Rosewater and Soda Bread

by Marsha Mehran

  She turned her attention back to Julian. “So, why Iran?”

  “Why?”

  “Yes. I mean, how did you get interested in traveling there in the first place?”

  “I fell in love with a Persian girl. At Oxford.” Julian settled back in the booth. The tasseled curtain brushed over his hair, ruffling it attractively.

  “Ah. A Persian girl.” Marjan nodded.

  Julian chuckled. “That's all there is to know, isn't there? Fall in love with a Persian girl, and you'll never be the same?” His lips twitched with amusement.

  “I didn't mean that,” Marjan started. “I just meant—”

  “I know, I know …” He reached over and touched her hand. A ripple of pleasure ran up Marjan's arm. “I just wanted to see your reaction.”

  “Oh.” Marjan blushed. She sipped some more wine to steady herself. “What was her name? The Persian girl from Oxford?”

  Julian looked off into the distance. “Mina Khalestoun. I met her in the registration line that first day.” He turned his gaze back on her. “We were choosing our alternatives, and I thought it might be nice to rehash some of the old guard: Blake,Wordsworth, the Romantics. A good chance to get a bit of a kip after a weekend at the local, the Lamb and Flag.”

  He smiled at the memory. “Here I was contemplating a pile of dusty old codgers, ready to plunge into what promised to be one numbing ride of a term, when I saw her. She was signing up for a poetry class as well, but hers was a tutorial on the Sufi tradition. I had no near notion what that was, but I was going to find out. Signed right under her, and that's where it all began.

  “We had a glorious two years together, and then she left. Packed up and went with her family to California. Heartbroken doesn't begin to pin it. Her family never liked me, but it was nothing to do with who I was, I think. It was where I was from. I wasn't an Iranian. And they wanted their daughter to marry an Iranian. Tell me, are all Persian girls like that?” Julian planted his green eyes on Marjan, catching her off-guard.

  She blushed again. “I don't think so,” she said, looking down at her glass. She could feel his intense gaze on her, and it took her a few seconds to look up again.

  Julian stared at her for a moment longer before continuing. “I pined for two more years, and after my thesis, I took to the road. Backpacked. Followed Marco Polo's trail, the Silk Road, from China through Samarkand, hitched all the way to the Black Sea. But it was in Iran I stayed the longest. Strange way of getting over a broken heart, you might say. Going to the place where your beloved was born. But I wasn't thinking too clearly back then.”

  Julian paused to drink from his wine. “Best experience of my life, it was. Nothing like the desert to make a man out of you.”

  Marjan shook her head in awe. “I am not sure I could ever do anything like that.”

  “Oh, I'm sure you could. You've seen a bit of the world. Am I right?”

  More than he could have known, thought Marjan, briefly recalling the arid mounds of the Dasht-e Lut. The desert of the East, where she and her sisters had escaped the first time Hossein Jaferi had coming looking for them. “I suppose, but it was more out of bad timing than for adventure's sake,” she said, shaking the dark vision away. “Even in Iran, I never visited Hafez's grave. And our father was from Shiraz, as well.”

  “Ah, Shiraz! What a town! The rose gardens, the nightingales. Paradise. You know, I got hold of some wine while I was there. I'll never forget that bouquet.” Julian cleared his throat. “ ‘Rose petals let us scatter and fill the cup with red wine, the firmaments let us shatter and come with a new design.’ ”

  He lifted his glass in a toast to Hafez's ode to the fermented grape.

  Marjan met his toast with her own glass.

  The evening flew by in the same hazy, soft manner. It seemed as though they were in their own world, and it must have been so because no one had approached them, not Fiona, not Michael and Peter Donnelly playing darts in the back parlor. Their only interruption came around nine o'clock, when the Cat wobbled in with an equally teetering Godot.

  A persona non grata before Margaret McGuire had taken charge of her brother Thomas's affairs, the Cat was now as ever-present as the iron-rich stout that kept Paddy's a known destination. Swimming in his scotch and water with one ice, the old drunkard would spend entire days in the bar, tossing out Schopenhauer and Jungian theories with his customary mixture of native Bulgarian, English, and pig Latin.

  And that was before the bottle of Dewar's had had its effect.

  Most of the punters at Paddy's found it a mystery why Margaret allowed such a spectacle the most prized stool in the house, near the roaring, sweet turf fire, but the proprietress had her reasons:it was the Cat who had saved her nephew Tom Junior from true oblivion. Were it not for the philosopher's hospitality that strange summer before last, Tom Junior would never have been able to escape his father's domineering shadow and find his inner serenity. Tom Junior's letters to his aunt, written from the Northern California ashram he was living in, attested to the Cat's sincerity.

  But catering to his burps and foggy philosophies was one thing; having to accommodate a hiccuping and clearly intoxicated billy goat was something entirely different—pushing the bounds of hospitality, the “ Céad Míle Fáilte,” or “100,000 Welcomes,” written above the pub's front arch.

  After ordering the alcoholic duo off the premises with little effect, Margaret had been forced to pull the goat by his beard and the Cat by the tail of his tweed overcoat, a sight that had provided punters with a good few limericks and one very dirty pun.

  The Cat wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

  CHAPTER VI

  DERVLA QUIGLEY LEFT her thumb poised on the dark rosary bead as she reached over to part her chintz bedroom curtains. The two inches of space was all she needed to confirm her deepest suspicions: there it was again, the midday muck, the pitiless horde, the bustle of that caf é named for all things sinister: Babylon. To think, naming a place of dining after some heathen palace, some Oriental den of diversions. No one born and bred in Balli-nacroagh would think to do it, that's for certain.

  She squinted through the partition again, sniffing in contempt. Midday muck it was, though those foreign women were calling it lunch—not dinner like decent folk, mind you, but lunch. Every day from noon to the time of tea, at half past three, then swinging until the evening Angelus took its beat.

  Sure, the Wilton Inn's carvery had no chance. Not with those three knocking their hips up and down the dining aisles.

  Next thing you knew there'd be a string of the like: stinking spots, places run by hippies and degenerates, places where they would serve those plant things, that scourge called Mary Wanna in their teas and cakes.

  She had heard a radio program about it the other day. A place in Europe proper called Amsterdam, where that very thing went on under the guards' watch. The shame, the absolute horror was beyond her reason. If only Thomas McGuire were here to stop it, thought Dervla. He'd never have put up with such a display if he were still running the street.

  Sooner or later the big man would have found a way of closing the place for good, got his brother-in-law Padraig Carey down at the council to find them a loophole, some sort of bylaw to prevent leasing to foreigners. What good was it having a politician marry into the family if he couldn't pull a few strings? Then again, the gossip conjectured, had it not been for Thomas breaking into the place two summers ago, they'd never have this problem.

  The eejit. He should have come to her before taking his hand to the place. Had Thomas let on his intentions beforehand, she could have sent him a word or two of caution. She could have told him it wasn't the slam of his fist that would do the café in but the force of a stronger punch. It was the Word that brought down empires; good old-fashioned gossip that sent highfalutin floozies to their judgment, not a banged-up kitchen and a half-arsed heart attack.

  Her tongue, lashed with the right fortitude, could move mountains and Babylons, if it so desired.
Sure, Dervla reminded herself, hadn't it been her very words that had sent Headmaster Finton packing some fifteen years back? The man was found crawling the convent's ridgepole, in clear view of her window at night. Finton later claimed to have lost his keys to Saint Joseph's, but that was a likely tale if she ever heard one. No doubt he had been having a gander at those poor, helpless nuns in their slips and garters, not a habit among them. The dirty thing, the terrible liar.

  Dervla clucked her tongue at the memory. And what about that jeweler down in Louisburgh, that swarthy, round one with the mustache? Hadn't she seen him tuck a ring box into Bachelor Jennings's post slot one spring dawn? Wasn't she the first to blow the whistle on that dirty affair? The jeweler, a married man of thirty years and with eight children grown, had later claimed it was the drink that made him propose the Claddagh to another fellow. As if that was going to fly with the decent folks of Balli-nacroagh. The last she heard he had been peddling his baubles in some seaside kiosk in Cork.

  Good riddance to them all.

  “Wetted the tea, so. It'll be ready when you come out of the toilet.”

  Dervla turned toward the squeak over her shoulder. Her sister was slouched in the doorway with a plate of digestives cradled in her hands. Dervla curled her lips in disgust. Why did Marie always have to look as though she were on her way to some sacrificial altar, she thought. Of all the sisters to be granted, God had given her one without a spine.

  The old gossip huffed up from the bed. “Thanks be to God,” she said. “Take the seat before I go.” She waddled toward the bedroom door. “Make sure you note the father's whereabouts. I haven't seen him come in or out of that place for four days— could be looking at sheer mutiny on our hands and we wouldn't know it.”

  “Maybe he's taken to his bed,” Marie suggested. “The change in weather could have sent the bug his way,” she said, settling onto the edge of the bed with the cookie plate.

  “Don't be daft, Marie! Sure, didn't you see him at Mass this morning? Taken to his bed!” Dervla threw her sister a disappointed glance before turning in to the narrow hallway.

  As attested by the worn carpet, the path from bedroom to toilet was one well traveled, a route she took at least every hour. Incontinence was the condition's official name, and in her opinion, it deserved its very own rosary. To think—Dervla grimaced—of all those years she went through her working hours on the farm without a break, not a thought to having another cup of tea or baking Jim Quigley's bread, only to be saddled with this godforsaken affliction so late in the day.

  No doubt the bastard was having a laugh at her expense in his final resting place.

  “Dervla! It's Antonia Nolan, so. She's coming up the side door!” Marie leaned away from the window, her face flushed with excitement. “She says not to move a muscle.”

  Dervla grunted. “Wasn't a muscle I was thinking of moving, but all right. Get the door, will you?”

  Marie hurried to the apartment door, where a moment later Antonia appeared, out of breath and full of hot air.

  “Lord save us! What's got into you?” Dervla muttered.

  Antonia huffed and puffed for another few seconds before spilling her news. “Anne-Marie O'Connell. At hospital. Abomination! Abomination!” She paused to drink from the glass of water Marie handed her before relaying the rest of the story. When she was finished, she plopped down on the telephone seat near the door and crossed herself. “She'd been fed and clothed by those two. And that darky doctor as well!”

  Marie blanched, looked to her sister. “Maybe it's only the flu, so. She could be from one of the islands,” she began. “They say it's reaching Clare and the Aran, the flu sickness is.”

  Dervla stayed silent for a moment, rubbing her chin with her knuckles in thought. She nodded. “It's a sickness, all right. And it's catching. Like hellfire, so it is.”

  She moved to the telephone seat, lifted the receiver, and began dialing. Yes, thought Dervla, there was a reason why He had granted her the ability to see far and wide; a reason why she was—incontinence aside—able to keep watch over her beloved street.

  The power of the Word was the greatest gift God had ever given to man, to one Dervla Quigley of Ballinacroagh, County Mayo, Ireland. It was up to her now to harness it to the cause.

  “WHAT'S THIS?” Bahar asked. She had her coat already buttoned and was in the process of tucking her ears into a furry gray beret.

  Marjan stopped spooning the cucumber and mint salad and looked up. Bahar was holding a paperback book, flashing its black-and-white cover. “Where did you find that?”

  “On the ground. Next to the coat tree. What is it?” She turned the book over, peering at the large embossed title.

  Marjan took the paperback from her sister. “Nothing. Just a book,” she said with a shrug. She stuffed it between the bread tin and a jar of cardamom pods and turned back to the salad with a frown. Her mind was getting so scattered. She had spent a whole hour last night looking for Julian's novel, even turning the tidy pantry inside out, without any luck. She was sure she had looked under the coat tree as well. Or had she? Placing the salad bowl on a platter, she topped it off with a piece of barbari bread and pushed it across the island. “Order up, Layla.”

  Layla looked up from her after-school meal, tomatoes stuffed with almond rice. “Is that for Fiona?”

  “Yes, that's for Fiona,” Marjan replied. “What are you waiting for?” Her tone was harsher than she intended. “I know it's a cold salad, but that doesn't mean you don't send it out when I ask you.”

  “I was just saying, 'cause—”

  “Because? Why?”

  Layla swallowed her bite. “Because, I just took a bowl out ten minutes ago. Don't you remember? Evie was having one too.”

  “Oh.” Marjan looked at the bowl, then grabbed it and tossed its contents into the rubbish bin. Of course she had. Sluggish, that's what her mind was. She seemed to be forgetting everything the last few days. This morning she'd stood in the middle of the Butcher's Block staring at a pile of black pudding for an entire five minutes, wondering whether it would suit her red lentil soup or as a side to bagali polo, before realizing that none of her dishes contained that very Irish of delicacies.

  She was even beginning to forget some of her recipes, and that had never happened. Marjan looked up from the island. Bahar was staring at her. “What?”

  “So, where did you get the book?”

  “Oh, uh, he, Julian wrote it.”

  “The Englishman. Full of himself, isn't he? Shouldn't he wait until you buy a copy of his masterpiece?” Bahar narrowed her eyes in disapproval.

  Marjan grabbed a tea towel and wiped down the island. “Isn't it nicer that I got it as a gift?”

  Bahar sniffed. “Beware of gifts, Marjan. They always come with a price.” She paused, picking up her purse. “Besides, there's only one book worth reading in my opinion.”

  Layla piped up from her seat at the kitchen table. “And what book is that? The Joy of Sex?” She burst out laughing.

  Bahar grabbed her umbrella and pointed it at Layla. “You need to get some soap for that mind of yours, missy.” She turned the umbrella at Marjan. “And you,” she said, “you need to stop encouraging her.”

  Marjan stopped wiping. “And what have I done wrong now?”

  “Out with that English guy until whatever time it was the other night.”

  “I am a grown woman, Bahar. I can go out wherever and with whomever I like.”

  “You could at least have told me you were going to be so late, you know. I came down at nine, half past nine, then ten. You weren't home until nearly half past ten!”

  “I don't want to talk about it. Don't you have your break to go on to?”

  “You tell her, Marjan!” Layla stamped her feet excitedly.

  “See? That's exactly what I'm talking about. Next thing we know she'll be doing drugs!”

  “Oh!” Layla turned toward Bahar, a roll of lavash in her hand. “Take that back!” she yelled, brandishing
the bread.

  Bahar looked smug. “Hit a nerve, did I? What's with the guilty look? Doing something you shouldn't, eh?”

  Marjan dumped the empty salad bowl into the sink, a loud clang breaking through the raised voices. “All right, that's enough! Both of you.”

  She took the canister of salad and shoved it impatiently back into one corner of the counter, unaware of the looks of surprise from her sisters. “I've had enough, do you understand?”

  She picked up a ladle and turned to the soup pot, swiveling almost as quickly back to the cupboard. Yanking open a drawer, she plunged her hand into a pile of silverware and nicked her finger on something sharp. “Where are the spoons? Why aren't there any soupspoons?”

  Layla scrambled from her seat, reached for the tray of utensils sitting on the counter. She handed Marjan a spoon and stepped back, surprised at her sister's harsh tone.

  “What's wrong, Marjan?”

  “What's wrong? What's wrong is we have a café to run, if you haven't noticed.” She stared at the spoon in her hand, unsure of why she was holding it. Her shoulders were aching terribly, and a band of tension was beginning to tighten across her chest. What was she doing?

  “Marjan …” Bahar started.

  Marjan continued to pull open drawers. “Where's the colander? I put it under the sink. Where is it? Is it even washed?” She pointed to the forlorn pile of dirty dishes in a plastic pan.

  “Marjan.”

  “See, this is what I mean. I'm losing my mind with all this mess, all this noise. Do you two understand me?”

  She stopped, turned around. Her face softened instantly when she saw her sisters' concerned eyes. Sighing, she let her shoulders drop, placing the ladle and spoon she was holding in each fist on the island.

  “I'm all right. Don't look so worried.” She pushed the drawer shut with her hip. “You two just have to understand that while you indulge in your petty arguing, I have to think of a hundred different things at once.” She spotted the colander on top of the refrigerator. “I would just appreciate some understanding,” she said, reaching for the implement.