Women Without Men (10 page)

In due course the gardener built the lodge on the riverbank directly facing the Mahdokht tree—which still had not sprouted limbs and leaves. The barrenness had caused Farrokhlaqa some concern, but the gardener had assured her that it would be full of blooms by the spring. He had also suggested that the human-tree is not like other trees; it needs human breast milk to achieve maturity and growth. Farrokhlaqa was stumped by the suggestion, not being able to think of a source for human breast milk.

“Don't worry,” the gardener said, “I am going to marry Zarrinkolah. She will lactate when she bears a child. We will fertilize the tree with her milk.”

Fa'iza proposed inviting a cleric to solemnize the marriage. The gardener did not agree; he would perform the ceremony himself without the benefit of the clergy. To Fa'iza, such a marriage was not legitimate. Munis stayed out of the discussion and made no references to her own mind-reading ability. Farrokhlaqa was neutral. She did not care one way or other, as long as there was breast milk to feed the tree, as the gardener had promised.

Zarrinkolah spent most of her time alongside the gardener helping him in his work. He had taught her bricklaying, tree planting, landscaping, cooking, and embroidery. She was always humming as she moved from place to place on the property, something that annoyed Fa'iza, who held Zarrinkolah in low esteem for lax morals and incessant jollity, as if she had to laugh to prove she was alive. Fa'iza had little tolerance for people like that, although she did not let that interfere with her general satisfaction with her current situation. Occasionally she felt a tinge of sadness when she thought of Amir Khan. Deep down she nursed a longing to be married to him, not so much out of love for him but a desire for vindication. To have him as a husband would vindicate her womanhood.

Farrokhlaqa persisted in her plans to become a member of the parliament. Impatiently, she waited for the completion of the building renovations so she could start entertaining celebrities and influential people to cultivate associations with them. In consultations with Munis she had arrived at the conclusion that to have name recognition she had to write poetry and publish it in newspapers
and magazines. She was intrigued by the idea and spent much of her time trying to write poems.

At the onset of winter, the house was ready to be fully occupied by the women. Farrokhlaqa furnished the parlor as a music-cum-party room, equipped with comfortable furniture, chandeliers, and bookshelves displaying dozens of poetry anthologies that she had ordered from a book-store. She bought large candlesticks displaying designs of moths as if they were burned by the flame of the candles, giving poignancy to the timeless metaphor. She also stocked the cellar with various vintages of wines and liquors to ensure an inexhaustible supply for the parties.

Then came the task of developing guest lists and sending invitations. Guests were welcome to arrive Friday mornings and stay well into the early hours of the next day. Lambs were slaughtered and carefully dressed on the premises every Friday morning by the local butcher and sent to the kitchen to be prepared into elaborate dishes overseen by Munis and Fa'iza. Zarrinkolah tended to the lesser details of the process. Soon the word of Farrokhlaqa's hospitality spread among her friends and new acquaintances who would arrive at the villa in large numbers on Fridays. She did not mention a word about the tree to the guests, under orders from the gardener, who wanted to wait for it to be in full bloom later in the year.

Zarrinkolah stopped coming to the house. She spent all her time at the lodge. When Munis brought it up with the gardener, he said that every dawn both of them looked for dewdrops on vegetation to irrigate the tree.
Since Zarrinkolah did not have a baby yet, she could not provide breast milk.

Munis was not able to penetrate the gardener's mind to know his thoughts. She simply asked to join him and his wife in their search for dewdrops. The gardener agreed and the three of them spent the morning hours collecting dewdrops with which the gardener irrigated the tree according to his secret process.

By early April the tree was covered with blooms. It accompanied the chirping birds by singing a haunting song. Farrokhlaqa could not wait to show it off to her guests, but the gardener still would not permit it. “It is not the right time for it yet,” he would say gravely. In fact Farrokhlaqa herself was discouraged from visiting the tree. She resented the restriction, although she kept it to herself, afraid of alienating the gardener whom she desperately needed. Besides, she was too busy trying to write poetry, since the Friday morning guests now included a coterie of reporters, poets, painters, novelists, and photographers and she felt the need to produce something to break into their circle. During the hours of leisure Munis would give her comfort and encouragement in her effort to write poetry. Fa'iza was pessimistic about the prospects, but, afraid that Munis would read her mind, she did not think much about it. Sometimes, when she was far enough away from Munis and confidant that distance would insulate her mind against Munis's intrusions, she thought of the enterprise as stupid and blamed the round-faced Munis for creating the delusion in Farrokhlaqa that she
could become a poet. Fa'iza recognized that Munis had certain abilities, including reading minds and elongating her face, yet she was born with a round face, therefore she could not escape her simple-mindedness and low-grade intelligence.

April had come to an end and Farrokhlaqa had not yet written a poem.

One Friday morning there was an unexpectedly large influx of guests at the villa, much larger than ever before, somewhere near one hundred people. In her frenzy, Farrokhlaqa put Munis and Fa'iza to work and started desperately looking for Zarrinkolah. She felt a rush of resentment toward her for not pulling her weight, not earning her keep. Then she suddenly saw the gardener among the crowd.

“For God's sake,” she yelled at him, “tell your wife to come and give the women a hand in the kitchen. They are crushed under the pressure of work.”

“That's not possible,” said the gardener calmly. “She became pregnant last night and she is not supposed to move for the next nine months.”

“You idiot!” she burst out in a fit of anger. “First of all, how do you know she became pregnant last night? Secondly, what the hell am I going to do with all these guests?”

“Don't fret,” said the gardener, unperturbed. “I will have the tree sing. That will calm them, and make them forget their hunger. You can keep the food for yourself. Also, do not invite any more guests until you have produced
some poetry. What is the use of them imposing on your hospitality without doing you any good?”

As soon as the gardener left, singing could be heard in the garden. The guests fell silent, transfixed where they were. It was as if they were all encased in a drop of water the size of an ocean. Slowly seeping through the layers of the earth, the drop joined a myriad of elements at the earth's inner core in a dance, a perpetual, harmonic movement with no beginning or end. It was simultaneously slow and rapid. The guests' arms lifted and began to swing overhead, hanging like ropes from the sky, moving so quickly they appeared as a shadow.

“Notice how much sky is around us,” Munis whispered in Farrokhlaqa's ear. “There is a sky within a sky, within a sky . . .” Farrokhlaqa noted that the woman had closed her eyes, as if gazing at a distant horizon behind her eyelids. Farrokhlaqa crossed her legs and with a peculiar delight surveyed her guests, who were dazed by their experience and trying to understand it.

Then a green mist set in, engulfing everything and everyone—one color of the rainbow dominating all other colors. All who were present were dissolved into the mist, and then dripped like dewdrops from the tip of a leaf.

At nightfall the tree stopped singing. The guests left the garden noiselessly, wordlessly, entranced by the song they had heard.

Farrokhlaqa stopped inviting guests to the villa. She vowed not to invite anyone until she had written some poetry. She would confine herself to the music room all
day and try to compose verse. Munis spent most of her time with the gardener and his wife, who from the beginning of her pregnancy had stopped speaking. She would sit by the window and watch the river silently. Munis and the gardener continued to collect dewdrops to irrigate the tree, as they diligently cared for Zarrinkolah in her delicate condition. As her pregnancy advanced and the contour of her body changed, Zarrinkolah became increasingly translucent, like crystal, with light shining through her. Munis would sometimes look at the river through her as she sat by the window watching the currents.

At the other end of the garden Fa'iza had been left alone. There were no more guests to cook for and receive compliments from on her culinary skills. Farrokhlaqa kept herself in isolation in the music room. Munis had practically moved to the gardener's lodge and rarely stayed in the villa. Fa'iza could not have a conversation even with the gardener, as he was always busy doing something. She felt lonely and desolate. Occasionally she would get dressed and take a day trip to Tehran. In those excursions she would meander past Amir Khan's house. On chance encounters, they would acknowledge each other only by a nod of the head.

It was late September when Farrokhlaqa felt she had gained some virtuosity in manipulating rhyme and rhythm in her poetry. She emerged from the room and sat on the bedstead near the pool. She called to Munis, who was watering the flowerbeds, to listen to her latest composition.

“Munis dear,” she said, “this is not really a poem as such, but I think if I continue to work on it, I will have a
real one in a couple of years.” Munis encouraged her to read it.

“Like I said,” Farrokhlaqa demurred, “this is not really a poem, just an experiment with rhyme and meter.” Munis insisted.

Flushed with a mixture of excitement and diffidence, Farrokhlaqa began the recitation:

Farrokhlaqa fell silent, looking anxiously at Munis, who lowered her head, staring at her toes. Farrokhlaqa broke the awkward silence.

“What do you think?” she asked. “I know it is full of problems and infelicities. But I have never written a poem. This is my first completed one.”

“Let me read it myself,” Munis said finally. “I don't quite understand it this way.”

Farrokhlaqa gave her the sheet of paper. Munis began reading silently, with concentrated attention. Farrokhlaqa was frantic with anticipation. She didn't think much of Munis as a poetry critic, but she was a reader after all and had some literary sensitivities. In her anxiety Farrokhlaqa flitted her glance from the pool to the trees and from the trees to the pool.

“Excuse me,” Munis finally said, “Why do you begin the poem with ‘sugar bowl, of sugar deprived?'”

As if expecting the question, Farrokhlaqa beamed with a smile. “You see,” she said, “ I am fascinated with objects and I have looked at sugar bowls often. Don't you think an empty sugar bowl looks very sad?” Munis nodded in agreement. “That may be so,” she went on. “But ‘an anvil without a cobbler' sounds strange. Isn't an anvil associated with blacksmiths?”

Farrokhlaqa was taken aback by the observation. She wanted to argue the point but she wasn't quite sure herself.

“Are you certain?” she asked.

“As far as I know,” Munis answered.

“So what is the term for the one used by cobblers?”
Munis could not think of it, despite her fairly extensive vocabulary.

“If I change it to ‘blacksmith,'” Farrokhlaqa mused, “the whole structure of the poem will shift.”

“That may not be a bad thing,” Munis said. “The way it is, some of the rhymes don't make sense. Perhaps you can restructure the poem around the concept of ‘blacksmith.' Some of the other concepts, for instance ‘serpent-hearted' or ‘simian remains,' do catch the reader's attention, but they don't make much sense. Perhaps they'll fit better with ‘blacksmith.'”

Farrokhlaqa's morale was already undermined. Munis could see that Farrokhlaqa was seeing in her mind's eye the destruction of her dream castle brick-by-brick.

“Don't fret too much about poetry,” Munis said sympathetically. “There are other means of success. I'm thinking of the painter who visited here last time. I can see that he is dying to paint a portrait of you. Let him do it and then pay him generously. The word will get around and catch the attention of the movers and shakers. You are already connected with some of them. Just approach them sincerely and tell them you want to be in the parliament. They'll help you.”

Munis sensed that Farrokhlaqa had stopped taking down her dream castle and was already considering the proposed strategy.

“I think I'll start a new series of parties from next week,” she said resolutely. “I will call up Mosayeb and Ahmad as we'll need man servants to do the work.”

As planned, the parties started the following week. Gradually relatives began showing up among the guests, including Amir Khan, who came under the pretext of visiting his sister. He was subdued and restrained—and unaccompanied by his wife.