The Stationery Shop of Tehran

by Marjan Kamali

  Ali’s mother plans the items for his wedding sofreh. “Wasn’t I patient to wait till she’s older?” she says. “Your cousin is sixteen now and ripe and ready for you. You two were destined from birth. We all knew it.”

  His mother chuckles, as though she is gaining something uniquely valuable. She tells the maids to make sure there is enough cinnamon to decorate the sholeh zard dessert on the wedding day. “At the end of summer, Ali Jan. Can you think of a better present for your eighteenth birthday?”

  Ali thinks that Atieh looks like watery yogurt; he imagines her to be just as bland and tasteless. In his dreams, the shabbily dressed girl at the bazaar feeds him slivers of melon, the juice soaking his mouth.

  One Friday, he walks downtown as usual to spy on her. He stands half-concealed behind a post at the spice stall as the girl arranges whole melons into pyramid-shaped heaps. He watches her slice the fruit into uneven pieces.

  “Badri, bia, come!” Her father is toothless, skin leathered from too much time in the unforgiving sun.

  Badri. Badri. Badri. Ali repeats the name under his breath as if he could possibly ever forget it. As if he won’t ache for years whenever he hears it.

  Shoppers push and shove, women in chadors carry their baskets of greens and eggplants, babies cry, and peddlers moan about their wares. Badri, Badri, Badri. Ali, as the son of one of Tehran’s most esteemed scholars, will be sent off to Qom to study religion and the classics soon. This girl is not a thing that should enter his mind. She works with her father in the market. She is a dahati, a villager. A girl with nothing, from the same class as the servant who washes Ali’s clothes.

  When the noontime call to prayer floats through the alleys of the bazaar, stalls are left and prayer mats picked up. The market methodically empties out; buyers and sellers disperse. One by one the men leave their stations and walk out. In the courtyard of the mosque at the end of the bazaar, they’ll make their midday ablutions. There they’ll wet their elbows and wrists with water from the concrete basins. For the prayer, they’ll kneel and touch their foreheads to the ground and lose themselves in meditation. They will rise and bend as one.

  Is Badri going to pray? Ali feels a sting of disappointment as she leaves the stall. Of course he won’t be able to follow her into the female section of the mosque. The most he can do is see her take off her shoes at the entrance (they are slippers really, made of cloth, torn and ragged). She’ll then be swallowed up by the women’s entryway, inaccessible.

  After she leaves, Ali lingers alone in the bazaar. He suddenly feels naked at his post near the spice stall. He’s conspicuous now that the crowd has left, vulnerable and uncomfortable without the shield of people covering his lookout point.

  Footsteps. The slow scuff of slippers against the dirt. He looks up and can barely believe it. She’s back. He watches, hoping he’s unseen, as Badri moves a few things around her father’s melon stall. She lifts a large tin tub. For a moment she struggles with its weight, then hoists it on her hip. Soon it’s balanced there perfectly as though it’s a part of her anatomy, as though it was always perched there.

  She walks out of the stall, and after he’s sure he can’t be seen, he follows her. There is something strangely alluring about her; she has such confidence and sway even though she’s young and poor. Instead of turning right toward the mosque, Badri turns left. Ali follows her down a small path to the back of the bazaar where a square yard shielded by trees serves as an unloading and garbage dock. It must be here that every morning donkeys carrying wares are unloaded and men unpack their crates of goods. The dock is lined with big bins where the garbage of the day is deposited in heaps. Flies swarm over the receptacles. The girl calmly navigates her way through the smelly, gorged bins until she reaches one that isn’t overflowing. The tub remains balanced on her hip as she walks. Ali marvels at how she carries the heavy tub as though she’s been doing this all her life. Then again, he thinks, she probably has been doing this kind of thing her whole life. For isn’t that how it is with this kind? They work. Manual labor all the time, Ali sniffs to himself, even the females out in the fields and in the markets from their earliest days. They are hardy, they are tough. Ali thinks of Atieh and her paper-white skin. He thinks of Atieh’s long fingers, her lips that seem transparent (when they are married, the excited relatives will profess joy at the thought of him grazing the perfection that is Atieh). He has seen Atieh without her veil; as children they were told to play together. Now Atieh’s face is always shielded from the sun to save her skin from going dark, to keep her pale and pure.

  Badri stands on tiptoe next to the bin, hoists the tub higher on her hip, and then in one swift move, neatly and expertly tips it over and empties its contents. Rinds of melon and slippery seeds fall in an arc and the air is filled with the sweet smell of melon. The scent catches in Ali’s throat. He can almost taste the sugary fruit in his mouth, can almost feel the cool melon flesh between his fingers. Badri shakes the tub a few times to get out the last remnants. Then she whips around.

  “Why are you following me?”

  Her voice is a lot more adult and bossy than he’d expected. She addresses him with the informal singular “you,” not the plural “you” that should be used by a peasant girl when addressing a young man so obviously of a much higher class. Is she so uneducated that she doesn’t know any better? Something about her haughty look makes Ali doubt this. The girl looks like she knows exactly what she’s doing.

  “You can speak, can’t you? Or are you mute?” She hoists the empty tub back onto her hip and plants a hand on the other hip. Her feet are wide apart, a pose that Atieh and girls of her class would not dare in the company of strange men. “Hey!” the girl calls out. “I asked you, why are you following me?”

  “I’m not.” His voice is a whisper. Here she is, a melon seller’s daughter, a child, really, and for some reason Ali is weak in the knees. It’s her round face, the eyes that dare to look right at his, the rosebud lips.

  “I’ll tell my baba to cut your throat! Don’t you come near me. I don’t care if you’re a highfalutin posh man or whatever you are. I know what your kind thinks about girls like me. Well, you come near me and I’ll scream so loud your ears will rupture. I will kick you! Hard!” She lifts the tub with both hands high above her head. “I’ll bash your head in with this tub. I’m sick of men like you. Thinking that just because I’m poor, you get to have a taste. Well, you don’t. My baba will slit your throat with his knife if you come near me. Understand?”

  Ali is speechless. No one has ever spoken to him this way. At home, his mother defers to him; he is the prince of the house. The maids don’t dare even address him; the male servants only do to say what he’d like to hear. His father is the only person who is honest and forthright with him. No girl has ever spoken to him like this. He is at once amused by her pluck and mortified. He must look like a pervert. Like nothing more than an entitled lout lurking around a peasant girl.

  “No, no, I’m afraid you’re mistaken. I am not here for untoward reasons. Please, I don’t mean to scare you.”

  A wave of heat permeates the air, and it’s as though someone has sprayed every particle of dust with the suffocating melon smell. Despite himself, Ali walks closer to the girl. He must reassure her. He wants to prove her wrong—he feels a strange need to show that he is not after that kind of thing at all. The closer he gets to her, the more the sweet scent fills his lungs. Every scrap of fabric on her body, every strand of hair peeking out from the headscarf, even the tassels on her torn slippers must be infused with that melony scent. Her face, now that he is closer, is tan and remarkably healthy, as though she’s received a dose of nutrition inaccessible to the girls he knows, the ones whose mothers have warned them to avoid the sun, the ones who are taught to embroider and study reading and writing, the rich young women who are trained to arrange roses immaculately in crystal vases. Badri glares as he nears her, the tub still balanced above her head.

  “Put the tub down.” Ali fin
ds his voice again, the steady and calm one, the one used to talking to servants, the one accustomed to giving orders and being obeyed.

  “His melon knife!” Her voice is higher and less confident as he nears. “He will cut you with it!”

  Now she sounds like the young girl that she is, vulnerable even though she’s trying so hard to be tough. Ali is drawn to her more than ever, to her wide stance, her rude speech, the rosebud lips, the round moon face with its quivering chin raised up. And the sweet melon smell that will forever be associated with her.

  “Put the tub down,” Ali repeats, more calmly this time.

  She drops the tub and it bounces on the dirt a few times, with a muted noise that is almost comical. It should have landed with a loud crash, there should have been a huge sound, but the tub bounces softly and lands a few feet away from them, settling quietly on its side. No one could have heard it fall from afar. In fact, Ali realizes, the girl has reason to be scared. This square dock is shielded by trees; they are unseen, no one knows they are here. Everyone is at the mosque praying, holding their palms in front of their faces, whispering verses of faith.

  He will tell her again that he’s not here to hurt her. He will reassure her that he is simply . . . what exactly is he simply doing? Following her. Of course he cannot help but be attracted to her, but he’ll explain and reassure her. She needs to realize he’s a gentleman. Ali is confused, and angry that this girl can make him confused. She is nothing. She is below him. He will let her know he is to study religion and the classics in Qom after he is married—

  Before he can decide how best to word all this, the sweet flavor of melon envelops him. In the noon sun, Ali is momentarily blinded, he must be hallucinating. Something sticky and warm has landed on his cheek, and for a minute he is unable to identify it. Then he realizes the girl is next to him, she has walked right up to him and kissed him. She stands there, balanced on her toes, for what seems like a snatch of time separate from all the rest. For a few seconds—seconds that will be suspended in Ali’s memory until the day he dies—for a moment encased in a sphere, sealed off from the rest of his life, her lips are warm and sticky on his face. She feels like a burst of fire.

  After she lands back on her heels and almost tips over, after her lips are no longer on his skin, Ali cannot move. He is transfixed. Transformed. The nerve of this girl. The warm, bursting touch of her. Her kiss has rendered him mute, frozen.

  “There!” Her voice is soft now. “You got what you wanted.”

  He doesn’t dare look at her.

  “Didn’t you?”

  He touches the imprint of the melony kiss on his cheek and, without thinking, takes his fingers to his nose. He is inhaling her. Never will he forget this taste, not when he marries Atieh, not when he is the father of four children, not when he introduces great works of classics and foreign writers to the young people who will frequent the stationery shop he will one day own. How disappointed his father will be in his choice not to pursue anything more prestigious. “You have the means to become a religious scholar,” his father will plead. “You want to own a shop? Like a bazaari? Like a merchant?”

  “Now,” Badri says as he stands in the sun, unable to move, afraid of the reaction to her kiss, obvious in the way he is breathing, “I told you that if my father ever finds out that you tried to kiss me, he will cut your neck with his knife. People think it’s a knife, but it’s really a sword. His grandfather’s sword. His grandfather was a bandit. Who killed men who bothered him.” She stops, her eyes boring into Ali’s. “With that sword.”

  Ali stands in the sun, and forces himself to look away from her.

  “Just killed them. If Baba were to know that you followed me back here behind the bazaar to grab a kiss—”

  “I didn’t,” Ali interrupts, finally facing her again.

  “He would swoop off your head. He’s good with that knife of his. You’ve seen him slice the melons, haven’t you? Don’t think I don’t see you standing there day after day, spying on me in the market. Doesn’t someone hoity like you have school to attend or something?”

  “It’s summer,” Ali mumbles.

  “Of course! I know schools close in the summer!” A look of embarrassment crosses her face. “You think I’m uneducated and easy, don’t you? Just because my father sells melons at the market, and your father . . . what? Runs the country? Takes our money? Smokes cigars? I don’t know. But I’m telling you that if my baba finds out about this, he will cut your throat.”

  Ali nods.

  “So, if you want”—she walks over to the tub on the ground, picks it up, and hoists it back onto her hip—“you know where to find me. I empty the tub quite regularly. When Baba goes to pray at noon.”

  “Excuse me?” Ali whispers.

  “They all go to pray, don’t they? It’s so quiet here then.” She looks up at the sky and smiles. “It’s nice and quiet and peaceful here. Just us and the flies.”

  “At noon?”

  “Yes.”

  Ali presses the toe of his polished shoe into the dirt, his heart beating fast. He watches her walk away, the tub bouncing on her hip.

  What happened on other days at the garbage bins under the summer sun were things that should not have happened between an educated, rich young man and a girl whose father sliced melons at the market. Her melony sweetness stuck to his trousers, to his throat; she was everywhere with him and all over him.

  Atieh got fitted for her dress. Tiny jewels were sewn onto the hem of her wedding veil. Ali inhaled Badri by the bins at noon, he tasted more parts of her than he should have; he walked home dizzy and drained.

  At what point did his lust become love? Was it when Badri whispered in his ear as he tried very hard not to explode (explode he did, each and every time)? Was it when nothing but images of her occupied his thoughts before sleep? Was it when the possibility of not being with her made him feel empty, even sick? At what point did Ali stop inhaling the scents and sounds of a beautiful fourteen-year-old peasant girl and start wanting this girl to be his? Rightfully his, ridiculously his, impossibly his. These things shouldn’t happen. They shouldn’t ever, not when lives are planned, not when mothers have made arrangements, not when destinies have been ordained, not when a match is perfect. Futures are organized, thought through, carefully planned. Atieh was his future. Badri was his melon girl by the garbage heap.

  Badri was his heart. Badri permeated his skin; he walked around smelling of her, tasting like her, wanting her. Wanting her. And even though she miraculously, absurdly, dangerously, carelessly let him take her—it wasn’t enough. Once he had a taste, he wanted more. And she gave him more. Once he had more, he wanted it more often. And she showed up more often. Once he had more often, he wanted it consistently. And she started to give herself to him every day. Once he had every day, he wanted forever. His desire for her was insatiable. To the point that it didn’t matter whether it was lust or love. There was no demarcation anymore. Not for Ali. He just had to have her always, all the time. And he did not want to imagine a time or a future without her.

  Plans are made for reasons. Financial, logical, social reasons. His parents navigated their lives with reason and power and care. Atieh was right for Ali. The two families had always wanted that wedding. His class of people followed optimal paths, creating more wealth and pursuing good sense. His class of people did not pine for grubby girls who worked at the bazaar—and if they did, they took their due, stole their kisses, groped and fondled and then moved along. No harm done.

  But Ali does not want the powdered, pristine bride his mother chose for him at birth. His home is filled with books; his living room floor is covered with the best Persian rugs. A dahati peasant girl would be a joke in his family’s eyes. When he enters his father’s study and dares to tell him that he doesn’t want to marry Atieh, his father simply asks, “Why?” in a manner conveying that Ali’s statement is a nuisance. When Ali, with much throat-clearing and fidgeting and difficulty, mentions a girl who is sw
eet, who is beautiful, so gorgeous, her face like the moon’s—Ali’s father says impatiently, “Well, who is it?” Upon hearing that the girl is the melon seller’s daughter, his father’s face freezes for an instant, and then he doubles over in a throaty, loud, coughing laugh that Ali realizes with creeping disgust is the deepest laugh he’s ever heard from his father. Ali leaves the room as his father continues to clear phlegm with his laugh.

  He and Atieh marry at the end of that summer. Ali thinks of the girl at the bazaar: her beauty, her scrappiness, nothing about her leaves him. He climbs on top of Atieh, the girl he has married, with the melon scent of Badri in his mind. The following year, their son is born. Celebrations are held in their community, in their part of town, in their rich inner circles. Atieh is enchanted with her child. Three more children follow in quick succession and none of them dies. Everyone marvels at how blessed he and Atieh are. All the children healthy. Atieh embraces motherhood and the domestic life. She embroiders on linen and knits perfectly patterned sweaters. She raises their children to be obedient and considerate. She ignores Ali’s aloofness and his burrowing in books and simply brings tea to his study every night. She does not complain when he pours his energy into opening a shop, does not express embarrassment and disappointment at his becoming a mere merchant, not the scholar he was meant to be. Atieh remains devoted to him. She ages beautifully. Her skin remains undamaged by the sun.

  The melon girl is always scrappy and feisty in his dreams; she kisses him by the bins at the back of the bazaar, she smells sweet and heady. He wakes up craving her. Over the years, every now and then, Ali looks for the melon seller’s daughter when he is downtown. She must have married some dahati peasant boy; she must have twelve children by now. Sometimes he sees poor women walking down the street in the outskirts of the city, clasping their flowered chadors with their teeth, their baskets filled with wilting vegetables and the worst cuts of meat (if they’re lucky). He looks among them for that melon seller’s daughter, all grown up, but does not see her.