The Gardens of Consolation

by Parisa Reza

  A young woman appeared on the balcony with a tiny baby in her arms. It took Bahram a few seconds to recognize Talla. Their eyes met. Did she recognize him? He did not hold her gaze long enough to find out but hurried on his way.

  So that’s what it was. It wasn’t just the picture of the parrot that reminded me of her, I could feel her presence. So she’s married and a mother already.

  He felt sad and betrayed all over again. Unreasonable as it may seem, he would have preferred Talla never to have married, to have stayed in love with him all her life and then one day, infinitely far in the future, when he had done everything he dreamed of doing in love, they would have met again. That was no longer possible. Something had just ended. Love in all its beauty had gone.

  Bahram would not be using that road again, and never again would do for a girl what he succeeded in doing for Talla: working a whole summer to earn enough money to have her photo taken. Never again would he think of stowing apples in his pockets to share them with a girl like Talla . . .

  From now on he would describe women with only a few trivial adjectives: beautiful, proud, arrogant, kind, jealous, hysterical. Women would primarily be partners in seduction, the stake in men’s desires. They had to know how to attract and resist for the game to last a while. If it went on too long, he would tire of it. If it was too short, it was not interesting. Those who could resist for just the right amount of time were the most desirable, they obsessed him and even sometimes made him unhappy. But even for them he made no exceptions when it came down to it. They were all heading inexorably toward their own downfall. Because this man who seemed so in love, who showered them with praise, lavished them with attention, and offered them such rare passion and such intense desire that every one of them felt she was the most beautiful woman in the world, this handsome, devastatingly attractive man would steal silently away the moment they were conquered, when they finally succumbed, when they thought they had found the love of their lives, when they believed they were heading for the happiest of marriages. Gone, without a backward glance or an explanation. And if one of them should ever insist on a reason for this sudden change, she would be confronted with an impatient, irritable, “You’re a nice girl, but I can’t give you what you want . . . ” Worse still, the easy ones, the kind ones, were not even rewarded with these words. They were treated to a knitting of his brows and a beautiful glowering expression so severe that they could only back away or be burned alive.

  Women who cried were annoying, but the ones who needed to talk, to know why, or to give their point of view, they were unbearable. There was no need to try to understand, give explanations, or justify anyone’s behavior, the desire was simply no longer there. Who cared what had been said three months earlier, who cared what he might have felt then; what mattered was that the urge had gone and these things can’t be forced, can’t be made to order. And anyway, why make a scene? There are so many other men and women on this earth, they could both find happiness elsewhere. When the breakup went well, Bahram never thought about the woman again, or only many years later in a nostalgic moment.

  In any event, an age-old culture of harems and favorites could not be erased from men’s consciousness in the space of a decade simply because Iran had come into the modern age. Even though monogamy was officially widely respected, even though women’s rights were praised as a mark of elegance, in a country where the king had had a harem until only thirty years earlier and had been monogamous for just ten years, the true possibilities were far too appealing to be relinquished in real life. And so, like many men, Bahram granted himself the right to seduce a constant succession of women as though he were filling up a money box with all their fine qualities in the hopes that when he broke it open a single perfect woman would step out: his favorite.

  It would probably have been the same even without his heartache over Talla. Men like him needed an excuse to justify their actions to themselves and to others. But if his own mother had not been so excessive and exclusive, things might well have been different.

  Bahram’s mind was open to excellence, culture, learning, and history, but where women were concerned, his ideas changed little: He would hold the door for them, get the check, give them presents if need be, whip out a nice compliment at the right moment, but little more. He very quickly realized that women really liked him. Lots of them came to him of their own free will, and with the others Bahram gradually grasped that they almost all wanted the same thing and that in most cases a few simple catchphrases did the job perfectly. With those who did not dare make the first move and those who wanted to be pursued, he learned how to break the ice: a look, a smile, then nothing for a little while, a few days’ absence, and then a more persistent gaze, a few steps toward her . . . He understood the language of women, the no that meant yes, the furtive looks that betrayed desire, the false goodbyes like the little notes slipped among his things, notes that talked of a breakup but were really a desperate bid for attention. Bahram knew that to win women over he had to make them feel unique, make each of them feel she was more woman than all women put together. Afterward, even if they saw him approach other women, even if he hurt them, they would really struggle to cope without the elixir that flowed from this man’s eyes, an elixir that made them feel sublime only to destroy them all the more brutally afterward. In other words, he developed the skill of a hunter.

  It is this Bahram who meets Elaheh, a first-year student of Persian literature. Bahram has a preferred type of woman, a sort of fetish. Of course there are blondes, but they are more of a fantasy; in real life, the girls he likes best have small eyes and long lashes so that when they laugh all you see of their eyes are two dark lines. If they have long hair and wear skirts instead of pants, that is even better. Elaheh is a small, slim young woman with long black hair and big brown eyes. A pleasant face, not an immediately striking one, but one whose unique beauty is revealed on closer inspection.

  Elaheh’s most distinctive characteristics are her keen mind and remarkable intuitiveness, except when she is caught in the snare of love.

  She is descended from a distinguished family. Her father is none other than a prince from the former Qajar dynasty. Granted, there are vast numbers of descendants of the women in the Qajar kings’ harems, but the title is still impressive. It is a fact of life that princes are appreciated more once they have fallen from power. Like family jewels or old bottles of wine that have gone musty, they have no saleable value but are still the vestiges of a past that is always perceived as a happier time. This prince married Elaheh’s mother out of family duty, in an arranged match. Past forty, he was well beyond marrying age and incapable of settling down for himself, so it was his family that urged him to find a wife. A number of girls from good families were introduced to him, and he chose a beautiful young sixteen-year-old, Freshteh, a shy, attractive, and pure girl. They very soon fell into their allotted roles, he because it pleased him, she because it was her duty.

  All wise Iranian women are aware that their husbands may have emotional attachments outside the marital home, attachments they themselves would do better to ignore. Most simply prefer not to know, on condition that their husbands have the elegance to play their part at home. This is usually how these things work in homes where courtesy and decorum are the order of the day. But Elaheh’s father conducted his extramarital affairs with no discretion whatsoever. Her mother lived in pain every year of her married life, with no possible means of escape. At the time Iranian women very rarely divorced, and the idea would have been all the more unacceptable because Freshteh’s family believed her husband had no major faults: he was not an alcoholic, an addict, or a criminal, he did not beat her, and what was more, he was a cheerful and charming man. Of course everyone knew he had a weakness for women; at receptions he made no attempt to disguise his fawning over them. Elaheh’s grandfather occasionally furrowed his brow, deeming him indiscreet, but, well, the man wasn’t a rapist, he wasn’t putting his ha
nd down women’s skirts, so it was nothing serious. In fact, as the years went by, people almost found it endearing, it was so much stronger than him, as soon as he was with one or more reasonably attractive women, his smile changed, his eyes twinkled, and even with the best will in the world he forgot all his duties and commitments.

  There was only one thing Freshteh’s family held against him: he was a Communist. There was nothing to stop an aristocrat being communist and pro-Soviet. Young Iranians who studied in Germany before World War II had had considerable contact with German Communists and had come home as Communists themselves. Quite a snub to the Shah! Iran had increasingly close ties with Germany and welcomed her most brilliant communist intellectuals. Khalil Maleki said of pre-war Germany, “It’s not that we’ve found Communism, but Communism found us.”

  Elaheh’s father had actually studied in France, and it was in Paris that he met communist students; they were descended from the upper echelons of the bourgeoisie and he from the highest ranks of the aristocracy—a match made in heaven. Paris in the Roaring Twenties—the best years of his life. He treated himself to every possible luxury from women to ideas via wine . . . and emerged a Communist. It was in the bastions of communism that Elaheh’s father, Manouchehr Amir-Ebrahim, fully developed his aristocratic contempt for money.

  Elaheh’s mother could have found consolation in another man’s arms; some of her friends did just that. They were high-society women, after all; a woman could go to the cinema like a man, she could even travel in Europe. Some led a flighty life. But Elaheh’s mother was a believer and her faith would not allow it. In her family women did not wear the veil; they studied, lived in European style, and did not say the mandatory prayers five times a day. But they were believers, they prayed from time to time and performed acts of charity for the poor. In short, having a relationship with any man but her husband would have destroyed her with remorse. Besides, she loved her husband and she thought that, despite all his affairs, he loved her, too, in his own way. She was his wife and the others were just transient. And she was right about that. Her husband loved her even if he paid her little attention, and he would never leave her. She was his guarantee of everyday happiness. When he came home everything was as it should be, she took care of him and the children, she ran the house, they ate extremely well, and their receptions were dazzling.

  From her earliest years, Elaheh had seen her mother cry; it was never ostentatious to attract attention or to elicit pity, but usually done in silence in her bedroom; sometimes it was a few tears shed as she busied herself around the house and stopped halfway through some chore, a residue of emotion from the night before. Elaheh knew her mother cried because of her father, but nothing was ever explained to her. Elaheh started watching her father, following his actions and moves, particularly in public, and when she finally understood, she took to systematically—and anxiously—monitoring him. She would apprehensively appraise the other women at dinners and receptions. Would they catch her father’s eye? Which one would he target? And yet now Elaheh still loves her father as much as she does her mother. He is always well dressed, his hair neat, and there is a perennial glint of light in his laughing eyes to soften his distinguished appearance.

  Elaheh herself is both drawn to and terrified by men like her father. Bahram is made of the same stuff as him, but is different. He can play several seduction games at once but with much more restraint. Obviously, because a ladies’ man has a peculiar need for his women to be aware of each other’s existence, he always leaves traces, gives clues, and unless the women are blind they will see them. Bahram cannot help himself but he is not impulsive; when he sees a woman he does not stand with his tongue lolling out like a dog, he never allows his desire to be obvious. Bahram has the patience and contempt of a predator.

  She noticed him right at the start of the university semester. With his actor’s physique he stood out from the crowd of students. He often wears dark glasses and grey suits. She has been observing him discreetly and has noticed that he watches girls, never walks with his hands in his pockets, is left-handed, and is often with one or two other boys, always the same ones. She even heard him whistling once. She has researched what his name means and discovered that Bahram is the Zoroastrian deity of oaths and promises. She thinks this is a good match for Elaheh, which means goddess. And they have almost the same family name. She has ended up thinking about him every morning when she wakes and every evening before she goes to sleep. She has never thought, “He’s too handsome for me,” not once. Or, “He looks at girls who are prettier than me” or even, “He looks at girls too much.” But nor has she thought, “That’s a man for me.” Elaheh does not think in these terms, she follows her instincts, which have always failed her in love, invariably throwing her right into the lion’s den. Much later in life she would learn to accept that she loved the lion’s den.

  Bahram has not noticed her before this rainy fall day when he is sitting on the ground floor of the library looking out the window, watching the weather outside. Rain is so rare in Tehran that it is always an enchantment. Bahram cannot take his eyes off the window. He sees a girl come over. They are looking almost directly into each other’s eyes and, caught out, she looks away. Bahram does not remember meeting her and cannot understand why she looks disconcerted to see him.

  A few days later he sees her again; this time he looks at her a little insistently and she reacts in the same way. Bahram now knows she is interested in him, perhaps more. The next time he smiles at her. Then one day when she is sitting in the library reading, he comes and sits opposite her.

  “Hello,” he says.

  “Hello,” Elaheh replies, embarrassed and flustered.

  “What’s your name?”

  As a nicely brought-up girl she should ignore this boy, he is not even in any of her classes, but she settles for saying, “Elaheh.”

  “What are you studying?”

  “Persian literature.”

  “What year are you in?”

  “First year.”

  Elaheh asks no questions, she already knows everything. She is so overwhelmed by his being there, so near her, she does not even have the presence of mind to pretend.

  “What are you reading there?”

  “It’s about contemporary poetry.”

  Bahram rests his chin on his hand and looks her in the eye until she blushes. Then he gets to his feet, gives her the sweetest smile in the world, and leaves. In the doorway he turns, looks at her one more time, and thinks to himself that she’s cute and definitely a nice person.

  He leaves feeling amused but little more than that. In the field of conquests, this seduction comes for free. Particularly as his mind is on other things, a first-year student of foreign languages, Firouzeh: mischievous, arrogant, and, in his view, an absolute beauty.

  Even though the girls at university are from families that grant them a degree of freedom, it is crucial for a girl to demonstrate that she respects good behavior or she will not be loved. These girls are virgins, and keeping their virginity until they are married is sacrosanct. The boys would not risk taking their virginity; a kiss, a caress, but little more. Bahram would not try to sleep with anyone at university; taking a girl in his arms and kissing her are the only possible forms of enterprise, and even that is a lot. Later, in artistic and intellectual circles, he will meet divorced women—and some who are married or even still single—who have the audacity to take pleasure in their bodies. But his years spent studying are marked, in an almost mystical way, by this disconnect between love and sexuality which is so typically Iranian. Mostly, unmarried men do not sleep with women at all, or perhaps with prostitutes, or occasionally with a servant or a married woman. Some might keep a girl or woman from a modest background, but these women are rarely also the one they love. They are in love with pure, virginal girls whom they hope to marry or, like Bahram, whom they want to hold in their arms and whose hearts they want to
win. That is the very definition of love.

  Bahram’s friends in Gholhak, who are not lucky enough to go to university and get to know girls so well, fall in love with girls they see in the street. If they exchange so much as a conspiratorial look they think they are engaged. How often Bahram has to console a heartbroken friend because the girl he is in love with—the one he watches out for as she walks past the end of the street, the one he has never even spoken to, whose voice he has never heard—has just gotten married.

  But once you know the rules of the game, its limits and boundaries, it is the same everywhere in the world: trying to be loved in the way you yourself want to be loved, at least once in your life.

  Confronted with this forbidden sexuality, with these mostly patriarchal families—some are matriarchal, but they are all authoritarian—and the constant insecurity in their lives, not knowing what fate men have in store for them, what whim will alter their father’s behavior, what their future life will be like, what decision will suddenly be reached, what freedoms they may lose, no longer being allowed to see one person, being told to marry another, stopping their studies, no longer wearing skirts . . . confronted with all this, some of these young women have succeeded in securing moments of unchaperoned freedom and have turned the game of seduction into playing with fire. The only territory in which women have power: So long as he wants me but can’t have me, I shine, I take pleasure in bringing him to his knees, hoping all the while that this one will prove to be the prince who will deliver me from my prison. The hope expressed in the fables they were told as children. Fables that described a prince coming to free the king’s daughter, imprisoned by a giant—and that giant would be their oppressive family or tradition or both. These obstacles were like the seven ordeals that the valiant hero has to overcome before his final battle with the all-powerful being we all identify as the giant. And that being could be male or female because the mothers are no gentler than the fathers. After years of frustration and stolen dreams mothers are more comfortable attributing their misfortunes to other, rival women, to the wrongdoers. So they would rather not have daughters, they would prefer to have sons. Having a daughter means being condemned to watching a rerun of the unchanging fate that is a woman’s lot; whereas being mother to a man means living the other side of the story through your son. Having a part of yourself in a man, being loved by your son gives a woman a new kind of power over men through motherhood, even if she has lost it through womanhood.