“But now the aunties think Taara ruined the house before she eloped. These old, fat turkeys don’t have enough brains in their bald heads to see that no puny girl could have done this alone. So, what am I saying? That the ghost of Grandpa Vazir did it? He floated in the air in his tuxedo and marked everything with the tip of his fucking tar-stained cane? No, I don’t believe in ghosts, and frankly I can’t figure out who did this shit! And besides, the ivory cane is with me. How could Papa Vazir possibly possess the cane when it is in the real world and not in the fucking ghost world. The cane is where all the other stuff is and only Assad knows where.
“So, what I mean is, I don’t have a clue as to how to solve this mystery. Who would ruin the priceless objects of Drum Tower, free Taara from a forced marriage, and kill Khanum-Jaan when she was gaining her youth back? The old hen is not going to unbend her hunched back. She is done for.
“So, as you can see for yourself, your sister and your grandmother are done for. Our dear Baba has been done for since the last Norooz; I don’t think anybody remembers to fix his hose and feed him anymore. Your father is done for. They’re arresting all the lefties and executing them without a trial. How long can he stay underground? Your Mommy is done for, and that’s a long messy story you don’t want to know. Your Uncle Kia will be done for in his own time, when this government finally falls. Your Uncle Vafa is totally done for—they’re arresting and killing these so-called Moslem Marxists too.
“So, who remains in the house of drums, huh? Assad the servant and Talkhoon the mad. It’s a good match, isn’t it? Now if you don’t come out today, you’ll have to come out tomorrow. If not tomorrow, then the day after. I’m sending Daaye back to her village to live out her old age in peace and quiet. The poor woman has suddenly aged. So it’s just you and me, bitter herb. Assad and Talkhoon. And Assad is a very patient man. He can wait.”
I stayed up all night in the dark and looked at the tower twinkling with red bulbs. A twisting wind circled in my head, alternately sweeping away all my thoughts and forcing me to think about everything at the same time. He’ll get you one day, he’ll get you! A voice not unlike a parrot’s repeated the phrase. Fear is the brother of death, Baba answered calmly. On the balcony of the tower I play my setar and listen, Taara sang.
“I dreamed, I dreamed!” Khanum screamed and broke out of her room.
It was dawn and in that liquid blue the spider’s web glowed. This silver net had always been here, but now I saw it as if for the first time. I found the spider, that tiny creature, hanging on her own web. And I sat very close to watch.
She knew what she was doing, this spider. With a neon orange band around her neck, with protruding eyes, she shined in the blue light, hanging like a tightrope artist from her web. She used her silk, her own substance, to build a house. Watching her circular movement, I realized that the spider’s web-weaving was a dance. Into the circle and out on a line, back to the circle and out—another line. I could even hear the repetition of a rhythm, the music of the spheres. In this way the spider wove a precise diamond-shaped net, all along hanging on her own silk.
Are you less than a spider, then? Can’t you weave your own life, your own home, out of the substance of your own self?
Gently, I blew on the spider’s web. It felt the breeze, stopped weaving, listened to the wind and became absolutely motionless, then went on. Into the circle and out in the line, restlessly, until the diamond was large, wide, made of many smaller diamonds and a transparent web covered the space between the two walls. The spider had made her home.
Before the sun rose higher, I set to work. I took a pair of scissors and cut my bangs and the semi-circle of a doll’s hair around my face. In the mirror I saw a twelve-year old boy. Good enough. Anything but a girl! I tucked Vafa’s old shirt into the khaki pants and put on the cap. Now I slipped the gold chain with the little hanging bird—my father’s New Year present—into my pocket. I had to pawn it for some money. I took some dried bread, fed the dog, and while he munched sleepily, I left the house.
Before crossing the street, I turned back and looked at Drum Tower. Upstairs, behind the window, Baba-Ji lay in his old recliner. Someone had moved him back again, someone had denied him the possibility of opening his eyes and seeing the world. Now I looked at the morning sky to see if by any chance the Simorgh was coming, if she was here to see that I was leaving her house, not on her wings, but on my own feet. But the sky was cloudless and the bird was nowhere around.
Book II
Circular Flights
I am where I was: Within the indecisive walls
of that same patio of words.
—Octavio Paz
Assad’s Blue Bird
Even from inside the closet I smelled his odor when he entered the room—vodka, sweat, and the grease of a lamb dish he had brought for me. He burped, sat on my bed, and called, “Talkhoon, where are you?” knowing very well where I was.
“You’re a crazy little devil, you know that? Wild and stubborn, like your mother. Come out this minute, or else!” He laughed. “Or else? Am I going to spank you or what? No. Not when you’re injured like this. Not now. But I’m warning you! I’ll hit your bony ass if you think about escaping again. Now come out and eat. You haven’t eaten anything for a long time. When was it I caught you getting on the train? Two nights ago? And since then you’ve been sitting in this closet, on strike. Like the post office and the taxis and the factories outside. All on strike! You’re doing your revolution here, girl—you even broke the window and cut your hands! But I’m patient with you—am I not? Don’t you think I can drag you out by force if I want to?”
Now he laughed again and burped. He was half drunk, working to get fully drunk.
“I caught you with that fucking ticket in your hand. Where were you heading? To Bandar?” he chuckled, and then talked more to himself. “Children believe in fairy tales you feed them. She was going to find her Mommy,” he told himself, “because I’d told her Mommy was in the Big Sheikh’s harem!”
Through the hole of the closet door I saw Assad’s face, blood red, unreal. In a moment he could pull me out and do whatever he wished, or he could remain calm, act motherly, and scold me for not eating my food. He could slap me the way he did in the train station, or he could remain grumpy like an old nurse. He was unpredictable. Now he panted, talked to me, talked to himself, and drank from the bottle. Through the circle of the hole, I saw a small portion of the broken window. The parrot sat behind the shattered glass as she had the first day she guarded my room, but now she was blind and cageless, one twig of a leg chained to the metal post.
“I didn’t realize you’d left. I was cleaning up the mess from the party. The party that never happened! Then I came down with a tray of dinner for you. You were not here. I panicked. The first thing came to my mind was, She did what her stupid sister did—escaped! So I ran upstairs and knocked on Khanum’s door. She had locked herself in. I knocked and knocked, until she opened the door a crack. I told her what had happened. She didn’t know about Taara, either. I told her that first Taara and then Talkhoon had run away. She just stood there, pale as a ghost and shaky, like a sick child. ‘Go get them, Assad!’ That was all she said. But that toughness was not in her voice. There was something else that made me feel sorry for the old hen. In spite of what she’d written in her letters about me, I felt sorry for her when her voice broke like that. I said, ‘I can’t get the older one, she’s eloped with someone and I don’t have a clue where they are. But I can guess where Talkhoon has gone. She’s gone to find her mother in Bandar—the Big Sheikh’s castle. If you give me some money to get on the night train, I’ll go and get her for you.’
“Now listen to this, because this is when your grandmother disclaimed you. I swear to all the twelve sacred imams that this is exactly what she told me. She said, ‘You don’t get Talkhoon for me, Assad, you get her for yourself. She is no relation to me; you know that. And I don’t have a black coin on me. I’m ruined; you know this to
o.’ And she banged the door on me.
“But now a strange thing happened, as strange as that whole day and night. I was standing in front of the main gate, debating whether to go alone to find you, or call my friends to help me. Because I thought you’d either fled on the bus or the train; you couldn’t afford a plane ticket. But I couldn’t go to the bus station and the train station at the same time. I needed help. I decided to call the boys at the mosque and send a couple of them to the bus station and take one or two with me to the train station. But as I was standing in the dark night, thinking hard, I heard a scream, a familiar ear-piercing scream. This was Boor-boor. I strained and listened some more. She cried again. Wasn’t she dead? Hadn’t she gone with the flood, or fled to India—as Khanum had said? I paced up and down the sidewalk and listened. The bird was calling me. I stopped by a neighbor’s door. Her cry was coming from that house. I went inside and asked for my bird and they had to give it to me. You know what had happened? When the storm lifted the cage, it landed in the neighbor’s yard and the parrot was there all the time. But the cage was broken and the poor bird had lost one of her eyes. So I took her home and rushed with Mustafa’s van to the train station. I sent Karim and Morad to the bus station. I trust these boys; they’re God-fearing men, my brothers at the mosque—we’re forming a vigilante group to guard the neighborhood.
“Anyway, you know the rest of the story. I came to the train station and saw you sitting on the bench, next to this family, with a ticket for Bandar in your hand. You were in a boy’s clothes—small and cute and worried-looking, sticking to this mother of seven children who sat on the bench with her kids hanging on her chador. Had you left with one of the earlier trains, I’d have had to spend money and travel all the way to the end of the world to find you. I told Mustafa, ‘That’s her, that’s my girl, but let’s wait and see what she’s up to. If we approach her now she may scream and make a scene. She’s a wild cat and crazy as hell.’”
Assad was right. I was crazy enough to spend sixteen hours in the streets, wasting my time. After I sold the gold chain and put the money in my pocket, I walked on the wide sidewalks, enjoying the spring sun. I took long steps, watched myself in the store windows, and whistled like a boy. I was going to Bandar to find my mother. She’d take me in, but I’d remain a boy, living in the Sheikh’s castle. I walked, whistled, and fantasized about my future, but when dusk came and I heard bullets cracking in the air, I panicked and took a taxi to the train station. I bought a ticket for Bandar and sat close to a large family, pretending to be with them.
For a long time I watched everything hungrily. I hadn’t seen much in my life. People rushed to their destination—families, single men, but no woman alone. I felt safe and happy in my disguise, and grateful that this family with many children was travelling with me. The train’s rusty, panting body, just a few steps away from me, gave out a hot, steamy sigh, promising to take me to a new life. I sat and watched and took in the odor of the smoke and a faint scent of rose-water that was evaporating from the woman’s clean chador. I didn’t think of Drum Tower, my family, my past, or even Baba-Ji and his Simorgh. The present was all there was, and the yellow, blurry picture of the future lay beneath the haze of the train smoke.
But the moment I was about to climb the steps of the train, a heavy hand landed on my shoulder and pulled me down. I didn’t even turn to see who he was. I smelled him—vodka, grease and sweat. I jerked my shoulders and ran, but another man, someone I didn’t know, blocked my way. I screamed when the man twisted my arm behind my back. People gathered around us and Assad yelled at them and said, “What are you looking at, huh? She’s a runaway. We’re taking her back home.” Now he came straight toward me and slapped me right and left. I burned with shame, not because of the slaps, but because he had called me a “runaway.” Suddenly I felt naked and weak. I was just a little girl and all these people knew that. Assad and his friend pushed me into a black van and took me home. The minute I was in my room I waved my hands crazily in the air and destroyed the spider’s house. I broke the web with my fingers, ruined the diamond-shaped patterns, and let the spider fall on the floor. Then I stamped on it. Now, in a growing rage, I put my fists through the dusty window, breaking the glass. Sharp shards tore my hands and blood gushed out. My arms were unaware of my body and acted on their own. An unfriendly wind circled in my head and ordered my hands to smash the glass. Assad rushed down and wrapped my hands in towels and took me to a nearby clinic. I sat on a tall, narrow bed and a doctor took the pieces of glass out of my flesh and sewed up the cuts.
“I’m going to stitch you up in such a way that these ugly scars stay with you for the rest of your life!” the bald doctor said. “I want you to grow up and look at these rough lines and remember how crazy you were!” He said this and looked at me as if everything that had ever happened to me had been my own fault.
The parrot behind the window fluttered her wings and Assad snored until an explosion in the street woke him up.
“Shit. I fell asleep.” He looked at his watch. “It’s nine-thirty. I have to leave. We have a meeting tonight. I guess when I leave you’ll come out and eat. You won’t starve yourself, will you?” He yawned and stretched his arms. “One of these days I’ll send the witch to her sisters. That’s where she belongs. Let the three witches live together and tell each other’s fortunes and call the fucking ghosts. What’s left for Khanum in Drum Tower, huh? I have to make a decision about Baba-Ji, too. I can’t feed him his yellow water forever. I’m busy at the mosque now; I don’t have time. I have to find a hospital for him. Then I’ll make this basement into a shop with a window right here, where the closet is. I’ll open a neighborhood store. Yes, that’s what I’m planning to do. A corner store with some groceries, bread, and some plastic toys for kids. And eventually I’ll flatten the garden and make apartment houses and rent them out. Then you and me will move upstairs, not to the master bedroom where your parents lived, no, not that cursed bedroom, we’ll move to the bedroom next to Baba’s study and land on that huge brass bed your grandparents never used. You’ll be my wife and I’ll be your husband and we’ll produce a dozen cute children and we’ll become rich! What do you say, huh? Let the witch go to her witch sisters, girly—let her go!
“But first I have to read the last stack of the old hen’s letters. Ever since Papa messed up her house she’s been writing to him like crazy. Now I’m sure that you’re a bastard and not from my own blood. The next thing is to find the old fart’s will! There must be more than Drum Tower, much more. She must have land. Acres of it.” He chuckled to himself and repeated, “Yes sir, acres—” and picked up my sleeping gown and smelled it.
There was silence for a while, then with a shaky, muffled voice, he said, “Come out, for God’s sake, I need you! Don’t you think I can pull you out the way I pulled you off that train? No, I won’t do that. I want you to be my wife and I don’t want to mess with you before we’re married. But what if I did? Who’d care, huh? You wouldn’t tell anyone, because you don’t have a tongue!” He laughed, held the gown in front of the light, and looked through it. “Maybe we could just do it without anyone knowing, even without you knowing, while you’re sleeping. Like a while ago when I slipped under your blanket and pressed myself against your bony body. You were drugged and you didn’t wake up. But no, I’m a God-fearing man, His vigilante, His devotee, at His service, and I want to marry my girl and see her blood on the handkerchief the first night of my honeymoon. I’m waiting for that night and I’m trying to be patient. But my bird—my bird is crushing me under its weight—”
Now he was directly in front of the hole and I could see all of him, except for his crooked legs. He slipped down his pants and underpants and pulled his shirt up. On his lower belly, under his navel a blue bird was tattooed—wings open to either side of his waist, long tail extended down to the bushy hair of his private parts: a caricature of the Simorgh. His penis was erect, horizontal, and moved up and down. It was as if the bird’s tail moved
, or it was about to take flight.
I held my breath and covered my mouth to keep from uttering a sound. He buried his face in my gown and the tail of the bird kept moving. Then he dropped himself on the bed, pressed his body against my mattress, and gave out a loud moan. He was not even afraid that Khanum-Jaan might hear him. Then he turned on his back and covered the bird with my gown, crying, “I want you, I want you, I want you, damn girl! But don’t you dare come out, because I’ll eat you!”
Dreaming Awake
Khanum-Jaan didn’t go to her sisters as Assad had wished. She knew if she left, she would lose her house. She even stopped going to the central bazaar for the regular monthly shopping, saying her eyes were bad, she couldn’t see well. For the small amount of groceries we needed, she sent Assad to a nearby market.
All through the summer, I heard the clicking of her slippers upstairs, roaming the half-empty rooms, even the empty third-floor rooms, not taking inventory anymore (because there wasn’t much left to make a list), but searching for her lost play room, the almond room. I heard her talking to herself, or to her dead father. I heard her dreaming while awake.
“—then the earth opened and she popped out, stark naked as Eve—her thick unnatural hair clothed her, wrapping around her like a blanket. Papa descended the tower’s steps. He was in his white suit and white Panama hat, a cigar in the corner of his mouth, like the time he traveled to Mexico and came back with such a suit and a big cigar. The girl rose, spring breeze playing with the silk curtain of her hair. Papa approached her. I was on top of the tower all this time, watching, a heavy golden egg in my arms—the Simorgh’s egg— and I was bent under its heavy weight, as if I was pregnant and my belly was pulling me down. I thought if Papa touched the girl, I’d drop the egg, and if I dropped the egg, the world would end—”
The Drum Tower Page 12