Women Without Men

by Shahrnush Parsipur

  So they agreed to exchange signals if either one of them saw a headless man. The experiment indicated that only Zarrinkolah saw headless men.

  “Zarrinkolah,” the girl addressed her with an air of authority, “You must say your prayers. You should give alms. Perhaps you will be able to see men with heads again.”

  Zarrinkolah asked Akram the Seven for a two-day furlough. She headed to the local bathhouse, and reserved a private stall for herself. She also asked for a masseuse and told the woman to scrub every inch of her body with utmost care. She ordered the masseuse to repeat the process three times. By now Zarrinkolah’s skin was raw with excessive scrubbing as if blood was about to seep out of her pores. The masseuse was exhausted and almost on the verge of tears. “You poor woman,” she said, “You’re insane.”

  Zarrinkolah gave her a hefty tip and asked for her discretion. She then asked the masseuse to teach her the process of devotional ablution. After the masseuse left, she performed the ablution ritual meticulously, and kept repeating it over and over, nearly fifty times, still feeling her skin on fire from the severity of the scrubbing the masseuse had given her.

  Finally she decided to get dressed and prepare for a visit to the shrine of Shah Abdolazim. But she felt an urge to prostrate herself, naked as she was, in prayer and plead for God’s grace. It occurred to her that she did not remember the required formalities and incantations for such an appeal. She then remembered Imam Ali and his agony in telling his secrets to a well. She thought of invoking his name and asking for his intercession with God on her behalf.

  “Ali, Ali, Ali,” she moaned repeatedly as she dropped to her knees naked and pressed her forehead on the floor. She then burst into a fit of sobbing, still repeating “Ali, Ali, Ali.”

  Someone was beating on the door of the stall.

  “Who is it?” she asked, still crying.

  “We’re closing the bathhouse for the night,” came the answer.

  Zarrinkolah put on fresh clothes, leaving the old ones behind, and started walking toward the shrine. By the time she got there the shrine was closed for the night. She sat on the grass near the gate. The sky was cloudless, and the courtyard was lit up by moonlight. Zarrinkolah wept soundlessly.

  When the gate to the shrine was opened in the morning, Zarrinkolah’s eyes were no more than narrow slits in her face, her eyes having receded behind swollen eyelids. She did not enter the shrine. She was not crying anymore. She felt as light as air, like a piece of straw being carried along by the wind. From a street vendor she bought a bowl of porridge.

  “Where can one find a breath of cool air in this beastly summer heat?” she asked the vendor.

  “Karadj isn’t bad,” he replied, looking at her swollen eyes compassionately.

  She headed for Karadj.

  Two Women on the Road

  AT SUNSET TWO WOMEN, one twenty-eight and the other thirty-eight years old, both wearing chadors, were walking along the highway to Karadj. They were both virgins.

  At mile marker eighteen, a truck came to a halt thirty feet away from them. There were three men in the cab. The driver and his assistant were drunk; the passenger was not. Several times along the trip, the passenger had had to grab the steering wheel to avoid a collision, or to stop the truck from running off the road. Finally, he had given up on interfering and decided to let fate take its course.

  When the truck stopped, the driver beckoned to his assistant to get out. The two walked toward the women. The passenger took the opportunity to stretch and light a cigarette.

  “Where are you ladies heading?” asked the driver when he reached the women.

  The twenty-eight-year-old, Fa’iza, promptly came up with the answer, “We are going to Karadj to live by the fruits of our own labor and not to have any men to order us around.”

  “Is that so?” said the driver. “Are you serious?” He suddenly reached for her chador and pulled it off her head.

  “What the hell,” she yelled with a mixture of fear and surprise. “Help! Help!”

  At once the men attacked the women and a struggle ensued. The woman named Fa’iza continued to resist and scream as she was forced to the ground. The other, named Munis, quit fighting and remained inert.

  After fifteen minutes the men got to their feet and started to dust themselves off slowly, without any fear of being caught in the act. The two women remained on the ground, with Fa’iza cursing the aggressors. “I hope God will take our revenge,” she said defiantly as the men tidied themselves up.

  “The one I ended up with was not that hot,” said the assistant with some dissatisfaction.

  “That was your lot, boy,” said the driver grinning. “Mine on the other hand put up a delicious fight, pretending she was chaste.” They both chuckled at the remark.

  Mockingly, the men thanked the women and moved toward their truck. The driver started the engine.

  “Did something happen back there?” asked the passenger.

  “None of your business,” barked the driver.

  “Sorry,” the passenger responded apologetically, “I thought there was an accident or something.”

  “What is it to you, anyway? Are you a policeman?”

  “No, I’m a gardener. They call me ‘Kind Gardener.’”

  “Hey, Kind Gardener,” the driver said, amused, “we were irrigating the fields.”

  The driver and his assistant were hugely amused by the comment. They broke out into laughter. The driver was laughing so hard that he lost control of the steering wheel and the truck began to swerve wildly on the highway. To avoid a head-on collision with a Mercedes sedan, he jerked the wheel, which sent the truck off the road toward a clump of trees. The truck smashed the first tree but came to shattering halt against the next. The door on the passenger side blew open sucking out the assistant and threw him on the ground just as the truck capsized over him. The impact sent the driver flying through the windshield toward power lines directly overhead. He was followed by the passenger, who crashed into a large pile of mud on the side of the road.

  The driver, who had instinctively grabbed at a high-voltage cable to stop his flight, was electrocuted. His body convulsed not unlike some macabre dance movements. The assistant had been crushed to death instantly, before he had a chance to open his eyes.

  The passenger rose to his feet slowly, trying to extricate himself from the mud pile. He surveyed the scene of death and destruction around him.

  “Oh, villainous creatures!” he exclaimed.

  Soon he realized he could not wipe the muddy substance off of him without a shower and change of clothes. He found his right shoe, put it on, and started ambling in the direction of Karadj.

  Farrokhlaqa’s Garden

  Part One

  FARROKHLAQA WAS SPRAWLED in the back seat of the car. Ostovary, Mosayeb, and the driver were in the front. That is how they arrived at the gate of the garden at four in the afternoon. Ostovary was worried about his client’s reaction to the tree. Except for that, he had discussed all aspects of the property with her. As soon as the car came to a halt, he jumped out ahead of the driver and opened the car door for her. It was the driver’s last day of work. In fact he didn’t even have to work that day. The lady could have driven herself. But he had offered to drive ostensibly as a favor, but more to satisfy his own curiosity about the property she was about to acquire.

  “You will notice what a jewel this property is,” Ostovary said.

  Ignoring his pitch, Farrokhlaqa walked toward the gate ahead of the men. She stopped in front of the gate, turned her head to the left shoulder, a pose she had learned from her mother, and asked, “Is that it?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Ostovary answered, producing a large key from his pocket. “Allow me,” he said as he opened the gate and stepped back for the woman to pass.

  Cautiously, Farrokhlaqa stepped across the threshold, trembling with excitement, which she tried to hide from her companions. Nonchalantly she started to walk along the gravel path while voraciou
sly taking in every detail.

  “Exactly as you desired, madam,” Ostovary noted, “just a few minor touchups here and there, and it will look gorgeous.” Farrokhlaqa nodded her head, acknowledging the remark.

  The path circled around a reflecting pool with a bedstead next to it and led to the mosaic steps in front of the house. The building did not look very attractive. It was a slapdash, contractor-built job and it showed. Farrokhlaqa felt a tinge of disappointment.

  “A coat of stucco would do the façade wonders,” Ostovary suggested.

  Farrokhlaqa considered it for a moment. It wasn’t a bad idea, she thought. In fact it was a good idea, she decided, as she looked at the windows and found them of proper size, given the local climate.

  Ostovary unlocked the front door to a spacious, cool entrance hall, with three large rooms on each side as well as a kitchen, a shower room, and a bathroom. The windows of the rooms looked out onto the garden and a narrow backyard.

  “I like the kitchen,” was Farrokhlaqa’s first comment. “It is nice and big. But just one shower is not enough. We also need more than three rooms. I expect a lot of company.”

  “As I said earlier, madam,” Ostovary said, “The foundation is firm and steel beams have been used in the framework. You can add another floor with no problem.” As he moved to another corner of the hall he added expansively, “A staircase could go from here to the top floor. An atrium could be set up here with a tree growing through to the next floor, even through the roof. It will look palatial.”

  The thought of a tree growing inside a house befuddled Farrokhlaqa. “I came up with that idea myself,” Ostovary said with a touch of pride.

  “We’ll see about that,” Farrokhlaqa declared, unconvinced. “As the tree grows, it will damage the foundation.” She had liked the house, although she knew she should not display enthusiasm in front of Ostovary. She had already decided on adding a second floor and fancied an expanded, dynamic social life with friends coming to visit on weekends and holidays. Thirty-two years of living with a cranky, temperamental man had lost her many friends. But that might be a blessing: she could initiate new friendships and associations of her own choice, with artists, writers, scholars, turning her parlor into a salon, in the fashion of high-class ladies of eighteenth-century Paris she had read about in novels. In the meantime, Ostovary kept up a running commentary as they continued the inspection of various parts of the property. He even counted the trees and had ideas about each. To keep up the garden, it would be necessary to hire a horticulturist, he believed. The garden had been left untended for a year and looked wild and overgrown.

  Ostovary had arranged for the tour to be punctuated with stops at various trees, about each of which he had comments or ideas. “Madam,” he said, “you will not find a better deal in all of Karadj. To be honest, there are nicer homes and gardens here, but for the price you are paying, this is the very best. With minor improvements, this will turn into a paradise.” Farrokhlaqa had already made up her mind to buy the property and considered Ostovary’s solicitations redundant, but she let him go through his routine.

  By now they had reached the river. “As you notice,” said Ostovary somewhat pompously. “The riverbank is the property line. The water current is so fast here that there is no danger of burglars crossing it. Besides, there are no burglars among the people here.”

  “Is that so?” said Farrokhlaqa absent-mindedly, as her attention was drawn to the tree, finding it hard to believe that it was real. “Who is that?” she asked in amazement. Ostovary, who had anticipated this moment with dread, tried to answer as casually as possible: “Actually . . . this is a human being. But I promise you,” he continued, trying to reassure his client, “she is the most harmless person you’ll ever meet in your life.”

  “So? What is she doing here?”

  “How shall I say?” Ostovary stammered. “They let the property go so cheap because of this particular detail. I thought it would be a pity for you not to take advantage of the situation, especially, being a woman yourself, you could definitely tolerate this poor tree.”

  Apprehensively, Farrokhlaqa stepped closer. “But this is not a tree; it’s a person.”

  “That is quite so,” affirmed Ostovary. “Actually this poor tree . . . is the sister of the former owner of the property,” he added, as if mortified by the irrationality of his own statement.

  “How strange!” Farrokhlaqa uttered sharply.

  “It certainly is. This poor soul went mad and planted herself in the ground.”

  “But this is not going to work. She needs to be taken to the insane asylum.”

  “That is the problem,” Ostovary explained. “This wretched woman disappeared in the autumn of last year. They searched everywhere for her and did not find her. Finally they gave up and when they came to the garden for the summer season, they found her planted here in the ground. Well, they realized she’d gone mad. I tell you, madam, they tried so hard to pull her out of the ground, but found it impossible.”

  Ostovary brought out a large bandana handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed his eyes. He then blew his nose in it noisily. Farrokhlaqa was somewhat moved by his emotional reaction to the narrative. “Is she not one of your own relatives, God forbid?” she asked.

  “No way, I swear to God,” he said vehemently. He continued, “I haven’t cried in twenty years, but every time I see this poor woman I cannot hold back my tears. Anyway, no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t get her out of the ground. And she pleaded with them ‘Please, don’t cut me down. Let me grow.’”

  “But she hasn’t sprouted any branches,” Farrokhlaqa observed.

  “No, not yet,” he said, “although she has spread roots and perhaps she’ll grow leaves by next year.”

  “What about her family?” she wanted to know.

  “What shall I say?” he replied. “They are all upset and miserable because of this embarrassment. How can they tell people that their daughter or sister has turned into a tree? You can’t tell people that. Any way, they came to see me and to consult with me. They said they’d let the property go cheap provided that the sellers remain anonymous. That is why you are able to buy the garden at a price well below the market value. It was your luck.”

  “Why were they embarrassed by her?” asked Farrokhlaqa, unwilling to leave the subject. “There is no shame in becoming a tree.”

  “What do you mean by that, madam?” Ostovary exclaimed with unaccustomed sharpness. “A sane person does not turn into a tree. One must be insane like this poor soul for the transformation to take place. The poor brother was crying when he told me, ‘Soon people will find out about my sister becoming a tree and start making fun of us, for example, calling us the Arbormans, Arbor-sons, and so on, or cover our walls with graffiti, and ruin the century-old reputation of our family.’

  “And I tell you, madam, these people are a reputable family. How could they admit that one of them has turned into a tree? It is different if some one in the family becomes a minister or a member of the parliament. In fact one could boast of a relative in those positions. But how could you tell people that a family member has become a tree? Her brother told me that they wouldn’t have minded if she had become a milk maid, a dairy girl. After all, making yogurt is a trade. But becoming a tree? I don’t know about that.”

  Farrokhlaqa moved around the tree, examining it carefully. Mosayeb and the driver were keeping their distance, afraid to come closer.

  The tree appeared to be a woman in her late twenties. She was buried in the ground up to her knees, wearing a tattered dress, standing erect, watching her surroundings. Farrokhlaqa began to feel an attachment to the tree.

  “I told her brother not to worry,” Ostovary continued, “I told him I had found a respectable lady from a substantial family as a buyer. I told him she is a real lady. She will tolerate poor Mahdokht on her property and keep your secret. She understands the importance of reputation.”

  Farrokhlaqa was no longer listenin
g to Ostovary. There was a sudden, radical shift in her mind. She was thinking of all she could do with this extraordinary tree. Not only could she build an entire literary movement around her, but she could also elevate herself to leadership positions in the political arena. There was no one else in the world who actually possessed such a phenomenon, which for the lack of a better term, she called human-tree. “Just as I was telling you, madam,” Ostovary interrupted her thoughts, “you can have a tree in the house. You can put a wall around this one to avoid notoriety and unwanted attention.”

  With a human-tree in her possession, Farrokhlaqa thought, ignoring Ostovary, she would not need any other kind of tree. The fact that she had come to own it, meant that she was superior to others in native intelligence, intellectual capacity, spiritual and physical fitness. Others did not deserve to possess a human-tree because they did not have the capacity to understand the significance of the “human-tree.” Not that she herself fully understood the existential implications of owning a human-tree, but intuitively she knew that the tree would bring her fame and fortune. “No, Mr. Ostovary,” she responded to his interjection. “No need for a tree in the house. This one will remain here as is. I have no objection to it.”

  Ostovary heaved a visible sigh of relief. “I was afraid you might find this unacceptable,” he admitted. “I was half thinking of buying the property myself, if you rejected the deal; only that I have six children and I was sure they would uproot the poor tree. Thank God you will go through with it.”

  Farrokhlaqa started walking toward the garden gate as she continued her reflections, oblivious to Ostovary’s running commentary.

  “Mosayeb, Akbar,” she shouted at the men, “Go back to the city and bring me back my luggage.”

  “Are you going to stay here as of tonight?” Mosayeb asked. “The house is empty and unfurnished.”

  “It’s not a problem,” she replied, “I want to stay here and personally oversee the renovations.” Turning to Ostovary, she asked if it were possible to find bricklayers and masons to start the work the next day.