Things We Left Unsaid

by Zoya Pirzad

  I made the circuit of the store and got two boxes of Nice cookie wafers, the kind Artoush liked, and Haliborange vitamin syrup for the children.

  Arsineh and Armineh turned up with their hands full of chocolates. Armineh said, ‘You told us to remind you to...’ Arsineh finished, ‘...buy bread and milk from the Dairy.’ I told them to return half of their chocolates to the candy counter, and then we went over to what the Abadanis called the Dairy, a little room attached to the supermarket, and bought rolls and milk.

  When we arrived home, exhausted by the heat, Artoush’s car was in the garage.

  Armineh said, ‘Oh, goody! Father is home.’

  Arsineh said, ‘Father is home. Goody!’

  We could hear voices in the living room. Armineh set her piano book down on the telephone table. ‘Do we have guests?’ Before I could say that the piano book does not belong on the telephone table, Arsineh picked it up and said, ‘We have guests.’

  I wondered who was here. Alice was working the afternoon shift this week, and Mother would always sit in the kitchen, and Armen must be in his own room, because the music on his portable Teppaz turntable was loud enough to hear three houses away. Armineh looked at me. ‘Maybe it’s one of Father’s acquaintances.’

  Arsineh said, ‘The green Cadillac was not in the garage.’ She plunged her hand into the grocery bag and fished out a box of Smarties.

  Armineh stroked her chin, as if to play with a beard, in imitation of Artoush. ‘Actually, I forgot to tell you. A few of the fellows are coming over.’

  Arsineh burst out laughing. ‘Manners!’ I reminded her, and she obligingly stifled her laughter.

  ‘A few of the fellows’ referred to three middle-aged men who sometimes came to our place. They were not Armenian. They would sit, not on the living room sofa, but at the dining table, and when I took tea in to them, they would thank me profusely. Artoush would close the door behind me as I left the room, and for an hour or two I would only hear muffled voices.

  Armineh turned to her sister and mimicked one of the three, the tall fellow who spoke in a staccato fashion. ‘Par-don me...Would it be pos-si-ble to leave the Ca-dil-lac in the ga-rage?’ The first time the tall fellow came over, he asked to leave his green Cadillac in the garage, because the sun would damage its paint. It became a habit every time he came over; even in twilight, when there was no sun, he left the Cadillac in the garage and closed both of the double doors.

  Angry at Artoush for forgetting to tell me that he was to have guests, I yelled at the twins, ‘Wash your faces and hands and do your homework.’ When the twins ran off to their room, I went to the kitchen.

  I had seen the green Cadillac in front of Shahandeh’s store a few times, under the blazing sun. When I mentioned this to Artoush, he shrugged. ‘Well, there’s no garage near Shahandeh’s store.’

  I began putting away the stuff I had bought. I did not know the names of these three people, and I did not want to know. ‘Won’t it cause problems to have them come over here?’ I had once asked Artoush after they left. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘We’re just shooting the breeze.’

  I put the bread in the breadbox, grumbling to myself, ‘Just shooting the breeze, my foot!’ and went to the living room.

  There, instead of ‘Father’s acquaintances,’ as the twins put it, I saw Emile Simonian, who got up as I walked in, said hello and extended his hand. I shook it and quickly withdrew my hand. The hand cream was still on the kitchen table. We exchanged pleasantries and I asked, ‘Care for coffee?’

  While the coffee was brewing, I washed my hands at the kitchen faucet, opened the Yardley hand cream and rubbed some on my hands.

  I headed for the living room with a tray of coffee and wondered how it came about that Artoush had invited Emile over. Artoush said, ‘Did you know that Emile is a mean chess player?’

  Well, there was my answer. I thought of our honeymoon in Isfahan and Shiraz. For hours Artoush, with infinite patience, had tried to teach me to play chess, but I never learned.

  Emile lifted his coffee cup and looked at the window. ‘What pretty drapes.’

  I had embroidered the lace flower trim along the hem of the drapes myself, and liked them quite a lot. But no one (other than Mother, who had said, ‘Your tastes take after mine’) ever complimented the drapes. As Artoush set up the chess pieces I left the room. I told the twins to bring their dictation notebooks to the kitchen and told Armen to turn down the record player.

  I was thinking about what to fix for dinner when Armineh and Arsineh ran in, pouting.

  ‘My dictation notebook is missing.’

  ‘My pencil case is missing.’ They stomped on the floor in unison.

  ‘That Armen!’

  ‘That Armen!’ I said, and got up.

  Armen’s door was locked, as usual. Instead of knocking, I jerked on the doorknob, twisting it left and right several times. The second I said, ‘Again, you took...’ Armen shouted from inside the room, ‘The cabinet in the living room.’ Still facing the closed door, I said, ‘You have a real sickness, you know,’ and headed for the living room.

  Emile looked up. The top button of his shirt was undone, revealing a fine gold chain. I opened the door of the china cabinet. Emile asked Artoush, ‘What was going on today? Everyone left early.’

  Artoush stroked his beard, his eyes on the chessboard. ‘There was a speech. Why didn’t you come?’

  ‘A speech?’

  ‘Pegov was speaking.’

  ‘Pegov?’

  ‘Nikolai Pegov, the Soviet Ambassador.’

  ‘I see.’

  I collected the dictation book and the pencil case from the china cabinet and returned to the kitchen.

  I was boiling macaroni noodles for dinner when the doorbell rang. It was Emily, conveying a message from her grandmother that they were waiting on her father for dinner. Emile jumped up. ‘I wasn’t paying attention to the time.’ He reacted just like his daughter, the first time her grandmother had come after her.

  Artoush looked like a kid whose toys had just been yanked away from him. The twins pleaded, ‘Let them stay for dinner.’ I forgot all about those limits on socializing and my vow ‘never to subject myself to that again,’ and told Emile, ‘Why don’t you stay for dinner? I’ll call your mother.’ Artoush affirmed the invitation, and the twins each grabbed an arm, tugging me toward the telephone. Armen’s door was open, and he was leaning on the door jamb.

  Elmira Simonian not only agreed to let her son and granddaughter stay, she even agreed to come herself. After this quick and unexpected acceptance, the twins jumped for joy, and Emile and Artoush returned to their chess game. Seeing Emily’s smile, I thought ‘the innocent child.’ My back was to Armen, so I didn’t see if he was happy or not.

  14

  They sat cross-legged on their beds, clutching Ishy and Rapunzel, respectively.

  Armineh said, ‘You didn’t tell us why, but we finally figured out all by ourselves why Emily’s grandmother never got bigger.’

  Arsineh, with great gravity, explained, ‘Because she didn’t get vaccinated.’

  Whenever it was time for the twins to get a shot, I had to cajole them with pleas, explanations, and warnings, including: ‘You won’t get bigger if you don’t get vaccinated.’

  Artoush laughed when I told him half an hour later what they had said. I sat down beside him. ‘Mrs. Simonian has a lot of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in her. You start thinking she is a selfish, beastly creature, then she does something totally unexpected, something that makes you want to like her. Those were wonderful stories she told! And you have to admit that her piano playing was flawless.’

  After dinner, first Emily and the twins had played the piano. Then Mrs. Simonian had played the difficult parts of their lessons for them, before taking song requests, and finishing up with some old Armenian melodies. I believe that even Armen didn’t notice that Mrs. Simonian’s feet did not reach the pedals.

  Artoush yawned. ‘They are not bad people. N
othing wrong with Emile’s chess playing, either!’

  ‘Where did the political discussion lead?’ I inquired.

  He clasped his hands behind his head. ‘Nowhere. Emile lives in his own world and marches to his own tune.’

  I picked a pistachio shell off the carpet. ‘What world is that?’

  He let his hands drop, drawing them across his goatee. ‘Oh, I don’t know. Literature, poetry, that sort of thing.’ I juggled the pistachio shell from one hand to the other. Mrs. Simonian had said, ‘No matter how hard I tried, he didn’t learn to play piano. Instead, he began reading books and composing poems before he even started going to school.’

  I tossed the pistachio shell in the ashtray. ‘Well, what’s wrong with reading books?’

  Artoush stretched his legs out on the coffee table in front of the sofa and looked at the blank TV screen. ‘Nothing wrong with it at all. As long as it has a point, or offers a solution, or teaches people something, and isn’t simply an amusing pastime. Emile doesn’t seem to be living in this world.’

  I twirled a strand of hair around my finger. ‘You mean to say that anyone who reads or loves poetry is not living in this world?’

  He yawned. ‘Poems and stories don’t pay the rent. Oh, by the way! Mrs. Nurollahi said she wanted to ask you something. She said she would phone.’

  What could Mrs. Nurollahi want with me?

  Mrs. Simonian had said, ‘A very important journal published a number of Emile’s poems. One of his stories won an award.’

  What could Mrs. Nurollahi want with me?

  Artoush asked, ‘Did you figure out what ever happened to Ishy and Rapunzel?’

  After the Simonians had left, Ishy and Rapunzel were missing. We all suspected Armen, as usual. But Armen, who usually gave a mischievous smile and eventually admitted where he had hidden his sisters’ toys, was serious this time and even had a tear in his eye as he protested, ‘I swear to God, to the Christ, to Mary, to all that is holy, I didn’t hide them.’ Finally, Artoush found Ishy and Rapunzel outside, in the yard, beneath the window of the twins’ bedroom.

  I tucked the strand of hair I was twirling behind my ear. ‘I don’t think it was Armen’s doing.’ Artoush closed his eyes and leaned back in the sofa. I stared at the dark TV screen. So, could it have been the girl’s doing?

  Artoush opened his eyes, stood up and stretched. ‘Will you get the lights, or shall I?’

  ‘I will,’ I answered.

  While I was clearing the dinner table, Emile had asked, ‘Clarice, can I lend a hand?’ Was it his offer of help, or his calling me by my first name, that made me happy? I turned out the living room lights and before retiring to the bedroom, put the jar of chutney that Mrs. Simonian had brought in the back of one of the kitchen cupboards. It was the cupboard where I kept things I rarely used.

  15

  Alice sat down at the kitchen table. She had her hair cut short, layered, and teased to the utmost. Her head looked round as a ball. ‘I came straight here from the hairdresser.’

  I jumped in preemptively, ‘Oh, your hair looks great. Did you go to Angele’s?’

  She smiled. ‘Are you kidding? Angele doesn’t know how to do short hair. I went to the Shemshad Salon; they have a new hairdresser from Tehran.’ When she spied last night’s washed dinner plates in the dish rack, she was livid. ‘Did you have guests?’ She posed the question much the same way one might ask, ‘Did you kill somebody?’

  I started putting away the plates. My rational side reminded me for the thousandth time, ‘You don’t need to explain. Just say, yeah, we had guests. Nothing more.’ I put the last spoon away, closed the drawer and wheeled around to face Alice.

  ‘Yeah, we had guests.’ And I told her who it was.

  She frowned. ‘Why didn’t you let me know?’

  Before I could stand my ground on not needing to explain, my emotional side capitulated. ‘It all happened quite suddenly. And you were at work at the hospital last night.’

  Instead of grumbling or picking a fight, as was her habit, this time Alice picked an apple from the fruit bowl and said nothing. Angry at myself for having gone ahead and explained, and also surprised at Alice for not having bickered, I sat down across from her. She ate the apple down to the core and said, ‘You could have told them to come to Nina’s on Thursday night.’

  In order to keep my cool, I tried to think about something else. I stared at the flowers outside the window. I had never been able to get it through my sister’s head that if a person gets invited somewhere, it’s not right to show up with an uninvited guest of his own accord. And I could not convince her this time, either.

  She raised her eyebrows. ‘Don’t be silly. You don’t have to stand on formalities with Nina. But, fine. It doesn’t matter much. I’ve made my decision. Do you have a cigarette?’ I got up without a word and brought her the pack of cigarettes. So, my sister had decided to lose weight. I lit a match for her.

  She puffed clumsily at the cigarette and let out the smoke. ‘As long as Mother is not here to raise a fuss, let me say that whatever faults and drawbacks Simonian may have are of no importance to me. The truth is that I’m tired of being lonely, and I’m tired of Mother’s grumbling. So what if he’s been married before? You were right. One can’t have cake and eat it too. He comes from a decent enough family, and he is educated... Hey, careful! You’ve burned your fingers. Where is your mind?’

  The match had burnt to the base. I tossed it into the ashtray. Mother had warned me on the phone, ‘If Alice turns up, no matter what she says, don’t argue. This time she’s really gone off the deep end.’ I guessed that meant that they had argued again. Now I was sure. I remembered a joke. This man says, ‘I’ve decided to marry the king’s daughter.’ They tell him, ‘The king’s not going to give you his daughter.’ He says, ‘I’ve made my decision, so the matter is half resolved.’

  My sister had decided to marry Emile Simonian, so as far as she was concerned, the matter was fully resolved.

  Alice grabbed another apple. ‘When his mother dies, her jewelry will go to me.’ And she laughed uproariously. ‘The only problem is the girl. But you said she’s not a naughty kid. I’ve got no patience for raising kids, but you will help me out.’

  And after having settled the matter just like that – cut and sewn and worn from whole cloth, as Mother would say – she got up.

  ‘Okay, I’m off. I need navy blue shoes to go with my new two-piece white suit.’ My head was spinning and I do not think I even returned her goodbye. Alice left, smiling.

  Before I could make it to the hallway to call Mother, the phone rang. Mother had beat me to it. ‘I know. I know. I’ve been filling her ears from last night until now. It’s like talking to a brick wall. The sooner she sees this lout, the better. Maybe she’ll drop the crusade.’ When I hung up I was mad at Mother, too. What right did she have to call someone she had never set eyes on a ‘lout’?

  I sat down again at the kitchen table. My hand found my hair. I was twisting my hair around my fingers and letting it go. Twisting, letting go. It was not a difficult thing to picture, the first meeting of Alice and Emile Simonian: my sister is made up to the nines and in the first half hour gives a complete report of her virtues, her education, and her social position. She offers an opinion about everything from cooking and housekeeping to politics and global economics. Then she speaks of her many suitors (some of them of course imagined), explaining that she refused their every proposal. Finally, she speaks about her student days in England. My straight hair was twisted like a spring. I coiled it behind my ear and latched onto another strand.

  My greatest hope and aspiration was for Alice to marry. Several times I had suggested possible candidates, but my sister would grimace as though I had offered her a poisoned cup. ‘You have got to be kidding! You mean I’m so hopeless that you have to find me a husband?’

  Every time I twisted my hair around my finger Nina would say, ‘Turning into Louis the Sixteenth again? Let go of your poor hair
!’ I let go of my hair and stood up. I paced up and down the room in search of a solution. Finding none, I vowed that if my sister would give up this crusade, the very next day I would buy everyone at the almshouse lunch and dinner.

  16

  When the children came home from school, Emily was with them.

  Immediately I asked, ‘Did you tell your grandmother before coming over?’ Emily nodded her head and lowered her eyes to the floor. All this shyness was beginning to try my patience.

  ‘We just went over and got her grandmother’s permission,’ Armineh explained.

  ‘Emily has some problems with math,’ said Arsineh. ‘She came to get Armen’s help.’

  Before my surprised gaze could settle on my son, Armen ran off to his room, saying, ‘I’ll be right back.’ Quite a day for the unexpected! Math was Armen’s arch nemesis, right after, or perhaps on an equal footing with, the bane of his life, Composition.

  I forgot about their after-school snack until the children asked, ‘What do we have to eat?’

  I started making excuses. ‘I was busy. I didn’t have time to prepare anything.’ The twins stood there wide-eyed, looking at me with heads cocked at an angle.

  ‘What were you doing?’

  ‘Why didn’t you have time?’

  Irritated, I said, ‘There is bread and cheese. Help yourself, and don’t ask so many questions.’ They took a step backward and looked at each other. I put my hand on my forehead, leaned against the wall and closed my eyes.

  Armineh stepped forward and took my hand. ‘Don’t you feel well?’

  Arsineh took my other hand. ‘You don’t feel well?’

  I badly wanted to tell them, ‘No, I don’t feel well.’

  The doorbell rang, leaving me no chance to figure out what was making me feel ill.

  I withdrew my hands from the twins’ grasp and headed for the door, telling myself, ‘God help me through this.’ I braced myself for yet another strange occurrence, feeling, as I opened the door, like Alice in Wonderland. In any other circumstance, the similarity of the names of my sister Alice and the little heroine of that book would have seemed amusing. But it was not some other circumstance – I was not feeling well, and it was not amusing.