by Zoya Pirzad
As Nina handed back his plate full of Fesenjan, she said, ‘Hey, watch out there, Mr. Burt Lancaster. You almost stabbed me in the eye with your fork!’
Garnik sat back down and when he had stopped laughing, he said, ‘I saw Shamkhal a couple times. He’s a very humorous and pleasant fellow. Extremely learned. He knows five or six languages... Kudos to the chef for the marvelous Fesenjan!’ He served himself salad and added, ‘It’s a crazy world we live in these days. They just pick up an eraser and wipe whole countries off the map.’
Artoush said, ‘Isn’t it about time we removed this-istan and that-istan from the map and made them all equal?’
Garnik reached out for the herb platter. ‘Yeah, and we can all speak Russian and read Maxim Gorky.’
Together, Nina and I said, ‘Now don’t the two of you get into it again.’ For a few seconds everyone was quiet, except for Mother and Alice, who were explaining to Joop how to make Fesenjan. Emile said something in Violette’s ear, and the two of them chuckled. Nina said to Garnik, ‘So it’s Chamkhal, is it?’
Garnik pinched her cheek affectionately and said, ‘Cutie.’
Joop was explaining something to Alice, and Emile and Violette were whispering again. Before I could think what they might be talking about, Alice said, ‘Listen to this, everyone. Go ahead, tell them,’ she said to Joop, who blushed and shook his head. Alice turned to us. ‘Listen. Who knows what Braim and Bawarda mean?’ And she turned around to face Joop. ‘How did you learn all this?’ Joop blushed again and Alice turned back to us. ‘Well? Anyone know? Braim is the name of a kind of date. Before the English bought the land for Abadan, the whole area of Braim was a date palm orchard, producing this particular kind of date.’
Garnik said, ‘Kudos for the dolma! Of course, dates are very tasty, too.’
It was one of the few times that Artoush listened carefully to what my sister was saying.
Alice set her fork and spoon on her plate and leaned forward. ‘Now listen to the rest of it. Can you guess where “Bawarda” comes from? Don’t know, do you? This whole area belonged to an Arab man who had a very very beautiful daughter, called Warda. Warda means “rose” in Arabic.’ She turned back to Joop. ‘Did I get it right?’ Joop nodded and Alice continued. ‘They called this Arab, according to the custom in Arabic, “Bu Warda,” meaning Father of Warda. So the English buy the land and they call the neighborhood after its former owner. After a while, Bu Warda contracts to Bawarda.’ She cocked her head to the right. ‘North Bawarda,’ and then to the left, ‘south Bawarda.’
Artoush said, ‘That’s very interesting.’
Garnik muttered under his breath, ‘Like I said, a spy or something...’ Nina elbowed him to be quiet.
Alice looked at Joop, and said, ‘How interesting! We have to keep you around.’ Joop blushed again and laughed. Mother offered the herb platter around. I thought, if Joop’s story is true, the father of Warda must be one of the few Arab men who was called after his daughter rather than his son.
Joop and Artoush were talking to each other. Joop said, ‘A myth it may be, of course.’
Artoush said, ‘Fact or myth, it was interesting.’
I was clearing the table and thinking no one had noticed that I had not eaten dinner, when Emile said, ‘The dolma was outstanding, though how could you know, since you did not touch a single bite all night?’ He began helping me.
Mother came up and told him, ‘Please have a seat. Clearing the table is no job for a man.’ Emile headed toward Nina, who was calling to him, and Mother grumbled under her breath, ‘I detest men who tie on the apron strings. Did you hear what Joop told Alice at dinner? He said...’
I stacked the dirty plates, picked them up and headed toward the kitchen, saying to myself, ‘I did not hear and I don’t want to hear. Leave me be.’
When everyone was leaving, Nina whispered in my ear, ‘I think it’s a match.’
Violette only said, ‘Thank you.’
Mother said, ‘Remember to store the leftover Fesenjan in a porcelain dish.’
Joop took fifteen minutes to say thanks and goodbye. I closed the door behind them all.
While I was washing the dishes, Artoush came into the kitchen, leaned over the sink and said, ‘The girls want a story.’ He laughed. From the beginning of the evening he had been laughing constantly.
‘I don’t feel like telling a story,’ I said.
He looked at me. ‘Why not?’
I did not look at him. ‘I’m tired.’ He started playing with his goatee. I turned my head back and looked at him for a few seconds. ‘Why don’t you shave your beard?’ I asked.
34
I was in a huge house, with a maze of rooms and corridors. There were many people coming and going, none of whom I knew. I took the twins by the hand and tried to leave the house, but could find no way out. A tall priest came forward and said that I did not have permission to leave until I solved the riddle. Then he pulled the twins by the hand and dragged them away with him. I ran after them.
I was in a huge courtyard, with rooms on all sides. In the middle of the courtyard was an empty round pool. I was crying and calling out to the twins. A young woman carrying a child came in through the door. She wore a long red skirt that trailed on the ground. I was calling out to the twins and crying, and the woman in the red skirt was laughing, dancing around the pool, tossing the child up in the air over and over.
I woke up. My heart was racing and I was drenched in sweat. Artoush was asleep. I threw off the covers, put a thin sweater on over my nightgown, slid my feet into my house slippers and walked out into the yard. It was barely dawn. The scent of red clover was in the air, and there were some new buds on the rose bush.
I paced up and down the front path, from the door to the gate and back a few times, thinking about my dream.
I sat on the swing seat, which was wet from the overnight dew. The branches of the willow did not quite hang down to the back of the swing seat. The house in my dream was not familiar. I did not recognize the priest, nor could I recall the riddle. The yard and the round pool were, however, things I had really seen. The moisture on the swing seat was irritating.
I got up and walked into the backyard. The twins had dug a little pit under the hose faucet. One of the games they played involved filling the pit with water, mixing in some stones and weeds and dirt, and stirring it with a couple sticks to ‘make soup.’
Mother had said, ‘It is not more than two hours from Isfahan to Namagerd.’ But I was ten years old, and the trip seemed to take much longer than that.
Alice whined all the way. ‘When will we get there?’
Mother had said, ‘We’re going to Namagerd to buy suet.’ Father loved the dishes mother made with suet.
I walked hand in hand with Father through the narrow alleyways of the village and watched the dirty, scrawny children who were pressed up against the cob walls for shade, or stared out of their crooked, crumbling window frames at the travelers from the city.
Alice whined non-stop. ‘I’m choking on the dust and dirt.’ But I was not concerned with the heat and dust and dirt. I watched the women of the village, who were dressed in the local costume. The younger women veiled their mouths with the trails of their long colorful headscarves. Mother was listless from the heat and dust and the steady warm wind blowing in our faces. When I asked her why they veiled their mouths, Mother said that young brides were not supposed to talk, especially in front of their in-laws. The long red and yellow and green headscarves were the only colorful objects to be seen in the village. Everything else was the color of dust.
We stepped into a courtyard. Alice was pulling Mother’s hand, pleading, ‘Let’s go back.’ In the middle of the courtyard was an empty round pool, and all around the yard were rooms with wooden doors and glass transoms covered in dust. In a corner of the courtyard a few young women were sitting around a small brick oven making bread. An old woman kept criticizing them and complaining about the way they were going about it. Fa
ther was talking to the owner of the house, a man with bulging eyes, much chubbier than Father. Alice nagged the whole time. I looked silently around, feeling as if I was about to burst into tears.
A woman entered the yard through the open door of the house. She was tall and very thin, barefoot, with long unkempt hair, full of straw. A scrawny, mangy dog followed her. When the woman saw us she laughed. Alice fell silent and we both stared at the woman, who was by then singing and dancing around the empty pool. The dog sat at the side of the courtyard near the door, howling. For a few minutes the only sounds were the woman singing, the wind rushing and the dog howling. Then the owner picked up a stick from the ground and shook it at the woman, shouting, ‘Go! Get out! Have some shame.’ The young women laughed through their long headscarves and the old woman told us, ‘Don’t be afraid. She is crazy, but harmless.’ Then she picked up a pebble near the foot of the oven and tossed it at the mad woman. ‘Have some shame.’ The woman covered her face with both hands and began crying. Then she began to sing again and danced out of the courtyard along with the dog.
On the way back to Isfahan, Mother explained that in Julfa, if someone goes mad, his relatives take him to Namagerd. There are families in Namagerd that will, for a monthly fee, look after the insane. I cried all the way to Isfahan and Alice asked me several times, ‘Why are you crying? There’s no more dust and dirt, and it’s cooler now.’
I circled around the jujube tree and the herb bed. I bent over to pull out the weeds growing among the herbs. Some blackened, dried-up jujube fruits were scattered under the tree. I picked up a few of them and sat on the ground, leaning back against the tree trunk and juggling the jujubes from one hand to the other.
I tilted my head back to look at the jujube branches. Was it Youma who had said – or had I read it somewhere – that the jujube tree is another name for the lotus tree, the leaves of which are used to make shampoo powder? It got me to wondering how many trees had a different name from their fruit. The fruit of the lotus is a jujube, the fruit of the palm tree is a date. I could not think of any others. How interesting that both these trees were found in Abadan. I got up, tossed the blackened, dried-up jujubes among the herbs and went back to the bedroom. I got dressed in silence, put a note on the telephone table and left the house.
35
The church was dark and smelled of frankincense.
The caretaker woman talked about her child’s illness as she opened the door of the church for me. I put some money in her hand and told her it was not necessary to put on the lights, and that I would not need any frankincense. I closed the door of the church behind her.
I took a small lace scarf from the table near the door and covered my head. I crossed myself, walked across the red carpet and went up to the altar. I sat in the first pew and gazed for some time at the image of the Christ child in the arms of his mother, until the morning light shone through the stained glass windows, brightening the church a little.
My eyes drank in the altar table and its candle sticks, the large silver vases with their plastic flowers, the chalice of holy wine and the priest’s gold-embroidered stole next to the chalice. I had seen all of these things so many times before, but now I was noticing them as if for the first time.
The painting of Christ looked like Armen as a baby. I remembered Nina had said, ‘Every time I see this painting, it reminds me of Tigran as a baby.’ The image of Christ also looked like the twins when they were babies, I reflected. Maybe, I thought, all children look like this image of Christ when they are infants.
I drew a deep breath, crossed myself, closed my eyes and prayed. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. When did I first recite this prayer? Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on Earth, as it is in Heaven. When was the last time? Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. It felt like I was reciting it for the first time. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. I finished the prayer: For thine is the kingdom and the power and glory forever. I opened my eyes. Amen. I crossed myself, looking again at Christ and Mary. Mary wore a blue shawl over her head and shoulders and cradled in her arms the infant Christ, swaddled in a yellow cloth.
My feet were asleep. I got up and went over to the votive table, put some money in the little wooden box and, as always, took out seven candles – six of them for the children and Artoush and Alice and Mother, and the seventh candle for my father. I lit the seventh candle and said softly, ‘Help me.’
I walked around the church, past the choir alcove, past the old organ, and the little plaques on the wall that people had donated after regaining health or achieving a wish. I had been to this church so many times over the years, but had never paid much attention to the plaques. Most of them were in Armenian, a few in English, and one small marble stone was inscribed in Persian:
VIRGIN MARY, MOURNFUL MOTHER I DID ADJURE THEE BY THE WOUNDS OF THY SON AND THOU DIDST RESTORE TO ME MY CHILD
I ran my hand over the little marble plaque. ‘Poor woman,’ I thought. I circled around to the door of the church, wondering, ‘How do you know it was the mother of the sick child who gave the plaque, and not the father?’ I turned around to face the altar, crossed myself, and backed out of the church.
I headed for home. The heat felt good. How long had it been since I enjoyed hot weather? Before reaching Cinema Taj, I turned my head to the right to look down a cul-de-sac at the end of which was a big blue door, always closed, and always with a sentry standing guard. I had heard there was a compound like the Kuwaiti Bazaar behind this blue door, with coffee houses, stores, vendors, and houses. The women who lived behind the blue door did not set foot outside their compound except maybe once a year. I had always wanted to see what was behind the blue door, but knew it was impossible.
An Arab man was walking along the sidewalk, driving five or six goats along in front of him. He was talking with another Arab man riding a bicycle alongside him. The bicyclist was trying to ride slowly, at the same pace as his conversation partner. The front wheel of the bike kept swerving, now left, now right. The smell of gas from the Refinery was in the air, but there was not a cloud in the sky.
I followed the street, with its scattered palm trees and clumps of wild grass, until I reached Cinema Taj. I had been in Abadan for many years, but was always shocked by the contrast between the Oil Company’s section of town and the rest of the city. It was like stepping from a waterless desert wasteland into a lush garden.
The identical houses on either side of the wide boulevard with their uniformly trimmed boxwood hedges looked like children just back from the barber, all lined up and waiting for the school headmaster to come tell them, ‘Excellent! What clean and orderly children.’
I turned onto our street. The only sound was the chirping of crickets and an occasional ribbeting of frogs. I looked around and thought, ‘I do like this hot, green, quiet city.’ I opened the gate and stepped into the yard.
Artoush was in the kitchen with the children. The twins gave me an anxious, worried look, but when they saw my smile, they jumped into my arms. Armen came over to me and did not draw back when I kissed his cheek. Artoush asked, ‘Shall I make coffee?’
It was the children’s decision not to go to the Club for lunch.
Armineh said, ‘We have to study.’
Arsineh said, ‘It’s almost final exam time.’
I warmed up last night’s leftovers.
Artoush had dolma with plain rice. ‘Don’t tell your mother, but dolma with plain rice is quite tasty.’ He had laughed at my mother many times whenever she asserted that the Armenians in Julfa eat dolma with plain rice. As he got up from the table, he said, ‘The food last night was spectacular. Especially the dolma – perfect!’
36
Ashkhen was dusting the dressers in the bedrooms and talking non-stop.
‘Mrs. Clarice, hon, I would do anything for you, but I’m sorry, I don’t wanna work in Mrs. Simonian’s house. First off, she insists I have
to come on Fridays. I usually have guests over on Fridays, since it’s not a workday, and I need to help my husband with his bath, and there are a thousand chores to take care of. And then, she constantly criticizes what I do: “Why do you wash like that? Why do you iron like this?” And then, she’s arguing the whole time with her son and granddaughter. Her son’s a gentleman, through and through – doesn’t say a single word of reproach or reprisal. But the granddaughter – oh lord! That one is a little monster. She’s sassier than sassafras and has quite a potty mouth, too. She throws things and tears into stuff with the scissors, cutting them to bits...’ She set the dust rag on the ground. ‘I heard her on the phone telling someone, “If you love me you have to slap Mr. Vazgen in the face.” You know him, don’t you, Mrs. Clarice, dear? The principal...’
I told Ashkhen, who had forgotten all about dusting, that I did know Mr. Vazgen and that after she finished dusting the bedrooms, she should go brush the dust off the living room furniture.
I came out of the bedroom wondering, ‘Who was the girl talking to on the phone? Armen? Armen had better not slap...’ The phone rang and I went to get it. Maybe I should have a talk with Armen. I picked up the receiver.
Emile’s voice was calm, as usual. ‘I wanted to thank you for the dinner Thursday night. You went to a lot of trouble. By the way, I found a book last night that I thought you might like, and set it aside to bring for you on Monday. You haven’t forgotten our appointment for Monday?’
