The Book of Fate (13 page)

My tense muscles relaxed a little. My breath, which had been caged in my chest for I don't remember how long, was set free. But he stood up and again my body contracted and I pressed myself tightly into the corner.

‘Listen, my dear girl, there are things I have to do tonight. I have to go see my friends. I will leave now. Change into something comfortable and get some sleep. I promise you, if I come back home tonight, I will not come to you. I swear on my honour.' Then he picked up his shoes, held his arms up in surrender and said, ‘See! I'm leaving.'

 

At the sound of the front door closing, I crumpled like a rag and sank to the floor. I was so exhausted that my legs could no longer bear my weight. I felt as though I had carried a mountain. I sat in that position until my breath regained its normal rhythm. I could see my reflection in the dressing table mirror. My image kept distorting. Was that really me? There was a ridiculous veil sitting lopsided on my dishevelled hair and despite the remnants of the repulsively heavy make-up, my face looked terribly pale. I tore the veil off my head. I tried to unfasten the buttons on the back of my dress. It was useless. I yanked on the collar until the buttons ripped out. I wanted to tear that dress off and be rid of anything that symbolised that absurd marriage.

I looked around for something comfortable to wear. There was a bright red nightgown with masses of pleats and lace laid out on the bed. I said to myself, This is Mrs Parvin's shopping. I saw my suitcase sitting in a corner. It was large and heavy. I moved it with great difficulty and opened it. I took out one of my house dresses and put it on. I walked out of the bedroom. I didn't know where the bathroom was. I switched on all the lights and opened all the doors until I found it. I held my head under the sink faucet and soaped my face several times. The shaving kit on the side of the sink looked foreign. My eyes remained fixed on the razor. Yes, that was my only escape. I had to set myself free. I imagined them finding my lifeless corpse on the floor. For sure, the stranger would be the first person to discover it. He would be terrified, but he would certainly not be sad. But when Mother found out I was dead, she would wail and weep, she would remember how she clawed at my hair and dragged me out from under the bed, she would remember how I begged and pleaded, and her conscience would suffer. I felt a certain chill and pleasure in my heart. I went on with my imaginings.

What would Father do? He would put his hand on the wall, lean his head on his arm and cry. He would remember how much I loved him, how I wished to study and didn't want to get married, he would be tormented by the cruelty he had shown me, and perhaps he would become ill. I was smiling at the mirror. What satisfying revenge!

Well, what would the others do?

Saiid. Oh, Saiid would be shocked. He would holler, cry and curse himself. Why didn't he come to ask for my hand in time? Why didn't he steal me away one night and help me escape? He will live the rest of his life with sorrow and regret. I didn't want him to have so much grief, but it was his own fault. Why did he disappear? Why did he not try to find me?

Ahmad!… Ahmad would not be sad, but he would feel guilty. After he heard the news, he would be in a daze for a while. He would feel ashamed. Then he would run to Mrs Parvin's house and drink morning and night for an entire week. And from then on, he would spend all his drunken nights under my scolding gaze. My spirit would never leave him in peace.

Brother Mahmoud would shake his head and say, ‘That wretched girl, sin after sin, what flames she must be burning in now.' He would not blame himself the slightest bit, but still, he would read a few
suras
from the Quran, he would pray for me on a few Friday nights, and he would be proud of himself for being such a compassionate and forgiving brother. A brother who despite my having been a bad girl had asked God to forgive me and who had lessened the burden of my sins with his prayers.

What about Ali? What would he do? He would probably be sad and become a bit reticent, but the minute the neighbourhood kids came for him, he would run out and play and forget everything. But poor little Faati, she was the only one who would cry for me with no sense of guilt. She would feel just as I did when Zari died, and she would be plagued by a destiny similar to mine. How sad that I won't be there to help her. She, too, would find herself friendless and alone. Mrs Parvin would praise me for having preferred death to an undignified life. She would regret that she had lacked the courage to do the same and had betrayed her great love. Parvaneh would learn about my death very late. She would cry and surround herself with the souvenirs she had of me and she would always remain sad. Alas! Parvaneh, how I miss you, how I need you.

I started to cry. The fantasies faded away. I picked up the razor and held it against my wrist. It wasn't very sharp. I had to press hard. I didn't have the heart, I was afraid. I tried to remember my rage, anger and hopelessness. I reminded myself of the wounds Ahmad had inflicted on Saiid. I counted, ‘One, two, three,' and I pressed down. A strong burning sensation made me drop the razor. Blood gushed out. Pleased, I said, ‘Well, that's one. Now how am I going to slash my other wrist?' The cut burned so much that I couldn't hold the razor with that hand. I said, ‘It doesn't matter. It will just take longer, but in the end all the blood will drain out of this one wrist.'

Again, I drowned in my fantasies. I felt less pain. I looked at my wrist; it had stopped bleeding. I squeezed the wound and groaned in excruciating pain. A few drops of blood fell into the sink, but again the bleeding stopped. It was no use; the cut wasn't deep enough. I can't have reached the vein. I picked up the razor. The cut on my wrist was throbbing; how could I cut the same place again? I wished there was a better way that didn't involve so much pain and blood.

My mind instinctively went on the defence. I remembered the woman who had spoken at a ladies' Quran reading session. She had talked about the sin and the unseemliness of committing suicide, about how God would never forgive you if you took your own life, and about how you would spend eternity in the flames of hell, in the company of snakes with fiery fangs and torturers who flog the humans' burned bodies. There, you would have to drink rancid water and suffer the hot spears they would stab into your body. I remembered that for a week I had nightmares and had screamed in my sleep. No, I didn't want to go to hell. But what about my revenge? How could I make them suffer? How could I make them understand how ruthless they had been with me?

I thought to myself, I have to do this; otherwise I will lose my mind. I must torment them the way they tormented me. I must make them wear black and mourn my death for the rest of their lives. But will they really have tears in their eyes for the rest of their days? How long did they cry for Zari? She hadn't even committed a sin and now, from one year to the next, no one ever mentioned her name. Barely a week had passed when they all gathered around and said it was God's will and they should not question it, that it was divine providence and they should not be ungrateful. They said God was testing them and as his servants they must pass the test with honour. God had given and God had taken away. And in the end, they were all convinced that they had done no wrong and had played no role in Zari's death. I thought, it will be the same for me. After a few weeks they will quieten down and after two years, at the most, they will forget. But I will remain in eternal torment and I won't be there to remind them of what they did to me. And in the middle of all this, those who truly love me and need me will be left alone and grieving.

 

I threw down the razor. I couldn't do it. Just like Mrs Parvin, I had to give in to my destiny.

My wrist had stopped bleeding. I wrapped a handkerchief around it and returned to the bedroom. I went to bed, buried my head under the sheets and wept. I had to accept the fact that I had lost Saiid, that he did not want me. Just like someone burying a loved one, I buried Saiid in the deepest corner of my heart. I stood over his grave and cried for hours. Now, I had to leave him. I had to let time bring me indifference and forgetfulness and erase his memory from my mind. Would that day ever come?

The sun was high in the sky when I woke up from a deep and dreamless sleep. I looked around, confused and disoriented. Everything seemed unfamiliar. Where was I? It took a few seconds for me to remember everything that had happened. I was in that stranger's house. I leaped up and looked around the room. The door was open and the utter silence suggested I was alone. I was relieved. It was strange; a sort of indifference and coldness had spread through my whole being. The anger and rebellion that had raged inside me for the past several months seemed to have died down. I felt no sorrow and no yearning for the house I had lived in and the family from whom I had been separated. I felt no sense of belonging to them or to that house. I didn't even feel hatred. Even though it felt as cold as ice, my heart beat slowly and regularly. I wondered whether there was anything in the world that could one day make me feel happy again.

I got out of bed. The room was larger than it had seemed the night before. The bed and the dressing table were new. They still smelled of varnish. They were probably the ones Father said he had bought. My suitcase was open and in disarray. A carton stood in the corner of the room. I opened it. There were some sheets, pillowcases, oven mitts, kitchen linen, towels and a few other odds and ends that my family had not had time to unpack.

I walked out of the bedroom and into a square hall. There was another room on the far side. It looked like a storage room. To the left of the hall there was a large glass door with honeycomb panes. The kitchen and the bathroom were to the right. There was a red carpet on the floor of the hall and floor cushions and backrests made of carpet were arranged on either side. On one wall there were a few shelves full of books. Next to the glass door was another shelf with an old sugar bowl, the statue of the bust of a man I did not recognise, and a few more books.

I peeked into the kitchen. It was relatively small. On one side of the brick counter there was a navy-blue wicker lamp and on the other side a new gas range with two burners; the gas tank was under the counter. A set of china plates and platters with a red floral design were stacked on a small wooden table. I remembered them well. When I was young, Mother had bought them during a trip to Tehran for the trousseau Zari and I would need. A large carton sat in the middle of the kitchen. It was full of newly polished copper pots of different sizes, several spatulas and a large heavy copper tub. Obviously, they had not found an appropriate place to put them.

Everything that was new belonged to me and everything else belonged to the stranger. I was standing there surrounded by the dowry that had been prepared for me from the day I was born. The entire objective of my life was reflected in those kitchen and bedroom furnishings. Each piece revealed that the only thing expected of me was to work in the kitchen and to serve in the bedroom. What onerous duties. Would I be able to manage the tedious task of cooking in such a disorganised kitchen and tolerate my unpleasant duties in the bedroom with a stranger?

Everything was repulsive to me, but I didn't even have the energy to feel agitated.

I continued with my exploration and opened the glass door. One of our carpets was spread on the floor and sitting on the mantelpiece were two crystal candelabras with red pendants and a mirror with a clear frame. They were probably from my marriage ceremony, but I couldn't remember having seen them. In one corner was a rectangular table with an old faded tablecloth, on which sat a large brown radio with two big, bone-coloured knobs that looked like a pair of bulging eyes staring at me.

Next to the radio was a strange square box. I walked over to the table. There were a number of small and large envelopes with pictures of orchestras on them. I recognised the box. It was a gramophone, just like the one Parvaneh's family had. I opened the lid and ran my fingers over the black, round rings nestling inside one another. Too bad, I didn't know how to turn it on. I looked at the envelopes. It was fascinating; the stranger listened to foreign music. If only Mahmoud knew!… The books and the gramophone were the only interesting items in the house. I wished they would just leave me alone there with those few things.

Well, there was nothing else in the apartment. I opened the front door and found myself on a small terrace. There were stairs that led down to the front yard and up to the rooftop. I went downstairs. In the middle of the brick-paved yard was a round reflecting pool with old blue paint and fresh clean water. Two long and narrow flowerbeds flanked either side of the pool, a relatively large cherry tree in the middle of one and another tree in the middle of the other. When autumn eventually came, I realised it was a persimmon. A few Damascus rose bushes with dusty, thirsty-looking leaves had been planted around the trees. Next to the wall, an old withered grapevine hung from a time-worn trellis.

The façade of the house and the walls surrounding the yard were made of red bricks. I could see the bedroom and living room windows of the upstairs apartment. There was a toilet at the far end of the yard, the kind we used to have in Qum and that I was always afraid of using. A few steps separated the yard from the wraparound terrace of the ground floor, which had tall windows with rolled-up wicker shades. The curtain at one of the windows was open. I walked over to it, shielded my eyes with my hands and peered inside. The furnishings consisted of a deep red carpet, several floor cushions and a bedding set that was folded up and stacked next to the wall. There was a samovar and a tea set next to one of the floor cushions.

The front door of the ground-floor apartment looked older than the front door of the apartment upstairs and there was a large padlock on it. I assumed this was where the stranger's grandmother lived. She was probably at some social gathering. I remembered seeing at the marriage ceremony an old, slightly bent woman wearing a white chador with tiny black flowers on it. I remembered she had put something in my hand; perhaps a gold coin. The stranger's family must have taken her somewhere else so that the bride and groom could be alone for a few days. The bride and groom!… I snickered and went back to the yard.

A staircase led down to the cellar. Its door was locked. Narrow windows below the ground-floor veranda cast some light into the underground room. I peered through them. The cellar looked cluttered and dusty. It was obvious that no one had gone down there in a long time. I turned to go back upstairs when my eyes again caught sight of the dusty Damascus rose bushes. I felt sorry for them. A watering can stood next to the reflecting pool. I filled it and watered the plants.

 

It was around one o'clock and I was starting to feel hungry. I went to the kitchen and found a box of pastries from the marriage ceremony. I tasted one. It was very dry. I wanted something cold. There was a small, white refrigerator in the corner, containing cheese, butter, some fruit and a few other things. I took a bottle of water and a peach, sat on the kitchen windowsill and ate. I looked around; what a cluttered and messy kitchen.

I took a book from the shelves in the hall, went back to the unmade bed and lay down. I read a few lines, but I had no idea what I had read. I couldn't concentrate. I tossed the book aside and tried to sleep, but I couldn't. Thoughts kept dancing around in my head: now, what should I do? Do I have to spend the rest of my life with the stranger? Where had he gone in the middle of the night? He must have gone to his parents' house. He may have even complained to them about me. What should I say if his mother scolds me for having kicked her son out of his own home?

I tossed and turned for a while until the thought of Saiid erased all other thoughts from my head. I tried to push it aside. I chided myself that I should not think about him ever again. Now that I had failed to kill myself, I had to watch how I behaved. This was how it had started for Mrs Parvin, and now she was comfortably cheating on her husband. If I didn't want to turn out like her, I had to stop thinking about Saiid. But my memories of him wouldn't leave me alone. I decided the only solution was to start collecting pills so that if one day life seemed unbearable and I found myself being drawn down immoral roads, I would have an easy and painless means of suicide. Surely, God would understand that I had taken my life to escape from sin and would not assign me a horrifying punishment.

I felt as if I had been in bed for hours and had even dozed off, but when I looked at the large, round clock on the wall, I saw that it was only three-thirty. What could I do? I was terribly bored. I wondered, where did the stranger go? What does he plan to do with me? I wished I could live in that apartment without him having anything to do with me. There was music, a radio, plenty of books and, most important of all, there was peace, seclusion and independence. I had no desire at all to see my family. I could take care of all the household chores, and the stranger and I could live our separate lives. Oh, if only he would agree.

I remembered Mrs Parvin saying, ‘Perhaps you will grow to like him. And if not, you can have your own life.' I shuddered. I knew exactly what she meant. But was she really guilty and at fault? Would I be an unfaithful woman if I were to do the same? Unfaithful to whom? Unfaithful to what? Which is the greater disloyalty: sleeping with a stranger whom I don't love, whom I don't want to touch me, to whom I was married after someone spoke a few words and I was forced to say yes or someone else said it on my behalf; or making love with a man I love, who is everything to me and with whom I dream of living, but no one has spoken those few words for us?

What strange thoughts were spinning around in my head. I had to do something, I had to keep busy; otherwise, I would lose my mind. I switched on the radio and turned up the volume. I had to hear voices other than my own. I went back to the bedroom and made the bed. I crumpled up the red nightgown and stuffed it in the carton that was there. I looked in the closet; it was untidy and many of the clothes had fallen off their hangers. I tossed everything out and arranged my clothes on one side and the stranger's clothes on the other. I tidied up the odds and ends in the dresser drawers and organised the items that were sitting on top of it. I dragged the heavy carton into the storage room across the hall, which contained only a few boxes of books. I tidied that room, too, and then I took the unnecessary items from the bedroom and stored them there. By the time I finished rearranging these two rooms it was dark outside. Now I knew where everything was.

I was hungry again. I washed my hands and went to the kitchen. Oh, it was in such a state, but I didn't have the energy to tidy it up. I boiled some water and brewed some tea. There was no bread. I smeared some butter and cheese on the dry pastries and ate them with a cup of tea. I went over to where the books were in the hall. Some had strange titles that I didn't quite understand; there were several law books, clearly the stranger's textbooks, and there were a number of novels and volumes of poetry – the works of Akhavan Saless, Forough Farokhzad and a few other poets that I really liked. I remembered the poetry book that Saiid had given to me. My small book, with an ink drawing on its cover of a stem of morning glory in a vase. I would have to remember to bring it. I leafed through Forough's
The Captive
. What courage she had and how boldly she had expressed her emotions. I felt some of her verses with my entire being, as if I had composed them myself. I marked a few of the poems so that later I could copy them in my poetry scrapbook. And I read out loud:

And again, I scolded myself to have some shame.

It was past ten o'clock when I picked up a novel and went to bed. I was exhausted. The title of the book was
The Horsefly
. It described terrible and horrifying events but I couldn't put it down. It helped me to not think and to not be afraid of being alone in the stranger's home. I don't know what time it was when I finally fell asleep. The book fell from my hands and the light stayed on.

 

It was close to noon when I woke up. The apartment was still drowned in silence and solitude. I thought, What a blessing to live without being bothered by anyone; I can sleep as late as I want. I got up, washed my face, brewed some tea and again ate a few of the pastries. I said to myself, Today is Saturday and all the shops are open. If the stranger doesn't come back, I will have to go out and do a little shopping. But with what money? In fact, what am I going to do if he doesn't come back? He must have gone to work today and, God willing, he will come back late in the afternoon. I wanted to laugh; I had said God willing, meaning I would like him to come back. I wondered, Do I really value him in some way?

I remembered one of the stories in
Woman's Day
magazine. A young woman is forced into a marriage, just like me. On her wedding night she tells her husband that she loves another man and cannot go to bed with him. The husband promises not to touch her. After a few months, the woman starts to discover the man's virtues and gradually forgets her past love and develops feelings for her husband, but he is not willing to forget the promise he has made and never touches her. Could the stranger have made a similar promise? Excellent! I had no feelings for him; I just wanted him to come home. First, I needed to clarify where we stood with each other; second, I needed money; and third, I had to make it clear to him that under no circumstances was I willing to return to my family. The truth was that I had found a refuge and I liked living without being pestered and plagued by them.

I turned the radio on loud and went to work. I spent many long hours in the kitchen. I cleaned out the cabinets, lined their shelves with sheets of newspaper and neatly arranged the dishes and other odds and ends in them. I stacked the large copper pots under the countertop near the gas range. In the carton of towels and linens, I found some loose fabric. I cut it into different-sized tablecloths and since I didn't have a sewing machine I hand-stitched the borders. I spread one on the kitchen table and the others on the kitchen counter and cabinets. I put the new samovar, which was obviously part of my dowry, on one of the cabinets and set the tea tray next to it. I washed the gas range and the refrigerator, which were both very grimy, and spent a long time scrubbing the kitchen floor until it looked clean. There were a few embroidered tablecloths among my things. I took them to the living room and spread them on the mantelpiece, on the table where the radio and gramophone were, and on the bookshelves. I rearranged the records and books according to height and I fiddled with the gramophone a little, but I still couldn't turn it on.