The Temporary Bride Read online

  On reaching the thick wooden door of my hotel I’d been surprised when he reached his hand to me, shocked when he scribbled his name and address onto a page in his notebook and tore it out, pressing it into my hand.

  “Call me tomorrow at one p.m.,” he’d said, still without smiling.

  Watching him retreat down the narrow pathway, I was unsure whether I would call him at all.

  Chapter Five

  Vahid waits for me at the entrance gate, his face unshaven, his hair messy and crumpled with sleep. He is wearing a hooded gray sweatshirt that looks as if it has been pulled over his head at the last minute and a pair of sunglasses dangle from his hand. Behind him stands the apartment complex where he lives with his parents, a cluster of sand-colored brick buildings about four stories high.

  His flat expression comes as no surprise to me. I know already to expect it. When I’d phoned from the taxi, defeated by his illegible handwriting, the casual tone of his voice made me think I’d misunderstood his invitation. I’d passed my phone to the driver so Vahid could explain the whereabouts of his address. When he finished he’d hung up, without asking to speak to me again. He didn’t think to tell me it was a further twenty minutes away or to watch for the beautiful old henna mill we’d pass. Instead I leaned my head back against the cracked leather seat, breathing in the hot, stale air. It all felt bewildering to me to be driving this far across the city, toward the address that flaps gently in my hand. Bewildering, I thought to myself, opening the window a crack, that this is my first day waking up in Iran.

  As we pull up to the curb, he pokes his head in the window and argues with the driver about the fare. “You paid too much,” he grumbles, passing me the banknote he retrieves on my behalf.

  I follow him past the guards into a wide courtyard planted neatly with flowering shrubs. Several small children pour water into a makeshift hole and fashion sculptures from sandy soil packed into sawed-off tin cans. Two chadori women, dressed in long, dark shrouds, chat while rustling plastic shopping bags, their deep, masculine voices sounding urgent despite the midday heat. Vahid melts into something boyish and gentle in their presence, inquiring after their health, his voice rising several octaves higher than it has ever done with me. Above our heads the windows of the apartments are blacked out with amber adhesive panels, frayed and peeling around the edges. The balconies are concealed more vibrantly with colorful sheets—bright paisley patterns, elaborate equestrian scenes—generously strung from sagging lengths of twine and tightly wound around black iron railings: the miniature worlds behind them are betrayed by faint glimpses of an upended mop or a haphazard clothesline, the swishing of rubber flip-flops, the scratching of a corn broom.

  Vahid leads me to a wide, communal stairway, yawning loudly as we make our way up the four flights of stairs, past the plastic trays piled with shoes, the little wooden cabinets stacked neatly with shoehorns and tins of polish. As we pass each doorway I wonder about the secret women dwelling behind them. I imagine them relaxing while their husbands are at work, sprawled across maroon velvet sofas, feet up, relishing taking up entire spaces usually crammed with relatives and children. Perhaps they are watching Korean soap operas and eating ice cream, or polishing toenails while gossiping on the phone, twirling their long, loose hair around their fingers. Vahid presses a doorbell on the fourth-floor landing and I recognize the dark brown shoes he wore the day before, placed neatly against the wall, toes pointing outward. Instead of a chime, the doorbell plays a metallic version of “All You Need is Love.” I can’t help but smile at the strangeness of hearing it here, a Lennon–McCartney composition, in this building with its opaque windows, its inhabitants with their muted knowledge of one another, in this country where all Western music is banned.

  Unlike Vahid, his mother looks as if she’s been up for hours and opens the door in a way that instantly makes me feel wanted. She seems nervous but excited as she steps aside to let us pass, her face kind and smiling, her manner calm and unhurried. The full-length black cloak she wears brushes the tops of her feet, her matching scarf a tight loop around her head. A faint line of black pencil is smudged under her eyes and modest, silver jewelry clatters at her wrists and earlobes. She asks Vahid to fetch a crystal vase, its weight too much for her slight build, and fills it with water, dropping into it the flowers I give her, together with a spoonful of sugar. Methodically she pinches off wilted leaves with her fingers, tossing them into a plastic bowl of spent tea leaves next to the sink. She instructs Vahid to place the flowers on a low table in the center of the living room, a gesture of politeness, to show she likes the small gift I’ve brought.

  I take the cup of tea she offers to me on a tray and step from the carpet onto the linoleum floor. Her kitchen is bright and compact with large red cabinets, work surfaces covered in lace doilies and plastic flowers. By its gleaming door I understand the oven has never been used, filled instead with books, plastic vials of prescription medicines and bags of cotton wool. I suspect it is a consequence of the inhospitable climate that this is not a part of the country where chickens are roasted or casseroles are baked. Such heat-intensive cooking is likely carried out over a fire outdoors.

  On the rim of the extractor fan stands an assembly of evil eyes, prayer verses and a smiling porcelain cat wearing the label “Pennsylvania, USA.” Mindful not to disturb its careful order, I empty my Iranian cookbooks onto her countertop and she leans across to open them. She flips through the pages, tracing her fingers over the color photographs, murmuring the names of recipes written in both English and Persian. Vahid leans in to supervise but steps away after five minutes, both bored and redundant in our universal language of food. He seats himself in front of the television, opening a laptop, with a stack of engineering textbooks scattered next to him on the floor. Occasionally he returns to the kitchen to pluck a banana or orange from a wicker basket but his entrances and exits go largely unnoticed.

  At first Vahid’s mother assumes I know nothing, can’t even boil an egg, astonished a Western girl could eat anything other than spaghetti and hamburgers. She believes she is teaching me to cook from scratch and as a result gives me only the simplest things to do. As we prepare the afternoon meal of ash e reshteh—a thick, herbal porridge with dark wheat noodles—I know she can’t imagine such a meal would be considered time-consuming in London: the simmering of dried chickpeas too laborious; the washing of bundles of dill, parsley and coriander too cumbersome; the dried mint from her window ledge she crumbles between her palms into a pan of frothing butter too rich and intense.

  During the two hours we spend breaking noodles into fragrant, bubbling pots and turning herb and pistachio omelets with only our fingers, I come to understand she is in every way a mother. She pauses instinctively for me to watch her reconstitute sun-dried balls of whey with water, rubbing them with her hands in a ceramic bowl. She leans in close to observe my face as she holds out the resulting kashk, anticipating a grimace when the salty tang hits my tongue. She secures the stove by turning pot handles inward before handing me a wooden spoon to brown some onions. I can easily imagine her teaching a young Vahid to tie his shoelaces and comb his hair, to recite prayers or fold newspaper covers around his schoolbooks. More than once she refers to me as teflaki, an empathy used for people who are fragile, vulnerable in her eyes because I am alone.

  On the days that follow I return to her kitchen, where we stand barefoot side by side. I can tell she finds my interest slightly excessive, unaccustomed to such involvement in the activities of her kitchen, the routine she conducts without even thinking. They are as much a part of her as the prayers she excuses herself for, changing into a blue and white gown, turning toward the direction of Mecca, pressing her forehead to the ground. In her I sense the same strain of capability I recognize in myself; the meat she pulls from her freezer—the chicken legs portioned exactly for fesenjun, the fish steaks with black skin that will feed precisely four. Like me she enjoys her rice with extra salt, is unashamed to enjoy the taste
of her own cooking, picks at the last slices of raw onion from a serving plate with her fingers.

  She begins to look to me for compliments, unaccustomed to praise, teaching me words to describe our food as delicious; to accept her wishes of “nectar for your soul” at the end of each meal. I feel a mutual fondness emerge between us, but she is careful it never strays into the maternal, an invisible line having been drawn. She reciprocates the hand I rest on her shoulder, the good-bye kisses I place on her cheeks, but her attention to me remains solicitous and formal, keeping me always at a thoughtful distance.

  Secretly I am grateful to be spared the cloying affection she heaps upon her family: the husband who addresses her as “madame” in my presence and the son she dotes upon like a small child. I avert my eyes when she places cushions under their heads or removes socks from their feet, tossing them into a heap. Once after dinner she stroked Vahid’s hair with her fingers, murmuring and cooing while she massaged his scalp. He leaned his head back as if accustomed to it, and I found myself feeling mildly repulsed. Perhaps sensing I was watching Vahid open his eyes and, as if conscious of my thoughts, shook her off immediately, looking embarrassed, rising from his place on the floor.

  Each morning as I arrive and pass through their doorway I am hopeful of being urged to remove my scarf and coat, knowing the invitation to “be free” must come from Vahid’s mother. I hope it may come as our intimacy grows, earned through the skinning of broad beans, the paring of turnips, the sorting of wheat kernels for tiny stones. Or the moments our elbows touch as I stand next to her at the stove and wait for the shimmer of walnut oil to rise to the surface and the pot of rice that must return to the boil after the addition of three tea glasses of cold water. I feel my face flushing with the warmth of the kitchen, my clothes growing damp with perspiration beneath my coat, my scarf carrying the odor of frying oil when I finally remove it at the end of the day.

  It is only when Vahid suggests I look hot and uncomfortable that she takes any notice of my red face. She says something quickly to him, sounding annoyed and sharp, and goes to her daughter’s bedroom where I hear the opening and closing of a chest of drawers. She returns carrying a long, cotton nightdress, offering it for me to wear, a puzzled expression on her face. Trying it on, I feel silly in the teddy-bear pattern and frilly bows, amazed a twenty-three-year-old would wear such a thing. But I am relieved to exchange it for my dark coat and scarf, eager for the opportunity to bare my arms and hair. I suspect, as I return to the kitchen, this is how Vahid’s parents imagine all unmarried girls should be—dressed in pink and yellow, covered in ribbons, living in a world where the dour, profound colors of black, brown or gray have yet to set in.

  By the end of the day she too has removed her scarf and seems to take pleasure in seeing me comfortable. She puts it back on only when I take photographs and without so much black I begin to find her pretty. She wears about the same amount of makeup as me and with unobstructed views we openly analyze each other. She marvels at the extent of the blonde streaks in my hair and I notice how she gathers her thin curls into a bun. One day when I arrive with a dusting of blusher on my cheeks she mistakes it for sunburn and tells her daughter on the phone I am “thin-skinned” and not made for the harsh desert sun. She describes how I wander freely in their home without my scarf, seeming proud at how liberal she has become. I don’t realize, perhaps none of us does, that I am slowly entering their private, inner world. With this one gesture, I have crossed from zahir to batin, from the public into the circle where Iranians open their hearts. It is in this world they show affection and share troubles, freed from the need to maintain distance and appearances. As the days pass I feel I belong to them, hearing my name punctuating their sentences, my place in their home clearly defined. After five days it feels as if I live here. Strange that I could have anywhere else to go.

  Each evening, Vahid is tasked with taking me back to my hotel. Unlike the morning journey that I make alone, the return is a series of rushed walks through crowded meidans and scuffles from one shared taxi to the next.

  I don’t enjoy traveling with him. Vahid is brusque and impatient, resuming his pattern of shoving me first to one side and then the other, positioning himself between me and the night-time traffic. The only thing I like is that he edits nothing, steers nothing indelicate out of my path. Instead of Yazd’s wide boulevards and tree-lined avenues, we traverse guttered alleys and deafening laneways, neighborhoods where doors are left ajar. We pass homes where women squat on the floors folding laundry into baskets, barbershops where mustaches are trimmed and hair is oiled. Beneath our feet pools of sheep and chicken blood coagulate in the sun, sparks fly out from darkened garages where rusted metal is fused together.

  Unlike the streets in London, where couples would be out for the evening, energetic, holding hands or kissing, with their arms around each other, the few couples I spot seem languid and tired; most have one or two small children in tow.

  As in the afternoons I spend in the kitchen with his mother while he lies on the floor largely oblivious to me, Vahid and I also form a routine. I achieve very few words in his presence, the opposite of how we each spend our days. He has just completed two years of military service and seems to prefer talking at rather than to me, probably to avenge the two years he’s just spent being ordered around. He points out monuments, mosques and ruins, telling me extensively about their histories, failing to notice when I am distracted or lack interest.

  Sometimes as we walk, Vahid points out girls, asking whether I think they are beautiful. “Iranian girls are the most beautiful in the world,” he declares. “When I marry I will choose only the most beautiful girl. It is very important!” As he speaks I can see the baldness he inherited from his father advancing across his scalp.

  One afternoon Vahid’s mother and I finish early and instead of taking me directly home Vahid leads me to a large, outdoor garden. He suggests we stop for tea, saying the words more as a command than a question, never considering that I might refuse. The place he has chosen is surrounded by pomegranate trees with ornate pavements and small brass lanterns to be lit up at night. Husbands take photographs of their wives and children in front of a fountain and call out to the boys who rush back and forth, carrying trays of tea and wrinkly, black dates. We sit at opposite ends of a large wooden bench covered in rugs and pillows; a spot more suited to a courting couple than to the two of us who have nothing to say. Families at neighboring tables turn to look across at us, whispering unsubtly behind cupped hands.

  “You are my cousin, okay?” Vahid says. “If anyone asks.”

  “Sure, okay,” I nod.

  “Your mother’s sister and my father’s brother are married and live in the U.S.”

  “Got it,” I reply.

  Our tea arrives and as we sit, saying little, the feeling of being scrutinized begins to unnerve me. The right thing to do is to try to speak to him, to appear familiar, but I feel separate from him in every possible way. The sole tie that binds us is his mother and her kitchen, and the meals I watch disappear down his throat. If my daily presence in his house seems even vaguely novel to him, he gives very little away. He always seems distant, absorbed in faraway things; his prickliness feels as if it would take months to break down.

  Though the wooden benches are spaced several meters apart, families crowd the free places on either side of us, instructing their teenagers to listen in and translate the few words that pass between us. I look at Vahid, expecting him to be irritated, but he seems unconcerned, even pleased by the attention. I wonder whether he has brought me here just to show off. Two girls of university age approach shyly, asking me questions, and although our conversation is trite, I am thankful for the diversion. When they depart Vahid is stirring sugar into his third glass of tea, one leg tucked under his body, a brooding expression on his face.

  He turns to me finally. “Are you a virgin?”

  “No, of course not!” I answer immediately without thinking. I feel more horrifi
ed by the suggestion, which feels so absurd, than by the blunt intrusion into my privacy. I know I should be angry, even insulted, by his question, but this sudden flash of humanness has caught me off guard. Vahid stares down at his hands folded in his lap, looking bizarrely vulnerable and boyish. I can tell he rarely speaks to girls, especially about anything as intimate as sex.

  Conscious of the families all around us, I lower my voice to a whisper. “Something would have had to have gone very wrong in my life for me to still be a virgin.”

  “I will stay a virgin until I get married,” he replies stiffly, puffing out his chest in self-righteousness.

  “Really? And when do you plan to get married?”

  “Not until I am at least thirty-five. Girls just distract men from their ambitions so I want to get married late.”

  I try to imagine scenes of Vahid and his future wife, a pair of thirty-something virgins fumbling clumsily on their wedding night. I’m unsure which is harder to picture: staying a virgin until thirty-five or Vahid connecting emotionally with any girl enough to get her to sleep with him.

  “But what if you die tomorrow?” I persist. “Won’t you feel like you have missed out on something?”