Together Tea

by Marjan Kamali

  A proud and beautiful bird emerged from his etching. Its chest was round, its wings spread out.

  “Every day,” he added, as though Mina had just asked him how often he did this. He looked up and smiled. “Except Fridays. That’s God’s day.” He held up the finished tray.

  “It’s fantastic,” Mina said.

  “We artists,” he said. “Have to do our work. No?”

  Mina wasn’t sure what to say. We artists? “Does the government tell you what you can and cannot make?” she asked.

  “They tell me what I can and cannot sell. Display.” He cleared the filings off the table. “But nobody can affect what I can or cannot make.” He cleaned his hands on an old rag and stood up.

  “Come,” he said. “Let me show you something.” The artisan moved to the back of the shop where a black sheet hung from nails hammered into the wall.

  A cautionary voice that sounded just like Darya’s warned Mina not to follow strangers behind black curtains. But Mina rose and followed the artisan. The artisan swished the sheet aside.

  Behind the curtain was a large storage room. From floor to ceiling, shelves were crammed with etched trays, decorated ceramics, and mosaic boxes. Piles of copper plates, painstakingly engraved, towered on one shelf. Mosaic khatam boxes in gold and blue and every possible color sat in groups on the floor. Leather canvases adorned with fancy calligraphy and dozens of paintings covered every inch of the walls. Scenes of lovers in embrace, men and women dancing and lounging under trees, dizzied Mina. One large painting stood out. It was of a long-haired woman in a purple robe, leaning against a tree, playing what looked like a small guitar. A man in flowing robes looked up at her. Mina recognized the woman’s face. It was the same one she’d seen on the box in the shop window. The woman had the same expression of bliss.

  “You like that one?” The artisan walked up to the painting. “It’s one of my favorites. Come,” he said. “Let’s have some tea.”

  “Oh no, I can’t . . .” Mina said.

  “Please. Don’t tarof.” He went to a samovar set on a small table near a cot. Mina hadn’t noticed the cot before. A framed photo of a young man hung above it.

  “I take my afternoon nap here.” The artisan handed her an estekan of tea and sat on the cot. “I heard that in America, you don’t take the afternoon nap. True?”

  “People don’t usually . . . have cots at work.”

  “Why not? Not so wise to skip the afternoon nap. It’s good for your heart.” He tapped his chest with ink-stained fingers. “As to your question about what the government allows me to make, please know, my friend, that governments come and go. We artists continue our work. Every day.”

  She sat on a chair next to the cot and they drank their tea. She should have felt uncomfortable sitting in a storage room with a strange man, but she felt as though she were with a kindred soul, a spirit from another world.

  He drained his tea glass, then got up. “Back to work,” he said matter-of-factly.

  As they walked out, Mina took one last look at the painting of the woman playing the guitar, a man by her side, under the tree. She drank that image in.

  With a swish of the black sheet, the storage room disappeared and they were back in the shop. The man slid behind his table, picked up his hammer and a nail, and within seconds was drumming out the legs of a stork.

  “I’d like to buy the khatam box in the store window,” Mina said suddenly. “The one of the man and the woman.” She got out her wallet.

  “My gift to you. Please.”

  “No, no,” Mina insisted and put the money on the counter. “And thank you for the tea.”

  He went to the window, got the box, and wrapped it in newspaper for her. Mina was at the door, her hand on the doorknob when he said, “My son died in the war.”

  Of course. The photograph above the cot. The young man’s face.

  “My wife has the most terrible of afflictions now. Afsordeghi. Depression. That’s her face on that box you’re holding and in that painting you liked. That’s her when she was happy.”

  “I am so sorry,” Mina said.

  “Our son was the light of our eyes. My wife is my soul. When I paint her as she was, she comes back to me,” the artist mumbled. “Go, then. May God protect you.”

  “Khodahafez,” Mina replied.

  She swung the door open and was once again in the glare of the square. The sun was blinding. The shops, the horse-drawn tourist carriages, the sounds and smells of the outside world engulfed her. She thought of the artisan, bent over his table, hammering out his images.

  She realized that she wanted to capture every angle of the minarets and ancient buildings, Bita by the Persepolis sculptures, the grocer with his boxes of onions, the young people dancing in the living room of the apartment building. She never wanted to forget the tree in the People’s Park, the way the leaves fell as she listened to Ramin talk, the snow that landed on her hand in his. How could she stop these images from slipping through her fingers? Why hadn’t she painted? When did she stop doing what she loved?

  The camera wasn’t enough. It never was.

  She knew what she had to do.

  DARYA WOVE HER WAY THROUGH the alleyways of the bazaar, stopping to sift spices through her hands, smelling the cardamom and cumin, feeling the rough edges of dried limes. Men called out to her, advertising their wares, and she walked on, pushing through the people who filled the lanes of the bazaar. She felt so far away from her job at the bank and math camp and her Spreading Spreadsheet Specs class. What on earth would Sam do in a place like this? He wouldn’t even know where to look, what to say. Then again, being such a “laid-back dude,” he would probably find a way to navigate these alleys, and before long, he’d be relaxed here too. He was that kind of person. So at peace. Which, she knew, was what made him so attractive to her. She loved his calm.

  But the truth was, she missed Parviz. All that time in the U.S. she had missed Iran and now here she was back in Iran, and everything made her think of Parviz. He would have loved to see everyone again. He would have sat at the kitchen table and talked Agha Jan’s ear off. He and Uncle Jafar could have argued about music and philosophy again. She missed Parviz’s loud voice, even his self-help mumbo jumbo. She missed his action-oriented, goal-setting, life-seizing, triumphant leaps in the air. Everything in Iran reminded her of him. Hadn’t they been young together here? Hadn’t they had their courtship here?

  What is done cannot be undone.

  They had raised three children together. They had moved to a new continent and started life over together. Parviz was a part of her.

  So, while she had enjoyed the attention from Sam—his smiles, his no-fuss ways, his quiet words during the breaks of their spreadsheet class—it was never going to be anything more than that. Ever. And now she knew she had never even wanted it to be.

  Darya was so caught up in her thoughts that she walked right into a group of chadored women. “Excuse me,” she mumbled in English. The women frowned and walked off. So her reflexes were in English now. Darya tried not to bump into any more people and focused her attention on a bright silver tea set displayed on woven tapestries.

  She was relieved when she looked down the alley of the bazaar and saw Mina walk toward her. Just seeing her daughter made her happy. Here was her daughter who didn’t know how beautiful she was, who could never know just how much she loved her and how her own world, Darya’s, had been reshaped by Mina’s presence in it. Here was the daughter she had raised with Parviz.

  Darya slipped her arm through Mina’s. “Let’s go, Mina. Let’s go and have together tea.”

  SHE WANTED MINA TO APPRECIATE the beauty here—she wanted to give her a taste of everything—but they had so little time left. She took her to a teahouse that she remembered from years ago near the Bridge of Thirty-three Arches. The door was tucked away under the bridge and steps led
down to a cozy room where tea was served. Darya was delighted to find the teahouse as she remembered it. People sat shoeless on Persian rugs, leaning against crimson and burgundy carpeted cushions. Men smoked ghalyoon, women relaxed drinking. Darya showed Mina where to stow her shoes. She motioned to the waiter and they sat. How many tea bags bobbing in lukewarm water had she put up with in the States? But here, they would have real tea with leaves meticulously selected and mixed in just the right proportion. The brewing, the dam-avardan, would be supervised with care. At the right time, the tea would be poured into estekan and served with hacked-off pieces of sugar. Darya couldn’t wait to put the sugar between her teeth, to feel it slowly dissolve and melt in her mouth as she sipped.

  When the waiter brought their tea and chunks of snow-white sugar on clear saucers, Darya decided the time had come to ask Mina.

  “So,” she said, clearing her throat. “Are you a lover now?” She used the poets’ words. Eshgh/love. Ashegh/one who’s in love/lover.

  “I beg your pardon?” Mina’s arm holding the tea glass froze in midair.

  “Oh please, I can tell when a girl’s in love. And it’s not fair that I barely know anything about him. I know he has nice teeth. As if that means anything!”

  “You’ve met his brother,” Mina said. “Graphed him. You know of the family.”

  “Your father and I don’t know anything about him,” Darya said. Yes, she knew of the Dashti family because of the previous research for the older brother. But that did not feel like enough anymore. “I mean, who is he, even? What’s he like?”

  “He’s . . . well, in the few times that I’ve seen him, he’s been quite thoughtful.”

  “Is he kind?” Darya asked. “Because, Mina, there’s a lot to be said for education. And a profession. And family history. And, well, looks. But if there’s one thing that matters, it’s character. That’s the only thing that lasts. Degrees can lose significance, jobs can be lost, a family’s past really shouldn’t define a person, and as for looks . . .” Darya sighed. “Well, looks fade for the best of us. But character, Mina, is what lasts. Kindness will carry you through the ups and downs of life.”

  “He is kind. Very.”

  “Well, that’s a start.”

  “But really, ups and downs of life? It’s not like we’re going to get married or anything!”

  “No, of course not. That’s not what I’m saying at all.” Darya sipped her tea. “Wait, why not?”

  “Because I barely know him! Plus, he’s in Connecticut. Long distance never works.”

  “It’s only an hour away, Mina.”

  “Who knows what will happen?”

  “Everything works out if it’s the right person.”

  “Can you just please promise me that we’re done with the spreadsheets and suitors? No matter what?”

  Sitting in this teahouse near the bridge, with the sound of the water lapping overhead and the feel of the rug against her toes, Darya felt embarrassed by those spreadsheets. She had tried so hard to find the perfect formula for her daughter’s happiness when really there was no way she could control her daughter’s future. She’d always known that, even if she hadn’t wanted to admit it. Those spreadsheets felt far away, like something she’d done in another life.

  “You know what, Mina? I’m beginning to think there is no one right person. No predestined soul mate. There’s no formula. Or if there is, a lot of different combinations can give you a right answer . . . or a right person.” Darya realized as she said this that she finally believed it. True, she’d spent her entire adult life with Parviz and been happy. What if Mamani had picked someone else? If Darya had married one of her other suitors, who was to say she wouldn’t have been just as happy? There was no magic value for the formula to work. Different variables fit into the equation. For example, in another lifetime, under different circumstances, she and Sam could have maybe been a wonderful couple together.

  Mina sighed. “I have something to tell you.”

  “You’re not going to get married, I know, Mina. Let’s just see how it unfolds. No pressure. I’ll stop . . .”

  “No, it’s not that. I’m quitting business school.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I have to. I want to paint. I don’t want to look back years from now and regret not giving it a shot.”

  Darya was starting to feel dizzy. “Mina, remember your promise? That if we came on this trip, you’d actually go back and buckle down and focus on business school for a change, without constantly thinking you should be doing something else? Remember that?”

  “I do. But I had no idea the power that this place would have over me. The problem is I’ve been doing the wrong thing. I need to be committed.”

  “Yes, committed!”

  “But committed to my art, not to Wall Street. I need to . . . devote the time. It won’t happen by itself. I have to focus. Quitting business school is the only way.”

  As her daughter talked, Darya leaned against the carpeted cushions, exhausted. This was the power her children held over her. They could walk into a room and just the sight of them would make her heart soar and then the next minute, they could open their mouths and say absurdities that rendered her helpless. What was she to say to Parviz now? This trip that Darya had championed against Parviz’s better judgment was not supposed to make Mina quit business school. It was supposed to keep her more firmly in it.

  Where was Parviz when she needed him? Where was he to just talk sense into this girl?

  What had this trip done to her daughter?

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Dual Existence

  Most mornings in her Broadway apartment, Mina got up early. She dressed in workout clothes and went for a run in Riverside Park. Then she came home, showered, and gathered her materials. Paints. Brushes. Not computers. Not calculators. She’d finally ordered the brand of oil paint that the artist from Marblehead, Massachusetts, had recommended on the website she’d been surfing when Professor Van Heusen called on her in finance class.

  Ramin had called. They’d spoken a few times on the phone. They kept saying, “We should get together.” But he had deadlines and she had exams and, well, they were busy. It wasn’t like that moment under the tree. Mina wanted it to be, she wanted that magic again, but she felt as if she were just having conversations on the phone.

  She painted. She used canvas, a rough, textured canvas that held the paint well. She had a routine. Every day. Every day except Fridays. She got up early and painted. The ritual helped free her mind from Ramin while at the same time reminding her of him, and she realized that she wanted to both forget and remember that moment in People’s Park.

  It was hard at first. The canvas remained blank. Her painting muscles were out of shape. She had no idea where to start. But then she’d remember the artisan in his shop in Isfahan, or the way the arches of the bridge fell into one another, or the columns of Persepolis, and the images moved her to action. She’d start with just one stroke. And on good days, before she knew it, her arm took over. Her hand moved. As if it already knew the shapes and colors she wanted to make.

  While the rest of her building still slept, Mina painted. And then her watch beeped. That was part of the ritual. It beeped and it was time to pack it all up. She’d put the colors away. Then she’d take off her paint-splattered jeans and change into clean slacks and a crisp shirt. She’d comb her hair into place. Drink a cup of strong coffee.

  And gather her finance notes.

  And before long, she was in one of her business school classrooms, typing on her laptop, solving problems.

  She had been sure that she would quit. They’d returned to Tehran from Isfahan, and Mina had vowed, over and over again, to quit business school and just paint full-time when she got back to New York.

  But Bita had come over on her last night in Iran. Mina had just finished packing. Other guests we
re in Agha Jan’s house, saying their last good-byes to Darya. Tea was being served.

  “Let’s go to the roof,” Bita said. “Come on, for just a few minutes. You have to see Tehran at night, from the rooftop. Remember?”

  Countless summers Mina had spent on the rooftops of Tehran. Countless summer nights they’d slept up there to escape the heat. Before the bombs.

  Once they were on the roof, Bita lay down on her back and looked up at the sky.

  “You know, when we were younger, I always thought that you’d grow up to be an artist,” Bita said.

  “Yeah, me too,” Mina said. It stung. She hated that she’d given up. That she’d disappointed friends like Bita. She couldn’t wait to announce that she was no longer going to run away from what she loved. She would make Bita proud, and she would show everyone that she was ready to be serious about her art once and for all. Mina sat up. “You know what, Bita? I’m not going to put it off anymore. I’m going to actually be true to myself once and for all. And true to art. When I go back, I’m going to quit!”

  “Quit what?”

  “Business school. I’m just going to paint. I’m not a business person! I was just doing it for my mother. Plus, I’m tired of the dual existence. The dual life! An artist in business school.”

  Bita was quiet for a while. She lay on her back and stared up at the sky. Then she said, “It’s funny that you say dual existence, Mina. You know my party? You know the dances we have, my friends and I? We go wild. Inside my house I’m the crazy party girl. Outside, on the streets, I’m just another covered woman who can’t open her mouth. Talk about dual existence! We have one life indoors, another outdoors. We say one thing with our friends, another thing out in public. Because we get arrested if we say what we really want to say. But Mina Joon. Business school? Painting? That’s not a dual existence. That’s just . . . life.”

  Mina stared at the Tehran lights. She looked out at rooftop after rooftop after rooftop and thought of all the people in their homes—what they watched, listened to, said inside. What they could never admit to watching, listening to, and saying once they were in public under the watchful eyes of the guards.