A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea (6 page)

This is Saba’s favorite sort of summons, because it means an afternoon with the only Iranian magazine she likes to read: the prerevolution copies of
Zanerooz
.
Today’s Woman.
Though the magazine covers serious topics now, such as women’s rights, in the Shah’s time it focused mostly on fashion, hair, and gossip. Each issue contained one tantalizing story called “Fork in the Road” about love triangles, or estranged husbands, or the midnight creeping of lecherous stepfathers who assumed girls didn’t talk, followed by a good revenge. Pages of delicious scandal and temptingly forbidden descriptions.

Ancient and bored, Khanom Mansoori likes the cheap thrill of racy stories she cannot read with her own fading, untrained eyes. Who can blame her for enlisting a pair of curious fourteen-year-olds as co-conspirators when she is left unsupervised with them, and when her equally ancient husband isn’t around to entertain her?

On this September afternoon, when Saba is trying hard not to let the autumnal Caspian vapors erase her memories of Mahtab, she reads Ponneh and Khanom Mansoori a story about a young man with two lovers. One is beautiful, the other charming. One is quiet, the other exuberant. One makes him want to go on adventures around the world, the other makes him dizzy with romance and contentment. The story enraptures Saba, by the strange contrasts and the rivalry. Whom will he choose? She glances at Ponneh, who rolls on her back and settles against a wall of colorful pillows.

“Khanom Mansoori,” Ponneh wonders aloud, “which do you think the boy should choose?” Saba places a finger between the pages and closes the magazine. She too wants to know, but she would never have asked.

Khanom Mansoori nods her small roundish head and says, “What does it matter what I think?” She smacks her lips together and her eyes begin to close.

“I think it matters,” says Saba. “Come on, pick!”
“Well,” Ponneh interrupts, “I think he shouldn’t choose. I think the girls should decide for him. He should marry neither or both. That way they can still be friends.”
Saba considers this for a moment. She decides not to let Ponneh finish and returns to the article. These stories always end with an unsolved dilemma.
What would
you
do?
the author goads. When they reach the end, old Khanom Mansoori tells Ponneh and Saba her own love story of a husband who has doted on her for seventy years. In return, the girls tell Khanom Mansoori about the unfairness of being fourteen and loveless.
Beautiful Ponneh with her almond eyes laments over being forced to tolerate a budding unibrow until she is married or, by some miracle, allowed to pluck early. Saba complains silently, never aloud, that her Persian nose has grown unwieldy and her body is starting to curve. She has pockets of fat, so graceless, and she is sprouting— becoming tall—while Ponneh is dainty. She too wishes she could pluck the tiny hairs around her eyes and lips, and that she wasn’t so dark, with her black eyes, black hair, and olive skin. Ponneh’s skin is the color of porcelain and her eyes an impossible shade of hazelnut.
And then the old lady, though half asleep, says something to make them both sit up. Like a prophet she opens her mouth and infects the room with awed silence. “I wonder if Mahtab is growing a big backside like you.”
Ponneh glances at Saba and begins to object. “What are you—”
“Oh, hush, hush, Ponneh jan,” says Khanom Mansoori, waving a hand in Ponneh’s direction. “Saba knows what I mean. Don’t you, child?”
Saba licks her dry lips and squints at Khanom Mansoori as if trying to peer through a crack in a wall. “Mahtab’s dead,” Saba mutters, because she has been told that this is the truth. Ponneh beams with pride and nods, which helps Saba with the guilt of having told a kind of lie, and of growing up and surrendering to the slow, bleak workings of adult logic. Saying the words aloud brings on a flutter of panic, like admitting out loud that there is no God after a lifetime of faith. A voice whispers,
I saw them get on a plane.
But Khanom Mansoori is shaking her head, making her scarf slip and revealing henna-colored tufts. “
Hmmm
. . . They said you were smart, full of book-reading and intuition. And here you are, believing everything they tell you to believe. You don’t know what’s true”—she shakes a finger at Saba and glares—“
ultimate
truth,
real
truth like most people don’t see. You can’t even unlock the magic of being a twin.”
Saba is bursting with the hundred responses that bubble up all at once, but before she can choose, Ponneh jumps to her feet. “Come, Saba,” she says. “We need lunch.”
Saba doesn’t move. She looks into the unfocused gaze of this tiny oldworld fortune-teller who, through her curtain of cataracts, has seen more of Saba than her own father has. “Mahtab’s dead,” she repeats, her voice betraying a hint of encouragement.
Khanom Mansoori leans in. “What about that letter?” she whispers.
Saba stares wide-eyed at Ponneh, her best friend, who looks both disapproving and ashamed—because who else would have told old Mansoori about the letter? She tries to remember if she ever asked Ponneh not to tell. Is this a betrayal? Will Ponneh be angry if Saba considers it so? Finally she decides.
“I’m too old for those stories,” she says, her voice all confidence and maturity. She knows what Khanom Mansoori is trying to do. She is close to the end of her life and she enjoys this abstract talk, the kind of what-ifs that take away the sting and foreverness of death. Maybe she wants Mahtab to be alive as much as Saba does. Or just to know that even if Mahtab is dead, someone keeps her memory fresh. Regardless, Ponneh’s opinion is much more vital to Saba’s happiness—and Ponneh is a realist.
“Too old for your own sister?” Khanom Mansoori tuts. “Not good.”
“The letter was only make-believe,” Saba offers for Ponneh’s sake. Then she adds, because it sounds so adult to say the words, “I was a kid. It was a way of coping.”
Khanom Mansoori chuckles. “Make-believe? Well, I don’t believe you,” she says, laying her head against the wall and slipping into sleep even as she speaks. “Come back when you’re older and not too grown-up. . . . Go on, both of you. I need a nap.”
Saba wishes Khanom Mansoori wouldn’t fall asleep. She wants to reach out and shake her awake. But Ponneh takes both her hands and pulls her up with all her strength, so that the momentum launches them into a manic run toward the kitchen. As they rush off, Saba hears the old woman’s faint snores, a last chuckle, and the mumbled words: “See me when the kid and the coping come back for a visit. They always come back when you think you’re grown . . . always, always.”

Agha Hafezi attempts to leave lunch—or at least hints of what to do for lunch—for Saba almost every day when he is busy in his office and his rice fields. On his worst days he leaves cash, or a note for Saba to deliver to one of the
khanom
s. Usually it says something like: “May I trouble you to cook lunch for my daughter? And tomorrow please come to the house and we will have a feast with our friends.” This translates to a bargain: Feed Saba today and tomorrow you can use our wellstocked kitchen and invite whomever you wish—two chores, but well worth a social event funded by the Hafezis. On his best days he leaves a plastic container of Saba’s favorite stews, left over from one of these parties. Today Saba spots an enormous white fish thawing in a bucket in the sink, with a note. “Saba joon, do you know how to cook this yet? If not, fetch Ponneh.”

She eyes the plastic bag Ponneh pulls out from her backpack— white rice and smoked carp, a simple money-saving dish. She moves toward the fridge, but Ponneh is already taking two spoons from the drawer. “Don’t worry. I brought enough for both of us.”

“Thanks.” Saba takes a spoon. She nods to the bucket and the expensive white fish flopped inside. “You can maybe take that to your mother.”
Ponneh’s face darkens. “I can afford to share one stupid lunch.” “Sorry,” says Saba, as they settle on the ground at the center of the cavernous Hafezi kitchen. The room is full of contrasts, with its oldworld
tanoor
from Ardabil—left over from the time of her grandfather who loved bread more than rice, though he didn’t make a show of it in Gilan—next to an industrial refrigerator and burlap sacks of homegrown rice in a corner beside a restaurant-quality oven and a huge rectangular sink. To make up for her mistake, Saba makes sure to eat out of Ponneh’s bowl—though her father has told her not to share food so intimately with any of the villagers. She takes a bite of smoky fish and buttery rice so plump and light, the grains float off the spoon and melt in her mouth. She tries to think of a way to restore Ponneh’s pride and says through a mouthful of underspiced food, “What if I just eat all this myself and you go on a diet?”

Saba heaps another spoonful, knowing that this will please Ponneh, that she will tell her mother and they will both feel proud. In Cheshmeh the quality of your food determines the quality of your family, and this is something Saba can give to Ponneh that no one else can, because the Hafezi stamp is hers. Maybe it will help make up for all the times that Ponneh offered Saba these intangible gifts—like during the first big rainfall after Mahtab left, when Saba wouldn’t get out of bed and Ponneh blindfolded her and forced her into the kitchen pantry for a surprise. After a few moments in the dark, Saba felt someone’s soupy breath on her face and heard a familiar whisper, “I don’t want to,” followed by a cry of pain. Saba yanked off the blindfold and saw Ponneh twisting Reza’s ear and scolding him until he ran off. “I’m sorry,” she said to Saba, her tone irritated, “I was going to get you your first kiss, so you can be happy again.”

Now a sad look passes over Ponneh’s eyes and she says, “You want me to diet so I can be a stick. Then you can win Reza for yourself and leave me out . . . like in the ‘Fork in the Road’ story, where one girl gets left out.”

Saba stares at Ponneh and tries to work out what game they’re playing now. She searches for a response. “That’s different! You can’t be in love with two people.”

Ponneh shrugs. “Who says? You don’t like it because you want a big Western-magazine love story that doesn’t happen in real life. And you like to fight. You and Mahtab were always competing for things. Now you’re trying to compete with me.”

The mention of Mahtab sparks a heat in her chest that Saba wishes she could rub out with her fingers. How dare Ponneh say that? Who does she think she is to mention Mahtab’s flaws? “We didn’t compete,” Saba snaps. “I just don’t think your way works.”

“It could,” says Ponneh. “And Reza agrees with me. His baba left to be with a new family when he could have brought them back here. They could have all stuck together. It’s better to have good friends for life than to win one stupid love contest.”

“It’s not a contest. . . .” Saba wants her friend to understand, but Ponneh has always been one of many—never part of a pair.
Ponneh interrupts. “I say three is always better than two. In the end, it’s your friends who help you. Look at Khanom Omidi and Khanom Basir and all those women. They do more for each other than they do for any husbands.”
“That’s peasant talk,” says Saba. “It says so in the Bible and every place.”
Ponneh looks thoughtful. “Maybe . . . But I think it’ll be the three of us forever. You, me, and Reza. Even if we get married to other people, or if you go to America.”
“Okay,” Saba mutters. Her stomach hurts. “Whatever you want.”
Ponneh continues. “Maybe we can
all
run off to America and dye our hair yellow. And you and I can wear red, red lipstick all day outside like in
Life
magazine!”
“Fine.” Saba drops her spoon and gets up to leave. She is still angry because Ponneh hasn’t apologized for speaking badly of Mahtab. And her back aches.
Saba stomps out of the kitchen. As she heads to the living room she hears Ponneh’s scream follow her down the hall: “Oh my God! What is
that
?”
Khanom Mansoori stirs on the floor pillows. “What is all this noise?” she hums, smacking her lips several times before opening her eyes. Saba turns to see Ponneh now standing behind her, mouth agape. Khanom Mansoori is snickering. “Oh, for God’s sake, I’m too old for these girl
bazi
things.”
Ponneh runs to Saba and says, “Don’t worry! I’ll go get my mother and we’ll take you to a hospital in Rasht. You just wait right here.”
Saba follows Ponneh’s gaze over her own shoulder and down to the seat of her pants. She lets out a shriek when she sees the blood. She is covered with it, and now both girls are screaming. Khanom Mansoori is trying to hoist her child-sized body up, muttering, “Aieee . . . No need for hospital. Stop the screeching and the drama
bazi
,
khodaya
. Let me just get my thoughts together.” The bewildered look on a face lined with years of experience makes Saba panic even more. It must be cancer. Or a burst tumor. Or internal bleeding. The old woman drones on. “Ponneh jan, you better call Khanom Omidi or Khanom Basir, or somebody else . . .”
It takes Khanom Omidi and Khanom Basir only ten minutes to arrive, and when they do, they are laughing and gossiping as if nothing were wrong. Saba wants to scream at them. This is her death, and they could at least muster as much concern as they showed when they all faked Mahtab’s death and sent her off to America.
“Let me see how to say this,” Khanom Omidi says, as she chews on a piece of basil. She must have been caught in the middle of a meal. She adjusts her girth and pats Saba’s trembling hand as she tries to explain. “In the old days, we would have to tell the whole town . . . and there is this story . . . let me see.” She moves to sit and, never forgetting her lazy eye—visible only when she looks up or down—pulls Saba into her line of vision. “There was a girl named Hava. And God decreed that the price of sin—”
Khanom Omidi is mumbling, looking for bits of wisdom in her memory. It is her habit to dole out advice generously on all things (whether or not she knows anything about them) like coins and dried mulberries from the thousand little pockets sewn in the folds of her fabric coverings. This indulgent woman reminds Saba of the Victorian doll on her desk, the one with dusty pockets sewn all over her dress for hiding jewelry where no one will expect. Sometimes Saba tucks coins in the hems of her own clothes to bring on the sheltered feeling of having a secret plan. She could use a secret plan today.
She strains to recall a section about blood and womanhood in one of her mother’s medical books, something about cycles and hormones. And did a calamity like this happen in a novel? Usually in books, if a passage seems odd, she blames her English and moves on. Now Khanom Basir, the Evil One
,
takes Saba’s hand. Saba tries to pull away, but raising two sons has given the awful woman a strong grip—and an expression like a snake preparing to strike, all beady eyes, sunken cheeks, and crafty, lipless smirk.
“Enough now,” Khanom Basir snaps at the other women, snickering behind their hands. “Laughing at a girl in her first messy state, it’s like poking at a sleeping camel.”
Saba and Khanom Basir spend the next half hour alone in the dim toilet past the living room. “You are not dying,” she tells Saba in her no-nonsense tone. Then she explains it all—almost as scientifically as Saba’s mother would have. “It’s not the worst as far as curses go. We bleed once a month and in return men have to toil and suffer until they die. They smell. They grow hair everywhere. Their bodies are shameful to look at—everything splayed out on the outside like that. . . . I’ll tell you, Saba jan, I love my sons, God knows they’re perfect, but . . . On your wedding night, when you see it, you’ll know what I mean and you’ll thank God for what he gave you.”
Afterward Saba thinks that none of the other women could have done a better job of revealing the mysteries of womanhood without fuss or embarrassment. Of course, had Reza’s mother realized that Saba was imagining all these wedding-night discoveries with one of her own precious sons, the cunning woman would have been much more careful with her words. Still, Saba wants to please her. She relishes Khanom Basir’s rare kindness, her attempt to make her comfortable with her body. Maybe her mother would have done the same. Only it would have been just the two of them, and Mahtab.
“Should I call my mother?” Saba asks. “I want to call her.”
Khanom Basir’s body seems to tense. “She can’t get calls where she is.”
“Why not?” Saba asks—maybe now that she is a woman, she is entitled to some truth. “I know she’s in America. I want to call her. Why can’t I call her?”
“Oh, God help us. . . . She’s not in America,” Khanom Basir says coldly. “And it’s your father’s decision when to tell you everything. So don’t use this as an excuse to create yet another Saba drama. Okay? Part of being a woman is accepting things that happen and not making your pain the center of everything. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” she mutters. If her mother was here, Saba would tell her that her back hurts. She would tell her the definition of all the words she has looked up in the dictionary. She would show her the lists she has made since the separation—lists of her favorite songs, of English words she knows, of movies she has watched, and of books she has read. On the day they meet again, her mother will want to know these things.
Back in the living room, Ponneh jumps up and cheers. Apparently, she too has had an explanation. “Good job, Saba! You’re a woman now.”
“Hush, child,” says Khanom Omidi, tossing some dried jasmine from her chador in the air around Saba. “Do you want the whole world to know her dirty, dirty business?”
But Ponneh ignores them. She steps aside and waves at a tea tray on the floor with so much flourish that one would expect a Norooz feast instead of the tea,
kouluche
pastries, and chickpea cookies that Ponneh seems to have found in the back of Saba’s pantry. “I made you a becominga-woman snack. So you don’t faint or freeze from blood loss.”
She gives Khanom Mansoori an eager look, and the ancient woman nods her hennaed head slowly, her heavy eyelids half closed with sleep and erudition, as if to say,
Yes, Ponneh jan, you have learned the science of it.
A few minutes later, Reza shows up at the door with his muddy football and a stack of blank tapes he hopes to fill with Saba’s music and is shooed away by the women making the most embarrassing fuss. “Go away, go away. None of your business!”
Saba wonders if Mahtab too experienced this milestone today— because aren’t they identical and tied together by shared blood? If her mother was here, Saba would tell her that she actually
feels
older. Maybe Maman would reply that, yes, she certainly looks grown-up. But then Saba considers that it might be ungrateful to focus on her mother now—when these other women made such a show of tending to her and even endured the shame of discussing topics that every self-respecting Persian knows to push under a rug.
“I’m sorry I yelled,” she says to Ponneh, and takes a becominga-woman chickpea cookie directly from her best friend’s unwashed fi n g e r s .