Teaspoon of Earth and Sea (9781101601990)

by Nayeri, Dina

  “That’s right, my boy. And how do we make him her brother?” Mullah Ali sips his tea. “They must be fed from the same breast. Then they will be brother and sister.”

  Everyone obliges the mullah with at least some laughter. Khanom Alborz spills her tea on her mint-green tunic and reaches for a cloth. Khanom Omidi, always conscious of her lazy eye, pulls Saba into her line of vision and holds her against her enormous body. Her fleshy neck smells like jasmine, and Saba joins in the laughter when the cheery old woman says loudly, “See, child? I told you. Every candidate has to demonstrate a certain level of brain damage to be accepted to mullah school.”

  The mullah says in a kind voice reserved for the elderly, “Ah, but dear mother, if we didn’t have creative minds, how would anyone get anything done around here?”

  Khanom Omidi adjusts her back pillow. “Too much creativity.”

  Khanom Basir, the storyteller, takes center stage now. She moves her pillow closer to the sofreh, sits with her back straight, her legs crossed under her haunches, her skirt pulled tight across her knees. She tells the old story of Leyli and Majnoon, and the doomed lovers come alive. They are present not just in her words but in her arms, which cross sadly over her heart; in her fingers that dance in a thousand varied gestures; in her eyebrows that arch and fall and pull together again; in the sad lyricism of her voice. Her eyes rest mostly on Reza, as if she is telling this story only for him, imagining some grand love story for him. And maybe she remembers a little of her own losses.

  Soon Saba notices that Ponneh is growing agitated and impatient with the party. She must be thinking of Mustafa and her aching back. The bitter look never leaves her face, and halfway through the story, she hobbles to her feet and quietly slips out toward Saba’s bedroom. Khanom Basir watches her son’s eyes rove after her. She finishes her story and accepts the applause of her neighbors. She doesn’t rush through this gracious last part—when others might shrug off the attention—probably because this one skill, this ability to capture their emotions with her storytelling, is the reason that she, an uneducated, sometimes mean-spirited woman, is so beloved and sought after. It is the reason that her house is always full and that she is invited to every gathering. The reason that girls like Saba, girls without mothers, go to so much trouble to win her love and attention.

  When the story is over, Khanom Basir takes the opportunity, for the umpteenth time, to question Khanom Alborz about the pair. “So, Khanom,” she teases, “when can we come for a khastegari? I’m telling you, those two belong together.”

  Khanom Alborz tenses. “My friend, I’ve told you already. Until her older sisters get married, she can’t be married. It would be an insult to them.”

  “The healthy ones, yes, but the sick one too? And in such troubled times?” She stops there. Khanom Alborz has been away all day and doesn’t know yet about Mustafa.

  “No. I said no.” Khanom Alborz puts up her hands and shakes her head. This is the one issue on which her conviction overrides her fear of Khanom Basir. “Her sister can’t help being sick. Why should she suffer alone? We’ve all suffered since their father died. And this is the way he would want it. Everyone has to pay a price.”

  Rarely does Saba see the proud Khanom Basir look genuine, pained, even humble. She whispers, “But Khanom, they love each other.”

  Saba tries to ignore this. Why should she let the talk of two older women cause her pain? Still, it seems that the world wants Reza to choose Ponneh and leave her alone.

  “They will all make good marriages eventually. They’re so young,” says Khanom Alborz. “But if you insist on matchmaking, you could find someone for Agha Abbas. He needs the help and doesn’t have much time.”

  “Why should he need help?” Kasem asks, his tone resentful. “He’s rich.”

  Abbas Hossein Abbas, at sixty-five, is one of the oldest bachelors in Cheshmeh. A widower with no living children or grandchildren, he has recently made it known that he is lonely and ready to marry again—though everyone believes he only wants one last chance to revive his bloodline. Saba knows him from afar, since Abbas hasn’t been to her father’s home in years. Khanom Omidi says that he avoids large social gatherings and stays in his house or in the town square, smoking and talking with other idle old men.

  Reza starts to get up to follow Ponneh, but her mother’s fiery stare keeps him bound to the cushions. Finally, when Ponneh returns for a cup of tea, Reza slumps off through the kitchen. Saba gathers up a few dishes and begins to walk away too. But then Khanom Basir says, “What about Saba?” Saba feels Khanom Basir’s serpent tongue whip around her like a rope pulling her back into the room.

  “That would be a very nice match,” says Mullah Ali in a wise tone. “He is a devout Muslim. He gives generously to our mosque. He deserves a young wife.”

  Saba gives her father a pleading look. Agha Hafezi only nods, glances into his teacup, and says, “He has spoken to me.”

  Saba stumbles, collects herself, and says, in a barely audible whisper, “Why?”

  “He is considering it . . . coming for a khastegari. To ask for your hand.” When he finally catches her eye, he smiles faintly. “I haven’t said anything. Anyone can ask. It doesn’t matter till we decide.” Saba wonders why her father has chosen this moment to tell her this, in front of all these people. Maybe it’s easier for him. Her hands tremble and she drops a spoon from the top of her dish pile.

  “Don’t worry,” her father reassures. “We will choose someone you like. Someone your own age.”

  “We?” The mullah shakes his head. “You’re letting the child have a say in it?”

  Agha Hafezi nods. “It doesn’t hurt to have another perspective.”

  “Do you remember that time when Saba was seven?” Khanom Alborz laughs.

  “Oh, please, don’t bring that up.” Khanom Basir shakes her head, but Saba can see the amused look on her face. On any other day she would be mortified by the story that she knows is forthcoming. But now maybe it will remind her father of her desires.

  “She was seven years old and she went on a khastegari to ask for Reza’s hand. Do you remember? It was the funniest thing.”

  “Please don’t remind me,” says Khanom Basir with a long sigh. “She was crying and making a big show. That’s what you get when you let a young girl run wild.” Then she leans over and whispers to Khanom Alborz, “That girl has a thousand jinns. . . .”

  A thousand jinns. How unfair that Mahtab, who instigated that marriage proposal when they were seven, is now far away in another world, leaving Saba here all alone to deal with the accusations and marriage schemes.

  She takes the dishes into the kitchen, puts them in the sink. She glances at herself in a window and pushes her canary-yellow scarf back until a shiny lock of hair bounces free and rests across her eyes. She goes outside, only half admitting to herself that she is looking for Reza. He is leaning against the trash cans, drinking from a paper bag. He wipes his face with the back of his hand. He asks, “Any chance of the pantry today?”

  “Not yet. Ponneh’s already had a lot. The bruises aren’t so terrible, though.”

  “She’ll be okay,” he says, giving the paper bag a quick shake. She hears the liquid sloshing back and forth in the bottle. Then he tilts his head toward the house and says sadly, “You know how many lashes we could get for this? The opium and the alcohol?”

  Saba nods. “Don’t worry,” she says. “Even in Tehran, everyone does this. And in case you haven’t noticed, the mullah is an addict. He can’t afford to lose his ready sofreh.”

  They stand there for a few minutes, leaning against the trash cans, side by side, not saying a word. Reza sighs and shakes his head. “Strange day,” he says.

  “Yes.”

  “I talked to Mullah Ali about Mustafa,” says Reza. “Something will happen to him. I’m sure.” But Reza doesn’t look so su
re. “I wish I could kill him myself.”

  Saba nods. “It was scary how much he hated her.” She thinks about something that her mother told her before she left Iran. How the mullahs took all the Western art from the Queen’s private collection and shut it up in a basement so no one could look at it. All those beautiful pieces. Warhol. Picasso. Rivera. That’s what this regime does, her mother said. They shut up beautiful things in dark places, so no one can see.

  Reza begins to hum a slow, familiar tune. Is he trying to soothe her with this droning American melody? Does he even know the words? Reza believes the only important part of a song is the music; but this isn’t true. For Saba, the words are everything and the music only secondary. She sings in a whisper. “You got a fast car. But is it fast enough so we can fly away.”

  “Huh?” Reza turns. He gives her a puzzled look.

  “It’s the song you were humming,” she offers, hoping he will continue along with her.

  But Reza’s face turns cold, and he says, “Not now, Saba.” Then he adds, “I just like the tune,” and she remembers his innocent belief in music, a crime now like so many beautiful things.

  He looks at her and she tries to seem happy but fails. She wishes she hadn’t said anything. Again she has insulted him, reminded him that he is a villager. She lets her expression fall where it wants. “You’re missing Mahtab,” he says. She chuckles at their old routine. “Have a drink.” He holds out the paper bag and she takes a long, throat-burning swig.

  “Do you miss Mahtab?” she asks.

  “I liked Mahtab very much,” he teases. “She had a beautiful face . . . and pretty fingers.” He touches the tip of Saba’s finger. She pulls away only a little, and he smiles.

  When they were small, before the revolution and puberty, they were allowed to play together in the street. It is likely that Reza knew Mahtab just as well as anyone outside their twinly universe. Saba looks up at the sky and takes another drink. The heat of the liquid opens up her throat and makes her braver, happier. “Mahtab liked you very much.”

  “I’m lucky,” he says, and they pass the bottle between them again, in memory of Mahtab. Reza adjusts his angle against the wall, so that his legs go farther out and his body shifts down to Saba’s height. “I used to think you two were princesses,” he says. “I thought you would marry the American prince from the magazine and leave us all to pine for you.”

  “Both of us?” she says. The air is freezing, but Saba’s cheeks grow warm. She knows what Reza is doing. His days of playing football and guitar for worshipful audiences have given him the cruel male instinct to lay a trap for any woman who seems a willing target. To amass possibilities so that in his old age he can brag in the town square, I could have had her . . . and her . . . and, yes, that one too.

  She wonders if Reza dreams of America; he has no notions of it outside the TV set. Would Mahtab love him too? Reza has a Gilaki soul, like her father. Though he’s interested in agriculture and asks Agha Hafezi about it sometimes, he doesn’t mind the odd jobs and the boxy stand near the seaside where he sells his mother’s rush baskets, loofahs, brooms, pickles, and preserves. He hates big cities and the new Iran. He longs for a good, slow hookah afternoon in the Iran of his childhood the way Saba longs for America. He despises change, showy tourists, religion, and his reluctant spot in the back of the mosque beside the discarded sandals. He loves his father’s setar and the Beatles.

  “No man should have to choose,” he says. “And twins . . . imagine the sight you would have been.” He touches the lock of hair coming out of her scarf. “Maybe God took her away to save you from people like Mustafa.” Saba nods, trying to keep the lump from growing in her throat. He says, “You know, once I saw a man get flogged for kissing a woman on the cheek in his own house. There was a pasdar passing by the window.”

  “That can’t be,” she says. “Not in Shomal. I saw a couple kiss on the lips once in the market.”

  “And because you saw someone get away with kissing on the lips, then I can’t have seen someone get flogged for kissing on the cheek?” Saba shrugs. She is a little bleary now. “That couple you saw in the market, were they over eighty or under six?”

  “Funny.” Saba mocks him. She hates it when he pretends he’s older. So transparent.

  “You don’t know much, do you?” he says. “You think there’s a ladder of kisses. Cheeks, then lips, and so on. That’s what small children think.”

  “So?” She folds her arms and tries not to scoff at his arrogance. Talking with Reza about kissing is like standing in a baker’s kitchen, holding a warm cake and only smelling.

  “So, Khanom, a kiss on the cheek can be a lot more serious than a kiss on the lips.”

  “Ah, so much expert-bazi. What do you know?” Saba pulls herself up and starts to walk away, but Reza takes her arm, pulls her to him.

  He squeezes her face tightly in both hands and says in the shrill, accented dialect of the old men in the square, “Come here, child, stop struggling and give us a kiss.” Saba tries to pull away but is overcome by a fit of laughter.

  “Oh, wait,” Reza says. “Forgot to remove my teeth.” Then he smacks his lips and lands hard on the right half of her mouth. “Bah, bah,” he sighs. “Who’d want to flog an innocent old hajji for that?”

  Saba makes a show of wiping her mouth. “Okay, you made your point.” She smiles despite a pang of regret. Her first kiss wasted. Has Mahtab had her first kiss by now? Saba wonders. Was it worthy of television? Maybe she is having it now, somewhere in the American Northeast—or Holland or England or France.

  “Khanom,” he says, “I’m not nearly done making my point.”

  He puts the paper bag aside. She glances past him. Whenever Reza watches her like this, in the bazaar or pantry or even in dreams, she always looks away, never brave enough. Her hands are tucked behind each thigh, but he finds them, interlaces her fingers with his. He hums a little, and she smells the alcohol on his breath as he rests his cheek on hers. He is clean-shaven, his skin warm and sandpapery. She wonders if he can hear her blood speed up, gurgling like a treacherous stomach, or if he feels her cheek catch fire against his skin. She struggles not to move or even swallow too hard, afraid of embarrassing herself. Despite the effort, she can hear her own breath as she takes in the sandalwood smell of his soap and wonders why the simple act of being alive has to be so loud. But Reza isn’t listening. His lips brush against her cheek and linger there. “See?” he murmurs in her ear, as he reaches for the bottle, one finger carelessly stroking the skin around her wrist. “Try getting away with that in the market.” Then his lips brush past hers as she inches toward him.

  In the next second Reza jumps clear of her, his face ashen.

  Kasem is there, staring openly. A curious grin and an angry flash pass across his face at once. Reza takes a few steps toward him, but then Kasem turns and dashes into the house, Reza taking off at full speed behind him. “Kasem, stop! Stop!”

  The back door slams as Reza rushes to catch up with Kasem. Saba’s hands shake. She scrambles to hide Reza’s alcohol. Her skin is like ice—except for a tiny spot in the middle of her right cheek, still warm and flushed, where the last vestiges of fire have not yet died down.

  A few moments later Reza returns. “I didn’t follow him in,” he says. Her scarf has fallen onto her shoulders and he pulls it up with both hands. He glances back at the house. “It would look worse, me trying to shut him up. Go find Ponneh. Say you’ve been in your room all night. She’ll vouch for you.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course. Ponneh would never get us into trouble. Now go.”

  Saba hurries back to her room through the side door. She finds Ponneh resting on her bed. She is sitting up, holding two of Saba’s English novels in her lap. Uncomprehendingly, she runs a finger over the title of the thicker book, The Joy Luck Club. Ponneh doesn’t read Engli
sh. She stares at the cover of Golding’s Lord of the Flies and mumbles in Gilaki. Saba, who buys or trades half a dozen novels every month, eyes her newest acquisitions, recently printed paperbacks that she bought from the Tehrani at ten times the right price. Ponneh is bending the spines, but Saba doesn’t care. She drops onto the edge of the bed, trembling, clutching her scarf tightly around her neck.

  “What’s wrong?” Ponneh struggles to sit up. She touches Saba’s back, rubbing a little as Saba sits shivering at the edge of the bed.

  “I . . . am . . . in so much . . . trouble,” Saba whispers. She grabs her throat, the heavy sensation of the water rushing back. She doesn’t care that Ponneh is watching.

  Ponneh stashes the books under a pillow, manages to shift all the way to Saba’s side, wincing with every movement, and says, “What? What did you do?”

  “Nothing. But Kasem thinks he saw us . . . Oh God, I’m in so much trouble.”

  “Calm down,” Ponneh says, almost unsympathetically, as if to imply that this is nothing compared with her own ordeal. The indifference in Ponneh’s voice unnerves Saba. “Tell me. What were you doing?”

  Saba stares into her friend’s curious face. “He only kissed me on the cheek. It was just a kiss on the cheek. That’s not bad, right? We do that all the time.”

  Ponneh sighs. “I can’t believe you, taking risks on a day like this.”

  “It was nothing!”

  Ponneh’s eyebrows pull together and her face looks even whiter. She takes Saba’s hand—only two fingers really. “You can’t just sit still for one day? Hasn’t today been bad enough?” Saba can tell Ponneh is still punishing herself for her weakness.