The Shipwrecked (8 page)

Now I surveyed the crowd and saw that our headmaster and some upper-classmates from our school had joined in, ready for action.

Sohrab tapped me on the shoulder. “Look over there,” he said, “There's your dad.”

Sure enough, there he was by the newsstand talking with some men from work. He looked upset.

“Darn it!” I blurted out. “I think we're in trouble.”

“What do we do now?”

“Duck your head. Maybe he won't see us.”

“What then? He ain't blind.”

It occurred to me he might be there to protect the café. After all, he was a regular customer.

“More trouble,” Sohrab warned.

“What's the matter now?”

“Hussein Jumbo and his gang!”

“You're kidding.”

“I swear on my father's grave,” he said. “You've got eyes. Look for yourself.”

Sure enough, they were approaching from a side street, waving clubs and sticks over their heads.

“They're welcome,” I bragged, pretending not to be intimidated.

“Let's get the hell outta here.”

“Over my dead body,” I said, defiantly.

“Gutsy again, huh?” Sohrab sneered. “Have you forgotten about that night?”

THE NIGHT SOHRAB
was referring to had happened the previous summer when we were hanging out and had noticed the new bouncer in front of Mermaid Café. He was such a big fellow that he could block the whole doorway with his body. He refused admittance to Hussein Jumbo and his gang.

“Monsieur's
¹
orders,” he boomed.

“You must be kidding,” said one of the boys.

“You're asking for it,” said another, menacingly.

The bouncer remained unmoved. He stepped aside reverently, allowing two regular customers in.

The gang members, standing to the side of the café in relative darkness, kept taunting the bouncer, hurling insults at him. One of them, known as Abbas the Loner, stepped out of the dark, staggering. “I'm going in,” he announced boldly. “Get lost, out of my way,” he said, but he stepped back when he saw the size of the bouncer.

Another member, short and plump, rushed toward the café entrance. From his pants pocket he produced a switchblade knife and pointed it threateningly at the gigantic bouncer—from a safe distance. “To hell with Monsieur. I'm coming in,” he yelled at the bouncer, who beckoned to him to come forward.

Sohrab, standing next to me behind the boxwood hedge, was excited, anticipating the spectacle of a free-for-all between the bouncer and the gang. He started laughing uncontrollably. He was almost bent double in a paroxysm of laughter, attracting the attention of Hussein Jumbo, who ordered his gang to come after us. We sensed the danger and ran as fast as we could down the back alleys and if it hadn't been for Mozaffari the policeman nearby, we would have been torn to pieces.

SOHRAB TAPPED ME
on the shoulder. “They'll recognize us, don't you think?” he asked anxiously, pointing to Hussein Jumbo and his gang.

“Suppose they do. What of it?” I answered, trying to sound unconcerned.

“Remember? You soiled your pants that night,” he said.

“Shut your trap! Or I'll chop your head off.”

“All right, I'll shut up. But it looks like we're in deep shit.”

I looked back and noticed Hussein and his gang working their way through the crowd to get a closer position.

“I have an idea,” said Sohrab.

“Then come out with it.”

“What's the point? You don't take me seriously.”

“Come on, spit it out,” I hissed, impatiently.

Sohrab scratched his head and cleared his throat. “What if we join the headmaster?” he mused.

That was a stupid idea: Sohrab knew that the headmaster had lodged complaints against the café, demanding its removal from the vicinity of the school.

“You always say such dumb things!” I fulminated. “The headmaster is already a part of the mob, you jackass.”

We heard a loud, scratchy voice proclaim, “Tear the place down!”

“God is great!” Haj Yadollah excitedly cried.

“So, now you call me a jackass,” Sohrab said plaintively.

I almost punched his face because I felt he was trying to extricate himself from the situation. Then I would be left alone to rescue the mermaid from the vicious mob.

“You can't take a joke, can you?” I said amicably, holding tight to his wrist.

Then I heard the unmistakable voice of Hussein Jumbo. “We must set fire to this corrupt, rotten joint,” he shouted loudly.

“All it takes is a can of gasoline and a box of matches,” suggested one of the boys in the gang.

“Then what are we waiting for?” someone with a scratchy voice yelled.

Suddenly, Sohrab jerked his hand out of my grip.

“What the hell do you want from me?” he asked contentiously. “What does all this have to do with me? What's in it for me, anyway?”

“You can get her lute,” I told him, trying to be conciliatory.

“What good is it to me? I can't play.”

“You can sell it. It's a collector's item, worth a lot of money.”

Several men walked out of the café, frightened at the sight of the crowd, and frenetically hurried down a dark alley. Two members of Hussein's gang ran after them and disappeared in the darkness.

“I'll give you two tomans over and above,” I offered Sohrab.

“That's a deal,” he replied.

The gangs who had followed the customers in the alley returned carrying a container between them. The crowd parted to let them in.

“Don't you dare start a fire,” warned Haj Yadollah, waving his walking stick over his head vigorously. “Somebody stop these bastards.” He tried to push his way toward them in the middle of the crowd. Some people followed him.

“Let's go help Haj Yadollah,” I urged Sohrab.

“But didn't you say he was one of them?” he asked, exasperated.

I was confused, unable to think straight. Sohrab was
trying to pull me behind him by my sleeve. “Let's move on. Let's get going,” he insisted.

As we pondered the idea, I noticed a hand slowly push aside the curtain on the window of the café. I watched, motionless.

“It's her,” I whispered, my heart thumping.

“Who?” asked Sohrab.

“The mermaid!”

“Who?”

She was just as I had imagined her.

“Can't you hear?” Sohrab uttered irritably. “Who? I asked.”

The time had stopped still. I could not make a sound.

“She is the same woman who is there every night,” Sohrab speculated. He did not know what he was talking about. The woman behind the window was the mermaid herself, the one I had seen in my dreams. She wiggled like a fish and dove into the sea as I tried to embrace her.

By now the crowd was behind us, pushing us forward. Some men started whistling.

“Stop it,” Haj Yadollah yelled, sounding outraged.

“We must stone her,” the man with the scratchy voice announced.

“God is great!” Haj Yadollah responded.

The woman in the window crossed herself and let the curtain drop.

Somebody hurled a rock at the mermaid over the door
of the café. It hit the goblet in her hand and shattered it. The bouncer poked his head out of the door and surveyed the crowd.

“Who the hell is throwing rocks?” he yelled piercingly. Not receiving a satisfactory answer, he swung the door open and walked out with a broken bottle in his hand.

“Whoever is throwing rocks,” he shouted angrily. “I'll rip his guts out.”

Women screamed as they retreated behind the relative safety of boxwood hedges. Children scattered all over the square.

A contingent of policemen headed by Mozaffari arrived on the scene as the owner gathered the shards of the broken goblet. The crowd began to disperse.

For three days Mozaffari didn't move from his post in front of the café. He looked glum. He did not smile as he usually did, displaying his two gold front teeth.

After that night I was stricken with high fever that kept me in bed for a month. Everybody suspected typhoid and feared for my life.

Soon, trees blossomed and streets were cleaned. But there was no longer a trace of the Mermaid Café, or Mozaffari and his men.

Monsieur had left the neighborhood and the mermaid holding a broken goblet had disappeared.

MITRA ELIYATI
is an award-winning writer and poet, and the recipient of Golshiri Literary Prize. Eliyati is the author of two short story collections,
Mademoiselle Katie
and
The Mermaid Café
. She is the founder and editor of a literary website,
Jennie and Fairy
, and writes for several literary journals. She teaches and lives in Tehran.

¹
An informal way of referring to male Armenians and members of other Christian sects in Iran. Here, it is referring to the café owner.

Unsettled, Unbound

Fariba Vafi

THE MOVING TRUCK
is late. I have arranged a row of cardboard boxes against the wall on one side of the room. Mammad's mother is feeding the baby in a corner near the window. The baby lifts her hand to grab the spoon and feed herself. The old woman looks uncomfortable, perspiring heavily under her chador. Mr. Yazdani keeps talking incessantly, foam forming at the corners of his mouth. Mother keeps saying, “Yes, yes, of course,” as if she is listening to the old man's chatter, but she is hoping he would stop talking and leave the room, so she could remove her chador to cool off. Finally Mr. Yazdani steps out and she rips the chador off her head, relieved. She then turns to me, her face registering concern.

“Why are you leaving?” she asks, disapproval in her tone. “Your children will be unsettled,” she tells me. I feel like laughing when she says “children,” considering one is still in my belly. She's been saying that ever since she learned I was leaving Mr. Yazdani's house. Hearing the word “unsettled” from her mouth gives me a sense of
release. The word does not evoke any negative implications in me as she certainly intends it to do. It makes me think instead of a wandering, free-spirited dervish, not a homeless vagrant. As for the “children,” I have no idea how to react. I feel I am in transition. Leila lives in Tehran and has helped us find a house to rent.

I haven't been sleeping well. I am worried and anxious. Things can go either way. Mammad may call and say that it is not a good idea for me to move to Tehran, that he made a mistake in agreeing with my plans, that it is not easy to live in Tehran, that it is a mistake to leave our own town and province. Or, like he did the last time, nix my idea altogether and say, “Why do you want to move?” To which I would have to reply, “You are already away from your own town and province,” and talk about my loneliness, pointing out the fact that Tehran is closer to where he works and he can come home more often, every two weeks or so.

Everyday I pack the boxes I have picked up from the corner grocer. I label them with their contents and place them against the wall. I still have a lot of packing to do. By now I am exhausted and careless about what goes into each carton. I just fill them up and line them against the wall.

Mr. Yazdani is a constant, bothersome presence. He is one of those old men who feel entitled to interfere in everybody's life. His gray hair has now yellowed with age. He has a florid complexion that looks flushed when he
talks. He has strangely hirsute hands. He always looks harassed and there is an urgency in his movements. One would think that at the time of his death he would hurry things up to get a more desirable place in the ever after.

The first time I saw Mr. Yazdani, his watchful eyes darting under puffy eyelids, I had a premonition. He always seemed like he was chasing you with his eyes, constantly watching every move. But the house was attractive and I couldn't resist because of its bothersome landlord. It took me a while to convince Mammad. He was likely to change his mind at any time, and insist that in his absence the best place for me and the baby would be his mother's house.

Mr. Yazdani had his acquisitive gaze fixed on me, trying to look understanding and sympathetic as Mammad signed the lease. We were now Yazdani's tenants and Mammad stayed for a few days before going back to work. The first day, Mrs. Yazdani, with her half-covered face under the chador, turned to Mammad and exchanged greetings and pleasantries with him. She then turned the uncovered half of her face to me.

“I told Yazdani that only one child is allowed,” she said, as she glanced at my swelling belly. Mammad had told her that we would soon be a family of four. “Well now that you are here,” she added, “it doesn't matter. You are all welcome.”

The Yazdanis had two sons living at home and attending college. They seemed very shy. Any time we met on the
staircase, they would stand aside against the wall and slide down the stairs, eyes cast downward.