The Age of Orphans

by Laleh Khadivi

  And she does. With her head bowed and her hand shaking not at all, Meena leans before Agha Hajii with the tea and sugar and before his one-eyed wife with the tea and sugar and finally before Reza. She lowers herself slowly and tilts her head to face the tray, and in the space left by the taken demitasses, he clearly sees the reflection of her face. Reza reaches for the tea and lets his sleeve graze her hand. The reflection smiles and bites her lip. He reaches again for the sugar and brushes against the last finger of her hand. The reflection smiles and stays completely still. The banter is extinguished and the room feels empty. Her presence is not light, as he anticipated. An air of defiance emanates off the girl, some ungainly strength of self Reza had not expected. He senses the daring that lives deep within her and as the reflection smiles and lifts its head up and away, a challenge cuts out from her beauty like a knife. And though the matchmaker told the truth—her hair is straight and her eyes are blue and her virginity is everywhere evident—she is by no means a hollow body in which he can climb into and belong.

  The girl unbends and Reza looks once more into the silver tray for the reflection and is instead blinded by a glint of light where her eyes just were. He clears his throat. It is too late; he cannot change his mind now. He has come this far, paid the matchmaker and sat upon this unwelcoming stage. He clears his throat.

  Ahem.

  The widow tightens the black shawl around her face. Khanoum Ebadi, I come as a soldier of the shah to ask for your daughter’s hand in marriage. I am well paid and soon to be promoted and I can provide for your daughter in the manner in which she is accustomed.

  The widow looks down and nods.

  And your offer?

  Reza replies with an amount sufficient to keep the household running for nearly a year.

  The widow comes to kiss Reza on the forehead, tears streaming down her face. Though not his own, he relaxes in the embrace of this maman, tight and soft, careful not to melt into it and disappear.

  Inshallah, yours will be a fortunate marriage, my son. Inshallah.

  Hands are shaken and doors are opened and closed, and Reza and the Hajiis make it only a few steps down the street before one-eyed old lady Hajii clutches him to her chest, which is sodden from the nonstop flow of her tears.

  A blessed union for the two of you, my son! Ay Khoda! May your years be long and full of sons!

  Reza pulls violently out of the hold and catches a look at her—the one eye full of tears and joy and wrinkled at the edges, the other dead, turbid and wandering—and for hours afterward he cannot shake the sight of fate itself, as it churned atop that age-old face.

  Meena Girl

  As the street told it, it was. My own baba, washed and powdered and shrouded, was carried before me on wooden slats. The midday heat was enough to cook a corpse and the hollow thud of Maman’s chest rang out beneath the glare of Abadaan Street, a glare irreverent and wolfish, scavenging for some morsel of tittle-tattle to flavor their evening meal. And as always, I felt the uncanny eyes of the matchmaker’s daughter rove easily and with pure instinct from one heart to the next, seeking out the match of dark to light, empty to full, living to dead, and land once on me—a virgin midstride, unveiled and radiant in the center of the street—and once on him: a soldier, a boy in the suit of the shah, long severed from family and blood and hungry for a new flesh to claim and plague with his handful of untidy secrets.

  As it happened in our den, it was done. The soldier of no family and no origin approached my own maman with a tower of banknotes so high, a military certificate so new and a smile of such guile the old woman blushed behind her chador and then wept openly. A month later we were wed on a night made of hasty ceremonies: the candles and cloth held above our heads, the green sharbot taken into our mouths, the mirrors and prayers and even hastier celebrations: the scent of rosewater, cooked stews and lamps lit. My brothers took to the dombak and santir and the air filled with music and mixed with the laughter of girls and the incessant buzz of my sister’s taunts in my ear.

  You will have to open yourself up to him until you bleed; let’s hope you don’t break, sister of mine. You know Maman is happy to see you go, imagine how upset she will be when you are returned . . . It is such a shame Baba isn’t here to protect you.

  She points at the man I have just wed. He sits in a circle of men, shoeless, crossed-legged on a densely patterned rug. His face is blank as he raises and lets fall a cigarette from his lips. The other men laugh and pass around a bottle of Russian vodka that is tilted into tiny painted glasses as delicate as flowers. Their revelry is boisterous and inclusive but he does not change face, or position, or attitude, and the air around him is thick with a dark consternation. He is handsome. I say it to myself and I say it to my sister, who scowls and walks away.

  The evening withers into deep night, empty of guest and music, and I burgeon with a curiosity far from fear. My hands are eager to divest the man of his uniform, his stiff cap, his spurs and boots. I cannot lie. I am hungry to touch the flesh beneath that will pour into and fill me, the flesh responsible for my escape from this nest of chattering woman talk and girl gossip; the flesh that will let grow in me the seed my own baba planted, the promise of what is possible: a life of books and schools to teach my boys and girls, roads for cars and parades for the shah, a watch for my wrist and my own modern country to be proud of in this modern world.

  I am rushed to the room by a mass of screaming, happy women from my family. They sing and clap and spread me across the motaq carefully arranged on the floor, sheeted in white and clean. I burn through the center of my stomach as I hear the sound of spurs approach the door and then he is with me and the doors are closed and the women’s high wails and clacking tongues are drowned out.

  (In the hammam the old women explained to the little girls, to scare us:

  You will take the hard part of him; the same part that dangles soft and small between your brother’s little legs—they point to a little boy running through the tiled rooms—will be solid and filled with seed and he will push it inside of you—here the women open the opening between their legs and point to the pink just beyond the withered brown—in and out, in and out, like to milk himself in you, and you will cry, that first time, and your blood will spread across the white sheet and then you are joined until you are dead in the ground. At this the old women laughed and fell asleep like cats in the steam, and we were left to wonder if this was a threshold made of pleasure or pain.)

  As it was on the first night, it has been since: a ghost emptying into a girl.

  I lay still and watched as he undressed, slowly casting off everything but the green of his eyes (a color that reminded me of bottles, or the brooding waters of rivers that my baba would paint in his tiny masterpieces); without his uniform he was smaller, hairless like my brothers. I thought of my brothers’ bodies, their flesh soft and generous from affection, their boyhood figures growing into forms assured of love so far and love to come. The soldier who stood before me on that first night had no such marks; his body was empty of imprints, the stamps of embraces and caresses left behind by love. He was made of bone and skin sewn together by a thread of scars, long and unwieldy, that looked older than the body over which they spread. Nothing of the robust soldier remained. His shoulders were broad but slim. His back, long and narrow, strained as if flattened by some steady weight. All over his body the skeleton poked out from beneath the skin as if it were hungry to show off more than the eye wanted to see.

  Without clothes or glances in my direction he spread himself next to me, flat on his back. He was hard in all senses. The breath, the flesh, even the air around him was encased in a brittle shell. As if stung with anticipation, everything inside me began to flutter. I have always been a brave girl—my baba taught me to move forward without questions or fear—and on that first night I was brave with desire. I felt the space between my legs grow damp and yearned to touch myself, to grab hold of the excitement as it came, but kept quiet and still to see what offerin
gs this new life had for me.

  He said my name. Meena. Once, as if the word were a flavor he had never tasted before. He said the word again, this time with a sigh. I turned my body to him, to answer the call, and he caught me by the shoulders and pushed me back and in a second was on top, the way my sister does when we fight. He raised my nightshirt and took off the white French shorts beneath with a speed I did not understand and I was a thin stick underneath him, not a twig but a limber new branch, resilient and elastic. Careful not to imagine what came next, I closed my eyes, patient and curious and unafraid, certain what ever pain or force would be a small fee for my freedom. He was over me with his mouth and hands and I smiled to myself, and to him, in the dark, all the while imagining I was a princess from one of my baba’s fairy-tale books, turning the golden knob of a door that leads far from Abadaan Street. I grabbed on to him as he pushed in and out of me, thinking all the while of the wonderful woman I would become.

  But as it was on our first night, it will be.

  A ghost emptying into a girl.

  From the time our hips locked and he grew rigid inside me I was overwhelmed by the singular sensation, vacant and effortless, of a secret as it passed. There was little of the rip and fury the hammam women warned about, the shred and tear that would pull the girl from my skin to make room for the woman, mother and wife. He moved delicately, with a gentle touch, fluid and steady, in and out of me until I was tense with the delight, hopeful for the explosion that would break me out from the shell of this sequestered life.

  But as it was on our first night, it will be.

  A ghost emptying into a girl.

  The soldier carried on slowly, almost sadly, his eyes fixed on mine, the gaze in them lost to a focus that had little to do with me. The slower he moved the more I craved violence, a shattering of sorts. I wanted to scream at him, like I scream at my sister when we fight. Is that all you have? Is that it? I wanted to pull from him the desire that will devour me. But he was lost to me, moving with an infuriating deliberateness until he finally stilled, pushed one last time and emptied the rise of semen, secrets and confessions long caught in the throat that spill in a moment of weakness or love.

  He slept immediately, exhausted, from what I could not say. I climbed on him, my body still charged with expectation, and rocked atop his soft sex, traced a fingertip along the length of his clavicle and torso and moved my lips from nipple to nipple. Shu-har . . . I whispered, husband of mine, where are you? Reza . . . His thin body shook with erratic breaths and I rocked atop him more, my hands braced on his thin shoulders, my wet sex rubbing against his. He moved beneath me in tiny jerks and snaps and I could not stop my arousal, my determination or myself, and I rode atop his quivering unsuspecting body like I might one day ride a horse: to get from one place to another. The awareness of pleasure opened in me like a tempest and I collapsed atop him and kissed his sleeping face and beating heart and small sex. All over my husband’s body I could smell the woman I’d become: a woman who recognizes that marriage is but a basket of desires, both handy and pathetic, from which you must pick what you want. As it was on our first night, it will be.

  What the Orphan Holds

  It is the first night, wedding night, and Reza sits with the men. They feed him rich lamb stew and buttered rice and French pastries filled with cream. Between bites they ask of his battles and victories and he gladly tells them of the nation emerging from the wilds and the bloody encounters with certain tribes—all of them necessary and obvious, of course—and of the barren mountain landscapes they can be grateful they have never seen. He goes on in exaggerated detail to distract them from the real question that lurks about the room: Soldier, where are you from? The men of the family are well deterred and listen with jaws hung loose as the pipe is passed between them around and around. The brothers joke with him and hold his hand in theirs with affection for the soldier of dubious origin who is family now, patron to their humble home. The old men nod and smoke, cross and uncross legs and listen to the women scream in the room down the hall as they sing and click tongues and bless the bride.

  Getting a bit anxious, eh, sarbaz?

  The time comes and the men clear the room with claps on the back, embraces and kisses to the mouth and cheek. In the emptiness, where he waits for the widow’s summons, Reza wishes the room full again, with men and camaraderie and lies, and dreads this upcoming union. The widow comes for him and escorts him to a room where the girl is laid out on the motaq, perfect and still beneath an immaculate duvet. Her face is clean and her hair is uncovered and well combed. Her eyelids jitter with feigned sleep and Reza notices them flinch with each snap of his spurs. There is nothing of the whores’ comely gaze or easy laugh. The wife is covered and clean and there is only a mattress on the floor and nothing else. Reza looks toward the one window for a breath of the cool night, to take in what ever random sounds the street has to offer—dogs, merchants’ empty carts, the whistle of a lone walker—and for a moment he is composed. The girl opens her eyes and smiles at him. They are bluer in the dark, vivid and shining; under their sheen all he can do is undress.

  What the orphan suffers: a life without love.

  Love as it is in the nest of mother and father, where there is careful holding and crafting of the infant, toddler and child heart and great care is taken to ensure it is not dropped or dirtied or left aside accidentally as food for snakes and wolves. On those cast out, such love is easily lost.

  What the orphan lives: a life where he must hold his own heart in one hand or two and there is no time to caress or cherish it as it slips and slides and all energy is spent just keeping it from falling through his fingers and onto a ground that may or may not belong to him. In his time Reza’s own orphan heart grows full with lies, heavier and more slippery each day. Even each night he visits his unloved sisters in the whorehouse (where together, orphan and whore, they throw their un-kept hearts about the room in a friendly or viscous volley until exhausted and isolated, heartless and spent) but still has to leave the room with the bloody thing in his hand.

  What the orphan craves: a place to put his heart, a way to love.

  In the dark room where the girl lies on the bed, still beneath an immaculate lace duvet, Reza drops the red and drippy organ on the white sheet with a plop and a great gasp of relief as it stains through the fine-brushed cotton, layer after layer. Here, in the presence of this girl, product of family love, street love and nation love, is a place to put his heart, a place for him. To take, through marriage, all that does not belong to him and claim that legitimate life as his own. Under the gaze of the girl he cannot resist the promise of comfort, the thin body that resembles nothing of the blood and loneliness and chaos that spins through him day in and day out; the thin body that resembles nothing. He crawls on top of the nothing (ignoring the obvious fullness in the air, the air that is filled with the resolve of a dreamy girl walking into the world of women), presses himself into it and closes his eyes to worship and weaken in the face of such a docile emptiness.

  What the orphan cannot help: a yearning to confess.

  On that first night he comes to lose himself in her. Just as the semen leaks from him into her, so do his secrets. In words without sounds he tells her what he knows: that he is one of a kind, the dirty and the hidden, of rock and desert wind, the sullied blood of the shamed and unburied dead, an orphan, a Kurd. They are engaged in the hips, in the bodies and in sweat, and though he is certain she can’t hear, he goes on to tell her that it is true, he has come to costume himself in her, in the Tehran flesh and shah love, to write his future history through her and the children of her womb, but really he is nothing but a boy who cannot stop looking for love. When it is done her face is blank, with a small turn at the edges of her lips. He is relieved and sleeps easily, exhausted and oblivious to the girl by his side.

  He dreams of a journey. In the dream he is a boy again, ecstatic; he has finally learned how to fly from the rooftop and wants desperately to show his maman,
demonstrate the sudden lightness of his body and the ease of his jump and the long soar before the landing. When he spots her, at a distance, she is perched atop a large rock. Her hair falls from her head all the way to the ground and is strung through with branches and grouse, small rabbits and flowers. Maman! He shouts and waves and tries to run but the earth between them is pocked with black abyss after black abyss. He walks it carefully; he is a boy again, agile and shoeless, who navigates the holes and darkness wondering all the while: what good is flight if this distance to maman cannot be drawn close?

  Of Smoke and Steam and Wash and Wind

  It is the fourth and fifth week and in the house of the dead bookseller all goes unassumed and unspoken. Without request, servants wash his uniform and polish his shoes and leave them in the wooden armoire in his room. He takes his evening smoke on rugs of colored silk laid end to end across the hall. It is the third month of marriage and the whistle of the kettle rings high and sharp through the house to wake him. He walks automatically to the room of tile and water and removes the shorts and the cotton undershirt to sit here, on a short three-legged stool in the cold washroom, naked and alone, to smoke and wait for the new wife to attend her morning’s chore.