watermelon seeds in the garden bed. We watered them with saved Fanta bottles.

Ironically, this watermelon seed adventure began right after we had performed a play for the grown-ups—a play about death. In it, a man whose job is to bury the dead finds himself in a terrible situation: no one is dying anymore, and he's going bankrupt. So, in desperation, he persuades others to take their own lives to save his business. Dark, yes—but we acted it out with total seriousness, in handmade costumes. And yes, right after the applause, we planted the seeds.

And now, the plant had borne fruit—a real watermelon, growing under the dry, sunbaked sky!

From the garden, a few steps led up to the house.

The house had white metal-framed windows, divided into squares, set against soft yellow-and-white walls. From outside, you could see the sheer curtains fluttering, letting the light in and dancing as if they were alive.

Babajoon—my grandfather—had built the house forty years ago. Since then, it had seen a lifetime of memories: weddings, mourning ceremonies, birthdays, distant guests, even his first shared memory with my grandmother—how, the morning after their wedding, he waited for her to wake, then bought fresh bread. For as long as she lived, he repeated it every day.

I don’t know much about their private moments. I only know that after my grandmother died, Babajoon stopped buying bread. He stopped brewing tea. And little by little, the stairs saw him sitting more than walking.

The calligraphy frames heard his voice less and less.

I would run all over the house, and Babajoon would run after me,

because I had said the forbidden word: senjed (pronounced sen-jed, a type of Russian olive, in my language, Farsi).

I don’t know where it came from.

I don’t know why it had become forbidden.

But it was!

I would shout senjed and run away.

I ran slowly so he wouldn’t fall too far behind.

When I was younger, I used to run fast—

he’d catch me and kiss my cheek.

Later, I’d kneel beside his bed

and kiss his cheek instead.

For a few days, the old house was full of celebration. The courtyard was strung with lights, and a white canopy stretched across the rooftop on scaffolding.

I ran across Persian carpets—thick and soft underfoot, with crimson backgrounds and intricate blossoms and gold borders that shimmered in the light. I climbed onto bedding from the closet, eavesdropped on the grown-ups, and played football with the boys.

I scaled the white window bars to peek at a half-built wasps’ nest, spun around the living room column, and fell asleep in the warm light under the glass greenhouse ceiling.

And my sanctuary... I had discovered a small cave of my own.

There was a gap where the wedding canopy didn’t meet the stairs. A triangular space, just wide enough to crawl into.

That was my cave. My quiet, secret refuge.

In that little hideout, I found a lipstick-stained cigarette. I pretended it was mine.

I was a woman with a small child, living in a castle with horses. A castle with a secret door only Babajoon knew. He would come looking—smiling, pretending not to know where I was.

I would come out only if I wanted to—or if he called me.

Soon after the wedding, when the canopy was taken down, I lost my castle.

But hey—

the violets had sunlight again.

I open my eyes and look at the cigarette with the red lipstick, now covered in Barcelona’s gritty sand.

A little girl is running barefoot along the shore, her white T-shirt fluttering, pant legs rolled up, splashing the foamy waves with each step.

Her golden hair dances in the wind.

She runs without fear of scraping her feet.

The truth is, my castle has been gone for a long time.

But I remember how my great-aunt would quietly vanish in the early morning, always leaving behind that trace of red.

And Babajoon, chasing after me when I said senjed, always returning.

Some people disappear; some come running.

I close my eyes and let the mid-May sun gently kiss my face.

The sand is rough, the sea breeze soft.

I whisper it to no one—senjed.

Just to see if someone still comes running,

like he used to.