Teaspoon of Earth and Sea (9781101601990)

by Nayeri, Dina

  “Mahtab, it’s me. Look, I know you don’t want to talk. But I can’t go to Iran without being sure. I thought of something that’ll free you from doing me any favors. You said you hate your job, right? Well, what about this? You quit and I’ll share my credit card.” Listen, Khanom Omidi, this is a big offer. It means free money. “Check your mailbox. No one will know. You can use it for as long as you do me this one favor, even after we graduate. How’s that sound? Call me back.”

  Mahtab laughs. She erases the message and goes to bed, shaking her head at his arrogance, his lack of remorse. She tries hard to hate him. Why doesn’t he say anything about their lost love, about the future she imagined for them? Why doesn’t he admit that he loves her back? It’s two in the morning and she has to be at the theater at eight to sort receipts, but she can’t fall asleep. She spreads herself across the mattress, her limbs reaching out to the edges of the bed like the top half of a starfish, and she tells herself that what Cameron told her is not true—that she can find a way to hold on to him. As she buries her face in her pillow, she thinks that she would never accept such an offer.

  It’s a funny thing about manly reputation. They are willing to give all their wealth for it. Do you think it’s wrong to take it, Khanom Omidi? One day my money will come from this same source. The fates of twins are tied together, after all. At least Mahtab experienced a one-sided love. She was allowed to lie on top of Cameron and listen to his heart, to touch her lips to his and make him laugh, to run her fingers across his very white Harvard teeth. I wonder what it’s like to have an afternoon’s access to such a man. To want him and be allowed so near. To touch him and find him moved by me. Sometimes I don’t care if such a man is my husband or a stranger tied to me only by our shared illegal desires. I hate Abbas for being old, for denying me even the smallest knowledge of such things, the slightest bit of pleasure. The feeling that I might be partly human, even with one half of me missing as it is. Sometimes I hate him more for that than for the violent thing he did to me.

  Maybe I am an immigrant too, wandering through marriage like Cameron and Mahtab wander through America toward a fantasy that used to exist. I want to be my natural self, whole without Mahtab, and wild with uncovered hair. Maybe I could dance around a bonfire like women used to do during Norooz celebrations before the revolution. Black hair flying. Wives kissing husbands and lovers. Running off to bedrooms to do who knows what. Then I wouldn’t want Reza to be like James or Abbas to be like Cameron. I wouldn’t long to be in Mahtab’s place. I would only want to be my most ordinary self, without books or refinement—just a wild, hungry thing running barefoot somewhere.

  The world has changed, Khanom Omidi, and now we are all impotent.

  “Oh, what strange times you children have to face.” Khanom Omidi sighs. “We all wish for the old days, Saba jan, but we have to settle for the small joys. . . . Maybe we should eat something, have some tea. Then you must tell me what that man did to you.”

  Yes, maybe later . . . But now it’s my sister’s turn. The next day Mahtab finds the credit card in her mailbox. It even has her name on it. She puts it in a separate corner of her purse, away from her own money. She doesn’t call Cameron or tell her friends or mother. She’s too busy to correct his mistakes. She will handle it in the morning. But the next day her boss needs Mahtab to work more shifts and she has no time to send back the credit card. Besides, a part of her likes this connection to Cameron. He may be gone, but he is still tied to her by this tiny piece of plastic. This is something of his that she can hold on to—like a T-shirt or a book left in her room. This means that he’s thinking about her. She ignores it, telling herself that doing so isn’t a concession. Besides, in a month he will have forgotten that she even has this doorway to his family’s wealth.

  One afternoon, hands shaking, she uses the card to buy herself a cup of coffee. To see what will happen. To see if this is real or just another game. The payment goes through without a problem and the card falls heavy in her hand. She has accepted the unearned money and rubbed a thick coat of yogurt over it so no one can see. Two days later she tests the card again. She buys a book, which she returns twenty minutes later. The music of the credit-card machine confirms that someone has accepted her tacit consent.

  “How, though, Saba? What machine?”

  A week later, when confronted with a sleepless weekend, two deadlines, and an exam, Mahtab quits her job at the ticket office.

  Does Mahtab feel guilty? Does anyone know what she has done? Does she soak her pillow at night, and blame that guilty piece of Hermès silk for her poor homeward-bound Aryan with his big dreams and hidden fears?

  “So she accepts the money, then?” Khanom Omidi says. “Maybe it’s wise.”

  It seems that she does. But credit cards are nothing more than plastic until you use them. That is how they work, each purchase a new bargain. And, as you say, love is an uncut watermelon. You might slice it open and find you’ve bought the wrong fruit.

  And by the way, Khanom Omidi, even though you’re nodding at the wisdom of it all, you should know that in English that’s a damn good joke at Cameron’s expense.

  Even though she isn’t sure if she will use the credit card again—Mahtab says good-bye to one of her biggest Immigrant Worries. She has vanquished many others so far: she no longer frets about her otherness. She doesn’t worry about success. And now she stops thinking about money too, not because of the access she has to the poor Aryan’s wealth, but because she realizes how easily money can be obtained. Maybe I should learn from my sister. My wiser, stronger, worldlier sister. Maybe I should stop categorizing all the different types of money in the world; stop differentiating between old money, new money, Muslim Widow Money, and Yogurt Money, judging and separating them into categories when really they are all the same. I’ve left so much sitting on the table unused. Maybe I should be braver, protect myself against the evils of weak-hearted men. Maybe I should stop waiting for my own inheritance to come through.

  A Humble Word

  (Khanom Omidi—The Sweet One)

  After Saba’s story, I tried to tell her without telling her, because, of course, I cannot encourage bad behavior. But trust me when I say that I know what she is missing. I have been Saba’s truest mother for all these years. I have tended to her wounds, whispered a thousand defenses and sympathies into every willing ear, followed behind her as she left a trail of fibs and blunders, and I rubbed a subtle coat of yogurt over it all so that no one would judge her. Who else would do this, especially after we lost Khanom Mansoori? My dear friend . . . God rest her soul, she was right that Saba’s stories are good for her. Yesterday when the lady doctor, Zohreh Khanom, called and Saba wasn’t home, I praised the girl’s imagination and the doctor sounded worried, which is ridiculous.

  What did Abbas do to her? I wish I knew. After her story, I began to wonder: is her sadness really about being married to the wrong man or is it something else? It is my personal belief that every woman should have her own private sums, a small bundle she has saved up that is safe from any man and that she can use to take herself out of bad situations. You know, I predict that if one day all the women in Iran woke up and they had their own money, there would be no more marriage. The giving and taking of daughters would come to a quick end. Maybe the whole country would fall. If it does fall, I will be safe because I have savings hidden in my chador.

  Please do not tell anyone that I am of this opinion, because I will deny it.

  I believe that no man will ever be enough for Saba. She lusts for independence and until she has it, there will be no end to the Mahtab stories. But that’s not the only thing she lusts for, which brings me to the second thing I noticed.

  The poor girl is aching to grow up, to become a woman, to experience a real and true awakening, which she obviously does not have with the old corpse she married. Now here is where I must be careful not to encourage bad beha
vior, but I tried to hint that there are things she should not miss in life. I said to her, “You are a clever girl. You read the old poetry?” She said yes, and so I said, “Rumi is my favorite. The aching and the hunger. There is a line about a thirsty fish inside that can never get enough of what it thirsts for.” Saba just stared at me and shrugged. I recited more poems about new passion and human need. Such words! I reach out, Rumi says, wanting you to tear me open.

  Does Saba understand it? I hope one day she will, even if for one night. One hour. Has the girl not suffered enough? Maybe she should have a lover, just to experience this precious part of life. And before you think I have a sinful mind, let me tell you that it is no sin to be human. When I was young, pleasures were plenty and lovers were like balls of opium at the bottom of a spice jar—if you felt around enough, there was always another to be found.

  Don’t give me rules about keeping chaste. Those rules are made up by someone other than God. Don’t give me sentiment about the call of true love and the meeting of souls. Those sentiments are for storytellers. Life is no more than the small joys of many moments added up like coins in a chador. Probably in this world there is no love, only good sense and attraction—the matching of stature and age and smells to make a good fit. In my old eyes, that is what it means to go well together—no more magic to it than two legs, two arms, and, if you’re lucky, a young and beautiful face.

  Journal Notes

  (Dr. Zohreh)

  I don’t blame Saba’s father for asking me to stay away when she was growing up. The dangers to the family were real enough. And I suppose now she has no need of me, though I would love to give her a fuller understanding of her mother to balance out the undoubtedly hostile picture that the village women will have painted.

  But I will not push too hard. That would be a mistake, I think.

  Next time, if I find an opportunity, perhaps I will tell her that she is very much like her mother. The other day I called Saba and a housekeeper, a woman named Omidi, told me about her current “story-telling.” Naturally I was worried. I’ve read the case studies of children who, in order to live with a tragedy or loss, use misinterpreted memories to create permanent other realities for themselves. Interestingly, the tragedy is often one in which they had a hand—like the subjects of the Milgram experiment who, when told what they had done, convinced themselves that they had argued or fought back when, in fact, they had been compliant. But why would Saba exhibit such symptoms? I wish I could speak to her, or that I had done so as she was growing up.

  After the phone call, I recalled that Bahareh used to do something similar. When we were in college, I became involved with a young man who later broke our engagement to study in London—a feeble excuse since I had also won a place in an English university for a term. Bahareh came to my room and sat with me all night inventing stories about his foolish antics there. She made a list. Number one: he will use the wrong fork. Number two: he will try to kiss a man on the cheek. Number three: he will make rubbishy speeches to the queen. She was so amusing. The next day she brought me a wedding cake to throw in the river as a symbol of . . . well, I forget of what.

  Chapter Eleven

  AUTUMN–WINTER 1990

  In the last two weeks Dr. Zohreh has called twice. She has assured Saba each time, in her husky, chain-smoker’s voice, that she is available if Saba should need her. Saba hasn’t returned her calls, afraid of what the doctor might have to say about her mother. Her letters to Evin Prison have so far been met with a long silence, and she has been unable to find any new clues. The doctor’s message might be a last hope, and she isn’t ready for closure. What if the information brings back the old, buried anger against her mother for leaving? What if it confirms that her mother is dead or wasting away in Evin? Still, in an effort to recruit Saba, Dr. Zohreh has sent, via Ponneh, books to read, pictures to examine, stories to consider. Though exhilarated by the attention of her mother’s friend, Saba can’t imagine throwing herself into such danger and uncertainty. She flips through newspapers from all over the world, the ones that contain pictures taken by the members of Dr. Zohreh’s group. These women come from all backgrounds, from cities all around Tehran and Shomal. They are Christian, Baha’i, Zoroastrian. Some are even Muslim. Dr. Zohreh is Zoroastrian—a worshipper of fire. My mother is made of fire, Saba thinks, engrossed by the image of her mother the activist burning through chadors with nothing more than her rage. She wishes she had seen this part of her, the part that wasn’t so sensible. Does Saba too have a little of that in her blood?

  Abbas knocks on her door to say he’s leaving for the day. “Saba? Saba jan? I’m leaving now. Do you want to come out and say good-bye?” She has ignored his every pleading look, all his miserable mumbling and shuffling about the house day and night for months. She says nothing and hopes her silence is painful to his dying ears. When the house is empty, she will do some research about America, maybe about taking a trip there . . . for later. She needs to create a tangible next step for herself because that is what a sensible girl would do. Maybe it’s time to visit Dr. Zohreh just once, only to retrieve whatever information might exist—to stop being afraid and listen to her mother’s distant voice. What could the doctor possibly say that would hurt her now? Maybe she will find an answer, something to cling to while she decides how to live out her life here.

  When she has summoned the courage and made a plan, Saba holds a pencil-drawn map in one hand and the steering wheel of her father’s car in another, weaving through snowy streets. Soon the road joins the mountainous highway that so many Iranians take to escape to lush, green woods and dewy seaside villas in summer and to reach the ski slopes in winter. She eyes the map, which instructs her to abandon the Qazvin–Rasht road, itself curvy and dangerous, for a road even more prone to avalanche deaths. She pushes back the chador she wears out of town, rolls down the window, now foggy from her breath, and accelerates over a patch of old snow. Driving to the mountain shack on her own has been easier than she thought. Her father is spending the day walking through his spotty white fields and doing paperwork in the offices of his friend and bookkeeper, and he won’t miss the car. So far, the roads have been empty and unmenacing. Saba relaxes, watching the changing landscape—tan and orange dunes and rocks, slightly snow-covered—rolling across the horizon followed by frosty white trees leading up the mountain. When she was a child, Saba used to think that all distances could be measured with a teaspoon. Today she measured the distance using the gas in her father’s tank. Maybe after this she can travel even greater distances alone—distances measured by seas and oceans instead of teaspoons and gas tanks. In a few months spring will reach the top of the mountain and Saba is glad she has made this trip to witness the winter season.

  She stops the car in a flat area on the side of a hill, just beneath the plateau where Dr. Zohreh promised the shack would be. Getting out of the car, she spots it right away, a small, cubelike wooden house hidden by the colors of the mountain. Unpainted brown logs in a blanket of white and evergreen. This part of the mountain is close to the sea. She can smell it, though the trees block the view. A woman is making tea on the other side of a window. She looks up and waves at Saba before disappearing to open the door.

  “Saba jan,” she says in her tobacco rasp as she holds the door open and waves her inside. “Welcome. You look so grown up.” Dr. Zohreh is tall and slender with a dark face and a black, uncovered bob. She is wearing stylish tan slacks, and her ivory sweater looks like it came from America.

  “Thanks,” says Saba. “I’m twenty.” Then she feels foolish, worries she’s made an inane first impression. The air inside is warmed by battery-powered space heaters and kerosene lamps. The house consists of one main room, a tiny kitchen, and an outdoor toilet beyond the back wall. Saba takes a seat at a large table covered with white lace and gives Dr. Zohreh her chador, which the doctor stuffs unceremoniously behind a box—strange, Saba thinks, and grows curious abou
t the contents of the box. Pamphlets? Letters? When the teakettle whistles, the doctor rushes to the kitchen. Saba runs her cold hand through her hair, working her fingers through a tangled strand.

  Dr. Zohreh’s voice wafts in along with the smell of warm honey pastries. “I’m so happy you came.” Already Saba is enthralled by the shack.

  “Me too,” she says. She stares out the window, relishing the quiet all around. When Dr. Zohreh brings the tea, it almost feels like a luxury, like meeting a new friend in an unfamiliar café for a frivolous hour. No loud mothers gossiping and giving advice. No Ponneh and Reza with their unspoken dialogue seeping through thick clouds of hashish smoke. No history at all, which is the very essence of peace.

  “Tell me about your husband,” Dr. Zohreh asks in a detached, psychoanalytical tone. She takes a bite of ghotab bread and pushes the plate toward Saba. This very un-Iranian gesture—serving herself first—somehow makes Saba trust her more. There is no tarof here, and Saba hates pretend generosity, which is a lie, after all. She takes a piece and realizes that it’s the same bread that Ponneh has been bringing to the pantry lately.

  “He’s very old,” Saba responds. Then she adds, “I hate him.”

  Dr. Zohreh stops chewing and narrows her eyes. “Does he hurt you?” she asks, skipping any kind of polite hesitation. “If so, I think you should tell me.”

  “Why?” Saba tries to fix her face into an ironic smile. But it seems that she succeeds only in looking sad, because Dr. Zohreh reaches over and touches her hand. Right away Saba fears that she has said too much, because it is vital to her future that no one probe into the workings of her marriage. So she says, “He’s a coward. He stays out of my way when I want him to.” And since the Dallak Day, this has been true.