Rosewater and Soda Bread

by Marsha Mehran

  THE AFTERNOON TRAIN was to arrive at Westport station at forty-seven minutes past four. A noontime train by all standards, it had departed Dublin on schedule, but by the time it had crossed the river Shannon, it was running an hour and ten minutes late.

  “Not bad for a Friday,” Layla remarked when the ticketmaster informed them of the delay. “Remember during Easter break? What were we, five hours late?”

  Marjan shook her head. “More like two, but the smell of those eggs made it seem like much longer,” she said.

  They had made the mistake of sitting across from a local sheep farmer on his day out. Clearly taken with the holiday spirit, he had bundled a crock jar of pickled eggs in his heavy houndstooth jacket. Every half hour would see him pull another sour specimen from the vinegary depths, popping it into his gummy mouth with the utmost relish—though not before offering it to both Layla and Marjan, a gentlemanly gesture to his credit, if not to their senses.

  “I couldn't wash that stink from my hair,” Layla recalled with a shudder as the two of them found seats in the cozy waiting room. “I didn't even smell like me for a whole week.” Layla's natural perfume, an approximation of which could be reached from mixing rosewater and powdered cinnamon, had indeed been thrown off-kilter by the pickled hard-boiled eggs. Not since birth had she been without her personal scent, and Marjan recalled how panicked her sister had been that whole week to retrieve it.

  “Thank God the van hasn't broken down since then.” Marjan glanced out the small windows facing the front of the station. The lime green van stood at an awkward angle, the orange peace sign on its side warped by the window's mullioned panes. “I think we need to work on your parking skills next.”

  Layla gave a start beside her. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, Clew Bay Beach isn't the best place to practice paralleling,” Marjan commented in half jest. “At least not if you're serious about passing.” She turned to her sister. A stark paleness was washing over Layla's cheeks. She looked as though she had just swallowed one of those ghastly eggs.

  “Don't worry, joon-e man. Parking's the hardest part of driving. You'll pass it with flying colors,” Marjan assured her. “Is that what you've been worrying about?”

  “Yes. No.” Layla blinked. “It's not that,” she said, swallowing. She quickly surveyed the waiting room. “Marjan? Can I talk to you for a minute?”

  Marjan sat up. “Of course. What is it?”

  “Not here,” Layla replied, tipping her head slightly to the right. Directly diagonal, sitting starch still next to a potbellied stove that crackled with turf, were Antonia Nolan and her middle-aged daughter, June. Regulars of Ballinacroagh's Bible study group, the two were caught in rapturous spying. “Let's go outside. We have time.”

  A canopy of ivy and delicate clematis shivered as they stepped onto the single platform. Settling into one of the wooden benches, painted red to match the large carriage wheels leaning decoratively against the awning beams, the sisters were greeted by a fresh westerly breeze. The smell of burning peat and muddled boysenberry from a nearby bush reminded Marjan of the Bonfire awaiting them that evening.

  Layla cleared her throat. She fiddled with her blue school jumper and bent over to retie her Doc Martens. Then, after several fumbled attempts at her knapsack straps, she unbuckled its side pocket.

  The leather copy of Much Ado About Nothing fell onto her lap. She carried the book with her everywhere these days, thought Marjan. The play's parchment-like pages rustled softly as Layla flipped through them.

  “Layla, what is this about?” Marjan said, feeling suddenly anxious.

  “Just wait, I want to explain it right,” Layla whispered, backing up when she reached a specific point in Act I, Scene II, of the romantic play. A small scrap, torn off from a newspaper, was stuck between the two pages. It was an advertisement for a pharmacy in West London.

  “From the Sunday World. Tore it out of the back section,” Layla explained, handing the newspaper scrap over to Marjan.

  Marjan read the print, done in medieval lettering:

  FAT FRIAR'S PHARMACY

  FOR ALL YOUR WANTON NEEDS

  INTERNATIONAL SELECTION

  OF BIRTH CONTROL PRODUCTS for

  THE MODERN COUPLE

  CANTERBURY ROAD, CROYDON LET THE FRIAR STOKE YOUR FIRES

  “It's near Gloria's apartment,” Layla said, blushing profusely. “In Croydon.”

  Marjan looked up from the piece of paper. “Gloria?” Her closest companion when they had lived in London, Gloria Del-monico had been a great comfort to Marjan in those dark months and years after they left Iran. It was Gloria who had calmed them down and helped pack all their belongings the night they heard again from Bahar's husband, out of the blue. It was her dear friend who had sent the three of them to Ireland with blessings, on to her dear aunt Estelle.

  “Yeah, well, see, ummm … well, I know how she still sends you the odd package. I just thought—We, Malachy and me,thought that, uh, you could ask her to, to …” Layla paused uncomfortably and squirmed, looking down at the book in her hands.

  Marjan had more than an inkling of where the conversation was going. “You want Gloria to send over some birth control. Condoms.” She found herself blushing as well.

  Layla nodded, sighing with relief.

  “For you and Malachy?” Marjan gently prodded. Layla gave another quick nod, her eyes still on the Shakespearean masterpiece.

  “They're not really sold in Ireland. Well, at least not so much in the West.”

  Marjan studied the advertisement again. “Let the Friar Stoke Your Fires.” It would have been amusing in any other situation. She racked her brain for the right words of response.

  “Are you sure you're ready?” she said hesitantly, peering into Layla's bent face. “What about just taking your time with, uh, kissing and the rest of it?” The station door creaked open just then, and out walked Antonia Nolan and her daughter. The two women stood under the awning for a moment.

  “We've been doing all that. For two years nearly,” Layla replied. “What do you think happens every time we park on the Beach?”

  Marjan's eyes widened with realization. Parking. “Ah,” she said, pausing. “Have you done—I mean, did you two, you and Malachy, have you done anything yet?”

  Layla looked up, her almond-shaped eyes dancing impishly. “You mean sex?”

  Marjan was taken aback. She had never heard that word come out of her youngest sister's mouth.

  “We haven't,” Layla said with a shrug. “We've come close, though.”

  “What do you mean close?” Marjan whispered, watching June and Antonia as they waddled slowly toward them. She placed her hand on Layla's arm. “Did Malachy try to force you into something? You don't have to do anything you don't want to. You know that, don't you?”

  “But I do want to,” Layla insisted. “I'm the one who's asking, Marjan. Malachy said he'd wait.”

  “But you're so young!”

  “I'm sixteen! Bahar was married by my age.”

  “And that wasn't the best of decisions, was it?” Marjan asked pointedly. She folded the newspaper scrap in half, tucking it into the pocket of her belted jacket just as the two gossips squeezed into a nearby bench.

  “This is a very important matter, Layla.”

  “I know. That's why I came to you,” Layla said, a touch of desperation in her voice.

  “And I'm glad you did. But that doesn't mean I have to approve of what you are doing. Or going to do, for that matter.” Marjan gave her a stern look. “You understand?”

  It did not look like Layla did. Or wanted to, which amounted to the same result. Tossing the play into her knapsack, she leaned back in the bench, crossing her arms with a large pout. “You just don't want me to grow up. That's what it is. You want me to be the baby forever, so you can keep making all the decisions.”

  “That's not true.” Marjan felt hurt. “I'm only trying to do what's best for you.” The train bell began to ring, followed
by the whistle of an engine chugging its way into the station. Marjan turned to the sound, sadness suddenly trickling through her. Was Layla right? Was she trying to keep her from growing up?

  “You know, this is just like Much Ado About Nothing,” Layla said, reaching back for her knapsack. “You want me to be just like Hero, all virginal and wimpy. You want to be just like Beatrice, not caring about dating or anything.”

  “I don't know what you're talking about, Layla.”

  “Yes, you do. You don't have a guy, and you think I shouldn't either.” Layla opened the play once again. “Have you ever fallen in love, Marjan? Was that Ali guy you talk about even real? Or did you just make him up 'cause you're too embarrassed to admit the truth?”

  “That's enough, Layla,” Marjan replied curtly, standing up. The train was pulling in, carrying the squeals and cacophony of its iron wheels. “You're stepping over the line now,” she said, feeling her face heat up. She felt just as shocked to hear her sister mention Ali's name as she had been to hear her say the word sex. She couldn't believe Layla had remembered about her first love, the boy she had left behind in Tehran so many years ago. They had only spoken about him once, after all.

  Marjan brought her hand up to her hot cheek. She could feel it throbbing with embarrassment. The train's carriage doors slowly opened, passengers streaming out in all their rumpled glory. Behind her, Layla remained fuming in her seat, her arms crossed over her chest.

  “So that's it, is it?” she huffed. “You're not going to do it? You're not going to write to Gloria for me?”

  ESTELLE DELMONICO'S THOUGHTS were on her doctors advice as she stared out her rain-spattered bedroom window.

  “I must insist on a change of scenery,” Dr. Parshaw had said, his chocolate eyes fluttering in that mesmerizing way that always reminded her of her late and beloved husband, Luigi.

  “This Irish damp is only going to accelerate your osteoarthritis. I know you have a niece in London, which admittedly is not much better for weather, but there is a rather reputable therapy program in Kensington that might be just the ticket. I hear their treatments are based on Ayurvedic principles.”

  Upon which Estelle explained, as extensively as she could, that she had already tried the ancient art of corresponding humors, with little positive result. It was among a list of alternative therapies she had attempted in the prior decade, including color therapy, Reiki, and an embarrassing session of colonic irrigation. Ayurvedic principles were not going to banish her arthritis, she had told her doctor, but a regime of sewing in the afternoons after a brisk morning walk would certainly ease the pain in her joints.

  And what walks! What wonderful strolls. Not only was she cultivating a set of spectacular hamstrings from her morning exercise—an important vanity for a woman of any age—but her walks about the clover fields had prompted surprising discoveries in her adopted country. She had come to find the gemlike pockets of Mayo, the silent boglands and the shimmering waterfalls that made it the mystic's home.

  Estelle had never known Ireland to hold such a multitude of diverse and magical places, for although she had been living under the gaze of its most celebrated elder, that mountain named after Patricio, her years tending the counter in Papa's Pastries had left her with little time for gallivanting.

  As far as she could see, the only upside to the needles of arthritic pain had been this traipsing of late; the disease had forced her to finally get out from her small patch of cottage comfort and get some fresh air into her joints.

  This morning's sojourn notwithstanding, of course; that adventure had been an entirely different kettle of cod, as the Irishman liked to quote.

  What should have been a warming stroll around the western shore of Clew Bay had turned into a feat of Sisyphean determination—the better part of the morning given to transporting the injured mermaid from the inlet to the backseat of her rickety Honda.

  Then there was that whole hour spent hauling her from the car, up the cottage's gravelly drive, and into the four-poster bed.

  By the time Estelle had undressed the mermaid, changing her into a pair of Luigi's stripy cotton pajamas, and washed and chopped all the vegetables for her life-affirming minestrone soup, she had been too tired to blink, let alone tune in to one of her favorite weekend activities: roaming the vast and comic world of Irish radio stations.

  Estelle returned her gaze to the window. Not even a good reel could lighten her mood now. Not after finding the poor darling mermaid.

  A drop of water, a vestige from an earlier shower, trickled down the windowpane. It joined earlier drops, pooling in one corner of the frame like a sacrificial cup faced toward heaven.

  To Estelle it seemed as though the rainwater mirrored her own tears, the crying that had not stopped since she had found the girl, naked and half dead.

  The whole earth was crying for the shame.

  CHAPTER II

  “SO THAT'S IT? You're not going to do it? You're not going to write to Gloria for me?”

  Layla's question ran through Marjan's mind as she stepped out of the café later that evening. She hadn't had much time to think of anything else, really. The shock of hearing her sister talking so candidly about such grown-up matters was compounded by her own mixed feelings, the confusion that had been brought to the surface by Layla's effortless confidence. It wasn't an easy decision—certainly not one she had prepared herself for making.

  You'll just have to be patient, she had told a pouting Layla. I promise I'll be fair in my answer.

  At least, she hoped she would be fair. The truth was she had no idea what to do about her youngest sister's request; she felt a thoroughly incompetent judge of it all. Her own romances were certainly not much to go by; her past dating experiences were limited, a fact she was sometimes embarrassed to admit, even to herself.

  Not that she hadn't had her chances. There had been no shortage of lovely lads coming through the doors of Aioli, the restaurant where she had worked alongside Gloria Delmonico in London. With her accent and Italianate looks, she could pass as Gloria's cousin, a ploy that had often bought them a pint or two at the local tavern. But whereas her friend's bravado enabled her to flirt and frolic with many an Englishman, Marjan had always shied away from any serious commitment. It was a reticence born not from prudery but from too much experience, too many memories.

  Keeping the two trays of chickpea cookies balanced in her arms, Marjan tilted back her head and looked up. The sun was quickly sinking behind Croagh Patrick, filling the autumn air with a rose-tinged mark. Bonfire Night was set to spark with twilight precisely twenty-three minutes from now.

  Sunsets, whether voluptuous and pulsing or thin with the whisper of winter rain, held a special place in her heart. It was under another western sky, in an East over a decade ago, that Ali, her beloved Ali, had proclaimed his love for her. That was the night he had given her a beautiful brass jewelry box, a simple little chest etched with desert roses, with the promise that it would be the first of many keepsakes. It was a promise he had not kept, one he had no way of keeping, she realized, now that she looked back on it.

  Back then, back when they had been seventeen and in the midst of the free-loving seventies, it had seemed as though they would have an eternity to plan and play out their dreams. Funny, thought Marjan, how she and Ali had only held hands when they started dating, their passions manifesting solely in long and languorous kisses.

  While their school friends had taken full advantage of Tehran's heady modernism, a moment of amnesia for the traditionally staid capital, she and Ali had chosen to keep their bond fairly chaste. It would take a separation and the coming of the Revolution to bring them together in a deeper union.

  When she allowed herself to think of those days, in moments when neither of her sisters was present, Marjan always marveled at the circumstances of their first night together. Unlike the white satin romance they had planned on that school trip to Istanbul, when he had bought her the brass box, their first encounter had been a h
ushed affair, played out tenuously on a springy cot in the darkened offices of The Voice, the revolutionary newspaper she and Ali helped print underground. The word irony did not have an equivalent in Farsi, but Marjan had long since come to regard that night as ironic.

  It was ironic, after all, that she and Ali had come together only after she had joined his cause and started wearing a roosarie, a traditional head scarf. Ironic that through their words of rupture and revolt, constructed piecemeal on an old printing press, they had joined their bodies for those brief moments of bliss. Pure, uncomplicated happiness.

  It was as if the secrecy of their revolutionary venture had allowed them a separate space of their own, a room with walls that only they could enter. Was it only within boundaries that people were allowed the freedom to be themselves, to be fully naked in both soul and body? Marjan sometimes wondered. It was, after all, the Iranian way, separating one's public and private worlds, allowing no stranger beyond your closed door. All those walled gardens and veils, those captive singing nightingales.

  Was it better to give all of yourself and open up your wounds, your darker moments to another person? Or were you richer for being conservative, for keeping your emotions to yourself?Maybe it was necessary to have a bit of mystery in life, Marjan told herself, to keep some things hidden from others. Perhaps there were secrets that you could share only with yourself. Or was this an argument for justifying the ever-gilded cage, the Republic that Ali had fought and, perhaps, died for? She just did not know. It was a puzzle that would probably never be solved. One of those questions that would eternally confound the human heart.

  Maybe it was better to concentrate on the chickpea cookies she was toting for the Bonfire, thought Marjan, turning down Main Mall.

  WITH THE COOKIE TRAYS held securely in her arms, Marjan quickly crossed over to a packed Fadden's Field. Even before she stepped onto the grassy knoll adjacent to Danny Fadden's Mini-Mart, she could feel the ground quiver with the excitement to come. This would be the first year Ballinacroagh would be celebrating the end of the harvest season in such a grand manner. There had been an attempt at organizing a celebratory event last year, but that had gone the way of the proverbial smoke.