The Girl from the Garden

by Parnaz Foroutan

  Zolekhah waits beside Asher as he locks the door and whispers hush hush to the muffled voices of the girls. He places the key in his breast pocket, and looks heavenward, either to beseech G-d for the safety of the young girls or to express his exasperation. Zolekhah pats his shoulder and follows him to the yard. She unobtrusively counts the mouths to feed as Asher walks among the dozen farmers, with Ibrahim beside him, their hands placed on the small of their backs, their chests thrust forth. Asher appraises the harvest of wheat and questions the farmers as they finish unloading. The old khan, strong and straight of back like one of the sculpted men Zolekhah has seen in the rocks of Bisotun, walks toward Asher and says, “May Allah give you strength.” He then nods at Ibrahim, who returns the greeting with a slight bow of his head.

  “May G-d preserve you, may he keep tiredness from your hands. Please come inside and join us for a piece of bread and some tea to ease the fatigue of your journey,” Asher says.

  Zolekhah has known the old khan since her sons’ childhood, when Asher stood beside his father, and Ibrahim hid his face in the folds of his father’s qaba. He has watched her boys grow into manhood, taught them about the seasons and how the earth can give, and how she can take. He stood beside them when they buried their own father and helped them learn to become the owner of the lands.

  “We will not burden you,” the old khan says.

  “It is no burden, a piece of bread and tea, the men must be tired, please honor us with your presence,” Ibrahim replies.

  As children, Ibrahim and Asher rode to the villages astride two mules that trotted alongside their father’s horse. During the ride, Asher debated with his father about the best seeds to sow, whether the white, or the red and yellow, or the kuleh seed, which sprouted a large, hard grain. Ibrahim, however, rode in silence, lost to the seduction of the soil, the undulations of a field of wheat stalks in the breeze. “Asher listens closely to the farmers talk about irrigation and rotation,” Rebbe Yousseff would tell Zolekhah when he returned from the lands, “but Ibrahim only listens closely to the snorting and whining of the mule.”

  Zolekhah looks at her sons, now proud men, walking steadily amidst the Kurds. She closes her eyes to hold, for a moment, the image of her sons as boys, running back into her arms upon their return from their journey to the villages. She strains to hear the sound of their voices calling her, but that is lost to her. Instead, she remembers her husband’s funeral, and how Asher stood stoic beside the open grave. Ibrahim wept beside him, holding tightly to his brother’s mourning coat.

  “We still have many hours to ride back to the village,” the old khan says.

  “And so it would be wise to allow the men some rest. It would honor our family if you would accept our invitation,” Asher says. Zolekhah watches the old khan pause at the threshold of the open doors of the guest hall, place his palm against his heart and bow his head. Asher returns the gesture with a deeper bow of his head.

  Zolekhah enters the kitchen to find the old family servant Fatimeh and the two younger maids engaged in a storm of motion and words, an orchestrated cacophony accompanied by the clang and clatter of teacups, then the sudden commotion of an overturned box of silver spoons against the stone floor. “Is the chai ready?” Zolekhah asks.

  Fatimeh stops in the middle of the kitchen and raises her hands to the ceiling. “I’ve had enough of these girls, Zolekhah Khanum, you would think they had never seen Kurdish farmers, Allah forgive them. Be’ Zainab, I have to do everything they have done once more over,” she says. She adjusts her head scarf to cover the few strands of hair that slip out, then slaps Sadiqeh’s ample thigh with the back of her hand and motions for the girl to cover her thick black braids with the scarf that hangs behind her head. Sadiqeh takes the end of one braid and places it between her teeth, then gives Fatimeh a coy smile. Zahra walks between them, holding a copper pot full of rice. Her rolled-up sleeves reveal long, white arms, delicate wrists adorned with a few gold bangles, and fingers hennaed red. Fatimeh steps in front of her and unrolls Zahra’s sleeves to cover her arms, almost causing the girl to drop the pot of rice on the floor.

  “You see, Zolekhah Khanum, I must protect their honor and see that they don’t spoil the food, besides,” Fatimeh says.

  “It’s not me, Zolekhah Khanum,” Sadiqeh says. “It’s Zahra’s honor in question. She fancies the young Kurd with the long mustache and clear eyes.”

  “I said he reminded me of my cousin Ghollum. Fatimeh, didn’t I say he reminded me of my cousin?”

  “A married woman mustn’t look in the direction of another man, child, not even a cousin. It is haram by The Book.”

  “Her husband is so old, Fatimeh, she could sit in that peasant’s lap fondling his mustache in the middle of her home and the old man wouldn’t notice.”

  “Sadiqeh, hush up before you start trouble for me.”

  “It’s true. You’ve seen him, no, Fatimeh? When he hobbles here to fetch her in the evenings?”

  “Hassan Khan is a righteous man, not a blemish to his name.”

  “Better old than a simpleton like your husband. Fatimeh, if you tell her husband that a man is a eunuch, he asks how many children does he have.”

  “It’s true, Fatimeh. I tell him it’s a stone, he tells me it is cheese.”

  “Zolekhah Khanum, these girls will drive me to the mortician’s bath with their antics.”

  “Zahra, is the chai ready?”

  “Yes, Zolekhah Khanum.”

  “Don’t tarry any longer, the guests are waiting.”

  “Yes, Zolekhah Khanum.”

  Zolekhah returns to the sitting room, followed by Zahra, the girl unidentifiable beneath the black fabric of her hijab, balancing the tray full of glass teacups and saucers, her white braceleted wrists revealed each time she stretches out her hands. Zolekhah stands beside the door and watches the girl as she moves underneath the sway of her long full hem, steps, kneels, places saucer and glass in the outstretched hands. The men, tired from the ride from the village, accept the hot chai and offer gratitude and blessings in return. They keep themselves from noticing the soft touch of the hennaed fingertips that brush their own calloused hands in the passing, they look away from the small toes hennaed red, pressed against the wool of the rug near their own feet.

  The old khan takes his tea and a piece of rock sugar. He places the sugar in the corner of his cheek and pours some tea into his saucer, then sips. His men wait for him to take this first sip before they begin drinking their own tea. The room remains silent until he begins to speak. “They burned wheat fields,” he says. “Wheat fields. Before the harvest. We saw some of those farmers. Men walking with no direction. Hollowed eyes. They had watched their women raped, seen their children killed, and in the wake of that horror, those savages burned their wheat fields.”

  “The Russians have no honor,” Asher says. “They don’t follow any rules in their war. Nor the British. In the streets of Tehran, the people wait for hours outside the bakeries and walk away empty-handed. The British purchase the wheat from the shah’s granaries above the market price. No bread comes of it for the peasants. They buy it for their own use. And they come here with their treaties, speaking of friendship, of building this country. Upon the bones of its children?”

  “Still, it is our shah who chooses to sell to them, son,” the old khan says. He shakes his head and places his cup and saucer before him. “There was a moment, when your father was still alive, may he rest in peace, when we held the reins of our own country, disposed of the Qajar king, created a Majlis of representative, when we fought for our right to be men,” he says.

  “Neither the Russians, nor the British, would ever allow us that. To be men. Mules, at best, to carry the burden of their greed,” Ibrahim says. “But never men.”

  Asher snorts. “Even if the foreigners allowed it, brother, do you think the clergy of our own country would allow you and I, two Jews, to ever be fully human?”

  A silence falls upon the room. The old kh
an sips his tea and looks at Asher for some time. Then, he says, “Your father was a man among men, Asher. In the beginning, many refused to buy his wheat, for fear that it was najis, sullied by the touch of his hand. But soon he proved that he was a man of honor. A fair and just man.”

  Zolekhah leaves the room quietly. She stops before entering the kitchen and leans against the wall. She breathes in deeply, once, then straightens her shoulders and walks in, picks up the cloth sofre and motions for the maids to follow her with the steaming platters of rice and mutton. She enters the guest hall, lays the sofre on the floor, and steps back to allow the women to set down the warm sheets of flat bread, and the mounds of fresh herbs and soaked walnuts.

  “Please, welcome, eat,” Zolekhah says.

  “You have humbled us with the trouble we have put you and your household through,” the old khan says.

  “The food we eat is grown by your hands,” Ibrahim says. Zolekhah watches as the men rise to sit at the edge of the sofre and begin to eat. Silently, she leaves the room, followed by the maids.

  In the cellar, Khorsheed buries her face in Rakhel’s shoulder. The younger girl fears the shadows and the darkness behind the large earthen pots that tower over her, but Rakhel prefers this room to any other room in the large estate. In the heat of the afternoons, when Zolekhah is fast asleep, Rakhel steals her heavy ring of keys and unlocks the cellar door, runs to place the keys back beside the sleeping woman, and returns to the cellar. Sometimes she sweeps the stone floor, sometimes she checks the grains to make sure that pests haven’t spoiled the food. Often, she just sits in the dim light of the lantern and gazes at the stock. She knows the amount of everything in the storage room, feels the approach of a new season by the decrease in the quantity of a certain fruit, less of the dried spring plums means that the season of the pomegranates approaches, and persimmons, too. Sometimes Khorsheed cracks the door of the cellar open and hears Rakhel talking.

  “Who are you speaking to?” Khorsheed asks.

  “I wasn’t speaking to anyone.”

  “I heard you.”

  “I was measuring.”

  “Measuring?”

  “The amount of animal fat left in the barrel, so I can tell Naneh Zolekhah how much more we need for winter.”

  “Come up out of there.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s dark.”

  “I have a lantern.” And Rakhel would hold up the lantern to her face and grimace, which always sent Khorsheed running with a yelp before concern led her back, again, to the top of the cellar door.

  That afternoon, while they wait behind the locked door for the Kurdish farmers to leave, Khorsheed lifts her face from Rakhel’s shoulder and says, “Dada, I’m pretty sure I’m having a boy. Yesterday I found a pin on the floor of the bedroom and last night, to be sure, I placed a knife to the left of my pillow and scissors to the right, and this morning, I awoke looking at the knife. Imagine if it should be a boy. The first son of the family. Ibrahim would be so happy with me.”

  “What if it’s a girl?”

  “Khasveh shalom.”

  “What if it is?”

  “Don’t ruin my luck with your envy.”

  “But what if it is a girl?” Rakhel asks.

  “Then the next one will be a boy.”

  “Are you scared, Khorsheed?”

  “Scared?”

  “Of the djinn Al. She kills pregnant women and eats the liver of newborns.”

  “Rakhel.”

  “You should be cautious.”

  “Are you scared?”

  “I’m not pregnant.”

  “Of other djinns?”

  “I’m protected against them,” Rakhel says. “You never know where one might be lurking. In the mirror, in the passing glance of a stranger. In this dark cellar. I know for certain one lives at the bottom of our well.” Rakhel listens to the silence and imagines that she can hear a thousand little eyes open and close.

  “How are you protected, Dada?”

  “I have this iron key.” Rakhel lifts her shirt and points to a small key, tied around her waist by red yarn. “They won’t come close to you if you have iron against your skin, especially an iron key. It belonged to my mother. She wore it as protection, too. Before she died she put it in the palm of my hand, blew on it three times, and promised that it would always keep me safe.”

  “But what about that djinn Naneh Adeh said lives inside you?”

  Rakhel hears the whisper of movement, as light as the footfall of ants. From the corner of her eyes, she notices the shadows draw closer to the foot of the stairs, crawl on their hands and knees, lift their heads to sniff the cold air for the acrid smell of metal against human flesh. “She lied,” Rakhel says. “No djinn lives inside me.”

  “So why haven’t you gotten pregnant yet?”

  Rakhel feels the shadows move in the darkness and settle back into corners to imagine the baby growing in Khorsheed’s belly. She shrugs her shoulders in response. The cellar is full of a waiting silence.

  “How much longer before the farmers leave, Dada, I need to eat for my strength.”

  “I don’t know, another hour maybe. Do you want to play a game?”

  “What game?”

  “I’ll hide and you find me.”

  “No, Rakhel!”

  “It will be fun.”

  Khorsheed grabs frantically onto Rakhel’s clothes. “No, Dada, this is no fun.”

  Rakhel pushes Khorsheed’s arms away and runs down the stairs into the darkness. “Come find me,” she says.

  “Dada, come back, please.”

  There is only silence. Rakhel watches the shadows crawl back up the stairs. The sound of their breath grows louder and louder.

  “Dada?”

  Rakhel sees them reach out the tips of their fingers, like the flickering of snake tongues, to taste the warmth of the air around Khorsheed’s feet.

  “Dada, I don’t want to play. It’s not good for my condition.” There is panic in Khorsheed’s voice. She moves down one step. “Rakhel! Stop!” Khorsheed bends to pick up the lantern. A thousand shadows dance on the walls. “Rakhel, come back, I don’t have any iron and the djinn . . .”

  Rakhel waits quietly as the hands stretch out in the darkness, hovering close to Khorsheed’s skin. She watches Khorsheed hurry down the stairs. Before it happens, Rakhel knows that Khorsheed’s foot will miss the last step. She watches Khorsheed fall to the stone floor. The lantern crashes and breaks, the light burns out. Khorsheed screams. Rakhel puts her hand across Khorsheed’s mouth to muffle her screams. Khorsheed thrashes her arms and legs.

  “It’s me, it’s me, Khorsheed, it’s me. It’s me, Rakhel, it’s me, be quiet.” Rakhel feels the girl’s body suddenly fall limp. “Khorsheed!”

  The door clanks open and light fills the cellar. Rakhel looks up from the foot of the stairs. Khorsheed lays in her arms, a pool of blood at her feet.

  “What happened?” Zolekhah asks. She runs down the stairs.

  Fatimeh hurries down the steps behind her. “Ya Abolfazl,” she cries. “By the pure blood of Imam Hossien, what catastrophe is this? What has happened here?”

  Zolekhah slaps Khorsheed’s cheeks. “Khorsheed.” The girl’s eyes flutter. “Fatimeh, rosewater and sugar, quick. She’s bleeding. She may have lost the child.”

  Khorsheed moans in Rakhel’s arms. Zolekhah holds the girl’s chin and calls her name. Khorsheed finally opens her eyes. Fatimeh returns with a glass in one hand, the other holding on to the wall as she steps down the stairs heavily, huffing with the effort of her haste.

  “Drink this,” Fatimeh says and brings the sugar water to Khorsheed’s lips while fanning her face with the fold of her chador.

  “If a girl loses her first child, Fatimeh, all her others are doomed. This one, too, unable to have a child? G-d spare my sons this curse.”

  Fatimeh pulls up the hem of Khorsheed’s tumban to inspect her legs. “Allah is merciful, it is only her foot. The blood is only from
her foot, Zolekhah Khanum,” she says. “There is no blood on her legs.”

  “What were the two of you doing?”

  “Playing,” Khorsheed whispers.

  “Stupid girl, you’re at the beginning of your pregnancy. You may lose the baby, G-d forbid. You are not a child to be playing.”

  “Sorry, Naneh Zolekhah,” Khorsheed says. “We were bored.”

  Fatimeh gets up heavily to fetch another lantern from the kitchen. She returns and, in the dim light, studies the girl’s foot for shards of glass. Rakhel doesn’t speak. She waits to hear Khorsheed say that it was her fault, that she had scared her, made her fall. Rakhel tries to think of a defense in response, but all she can remember is the strange pleasure she felt as she watched the terror in Khorsheed’s lamplit face at the top of the steps while the shadows drew nearer and nearer. Khorsheed cries silently in her arms. Rakhel looks at her chest rise and fall with the sobs.

  Khorsheed repeats, in choked whispers, “I don’t want my baby to die, Naneh Zolekhah. Oh G-d, please, I’m sorry. I don’t want my baby to die.”

  “You are pregnant with the first child of this family. And what if you lose the baby for your games? What will you say to your husband then?” Zolekhah says.

  Ibrahim appears at the top of the stairs.

  “No, no, no,” Khorsheed says. She bites her hands, shaking her head back and forth.

  “What happened?” Ibrahim asks, walking down the steps.

  “She fell down the steps. They were playing in the dark,” Zolekhah says.

  “How G-d can entrust women with the miracle of life is one of His greater mysteries,” Ibrahim says. He shakes his head as he gathers the girl in his arms and carries her up the stairs.

  Zolekhah rises off the ground and offers Fatimeh her hand. “We’ll have to sacrifice a lamb, Fatimeh, to be sure. Sprinkle the blood on these steps, give the meat to the poor.”

  “May the All-Merciful accept the offering, Zolekhah Khanum,” Fatimeh says, rising with effort. “Where I am from, they say that a pregnant woman is like a sack of setting yogurt, she should not be shaken at all.” The two women ascend the stairs, muttering, then disappear into the light.