A NAKED WOMAN IN THE SNOW

Characters in Beritan’s debut short-story collection seem to be frozen in time and memories.

In the opening title story, young Delbar lives with her parents in an early-20th century Kurdish village. She weaves carpets that sell well in the city; her parents come to rely on the income and, as such, hope she doesn’t leave their home. But Delbar is mesmerized by a mysterious singing man who’s apparently hidden among trees that were planted years ago by someone who’d tragically lost his love. Delbar is just one of a handful of characters in this tiny collection who are stuck. Mahtab, in “The Doughy Granny,” stays at home while her husband, Gypsy, travels, peddling his goods. Gypsy, bizarrely troubled by his wife’s sustaining beauty and happiness, finds a way to shatter her well-being. The longest story, “Half-Forgotten Dream,” centers on the elderly Anna as she reminisces about years she’s missed with a boy she once grew close to. Beritan locates these tales in striking settings, from a snowy winter evening to the resort town of Sliema on the island of Malta. In keeping with the book’s theme, these places function as veritable hubs for others’ passing lives, as when tourists crowd Sliema’s beach and a London railway station while memory-laden Anna remains inside, staring into a mirror. Historical touches enrich the narratives; Kurds endure civil unrest and the Persianization of their culture, and the Korean conflict disquiets a world still reeling from World War II. The author’s prose offers illustrative descriptions, such as this impression of London’s Oxford Street: “The storefronts were decked with large displays, and people walking amid the enormous department stores and fashion stores seemed dizzy and disoriented, entranced by the thriving commercial environment of that era.” It’s somewhat disappointing that this book is so compact—it includes only five stories, with the final selection, filled with a narrator’s holiday recollections, clocking in at a mere few pages.

Sublime tales that, even in their brevity, make a lasting impression.