by Ali Araghi
The surprises of the night were yet to come. A mysterious-looking man with a beard and no mustache brought to the stage midget plants that were smaller than the palm of a hand. He walked around with a big tray and claimed what he had in the tiny flower pots were fully grown trees, fifteen years old at least. One even had a ripe tangerine hanging from its branches. Then two men rode bicycles with only one wheel and no handlebars. Then it came to the last, and most dazzling, show of the night. A lank, bony old man with disheveled hair and a long beard walked on shards of glass. They said all he ate was an almond a day. After he balanced himself cross-legged on the tip of his long walking stick, he asked for the planks that covered the hoez to be removed. Once the hoez was open again and the light from the lanterns shimmered off the surface of the water, the old man closed his eyes, dropped his stick and gingerly put a first step on the surface of the water. Everyone was dead quiet. He placed the second step in front of the first and started walking without sinking as if he was made of feather. It was so quiet Ahmad could hear the slight splashing the man’s soles made against the water. He paced along the length of the hoez and back a number of times. After he stepped out, he dried his feet with the loincloth he had wrapped around his waist.
Time came for the paperwork to make the marriage official before God and Shah alike. The women took the groom and Mulla Ali inside. Khan, the father and brother of the groom, together with some closer male relatives, joined them. The bride and groom sat on chairs at the wedding spread in front of a mirror with everyone else behind them. Mulla Ali composed the marriage contract and handed it to the groom to sign, but before Mohammad Reza put the pen to paper, his mother said, “I think we should wait.” The tip of the pen stopped midair. A hole opened up in Pooran’s heart, sucking her blood into an abyss. The groom’s mother no doubt suspected the lies Pooran had woven together with the earnestness that only truth could bring. The story she’d told—of the message that came two days before on a folded paper, stamped and signed by Colonel Doost, asking for Nosser’s immediate departure to join the carabineers—cracked and collapsed at the woman’s simple words. Pooran bent her head, closed her eyes, and accepted defeat. “We wish the bride’s father could have been with us today,” the woman went on. “But we appreciate his sacrifice and pray for his life and his safe return.”
Pooran lifted her head and opened her eyes with a smile.
When the bride signed the contract, cries of happiness rose from those in the room. Mulla Ali recited what was necessary and showers of sugar plum rained on the couple as Pooran and the groom’s mother took turns rubbing together two sugar cones over the bride and groom’s heads.
Maryam left the next day, hugging her family and friends with a smile as she had promised her mother. No matter how much they insisted, Pooran did not walk with the others to the Shemiron Road to see off the newlyweds on their way to Tehran. Behind the wheel of the Aegean-blue Delahaye coupe, the groom waited for Maryam to say goodbye to her kith and kin. With his hands in his pockets, Ahmad stood at a distance and watched his sister hug the women and kiss Khan’s hand.
“Now you’re the man of the house,” Maryam whispered in his ear. Ahmad locked his arms around her. “You take care of Mother. You promise?” Ahmad nodded his head against her chest. “I will miss you,” Maryam whispered.
The groom revved the engine, stuck his arm out the window, and waved goodbye, then the fog devoured the coupe. In her room, Pooran hung up all of her colorful clothes in the wardrobe and put on black for her husband and daughter. She accepted Khan’s offer to move from her house to the Orchard. The main house had more than enough rooms for Pooran and Ahmad. All through the packing, although he helped with the diligence of a boy who had been promised a treat in exchange for the task, Pooran wondered if Ahmad hated the idea of moving, because no matter what, he did not speak to her. Never even a word.
5
OON CAME TIME FOR AHMAD to go back to school. The class was another one of Khan’s gifts. Years before he had built a house at the edge of the village where the teacher would live. Students of different grades sat on the ground in a big room on mats they brought with them. To get Mulla Ali’s support, Khan offered him the role of teacher. Mulla moved to the new, bigger house and was also given a mule for his daily commute to the mosque to lead the daily prayers. The mule was on top of the “gifts” each student had to bring in every now and then: two sugar cones, a tin of hydrogenated oil, a chicken, a packet of tobacco, and even an occasional small rug. As Khan’s grandson, Ahmad was exempt from the punishments the other kids often received. If any boy other than Ahmad sat in the class without reading out loud from the book or dared not answer when called on, he would no doubt have had the soles of his feet lashed, the palms of his hands caned, or spent a few dreadful hours in the dark basement where, as word had it, jinns swarmed.
After a week of tolerating Ahmad’s silence in the class, Mulla Ali complained to Khan. “What’s wrong with you?” Ahmad’s mother asked him. “You never had a problem with Mulla.” Ahmad did not answer. Pooran made him clean the stable for three days in a row, promised him a bicycle, and then forbade him to go out of the house on the weekend until he broke his vow of silence. But not a sound came from the boy. One night, she sat by Ahmad’s side and looked at him until the moonlight was no longer on his closed eyes. “You had a hard time,” she whispered, holding her son’s small hand in hers, “but you will talk to me. I know it. I’ll wait for that day.”
Ahmad walked to school with Salman every morning. Mulla Ali would pretend he did not exist, but it was difficult to ignore him. Ahmad was a keen learner. He had started to read long before anyone else in the class. His homework was always done in a flawless, beautiful hand: each letter curved meticulously into the next, the alephs stood all the same size, the dots were perfectly round, and the words formed such straight lines that even when tested against the spine of Saadi’s The Rose Garden, they showed no bend.
One day, Salman had to help his father skin a sheep at the butchery and Ahmad did his homework for him; he copied the day’s lesson five times in his own notebook, then in Salman’s. The next day, Mulla Ali could easily recognize Ahmad’s handwriting in Salman’s notebook. Without delay, Salman was laid on the floor, his feet tied secure to the thick stick that two students held up. Strikes of the wet cherry branch landed on his soles with a sharp swish. After the punishment, Mulla Ali warned the class that from then on both the lazy student and the helper would get chastised. After the class was dismissed, Ahmad offered to help by slipping his hand under Salman’s arm.
“I can walk all right,” Salman said, brushing Ahmad’s hand away. “I can even race you. Are you in?”
With his third step, Salman sank to the ground and curled like a snake in agony. They went home, Salman on Ahmad’s back, arms locked around his friend’s neck, feet throbbing with pain. “You know what,” Salman said midway, “two plus two is all I need to learn. The rest is no use. I want to be a butcher.” When Ahmad closed Salman’s door behind him, he could hear him getting beaten by his father for having been punished at school. With those soles there was no running away for his friend.
That same afternoon, Ahmad returned to Mash Akbar’s house. Lying on his stomach, Salman was doing the next day’s homework. Without a word, Ahmad snatched Salman’s notebook and pencil from him and started copying. “What are you doing?” Salman got to his feet, then sat back down on the floor. “What are you doing? He’s going to beat me again. And you, too.” Ahmad was not letting go. Salman crept ahead on his bottom and pulled at the notebook and the next moment, half of the notebook was in Ahmad’s hand, the other half in Salman’s. His lips puckered.
Do you have another? Ahmad wrote on the cover of the torn notebook. Salman shook his head and wiped tears from his cheeks. Ahmad motioned for Salman to wait. He ran to the Orchard and came back with a new notebook. Sara was bandaging Salman’s feet with white cloth. Ahmad did Salman’s homewo
rk until it was almost dark. Sara fixed dinner and the four of them, Mash Akbar, Sara, Salman, and Ahmad, ate in silence before Norooz the Gardener knocked on the door to take Ahmad home. Ahmad took the notebook with him.
The next day Salman could hardly sit still. The pupils went over to Mulla Ali’s table one by one to have their assignments checked. Ahmad could see Salman shaking as he got to his sore feet on his turn. Mulla opened the new notebook and flipped through the pages. One look at Ahmad, who was sitting with his head bowed down, was enough for Mulla to realize what was happening. He had to tie them both to the stick, one after the other, as he had warned the day before, or lose face. He was silent for a few seconds. Leafing back and forth, he made as if he was inspecting Salman’s assignment. “Next,” he ordered and gave Salman back his notebook. Ahmad felt something inflate in his chest, making him lighter. From that day on, whenever Salman had to help his father at the butchery, Ahmad would do his homework and Mulla Ali would leaf through the beautifully written pages and call out, “Next.”
* * *
—
WHAT AHMAD’S FATHER PREDICTED CAME true soon after his death: the Russians marched in from the north and the British attacked from the south, smashing and dismantling the Iranian army in a matter of hours. Soon after, the footsteps of the terrifying giant of famine could be heard across the country. Prices started to go up. Twelve miles away from the capital and in the shelter of generous fruit orchards, the village of Tajrish received the ripples of the crises with a delay. But they heard the news of how things were in Tehran, and with the winter came a shortage of wheat. The bakery opened four or five hours a day and the whole time, lines formed out front of men in thick coats and wool hats and women with sweaters under chadors. After the evening prayer one day the villagers in the mosque decided that the baker should not sell more than one disc to anyone, no exceptions. From the next day, every member of every family went to the bakery so as not to forfeit their share of the daily bread. Two serpentine lines rose and fell along Tajrish’s alleys, the men’s line in one direction, the women’s in another. Women took their babies in their arms and asked for two discs. The baker counted the babies in at first, but when, in the middle of the winter, they threw back the tarpaulin and saw that the truck had brought half the number of bags of flour the village needed, they excluded children under four and reduced the quota to three discs a family.
The famine had come with the invasion of Iran, and few doubted that the foreigners had caused the plight. Ahmad was busy with school. He read voraciously and did his classmates’ homework in exchange for an occasional book they might find in their homes and succeed in pilfering without their parents noticing. Little did he have to worry about the bread shortage as Khan received twice the quota, delivered to the Orchard every day by the baker himself because he did not trust the boy who worked for him not to spill the beans.
The winter came to an end, but the shortage did not, as people of Tajrish had hoped. They spent more time doing nothing because there was not much to do. Bread, oil, and sugar disappeared from the three village grocery stores. Salman’s father, who killed and skinned six sheep and two lambs every morning, could hardly sell three small sheep a day. Meat was the first thing people cut from their meals, reserving it for special occasions only. Salman quit school before the others. He had not been able to afford gifts for Mulla and that did not make the teacher happy. He managed to find excuses to tie the boy’s feet to the stick and leave welts on his soles. Salman was relieved when his father sent him to work at the carpenter’s. At the same time, Mash Akbar looked for something his daughter could do beyond the usual housekeeping. When Pooran heard the news, she went to Khan and asked him to let her hire the girl. The house in the Orchard was big and there was always something Sara could do. Khan was reluctant to add to the people working for him. Pooran came back to his office and placed three pairs of earrings and an old silver tray on Khan’s desk. “I’ll pay for the girl myself.” Khan looked at his daughter-in-law, clad in black mourning clothes. If he had known she wanted the girl to the extent that she would give up her belongings, he would not have rejected her. He put the earrings in the tray and pushed it back toward Pooran.
“Should I send someone to Mash Akbar?” he asked.
Pooran went in person and banged the door knocker. Sara was relieved to hear that she would be working in the Orchard that had been her second home since she had climbed trees and thrown apples at the boys when they were five. She was at first in charge of the laundry and anything else Pooran Khanum asked her to do. After her father left for the butchery in the morning, she would hasten through the chores, clear the breakfast spread, do the dishes, prepare the lunch, and tidy up the house, before hurrying to the Orchard. Shortly before noon, she would go back home to serve lunch and make her father’s afternoon tea. Then she walked back to the Orchard to finish whatever had to be done before going back home again to prepare dinner. Pooran was easy on her, but she tried to conceal her feelings in front of the others, fearful that her affection for the girl might rouse others’ jealousy. She would have other people in the Orchard do the harder jobs. Many times, she would call Sara into her room to dust the furniture, sweep the rugs, or ask her opinion about the new curtain she was making. She gave Sara jars of pickles, jam, and tomato paste to take home. From a big, wooden chest in the corner of the room, she took out blouses, skirts, or long dresses that once belonged to Maryam and asked Sara to try them on. She watched the girl blush as she slipped out of her clothes and into the hand-me-down, twirling around so the older woman could admire her from all directions. “I’ll find you a nice groom and sew you the most beautiful wedding dress myself,” Pooran would say as she tilted her head and stared at Sara in Maryam’s clothes.
When she had nothing to do, or when Pooran Khanum did not need her in her room, Sara looked for Ahmad. At times she found him silent, doing his homework in Agha’s tree with the samovar boiling on the low table to heat up the place, and with Agha sitting cross-legged at the entrance looking at the Orchard that was starting to embrace spring. Ahmad would look at her and smile, and Sara wondered how he felt about her, then she told herself that he was still a child. When Ahmad was alone in his room in the house, Sara would go in, close the door behind her, and sit by his side and watch him do his homework. One spring afternoon sitting in the window frame, she turned her head from the Orchard toward Ahmad and said, “Teach me to read.” Ahmad patted the rug and Sara sat right by him. “And to write,” she added. Outside, the sparrows chirped their jovial afternoon songs in the naked trees. The rays of the sun were not warm enough to melt the snow yet. Ahmad walked to the window and knocked on the pane with his finger. “What?” Sara asked. Ahmad tapped again. “Do you want me to open the window?” Ahmad shook his head and, this time, pointed to the window instead of tapping on it. “The window…?” A smile appeared on Ahmad’s nodding face before he ran to his wooden case where he kept his new notebooks. He pointed to the window again, notebook in hand, and waited for Sara. “Window?” she repeated, uncertain what Ahmad meant. Sara watched him nod again. Back at her side, Ahmad opened the notebook with his small but long fingers and wrote the word window before passing the pencil to her. She rolled the pencil in her hand trying to get a good grip on it. The notebook smelled chic. The paper was crisp and smooth. The shaky lines she made bore only a distant resemblance to the shape Ahmad had put on the page.
Ahmad pointed to the door and put door on the next line. That was easier. Sara tried to duplicate the curves of the new word. Ahmad pointed to the rug. “Let me do this one,” Sara said snatching the pencil out of Ahmad’s hand. Below the window and the door she drew a rug with the center medallion, borders, and even the fringes. “Isn’t this better?” she asked with an affected seriousness, turning the notebook for Ahmad to see. The teacher-like intensity in Ahmad’s face relaxed into the open face of a ten-year-old. “Your turn.”
Ahmad took the pencil Sara had held o
ut to him and rug appeared next to the drawing. Tame and docile in Ahmad’s hand, the pencil reared and panicked away to places Sara did not mean for it to go. “Help me with this.” She took Ahmad’s hand and placed it on her own. From the corner of her eyes, as her guided hand traced the right trajectory, Sara glanced at Ahmad, the tip of his tongue between his lips, focusing hard to make the word appear on the page. His long fingers lay warm on hers with the confidence of a leader who knew the way, who would not get lost, who would take you home safe. As they smiled at their success with the first three words, Ahmad looked at the gap between Sara’s front teeth and wondered if she could whistle better than he could.
* * *
—
MULLA ALI CLOSED THE SCHOOL early that year, before the end of spring. Too few families could afford gifts anymore. The mulla told Khan he would open early in the fall when the dire situation would be behind them, God willing. But summer did not bring good news. The son of the bathhouse owner was the first to leave the village. He bundled a change of clothes in a piece of cloth and started the four-hour trek to Tehran, even though word had it that things were not any better in the capital. He had at least heard that the Russian soldiers gave away food in the streets sometimes. Salman replaced him in the bathhouse. The carpenter did not need help anymore. There was barely enough work for one person. Salman had to tend to the fire and warm up the water two hours before the dawn. The bathhouse closed late in the afternoon; it was an ill omen to be in the bath when the sun was not in the sky. Fiery, ethereal hooved-feet jinns haunted the dark hallways after the sun went down, when only the dripping of water broke the silence. Everyone knew that. Terrified, Salman ran all the way to the bathhouse in the morning. He could only do his job because the furnace was accessed from outside and he did not have to go in the ghastly building. He copied the first chapter of the Quran on a piece of paper that he carried in his pants pocket and was always alert to utter the name of God if he found himself face-to-face with one of those creatures of fire because it was only the name of God, as Mulla Ali said, that could dispel those rebellious, satanic beings.
