Veil of Roses

by Laura Fitzgerald

  Tears well up in my eyes, and I angrily wipe them. I pull my hand away and glare at him.

  Masoud sits back, calm like a businessman. “Signing this doesn’t mean we aren’t going to have a good relationship. We will have fun and be good friends and have a child together, just as we planned. I really mean this. I want to marry you. I think you’re a great girl. I thought we were only formalizing what we already agreed to. But we shouldn’t get married if you feel so strongly about not signing this agreement.”

  Bile rises in my throat. “You know I have no choice. I have to be on an airplane back to Iran on Thursday if we don’t get married.”

  “It may feel as if you have no choice, but you do, Tami. You always have a choice.”

  “Give me the agreement,” I say with venom.

  “Are you sure?”

  I reach for it. Masoud bites his lower lip and hands it over. He watches as I read through it, ready to hand me a pen when I finish.

  “Can you understand it all? It’s in English because that is how business is conducted here.”

  “What is this last part?”

  “What last part?”

  “The part about custody of children in the case of divorce.”

  “Oh,” he says easily, giving me a half smile. “That part says that in case of a divorce from a marriage that produces children, we shall follow Iranian law for custody purposes.”

  “Is this a joke? This is a joke, right?”

  “No, it’s not a joke.”

  In Iran, the father gets full custody of any sons when they reach the age of two. He gets full custody of any daughters when they reach the age of seven, and I would not even get any visitation privileges. If we were to divorce, I would be dead to my children.

  I throw the agreement on the table. “I will never agree to this.”

  “Tami,” Masoud tries to reason with me, “I don’t want to get divorced. That is not my intention. You have said it is not your intention, either. So this is our guarantee that we won’t get divorced. Because now we have too much to lose.”

  “You mean I have too much to lose,” I snap at him. “I don’t see how you will lose anything, except me, which doesn’t seem to be your concern.”

  “Tami,” he admonishes me. “Of course I care for you. As my wife, you will be my best friend. I will always take care of you.”

  “Do you think I can’t read?” I demand. “You say one thing and your contract says another. You get everything you want! You will get married and have children and make your parents proud. They will die happy. Then you can divorce me anytime you want and keep full custody of the children, and I will be left with nothing. Nothing!”

  “I would never do that,” he promises.

  “Then put that in the agreement, Masoud.”

  He pales. “It is not necessary.”

  “To me it is. Make it say, Masoud will not initiate divorce proceedings. Masoud will not take the children away from their mother.”

  He shakes his head, no. “If you were in Iran, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion. I would be the only one who could initiate divorce and I would get custody. Period.”

  “We’re not in Iran, Masoud. This is why I left Iran. Because of men like you.”

  He doesn’t like this, being told he’s like the others, like the ones who make such a beautiful country such an intolerable place to live. He narrows his eyes and puts his elbows on the table. He folds his hands and rests his chin on them. “This is nonnegotiable, Tami.”

  I sit back and stare at him.

  “This cannot be happening,” I say, stunned. “I just really can’t believe this is happening.”

  He gives me a small smile and raises one shoulder in a shrug. “Sometimes there’s a price to pay for freedom.”

  My eyes sink closed. I lean my head back to feel the sun’s warmth and let out all my breath. All this way I have traveled, all these compromises I have had to make, been willing to make, and it comes to this. This man wants me to bear his children and then put them in his arms and walk away.

  Sometimes you need to hold them close, and sometimes you must let them go.

  I sit up and open my eyes. Around me, I see the cloudless skies, the clear air, and the buffer of the Catalina Mountains to the north. A jackrabbit scurries from one hole he’s dug under the wall to another by the agave cactus. Birds sing their songs of freedom from the palo verde trees around us. The bougainvillea blooms explosively and the air is scented with the blossoms of the honeysuckle. It is so beautiful here. So very, very beautiful. It is a wonderful country in which to be born. And American citizenship, it is a wonderful gift to give a child.

  Sometimes you need to hold them close.

  And sometimes you must let them go.

  I lick my lips and then rub them together. I turn my attention to Masoud. The look in his eyes is not entirely unkind. There is some sense of understanding there, too.

  I sigh wearily. “I thought you were coming to me with good thoughts, good words, and good deeds.”

  “I have to look out for my best interests here.”

  I sigh again.

  It is the sigh of someone who is very sad. It is the sigh of someone who has no hope anymore for a happy ending.

  “You’re very fortunate to be in a position where you can look out for your own best interests. I am not so fortunate. I need to look out for the best interests of the children I hope to have one day.”

  I give Masoud a rueful half smile as I stand and pass the prenuptial agreement back across the table.

  “And I just don’t want them to have a father like you.”

  Things go from horrible to unbearable in a matter of minutes. Masoud begins to holler at me and wave his contract in my face, insisting that I have misunderstood his intentions, that I should sign it and it is no big deal. Ardishir rushes out of the house and shoves Masoud back. A good, old-fashioned Persian shouting match ensues. And I hurry inside, now desperate to get away from the man I intended to marry in a few short hours.

  There is dead silence from my classmates when I come back to them and their many pairs of pitying eyes, which confirm what I already know: I’ve lost my quest to stay in America. Come Thursday, I must go back to Iran.

  Agata stands and rushes to hug me. “Honey, you can marry Josef. Right, Josef? You vill marry Tami so dat she can stay, von’t you?”

  Josef stands up straight and thrusts out his chest. “Good girl, Tami,” he declares. “I will marry our good girl.”

  My tears burst forth at their kindness. He is more than worthy, but I cannot marry Josef. I crumple into Agata’s fleshy arms and let her guide me to a chair next to Eva. I bury my head in my hands and try to accept what just occurred.

  I have to go back to Iran.

  I hear the deliberate clink, clink, clink of a soup ladle stirring the pot of Persian Wishing Soup. I look up and emit a bitter laugh as I see Maryam standing there by the stove, stirring and stirring, mocking the fact that there is no need. The soup can be poured down the drain. I have no wishes left; none of mine are to come true.

  “The bride has gone to pick flowers, Maryam,” I say bitterly.

  She looks only at the swirling of the soup, not at her little sister who is so desperately in need of comfort.

  “Maryam?”

  I see her cheek muscles tighten, but still she does not look my way.

  “Don’t you want to say I should have listened to you? That I should have followed your plan and married Haroun?”

  Her head shakes involuntarily, like she is thinking something she’d rather not say. Like she is suppressing a great anger.

  “Say it, Maryam,” I demand. “You knew best. Like always. And I should have listened to you. And I deserve to go back because of how stupidly I behaved.”

  She stops stirring and taps the ladle against the soup pot. She turns to me. “Is that really what you think I want to say to you right now?”

  This is such classic Maryam. “Yes.”
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  “I would never bring up such things right now.” Even though they’re true, her tone implies.

  “That’s so good of you,” I spit out at her. “You’re so perfect.”

  “What are you mad at me for?” she yells. “What did I do? Tell me, Tami, exactly where I went wrong, because when I look at this, I can’t see what more I could have done to help you out. You blew it. You’re as stupid as Maman Joon.”

  I gasp.

  “You never wanted to marry anybody! He knew it! That’s why this happened. He didn’t trust you. You were too busy running around having fun when you should have been demonstrating your sincerity to your future husband that you weren’t going to leave him at the first chance you had for your little coffee-shop boyfriend!”

  “I didn’t see Ike even once since I met Masoud!”

  “That’s not the point! Your heart was never in it.”

  “How would you know?” I scream in Farsi. “You give up the right to think you know me when you leave home and stay away for fifteen years, Maryam! What kind of sister does that? Tell me. What kind of sister, what kind of daughter, does that to her family?”

  Maryam’s face crumples. She opens her mouth to defend herself but no words come out. Eva grips my arm. I turn to her. “What?”

  “Calm down,” she cautions. “Don’t take your anger out on your sister.”

  “Whose side are you on here?”

  “Yours, Tami. But what happened has nothing to do with your sister, and you know it. Just be quiet for a little while.”

  “Aaaargh! You’re the one who always talks too much, Eva. You’re the one who needs to be quiet once in a while.”

  I look around at them all, ready to take on anyone who dares cross me.

  “Should we go?” Danny asks suddenly. “Maybe we should go.”

  “Yes,” Edgard quickly agrees. “We should go.”

  “Damn right we should,” Eva mutters.

  My classmates give their hurried good-byes and are out the door in less than a minute. Eva, the last to leave, slams the door behind her.

  I peek out the back window. Masoud is gone. Ardishir sits alone at the table, his head sunk in his hands. Maryam continues to stand there staring at me.

  “You better go check on your husband,” I tell her. “It looks like he needs you.”

  “You need me more,” she says quietly.

  “No,” I tell her plainly. “I don’t need you. There’s nothing you can do for me anymore.”

  I kick my bedroom door closed behind me and look around for something else to kick. I see my suitcase propped against the dresser, so I go over and kick it and then I kick it again. I was already packed for my new life in Chicago.

  And now I have to go back to Iran.

  I have to go back to Iran.

  My hejab is buried at the bottom of my suitcase, underneath my beautiful purchases from Victoria’s Secret. I was so sure I would never have to wear it again.

  I unzip my suitcase, pull it out, and drape it over my head. I stare at myself in the mirror. There I am again, me with a veil, looking more like Maman Joon than I ever have.

  This thought nauseates me. I yank the hejab off and drop it to the ground and for the next hour I lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling. I do not send mean thoughts Masoud’s way; it seems there is no point. It was not meant to be, that is all. There is some reason I am needed back in Iran. Perhaps my parents will require my assistance in ways they do not yet know. It is good for older people to have at least one child remain with them, to care for them as they age.

  You’re lying to yourself, Tami. They don’t need you and you let them down. You failed them.

  Maryam was right. I did waste too much time with Ike. Eva and I should have placed ads earlier on Persian singles websites, and I should have spent those hours after class calling each prospect on the telephone. I had three months. I could have met so very many men in this way. I could have even gone to an Internet café in Tehran and placed my ad before leaving. I should have insisted to Haroun that we marry immediately, even without Ardishir’s permission. Failing that, I should have married Masoud the same day I met him. We should have come back to my sister’s house already married, before he had time to decide he needed a contract from me.

  I think these thoughts over and over, around and around, for hours, until finally there is a tapping on my door.

  “Come in.”

  It is Ardishir. He looks devastated. I sit up in bed and he comes to sit next to me. “God, Tami, I am so sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” I tell him. “I’ll be all right back home. I miss my parents.”

  He shakes his head. “I called Haroun just now,” he says after a long moment, then purses his lips. “I thought maybe, you know…”

  “He said no, right?”

  “He said no.”

  I nod. “It’s okay,” I whisper.

  “It’s not.”

  “Well, there’s nothing we can do about it. Maybe my father will be able to get another visa for me next year or the following year and I can try again.”

  Ardishir gives me a sad smile. “You’re too good for this. You should not have to jump through all these hoops in order to stay here. America would be lucky to have you.”

  I let out my breath. I would be lucky to have America. I was lucky to have it for the short time I did.

  “I have a favor to ask of you, Ardishir.”

  “Sure, anything.”

  I reach over to my suitcase, pull out the camera he gave me and my photo album, and I hand them to him.

  “Will you keep these for me?”

  “I, ah…” He purses his lips and I can tell he is trying not to cry.

  “Please,” I say. “It’s best I leave them behind. They’ll never make it through the airport. And I can’t stand the thought of their dirty hands on them, pawing through them and…”

  I stop. I can so clearly see how it will unfold if I take these pictures. I would pull on my veil as we enter Iranian airspace. I would step off the plane onto Iranian soil—the soil of my homeland—into the chaos of Mehrabad Airport. My parents will wait anxiously for me, but they will have a long wait, for because my passport has an American stamp in it, I will doubtlessly be searched and harassed. I will be pulled aside into a windowless room and forced to defend my photographs. They will call me a whore and a badjen and tell me I should be ashamed of myself for having loose morals. I will sit there, veiled and silent and docile and in fear. I will let them say these horrible things in the hopeless hope that they will give me back my pictures. I would rather die than endure watching them tear my pictures into pieces with their hateful, dirty hands.

  I hold up a photo of Eva in a miniskirt and thigh-high leather boots. Ardishir smiles. I hold up one of Agata pole dancing. He laughs. “You see why I can’t take these back with me.”

  Ardishir reaches out and cups my cheek in his hand. “You’re sure, Tami Joon?”

  My tears start falling at his touch. I bite my lip and nod.

  “Okay.” He drops his hand and slowly goes through my photo album. “You’ve really got talent. I hope you know that.”

  I say nothing. Talent means nothing in Iran. Creative expression can kill you.

  When Ardishir gets to the last page in the album, he finds the long-ago photo of Maman Joon holding me at the ocean that day. He pulls it out from its place and tries to hand it to me. “You need to keep this one at least.”

  “I don’t want it,” I choke out. “I don’t think I can stand looking at it anymore.”

  He again tries to hand it to me. “You need to keep it. Maryam has told me how much it means to you.”

  “Why is she so mad at Maman? I don’t think she has any right to be mad at her.”

  Ardishir shrugs. “You can’t help how you feel, can you? If you’re mad, you’re mad.”

  “But why?”

  Ardishir stares at the photograph for a long moment.

  “Please, Ardishir. Tell me.”<
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  His eyes are black when he looks at me. “Your mother is the one who decided the family should return to Iran. It was right after Khomeini arrived back from exile. She thought things would be so much better in Iran. You know, that women would get to keep all the freedoms they’d been granted under the Shah, only there would be none of the Shah’s corruption. And they’d all get to help create this just society.”

  “Lots of people thought that,” I counter, stunned though I am. I’d always thought it was my father’s decision. I’d always thought they went back for only a visit, and got stuck. “It’s not fair for Maryam to be mad at her for this.”

  “Everyone told your mother not to return. Her parents, her grandmother. Even your father was very wary. But she insisted. And then…well, you know the rest, I’m sure.”

  “I don’t think I do.”

  Ardishir gets up from the bed and walks to the window. Facing away from me, he says, “You know your mother was arrested, right?”

  I gasp. I cover my mouth with my hand and shudder at the thought of my poor mother being hauled off to jail. Tears fill my eyes as I shake my head. “No,” I whisper. “I didn’t know this.”

  “They’d only been back two weeks when Khomeini mandated that women had to wear the veil again. She was arrested at a protest. She wasn’t an organizer or anything, she just was in attendance and happened to be one of the ones they hauled off. She spent something like five months in jail. Maryam doesn’t know what happened to your mother in jail. It’s something no one talks about. But all the fight left her. All her confidence. Maryam said she’s never been the same since.”

  I reach for the photograph. I stare and stare at Maman Joon. At her long free-flowing hair. Her muscled legs. At her certainty that she could comfort me in the way I needed. She lost all that, and so much more, because of one bad decision.

  “I remember running around our house in Iran, wearing my mother’s hejab. She got so mad at me. She chased me around, yelled at me, grabbed it back. But I thought it was so exotic.” My voice breaks. “Isn’t that all that every little girl wants? To be just like her mother?”