by Isobel Chace
She felt his gaze on her face.
‘Don’t be pushed into being alone with Reza,’ he said. ‘It wouldn’t be fair to him.’
‘Is that an order, or your considered advice?’
His eyes narrowed. ‘I’ll make it an order if you like,’ he drawled.
‘I don’t like! Like Maxine, I can run my own life without any help from you!’
‘And I mean it when I tell you not to be alone with him, Deborah. Make sure his mother or Maxine is around when you have these lessons of yours—’
‘And what sort of fool should I look if I got the jitters whenever they were not there? Reza wouldn’t do me any harm!’
‘I was thinking,’ Roger said carefully, ‘of the harm you might do him.’
‘But how?’ She looked at him quickly. ‘What harm could I do him?’
‘Think about it. His mother is an American and lonely. If you were in her shoes, what kind of daughter-in-law would you prefer?’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘But Iran’s a man’s country! He wouldn’t listen to her!’ She shook her head at him, convinced he was teasing her. ‘Anyway, it’s Maxine he’s taken a fancy to!’
But he didn’t smile, or look in the least bit amused. ‘I doubt if you have the sense to know what he has in mind, and I doubt even more it will be Maxine he’ll want to marry!’
And with that, he banged on the door with a force that brought Toobi running across the courtyard to open it, bowed politely to Deborah and, turning on his heel, walked firmly away from her, back towards the bazaar.
CHAPTER SIX
Maxine was only mildly curious as to where Deborah had been.
‘It gives me the willies to think about it! They made me feel ashamed I’d ever gone near the beastly place!’
Deborah managed a rather weak grin. ‘Roger would say you had come by your deserts!’ she commented. ‘Had he really warned you not to go?’
‘I wouldn’t put it quite like that,’ Maxine sniffed.
‘How would you put it?’
Maxine stared at a point over Deborah’s head, her colour high. ‘Well, if you must know, he did send me an off-hand message through Howard reminding me that if I wanted to get into trouble by myself that was one thing, but if I made you do the same silly things, I’d have him to answer to. It made me as mad as a hornet! What’s so special about you?’
‘I was almost his sister-in-law. I can’t think of any other reason,’ Deborah said, puzzled.
‘Neither can I!’ Maxine declared. ‘He hasn’t been near us ever since you got here!’
It was impossible after that to tell her that she had just had tea with him, Deborah decided, so she kept her own counsel and inquired instead as to what had happened to Maxine at the Shah Cheraq.
‘They put me out,’ she said briefly. ‘That fellow with the silver mace would have loved to have bopped me over the head with it, but I threatened to cry blue murder if he did anything of the sort. I think they would have thrown me into prison, or something equally dramatic, but I suddenly thought of Reza and the mere mention of his name made them let me go.’ She gave Deborah an apologetic shrug. ‘I didn’t wait around for you because I thought you’d got away with it and I didn’t want to spoil it for you. I guessed you’d come home as soon as you could.’
‘Yes. Yes, I did,’ Deborah agreed. And she hurried off into the kitchen to return Toobi’s chador to her, marking the incident closed in her own mind. She wouldn’t, if she could help it, give Roger another thought for a long, long time to come, but that proved to be more difficult than she had thought. He didn’t need her permission before taking up residence in her mind and, if he had, she doubted that he would have asked for it. As it was, he seemed to have become as much a part of her as the breath in her body.
She passed the rest of the day in listless indifference, arid the next day threatened to be as bad until she decided that she could not go on like that any longer. There was only one answer to the condition she was suffering from, and that was work. Lots and lots of hard work and no time to indulge herself with useless dreams of what Roger might be doing, or what he would have to say about this or that. It was time to be sensible.
When Reza came that evening she insisted they should start on her language lessons. ‘I can’t afford to do nothing,’ she told him primly. ‘It’s a strain on the business for me to come here at all. I can’t spend my time dawdling around enjoying myself!’
Reza only shrugged. ‘My mother will see to all that for you. There is no need for you to upset yourself. It will all come right in time.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Deborah turned on him, her suspicions aroused.
‘It’s easy to see you are unhappy,’ he said. ‘Miss Maxine should not have told me, I know, but when I asked why you had this tragic look, she explained to me that you had been engaged to marry some man who had married someone else.’
‘There’s no reason why she shouldn’t have told you,’ Deborah replied. ‘It isn’t a secret exactly, only I don’t like people feeling sorry for me. I think we both had a lucky escape.’
It was obvious that Reza thought she was being brave rather than truthful. ‘But it had all been arranged between your families,’ he went on. ‘You had put your money in this shop of his! I don’t see how you can go on working for him! What is your family thinking about to allow you to do so?’
‘It has nothing to do with my family!’
‘When this man has the use of your dowry—and yet marries someone else?’ Reza’s scandalised tones made her want to laugh. ‘It seems very strange behaviour to me!’
Deborah tried to explain it to him. ‘My part of the boutique isn’t my dowry!’ she exclaimed. ‘It has nothing to do with getting married at all. It was money left to me by my grandparents to do with what I liked. I’d tried working for other people and I wanted to work for myself. Ian and I share the business, but we didn’t have to share anything else. That’s the way it is in England. He was quite free to marry Anne if he wanted to, though it might have been better if he had told me first.’
‘You own this business equally with this man?’
Deborah nodded. ‘Of course. Why not?’
‘It would never happen like that in Iran,’ he answered her. ‘It is my mother who manages all our purchases from the Qashgai, and who arranges everything, but she only does so with our consent. The money she makes was my father’s before his death, when he was head of the family. Now it comes to my brother.’
‘Well, if your mother doesn’t object—’ Deborah began.
‘There can only be one head of the family,’ he retorted. ‘It’s a position of great responsibility to have to make all the decisions for all these people. But this is the way we have always managed things in Iran. Your position makes great difficulties! Nobody will understand that this man has no say in your future!’
Deborah could not understand. ‘Does it matter?’ she asked. ‘In England now almost everyone has to earn their own living, women included. Plenty of women do here too, I’m sure. If isn’t as strange as all that!’
His dark eyes looked uncertain. ‘It’s a complication,’ he said. ‘I must have time to think about it!’
‘Well, if you want to,’ Deborah said with a flippancy she was far from feeling. ‘But I can’t see that it has anything to do with you. Your mother won’t be fussed by such a thing if she’s an American. She may live according to Persian customs because she married your father, but in America women are even more liberated than we are in Europe. She’ll hardly be shocked by my being the co-owner of a shop with Ian!’
Reza gave her a diffident smile. ‘But my mother is not the only one to be considered.’ He appeared to turn the matter over in his mind for a while. ‘Tell me,’ he said at last, ‘does Miss Maxine know this fact about you?’
Deborah turned surprised eyes on him. ‘Why?’
‘I think she may have mentioned it to me if she had.’
Deborah shrugged, half-laughing. ‘Don’t be da
ft! She probably didn’t think it worth the mentioning. Why should she? She works for herself too!’
‘No, but that is not quite so,’ Reza contradicted her. ‘Miss Maxine lives here with her brother and she paints only with his consent. Is this not so?’
Deborah did laugh then. ‘My dear Reza, you’re talking out of the back of your hat! Nonsense,’ she added, taking pity on his puzzled expression. ‘Maxine doesn’t pay any attention to anything Howard says! She has her own money! She doesn’t have to sit around and wait for his consent to anything!’
‘No?’ The dark eyes burned with a fire that she mistrusted. ‘I had not understood that Miss Maxine was so independent. She is very beautiful.’
Deborah was glad to agree. ‘I have often wished I was really fair, as she is, or really dark. Little Miss In-Between, that’s me!’
‘I find you most beautiful!’ the Persian exclaimed. ‘More beautiful than she! I have told my mother all about you and she can hardly wait for me to arrange your visit to her.’
‘Yes, but we’re taking Maxine too, aren’t we?’ Deborah said hastily. ‘I wonder where she’s got to? She said she’d only be gone a few minutes. I feel I’m wasting your time just sitting here and talking English with you. Perhaps we’d better begin our Farsi lesson without her?’
‘If it pleases you,’ he murmured, and this time there was no mistaking the fire in his eyes. ‘We can walk through the bazaar and I shall tell you what all the different things are called. I shall show you the Regent’s Mosque also, yes? You would like that?’
Deborah was not keen on visiting any more mosques, but her interest was caught when Reza went on to say that the mosque was only in use on special occasions and that, between whiles, anybody could visit it with the goodwill of the whole town.
‘Well, all right,’ she temporised. ‘Toobi can tell Maxine where we’ve gone when she gets back and she can catch us up.’
‘I will tell her,’ he agreed.
He said a great deal to the maid, some of which Deborah thought Toobi didn’t like at all. Once, the old woman made a quick motion of protest, but at a word from the doctor, she lowered her eyes and said nothing further.
‘Why doesn’t she want me to go with you?’ Deborah asked him as they crossed the courtyard towards the street door.
‘She doesn’t like the thought of you being alone with me, but I have told her that that means nothing to Western girls. It isn’t as though anyone has the right to be angry with you, and Miss Maxine will soon catch us up and accompany us for the rest of the way.’ Deborah wondered if Roger would be angry if he got to hear about it. But he had less right than anyone else she knew to take her to task for going to the bazaar with Reza. It was a public place when all was said and done, and what could possibly happen to her in such a crowded thoroughfare?
It was fun looking at the shops with someone as knowledgeable about the various Persian crafts as Reza was. The jewellers opened up their glass counters with a flourish, pointing out the hundreds of turquoises, polished and mounted in silver and gold settings, or unpolished, of all shapes and sizes, and kept in happy profusion in a series of wooden boxes.
‘You like?’ Reza asked her. ‘You think turquoise is something you would like to have?’
‘They’re beautiful,’ Deborah agreed. She liked looking at them, but she had no desire to own them.
‘Haile gashang,’ he pronounced carefully. ‘Beautiful! You must say it in Farsi, no? Say it after me! Haile gashang.’
She repeated the words obediently, her attention beginning to wander.
‘Which stones do you like best?’ Reza persisted. ‘Do you prefer gold or silver?’
‘Turquoise would suit Maxine, but it doesn’t suit me,’ Deborah said firmly. Something in the shopkeeper’s face told her that he was expecting to make a sale, and life was complicated enough without Reza trying to make her expensive presents.
‘Not turquoise,’ he agreed readily. ‘But you would like to see our tribal carpets, yes? You should have one beside your bed and it would have the honour to feel your bare feet last thing at night and first thing in the morning. I will give you the most beautiful one we can find!’
‘Indeed you will not!’ Deborah exclaimed. ‘If you can’t behave yourself, I’m going home!’
‘But it’s only a little thing between us,’ he pleaded. ‘Look, come and see how fine our carpets are! It’s the custom for every girl when she comes to a marriageable age to make one of these carpets and then it is sold and the money she makes becomes her dowry. If she makes a good sale, she will have her choice of the young nomads who are looking for a bride.’
He led the way quickly to one of the rug stalls before she could change her mind, and began piling them up around her feet, pointing out the best features of each one in a torrent of words that opposed any interruption on her part.
Mostly, the rugs had a simple geometric design, but the bright colours made the patterns shine like jewels against the darker surrounds. Some of them had real merit, and Deborah wished that Maxine would have caught them up as the American girl would have appreciated them as much as she did.
‘I shall buy you the dozen you like best!’ Reza promised. ‘It’s my duty to do so, for many of the girls are known to me. See, you can see their special marks so that one rug will not be confused with another. It is very important to the girls that they should make a good sale. You would not deny them a happy future, would you, Debbie?’
She met the appeal in his voice with a blank stare. ‘If Maxine doesn’t catch us up in the next five minutes, I’m going home,’ she declared.
He was immediately contrite. ‘You think my present is dishonourable?’ he tested her. ‘Not so! I wish only to give you pleasure. Is there something else you would prefer?’
‘I don’t want you to buy me anything!’
‘Nothing?’ He shrugged his shoulders, his mouth drooping with disappointment. ‘You are angry with me? But truly, I wish only to please you!’
‘Yes, I know,’ Deborah said gently. ‘But it isn’t right that you should buy me anything of value. You wouldn’t spend your money on a Persian girl like that, would you?’
‘But of course not!’ He gave her a surprised look. ‘She would be embarrassed by such a thing!’
‘Then please don’t embarrass me,’ Deborah pressed home her advantage.
‘You are joking?’ he countered, but he was a lot less sure of himself than he had been. ‘It is true that you don’t want my presents. Taroof nisti.’
‘I’m not joking,’ she insisted. ‘Believe me, I wouldn’t joke about a thing like that!’
What Reza might have said and done then she was never to know for, to her inordinate relief, she saw Maxine coming towards them through the bazaar, an anxious expression vividly reflected on her fair face.
‘It was mean of you to start without me!’ she said sharply to Deborah as she caught up with them. She smiled a blinding smile in Reza’s direction. ‘I’m not blaming you,’ she added. ‘I’m sure you would have waited for me if you could.’
‘But of course,’ Reza responded. ‘You have missed nothing, however. Miss Deborah has only learned a couple of phrases—nothing of importance—hardly any of the sentences I should like her to learn!’
‘And me too?’ Maxine encouraged him.
‘There are other phrases for you to learn.’ He gave her an intimate look. ‘I have to remember that your brother speaks a little Farsi, no? Supposing he were to disapprove of what I teach you?’
‘Howard wouldn’t care,’ Maxine murmured.
‘But he is your brother, Miss Maxine. He cares more than you think about what happens to you!’
Deborah saw Maxine’s mouth close mutinously and she had little doubt as to what the American girl was thinking. Maxine had liked Reza from the first and she wouldn’t be at all pleased if she were to discover that her liking for him was not returned with interest.
‘I’ve had enough of the bazaar,’ she said out l
oud. ‘It’s too busy to be an ideal place for a language lesson. Why don’t we go somewhere else?’
Maxine turned bright, pleading eyes on to Reza’s face. ‘Take us to see the Hafez Memorial,’ she pleaded with him. ‘Or Saadi’s, if it’s nearer. Nothing could be more calculated to please Howard than that!’
‘It is pretty,’ Reza agreed. ‘But it is not old. There are other places that are more secluded—more to the modern taste!’
Maxine slanted a glance at the English girl. ‘Well, Deborah?’
‘I’d like to pay my respects to Hafez,’ Deborah began, and broke off when she saw Maxine’s frown.
‘I thought you had business in the square,’ Maxine said meaningly.
Deborah looked questioningly at Maxine. ‘I could have,’ she said doubtfully.
‘No, no,’ Reza said at once. ‘I am sorry, but it wouldn’t be suitable for me to take Miss Maxine by herself. If Miss Deborah cannot come this morning we must go some other time.’
‘Oh, all right,’ Maxine agreed with a grudging look at Deborah. ‘It doesn’t matter much. When you take us to meet your mother there will be plenty of time for us to talk without half the world listening to every word.’
‘Have you told your mother about us yet?’ Deborah asked him, carefully noting his reactions from beneath her eyelashes.
‘Of course, of course,’ he said easily. ‘I will arrange everything. You have nothing to fear!’ His too hot eyes met hers. ‘I will arrange everything,’ he repeated. ‘Now, let’s go to the Hafezieh and see if we can have our fortunes told. That is what every girl likes, yes?’
Maxine laughingly agreed that it was. ‘I guess one makes one’s own fortune, but it might be fun. What happens?’
Reza’s good spirits were magically restored to him. ‘It may not happen today, but many people go to the grave of Hafez and choose a verse from his writings at random, finding their future in the words. Hafez is the greatest lyricist who ever lived!’
Deborah was far from being convinced of that, but Maxine, well-schooled by her brother, giggled. ‘You don’t have to tell us that! Howard says his every word can be read at two levels, either at face value, as good, sensual love poetry, or as a running commentary on the glories of the Koran and the Moslem way of life. Wasn’t he a sufi, or a whirling dervish, or something?’
