by Zoya Pirzad
When she asked me, ‘So you were all alone in this chaos?’ I said, ‘I’ll phone you later.’ I hung up the phone and returned to the kitchen.
He was still sitting there on the chair, legs slightly apart, upper body leaning toward the facing chair, looking out of the window.
I leaned on the doorframe and ran my hand over my hair. My hand felt as if it were caked in dirt, like after changing the soil of a flowerpot, or gardening. I sneezed twice in succession.
‘Are you better?’ he asked.
I nodded and said under my breath, ‘Dust gives me hay fever.’ I pulled my chair back a little and sat down. I was sweating. For a few seconds we sat in silence, the smell of dust hanging in the air.
He looked at me. ‘Listen, Clarice. I know you have never experienced it before, but...’
Hurry up and say it, I thought to myself.
He drew a deep breath. ‘The yard is not such a pretty sight now. I know you don’t like locusts, but...’
Now I had to press both cheeks with my fingertips to make sure I was not dreaming. The yard not a pretty sight? I don’t like locusts?
I got up and he got up. We went into the hall. He opened the door and I looked at the yard. I must have been dreaming. Surely, this could not really be happening?
The lawn, the trees, the hedges, and the path – everywhere and everything was khaki, the dusty color of locusts. It took me a few seconds to realize that it was not just dust, but actual locusts. Locusts were everywhere. It made me dizzy. He put his hand on my shoulder. ‘It doesn’t matter. We’ll clean them up.’ I don’t remember how we got back to the kitchen or sat back down.
Emile made coffee and I stared, light-headed, at the vase on the table. I had picked the two red roses in the front yard that very morning, after his mother had left. How is it there are no locusts on them, I wondered.
We drank the coffee and Emile talked about the different kinds of locusts: desert locusts, red locusts, Moroccan locusts. He said that in one species, only the males had wings, and they were not even for flying; by rubbing his wings together, the male attracted the female’s attention. Whenever the population in a particular colony grows too large, their shape and behavior changes. They change color, from brown to pink or yellow, and they form locust swarms. In the Old Testament, the Jewish prophet Joel warns the people to repent of their sins if they wish to be spared from the plague of locusts.
The sound of the school bus pulling up made me jump.
I reached the twins in the middle of the path. There were traces of long crying in their faces, and when they saw me they immediately burst into tears again. Armen was walking behind them, trying to look nonchalant, but his pale face and sweaty forehead gave him away. I hugged and kissed the twins and told them several times, ‘It’s over now, it’s over. Yes, it was terrible.’
Then I turned to Armen. He put his hand on my shoulder and asked, ‘Weren’t you afraid all alone?’
On the verge of tears, I kissed him and whispered, ‘I was not all alone.’
The twins clung to either side of my skirt and we walked across the locusts and made our way inside. With the instep of their shoes, Emile and Armen swept out the locusts that had fallen over the floor in the entryway. I took the twins to the bathroom to wash their hands and faces. When I came back, Emile was talking to Armen by the door. Armen looked at me. ‘If you need me, call me,’ he said, and went to his room. I drew my hand over my face. I was nauseous, swooning, my stomach cramped. I leaned on the telephone table.
Emile looked at Armen’s closed door and then at me. ‘I wanted to talk, but it didn’t work out.’ His head dropped. ‘Later, maybe.’ He headed for the door. ‘Emily must be home. She might be afraid.’ He turned back to look at me, and smiled. ‘Though she is more fearless than her grandmother.’ He reached for the door handle and stood motionless for a second or two. Then he let go and turned back to me. ‘But I really must tell you. You are my only friend. I am sure you will understand. I’ve decided to marry Violette.’
39
I was emptying the ashtray into the garbage pail when Artoush walked into the kitchen. ‘Didn’t sleep well last night?’
I looked everywhere except into his eyes. ‘I couldn’t fall asleep. I read.’
He put his hand on my shoulder. ‘Probably all the excitement of yesterday. You look pale. Try to rest today. Let me call Company Services.’ He went into the hallway. All the excitement of yesterday? He must mean the attack of the locusts. My shoulder, where he had touched me, was hot.
I closed the kitchen curtains to block the view of the yard and started setting the breakfast table. There were two voices slogging it out in my head:
‘How many times in these seventeen years has he worried about you? How many times did he show it or say it?’
‘Very rarely.’
‘So today, out of the blue, just happens to be one of those rare occasions?’
‘Why wouldn’t it be?’
‘For the simple reason that...’
Armen came into the kitchen and said something. I looked at him and mumbled, ‘For the simple reason that...’
Armen looked at me. ‘Did you say something?’
‘What’s that?’ I asked.
‘I said, don’t worry. I’m going to tie my shoelaces in just a second. Why do you look so pale?’
I looked at his shoes. For the simple reason that...
The twins ran in.
‘Good morning!’
‘Good morning!’
Armineh said, ‘Last night I dreamt we went to the pool with Emily.’
Arsineh counted off on her fingers all the people in the dream: ‘Emily and Sophie. And Auntie Violette. And Uncle Emile.’
Armineh sat down at the table. ‘There were not that many people.’
Arsineh, with her hand on the back of the chair, said, ‘There were, too.’
‘No there weren’t.’
Arsineh stomped on the floor. ‘There were so.’
I could not remember the twins contradicting each other before. This day of all days would have to be the day for them to start arguing. ‘Enough!’ I shouted.
They were quiet for a while. Then Armineh whispered to her sister, ‘Did I have the dream, or did you?’
Arsineh pouted. ‘I was in the dream, too, wasn’t I?’
Armineh thought for a moment. ‘You were there.’
‘Well then,’ said Arsineh, ‘Sophie and Auntie Violette and Uncle Emile were, too.’
Armineh gave in. ‘Fine, they were. Milk, please, Mom.’
Arsineh’s frowning face burst into a sunny smile and she sat down at the table. ‘Yesterday, when the locust rain started, the school janitor said the end of time is nigh. What does it mean?’
Armen explained. At some other time, I would have been surprised about Armen’s more or less correct knowledge of theology. It was not some other time.
Armineh whined. ‘The yard is full of locusts. How are we supposed to get to the bus and...’
Arsineh put her milk down on the table. ‘Yeah, how are we supposed to get to the bus?’
Armen said, ‘I’ll carry you one by one and set you down by the bus. Okay?’
The twins laughed heartily. ‘Oh, goody! We’ll get a piggy back ride!’
I watched Armen laugh with the twins. How changed he is – all grown up, I thought, as he poured milk for Arsineh. I wanted to cry. Why, I didn’t know. Well, I did know and I didn’t know.
Artoush stepped into the kitchen, hand on his goatee. ‘The Company employee seemed to think it was a big joke. I asked them to send someone to clean the yard and he laughed out loud. “It will be clean before noon,” he said, and hung up. When I get to the office I’m going to go complain to the Chief of Services...’
The doorbell rang. Who could it be, so early in the morning? It was Youma, and behind her stood four boys with suntanned faces and crew cuts, all in a row. All five of them, smiling ear to ear, had a sack, a bag and a cardboard box in h
and. I had not seen the boys before that day and it was the first time I had seen Youma smile. She had four gold teeth and her large red headscarf, printed with large green flowers, hung all the way to her waist.
‘What has happened, Youma? Have you been invited to a wedding so early in the morning?’
The boys all chuckled and Youma laughed out loud. ‘Mrs. Doc, this day be no less than a wedding! I told the boys we first’ll go over to Mrs. Doc’s place. She’ll do right by us and won’t charge us poor unfortunate folks much. Right, kids?’ She turned around to face the boys, who nodded and giggled again. Their teeth shone brilliant white in their bronzed faces.
I was staring at Youma, confused, when Artoush came up behind me to ask, ‘What’s happened?’ Armineh and Arsineh were clinging to either side of my skirt. Armen asked, ‘What’s going on?’ As we all stood face to face, our five-man crew stared back at their five-man crew for a few seconds.
Youma figured out the problem before anyone else. She turned around and said something in Arabic to the boys, who all cracked up laughing. Then she explained that they had come to buy the locusts, that the Arabs in Khuzestan roast them and eat them. ‘S’like sunflower seeds, ya know, Mrs. Doc? Like roasted seeds. Like so.’ She held her thumb and hennaed forefinger in front of her mouth, pantomiming the cracking open of a sunflower seed in the front teeth.
The twins both said ‘Yuck!’ but Youma did not hear. She continued her explanation. ‘Sometime we boil ’em. In a pot.’ Armen broke out laughing. Youma laughed too and the boys looked at each other and, probably because everyone else was laughing, they laughed as well.
I told Youma to start by gathering up the locusts on the path before going on to the rest of the yard. When I told her I did not want any money, she raised her two bony arms up to the sky, with ten or twenty bangles on each wrist, and said, ‘You are a great lady, God keep you, God give you everything you want, God give you...’ She was still saying prayers for me when I closed the door.
Armen called the twins into his room. ‘I have three new pictures of Tarzan and Cheetah.’
Artoush put an accordion file down on the telephone table and rifled through some letters and papers. ‘How poor does a person have to be to eat locusts?’
The carpet in the hallway was crooked. I bent over to straighten it. ‘They eat locusts in lots of places. They’ve been doing it for eons.’
Artoush looked at me and said nothing. The twins came into the hallway. They pushed the lace curtain aside, craned their necks to see into the yard and shouted in unison, ‘It’s cleared up to the gate!’ Seeing Armen stand at the mirror in the hallway, combing his hair, they knitted their eyebrows.
Arsineh complained, ‘You mean we don’t get a piggy back ride?’
Armineh said, ‘We don’t get a piggy back ride.’ They went out the door grumbling.
Artoush, on his way out the door, said, ‘So the Company Services employee wasn’t kidding at all!’ I went out with him. Youma and the boys were hard at work. Within ten minutes there were three sacks full of locusts sitting next to the gate.
I had never seen our street so crowded as on that day. Men, women, and children, dripping with sweat, were rushing around shaking the trees and hedges. The locusts fell from the branches into the sacks and bags, or whatever else they had brought to cart them off in. There was bickering over whose tree this was, and how far that house’s hedgerow extended. Was this same scene, I wondered, being repeated all throughout the city?
The school bus had yet to arrive. I saw Armen crossing to the other side of the street. Emily was standing by the gate of G-4.
Arsineh tugged at my sleeve. ‘Look at the hedges!’
Armineh shouted, ‘Look at the trees!’
Artoush said, ‘Look at that!’
Two Arab men were shaking out the hedge of the house to the left of us. As the locusts fell off the bushes, there was nothing left but the wooden branches. I stared dumbfounded at all the hedges and trees. There was not a single leaf left anywhere. I had never seen Abadan without its luscious greenery.
Armineh started, ‘It’s like they’ve all gone to the barber and...’
Arsineh finished, ‘And shaved off all their hair.’
I waited outside longer than on any other morning, and waved goodbye to the school bus and to Artoush’s Chevy.
When I stepped back into the yard, Youma was shaking out the willow tree. The only thing left of Hovhaness Toumanian’s Princess were long, naked branches, like a skeleton. I turned to look at the lawn. One spot was still covered in locusts, but where Youma’s boys had already gathered them up, there was nothing but bare dirt. You would never guess that only yesterday in our yard we had a lush green lawn and so many beautiful flowers. Everything was the color of dust, and now it really was just dust.
40
There were not enough chairs for everyone at the table.
‘Wouldn’t we be more comfortable in the living room?’ I asked several times, but with everyone talking at the same time, no one heard me. I sent Armen to bring the chairs from his room and the twins’ room, and finally we all sat down.
Artoush was telling the story of his phone call to Company Services to a guffawing Garnik. Armen stood behind Artoush, leaning back on the kitchen counter. The twins and Sophie were talking about the rehearsal for the end-of-year performance, and Mother was making bread and cheese bites. Alice was putting on lipstick in the mirror of her compact case, and Nina was recounting the attack of the locusts: ‘As if the locusts – the devil take them – were not enough, sounding like a jet about to take off right over our heads, we also have Garnik running around the room shouting non-stop, “Don’t be afraid. Don’t move. Don’t talk.” I finally poured water in a glass and shouted at him, “Keep your cool, man! You’re more scared than the rest of us.” And I force-fed him the water.’ She gave a boisterous laugh and put her arm around Garnik’s neck.
Garnik was scratching his head. ‘Yep, so help me Jesus. Big bear that I am, I lost my courage, but for my wife and for this one, it was like nothing out of the ordinary was going on.’ He gestured toward Violette, who was the only one other than me neither laughing nor talking. She was turning her coffee cup round and round in its saucer.
Mother split an apple into quarters and gave one piece each to the twins and to Sophie, and held the fourth out to Armen. When Armen said ‘I don’t want it,’ she bit into it herself.
‘I was not in the least bit afraid, either. I was only worried about Clarice and the children. Mostly I was worried about Clarice, being all alone.’
I got up from the table and quickly began collecting the dessert plates. ‘Those are not used yet, Auntie,’ said Sophie. ‘Why are you clearing them away?’
Armineh asked, ‘More apple, Nana.’
Arsineh said, ‘Nana, apple!’
Mother said, ‘Hold your horses, just a second,’ and took another apple from the fruit bowl.
Alice was saying, ‘I kept telling Joop, “Honestly, I’m not afraid,” but he said, “Come hell or high water, I’m going to get myself to the hospital, right now.” I managed to convince him not to come. There was no need for him to be there, anyway – I’m not a child.’
Garnik reached over to Nina’s plate and took a few grapes, popping them one by one into his mouth. ‘’Scuse me, Alice dear. Do the Dutch know how to say “hell or high water” in English?’ And he cracked up laughing. The twins and Sophie were in stitches, too.
Mother said crossly, ‘No laughing with your mouths full. It will get stuck in your throat.’
Alice put her lipstick and compact case back in her purse and glowered at Garnik.
Nina slapped the back of Garnik’s hand. ‘Stealing from my plate, again?’ Then she turned to Alice. ‘Forget about him, you know how he is – just waiting for some excuse to talk rubbish. Don’t you have a date tonight?’
Alice looked at her nails, turned the ring on her finger and pursed her lips. ‘Joop is busy tonight. He has to write a le
tter to his mother and his aunt.’
Garnik cracked up again, and after a good laugh, he said, ‘Couldn’t be busier than that!’ He winked at the twins and Sophie, who had caught the giggles from his infectious laughter.
Alice announced, ‘I’ll have to take a couple of days off work, soon.’
Nina elbowed Garnik and said to the still tittering children, ‘What are you standing around here for? Go on, skedaddle!’
Mother was fanning herself and Artoush was spinning the fruit knife on the table.
Armen was leaning over my shoulder trying to reach the plate of sweets. I gave him two cookies and looked at Violette, who had not said a word since she arrived. What’s wrong with her, I wondered?
Sophie said, ‘We want to play house with the dolls.’
Armineh said, ‘We want to get out the dolls...’
Arsineh said, ‘...and we want to play house.’
Armen said, ‘I’m going to ride my bike.’
Alice said, ‘I have no choice but to take some days off work.’
Violette got up and went to the window. ‘Did the locusts eat the flowers?’
I looked at her. She had her hair in a ponytail and was wearing white flats. She swiped her finger on the window, leaving a smudge. ‘Poor things,’ she said. Was it my imagination, or did she have a faint smile on her lips?
This time Alice said it very loud. ‘I have to go to Tehran to...’
‘Tehran?’ asked Nina. ‘What for?’
With her back to us, Violette said, ‘When they migrate they fly for kilometers. Each locust eats its own weight in foliage every day. In Cambodia, cooked locusts are considered a delicacy.’ I did not need to guess where she had heard that.
‘To renew my passport,’ Alice replied. ‘Joop said we’ll go to Holland together in September to see his mother and aunt. We’ll get married there. Of course, we may have a small wedding party here first.’
Me, Mother, Artoush, Nina, and Garnik all turned to Alice.