Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-l4ctd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-06T19:18:03.126Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

“A Fenceless Garden” – A Short Story by Mohammad Zarrin

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 November 2022

Get access

Summary

This is a short story by Muhammad Zarrin, from the eponymous collection of stories, Bâg-e bi-ḥesâr (Tehran: Enteshârât-e Âgâh,1366š /1987). Never before translated, it is included here in homage to the many modern Persian short stories and short-story collections that Heshmat Moayyad has published over the years in translation with his students. The struggle of Elham, the heroine of “A Fenceless Garden,” to understand and express her internal emotions is somewhat reminiscent of the delicate sensibilities of Parvin E‘teṣâmi's poetry, to which Heshmat Moayyad has devoted much attention.

Today is Thursday and for Elham, this day is different from all the Thursdays she previously experienced. Just like Sundays, Mondays, or the other days of the week, which ends tomorrow. Tomorrow is Friday. If she can get through that, she is not so anxious for the upcoming Saturday. She has experienced Saturday in her new situation.

The daily work at the company has begun again. The employees do not take Thursday's work so seriously, and she shares the same view on this matter as the others. Among all the days of the week she likes Thursday the most. Ever since her school days she has always liked this day. Thursday has Friday following it, and Friday, during those years of study and instruction, was a day of fun and play, and in recent years it is the only day that she spends in its entirety with Fariborz. The fresh scent of Friday can be smelled Thursday morning, reaching its culmination close to noon.

On Thursdays, the daily work of the company stops at one o’clock in the afternoon, but by noon, in fact, everyone is ready to go home. This is an undeclared, unofficial agreement, which everyone observes with no particular justification.

For Elham, the Thursday work hours – unlike Saturday, which is long and heavy – pass easily. By the time she performs a couple of different tasks and has her tea and cookies, noon has arrived. Also, there is no need to eat at the work table at the company. Everyone comes to work unburdened on this day, without their lunch pails or food containers.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Necklace of the Pleiades
24 Essays on Persian Literature, Culture and Religion
, pp. 337 - 352
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
Print publication year: 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×