The Temporary Bride Page 12

  I do not want to be quiet and obedient. I don’t want to behave in a measured way.

  I stand up from my chair, stumbling over a tangle of wires, and hastily smooth my scarf into place. At first the stale-smelling room with the green-hued posters of Khomeini on the walls and the sounds of boys shooting guns, is disorienting. But as I walk back to my hotel, the breeze composes me, ruffling the spiderwebs that flap overhead. I feel lucid again, grounded by the familiarity of the path.

  It was not that we wanted to use my room. My room was the worst, most foolish choice. We had meant to go to a spot Vahid knew in the country, a tiny house near the mountains in Taft. The building itself was largely a wreck, he had warned, scarcely more than bare stones and a crude, slatted roof. From the well in the garden you could draw icy-cold water and make delicious tea. I’d remembered the area from a picnic we’d taken. I’d picked wild herbs with his mother while his father butchered a chicken and rinsed it in a cold stream for the barbecue. But as Vahid put a blanket and candles into his backpack, and prepared to drop his parents at the doctor’s in town, they had had a last-minute change of heart. His father’s back was no longer bothering him. His mother would massage a paste of turmeric and lemon into his aching muscles instead. There was really no need for a doctor, they’d insisted, and we’d gotten out of the car and gone back upstairs.

  We move slowly through the bazaar, going over our plan again. It is nearly dark. People are rushing home from evening prayers. The chicken seller is switching off the naked lightbulbs and tossing bloodied, rolled-up newspapers into the trash. Women pour water from cola bottles onto the pavements in front of their doors to cool them and make it smell like rain.

  “The steps to my room are just past the kitchen,” I repeat. “If you go the back way, you can reach it without being seen. You have to walk through a little dining room but it’s always empty.”

  A group of children rush past us, rolling a large tire down the alleyway. They feed its rubber notches through their hands, hollering encouragement at each other to go faster. One of the boys slips and the children lose their footing, sending the tire slamming into one of the shopfronts. The children collapse into peals of laughter as it bounces off and spins onto its side, their mischievous excitement joyful and infectious. Normally Vahid would pinch their cheeks, or roll up his sleeves and help them set their tire upright. But this evening his face is fixed with concentration and he passes them, staring straight ahead.

  It had occupied my thoughts last night when I lay in bed, deliberating as I tried to fall asleep. Would he take his time with me? Should I treat him with extra care? Would he like the first full sight of my (dirty, filthy) naked body or was I setting myself up to be further humiliated?

  I focus on keeping my pace easy and unhurried. Vahid waits by the doorway while I check the reception desk. I imagine the staff would take pride in discovering us, eager for the reward for phoning the police. I turn back and wave for Vahid to follow. I hear his slow, careful footsteps, the light rasp of his breath. We quickly squeeze each other’s hands. From this point there is no going back.

  As we part, moving in separate directions, I wonder if, like me, he realizes that this is where we’d first met, the place where we’d first thought so little of each other. Only feet away it had all started so innocently, with a hello and a glass of tea, a handful of sugar.

  I pass through the courtyard and the waiters spot me. They are used to my returning late in the evening. They like to tease me, telling me I’ll have to choose one of them to marry. That it isn’t safe for a pretty girl to be out alone. Often I linger, describing the recipes I’ve cooked, enjoying the fierce debate that ensues. They argue and critique, thumping and shoving each other, citing the techniques of their mothers, insisting on the correct way to cook a stuffed hen or a sweet milk pudding.

  But tonight I am pleased to see the courtyard is busy; a tour group are having dinner and there is a loud din of laughter, music and the clanging of cutlery. The waiters are rushing back and forth with plates and glasses, with time only to smile and wave quickly in my direction.

  With my hands outstretched, I grope along the walls, feeling the cold stone beneath my palms. I reach out, taking swipes with my fingers, hoping to feel his torso, his familiar thick hair. Stumbling blindly forward, I strike upon something hard, then arms come around my waist and pull me close. “Joonam azizam,” he whispers and I recognize the term of affection his mother often uses with him. We hold still, his warm, damp cheek against mine, listening for the sounds of something, we aren’t sure what. For the sounds of men hurrying, shouting, “They went this way!” pointing at a boy and a girl who went up a darkened staircase together.

  I grope for the cold, metal padlock that holds my doors shut and Vahid uses his cellphone to shine light on it for me. The creaking of the doors is the last thing I hear before we cross the threshold and lock the bolts again from the inside. At first we stand shyly, blinking in the darkness, uncertain what to do with ourselves. The emptiness and total privacy before us feels shocking, the two small, warm beds and neat row of rubber flip-flops on the floor.

  Everything has changed now that he is in my quarters. It is I who offers him a place to sit. I pour us both water from a plastic jug. Upturned for the first time since I arrived, the second cup has a thin layer of dust on its surface. He looks around at my things, picking up books, the plastic armbands and exercise DVDs I haven’t touched. Each item he carefully folds and replaces as though nervous to leave any evidence of his presence. It is in this same, cautious way he moves toward me. He places a hand on each of my shoulders, pressing his forehead to the back of my hair.

  “Joonam azizam,” he whispers again, his voice coming out like a sigh. He rests his cheek against the slope of my neck. I reach behind me and wrap my hands around his waist. We stand, sticking to each other like children. The timidity, the guarded approaches, the raw feelings and gnawing away at each other, all have gone. Gently he spins me around and we stand opposite each other, feeling brave, confident in what we have to give.

  He pulls a toothbrush from his pocket, asking if we might first brush our teeth. We slide our feet into the sandals and stand side by side at the basin, our mouths full of foam. The normality of it is soothing. For a minute it is as if we are back at his home. I half expect to hear his mother calling me to begin splitting open a cauliflower or his father shuffling newspapers and clearing his throat.

  With the lights out it should be darker. Ordinarily I would need a lamp to be able to read. But tonight extra lighting floods in from the hotel courtyard, overcoming even the thick curtains and sheets of paper taped over the windows. In spite of the voices outside I feel fully alone with him, forgetting about the difficulties of his being here. It makes it easier to face him, to look at his eyes and the shape of his mouth. I realize I still know so little about him, or what we are together. I know only that here men should be with men and women with women. And I know the words he whispers next.

  It is strange for me to think of them as the truth. Though I know in some physical way he needs and desires me, it is different from love. I can’t guess at what worth we have to each other. I know only that there is something; something scratching there. We both need someone to look at us, someone to reach out and make a claim. Just for this moment, before the world outside steps in and cuts everything short, we want to linger in the belief we are free to meet a thousand times more and do this again.

  I give him my mouth and he pulls me down onto the mattress. I tell him things to encourage him. I whisper his name and hear my own, spoken warm and urgent in my ear. His skin, hidden away since he was an infant, is available to me, reacting to my touch. He smells of himself, but even more so, the scent of cologne, his warm temperature and long fingers, things I’ve been aware of for days. Every bit of him is familiar to me but at the same time different and new.

  “Thank you for letting me into your privacy,” he whispers before pressing a condom into my hand. He
needs me to guide him and tell him what to do. But aside from that small gesture that keeps us separate, ensuring we can leave no permanent imprint on each other, everything else he does is his own, the will of his hands, his own body.

  I am afraid to look at the time, to acknowledge the quiet that has grown outside, the things that hasten to divide us. There is no question of his leaving, or his parents would grow suspicious. He still has to make it back outside unseen. It would be so easy, in another place, to just fall asleep together now. Instead the darkness reminds me he is merely on loan to me, that the only thing left for him to do is to return home. I watch him as he stands and dresses. He shows no embarrassment at being naked in the soft light, pulling on his jeans and his shirt.

  I wrap the blanket we have been lying on around me, walking quietly with him to the door.

  He strokes my cheek, turning me gently to look at him.

  I can see by his face he feels it is wrong to leave me, wrong to say goodnight and part this way. I experience the same, helpless distress as always. But we are at the last station, there is nowhere further for us to go. I want to tell him, “Don’t go. Stay with me,” but these are words I cannot say. “Please be careful,” is the most I can offer.

  He turns toward the staircase, disappearing into the darkness to make his retreat home. I listen intently for the sound of his footsteps on the stone floors and hear the heavy thud of the front door close behind him.

  I sit and smooth out the surface of the bed. The sheets and pillow are covered in his small, dark hairs. At first their significance is lost on me and I begin to brush them away with my hand. But we are now more to each other than either of us had imagined, in a place where we cannot thrive. I look at his hairs still clinging to my pillow and wonder whether I should gather some of them to keep. But I don’t need any of that to make me remember. I will never forget any of it.

  I have reached an end here. Everything has been packed. My bag has become awkward with the weight and shape of three additional tin boxes of rosewater sweets that have been stuffed and forcibly zipped inside. Vahid places my belongings in the trunk of his father’s car and opens the rear door for me. We drive one last time, separated, with me sitting alone in the back behind him.

  We pass streets I have seen many times before, or streets exactly like them anyway. The chalky roads that haven’t seen a drop of rain in months. Everything built in shades of tan and beige. The signs are still a confounding series of hieroglyphs except for the numbers, which Vahid has taught me to distinguish. The symbol for six looks like a tensed, coiled snake while the forked symbol for four resembles a medieval weapon.

  If Vahid is conscious of what’s coming he gives little away. It is his nature to maintain a stoic face. I don’t expect a show of emotion from him. Public indifference has always been his way.

  I take a photograph of Vahid in the final moments before I leave Yazd. He is sitting next to me on a bench outside the bus station, holding in his hand the ticket he’s helped me purchase.

  His brown eyes are pensive and his long fingernails are curled under his cheek. I tell him if I were staying longer I would do as I’ve seen his mother do for his father, and cut his nails for him. What he says is, “Don’t go. Stay here with me.”

  He warns me not to trust people so easily in Shiraz. That not everyone will be like him. Then he tells me he has relatives in Esfahan. That maybe, if I want, he could come and meet me there.

  He presses some waxed paper into my hand. “I bought you some halva for your trip. It is made with sesame paste and sugar, it will give you energy.”

  He walks me to my bus and gives my bag to the driver to put in the hold underneath. Then he comes on the bus and helps me find my seat.

  He looks at me and I don’t know what to say to him. There are a few girls already seated, who stare at us and whisper.

  He asks the girl sitting next to me whether she speaks English and if she can keep me company during the trip.

  “Jenny, I won’t shake hands with you,” he says. “It’s not allowed and I don’t want to cause problems for you.” He stands a moment longer, stares at me and tries to smile. “Good-bye, Jenny,” he says, turns and slowly passes through the aisle and down the stairs.

  “Was that her boyfriend?” one of the whispering girls asks the girl alongside me. “Why is he leaving her all alone?”

  The girl beside me offers me a biscuit. I unwrap the halva on the small folding table for her to share. I rest my head on the thick curtains that run the length of the window and the bus’s engines grumble to a start.

  Through the blackened windows I can’t see anything. There is no possibility to see his face or wave good-bye. Everything wanted or unsaid will remain so. All that matters now is to be gone, away.

  Chapter Nine

  It is an adjustment to be in the kitchen with a stranger, a man, after growing used to the meticulous calm of housewives. When I knock on Ali’s door at the time he’d mimed to me with his fingers, he answers wearing only a pair of pale green underpants. He picks soil from his fingernails with a kitchen knife while I lean over the sink to scrub my hands. When I try to determine what he wants to be paid for teaching me to cook, he just shrugs his shoulders and looks up at the high, black-domed ceiling.

  At the market I trail several paces behind him. I sense he is mildly embarrassed by me. Once or twice I take a photo of tiny, curled cardoons or furry quince so tender it can be eaten raw, and when I review the photos later I see him watching me, unsmiling in the background, the handles of the plastic bags full of our shopping coiled tightly around his hands. Standing in the kitchen in our matching blue rubber sandals, leaning awkwardly against the turquoise tiles, we try to plan our menus, which brings about instant disagreement. He favors guts and organs we can throw on charcoal and eat with raw onions; I prefer slow, complex wedding recipes. Heart kebabs versus rice with chicken and candied orange peel. Tongue in yogurt sauce or a whole fish stuffed with pomegranate and herbs. Each morning in Esfahan begins in the same way. My tug on Ali’s brass door knocker, a fumbled answer in faded boxer shorts followed by disgruntled negotiation and painful debate.

  I don’t dare remind him that I am paying. That I can thread chicken wings onto skewers any time I like. Instead I try out a technique I’ve learned from watching Vahid’s mother, shrugging my shoulders, gently shaking my head. The effect is as if one has been supremely hurt and insulted, bullied into a choice one has no wish to make. I’m stunned to find how effective it is.

  So with one hand dialing his mobile phone and the other snapping a CD of screechy music into the oil-splattered stereo, Ali orders me into the courtyard to untie bundles of herbs from the market. Sitting on an uncomfortable wooden chair, I pick the leaves from the stems one by one. It is a task that takes me nearly two hours while his hairy arms pound dainty flecks of saffron with cubes of sugar and saw hunks of meat into quarters.

  All of this has been arranged by Azadeh who owns the guest house in Esfahan. She’d thrown the door open to me, scarfless, when I arrived, with the greeting, “I’ve found you a cook!” But by then I’d not wanted any more invitations of this nature and felt disappointed to remember the desperate e-mail I’d sent to her weeks before from London. It was silly, I knew, to feel nostalgic, to refuse to set foot in another kitchen, to restrict myself from learning anything more now that I was away from Yazd. So I smiled and tried my best to appear grateful.

  Azadeh is not like any other Iranians I’ve met. I like her lazy way of chatting with me while sitting in the courtyard smoking cigarettes. She pleads with me to make pesto with the basil growing rampant in her garden, declaring she’ll simply die if she has to eat another “damned plate of rice.” She has an Armenian boyfriend who brings cognac when he comes to spend the night, whose uncle comes daily to teach her to speak Armenian. She wants to spend the summers in Yerevan, where there are jazz festivals and an abundance of red wine. She shows none of the need for formalities and boundaries I’ve learned to e
xpect, feels no reluctance in imposing or making demands. She enters my room without knocking to invite me out to coffee, to places with dark wood and handwritten menus where art hangs on the walls. She examines my shampoo, my soap and face cream, raising them to her nose or squirting dabs into her palm to try. One morning she drops a magazine in my lap, a copy of Italian Vogue another guest has left behind, thrusting a pair of scissors into my hands. She points to a photograph of a model with short bobbed hair and asks me to cut hers in the same style. I suppose I could find it rude or intrusive to be treated with such familiarity by someone I barely know. Instead I am flattered to be drawn into these everyday intimacies and requests. I chop at her long, black hair, nervously watching it fall into dark, cloud-like piles on the floor.

  At first it is for her that I submit myself to Ali’s lessons, to following him and feeling ordered around like a child. But I grow to like his rough, male ways and his love of meat and sinew, and he seems happy that I keep up with the relentless pounding and chopping he demands. Carrots we cut into long, fat diagonals. Slow-fried aubergines are mashed to a pulp with the flat side of a teacup. The fenugreek, chives, parsley and mint I spend hours sorting and mincing are thrown in to a pan of spluttering hot oil and toasted until they are glossy and reduced by two thirds.

  I learn through Azadeh that he cooks professionally for wealthy families in Tehran, where he has a wife and three children. He is here only because Azadeh’s mother is a close friend of his family and he felt obliged to come when he heard Azadeh was here alone. He’ll go back to them at the end of the summer but for now he’s agreed to live here and help out.