Her room was a shrine to cassettes, magazines, and books about theater. A large poster of a film, Through the Night, starring Googoosh, hung over her bed. The film, which had been released the year before, was the story of a famous singer-actress who falls in love with a young fan dying of leukemia. Halfway through, the actress showed her breasts on screen, a first for Iranian cinema. Traditionalists were outraged, furious. Boycotts and protests ensued.
For Nasreen, Googoosh was a proud, sensual woman she hoped she’d be one day. If her mother would only get out of her way.
She closed her eyes and hummed along to Googoosh’s song about a fish imploring her lover to break them free into the ocean. She touched her lips and thought of Madjid—the green almond taste of his kiss, his soft, full lips.
Sweeping through the French doors of the kitchen, Ghamar made a beeline to Bibi-Khanoom. She let out a sigh and leaned against the wall. “Oh, Auntie,” she moaned. “I’m boiling in this chador!”
“Water?” said Bibi-Khanoom.
“If it’s not too much trouble.” Ghamar coughed slightly and looked at Mirza, who handed her a glass of water.
Ghamar sniffed the water. She was suspicious of Mirza. She was suspicious of anyone who was an Afghan, Turk, Armenian, Arab, Mongol, Baluchi, Jew, or Kurd, which left no one in Iran for her to trust. On one occasion, Madjid—Bibi-Khanoom’s grandnephew-in-law—made the mistake of pointing out to Ghamar that there was no such thing as a Persian and if she wished to meet one, she would have to go to India and find a Parsi. Ghamar had been leery of him ever since and often told her husband that there was something a little Indian about his olive complexion.
Mohammad had joined the judge in the living room. They sat on the floor pillows and flicked their worry beads and took tea.
“How is the tailoring business?” said the judge.
Mohammad shook his head. “The same. Mostly abas for the clerics. God never seems to run out of brand-new recruits and they all need brand-new robes. It should get busy with spring, though. Wedding dresses and suits.”
“And the family?”
“Everyone is healthy and happy.”
The judge studied Mohammad’s face. There was something his nephew-in-law wasn’t telling him. Over the past year, Mohammad seemed even more removed from his life, stopping by the orchard at odd times to say hello and stay for hours, as if he didn’t want to go home. For her part, Ghamar had become even more confrontational and easily set off by the slightest offense. The judge could feel the tension between them, but it was not in his nature to pry. “And life goes on,” he said with a smile.
The next to arrive was the judge’s older brother, the mullah. He had just finished leading an especially successful prayer at the local mosque, wearing a white turban and khaki aba that Mohammad had made for him.
His following was growing. His Friday services were filled almost to capacity. That morning, he had begun with one word: “Dignity.” Then he let the word ring out as he sat perched above the crowd. Men looked down at the ground, flicking worry beads and swatting away flies. Women covered their mouths with their chadors. The worshippers were a mix of bazaar merchants, farmers, shop owners, and workers from fields and offices as well as students and housewives. The men sat on one side and the women on the other. The older generation took in the words as a balm, the younger one as a call to arms.
“Money?” the mullah continued. “Power? Property? Status? Family? What do any of these things profit a man who has sold his dignity? A man can lose his fortune. He can fall from power. His home destroyed by natural disaster, his position ruined in the blink of an eye, and his family taken from him. But if he has his dignity, he loses nothing. If he has his dignity, he is in a state of grace. For dignity is given to us by God and can be taken from us only if we give it of our own free will.”
The mullah opened his aba, put his hand in the chest pocket, and took out a document. “A man came to see me holding this piece of paper in his hand. He said to me, ‘Haj-Agha, the authorities gave me this deed to land and said I could cultivate it and feed my family. But it’s not enough land and I don’t have the means to farm it.’”
He looked at the document with mock awe.
“It is an impressive piece of paper. It bears a very official stamp from a high office. But it is a piece of paper. Can this man live on it? Can he shelter his family with it? Can he eat it?”
The congregation let out a collective laugh.
“He asked me: ‘Haj-Agha, what can I do? Where do I go? I am one man with no means. What can I do against such corruption?’” The mullah felt his eyes well up.
He began again. “Imam Hussein.”
Sobbing broke out among the congregation.
“Imam Hussein stood on the plains of Karbala surrounded by an army ten thousand strong. He turned to his followers and covered his face and said, ‘We are all going to die here. Those who want to leave, do it now.’”
The mullah sighed. “And all but seventy-two left. He stood with his family of seventy-two, mostly women and children, surrounded by an army, ten thousand strong. His family dying of thirst in the camps where they cowered, his own infant son, mouth bleeding from sores, his wife, weeping and begging for water. All he had to do to save them, his own flesh and blood, was to sell his dignity, his dignity for his life and theirs. But instead, my brothers and sisters—he chose to die.”
The mullah’s eyes were red, his throat dry. He began to weep and held the tail of his aba to his face as he wept and the believers all wept with him.
As he approached the house, his earlier triumph faded, replaced by the resentment he felt for his younger brother. The mullah had spent his whole life living under the judge’s shadow. The mullah was as short and round as the judge was tall and slender. He wobbled when he walked, due to his bowed legs, while the judge strode effortlessly. His voice was loud and fiery compared to his brother’s soft deep baritone, and he offended family members with his speeches. His brother seldom spoke, and when he did, it was to utter a few words of observation or ask a question. Everyone preferred the judge and the mullah knew it.
He entered the vestibule, taking off his sandals at the door. As soon as Ghamar and Bibi-Khanoom saw him in the kitchen doorway, they adjusted their chadors. Out of propriety, he looked away before greeting them. Bibi-Khanoom ushered him into the living room in the southern wing. “Haj-Agha,” she said—using his honorific title, as she always did—“I am so sorry to have missed this morning. There was so much to do here. I couldn’t get away.”
Ghamar chimed in. “Haj-Agha, I would have come. I was dressed and ready to go, but I live with turtles so it is a miracle that we even made it here.” She threw an accusatory glare at her husband and daughter. They both looked down at their hands.
The judge bent down and kissed the mullah on both cheeks and led him to where he was sitting. He poured him a glass of tea, which the mullah accepted, and offered him fruit, which he declined. The mullah took out his worry beads. Mohammad and the judge picked up their own. For a few minutes, the only sound in the room was that of beads flicking.
Nasreen felt uncomfortable in the mullah’s presence. She was conscious of her uncovered hair and excused herself from the room, despite her mother’s gaze. On the deck at the southern entrance of the house, she paced back and forth—pretending to sun herself while stealing a look down the orchard path.
Ghamar narrowed her eyes. Nasreen was looking for Madjid, she suspected. Over the past year, her daughter had become worried about her appearance, even with her family. There was also the eyebrow plucking, the makeup, and the floral dresses Nasreen had started to wear for the visits to the orchard.
Ghamar turned her attention back to her husband. “Mohammad-Agha, cut up some fruit for Haj-Agha.”
“He doesn’t want any.”
“That’s no reason to be rude.” With some effort, she bent down and picked up an orange, two Persian cucumbers, and an apple from the bowl. She placed them on a pla
te and took it over to her husband with one of the paring knives. “Now cut those up nicely for Haj-Agha.”
The mullah watched all of this devoid of any expression. “Thank you, Ghamar-jan. Some fruit would be nice.”
Ghamar raised an eyebrow to her husband, who slumped over the fruit, peeling away. She dusted off her hands as she headed back into the kitchen.
The mullah shook his head and said, “You let a woman talk to you like that?”
Mohammad gave him a smile. “She’s not a woman, Haj-Agha. She’s a prison guard.”
The mullah chuckled, then looked out the window at the orchard. “Spring has come early this year.”
The judge nodded. “Yes, unseasonably early.”
“Summer will be long and hot. You will have to keep the grounds hydrated and the fruit pickers will have to come before the summer solstice.”
“Yes.”
“I’m afraid it’s not so easy for the peasants. They can’t afford to irrigate, let alone hire pickers.”
On his knees, Mohammad slid the plate of sectioned fruit in front of the two brothers. The mullah stared at the neatly laid out pieces. He did not take one. “This business of land appropriation is a great injustice. Not to mention the disrespect for our way of life. We are not godless Communists.”
“The issue of land appropriation is a very legitimate concern.”
“The people are angry at the preferential treatment for those close to government officials. The poor have gotten the worst of it. As usual.”
“There are also those in the religious establishment who are not pleased that their family land has been taken from them.”
The mullah stared at his brother with contempt. The most vocal opposition to land appropriation was the clerics whose family lands the government had seized. But that was a side issue to the mullah. His concern was for the poor who were affected, and therefore this concern was righteous and indisputable. “This is a matter of government corruption.”
“I think it is a complicated matter,” said the judge. “There are many factors that—”
“Indecision complicates matters that injustice clarifies.”
The judge flicked his worry beads in silence. He was fully aware of the unethical practices of government officials but he was equally weary of activist clergy who usurped real issues to further their personal crusades.
For months he had struggled to formulate some deeper understanding of the land issue. Whenever he thought he had come to a conclusion, he found a counterargument. And these arguments and counterarguments raced through his mind, leading him to believe that there was no right side when it came to an individual’s struggle for power.
His brother cut short all discussion with a proclamation of faith.
Faith, to the judge, was a surrender of control, not an exercise of it. What he saw in his brother was not faith but certitude, the same certitude he had witnessed at the bench, year after year—men and women, rich and poor driven to acts of cruelty by their convictions.
What if certainty was madness? Would it not follow that doubt was reason? In the beginning of his career, the judge had been seduced by the satisfaction of placing blame: punishment to those who had wronged, justice served to those who had been wronged. But over the years, he had watched as cases involving political dissidents were summarily removed and taken to military tribunals where they vanished. So-called threats to national security and accusations of treason poisoned the halls of his court. How could there be justice if even a single person was above the law? He became unsure of his own ability to see clearly. He looked deeply at each case that came before him, trying to alleviate his sense of guilt for working in such an autocratic system. And much to his surprise, he began to see the fractured humanity of every person whose life and future he determined, and this paralyzed him. Eventually he could no longer perform his duties.
The mullah saw doubt as weakness. He could hardly contain the disdain he felt toward his brother, a man who had been given every advantage in life, a man who had married into wealth and comfort, never knowing the horror of poverty, degradation, or abandonment, a man who had reached the pinnacle of power only to abandon it, a man of no conviction.
This chasm between them always left their conversations unfinished.
In the kitchen, Bibi-Khanoom and Ghamar stood at the kitchen counter over a pot full of triangular blocks of Lighvan cheese from East Azerbaijan, which Bibi-Khanoom had brined during her winter seclusion. Ghamar put a piece in her mouth. “This is perfection. The Bulgarians use too much salt, the Greeks too little. Those Turks finally got something right.”
Bibi-Khanoom shook her head. “Ghamar, don’t discriminate. It’s shameful.”
“I don’t discriminate, Auntie. I hate everybody.” Ghamar peered out the kitchen window at her daughter. Nasreen had picked up a broom and was aimlessly sweeping the deck.
She sucked her teeth but Bibi-Khanoom grabbed her by the arm. “Let her be. Don’t you remember what it was like?”
“Yes, I do. That’s why I’m going out there.”
“Madjid is a fine young man,” said Bibi-Khanoom, still holding on.
“How fine can the seed of a fokoli be?”
Bibi-Khanoom looked at her—shocked. “That is enough! So Shazdehpoor likes sitting on chairs and chocolat. This is not a crime.”
“He is an insufferable snob!” Ghamar pulled her arm back and left the kitchen. Through the window, Bibi-Khanoom watched her niece argue with her daughter, but it was for Ghamar that her heart ached. How unbearable must her misery be that she had no choice but to spit it on anyone who came too close: Shazdehpoor, Madjid, her daughter, her husband, Turks, Armenians, Jews, France, Europe.
A brisk wind moved through the trees, drowning out the voices on the deck and the clattering of Mirza as he beat the bedroom rugs. Bibi-Khanoom closed her eyes, listened to the sparrows and nightingales rustling through the trees, and thanked God for another spring.
Shazdehpoor rapped sharply on his son’s door with his walking stick. “Come, Madjid!” he said. “We are late already.” Shazdehpoor was the nephew of the judge and the mullah and the only child of their sister who had died giving birth. He was also the family’s fokoli. Today, like most every day, he wore a three-piece seersucker suit with a rose tucked carefully in his lapel. He took great pride in telling anyone who would listen that seersucker came from the Persian shir o shakar or “milk and sugar.” He was so thin the suit looked almost the same on him as it did on the hanger. His slim build made his nose and bushy eyebrows even more prominent.
He held up his walking stick and tapped on the door again. The stick was mahogany and had a silver lion’s head handle. He had purchased it from an English gentlemen’s catalog. It was his prized possession. He took it everywhere, using it to bat stones out of his path on the unpaved, provincial streets of Naishapur, while muttering “barbarism” under his breath.
“Coming, Father,” Madjid said as he closed his book. Madjid’s bedroom was the product of vigorous thought and raging hormones. Stacks of books lined an entire wall, some of them so dogeared that they resembled the bellows of an accordion. A shrine of photographs was taped onto his mirror: the iconic “Guerrillero Heroico” (Che Guevara’s steadfast gaze during a memorial for those killed in a CIA explosion on La Coubre off Havana); the impassioned Mohammad Mossadegh (defending the nationalization of Iranian oil against Britain’s Anglo-Iranian Oil Company at the International Court of Justice); and a defiant Muhammad Ali (surrounded by fellow black athletes at a meeting of the Negro Industrial and Economic Union explaining why he refused to be drafted into the Vietnam War). This disparate trinity—an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, a nationalist Iranian prime minister, and a black American Muslim athlete—were united by one thing: they were all men of conscience. Madjid longed to be such a man in this world but he had not quite figured out how to do this. He slept on a small cot and thought of only two things, the part he would play in the future of his country and b
eing with Nasreen. Both of which he knew were intrinsically and irrevocably tied to the other.
His father had no place in his future. Shazdehpoor longed for a world of order and civility, filled with cobblestone streets and dining halls with gilded chairs. He had fashioned his room after a European salon and often sat up at night in his leather club chair, sipping cognac and listening to the Adagio from Schubert’s String Quintet in C major, remembering the contours of his dead wife’s face. A face that bore a striking resemblance to that of their son, Madjid.
Madjid’s father held up his walking stick as they proceeded through the orchard, Shazdehpoor swatting pebbles and muttering furiously under his breath, Madjid ignoring his father’s futile battle with the stones. The scent of plums and cherries mixed with the dust in the air. Madjid had grown up in the orchard. As a boy, it was the only place where he was free to roam without supervision or restriction. Half-naked, alone, his face stained with the juice of fruits he had shaken from the trees, he escaped bee stings and ran with a child’s ferocity, unaware of his scrapes and cuts. He stood over anthills and watched their efforts with total admiration. Then, just as easily, wiped them off the face of the earth with a kick of his foot.
The guilt helped him instinctively understand what he would consciously later learn, that a man’s character is determined by how he chooses to wield the power he has over others.
As Shazdehpoor and Madjid entered the house, Nasreen laid eyes on her beloved and felt her heartbeat quicken. Their first few minutes together always filled her with anxiety. She leaned against the kitchen doorway as he and Shazdehpoor greeted the family, waiting for his eyes to meet hers. Madjid had brown eyes. But not just any brown eyes. If you looked into them long enough, you saw the dark embers of his mind at work. Framed by long, almost girlish lashes.
Nasreen felt a sudden pinch and jumped.
“Stop standing around like a sheep,” said her mother. “Go bring more tea.”
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