by Leylah Attar
“Of all the places, you had to move to this god forsaken piece of frozen land.” He cursed as he stuffed his fingers into Pedar’s gloves.
Pedar laughed and buried his cold, bare hands in his pockets.
“You taste like yesterday’s lamb.” Pasha Moradi smacked Ma’s bottom and kissed her on the lips.
Pedar laughed and refilled his drink.
“Really, Kamal. My driver’s shack is bigger than this hell hole. I can’t spend another night here. Dirty elevators, cockroaches, stinking hallways. Find me a real place.”
Pedar laughed and called a realtor.
I liked Bob Worthing and what he did. He was around Baba’s age, and his job was to match people with their dreams, to fill empty spaces with families that belonged. I gawked at the beautiful homes he showed us. A stately brick manor snuggled amid towering trees; a gated estate with soaring ceilings; a cozy bungalow with walnut floors and a stone fireplace.
Stepping into Bob Worthing’s van was like taking a trip to a world I had left behind, when everything safe was contained within sturdy walls and the air was fragrant with citrus blossoms. After every outing with Bob, I played with the tail end of possibility, the chance that Hafez and I could build our own nest, and there, perhaps, I’d find the part of me that had fallen out the day Maamaan, Hossein and I ran up the hills.
“You take the front, Kamal.” Pasha Moradi insisted that day, as we got into the van. “I hate making small talk with these people.” He added the last bit in Persian, ‘these people’, meaning Bob.
He slid into the back seat next to me. I inched closer to Ma, trying to get away from the feel of his pudgy thighs pressing into mine. Ma smelled like rose water and garlic, more so when Bob cranked up the heat.
“How old are you, Shayda?”
I felt Pasha Moradi’s sweaty stare on me.
“I turn twenty one this summer.”
“A baby.” He put his arm around me and squeezed. “A sweet, little baby.”
His hand stayed on my shoulder, fondling me in small circles. I felt his whisky breath in my ear, but there was nowhere to go. Bob caught the exchange in the mirror. It wasn’t the first time he’d noticed my discomfort.
“What do you and your husband do?” he asked as we stood at the entrance of a new townhouse later.
Ma, Pedar and Pasha Moradi were in the kitchen, checking out the appliances.
“Hafez works at his father’s auto shop. I stay at home.”
“Your English is very good. Have you thought about getting a job?”
We talked about my qualifications. High school, yes. Experience, no.
“You know, I’m looking for an assistant—answering phone calls, looking after the paper work, simple stuff. It doesn’t pay much, but it would get you out of the house.” He didn’t have to say it, but I knew he was thinking about Pasha Moradi’s hand on my shoulder.
“Thank you,” I replied. “But my father-in-law wouldn’t approve of me working outside the home.”
“I have a daughter, a few years younger than you,” said Bob, as if that explained the concern. “Here’s my card. In case you change your mind.”
I slipped it into my pocket as Pasha Moradi came out of the kitchen, shaking his head.
“No good. What’s next?”
Bob crossed one address after another off his list. Nothing pleased Pasha Moradi.
“Too close to the road. Too much traffic.”
“What do I need such a big backyard for?”
“Too much light.”
“Too little light.”
White neighbours. Chinese neighbours. Black neighbours. Indians. No. No. No. No. Too far from the bus stop. Too close to the bus stop.
“He’s never going to leave,” said Hafez.
Every day, he looked more gaunt. And strained.
Ma and I took on sewing jobs to pay for extra groceries. Pasha Moradi did not eat left overs. He wanted lamb every Friday, and eggs every morning. And every night, Pedar opened another bottle of whisky.
“It’s okay,” said Ma when she pricked her finger. “You wait. See. After he buy house, he looking for big business. Making Kamal and Hafez a partner. After that, everything is all right. Everything is all right.”
I put a pillow under her ankles and we continued sewing.
That night, Pasha Moradi came into the living room. It was well after midnight. I watched from the mattress as he stood over the couch, swaying over Pedar’s and Ma’s sleeping forms. Then he went into the bathroom. A few minutes later, Pedar got up and followed him. They met in the dark hallway, green ghosts glowing against the night light. Pedar stroked Pasha Moradi’s face. Pasha Moradi took him by the hand and led him into the bedroom.
March 21st, 1983
“Be ready. 6:30 p.m.,” said Hafez.
My heart soared as I put the receiver down. For the first time in months, I had caught the glimmer of a spark in his voice. Instead of spending Nowruz, the first day of the Persian New Year at home, Hafez wanted to take me out. I knew that Ma and Pedar wouldn’t be pleased when they got back, but dinner was ready and there was just enough time to do the dishes and hop in the shower.
I hummed as I cleaned up. It was rare to have the place to myself. I hoped the friend that Pasha Moradi was visiting insisted that he stay the night. Maybe two or three. Preferably forever.
Yeah, right. I shook my head. Wishful thinking.
My eyes rested on the beautiful Haft Seen, the traditional table we had prepared for Nowruz. It symbolized the arrival of the spring equinox and the rebirth of nature. In the middle were seven items starting with the letter ‘S’ in the Persian alphabet. The candles that Hafez and I had lit together were burning over an elegant arrangement of mirrors, eggs, coins, nuts and pomegranates. Perhaps Ma was right.
“The candles bring good. Warm. Spring come,” she said. “Evil go. Winter go. But they burn till finish, okay? If blow out, bring bad luck.”
I felt foolish, having her explain things that I should have learned growing up. The Haft Seen had been something that the help set up, and later, Maamaan had done it silently, grudgingly.
Ma and I got along. I tried to imagine her, married to Pedar at sixteen, her hair lush and flowing around an unlined face. It was tough to picture her like that. Ma’s face was set in a permanent scowl that was directly proportional to how swollen her feet were that day. The one thing that transported her away from it all was the glass cabinet. I gave it a light dusting, wondering what dreams lay frozen in the porcelain families that made her smile.
I hopped in the shower, feeling a stir of anticipation. Hafez had kept his distance, but perhaps tonight...I reached for the shampoo, recalling the hushed conversations Salomeh had shared with me about boys. Maybe it was the lack of privacy, like Farnaz had suggested. Maybe if Hafez and I went somewhere alone—I flushed as I wrapped the towel around my body and stepped out of the shower.
With one foot on the ledge of the tub, I started rubbing lotion over my legs. I knew my husband wanted me. Sometimes it was so fierce, that look of longing, but always he turned away, as if he’d hit an invisible wall.
A puff of cold air hit my neck.
Then I smelled it.
Whisky.
I spun around and froze.
Pasha Moradi was standing in the doorway, watching me.
Fondling himself.
A thousand thoughts rushed through my head, but none of them mattered.
He lunged for me, his eyes red and greedy, ripping the towel off me. I fought, my nails clawing at the shower curtain. Ping ping ping. The metal rings bounced off the ground. The jolt of my bones colliding with cold, damp tile emptied my lungs. Pasha Moradi pinned me to the floor. Or against the wall. I couldn’t tell. I had no idea which way was up. All I could feel was his breath on the back of my neck, his hands grabbing my hips, the metallic taste of blood in my mouth.
I kicked. I tore. I hit. I bit. I could feel the thick, wiry hair on Pasha Moradi’s arms as they tightened
around my ribcage. He yanked me off my feet and slammed me, face down, against the sink. My feet slipped as they beat against the floor, sliding on a slick layer of spilled lotion. I choked on the sweet scent of lavender, my cheek smashed into the porcelain bowl.
No, I cried. It’s Nowruz. I’m having dinner with my husband.
But Pasha Moradi couldn’t hear my silent screams. He grabbed my hair and pulled so hard that I was staring at his twisted face in the mirror, still foggy from my shower. His other hand reached for his pants. I could hear the zipper unfastening, the sound of my dreams being sucked down a rusty drain. I screwed my eyes shut, locking out the thought of his ugly, purple penis pushing into me.
My hands flailed out, like a drowning man trying to keep afloat. The plastic tumbler by the sink tipped over. Toothpaste. Comb. The soft bristles of a toothbrush. My fingers closed around a cold, ring shaped handle.
Scissors. Hafez’s tiny, cuticle scissors. The ones I laughed at whenever I caught him trimming his nose hair.
I could feel Pasha Moradi’s beefy knee between my thighs, forcing them apart.
I gripped the scissors and drove the pointy end straight back. Pasha Moradi hissed as it punctured his big balloon of a body. But it wasn’t enough. His grip remained iron-tight. I dislodged the scissors and stabbed him a second time, with all the desperate, sobbing force I could muster. This time he screamed and staggered back.
I was shaking so hard, I could barely push myself off the sink. My soles skid on a wet mess of blood and lotion. I broke free, dragging a dead shower curtain along with me. I could see the front door. My heart hammered with wild relief.
I was almost there when he grabbed my leg.
I clutched at the shiny parquet tiles as Pasha Moradi dragged me into the living room by my feet. When he rolled me over, the first thing I saw were the scissors sticking out of his eye, like some horrible cartoon parody. And then I saw his face. Rage-blinded, with red devil tears streaming down one cheek. He slapped me twice. Each time I felt my teeth rattle, my still-wet hair spraying drops of water everywhere. Then he wrapped his hands around my neck and squeezed. I clutched at my throat, my legs thrashing against the floor. He could have killed me then, but he was enjoying it too much. So he eased up and let me gasp a lungful of air before tightening his grip again.
I felt myself fading as darkness overtook me, but then I saw his bloated face through the haze and started laughing. He looked pathetic, a big, swollen puffer fish with scissors jiggling in one eyeball, like a knife stuck in jello.
“Jendeh!” He slapped me again.
He didn’t like me smiling, but I couldn’t stop.
A huffing, puffing blowfish was blowing my house down.
“You want pain?” He fumbled with his flaccid penis. A sharp object in the eye can do that to a man’s libido.
I laughed harder.
I was in a different place, removed from myself, wrapped up in a cocoon where everything was muffled. Still, my entire body clenched at the thought of it. How many times does a girl think of her first time? How many perfect, golden scenarios? I laughed at the irony of it.
“Shut up!” He spit on me, his face red with exertion, still trying to get himself hard.
Blood collected around the silver rims of the dual metal loops sticking out of his eye, and plopped down on my face. I wondered if his slimy, convoluted brain would spill out if I unplugged the scissors, and laughed harder still.
My lip split open with that slap. Or maybe it was from before. I couldn’t be sure. All I knew is that when I felt Pasha Moradi’s body being pulled off me, I felt so defiled, I wanted to hold on to its stifling weight, to have the life squashed out of me.
“You fucking bastard!”
Hafez’s voice. Followed by a volley of grunts. I turned my head and saw their feet. Giants with far-away faces, smashing and pounding at the world. Something crashed. Or someone. Pasha Moradi was clutching his eye, trying to contain the stream of blood pooling behind his palm. The scissors lay on the floor. Hafez swayed over him, his knuckles bloody and swollen.
Pasha Moradi grabbed the gold cloth that covered the Haft Seen table and heaved himself up. His purple penis bobbed like a withered eggplant. A shower of coins fell from the table and jingled off the floor. The front of Hafez’s shirt was stamped with red hand prints, like a kindergarten art project.
Pasha Moradi seized the mirror on the Haft Seen table and swung it at Hafez. The sprouted barley that Ma and I had started growing a few weeks ago turned upside down. Hafez ducked the first time, but Pasha Moradi got him in the back of the skull as he came up. Silver shards exploded everywhere. Hafez reeled back, clutching his head. His other hand gripped the table as he fought for balance.
“You want more, little boy?” Pasha Moradi sneered, wiping his bloody nose with the back of his hand.
Hafez froze. Something flipped inside him. When he straightened, his face was set with a crazed ferocity. He lunged at Pasha Moradi with a savage cry. They trampled the pastel colored boiled eggs that had rolled off the table, into a rainbow mush. Like a caged animal let loose, Hafez pummeled Pasha Moradi to his knees.
That’s when Pasha Moradi’s fingers clenched around the candlestick. He waved the smoking flame in Hafez’s face. Hot wax splattered on Hafez’s skin. Pasha Moradi got up, keeping him at bay.
“You think you’re a big man now, huh?” He laughed, an awful, shuddersome cackle. “You can’t even protect your woman.”
He took a step back towards me, but tripped over the pants around his ankles and fell back, crashing into Ma’s glass cabinet.
The shelf wobbled precariously. For a moment it looked like it might right itself. Then it tipped over, smashing Pasha Moradi under it. The glass panes slid out, cracking open over his half-clad body. Shiny miniature families shattered in a million fragments around him.
The front door creaked open. Pedar stopped mid-sentence. The candlestick rolled from Pasha Moradi’s outstretched arms and the flame snuffed out. He lay face down, one grotesque eye staring at us, his body slashed like the jagged grid of a tic tac toe, in an expanding pool of crimson blood. Ma’s purse hit the floor with a dull thunk.
“What happened?” Pedar’s face was the color of ash.
“The filthy bugger attacked her.” Hafez wrapped me in the torn shower curtain and carried me to the couch.
“Mind your tongue!” Pedar stepped over the glass shards in his polished Nowruz shoes. “Jigar?” He tried to rouse him, but Pasha Moradi wouldn’t respond.
“What are you waiting for?” Pedar yelled at Hafez. “Call an ambulance!”
“He’s gone. And I hope he rots in hell.”
“Hafez!” Ma found her voice. “Be pedaret goosh kon!”
“Listen to him? Why should I? He never listened to me. Did you, Pedar?”
Pedar ignored him, frantically dialing the phone.
“Even now,” laughed Hafez. “Even now you don’t listen.” He swept the phone off the stand in a violent sweep of his hands. It clanged to the floor with a jarring crash.
Pedar stood still, holding the receiver in one hand, his mouth hanging open.
“I came to you. I told you. And you did nothing. Nothing!”
“It was a long time ago. You were imagining things.”
“And this?” Hafez pointed to me. “Am I imagining this too?”
“She brought this on herself.”
“You’re a coward.” Hafez’s voice was shaking. “You can bury your head in the sand. You can tell yourself whatever the hell you like, but you know he did this. Just as you knew he was abusing me.”
Some words, when spoken, are like spells that unleash demons from carefully nailed coffins.
“Hafez—” I tried to speak.
“Do you think I didn’t know?” whispered Hafez. “What a farce the two of you played all these years.”
The sound of Pedar’s palm stinging Hafez’s cheek echoed in the ensuing silence. Ma’s mouth opened and closed like a fish out of wa
ter.
“Here.” Hafez picked up the phone and handed it to Pedar. “Call them. Tell them your son just killed your lover.”
June 10th, 1983
Bob Worthing had a small home office where I spent the day taking calls, booking appointments and looking after the paperwork. He offered me the job after the investigation cleared Hafez and me of Pasha Moradi’s death. The police ruled it as accidental, and our actions as self defense. Bob Worthing’s statement, about what he had witnessed of Pasha Moradi’s behavior, may have helped. Working for him was not something I did just for the pay check; it was also an expression of gratitude for his kindness. Not only did he introduce me to his answering machine, his fax and his typewriter, but also his home, his wife and daughter.
“He’s gone?” Jayne padded into the office with her sleep-ruffled hair, tank top and shorts.
“Your father’s at a lunch meeting.”
“But it’s barely—” She looked at her watch. “Oh.”
It was hard not to like Jayne. She sat across from me, legs drawn in, and rested her chin on her knees.
“Ryan’s going to be here in a few weeks.” She grinned.
“You must be excited about seeing your brother again.”
“Yes...” She hesitated, then trailed off with a sly smile.
“But...?”
“But I’m also looking forward to seeing his friend.”
“Ah. The friend.”
“I know, I know. You’re sick of hearing about him, but Shayda, he’s soooo dreamy.”
“I’ve told you before Jayne, he’s too old for you,” her mother said from the kitchen.
Jayne rolled her eyes. “He’s twenty one. How is that too old? And can you not eavesdrop?” She got up and shut the door. “Swear to god, she hears everything.”
