A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea (18 page)

must
accept. She
will
accept. This is what is planned and desired for her. She tries to shake off the image, but fails— especially after a Dutch beer, a whiskey sour, an oldfashioned, a sidecar, and a martini.
Just then Simone leans forward on the table and slips an arm through James’s. She whispers, “I’m hungry. Let’s order some food.”
Mahtab's cheeks burn. She starts to get up, but before she has a chance, James untangles himself and gives Simone’s shoulder a shove. It isn’t much of a push. He is just drunk and wants her hands off him. But this is not what Mahtab observes. You see, Khanom Mansoori, it is an American girl’s prerogative to perceive what she wants, even if it is not the truth. She can have her own version, and it doesn’t count as only half a testimony, as it would here. In America, the woman’s version of events is often the one that sticks. It counts exactly as much as she wants it to count. And here is what she chooses to see now: white baby-fuzz arms flinging a woman across a table. Hard. Simone rubs her arm and slides down the booth. Does her head hit a wall? Mahtab tells herself that it does. James’s unfocused gaze flits between Mahtab and Simone. Oblivious to what he has just done, he mutters, “I told you to stay out of it.”
Mahtab gets up. “I’m going home.” She doesn’t raise her voice. No need to.
“Why?” James pleads wide-eyed. “Stay for a while. It’s not a big deal.”
But Mahtab is busy watching something else. The white nylon coat slides off Simone’s body and floats to James as he lounges in his comfortable booth. It covers his trembling shoulders in its validating embrace. Now he is wearing a caftan. Now he is a cleric. Now he lifts his head higher and everything he has done is okay. He may not think this, but there it is. Mahtab has seen it. The robe has covered him and he is lost, become one with the ranks of every hateful male Mahtab has ever known or imagined—like the
pasdar
s and clerics, or Mustafa, who held the baton over Ponneh, or Reza, who cannot stand up to his mother. James can never cast off this robe or convince her of his own fears, because Mahtab doesn’t forgive the little things—not when it comes to men and their unearned power.
He is weak, weak, weak
. She is much like me in such thoughts. Harmless? No. Without intention? Never.
There
are
no little things.
“You are too harsh, Saba jan . . . with Reza and your father and everyone. Forgive, dear girl. Reza is your friend. Your baba is your baba. Weakness isn’t a sin.”
Yes, but Mahtab, the lucky twin, doesn’t
have
to forgive or settle. That’s the point. She has the ultimate power to reject, to refuse forgiveness. She has abilities that I—as I sat and listened to a suitor for my own hand—would have given a fortune to possess.
“I don’t want you,” she says to her blond prince and his white baby-fuzz arms. “There are thousands of men at Harvard.” James is weak, afraid, ruled by his so-daunting mother. She cuts him out of her heart, as I too have done once before.
As she walks away, Simone calls after her, “I heard you wanted to carry a plastic purse to meet his mother.” Then she smirks as one would do at a village idiot.
Mahtab recoils. She goes to the slick-haired bartender and asks for a grocery bag. As she empties the contents of her leather purse into the bag, a feeling of nobility, of sacrifice, overtakes her. She doesn’t consider this action trivial, as other girls might. Instead she credits herself with much more. Over the next few days, the events of tonight will grow bigger and bigger in her eyes until she has defined herself by them. Even though she may realize later in life that James is just a confused, inexperienced boy without much temper, she chooses to see it as a vindication. Most likely she will never forgive James for unknowingly stumbling into the vicinity of her fears. And how do I know this? Because I know my sister better than anyone. Mahtab ties the plastic bag with a jerk, returns to the table, and tosses the leather bag into Simone’s lap. It is an exquisite performance, like a good television-style slap of the face.
Back in her room, she calls Maman. She pulls her dormitory pillow close to her and tells her mother all her worries. In return, Maman tells her a secret—the facts of her time in Evin Prison, which are still unknown to me. Do
you
know them, Khanom Mansoori? No? One day, I swear, I’ll gather all the details.
Before hanging up, Maman informs her about my upcoming marriage to Abbas and the fact that now I will be forever joined to someone other than my twin. I do wish I could see her face when she hears this news. Though I know all her usual expressions, her face in this moment is a blank to me. In all the years, neither of us ever bothered to imagine it—the moment of finding out that the other is lost.
Are you surprised, my friend? Yes, Mahtab thinks of me, even though she is busy with her student life. We are sisters. We are one blood. And of course Baba would have informed her of my marriage. Somewhere far west, Mahtab and Maman must know that I am married.
Khanom Mansoori, do you believe that she got out of Evin? They say that inside those walls they torture and execute hundreds every year. But then, many get out, forever changed, forever fearful. Those are the ones who run off to America, the ones who cut Iran out of their hearts. If Maman got out of Evin, she would surely run. I wish someone would tell me the truth. Obviously Baba knew more than he told me. Maybe there is still more he is hiding. Lately in my dreams when the
pasdar
holds that knife to my throat and tells me to stake my life on Mahtab’s whereabouts, I find that my mouth is sealed shut, that I can’t help but let him cut me, because I have no answer.
“Don’t cry, sweet girl. What if I sing you a song?”
No, no, I’m sorry. Let us focus on the happy part. This is the story of how Mahtab overcomes another Immigrant Worry. News of my marriage has made her realize something important: she may be from an Iranian village, and James a northeastern boy of platinum and gold, but today she wielded all authority. There must be something in her small body that can summon the world to move. Her broken-high-heel story didn’t get her beaten like our Ponneh, but it brought her here, to a place where it is
her
foot pressing on some man’s back. After accidentally unhinging the unattainable James Scarret, Mahtab will never again fret about having the strength or power to succeed at anything. I may be married to an old man, but my sister said no.
No. I don’t want you.
Just as simple and final as that.
No
. A final word that no one can question. Mahtab gets to continue her search. She is free and has only begun to conquer the throngs of pale-faced magazine-cover princelings who rule us all from their private clubs.
Good for you, Mahtab joon. You are a better woman than I.

o I feel bad for Saba? Yes, I feel very sad. But should I put dirt on my head? She is married to a rich man. Yes, there’s the Mahtab business, but that is no reason for pity. She is doing it to herself, hashing, rehashing. You know, the other day Khanom Mansoori said that in Saba’s stories there is never much talk of Mahtab pining for Saba. Curious, I thought at first. Then, after some thinking, my two cents dropped, as they say, and I understood. Mahtab is free and Saba knows it. Mahtab doesn’t long for anything. Saba can’t admit the truth of her sister’s release, so she makes up stories that hover around it. If you ask me, a seasoned storyteller, I would say freedom is such a powerful thing that no amount of denial can cover the smell of it, so it comes through in the stories. Mahtab doing this, Mahtab doing that. All that adventure and studying, her bread in oil.

It is
just
like Saba to pine for someone who never thinks of her. She pines for my son too. She should know better, since she has seen what real love looks like. In winters, old Khanom and Agha Mansoori would visit the Hafezis and throw a
korsi
blanket over a table and a stove. We would huddle together, our bare feet tucked under, drink tea, and listen to the bubbling water pipe and Khanom Mansoori’s sweet, girlish voice, like an overplucked
setar
string, singing ancient songs. Then her husband would hobble over, carrying a bowl of the gum-friendly foods they liked to share—apple or cucumber mush, or pomegranate seeds with salt, or orange slices covered in hogweed powder. “Khanom,” he would say, “I’ve seeded a whole pomegranate for you.”
I’d nudge Saba and tell her an old saying.
Only die for someone who at least has a fever for you.
She would pretend she didn’t understand, but she did. She still does. Now if only she’d see that there is a difference between just youthful fever and fever
for you
.

ix months after marrying Abbas, Saba finds herself in a kind of ease—a stable not-unhappiness that keeps her pleasantly occupied. She isn’t a girl who can be married anymore, and so, in many ways, she is free. Yet she is often bored, in food lines, at underground beauty salons, listening to Abbas. Should she have gone to college? No, she assures herself, and buys more books. What’s the use of studying Western literature in Iran, where half the books are banned and college entrance depends on knowledge of Islam? For now she has the Tehrani, purveyor of the very best education. Later on she will have her full and challenging life. Maybe she will fall in love. Maybe she will solve the mystery of her mother, who, despite the letter, could be anywhere. After all, according to every office Saba has phoned, her mother is no longer in Evin. She might very well have escaped with Mahtab on a different day. So for a little while longer, until Saba can find her own way out, Mahtab has to live richly for both of them. Meanwhile, Saba has uncovered secrets that have given her dominion over her limited world.

As a married woman, she can come and go more freely. Often she accompanies Ponneh or one of her village mothers through winding, tree-lined roads to small shops and markets, stopping to collect the ration coupons of the others. They visit the stores that are said to hold staples on this day or that, following rumors from shop to shop, collecting the most essential items, each supplied daily by a different store out of fairness.
Agha Maziar has eggs today. Iraj Khan got all the week’s chicken.

When possible, Saba doesn’t chase mass-produced rationed foods. She can afford to buy more expensive organic eggs or chicken directly from local farmers. Some things she gets from the black market. But there is still the sugar, cooking oil, butter, and imported items to buy the usual way. Before the war ended, store owners with the good fortune to acquire exclusive access to something vital would illegally bundle that item with unsellable junk they wished to unload.
Eggs can be bought only with the purchase of a flyswatter. Milk is available when you buy drain cleaner. A toilet bucket with your sugar today, Khanom? Only a suggestion . . .
Some shopkeepers still try this, and Saba piles the useless items in her cavernous storage room. Abbas detests household clutter.

In the first days of their marriage, she hated Abbas for failing to be as blind as her father promised he would be. He tossed out what he thought was all of her American music. He meticulously searched through her clothes for loud or colorful garments. He even examined her personal hygiene items, scrutinizing each article and throwing away anything that didn’t meet his obsessive standards. Unlike her strict mother, who years before had searched Saba’s room for signs of vanity, Abbas wasn’t looking for forbidden razors, but unclean ones; he wasn’t hunting for frivolous tweezers, but frowning at the tiniest hair stuck inside them. He had a thousand ridiculous demands. Khanom Omidi called it
vasvas
, the Persian word for that streak of obsessive compulsion that runs through all people. He complained that his dinners weren’t warm enough, that his yogurt wasn’t thick enough, that there was pulp in his bowl of pomegranate seeds. He was used to his ways. Why would Saba begrudge him a few eccentricities in his old age? And why would she leave the house without wiping that spot behind the oven?

But on the night Abbas first visited her bedroom, two months after their wedding, Saba forgave him all his peculiarities. Two months and he had never once asked to share her bed. Never once tried to touch her. Never even implied as much. He gave her a small bedroom across from his own, with a bed, side table, and lamp. It was a guest room. Like the rest of the house, it was decorated in the Western style, with chairs and beds instead of mats. He asked that she keep her clothing in his room, as was the marital custom. He asked that she leave no sign of herself in the guest room—in case of snooping visitors or a wandering kitchen maid. Every night, as they retired to their separate rooms, he mumbled in a tired voice, “Good night, child. Sleep well.” On those early-marriage nights, she asked herself,
Does he expect me to go to him?
And she decided that she never would.

Two months after their wedding, as Saba was beginning to fall asleep, she heard her doorknob turn, and there he was—standing in his long shirt and old pajama pants, looking even smaller and frailer than he did during the daytime. She panicked, thinking of what was to come. Now, when she recalls that night, she remembers three sensations overtaking her in achingly slow succession. The first was stomach-turning regret—
Why didn’t I go to Tehran? Any other girl would have gone to Tehran
. She remembers pressing her lips together and peering out of half-closed eyes to see what he would do, then hearing his footsteps as he approached her bed and hating herself for making the logical choice. She recalls Abbas climbing into her bed, and her revulsion when his pajamas slid up his leg and she saw his veiny, wrinkled ankles in the dark.

Does he know I’m awake?
she wondered, and pretended to sleep, still clutching her blanket for protection. In what she hoped resembled a natural fit of sleep, she rolled over to face the wall. And then it happened. Abbas moved close to her and placed his head next to hers on the pillow. He stretched out and pulled her covers over himself. She held her breath as he reached out with one bony finger to stroke her uncovered hair. He buried his beard in her neck and fell asleep almost instantly, sighing at what must have been the day’s aches and pains, then snoring gently into her hair.