Persian Girls: A Memoir (13 page)

The waiters cut the cake and served it with tea and
sharbat,
and the women returned to their seats. A variety of pastries and ice cream were served along with the cake.

Musicians on a platform in the middle of the garden began to play the drum, tambourine, and violin.

At the end of the evening, after the guests had departed, Pari left with Taheri and his sister to stay in their home in Ahvaz for the night. The following day Pari and Taheri would be going on their honeymoon to Babolsar, a town on the Caspian Sea, and from there to Tehran, where the house was ready for them. Behjat was going to live with them until Pari learned how to run the household. Then Behjat would move in with her elderly parents.

I went over to Pari and we embraced tightly. “I’m going to miss you so much,” I said.

“You know I will miss you, too,” Pari said but her face reflected something I had never seen on it. It was as if she were on a river, floating away, without control. I had to push away the dark image that came to me, of her drowning. This was followed by intense loneliness. Soon Maryam and Aziz would leave, too, and I would be alone in this cold household.

D
ays, weeks went by and there was no word from Pari—not a phone call, not a letter. I wrote her a few long letters but got no response.

When I tried to call her, Father snatched the phone from my hand. “Let her adjust to her new life,” he said.

“I’m worried,” I said. “She hasn’t answered my letters.”

“Do you think you care more about your sister than I do?” Father burst out.

“Don’t create problems for your sister,” Mohtaram said.

I sank back into the state I had been in when I was first torn away from Maryam and forced into a home alien to me. I flared up easily and cried at the slightest provocation.

It was particularly hard for me during the Norooz holidays that year without Pari. Norooz, originating in Zoroastrian times, is the biggest secular holiday in Iran. Starting on March twenty-first and lasting for two weeks, it marks the beginning of spring and celebrates the renewal of life. Mohtaram planted seeds in trays so that they would sprout by the holidays. On Norooz day Mohtaram set on a table the
Haft Siin,
seven items, each starting with the letter
S,
representing rebirth, health, happiness, prosperity, joy, patience, and beauty. As we gathered around the
Haft Siin
table Father gave Manijeh and me money, the customary present.

On the thirteenth day of the holiday, “getting rid of thirteen,” we went on a picnic in a park, as spending the day close to nature was supposed to be good luck. The park, on the outskirts of Ahvaz, was popular and many other families were there, too.

We sat on a rug we spread on the ground next to a stream and ate fish
kabab
s cooked by Ali on a charcoal grill, and currant rice, and other dishes he had prepared earlier at the house. Ali sat under a tree, separate from us; as he ate he watched the pigeons pecking on the ground or flying. The air was filled with scents of spices and flowers in bloom. Children were jumping rope and swaying on swings hung from trees.

After we ate Father went for a walk by himself. Mohtaram, Manijeh, and I went to the stream while Ali stayed to guard the rug. Many other mothers and young girls were throwing plants they had grown for the occasion into the stream. The plants were supposed to have collected all the sickness, pain, and ill fate hiding in the paths of families throughout the coming year.

Before throwing her plant Mohtaram asked Manijeh and me to tie its thin leaves and then make our wishes, a ritual for young girls symbolizing the desire “to be tied” in a marriage during the following year.

Instead of obeying her I walked away to a secluded area of the park. Mohtaram, focused on Manijeh, didn’t try to stop me. As I reached a quiet corner, I was startled to see Majid, Pari’s love, standing by the water, holding a fishing rod. He was wearing American Levi’s. A few brown curls hung over his high forehead. He looked sensitive, alive to the world; his large hazel eyes focused on me.

“How is your sister? Do you hear from her?” he asked.

I just shook my head, not knowing what to say.

“I have a favor to ask,” he said. “It’s confidential. Can you do that for your sister?”

“Yes.”

“I want you to give her a letter from me. I knew you come to this park every year, so I brought it with me.” He took out a folded envelope from his shirt pocket and gave it to me.

Suddenly I saw Father walking toward us with another man. Luckily he was so engrossed in conversation that he didn’t notice me. I quickly slipped the envelope into my pocketbook, said good-bye to Majid, and hurried away.

Later that day, as soon as I was in my room, I read the letter. I knew Pari wouldn’t mind my reading it. It was very brief but in it Majid declared his everlasting love for Pari, and urged her to leave her husband. Again he declared what had sounded like a fantasy, “We’ll elope.”

I tore up the letter and put the pieces inside my notebook to discard as soon as I went outside. I would have to tell Pari about the letter when I saw her. It was too dangerous to keep in the house.

 

 

 

 

 

Mahvash came to Nezam Vafa High School in the middle of the semester. Her father had been transferred to Ahvaz from Tehran, where he worked for the city. At recess I noticed her sitting on a bench under a canopy reading a monthly magazine
Setareh
that had one fiction piece per issue.

“I subscribe to
Setareh,
” I said, sitting next to her.

“Did you read that they aren’t going to run the rest of the novel by Ardavani?”

“Yes, I’m so disappointed.”

Mahmood Ardavani was a slick, popular writer but I liked the segments of his novel I had read in
Setareh,
mainly because they were set in America, my obsession. In the story an Iranian man studying in America falls in love with an American girl. It is a dilemma for him since his parents want him to marry an Iranian girl. We wouldn’t find out now what happens at the end.

“The note said the author requested that they stop running it for his own personal reasons. I wonder what they are,” Mahvash said.

“Maybe the novel is autobiographical.”

After that we sometimes walked to the Karoon River together and watched the activities on the other side—American girls riding bicycles, considered improper for Iranian girls, boys and girls walking together, holding hands.

She had a brother who was two years older than us. Father didn’t like the idea of my visiting her because he thought people would start gossiping that I might be seeing her brother. So instead she visited me sometimes. We sat in my room and talked about our dreams the way I used to with Pari.

“I want to become a writer,” I said.

“That’s a hard battle. You know you’ll be so restricted in what you can write about, particularly since you’re a girl.”

“I’ll go to America, if I can get my father to send me.”

“I’d like to get out of Iran, too, become a ballet dancer.”

I took on a school-sponsored job, teaching illiterate adults twice a week. The students came from the poor, underprivileged segment of Ahvaz’s population and I enjoyed their eagerness to learn. I also liked the independence of making money on my own. I was able to afford more things. I bought more books. I dropped into Tabatabai Bookstore weekly, sometimes more frequently, and asked for recommendations from Jalal, always making sure no one else was in the store.

“You know so much about books,” I said to him once.

“I was going to Tehran University, studying literature,” he said. His face became tinged with pain. “Then my father was arrested for distributing pamphlets. He died in jail, who knows of what. I stopped going to school. I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t bear being in Tehran, either. I came here, and brought my mother. She has a sister in Ahvaz. I opened this bookstore. I like it even better than going to college. I read what I choose to read.”

I asked Jalal to recommend a book for me to read to Ali. Ali was illiterate. The novel Jalal recommended was by an unknown Iranian writer. It described the adventures of an Iranian man traveling in the jungles of Africa and South America. The man encountered dangerous animals; he managed to calm them down and get away from them without ever harming them. Ali came to my room one or two evenings a week—he squatted on the floor and I sat at the edge of my bed—and I read to him. Ali was visibly excited at some scenes, getting up and sitting down again, waving his hands in the air.

 

 

 

 

 

Finally a letter came from Pari.

I wanted to burst out and say something to Father and Mohtaram but she was pregnant. Both she and Father were totally absorbed in that. She became big and heavy and sluggish.

“At my age, having a baby again! I’m not young, I’m thirty-nine years old,” she complained. “I’ve been giving birth since I was fourteen.” She waddled around in loose print dresses, sweaty, irritable, miserable, her voice shrill. “I’m getting so big, you’d think I was pregnant with two.”

I couldn’t understand why she would let herself get pregnant again. But then I remembered how Father always said, “Birth control is preventing life.” He didn’t believe in abortion, either, which was illegal anyway. “It’s killing, no difference.”

Mohtaram went into labor late one afternoon. Father brought in an obstetrician—by then using midwives was no longer a common practice. After a few hours the obstetrician, a heavyset, somber-looking man, came out of the bedroom and spoke to Father, who was sitting on a chair on the porch, keeping vigil. “We ought to get her to a hospital quickly. She may need surgery.”

They took Mohtaram to the hospital in town. When Father returned he told us that indeed Mohtaram had twins, two girls. Three days later Father brought Mohtaram and the twins home. Each baby was wrapped in a thin pink blanket. Father called Manijeh and me in to look at the babies. They had named them Farzaneh and Farzin. They weren’t identical and in fact looked very different. Farzin was smaller, her face thinner, and she had lighter eyes, a grayish color, whereas Farzaneh’s were dark brown. Mohtaram opened her blouse and put Farzin at one of her breasts and the baby began to suck.

“Two more girls to worry about,” Father mumbled, shaking his head.

Mohtaram’s friends came to the house to see the babies and bring gifts. I thought how sad it was that Mohtaram had so many children and Maryam didn’t even have one. I was hoping Maryam would come to visit, but she was still in Karbala.

Once when Manijeh came out of Mohtaram’s room, Ali was sitting on the porch. He turned to Manijeh and said, “Your mother now has two babies to look after.”

That threw Manijeh into a fit. “All you do is stare at pigeons. And you’re squinting. Are you blind? Be useful and get me some lemonade.”

In fact Ali didn’t see well. He had trachoma in one of his eyes and it couldn’t be operated on. Sitting there, a small man with graying hair and a squint, he seemed vulnerable. Manijeh’s attack made me angry.

“Leave him alone,” I said. She and I barely interacted except in anger, even now that Pari was no longer at home. We lived in the same house like strangers.

“Didn’t you hear me?” Manijeh said to Ali, ignoring me. Then she pressed her tongue between her teeth, her face becoming deep red.

Ali didn’t move.

“You’ll pay for this,” Manijeh said before storming off.

 

 

 

 

Farzin was behind Farzaneh in her development. She didn’t crawl yet, didn’t smile or look at people the way Farzaneh did.

“I spoke to the obstetrician,” Father told Mohtaram at breakfast one morning, just after I left the room. “He said most likely she didn’t get enough oxygen at birth.” He sounded depressed.

“Terrible, terrible, how could that happen?” Mohtaram’s voice was urgent.

“They weren’t prepared for twins. The poor child is going to have even more problems than most girls.”

My heart began to ache for her. I had gotten attached to her and Farzaneh and played with them joyfully during my breaks from studying or reading or writing.

Mohtaram didn’t have enough milk in her breasts to feed two babies, so they hired a wet nurse, Zeinab. She had an oblong, ruddy face and wore her hair in two thick braids. She was a small woman but her breasts were large and filled with milk. She came over every day, leaving her three children with her own mother. One day she brought them with her and they ran around or hovered over the twins, watching their mother nurse them. The youngest, a two-year-old girl, demanded to be fed, too, even though she had been weaned. Zeinab let her suck at her breasts and kissed her, saying, “My little sweet baby.” After sucking for a while the little girl broke loose and joined her brothers. They playfully pulled one another’s hair, embraced, kissed. Their faces were smeared with watermelon or cherry juice. When exhausted, the children lay next to one another on the ground and went to sleep. I envied the harmony between them.