Veil of Roses

by Laura Fitzgerald

  “Right.”

  But I am so sick of people shoving their opinions down my throat that the moment she disappears into the bookstore, I turn and start running. I run all the way to the other side of the mall. To Macy’s. To Maryam, who is working today.

  She is my big sister. And she understands in a way no one else ever can.

  Haroun will be here in exactly twenty-four minutes to ask Ardishir for permission to marry me. My stomach aches as I sit on the couch and wait, for although Ardishir has assured me as recently as this morning that he will not forbid the marriage, it is clear to me that he will not make things easy for me or Haroun. Poor Maryam is so nervous and angry with Ardishir that she cannot even be in the same room without bursting out in shouts, so she has locked herself away in their bedroom until Haroun arrives.

  As for Ardishir, he sits cheerily next to me, casual and unconcerned. Oblivious to my nerves. He wears jeans and a cable-knit sweater as a concession to Maryam, who sank to the floor and beat her arms upon it when she realized he intended to receive Haroun wearing his oldest gray sweatpants and his University of Arizona T-shirt with the holes in it.

  “You could just stay here,” he suggests. “You know, keep on doing what you’re doing. Taking your classes and living with us.”

  I do not bother to answer him. We have talked about this several times already. I do not want to put my life on hold in such a manner. I do not want to be a criminal and always in fear of deportation. Living in fear is what I am trying to get away from.

  “You could postpone any acceptance of his engagement until after Noruz. This way, you are still able to meet other men who might make more suitable husbands.”

  I shake my head. “It is better to move forward with what we know.”

  “You could apply for an extension of your visa,” he suggests.

  “Ardishir.”

  “Oops, he’s here!” Ardishir rises and calls out to Maryam, “Honey, the pistachio nut is here!”

  I laugh despite my frustration and move as if to hit him. He dodges my arm and goes to the door. I follow, and Maryam joins us in the foyer. She squeezes my arm in support. “Ready?” she whispers. I nod with a closed-lipped smile.

  Salaam, we all greet one another and exchange pleasantries about the weather and ask after one another’s families. We enjoy a cup of tea in the living room, and after it is finished, Maryam rises and asks for my help in the kitchen. Haroun smiles at me and nods his agreement that I should go with my sister. Once in the kitchen, Maryam and I huddle as close to the door as possible in a way that allows us to hear every word, which we know from testing out this position last night.

  I hear the clink of the teakettle as Ardishir pours more tea for Haroun and himself. It is only after a bit more tea that Haroun begins his appeal.

  “I am aware of Tamila’s situation with her visa,” he begins. “I know she needs to marry soon in order to stay in the United States. And I have grown very fond of her in the time we have known each other. I believe she is fond of me as well.”

  Maryam squeezes my elbow. I smile and try to relax the tension I feel in my body, try to stop holding my breath.

  “If I receive your permission, I would like Tamila to become my wife.”

  When Ardishir replies, his tone is very welcoming. “I am glad we have had the chance to meet you. Tami seems to think you are a suitable match.”

  “Yes, I believe so.”

  “How is that spider bite, if I may ask?”

  Aaaaargh. Maryam flinches and covers her eyes with her hand. Come on, come on, don’t do this, Ardishir. It’s not funny.

  Haroun sounds surprised to be asked such a question at this time. “It is fine, fine. I took antibiotics my doctor prescribed and the swelling has gone away completely.”

  “Good, good. That’s very good.”

  There is a heavy silence as Haroun waits for Ardishir’s answer and Ardishir acts as if the question has never been asked. Finally, Haroun speaks again.

  “I am going to visit my uncle in Albuquerque over Noruz and I was hoping you would allow Tami to accompany me so he could meet her before our marriage. I assure you, our behavior would be entirely proper.”

  “You’re going away for Noruz?” Ardishir sounds pleasantly surprised.

  “Yes, for eleven days. One day to drive out there, nine days to visit, and another day to drive home.”

  “Yes. Hmmm. Why not just fly?”

  Maryam and I shake our heads at each other. She looks as unhappy as I feel.

  “By driving, Tami and I would get to spend a large amount of time together getting to know each other better and making plans for our wedding and our married life.”

  “Not to mention, that recycled air on those planes is disgusting.”

  “Oh, isn’t that the truth! The last time I flew, I was sick for a month afterward.”

  I narrow my eyes at Maryam. I do not like Ardishir making fun of Haroun like this. “I’m going in there if he doesn’t stop this,” I whisper.

  “Just wait,” she whispers back.

  “I’m afraid that I cannot allow Tami to go with you unaccompanied,” Ardishir tells him with a regretful tone. “If I might suggest, why don’t you go and bring your uncle back with you? We can do the official engagement upon your return. We’ll have a dinner party for your uncle and set a wedding date then.”

  “No,” I whisper angrily to Maryam. I know why Ardishir is doing this. It is the safest way he can think of to postpone the engagement so I can perhaps meet another man over Noruz. But I do not want to meet another man. I have settled on Haroun.

  “That’s fine, I understand, that’s a good idea,” Haroun agrees gracefully, politely. “I am sure my uncle would like to be part of everything.”

  I will have none of this. It is a horrible idea. Who knows, maybe his uncle will not like me. Or maybe he will introduce him to some clean-freak beauty in Albuquerque and Haroun will fall in love with her. Before Maryam can stop me, I stride into the living room and take a seat beside Haroun.

  “I have an idea,” I say in my most optimistic voice. “I have never been to Albuquerque and would very much enjoy going—”

  “Tami, I cannot allow it. What would your parents think, you going without a chaperone? I couldn’t—”

  “I was saying,” I glare at my brother-in-law, “I would very much like to celebrate Noruz with Haroun and his uncle.”

  “Tami, I just—”

  I hold up my hand to stop Ardishir. “If Haroun and I get married tomorrow or the next day at the courthouse, then it will be no problem for me to go with him.”

  Haroun’s eyebrows perk up as he considers the idea. “I would be amenable to that.”

  “Tami deserves to have a nice wedding,” Ardishir insists. “It’s bad enough that her parents won’t be able to be here. The least we can do is make sure she has a proper wedding ceremony.”

  Maryam joins us from the kitchen. “That’s a great idea, Tami, to get married right away! We can file the immigration paperwork while Tami and Haroun visit his uncle. And then we can take our time to plan a big celebration. There will be no rush for it, as long as the paperwork is completed.”

  But Ardishir will have none of it. He turns to Haroun. “I am very concerned that we show your uncle the proper respect. He is an old man, and it would be best to honor him. You should bring him here so we can meet him and show him our respect for your family.”

  “I don’t think he’d mind,” Haroun says.

  “And yet, we are not in such a rush that we have to exclude your family from their own nephew’s wedding. We will wait. There is time.”

  I clear my throat and glare at Ardishir to remind him, It’s my choice. You need to support my decision.

  Haroun laughs and reaches for my hand when he sees the look I give to Ardishir. He pulls me close to him on the couch and rubs my back. “It’s okay. I’m disappointed, too, that we cannot be married right away and take this trip together. But Ardishir is right;
this is the best way. We’ll get engaged as soon as I return with my uncle, and after we’re married, we’ll take many, many trips together.”

  I let out all my breath and sag back against the couch. I feel thoroughly defeated by the situation and betrayed by my brother-in-law.

  Did you forget your promise to me? Those words were the only ones I spoke to Ardishir after Haroun left. The rest of the time, I sat on the couch with my arms crossed and shook my head at him. I just listened as Maryam berated him for hours.

  The next morning, Maryam must work, but Ardishir stays home and makes phone call after phone call on my behalf. It seems he calls every Persian he has ever met and inquires after the marital status of their brothers, their uncles, their sons, and themselves.

  And nothing works out. To make matters even worse, one of the two Noruz dinners we have already scheduled with potential fiancés cancels due to a serious illness in the family. So we are down to one confirmed meeting, and Maryam has already warned me that this family may be more religious than she expects I would like.

  A horrible sense of dread has knotted itself into a ball inside my stomach ever since Ardishir postponed the engagement. I think this morning is the first time I have actually, really and truly, believed my quest might end in failure.

  “Do you want me to drop you off at school today?” Ardishir asks when it is already past the time I should have left.

  “I’m not going,” I reply.

  I am flopped on the living room couch, covering my eyes with the palm of my hand to shield them from the bright March sunlight that streams through the windows. I have lain like this for hours.

  “Come on,” he urges. “You need to get up and do something. You’re making me feel bad just lying there like that.”

  “Good,” I spit out. “You should feel bad. You should have made all these phone calls before you ruined things with Haroun. Then you would have known what a gift he was offering and been nicer to him. It is not so easy, finding someone to marry.”

  His tone remains pleasant. “Nothing’s ruined, Tami. Everything will work out the way it is supposed to. Don’t worry.” He reaches for my hands, pulls them away from my eyes, and hauls me up off the couch.

  I yank my hands back and narrow my eyes at him. “I could have married Haroun today at the courthouse and been done with it.”

  “So you’ll marry him in two weeks.” Ardishir shrugs.

  “I could have already filed my immigration papers.”

  “In two weeks,” he says. “It will all come together in two weeks. You just need to make sure that nothing happens between now and then that causes him to change his mind.”

  Nadia comes to class sporting a brave smile and a broken left arm. She stands at the entrance to the classroom, almost as if she is afraid to come in.

  I am the first to notice her. Agata and Josef are too busy with their flirtatious argument. Edgard is reading a medical journal, Danny is making copies of our worksheets for class, and Eva has not yet arrived.

  I meet Nadia’s gaze and immediately go to her. I direct her back outside the classroom.

  “Nadia, what happened?”

  Her eyes are dull and resigned, with no fight left in them.

  “Lenny got arrested for drunk driving and I didn’t answer the phone when they called me from the jail to come down and get him. So he had to stay overnight in jail, and when he got home, I told him I was going to leave him.”

  I gasp. “What happened?”

  “He pushed me down the stairs outside the trailer.”

  “You could have lost the baby!” It is all Nadia lives for, this baby girl she’s about to have.

  She gives me a grim look. “I think that might have been the plan.”

  “Nadia!” I clutch her right hand, her unbroken hand.

  Her eyes well with tears. “I am so stupid for even saying such a thing to him. Of course he would react in this way. Oh, Tami. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I can’t go on like this!”

  Nadia’s tone is just as desperate as Minu’s was on the telephone the other night.

  “What do you mean, Nadia?”

  “Tami.” She looks at me with pleading eyes. “He told me that if I leave him, he will call immigration and tell them I tricked him into getting married. He said I will have to leave the country and my baby will stay here!”

  “Oh, Nadia, how awful!”

  “Is this true, do you know?”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t.”

  “Could you find out for me, please?” she begs. “Could you ask your sister or someone who would know? Please, I have no one else to ask. If it wasn’t for this baby shower coming up and the gifts he thinks we will get, I don’t think he would even let me come to class anymore.”

  I look at Nadia standing there with her stomach bulging in Lenny’s It’s Miller Time T-shirt and with her arm in a cast. There is an old Persian saying, I used to feel sorry for myself because I had no shoes, until I met a man who was dead.

  “Of course I will,” I promise. “You just keep being so brave, and together we will figure this out.”

  Poor, poor Nadia. She needs all the help she can get. I put my arm around her for strength. “Are you ready to go inside?”

  She nods glumly but resists stepping forward. It must take all the energy she has to face the outside world after being treated so badly at home.

  “Nadia?” I begin to ask.

  She looks sideways at me, waiting for my words, and I see so clearly the humiliation she feels that I do not continue with my question. Couldn’t you tell he would be like this before you married him? Weren’t there any signs at all?

  “Hold your head high,” I tell her. “You’ve done nothing wrong.”

  But she disagrees. “Yes, I did. I married him.”

  We start later that day than usual because everyone huddles around Nadia, worrying over her and encouraging her and hugging her. Everyone, that is, except Eva. She comes to class late and sits in her chair with her arms crossed and watches while we fuss. She looks mad. Mad at Nadia and mad at me.

  “You ditched me the other day,” she accuses when I finally take my seat next to her. I look at her and think, It’s not all about you, Eva.

  “I’m sorry, Eva,” I apologize. “It was rude and unkind. I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

  She waves away my apology. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll bring the books tomorrow.”

  Danny begins the class by sitting on his desk with his guitar around his neck. His eyes look sad. I imagine this is because of Nadia’s situation.

  “Eva asked that we spend some time talking about the civil rights movement,” he begins. I smirk at Eva, knowing she’s asked him to do this for me. He strums a few melancholy chords on his guitar and then adds, “I think today, with one of our friends newly injured, is a good day for a serious lesson from your teacher.” I swallow hard as he plays the same chord again. This time he hums along. The tune feels mournful, heavy, as if it contains a history of heartache.

  Danny looks at each of us in turn. We’re German. Czechoslovakian. Iranian. Russian. Polish. Peruvian. And we’ve all got something we’re trying to leave behind. We’ve all got our sad stories. Nadia is the one Danny wants to hold eye contact with, tries to hold eye contact with, but she won’t look at him, so he rests his eyes on me. I am too courteous to look away.

  “I tend to get all worked up when people talk about their rights,” he says. “Any kind of rights. Civil rights. Human rights. Women’s rights. I don’t know, quite honestly, if anybody anywhere has any inherent rights. Says who, you know? Who decides what these rights are? Who bestows them?”

  I am tense all over, especially in my shoulders. This is not the Danny I thought I knew. Just like a man, I think. Just like a white man from America, to so casually toss out the only ounce of belief I’ve been able to sustain all this time, all these years, the idea that somewhere, somehow, I would get my rights, maybe even take them if the opportunity comes along. Bu
t I have them, Danny, I do! I do have rights!

  Again, he plays the same chord, a little faster this time. The tone of his hum has changed, too. It’s less mournful, more determined. It fuels my curiosity, makes me willing to hear him out. Where’s he going with all this?

  “Talk to me instead about responsibilities,” he continues. “And I’m paraphrasing Gandhi here. But I think we’re all put on this earth to make it a better place, plain and simple. And I think that everyone—everyone—has a special contribution to make. A God-given potential. And I believe it’s a crime against God not to find out where your talents may lie and develop them. And I think it’s a crime against God to hold other people back from contributing in the way He intended, whether it’s a husband or a government that’s doing the holding back.”

  He turns from me to Edgard. “What if you, with your doctor’s brain, are the one who’s supposed to find a cure for cancer, but instead you’re washing dishes in a restaurant?”

  He turns back to me. “What if you are supposed to bring about this oxymoronic notion of peace in the Middle East—what if you’re the one who can actually do it—yet you’ve received no training in persuasion, in negotiation? Can you really be expected to stand up for the whole world when you’ve never been allowed to stand up for yourself?”

  I stood up to Eva yesterday, I whimper in my head. The ugly word victim thuds back at me from the recesses of my brain.

  “I’m going to sing a song for you all in just a minute, and what I want for you to think about while I’m singing it is this: What are you waiting for? I happen to think that if you only have the courage to hope for a better someday, you’ve barely got any courage at all.” Now he stares at Nadia. I want to elbow her, in her unbroken arm, so she sits up and pays attention, because I know what Danny means now, at least in relation to her. “If the best you’re willing to do is hope that things will one day be better for your children, forget about you, then you’re selling yourself short in the eyes of God. You’re ignoring that hint of greatness God put inside of you, and isn’t that the saddest thing of all?”