Song of a Captive Bird

by Jasmin Darznik

  Parviz entered the room. I turned my attention back to the mirror, pressed my lips together, and studied his reflection. He looked nervous as he took his place before the wedding spread—the mirror was angled up and I could see him plainly enough—but there was nothing in his manner that suggested unhappiness or regret. On the contrary, as the agha began to recite verses from the Koran, Parviz gripped my hand in his and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

  “In the name of the All-Mighty, the All-Merciful!” the agha called out, and with that the women grew quiet. Persian gave way to the Arabic verses from the Koran, and I could make out little meaning of what the agha recited, apart from our names and those of our families. One after the other, the married women holding the canopy stepped forward and took turns rubbing a cone of salt against a cone of sugar to symbolize how sadness and joy, the two constants of life, merged in marriage.

  When the recitations ended and Parviz was at last asked in Persian if he accepted me as his bride, he answered with a clear baleh: yes.

  Next the agha addressed me. “Does the bride accept this groom?” he asked.

  From across the room, Parviz’s mother, Khanoom Shapour, shot me an appraising look. A proper Iranian bride never replied on the first or even the second time she was asked; for a girl to reply at once suggested an eagerness to leave one’s family or, worse, wantonness. Did Khanoom Shapour think me so reckless as to accept immediately? I lowered my eyes and made no answer.

  “The bride’s gone out to pick some flowers!” someone called out. It was my cousin Jaleh who spoke on my behalf. I lifted my eyes slightly, and through the veil, I again glimpsed Parviz’s mother. Her lips were pressed together in a tight line, and her arms were crossed firmly over her chest.

  Again the agha asked if I would consent to be Parviz’s wife. Again I didn’t reply.

  “She’s arranging the bouquet now!” another voice called out on my behalf.

  It was only after the third time the agha asked if I’d accept Parviz as my husband that I finally said, “Yes.” At this, the clamor of wedding trills filled the room. My mother stepped forward. All day she had barely looked at me or said a word, and now she was standing awkwardly before me. For a moment, the air was strange between us, heavy with unspoken words, but then she kissed me quickly on both cheeks and looped a string of small pearls around my neck. When Puran stepped forward, I saw her eyes were brimming with tears. We held our embrace for a long moment, my sister and I, until at last my mother nudged me on the shoulder to tell me it was time to let go.

  I’d demurred as a proper bride ought to do, but it had little to do with shame or piety, or even with prudence. In those moments, I was sick with nervousness for what was to come next, for what I would soon have to do.

  * * *

  —

  “Are you all right?” Parviz asked, shutting the door to the bridal chamber and walking toward me. The room was dark but for a small oil lamp, and from where I lay in the bed I couldn’t see his face.

  The women were chatting noisily on the other side of the door. Shortly after the wedding ceremony they’d gathered outside the bridal chamber. Their voices rose and fell to a hush, then rose again. What were they talking about? I could only pick out my own name and Parviz’s, but their voices sounded shrill and mean.

  I drew a deep breath and whispered, “Yes, I’m fine, only it feels strange with them standing out there.”

  “They’ll leave soon enough. It’s only until they see the handkerchief,” he said, then added, “You know about the handkerchief? They told you about it?”

  I nodded.

  As he came closer, sliding beside me in the bed and removing his underclothes, I saw that his face was fixed with a serious look. No, not just a serious look, but a look of determination. No sooner did he arrange himself beside me than he lifted the hem of my nightshirt and pulled it up to my waist. His fingers trembled and his movements were so awkward that I suddenly understood he had little, and very likely no, experience. This might have eased my own anxiety, but then I realized I would have to make my way through these next minutes with little guidance from him. Should I move this way or that? Lift my knees or should I lie completely still? Thankfully, these awkward movements didn’t go on for long. I felt no real pain, just a slight discomfort, but I was grateful he finished quickly, and I sighed in relief when he drew away from me.

  On the bedside table lay a simple white cotton handkerchief, ironed and folded into a small square. Parviz pulled his tunic back on and smoothed his hair. I watched as he reached for the cotton handkerchief and then turned back to me, eyes averted. Wordlessly, I sat up and then opened my legs just slightly. He pressed the fabric quickly between my legs and then drew it back.

  “Forugh…” he started. His voice sounded confused and also frightened.

  He held the handkerchief up for me to see. I hadn’t bled—not even a little. When I said nothing, he pressed the handkerchief between my legs again, holding it there longer than he had before. For a second time, the cloth came up without a drop of blood.

  I couldn’t put it off any longer. I pulled myself up onto my elbows. “Something happened to me, Parviz,” I whispered. “My mother took me to the Bottom of the City for a test. A virginity test.” The words came out jumbled, and I could tell from his expression that he didn’t understand. “It was awful,” I continued, “and I wanted so much to tell you, but I had no chance to speak to you in private. It hurt when the lady examined me. She said not to move, but I did something wrong and that must be why…” I said, nodding toward the handkerchief.

  I wanted to tell him everything to make the look on his face soften, or at least explain the parts I understood, but there was no time for that now. I cleared my throat. “There’s a way, Parviz. I’ve figured out a way to make it all right for us.”

  He stared at me with panicked eyes. “I don’t understand you, Forugh. What way?”

  The voices outside the door had grown louder; the women would only wait so long for the proof of blood. I had a few minutes, perhaps even less. If I hesitated now, I’d have no chance at all.

  From under my pillow I drew the razor I’d stolen from the bathhouse and held it out to him in my palm.

  “Where’d you get that?” he said, much too loudly.

  “Shhh!” I said, lifting a finger to my lips.

  He wasn’t going to agree with my plan—from the look on his face I felt sure of it. But then, to my relief, he nodded, slowly comprehending, and took the razor from me. One prick and it would be done; the only question was where he should cut himself. But I saw at once that it was impossible; his hands were shaking so hard that he wouldn’t be capable of cutting himself without doing real harm.

  There was nothing for it. I grabbed the razor from his hand and scanned my body. I’d need to cut myself in a place where a scar wouldn’t show, but where? I touched the edge of the razor to my stomach, to a spot just below my navel. No, that wasn’t any good. If I cut myself there, everyone at the baths would see the scar. So instead, as Parviz watched, pale and silent, I sliced the blade quickly along the inside of my right leg, at the place where the soft flesh of my thighs met, and with my other hand, I pressed the white handkerchief against the cut, making sure it left behind a large red circle of blood.

  There. It was done.

  The women’s voices grew suddenly louder, and then there was a sharp knock at the door. To my relief, Parviz stood, yanked his trousers on, and grabbed the bloodied cloth. Quickly, I pulled the sheet up to my chin. When he opened the door I saw them, a knot of women, ten or so, his mother, grandmother, aunts, and some of the younger cousins. He passed the handkerchief to them, then looked over his shoulder and caught my eye from across the room. For a moment I feared he’d betray me. I pulled the sheet over my head and sank deeper in the bed, and it was only when I heard the door shut that I felt myself breathe again.

  Behind the door, the chattering gave way to silence. I thought the women had discovered the ruse, bu
t all at once ululations broke out on the landing. The house filled with the voices of women, laughing and singing to one another, their trills of “li-li-li-li…” ringing out as, one by one, they lifted the cloth high above their heads and whipped it in the air with a flourish before passing it on.

  “Mobarak!” came the women’s cheers. “Congratulations!”

  When the women at last abandoned their place behind the door, Parviz sat at the foot of the bed, his back turned toward me and his face buried in his hands. He didn’t yell or strike me, as he might well have done, and I took solace in this. How, though, could I make him understand what had happened to me and that I’d had no choice but to do what I had done? I bit my lip, my mind racing. I could think of nothing else to say, and so I touched my hand to his shoulder and said only, “Parviz?”

  He lifted his head. “My mother told me things about you, but I thought it was all rumors and lies.” He drew a deep breath and began shaking his head. “But it’s true what she said. You tricked me, Forugh.”

  “But I only wanted us to be married! And I thought you wanted it, too!”

  When he didn’t answer, I asked him, “Didn’t you want us to get married?”

  I sat up and edged closer to him as I said this, and when he felt me come near he gave a jerk, slapped my hand away, and jumped out of the bed. “Leave me alone!” he shouted.

  I felt the sting of tears. He paced the room for a while, his head in his hands. When he returned to the bed, he lay down with his back toward me. After some minutes, he reached over and extinguished the lamp.

  I don’t know how long we stayed awake that night, how long I lay there willing myself to say nothing. The chamber still smelled strongly of the wild rue the women had burned behind the door while they waited. I wanted to cry, but I forced myself to stay silent and still.

  That night I didn’t yet know Parviz had secrets of his own. It was only later, many weeks after our wedding, that I learned the details of how the Colonel had gone to visit his mother and arranged our marriage. Until then I’d thought that by locking myself in the basement and threatening to kill myself, I’d managed to choose my own husband—to choose Parviz. I didn’t know my father had threatened to send him to prison if he didn’t marry me, nor did I know that without those threats or his mother’s bitter blessing, Parviz and I would never have married.

  It had all started so sweetly between us. A little more than two weeks ago we’d ordered café glacé and danced at The Palace. Those sweet, hasty meetings in the alleyway, our first furtive kisses, the poems he’d pressed into my hands and those I’d written for him in turn—now all of that had been made into something stupid, ugly, and wrong. I closed my eyes and it swam before me, the white handkerchief he’d handed off to his family a few minutes ago. It was the lie upon which my whole life now rested. All of it.

  PART TWO

  The Rebellion

  10.

  Empty house,

  desolate house

  house shuttered against youth’s surge

  house of darkness and dreams of the sun

  house of loneliness, foreboding and indecision

  house of curtains, books, cupboards,

  and old photographs.

  —from “Friday”

  He never really chose to be with me. Not before our wedding and not afterward.

  A few times I tried to talk to Parviz about the wedding night, but he refused to discuss what had happened that night or the days leading up to our marriage. What I’d told him seemed to count for nothing. I was furious and heartbroken. Did he really think I’d lost my virginity to someone else? He knew better than anyone the restrictions my family placed on me, and that alone should’ve been enough to quiet his doubts. The more I thought about it, the angrier I felt, yet something surged through me in those days after our wedding, something that eventually made me abandon the explanation I’d been so desperate to offer. If Parviz could judge me so harshly, then I saw no point in begging him to believe me. Of course, this attitude did little to resolve our standoff, but I decided to say nothing more, not so much to punish him as to salvage some small measure of dignity.

  And yet: I told myself I should be grateful for his silence. He could have sent me from the house. Even if I’d been a virgin before our wedding, it would take nothing for him to divorce me. Nothing at all. He could have cast me out like those girls I’d heard my mother and her friends talk about in hushed voices, the girls whose families wouldn’t so much as utter their names once their husbands turned them away. But so far as I could make out, Parviz hadn’t told anyone what happened on our wedding night.

  We quickly settled into a routine. Parviz’s new job was across town, at a government ministry. He left for work before morning’s light, and in the evening he greeted me with a nod and quick hello, then headed to the parlor, where he knelt down and kissed his mother’s hands. When he finished, she pulled him toward her and kissed the top of his head. They then spent an hour in each other’s company, sharing news about the day, and my only role during this time was to serve them tea.

  He’d reached beyond his limits by courting me, but he would never again move beyond them. I now realized that even our marriage, his one great rebellion, had been a concession to his mother’s will. That was done, I’d say to myself, steeling myself against the hurt—but what angered me were the questions she’d clearly prompted him to ask, such as “Do you have to go into town so often?” He now put this question to me nearly every day, and he soon coupled it with “Do you have to wear your blouse unbuttoned so low and your skirt so short?” and “Could you wear less lipstick and rouge when you go into town?” Some cousin or neighbor had seen me out in the streets on my errands and told his mother he should keep better watch over me.

  “Why do you go out so much by yourself anyway?” he would ask me.

  “Do I have to stay home?” I would answer.

  “I’m not telling you not to go out, Forugh,” he said in an exasperated tone. “You misunderstand me. It’s only that they say you’re out in the streets by yourself too much.”

  “Who’s been telling you this?”

  “Mardom,” he answered vaguely. People.

  “And what’s so bad about being in the streets?”

  “It’s just not safe for a woman to be out on her own. Now, if you were to wait and accompany my mother when she went to the shops—”

  “But,” I shot back, “I feel much safer alone in the streets than I ever do when I’m out with your mother or shut up in the house!”

  “If you go out alone all the time,” he continued, “they’ll say it’s because you’re meeting someone in town.”

  “And who exactly is this ‘someone’ I’d be meeting?”

  “A man,” he said, lowering his eyes.

  I laughed. “Who could I possibly meet in this place, Parviz? Do you think I’m carrying on with the old salt-seller at the bazaar? Or maybe one of those teenagers playing soccer in the streets? Do you honestly think I have an interest in any of them?”

  “I’m only thinking of you,” he said, “and of your name.”

  “It’s your own name you’re thinking of, Parviz, yours and your mother’s, and you’re as much of a coward as anyone in this town. No. You’re more of a coward than anyone I know!”

  He made no answer, only shook his head and walked toward the door.

  For years I’d had to obey my parents, and I had no interest in obeying my husband or his mother. I was done with all that now. Still, I didn’t want to hurt Parviz; I’d only meant to show him the absurdity of his mother’s complaints and demands. “Stay,” I asked, grabbing his shirt and pulling him toward me, but no matter how I pleaded or reasoned, in the end he always pulled away.

  * * *

  —

  A sore silence wedged its way between us. At night, Parviz would turn off the light before he came to me and speak only in whispers. This was our only time alone together. Every day of our marriage was revealing to
me how little I knew about him and how little he knew about me. The meetings in the alley outside my father’s house in Amiriyeh, the letters, the poems, the furtive kisses—all that was much more than a proper courtship allowed, but we still had such little real knowledge of each other. For many nights after our wedding, we lay in our narrow bed, his back turned to me as I stared miserably at the ceiling. His parents’ quarters were far away from our own small room, in a separate wing of the house, but if I talked too loudly, or what he considered too loudly, he pressed his hand over my lips with a “shhhh!” Enraged, I’d slap his hand away. Much later I’d forget many details of our arguments, but that one warning—“shhhh!”—would always evoke the years in Ahwaz, our small, dingy room with its bare walls and dark shadows, the tangled ivy on the windowpane shutting out the sky, the explosive, echoing despair inside me. If I’d chosen to confide in anyone—and I didn’t—there was no complaint that wouldn’t sound trite. “Besooz o bezaaz” went the timeworn injunction to brides. Burn inwardly and accommodate. If I told anyone my troubles, I would have been met with exactly this phrase.

  It wasn’t desire but rather a terrible loneliness that at last made me reach for him one night. His body went rigid with my touch, and I thought he might refuse me—a mortifying thought. I hesitated for a moment and then I reached for him again, pulling gently on his shoulder. When he turned around and moved closer to me, I took his hand in mine and then placed it on my breast. I closed my eyes, and for a few minutes we were back in the alleyway, discovering each other again, and I felt happy and safe. He lifted the hem of my nightdress, pulling it over my head so that for the first time I was naked under him. Smiling, I opened my eyes, but already he’d turned solemn and quiet. That time and every time afterward, he turned his face from mine so that I couldn’t catch his eyes and he couldn’t catch mine. I was devastated. It was his worst betrayal, this looking away.