The Heart's Desire

by Nahid Rachlin

  Karim shook his head, feeling uneasy.

  “I promise we have the best—we give them tests to make sure they have no diseases.”

  “Well let you know,” Jamshid said.

  The restaurant was attractive. There were pink tablecloths and pink-shaded lamps hanging on the walls, and candles set on tables. A few families and a couple of single men, probably on business, were eating at scattered tables. Liquor was being served freely, the local police having been paid off perhaps. They ordered wine along with food.

  Jamshid picked up his glass, “Let’s toast to your homecoming.”

  Karim raised his glass and touched it to Jamshid’s. Two women wrapped in chadors came and stood before them.

  “Can we be of any help?” one of them, younger-looking than the other, asked Karim. “You know …” Then the two of them sat down across the table from them, not waiting for an invitation.

  “We’re just passing through,” Karim said awkwardly.

  The other woman and Jamshid were already engaged in conversation. He heard her say to Jamshid, “Let him know, if you want to.” She was pointing to the clerk who was now talking to the cashier.

  Jamshid leaned over Karim and whispered, “Do you want to?”

  “I dorft see how …” Karim whispered back.

  “It’s legitimate, if they perform that ceremony, I mean as far as the law is concerned. We won’t get into trouble.”

  “I know, but …” The younger woman had a gentle, sensitive manner, the other woman was more wary, her brown eyes expressing a hardness. Still, they both could easily pass as their wives.

  The lights had gone off and now the place was lit only by candles, creating a romantic atmosphere.

  The younger woman reminded him of someone … it was what-was-her-name, Jhaleh, a young girl he had had a crush on when he was an adolescent. It was an understanding of things beyond their years that they both projected. Jhaleh used to live in the house across the street. He would go to the roof and stand there waiting for her to come out, just to catch a glimpse of her. Sometimes she came to the porch of her house, her dark, wavy hair hanging loose over her shoulders, and leaned against a column or wrapped her arms around it. Eye contact was as far as their flirtation went, but it was enough to bring him back to the roof the next day. He had finally written a letter, asking her to meet him at a cinema in a distant neighborhood, where no one would recognize them. He had slipped the letter into her hand as he passed her on the street. She came as he had asked. They met secretly a few times. Before he left the country he had told her, “I’ll be back after college and we’ll get married.” What had happened to her, where was she? Aziz had told him that their house was sold to another family years ago. His life would have been so entirely different if he had married her, simpler maybe …

  The two women got up. “You can reach us through him,” the older woman said, pointing to the clerk. Then the two of them walked away.

  Karim and Jamshid lingered a while longer.

  “I’m amazed this kind of thing is still available, even underground,” Karim said.

  “You can’t take away what people are used to. But most of what they fought for in the revolution—more equality of wealth among the people, less corruption and brutality by the government—has been achieved.”

  “Did you back the revolution?”

  “I had mixed feelings about it as I watched it happening.”

  “I don’t like the intolerance toward other religions,” Karim said.

  “I know what you mean. Most of our Bahais and Jews, for instance, among the most educated, have fled, fearing persecutions,” Jamshid said. “Remember my friend Roofeh, he helped you with your passport and visa, he always asked about you. He and his family left for Israel right after the revolution.” He went on, “But you know I had lost respect for the shah. He was trying too hard to imitate the West. At the Shiraz celebration, they served French food, and put on plays and movies by American directors. Where was Iranian culture?”

  Karim had always been aware of this ambivalence in his uncle. After he had finished his one year training in Texas he was offered a very good job in Dallas. He could have stayed on—his wife and children would have been happy to join him—but he had chosen to return home even though the country was still under the shah’s rule.

  “And you know how terrifying the SAVAK was. It was so much larger and more systematic than the pasdars now,” Jamshid added.

  They talked and drank a little more, then they went back to their room.

  “Do you want to see Babolsar before we go back to Teheran?” Jamshid asked Karim after breakfast. “Then we could stop and see my sister too.”

  “Sure. It’s been so many years since I saw Aunt Khadijeh.” He remembered how much he used to like to visit his aunt. As a child his mother took him there and when he was a little older he went there in the summer and sometimes stayed for weeks. It would be nice to visit her and at the same time take notes on the town’s plan as he had at Naushahr earlier that morning.

  As soon as they checked out of the hotel, they headed toward Naushahr. In a short while, the old Mercedes began to steam up, the temperature gauge going way up.

  “This is a very old car, I need to get a new one once I have a job,” Jamshid said. He opened the hood and they looked in. Water was dripping from the radiator and the ground under the front wheels was wet. “We should take it to a gas station. Luckily we didn’t go too far.” They got back into the car and Jamshid began to drive back to Naushahr, slowly. They spotted a gas station on a wide main street and stopped.

  A young man was standing at the pumps, wearing khaki overalls stained with oil. “My radiator seems to have a leak,” Jamshid said to him.

  “Let me look at it.”

  Karim and Jamshid stood by as the man examined it.

  “Yes, it’s broken.”

  “Can you fix it today?” Jamshid asked.

  The man shook his head. “It won’t be ready until tomorrow afternoon, more likely the next day.”

  Jamshid took their bags out of the trunk and gave the car keys to the attendant. “We’ll have to go back to the hotel,” he said to Karim as they walked away. After they checked in, Karim tried to call Jennifer, but this time the line was busy. He finally gave up and he and Jamshid went for a walk. They found a shop on the main square and Karim bought a pair of earrings made of crystal chandelier drops for Jennifer, a leather belt for Darius, and a silk scarf for Aziz. Jamshid bought some presents too. They resumed walking, passing a cluster of white stucco buildings with low domes, mud and straw houses, huts. In one spot two old women were sitting on a porch, knitting a rug. Everything about the sights and sounds of Iran penetrated Karim deeply as if hollows had been carved inside him during the years of his absence and were now being filled.

  It was getting hot as noon approached. “Why don’t we go to the beach behind the hotel. We can get something to eat there,” Jamshid suggested.

  They went through the park, walking in the shade of fir trees. Jamshid was suddenly quiet. Then he stopped and leaned against a tree. Karim was startled to see tears streaming down his face.

  “Uncle, what’s wrong, cars break down once in a while.” How strange it was to see Jamshid, who had always been strong and optimistic, cry. He used to make Karim laugh, to give a glitter and magic to everything when they went for walks together.

  “It isn’t the car, it’s what my life has come to,” Jamshid said through tears. “I still have nightmares about bombs being dropped on our heads. I saw terrible things happen to people—a man abandoned on the side of the road with one of his hands severed, another man with his skull split, a beggar woman with her baby in her arms, both of them dead. When a missile hit our house, for an instant I thought the explosion was thunder. Then—it was unbelievable—a part of my house had disappeared. I ran frantically everywhere, trying to find the others. Monir and my daughters were crying for days.”

  “I wish I’d been there
to help you.”

  “Never mind. You’re here now. This trip, being with you, means so much to me.”

  Karim took out a piece of tissue from his shirt pocket and gave it to his uncle. Jamshid wiped his tears.

  “It must have been an extraordinary feeling to have peace finally,” Karim said. “I know how good I felt when I glanced at the headlines early one morning and saw it had happened. I called my Iranian friends to tell them the news in case they hadn’t heard. We went out and celebrated together that night.”

  “For us it was different,” Jamshid said. “We were still deep in the wreckage.”

  Chapter 8

  Karim was reading a local newspaper as he waited on the hotel beach for his uncle, who had gone inside to buy a pack of cigarettes, obviously unable to cut down. “The new mayor of Teheran is planning to put two hundred parks in place of some of the buildings destroyed by war …” His thoughts drifted to Jennifer, the implicit assumption on her part that he would be the one who had to live in a foreign country for the rest of his life.

  The issue had come up on different occasions. Though he had never really stated a desire to return to Iran permanently, Jennifer seemed afraid of it. For instance their argument after that terrible dinner party Nancy and Don had arranged. The Porters and the Elliotts were there too—they lived in the neighborhood and the men were affiliated with an engineering consulting company. Jennifer said something about their going to Iran for a visit. “I wouldn’t go there for anything,” Jack Porter said, his watery pale green eyes flickering with something like indignation. “They kept our men there for four hundred and forty-three days, it’s incredible they let them out alive:’

  “But they did let them out alive,” Karim said, feeling his heart beating painfully. His voice came out breathless.

  “Karim and I want to see his family, it will be good for Darius too,” Jennifer said.

  Jack only shook his head faintly.

  On their way home in the car Karim said, “I can’t stand any of these people, they’re so ignorant and narrow-minded. I wish we could get away from this place altogether.” Jennifer, assuming he had Iran in mind, had said, “But this is our home. The house is finally in good shape, Darius has his friends here. And we both have our work. You know how much I love my job.”

  He saw the shadow of someone approaching, it was a woman, who came and sat in front of him. “Do you remember me?”

  “Of course.” He recognized the prostitute immediately—the large, shy eyes, the sensual lips. She was so young.

  “Your friend sent me here. He’s talking to my friend inside.” He could smell her musky perfume. “I thought you were going to be here only one night.”

  “Our car broke down, so we’re staying a little longer.”

  “I left my village, my nine brothers and sisters, and came here to earn a living. Now I can send them some money,” she said as if appealing to his mercy. “I miss my little brother the most, he’s ten years old.”

  She is just a child herself, he thought.

  “You can have me as a sigheh tonight” she said, her tone wavering between pleading and flirtation, her eyes staring into his, moving him.

  He felt a quickening in his blood. When was the last time I spent a night with a woman other than Jennifer, he thought? More than a decade. Jennifer was the only American woman I took seriously.

  “Your friend wants you to.”

  “He’s my uncle.”

  “Oh, your uncle.”

  Can I really go ahead with this ridiculous idea, marrying this stranger for one night? I could give her some money and let her go. She was looking at him, waiting. Her eyes, so much like Jhaleh’s; and she was wearing the same musky perfume Jhaleh used to wear. So many unfulfilled promises.

  He took out his wallet and gave her some toomans. She looked at it and her face beamed.

  “My name is Soroor, in case you want to find me,” she said, getting up.

  Karim watched her walk away, a prostitute, wrapped in a chador, walking on the beach. How absurd. But then he had the sensation that he had lost something by letting her go.

  In a moment Jamshid came back. “We could go through the ritual and then have their company all night,” he said. “We’ve seen all there is to see in town.”

  Karim stared down at the sand. “I don’t know, the whole thing is strange …”

  “It’s better for the prostitutes this way, they’re better protected.Some of these women are intelligent, have something to say.”

  Jennifer, Karim thought, but he was unable to push down the aching yearning the prostitute had awakened in him.

  Early in the evening he, Jamshid, and the two women gathered in the hotel room and an aghound arrived almost immediately after. He had a lively manner and he looked striking with his long beard and nails painted red with henna. The two women were now wearing light-colored chadors, one with floral designs and the other with geometrical shapes. They all sat on chairs around the room and the aghound read a sermon from the Koran he had brought with him, marrying Karim to the younger woman and Jamshid to the other, for one night. It was very simple—he read the sermon and asked each person if he or she agreed to the temporary marriage. Then he set the price the men would pay for the night.

  It is so incredible for me to be doing this, Karim thought.

  The porter came in, carrying a tray with a teapot, cups, and sugar on it. He put the tray on the table and left promptly.

  After they had tea, the aghound got up. Smiling, he said, “Now you have God’s blessing.”

  Karim and Jamshid paid him. As soon as he was out of the door the women pushed off their chadors, letting them slip over their shoulders. They were both wearing light makeup and their clothes were of subdued colors.

  “We’re nice girls,” Mina, the older girl, said, catching Karim’s eyes.

  “Mina, don’t bore them,” Soroor said.

  “I had my palm read once by a gypsy,” Mina went on. “She told me I was going to get married soon and have eight children.” She giggled.

  “Shall we take a walk into town and have dinner there?” Jamshid suggested.

  “That’s a good idea,” Karim said.

  Chapter 9

  Karim, Jamshid, and the prostitutes left the hotel and began to walk toward the square which was bright with lanterns hanging on shop doors. Jewelry and glass ornaments glittered in the shop windows. In one corner a man was putting silver paint on a colander. He dipped the colander into a pot of silvery liquid and then held it with a fork high over a fire burning in a stove to solidify the coating. A group of dervishes in white robes were dancing in the middle of the square, pulling some of the passersby into their circle.

  The spark of desire was growing in Karim in anticipation of spending the night with Soroor, though it had been arbitrary that she had put herself with him, probably because she was a little younger, and Mina had gone with Jamshid.

  “There’s a good restaurant down that road. It’s really a rooming house, but they let you eat there as well,” Mina said. “It’s inside a garden, secluded.”

  “Let’s go there then,” Jamshid said.

  They went through a gate into the garden and walked down a path lined by lush, thick bushes and trees, redolent with fruit. Light bulbs, strung through the branches, lit the way for them.

  A man, wearing baggy pants and a loose shirt with the sleeves rolled up, was standing on a raised platform under the trees. He stared down at them and then his face lit up. “You have brought guests for me,” he said to Mina.

  They went up onto the platform and sat on the carpet-covered floor, leaning against pillows. The man and a ruddy-faced woman, who seemed to be his wife, went in and out of a room, bringing back food—mutton marinated in spices, rice mixed with lima beans and dill, salad. “We grow everything here and we have our own sheep,” the man said.

  The aroma of food was mixed with the fragrance of early evening flowers.

  An orange, long-haired cat
came over and curled up on Soroor’s lap. She kept stroking its back as it purred. A woman’s voice on the radio flowed out of a room, singing. “Oh night, come faster, come and fold me into your layers of darkness, for I want to get lost, get lost in you … come faster …”

  Jamshid had lit a cigarette and he was inhaling it deeply and then blowing out the smoke hard into the air, away from everyone.

  “You haven’t really slowed down, uncle,” Karim said.

  Jamshid put the cigarette out, pushing it to the edge of his plate. He turned to the owner who was standing in the doorway of the room. “Can we have vodka or wine?”

  “I have both.”

  “Bring some of each.”

  The man went inside and came back with bottles of wine and vodka for them. “Two rooms are ready for you, if you want to stay the night,” he said and walked away. Soroor and Mina got up and went inside too, to use the bathroom it seemed.

  “Places like this mainly charge for the food, they add very little for the rooms,” Jamshid said.

  “We may as well stay then.”

  Jamshid filled their glasses and they began to drink. The sky was covered with bright stars and a moon that looked like it had been cut exactly in half. Fireflies sparkled between tree branches.

  The two women came back. Soroor reached over and touched Karim’s hair, “You have such nice hair,” she said. He took her hand and held it for a moment. She put her arm around his waist and he could feel the warmth of her body against his. He tried to talk to her. “How long have you lived in Naushahr? Did you finish high school?”

  Jamshid ordered more drinks. Karim indulged in glass after glass of wine. It was past midnight when they all got up and went into the rooms the owner had gotten ready for them.

  Karim lay on the bed with all his clothes on. I am going to pass out. The thought went through his mind fleetingly. I have never been so drunk in my life. He tried to focus on various things in the room, a bureau, a chair, a rug. The print curtains on the window and a lamp with a burgundy glass shade gave out a warm glow that created a homey, cozy atmosphere.