Teaspoon of Earth and Sea (9781101601990)

by Nayeri, Dina

  “If Kasem tries to say something—”

  “Do you want me to say you were here the whole night?” Ponneh interrupts.

  Saba nods. She strains to hear what is going on in the living room now. She hears voices. Kasem, Mullah Ali, the synchronized cawing of the ladies. She doesn’t hear her father. A few moments pass, and Khanom Omidi pokes her head in the bedroom door. “My poor Saba, what has happened?” She waddles to Saba and sits on her bed, puts Saba’s head on her ample lap.

  “Is Baba coming? What did Kasem say?”

  “You are lucky for now, my girl. Your baba went to the caretaker’s to get more firewood just after you left. He’ll only be ten minutes. He doesn’t know anything yet. But why were you out playing around with Reza? You are a smart girl! Always careful!”

  “I didn’t do anything, I swear. We just ran into each other. He kissed me on the cheek, and then Kasem saw and took it the wrong way.”

  “Kasem told Mullah Ali that you were doing more than that,” says Khanom Omidi. “Anyway, I hope you did more than that, Saba jan, or it will be a very expensive nothing.” She gives a sad chuckle and lets it fade. Unlike other mothers, this indulgent old woman has never advised the girls to forgo any pleasures—only to keep them hidden. She seems disappointed that Saba doesn’t have lurid tidbits to offer.

  “What a waste,” Saba whispers. She imagines all the punishments Mullah Ali might concoct—that she be flogged or married off to Kasem. Worse, she conjures the flash in Khanom Basir’s eyes as she bans Reza from Saba’s house forever.

  Khanom Omidi frees Saba from her scarf and strokes her hair. She kisses her temple and rubs her cheeks with creased, briny fingers. Saba wishes she hadn’t woken up today. Everything is different now, and she despises the world that has sprung up around her. It’s like a tentacled plant that has been growing quietly, taking care to go unseen until it’s too late to keep its fingers from choking her. She wants to escape. Maybe she will wake up one night and flee to Reza’s house . . . convince him to run away to America—exit visas be damned. They can swim. How many scoops of a teaspoon, she wonders, from this side of the world to that? After some minutes with no one bursting in, Saba goes to the door and peeks out into the hallway. In a far corner, she sees Khanom Basir leaning against a wall.

  “Promise me,” his mother begs Reza, “promise that you aren’t getting involved.”

  Slouching in the corner, her usually stern face bewildered, Khanom Basir looks weak, even helpless. Saba can’t decide if she feels bad for her, or if she is just sad that the thought of her involvement with Reza is so revolting to his mother. Saba tries to read Reza’s lips as he whispers, It was nothing. Is he appeasing his mother? She can’t help but think that this is very cowardly of him. But then again, maybe it was nothing. Maybe he just doesn’t know what to do. He holds his mother’s head against his chest and kisses her henna-stained hair. Then he helps her fix her head scarf as he did with Saba minutes ago. Saba tries to catch his gaze, but he looks up only once. His eyes are filled with bafflement, as if he had been bitten by a caged snake. He shakes his head at Saba and mouths, I’m sorry, and Saba is reminded of the day he whispered those same words across the sofreh when she was dancing and couldn’t be sure why he was saying them. She ducks back into the room.

  “He’s denying it,” she mutters.

  “He’s just a boy,” says Khanom Omidi, “young and confused. Look at what he’s dealing with. Such a big, big need to rescue everyone. That’s how young men are.”

  More maast-mali where there is no innocence.

  Ponneh snorts, almost bitterly—but maybe it’s the pain or Khanom Omidi’s opium taking effect. “He’s not so confused. Men are men.” Seeing the scowl on Saba’s face, she adds, “You’re too good for someone that weak. And all men are weak.”

  More tarof where there is no generosity.

  When Saba’s father returns home, he is given the full story. Mullah Ali explains. Saba was seen playing around with Reza Basir. Outside. Without her hijab. She was seen in a very compromising position. If Kasem had not stopped them, it would have been much worse. Khanom Basir interjects, reminding Agha Hafezi over and over again that his daughter is out of control and needs a husband, and that her son Reza is not a candidate. But do not worry, Agha Hafezi, a proper course of action has been discussed by your benevolent guests. This need not damage your daughter. Why should you worry about her with such careful guardians to think of her interests? Do not worry, dear sir. For you do not parent alone. Just remember that your daughter’s reputation is at stake, and think of all the evils to which this small infraction could lead.

  Saba, who is listening to all of this with her ear pressed against the bedroom door, considers once or twice escaping through the window—because the worst scenario, the most dreaded possibility, is the very thing they are now discussing: a marriage. Please, God, take Kasem on some clerical errand to Mashhad or Qom.

  She hears Khanom Basir loudly worrying about Saba’s reputation to her father.

  “I hope you’re noticing that no one’s blaming Reza,” Saba says. “How is that fair?”

  “That’s how it is,” mumbles Ponneh. She seems relaxed now, sleepy from the “spice.”

  “Do you blame me?” Saba asks, sniffing Khanom Omidi’s discarded cumin jar.

  “Look, kiss him all you want,” says Ponneh, her words slurring a little, her head slumping against the wall as she lets The Joy Luck Club drop from her hands. “Just don’t risk this good thing we have . . . the three of us . . .”

  “Good, good, let her sleep,” says Khanom Omidi, her voice thick and low as she leans over Ponneh and feels her face. “And don’t listen to the talk.”

  There is a knock on the bedroom door and Saba’s father enters. He is alone and she wonders for just a second where Reza has gone.

  “Saba,” her father says, tired resignation shading his face. She watches him wipe his damp forehead with the back of his hand and prays for a swift Kasem-free kind of justice. He plays with his finger where his wedding ring used to rest, a habit from older days. “It’s time for a change. Maybe time to get married.”

  Here it is. The worst. She thinks of Mahtab, who doesn’t have to submit to such threats. Mahtab, who always does whatever she wants. “I’m not getting married.”

  “I’ve called Agha Abbas,” Agha Hafezi says, without looking at his daughter. “He will come for khastegari tomorrow. I think you should accept.”

  Agha Abbas? The old man? Saba tries to adjust to this new information. They are asking her to marry an old man? Is that better or worse than marrying her insipid cousin? Somehow answering this question seems of utmost importance just now. It takes only a moment’s thought. “Well, you can just forget about that.”

  “Let your father finish,” Khanom Omidi says, her tone soothing. “Maybe there is some good in this. Abbas is very rich. You might be happy.”

  “I can’t believe you’d think I’d go along with this,” says Saba.

  “There is one other way,” her father offers, almost unwillingly. “Your mother would want me to provide this option for you. You can go to college in Rasht. But these are your only two choices, Saba jan. Marry or go to school. No more of this . . .”

  “In Rasht?” she mutters. Not Harvard. Not even a small American college. Not even Tehran University—after the thousands of hours spent perfecting her English, reading every available book, learning multivariable calculus and chemistry and physics. It seems a defeat. She isn’t even twenty yet. Shouldn’t she hold out for something more? In America, you can go to college at any age.

  “Or Tehran,” her father says. He pauses. “Your mother would have wanted you to go to Tehran at least. But I hope you will stay here.” He sounds weak, miserable. “I know it’s selfish. But you’re all that’s left of us. Of me.” He reaches for her hand. Suddenly he seems old to
her. His hands are cold, the skin loose and veiny.

  Her father rarely mentions all that they have lost. He has never really seemed to need her. She has often wished to hear him say it—that he is afraid of losing her—though she knows it is the reason he never mentions college. Now that he has admitted it, it makes her want to stay, to be with her remaining family, and wait for her chance. She imagines herself as a young widow—free. Now she asks herself another question: Does she want to save herself for an American university or to save herself for Reza? The time has come when she can do only one of these things. Which has she truly longed for? Which dream keeps her awake at night? Which possibility will she keep? “You think marriage is better?”

  Agha Hafezi rubs the sweat from his forehead. “Yes, this is best. The man is old. He’s richer than you know. And life is much easier for a widow than an unmarried girl. People won’t watch your every step. You’ll own lots of property. What if all my lands are taken away and you have nothing? He is Muslim enough.” He looks away, embarrassed. “I advise you to avoid the solitary, lifelong burden of a child by this man. Be smart, be patient, and one day your turn will come. Then you’ll have the wisdom of a few years, your family nearby, and your own money too. You can use the lands as collateral and go not just to Tehran but abroad. Visas are easier for married women, you know.”

  “I thought you wanted me to stay nearby,” she says, though she knows her father is right. Visas are easier for those with a spouse in Iran. And once married, she will leave the restricted world of single women with its guilty cheek-kisses and endless modesty. She can make dirty jokes and laugh out loud and drink secret juice without hiding in the pantry. Would Mahtab see this side of it? And is she actually considering this marriage?

  “For a while, yes, but I can’t keep you forever.” He takes her hand. “You’re a smart girl. Think of what a wise move this is. College isn’t fun or liberated like it was in my day—you can’t say two words to the boys. And you’ve already read more books than their graduates. It’s all Islamic education now, barely any professors. Plus, we have money. You can get a degree in a few years.” He coughs into his hand. “I heard what happened today to Ponneh. Your mother’s friend Dr. Zohreh was there.”

  Saba remembers the familiar woman in the crowd. Khanom Omidi utters, “Ei vai,” and waves her hands as if trying to disperse a bad smell. So much shame in one day.

  “Things like that happen all the time to single girls,” says Agha Hafezi. “If you were married, you would have protection. You would have more freedom—the man is old and half blind. He won’t care what you do all day. He’s the best choice. Reza isn’t right for you. He’s just a boy. He’s weak, has no education, no resources. Does he even want to marry you? Please, Saba jan, if you do this, I can stop worrying all the time.”

  “Or, you could protect me,” Saba mumbles, and watches her father’s nostrils flare. They both know that he has already tried. His face softens and he doesn’t argue. She feels defeated. “I want to stay with you . . . but college seems less like a punishment.” Maybe, she thinks, it would be more like something Mahtab would do. Or would it? Maybe Mahtab would convince Reza to run away to America. Maybe she would marry the old man and save herself for better days, better offers in thicker envelopes from faraway places. “Khanom Basir will think she’s won.”

  “Not at all . . . This isn’t some big, big tragedy,” Khanom Omidi insists, always the grandmaster of maast-mali. “We will cover it with just a little bit of yogurt. Later on, no one will bother to know the timing of things or who did what when.”

  “This is what you must do,” her father says. “He is a good man.”

  Saba mulls over her options. As she sits on her bed, turning the offer in her mind, she thumbs through years of collected records and tapes. The Beatles. Bob Dylan. Paul Simon. Johnny Cash. Elvis. She puts a tape into her timeworn Walkman. The man named Otis with a golden-tea-and-cardamom voice sings about the sun, and a dock, and ships rolling away. He sings about loneliness and a place called Georgia. She wonders if Mahtab has been there. Saba has looked up every word of this song—as she has done with every favorite song—in her English dictionary. She lingers over the tape for a few moments before deciding to hide it in a safer place, away from the rest of her treasure.

  If she marries Abbas, she will move from her father’s hilltop home—a solitary white house at the foot of a tree-covered mountain overlooking the thatched roofs of Cheshmeh—to her new husband’s equally grand house in a busier village a short drive away. The house, she has been told, is less remote, on a small street where there are neighbors and open courtyards with benches, fruit trees and fountains behind high walls, and covered walkways, fashioned in the style of Tehran neighborhoods rather than the Gilaki open-façade homes. Since it is closer to the sea, tourists pass through sometimes and buses run more often. Abbas’s town has better amenities, clinics and stores, and two underground home salons where women drink tea and crack sunflower seeds instead of sipping water and eyeing each other’s bodies in an outdated hammam. But there are fewer open wells to steal a drink from and longer lines at the thrice-weekly bazaar where she may have to jostle for her share of eggs, milk, and other staples. Her father has said that if she misses her friends, she can come home and receive visitors here.

  Later her father knocks on her door. “I have something to show you,” he says. “It will help you make a reasoned decision.” He pulls out a letter and holds it tentatively out to her. She resents the way he uses the word “reasoned,” as if she isn’t capable of it on her own. “Do you see now, my dear? Marriage and love, they’re separate. Marriage is about logic. And in the privacy of your heart, you can love anyone you want.”

  He continues talking, but Saba doesn’t hear anything as her eyes scan the envelope. She stares at the label, her first clue in years. I knew it. She has always believed that her father has known things that he did not tell her for fear that she would leave him. The letter has been returned unread, passed from hand to hand, both their names left off to guard against unfriendly eyes, but originally, when he held hope that his wife might read his words, her father addressed it to her mother in Evin Prison.

  October 28, 1981

  I’m not sure this letter will ever reach you. They’ve given me no clue about your situation and all the post is being checked. I’ve been on the phone every day since we separated trying to get some answers. I’ve spent so much time and money, and still no word. Don’t worry. Saba is fine. They are watching our house. Since I saw you last, they have been a constant intrusion in our lives. They send mullahs and pasdars to watch us, but luckily Mullah Ali is kind. He carries this letter to you and assures our privacy.

  You can’t imagine how Saba has changed. She’s still stubborn, but learning to be cautious around adults. I don’t think she is handling the situation well. She’s developed a tic in her throat that disturbs me (a motion like she’s choking). My dear, my thoughts are always with you and the hope that our family will be together again one day. There’s so much to know with a young girl. I make mistakes daily. She cries and cries and sometimes I think nothing will calm her. She still conjures Mahtab, and even talks to her in her sleep. I think I’m failing her. I don’t think any of us really understand about twins.

  Yesterday our friend Kian was killed in Tehran for preaching the New Testament in his home. They tossed him into the street like a dog. No blindfold. No ceremony. He was shot five times. Bahareh jan, I think he saw me there. He looked right at me, right into my eyes, just before the first shot. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t go to help him. There were others there too—all helpless. But that is not the worst of it. I’ve had to do an awful thing. Though I love you, I was forced to file for divorce. After Kian, I had to prove to them that I wasn’t involved, and there is Saba to think about. For her, I paid a lot of people, abandoned my friends, and hung a picture of Khomeini in my office. And now the law separates me
from you. I realize it may seem like you’re all alone. But in the privacy of our hearts we are free to love whomever we want. Marriage and love aren’t connected in this new world. I wonder if they ever were.

  Until next time, God (Allah or Jesus or whomever you prefer) be with you.

  Evin Prison. She repeats the name to herself until it sounds like gibberish.

  Why was the letter returned unread? Was her mother ever there? Is she there now? What about Mahtab? By the next day Saba has read the letter a dozen times, noting her father’s every word, every wavering line, every small clue to his heartbreak. After she has stayed up all night speaking with him and Khanom Omidi, going over her options and changing her mind twice, reasoning and thinking and planning, she finally agrees.

  “Okay,” she says, “okay, I’ll do it.” And it is done. Saba Hafezi will be married. Afterward she gives herself up to a strange relief. She is not enrolled in an Iranian college, which would mean tying herself forever to this new country she has come to hate. She is saving herself for America, the one reluctant suitor for whom she is willing to wait. She has read the letters from distant cousins in Texas and California, heard stories from the Tehrani tourists who rent seaside villas here, all of them confirming that an Iranian degree means nothing in the world of pale princelings and American shahzadehs. Only Baba Harvard can keep his children from driving a taxi or collecting garbage. She will wait for him and, in the meantime, stay here with the baba who needs her.

  Her father places a call to Abbas. The old man comes to the Hafezi house to pay his respects and put his dignity on the line, even though he knows what the answer will be. Ponneh and Khanom Omidi, who are constantly by Saba’s side, have assembled a large sofreh. Since the decision was made so quickly, the engagement is a lonely occasion, with Ponneh and Khanom Omidi in the kitchen, and no one but Agha Hafezi, Kasem, and his mother—and, of course, Mullah Ali—to witness. As for Abbas’s family, he has no one. In a sad attempt to conceal his age, he says that his mother would have come, but she has a cough. Agha Hafezi smiles, well aware that the mother is ninety-five and bedridden. Saba notices none of the activity around her. Is her own mother dead? Jailed? Has she escaped to America? If she was taken to Evin, could she have gotten on that plane with Mahtab? Maybe she could have a few weeks later, but not on the day Saba remembers—the day of the green scarf and the brown hat.