A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea (19 page)

Saba remained frozen that night, keeping a constant vigil over her body. She planned how she might delay the inevitable nightmare with lies and promises and clever tricks. Soon she too fell asleep, and when she woke, only three hours later, she found Abbas still asleep, his bushy chin still buried in her neck. That was when the second sensation washed over Saba: sweet relief. She carefully removed herself from under Abbas’s frail arm, sneaked into his bedroom, and retrieved some of her day clothes. She changed quickly and headed to the kitchen to make breakfast. There, in the kitchen, she experienced the third distinct sensation of that strange night: the thrill of possibility. Could it be that Abbas is too old for . . . that? Maybe she’d never have to do any more than
this.

The next night Saba waited to see if the previous evening’s visit would repeat itself. Abbas hadn’t mentioned anything to Saba all day long. But he seemed happier than usual. He complained only once about the yogurt, and when his tea was too hot, he mumbled and blew on it until it cooled. Saba began to fear that last night was only a groundbreaking and that Abbas would expect more tonight. But the old man stole into the room with barely a noise, slipped under the covers, and buried his tired head on Saba’s shoulders, falling asleep almost instantly.

Sixteen nights and nothing changed in Saba’s bed except for a few small demands. Some nights he would pull her close to him and wrap a thin arm around her torso. On other nights he would complain of the cold and grumble that she shouldn’t turn her back to him. Frequently he asked her to scratch his shoulders and back, a task that revolted Saba, given the volume of dry skin and scraggly hairs on his body. Afterward he always said, “Thank you, child,” in a strangely apologetic way. After a while he came to her room before she went to bed and performed his lengthy bedtime rituals alongside her, asking her to mix his cup of medicine with sourcherry syrup and ice water. Every night he clipped his nails to exactly a millimeter, cut his arm hairs with tiny scissors, and folded his dirty socks into perfect squares before putting them in an ordered pile to be washed. “Always someone is watching,” he said, “and it’s good for them to know I’m clean and neat.”

Soon, Saba’s fears began to subside. Abbas seemed to have no intention of consummating the marriage, at least not with anything more than the torturous intimacy of watching him groom himself. Each night she watched him and counted all the mental diseases that go untreated in this small town. Each day she told herself to relax. He was old. He obviously wanted a wife only for the sake of image—to prove his youth, his efforts to build a family. She was no more than a pair of perfectly folded socks and therefore had nothing to fear. But something inside her wanted to make sure, to put an end to this nightly dread. One morning she decided to say something.

“What is it?” he said. They were sitting at the small wooden table in the kitchen.
She hesitated. She wanted him to know, without being insulted, that she preferred to keep their current arrangement unchanged. Finally she blurted out, “I can’t give you children.” The words hurled from her mouth without grace, like garbage thrown out the window of a fast-moving car. She immediately winced at the stupidity of the lie.
Abbas looked up from his breakfast. His jowls bounced as he chewed. Saba could see in his eyes that he knew why she said this. He chuckled softly. “Yes.” He swallowed. “At my age, a man only wants a few small comforts. . . . I’m past that time in my life.”
Saba felt sorry for him just then. She wanted to pay him a compliment, so she said, “You’re not so old.” And then she regretted it, thinking it might be taken as an invitation.
Abbas looked sad. “No, there will be no children,” he said, as if he were speaking to his lap. Then he raised his head and added, “But you’ll die a rich woman. It’s no loss for you.”
She put another slice of cheese on his plate. “I don’t want children,” she said.
“Is that so?” He seemed to awaken. “Is it because you want to be a scholar?”
“Yes.” She smiled. A baby would tie her to Iran. No sneaking off in the night or easy American visas unless she left the child behind, as her mother had done.
“Are you happy then,” he asked, “with just us two in this big empty house?”
“Yes,” Saba said, though a part of her was already mourning a loss. How long would this last? She would never have to sleep with an old man, a relief, but would she never feel the joy of being with someone she might love? When would she be allowed an awakening? How long before she could run away? She mixed his morning medicines into a perfect sourcherry cocktail with plenty of ice and syrup. He smiled as he took a sip.
“You know, my last wife was very fat,” Abbas said, puffing out his cheeks. Saba laughed through a mouthful of tea. “It’s true. It’s true. She was a
khepel
. But I was always warm at night. When she died, that was the first thing I noticed. This house gets so cold and drafty, doesn’t it?” Saba nodded. “The second thing I noticed was no more pickle smell. She used to pickle everything, sweet woman.” He sighed and took another bite before getting up to go for his morning walk through the lush, dewy villages. At the door, he turned and said, “Saba jan, as long as we live our lives the way we like, there’s no reason for anyone else to know . . . about our private business.”
“Of course,” she said, reveling in her newfound freedom and failing to fully understand Abbas’s apprehension, the potential threat to his reputation and pride.
“Good day, child,” he said. “Don’t read too much. You’ll wear out your eyes.”
And so, months later, Saba finds herself happy. Sometimes, when she is alone and can’t keep the thoughts away, her skin remembers touching bare feet in the pantry or clammy hands slipping into hers. The fantasies show no face, and she pretends she is dreaming of a younger version of her own husband, of an adolescent love broken across decades. There is a certain romance to that. She will be loyal to her kind husband, she decides, and summon joy—latenight fevers be damned.
She spends most days at her father’s home because she is comfortable there in the house where she has a hundred secret places to hide music or books or magazines, which she still purchases from the Tehrani. Abbas doesn’t insist on going with her; he likes to spend his days out, smoking, playing backgammon, and telling stories with other men in the town square. Besides, her father enjoys having her company, and she helps with the burden of his constant guests. Lately Khanom Omidi and the elderly Khanom and Agha Mansoori visit her father’s house often, and Saba spends countless slow, lingering afternoons in their company—hearing stories, scraping cucumbers, sweetening tea. She watches the elderly couple feed each other an array of mush—apple pulp crushed in a bowl, melon scrapings in a glass with ice, sweetened saffron rice pudding with rosewater but no almonds—and she begins to imagine herself in old age, not a widow, but a beloved wife. In seventy years, maybe her own husband will scrape food for her. She has so many years beyond Abbas, she realizes. There are so many ways for this story to end.
A spring chill hangs in the air, so she prepares a foot stove for the trio, which she places under the thick
korsi
blanket at their feet. They compliment her, claiming that her marriage has made her extra sweet, extra sensitive to the needs of her elders. A
korsi
is a treat in balmy Shomal, where a space heater is enough. May God bless her, they pray.
“Saba jan, you are needed at Khanom Basir’s house.” Her father comes out wearing a thin shirt and loose pants. He joins the elderly couple under the
korsi
and puffs on his hookah, sending his regards to the women in Saba’s life through rings of smoke.
Agha Mansoori is halfway through seeding a pomegranate. He grabs clumps of seeds with his blue-veined fists and tosses them into a bowl. The seeds bounce this way and that, leaving blood-red streaks on the sides of the porcelain. They come to rest in a neat pile, a sea of ruby-red gems. His wife takes notice and shakily reaches for one. “Not now, Khanom. Wait till the bowl is full, so you can have them twenty at a time with a spoon.” She puts the seed back, and a guilty look passes over his face. “No, no. You start. At our age, what if we don’t make it to see the end?”
So much sentiment over a pomegranate seed. Sometimes in gloomy moments Saba considers what she might be missing. She has lived without so many kinds of affection. As she gets up to leave, she hears Khanom Mansoori’s fragile voice, high and shaky like old violin strings. “Who has a good story for us?”

It has been months since Saba, Reza, and Ponneh sat in a circle in her father’s pantry. It has been months since they smoked and drank together, told stories, and laughed at the oblivious adults. And in that time she has wondered daily,
Where is he now?
Is he in Ponneh’s arms, in some alley somewhere? Is he waiting for her in some secret place? While Ponneh has always protected their threesome, she has few choices for marriage other than Reza. The war with Iraq has taken so many men. Saba wonders how Reza has escaped it—some medical loophole or maybe just sheer luck—since he has no money for bribes. She has never asked because it is an unlucky and unwelcome topic with the men. Though the war is over now, she still has nervous dreams that he is sent off to some unknown battle zone or that he is attacked in the night by thieves or the moral police. After every dream, she wakes up in a guilty sweat because her mother taught her not to pine after men, not to tie her happiness to them, and to find her joy in work and study. She obeys her mother’s voice and casts Reza off until he is gone, until the young and adventurous companion of her dream universe is nameless again.

He could have stood by her when they were caught. He could have rushed to her rescue. But he was weak and did nothing, and now she will not want him.

But in this small town avoiding past loves is a luxury. And now that Saba is married, Khanom Basir feels no qualms about calling on her with requests, gossipy inquiries, and attempts to pry into her personal life. She has not once apologized for the role she played in arranging Saba’s marriage. Instead she employed a healthy dose of
maastmali
to cover her actions and considers Saba indebted to her. Today Saba has offered to shop for the Basir, Alborz, and Mansoori families. Yesterday she picked up their money—for meat, bread, eggs, vegetables, and possibly some mandatory mop, old soap, or pumice stone—and now she must stand in line for the sake of everyone’s dinner. She checks her purse for the extra ration stamps that her father buys from the black market—unused coupons from addicts or people with recently dead relatives whose IDs still work— and distributes to their friends.

Hours later, appearing at the Basirs’ door, laden with fresh fish and other supplies, Saba pushes aside the kitchen drapery and finds Ponneh and her mother chopping vegetables with Khanoms Basir and Omidi, the older women squatting on the floor with skirts wrapped tightly around their thighs, and Ponneh on a small stool, halfheartedly skinning a carrot, dropping orange curlicues all around her feet.

“Did you separate it already?” Khanom Basir says without looking up.
“Not yet,” Saba says, and greets everyone, kissing Ponneh on both cheeks.
“Never mind, I’ll do it myself.” Then Khanom Basir looks up and adds, “God keep you.”
“How are you, Saba jan?” Khanom Alborz asks. “We haven’t seen you recently.”
“Well, she is still a newlywed,” Khanom Basir says with a suggestive little grin that makes Saba shudder. “Why would she have time for us?”
“I’ve been at Baba’s house a lot lately. I’m sorry we haven’t seen you there,” Saba says to Khanom Alborz.
“Oh yes, well, my daughter takes up so much of my time,” Khanom Alborz responds, dropping her head in exaggerated sadness. “She keeps getting worse. You should thank God for your health, girls.”
“Yes, yes,” Khanom Basir chimes in again. “You two are the picture of health and beauty. Tell me, Saba, are you keeping your husband happy?” The coy grin returns, and Saba turns toward Ponneh, who makes a face and looks away.
Saba moves closer to Ponneh. Khanom Basir, taking her eyes off her cutting board for a moment, walks over and takes Saba’s chin in her hand. She gazes at her, almost lovingly, and Saba breaks into a shy, nervous smile.
“Your husband lets you wear makeup?” Khanom Basir asks. A blue-and-violetcheckered scarf is draped loosely around her neck. Saba remembers that the scarf once belonged to Khanom Alborz and wonders how Khanom Basir got it. It is old—left on a beach by a tourist—but it has a famous French name. Now Khanom Basir wipes her brow with it, as if to say she’s above it. “Well, you’re married now,” she says in a tone that Saba admits is almost kind. Then she reaches into the pocket of her long dress and takes out a crumpled piece of paper. “I found the recipe to wash your big windows. Here.”
The recipe is a simple three-ingredient mixture of mostly vine gar. It is written in a scrawled, uneven hand. Saba thanks the older woman, who has made unnatural efforts at teaching her every household skill—her way of showing that they can be friends now that the marriage question is settled. Shortly after her wedding, when all her surrogate mothers came to her new home and showed her how to store her spices, and bone her fish, and every other mundane thing they could think of, it was Khanom Basir who taught Saba how to make her own favorite dish, the perfect
gheimeh
, even though it was too heavy for Abbas’s stomach. And two days after her wedding, it was Khanom Basir who brought over a hearty
âsh
stew to “give her strength.” And now she holds out Saba’s portion of fish, neatly sealed in plastic wrapping. “Would you like to take it now or come back for it after your errands?”
“I’ll come back, thanks,” she says. These gestures remind Saba of the day she started to bleed and Khanom Basir explained womanhood in the toilet. Now she is one of them, a married woman with a certain dignity—though in her heart she is no older, no wiser, no less consumed by selfish desires, and given a choice she would rather squander every afternoon smoking with her single friends in the pantry.
Ponneh walks her out, linking her arm through Saba’s. “Next time I’ll give you a warning signal and you can leave the fish outside.”
“I’m sure they’ll love that,” Saba says. “I see your mother gave Khanom Basir her nice scarf. Isn’t that the foreign one she got from the tourist?”
“It was a reconciliation gift after another one of their fights.” Ponneh tucks some loose hairs back into her headscarf and picks a stray strand off her tongue. “About my sister’s illness and how I’m not allowed to marry yet. How I’ll die a pickled old maid.”
“Don’t be dramatic,” says Saba. “How is Reza?”
With her mischievous almond eyes, Ponneh says,
Don’t ask
. Saba giggles. She feels sorry for her friend. Her mother’s rules leave her no outlet other than clothes to express herself. Recently she has attempted Tehrani styles, wearing fewer bright colors and tossing her scarf loosely over one shoulder, pushing it far back to reveal puffedup hair over her chiseled face. Saba lowers her voice to a whisper. “Really, Ponneh jan, look at you. You
must
have a lover. . . .” Ponneh glances up with a half-smile but Saba continues. “I have trouble believing you’ve gone all this time without . . .
someone
.”
Ponneh pulls at the sleeve of her pink cotton blouse. “I have enough friends.”
“That’s not what I meant,” says Saba.
“I know what you meant.” Ponneh looks up. “I miss the three of us. Reza does too.” When Saba starts to ask again, Ponneh interrupts. “Don’t worry so much. We’d never leave you out.” Saba takes her friend’s hand. She knows that Ponneh is only trying to spare her pain—that surely she and Reza see each other often. She can see it in the way Ponneh avoids the question, the reflective way she picks at her nails and looks away for just a second. Now Ponneh switches to a whisper, her eyes sparkling as she leans in. “I’ll tell you a secret. I have a new
friend
, someone I met at—” Then she stops and Saba wonders why Ponneh doesn’t want to tell her where she has been.
“Yes?” Saba searches Ponneh’s face.
Ponneh rolls her eyes. “Her name is Farnaz.” Khanom Omidi passes by them on her way out. She kisses them both goodbye and smiles her oblivious smile. When she’s gone, Ponneh whispers, “Sometimes, it’s more fun with another
girl
.”
“What are you two talking about?” Khanom Basir shouts at them from inside.
Saba turns back to Ponneh. “What
are
we talking about?”
“Don’t get me wrong,” says Ponneh. “This is just practice. She’ll be married soon. Maybe I will too one day. But for now . . .” Ponneh raises an eyebrow proudly, like a child caught being fantastically bad. Saba can’t contain herself. She reaches for Ponneh’s arm, and they double over in quiet laughter.
She wants so much to tell Ponneh about her arrangement with Abbas. To declare that she isn’t sleeping with an old man and that she too needs a little practice. There is a comfort in joking with Ponneh about intimate things again. But she decides to keep her secret. She promised Abbas.
It’s always best to reveal less,
her mother used to say, and it seems wise to follow this advice now. “I miss it too,” she says. “All of us together in the pantry.”
Ponneh wipes some kohl from the corner of her eye. “Do you think Abbas would want to join in?” And they burst into another fit of giggles like they used to do when they were little girls.
“I better go—” Saba starts to say goodbye. She leans over to kiss Ponneh.
Ponneh cuts her off. “Look, I have some news.”
“What is it?”
“Do you remember that woman who saw us . . . that day? Your mother’s friend?” The light tones are gone from Ponneh’s voice and she wears the same serious, heavy-hearted expression she wore for the first few months after the incident with Mustafa.
Saba nods. “Dr. Zohreh? I didn’t think you saw her.”
“I didn’t,” says Ponneh. “She asked for my name around town and she found me.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Saba demands.
Ponneh shrugs. “It was my secret.” Then she says, much more bitterly, “I’m the one it happened to, not you. Besides, you were busy being married.”
Saba starts to apologize, but vague memories of her mother’s friend grip her.
“Dr. Zohreh wanted me to ask you to come and see her. She said there’s something your mother wanted you to know.” A tightness spreads across Saba’s chest. Ponneh crosses her arms. “I’m considering joining their group. Your mother’s group. Sheerzan.”
Lioness.
She laughs, leans in, and adds, “You’ll have to forgive them the awful name. They’re doctors and engineers, not poets.”
“Why would
you
join?” Saba asks. She hasn’t heard the name
Sheerzan
in what seems like a hundred years, and even then, only in passing, in whispered conversations between her parents. But she can conjure enough memories to realize that Ponneh, a village girl who quit school after eighth grade, doesn’t belong with them. Her mother’s friends were college students and daughters of important men. Why would the doctor approach Ponneh and not her? Despite her indignance, Saba knows she wouldn’t risk her future the way Ponneh might—it would be cruel to cause her father more worry. She wonders what her mother would think now if she saw Saba and her friends at the age of twenty. Reza still idling away the days with football. Saba married to an old man, and Ponneh an activist. She would grow horns from the irony of it. How much does Dr. Zohreh know about the mystery of Bahareh Hafezi? “What did Maman tell her?”
“That’s all I know.” Ponneh shrugs. She raises that seductive eyebrow again and adds, “That’s where I met Farnaz.” Saba has the feeling that Ponneh is trying to change the subject. Maybe she doesn’t want to share her new confidante. Stuck in a poor household packed with sisters, Ponneh rarely gets her own private joys. Saba kisses her friend goodbye, and they promise to meet in the pantry on Friday with Reza because it would be a shame to let their greatest childhood happiness die.