In the Walled Gardens

by Anahita Firouz

  I told Goli to leave dinner for Houshang. She hesitated by the door as if she wanted something, yet another raise. She wasn’t going to get one. She’d been gossiping up and down the street, idling at front doors with cooks and gardeners and chauffeurs, comparing notes. Disapproving of the inflowing house help from Bangladesh and the Philippines.

  The children fought in the car all the way. I interrupted to ask if they liked their tutor, Mr. Nirvani.

  “He’s strict. But he plays great soccer! He’s in a league!”

  They played soccer sometimes for a break. I hadn’t even paid Reza — he refused to take money. I would call and insist, now that he’d given me his office number. Something he had not said still bothered me about why his father had retired abruptly that year, leaving suddenly that summer when we were fourteen. They had vanished between one month and the next. Father had never given me a proper explanation, considering how Reza’s family had been a part of our lives and how Hajj-Alimardan had had Father’s complete trust and run his estates to his complete satisfaction. In time, though it seemed impossible, I was certain Father didn’t even have a proper explanation for himself.

  Evening. The properties by the mountains enveloped in darkness, fenced in by walls. The air bracing, cool. I felt the strangest tranquillity, driving through the gates of the old garden. Father was standing on the front porch waiting, hands clasped behind his back. He waved as we came out of the car.

  When I went up to kiss him, I lingered and he said, “You’re sad tonight.”

  He sent the children in and took me for a walk. Past Mother’s pond of water lilies with goldfish, past the vanishing petunias and snapdragons of summer. He pointed here and there, linking his arm into mine. Beyond the cypresses, the pine trunks were draped with ivy.

  “You know, those days,” he said, “they’re forgotten. This is a city with no memory. Everyone and everything is forgotten here.”

  Father liked to tell stories while walking. The warring factions during the 1906 Constitutional Revolution and Mohammad Ali Shah’s rebellion. The bombing of the new parliament. The old aristocracy, appointed, dismissed, exiled, bribed by the Russian and British legations. The terror of invasion from the Bolsheviks, with Khiabani in Azarbaijan and Kuchek Khan in Gilan. Famine and typhoid and cholera in Tehran. The government bankrupt and humiliated. The British imposing the disgraceful 1919 Agreement, contemplating how to break Persia into pieces to safeguard their empire. The old regime. A new one. And always, an uncertain future.

  By the fruit trees at the end of the garden, there was no light. We turned back, the black facade of the house looming.

  “Change comes as surely as the seasons,” he said. “We must fight for a place in this world. It’s no use losing heart. We must hold our heads high.”

  On the porch we stood facing the garden, the dark slab of sky over us. The night breeze bore the faint scent of perishing roses. A lone bird trilled high in a tree. Father’s wizened face was intent on some purpose long abandoned.

  When we went in, Mother glared at him disapprovingly.

  “You’ll catch cold without a cardigan,” she said to him, kissing me.

  Father ignored her.

  Mrs. Vahaab and the colonel arrived for dinner. She had her domed coiffure and penciled mole and another frilly dress on. The colonel was ramrod and solicitous. Mrs. Vahaab was telling us about the rabbits and chickens and hens they kept in their garden. And her parrot, Ghamar.

  “Such a ridiculous name!” said Mother.

  “Please, madame, try keeping some of your opinions to yourself,” said Mrs. Vahaab, puckering her lips.

  A manservant brought around a tray of freshly squeezed pomegranate juice in old bohemian glasses. Mrs. Vahaab clutched a glass with her pudgy pinkie in the air and drank from it as if from the fountain of youth.

  For dinner we had borscht and cabbage rice and fat Tabrizi meatballs. The children amused themselves by peeking at each other from across the table between the fruit epergnes and giggling. For dessert we had ripe persimmons and apples and pears from the garden. Mother loves persimmons and she loves autumn. We took tea in the living room, bolstered by a succession of her antique Russian chintz cushions presenting the first motorcars, czarist steam engines, and steamships, all backed in claret velvet. Mrs. Vahaab said she had a cough, patting her plump bosom. The colonel, fingering his walrus mustache, issued a directive that she take mint tea with rock candy to assuage it. Mother was about to call for the house help, but I went into the kitchen. The colonel gets pushy only when it comes to his wife, his military career docile and dull and cut short. She was his only compensation. He was discussing the war when I got back with mint tea.

  “Which war is it this time?” Mother said.

  “Why, the Second World War, of course, madame. When the Allies overran our country. We were called, and I bade my sweet young bride farewell early that morning and went off to fight.”

  Mother smiled angelically. “But Colonel, you got back home for lunch!”

  The colonel, blushing to his ears, coughed politely into his starched and monogrammed white handkerchief.

  Mrs. Vahaab, sipping mint tea blithely, turned to me. “Remember when I sang at your wedding?”

  “How could I forget?”

  “I was inspired that night, you know. I was communing with the universe. I felt a mystical light within me, a majestic surge.”

  Mother rolled her eyes, as indiscreetly as possible. We all ignored her.

  So she spoke. “Mystical surges must be like electrical ones. You’re a veritable generator, dear madame. The colonel should plug you in to iron his shirts!”

  Father suppressed his laugh, and the colonel immediately quoted a verse from Hafez to dispel this affront. A fitting but ineffectual cure for Mother’s unremitting sarcasm at the universe.

  Father took me into his library after they left. First he shelved a bound volume of Montaigne’s essays that was lying open on his desk. Then he looked through his books, pulled one out, and gave it to me. It was a new and scandalous tome written by a journalist against the so-called thousand families, the landowning oligarchy.

  “They’re trashing us again,” he said. He settled into his arm-chair. “You know, I feel bad. We haven’t seen Reza’s family since Hajj-Alimardan’s death. May he rest in peace, he’d be proud of this son. I think for years Reza wanted to stay away. That day he came, he came back to us. I can’t tell you what it meant to me. How happy I was! But later, I thought about it and realized he was already lost to us. Perhaps forever.”

  “Lost to us?” I said, startled.

  “He was aloof, judgmental. You know, like a stranger.”

  “He’s no stranger.”

  I asked him about Hajj-Alimardan’s retirement. Had there been some incident? Father wanted to know why I thought that.

  “Reza’s got that stubborn streak of his father,” Father said, shaking his head. “I didn’t help. When I called him about the problem he came to see me for, I suppose I sounded oblivious. I meant well.”

  He sank into the armchair by the faded sepia photographs.

  “If I’d left it to Kavoos to call him, or any of the boys, it would’ve been worse. They don’t care.”

  He hadn’t thought of asking me.

  “Talk to him,” Father said. “If he respects us, it’s by choice, not instinct. You know, he may be in trouble. These things happen.”

  Father had suddenly turned clairvoyant. I promised to call Reza.

  I STAYED UP past midnight, the bedroom a bunker where I’d retreated to wait. Houshang came late, all flushed, his jacket slung over one shoulder. He loosened the knot of his already loosened tie with guile, as if to brag he was exhausted, overworked, meriting peace and quiet. He looked well. I watched out of the corners of my eyes, pretending to read the book Father had given me. I was unable to muster up a single emotion in Houshang’s favor. He poured out a glass of water from the carafe on the table and drank, big avaricious gulps. Espe
cially his last “Ahhh!” as he wiped his mouth, cocky and unrepentant.

  “What’s the matter?” he demanded.

  “Father’s given me this book,” I snapped.

  “He’s a bookworm all right.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He went into the bathroom, slamming the door. When he came out I was sitting up in bed, stiff as a board.

  “Your meetings go past midnight?”

  “I’m in no mood to fight!”

  “Answer me,” I said, teeth clenched.

  “I want to sleep,” he said, yawning, as if he were the only one deserving rest. The only one who wanted.

  “I want an answer,” I said louder.

  He held my ugly stare with bloodshot eyes, then turned off the light on his side. I wanted to pounce across the bed and smash the lamp over his head and shoulders. A raving shrew with a liar and cheat for a husband.

  “You were at Iraj and Pouran’s last night! Where were you tonight?”

  “Is this an interrogation?”

  “No, this is married life!”

  He laughed with that slow hyena-like sound he emits — the one he’s perfected for gilded drawing rooms and gambling partners and titillating call girls and boardrooms where the stakes are piled high in his favor. The laugh that says, Look at me and how far I’ve come. Nothing can stop me now!

  “What is it?” he demanded. “Is it that time of month?”

  “You prefer Iraj and Pouran. Right? Right?”

  “Cut it out,” he said.

  “You prefer their house, their booze, their jokes, their friends, their entire nauseating lifestyle.”

  “You’re jealous.”

  “Of them? Don’t be ridiculous!”

  “You’re such a snob. You and your whole family!”

  He lay down and pulled up the sheet. I slammed my book shut on the bedside table and turned off the light, still sitting upright in the dark.

  “Move in with them if they’re so great!” I said.

  “I might, if this goes on every night.”

  “Go ahead! Don’t think I don’t know what goes on behind my back.”

  He got out of bed, stood facing me in the dark. “Tell me, like what?”

  “Like how you whore around with Iraj and have Pouran pimp for you and how we don’t have much of a marriage!”

  “So we don’t have much of a marriage! Since when?”

  “Since forever.” The words jumped out of my mouth.

  “Since forever, huh?” he snapped back. “Whose fault is that?”

  “Seems you already know.”

  “You,” he said, pointing, “you’re the one who violated our trust.”

  “What trust?”

  “Aha!” he said, now incensed. He switched on the light. “You think I like some French charlatan telling me my wife — my wife! — has gone pleading to him about some fucking bastard she wants out of prison?”

  He stared, face flushed.

  “You never told me you saw Thierry for some rotten rebel who should be shot. You’d rather confide in a foreigner than in your own husband! And you talk about trust? I’m a contractor for the navy! Don’t you get it?”

  “Not everything’s about your business,” I said.

  He paused, incredulous, fire in his eyes. “What? I hope they shoot this guy, whoever he is! Right through the heart.”

  I got out of bed, grabbed my dressing gown from the armchair, shot my arms through the sleeves, wrapping it around me with newfound fury and drive.

  “That boy deserves justice before the law, you hear? Since when do you listen to Thierry so much?”

  “He’s a good friend.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since forever!” Houshang said with cunning eyes.

  “You’re a fine, shining example to lecture me about trust!”

  “You” — Houshang was apoplectic — “are hiding things from me. You go to the houses of other men. You went to his alone. Didn’t you? Didn’t you?”

  “You need a report on everything I do?”

  “He told me! You must like him a lot. Just the two of you alone together, huh? All cozy to discuss SAVAK! Our marriage is sacred!”

  He swung out an arm, smashing his fist into the wall.

  “What do I care about some bastard in prison?” he shouted. “You’re crazy running around town with this. I’ve got millions at stake. You want to jeopardize my business? Our whole way of life? You’re doing it on purpose! Tell me, what else is going on?”

  “You care?” I said, incensed. “You’ve got no eyes or heart or conscience left anymore.”

  “Don’t lecture me! I’ve given you the best life!”

  “Given! Given?”

  “I’ve given you whatever you want.”

  “You only know what you want.”

  “You want what? Rights for some ingrate lowclass leftist with an inferiority complex! Some bullshit freedom for a traitor in the shithouse with SAVAK? What’s it to us, huh? Why tell Thierry, huh? Why hide it from me?”

  “Traitor to what? Your money, your morals, your country? You decide?”

  “Damn right I decide! And I don’t want my wife —”

  “I’m beginning not to give a damn what you want,” I said, walking out.

  I SLEPT in the guest room. Early in the morning I heard Houshang slam doors and bark orders and bawl out everyone before leaving the house.

  At ten-thirty Mr. Bashirian walked into my office. I hadn’t seen him for days. The secretary said he was very upset with me for taking Mr. Makhmalchi into my confidence and having him in my office all the time. He felt I’d taken sides. That was how much confidence he had in me and my judgment and himself. We stared at each other with the wary restraint of old friends who have had a breach of trust.

  “You look unwell,” he said.

  I rearranged folders on my desk, waiting for him to say what he’d come for. To finally have it out about his rivalry with Makhmalchi.

  “Mr. Bashirian —” I began testily.

  “I — I thought I’d come tell you. But if you’re too busy —”

  “Oh, please!” I said, exasperated.

  “They called,” he murmured.

  “What did they say?”

  “They said I could see Peyman. This week,” he said, voice quavering.

  “Thank God,” I said, overcome.

  “Yes, thank God,” Mr. Bashirian said sternly.

  “When do you go?”

  “Thursday. I owe this to you.”

  He knew I had appealed to yet another person the week before who had only been vague and pessimistic. Maybe something had come of it after all.

  Mr. Bashirian hemmed and hawed as if there were nothing left to say, which made what he said even more shocking. “Will you come?”

  “Where?” I asked.

  “With me.”

  “To see him?”

  He shook his head. I was relieved I’d misunderstood.

  Then he said, “I know it’s asking too much. But if you’d just come to Komiteh with me. I’ve waited for this moment for weeks. Frankly I — now I’m afraid, I’m terrified. I want to be strong. To hold up beautifully for Peyman. I’m afraid I’ll break down. I’ve said you’re his aunt. That is — I’ve already asked if I could bring my sister, since the boy’s mother is dead.”

  “Your sister’s in town?”

  He shook his head.

  “What did they say?”

  “They just repeated the time and place.” He sat waiting.

  I was dumbfounded. But how could I refuse? By saying no immediately.

  “Let me think about it,” I said.

  He left, sensing he’d sabotage his case by lingering.

  I called that afternoon. He picked up on the third ring.

  “Mr. Bashirian?” I said.

  “Yes?” he said, with painstaking indifference.

  “About Thursday. I’ll go with you.”

  “Thank you, tha
nk you,” he said. “I’m forever in your debt.”

  I HADN’T BEEN HOME five minutes when Goli came upstairs to announce a foreign gentleman was waiting downstairs.

  “A Moosio —” She giggled, covering her mouth. “A Moosio Tolonbeh!”

  Tolonbeh! A Mr. Pump? No wonder Goli couldn’t stop giggling. “Dalembert?” I suggested.

  The boys were with Reza in the dining room, the door shut. I found Thierry in the downstairs study, urbane but crestfallen.

  Immediately he said, “I’ve come to make amends.”

  “You should’ve called before coming.”

  “You wouldn’t have seen me then. All for an unfortunate mistake.”

  “Everything you do is deliberate.”

  “You flatter me,” he said, downcast to appear virtuous. “But Houshang already knew.”

  “You told him. Knowing full well I hadn’t.”

  “Pouran told him.”

  “Pouran? How did she —” I stared incredulously. “You told her?”

  He stared back, not chastened, just aware his standing had shifted irredeemably.

  “Why — why would you do that?” I said.

  “To defend you!” He shrugged artfully. “I was enumerating your virtues in my bedroom. She’s there occasionally these days. I don’t know exactly what was irritating me most at that moment — her presence, I suppose — but we got into an argument about you. I said you had a backbone. She laughed at you! So I told her why, to teach her a lesson. She’s such a bitch. She told your husband about the boy. All this cloak-and-dagger’s so disagreeable. Of course I tried to make light of it, but Houshang took it badly.”

  “I know he did.”

  “I thought I’d appeal to him man-to-man. But he didn’t see it that way. He’s so touchy!”