The Book of Fate

by Parinoush Saniee

  Dismayed, I asked, ‘He didn’t ask about me?’

  ‘Yes, wait! As he was writing down my telephone number, he said, “How is your friend? Are you still in touch with her?” I could barely contain my excitement. I said, “Yes, yes. Of course, she too would be happy to see you. Call this afternoon, perhaps we can arrange to see each other.” You would not believe how his eyes suddenly shone. He asked if it would be all right. I think he is still scared of your brothers! I said, “Of course it would be all right.” Then I quickly said goodbye and I drove here as fast as I could. It was only God’s will that I didn’t have an accident. Now, what do you think?’

  A thousand thoughts were dancing around in my head. They were really dancing; they wouldn’t slow down for me to figure out what I was thinking…

  ‘Hey… where are you?’ Parvaneh asked. ‘What should I tell him if he calls this afternoon? Do you want me to make plans for him to come tomorrow?’

  ‘Come? Come where?’

  ‘Either to my house or here. Just find out what Shirin’s plans are.’

  ‘What day is tomorrow?’

  ‘Monday.’

  ‘I don’t know what she will be doing.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. We can meet at my house. Mother will be sleeping and oblivious to everything.’

  ‘But why should we make plans? Forget it.’

  ‘Don’t be a sissy!’ Parvaneh chided. ‘Don’t you want to see him? In spite of everything, he is an old friend. It’s not as if we are doing anything wrong!’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I’m so confused I can’t think straight.’

  ‘That’s nothing new! When have you not been confused?’

  ‘My brain doesn’t work. My hands and knees are shaking.’

  ‘Come on! Stop acting like a sixteen-year-old.’

  ‘That’s exactly it,’ I said. ‘I am not sixteen any more. The poor man will be terrified to see what I look like now.’

  ‘What rubbish! We are not the only ones who have aged. He has, too. Besides, according to Khosrow, you are like a carpet from Kerman, you keep getting better with age.’

  ‘Stop it! We both know we have grown old.’

  ‘Yes, but what’s important is for others not to know. And we shouldn’t let on.’

  ‘Do you think people are blind? It’s obvious how much we have changed. I don’t want to look at myself in the mirror ever again.’

  ‘Stop it! You talk as if we are ninety years old, when in fact we are only forty-eight!’ Parvaneh said.

  ‘No, my dear, don’t fool yourself. We are fifty-three.’

  ‘Bravo, excellent!’ she quipped. ‘With your mastery of maths, I am surprised you didn’t turn out to be another Einstein.’

  Just then, Shirin walked in. Like two guilty kids Parvaneh and I stopped arguing and quickly pulled ourselves together. Shirin kissed Parvaneh on the cheeks and without paying much attention to us she went to her room. We looked at each other and burst into laughter.

  ‘Remember how we used to hide the papers the minute Ali walked into the room?’ I said.

  Parvaneh looked at her watch and cried, ‘Oh my God! Look at the time. I told my mother I would be gone for only fifteen minutes. She must be worried sick.’ Putting on her manteau, she said, ‘I won’t come back today. If he calls, I will ask him to come to my house tomorrow at six, it’s safer there. But you should come earlier… well, I will give you a call.’

  I went to my bedroom and sat in front of the dressing table. I took a close look at my face in the mirror and tried to find remnants of the one I had when I was sixteen. I carefully examined the wrinkles around my eyes that deepened when I smiled. There were two distinct lines that started at my nostrils and stretched down to my lips. The beautiful, round dimples on my cheeks, which according to Mrs Parvin were an inch deep when I smiled, had transformed into two long grooves running parallel to the lines flanking my mouth. My smooth, radiant skin was now pale and sagging and there were faint spots on my cheeks. My eyelids were no longer taut and dark circles detracted from the brightness of my eyes. My lush, reddish-brown hair that used to cascade down to my waist was half as lavish, short, thin and awkward, and in spite of regular colourings its white roots were showing. Even the expression in my eyes had changed. No, I was no longer the beautiful girl Saiid had fallen in love with. Perplexed, I was sitting there searching for myself in the mirror when Shirin’s voice brought me back.

  ‘What’s the matter, Mum? You have been entranced by your own face for an hour! I have never seen you so fond of a mirror.’

  ‘Fond? No! I want to break every mirror there is.’

  ‘Why? As the saying goes, “Break yourself, for breaking a mirror is wrong.” What do you see in it?’

  ‘I see myself, my old age.’

  ‘But growing older has never bothered you,’ she said. ‘Unlike most women, you boldly talk about your age.’

  ‘Yes, but sometimes something, perhaps even a photograph, takes you back in time. You look in the mirror and suddenly realise how different you really are from the image you have had of yourself. It is so cruel. It is like a free-fall.’

  ‘But you always said every age has its own beauty.’

  ‘Yes, but the beauty of youth is something else.’

  ‘All my friends say, “Your mum is such a lady, she is so gracious.”’

  ‘My dear Shirin, my grandmother was a kind woman. She didn’t have the heart to describe some girl as ugly. Instead, she would say the girl was amiable. Now your friends don’t want to say, “Your mother is run-down,” so they say I am gracious.’

  ‘Mum, it’s so unlike you to talk like this,’ Shirin said. ‘To me, you are always the most beautiful woman. When I was a little girl, I always wanted to look like you. I was jealous. Until just a few years ago, people looked at you more than they looked at me. I was always sad that my eyes weren’t the same colour as yours and my skin wasn’t as fair and smooth.’

  ‘Ridiculous! You are far more beautiful than I ever was. I was always so pale that people thought I was sick. But you, with your lively eyes, beautiful wheat-coloured skin and those dimples are something else.’

  ‘Now, what made you think about your youth?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s a function of age. When people reach my age, their past takes on a different colour. Even the bad days seem nice. When we are young, we think about the future, about what will happen next year, we wonder where we will be in five years, and we want the days to pass quickly. But when we reach my age, we see no future ahead of us, we have in fact reached the peak, and we turn and look to the past.’

  Parvaneh called late afternoon and said she had made the arrangements for six o’clock the following day. I spent the entire night in feverish excitement. I kept telling myself that it was best for Saiid and me not to see each other, that we should each hold on to the memory of the other’s youth and beauty. I remembered how during all those years each time I wore a beautiful dress and liked my reflection in the mirror, I wished I might run into him at the party or at the wedding or out on the street. I always hoped that if we were to ever meet again, it would be when I was at the peak of my beauty.

  Early the next morning, Parvaneh called. ‘How are you feeling? I didn’t sleep a wink last night.’

  ‘Oh, we are so alike,’ I said, laughing.

  Then she quickly started to give me instructions.

  ‘First, colour your hair.’

  ‘I coloured it only recently.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, do it again; the roots didn’t take the colour too well. Then take a hot bath. Afterwards, fill a big bowl with cold water, add plenty of ice and stick your face in it.’

  ‘I will drown.’

  ‘No, idiot! Dip your face in it several times. Then use those creams I brought for you from Germany. The green one is a cucumber mask. Put it on your face and lie down and rest for twenty minutes. Then wash it off and smear on a good amount of the yellow cream. And be here at five so that I can
fix you up and put on your make-up.’

  ‘Fix me up? I’m not a bride!’

  ‘Who knows, you may become one,’ she said.

  ‘You should be ashamed of yourself! At my age?’

  ‘Age again? If you talk like this one more time, I swear to God I will beat you.’

  ‘What should I wear?’ I asked.

  ‘The grey dress we bought together in Germany.’

  ‘No, that’s an evening dress. It’s not appropriate.’

  ‘You are right. Wear the beige two-piece. No! The rose-coloured shirt with the lighter-shade lace collar.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I’ll think of something myself.’

  Even though I never had the patience for too much fussing, I pretty much followed all of Parvaneh’s instructions. I was lying down with the green mask on my face when Shirin walked into my room.

  ‘What is going on?’ she said surprised. ‘You are really pampering yourself today.’

  ‘Nothing is going on,’ I replied casually. ‘Parvaneh insisted that I use this mask and I thought I would give it a try.’

  She shrugged and walked out.

  I started getting ready at three-thirty. I carefully blow-dried my hair, which I had already set in curlers. One by one, I carefully put on my clothes. I looked at myself in the full-length mirror and thought, I weigh at least ten kilos more than I did back then… How strange that when I was skinny, my cheeks were plump, but now that I am heavier, my face is half as full as it used to be.

  Every outfit I put on had something wrong with it. Soon, there was a heap of shirts, skirts and dresses on the bed. Shirin leaned against the door frame and asked, ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To Parvaneh’s house.’

  ‘All this fussing is for Aunt Parvaneh?’

  ‘She found a few of our old friends and she has invited them over. I don’t want to look old and ugly.’

  ‘Aha!’ she exclaimed. ‘So the rivalries of your younger days still continue.’

  ‘No, it’s not rivalry. It’s a strange feeling. Seeing each other will be like looking in the mirror after some thirty-odd years. I want us to still see some of what we looked like all those years ago; otherwise, we will be complete strangers to each other.’

  ‘How many are they?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Aunt Parvaneh’s guests!’

  I was flustered. I had always been a bad liar. I mumbled, ‘She found an old friend and the old friend will bring along whoever else she can find. So I don’t know if there will be one person or ten people.’

  ‘You never talk about your old friends. What is her name?’ Shirin asked.

  ‘Of course, I had friends and classmates, but I was never as close to them as I was to Parvaneh.’

  ‘It’s so interesting,’ she mused. ‘I can’t imagine what my friends and I will look like thirty years from now. Think about it! We will be a bunch of doddering old people.’

  I ignored her comment. I was trying to think of an excuse in case she said she wanted to go with me. But as usual, Shirin preferred to be with people her own age or even stay home alone rather than be in the company of ‘doddering old people’. In the end, I wore a chocolate-brown linen dress with a cinched-in waist and brown high-heeled sandals.

  It was past five-thirty when I arrived at Parvaneh’s house. She carefully appraised me from head to toe and said, ‘Not bad. Now come and let me fix the rest.’

  ‘Look, I don’t want you to make me look gaudy and gussied up. I am what I am. After all, I have lived a life… and what a life it has been.’

  ‘You are beautiful just as you are,’ Parvaneh said. ‘I will just add a touch of chocolate-brown eye shadow, a little eyeliner and a bit of mascara. And you should put on some lipstick. You don’t need anything else. God bless you, your skin is still as smooth as a mirror.’

  ‘Yes, a cracked mirror.’

  ‘But the cracks don’t really show. Besides, his eyes are weak. We can even sit inside where it’s dark and he won’t see much.’

  ‘Stop it!’ I chided. ‘You sound like you are trying to pass off shoddy goods! We will sit outside in the garden.’

  At exactly six o’clock, we both jumped at the sound of the doorbell.

  ‘I swear on my mother’s life he has been standing outside for the past ten minutes waiting to ring the doorbell at six o’clock sharp,’ Parvaneh said. ‘He is in a worse state than we are.’

  She pressed the button on the intercom to open the main door and started towards the garden. Halfway, she stopped and looked back. I was still standing there. She waved to me to follow her, but I couldn’t move. I watched through the window as Parvaneh led Saiid to the table and chairs in the garden. He was wearing a grey suit. He was a little heavier and his hair was salt and pepper. I couldn’t see his face. A few minutes later, Parvaneh walked back inside and snapped, ‘Why are you still here? Don’t tell me you want to walk out carrying the tea tray, like a bride-to-be!’

  ‘Stop it!’ I pleaded. ‘My heart is about to burst out of my chest. My legs froze and I couldn’t follow you.’

  ‘Oh, my poor little baby! Would you like to grace us with your presence now?’

  ‘No… wait!’

  ‘What do you mean? He asked if you are here and I said yes. It’s rude, come on. Stop acting like a fourteen-year-old.’

  ‘Wait… let me get a grip on myself.’

  ‘Ugh! What am I supposed to tell him? That the lady has fainted!? It’s impolite; he is sitting there alone.’

  ‘Tell him I am with your mother and that I will be right there. Oh my God! I didn’t even say hello to your mother!’ And I dashed towards her mother’s bedroom…

  I would have never believed that at my age I would feel that panicked. I always thought of myself as someone sensible and sedate, someone who had experienced life’s ups and downs. Over the years, there had been many men who had expressed an interest in me, but not since my adolescence had I felt that nervous and flustered.

  ‘My dear Massoum, who is here?’ Mrs Ahmadi asked.

  ‘One of Parvaneh’s friends.’

  ‘Do you know her?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I met her in Germany.’

  Just then I heard Parvaneh call out, ‘Massoum, my dear, come join us. Saiid Khan is here.’

  I looked at myself in the mirror and ran my fingers through my hair. I think Mrs Ahmadi was still talking when I walked out of her bedroom. I knew I shouldn’t allow myself time to think. I hurried out into the garden and in a voice that I was desperately trying to stop from shaking I said, ‘Hello!’

  Saiid jumped out of his chair, stood up straight and stared at me. A few seconds later, he came to himself and gently said, ‘Hello!’

  We exchanged a few casual greetings and soon sounded less nervous. Parvaneh went back inside to bring some tea and Saiid and I sat facing each other. Neither of us knew what to say. His face had aged, but the look in his fetching brown eyes was the same look I remembered and had felt weighing on my life for decades. Altogether, he seemed more settled and attractive. I was hoping he had the same impression of me. Parvaneh came back and we continued with routine bits of customary conversation. Gradually, our reunion became warmer and we asked him to tell us where he had been and what he had been doing all those years.

  ‘I will tell, if everyone tells…’ he said.

  ‘I have nothing to tell,’ Parvaneh said. ‘My life has been quite ordinary. After I graduated from school, I got married, had children and moved to Germany. I have two daughters and a son. I still live in Germany, but I spend a lot of time here because my mother is ill. If her health improves, I will take her there with me. That’s it. You see, nothing interesting or exciting has happened in my life.’ And then she pointed to me and said, ‘Unlike her.’

  Saiid turned to me and said, ‘Then you should tell me about your life.’

  I looked beseechingly at Parvaneh.

  ‘For the love of God, don’t say anything!’ she said. Then she turned to
Saiid and explained, ‘Her life story could fill a book. If she starts now, she won’t be done until well after midnight. Besides, I know it all and it will be boring for me to hear the entire story again. Instead, you should tell us about yourself.’

  ‘I graduated from university a little later than expected,’ Saiid said. ‘And I was exempt from military service, because my father had passed away and I was my mother’s only son and considered to be the head of the household. After university, I returned to Rezaieh and with the help of my uncles I opened a pharmacy. Our circumstances improved, the value of my father’s properties increased, I helped my sisters get married, and then I sold the pharmacy and moved back to Tehran with my mother. A few of my old classmates had decided to start a pharmaceuticals importing company and I joined them as a partner. Our business grew and we started manufacturing cosmetics and healthcare products as well.