Marjan gave the young man a bemused smile. “I'll keep that in mind.” She looked around. “Julian, is he around?”
Jerry stared at her uncomfortably for a moment. “That's the thing, Marjan. He's not.”
“Oh. Did he step out?”
Jerry shook his head. “Checked out.”
“I'm sorry?”
“Left this afternoon, it says here.” Jerry pointed to the ledger opened on the lectern. “Thought you would have known yourself.”
Marjan shook her head. “No,” she said quietly. “I didn't know.”
Jerry scowled. “Ah, that bastard. He didn't have the balls to tell you he was leaving?”
Marjan frowned. “Did he leave anything? Any note for me, maybe?”
“No, I just came on shift. Let me check out the back, so.” Jerry disappeared through a side door.
Marjan let out her breath. She was feeling sick all of a sudden.
She gave her surroundings another glance. There were a few locals at the bar but no one she immediately recognized. They seemed to know her, though; one particularly mud-encrusted farmer flashed her a toothless smile and tipped his flannel cap.
Jerry came back shaking his head. “No. Nothing for you there. I'll find him for you, though. I'll do that. Get a few of my mates to show him what's what.”
“I'm sure there's a reason. Just, um, if he comes back, will you let him know I stopped by?”
Marjan turned around as though in a daze. All the excitement she had felt since the morning came crashing down on her chest.
Was she being stood up? She had no idea how this dating thing worked, not really, but she was sure that when a man did not show up for a dinner date, he was making his feelings known clearly. Had she somehow taken Julian's advances for more than they were?
Marjan thought back on that moment earlier in the week, his surprising kiss near the maze's opening. His lips had been soft, softer than she had expected. Somehow he must have felt she wasn't ready for more, for he didn't press closer. He hadn't even pulled her into him, caressing her arms only, holding his space.
The hedges of holly had gathered around them, taking them in red-berried sleep, as did his mouth, taking in hers, gathering her breath.
The ache between her arm and left shoulder brought Marjan out of her daydream. She rubbed the spot thoughtfully. It hardly ever itched, only when she was especially filled with longing. She liked to think of the itch as a sign of things changing, of excitement and opportunity. Or was it a warning?
She drew in another quick breath, clearing her head. She was being silly, she told herself. There was no reason for her to jump to conclusions. There must be a good explanation for his leaving on such short notice. Hadn't Julian said there was a crew from Castlebar working on the plumbing today? He was nervous about handing such a large job to a local contractor, if she remembered correctly. That was probably it, she concluded. Something must have happened today at the Hall.
Whatever the reason for Julian's abrupt checkout, she wasn't going to make sense of it until she talked to him again.
Marjan walked out of the Inn into the dark, rain-swept main street. She stood on the wet sidewalk, staring at the green hippie van. The cast-iron streetlamp threw a spotlight on it, making it look unearthly. It suddenly looked so comforting, that clunky old thing. It was one of her first purchases in Ireland, a possession she was very proud of.
She had just made it around to the driver's side when she realized she had left the book, Dominions of Clay, on the lectern. Leaving the van door open, she hurried back inside.
She spotted the paperback immediately; it was balanced precariously on the stand, though Jerry had disappeared once again.
Grabbing the book, she turned and was about to walk out when, across the lobby, the elevator door slowly opened.
Marjan stood in stunned silence.
Out of the elevator stepped Layla and Malachy the latter with his shirt buttoned up wrong, the former with her usually immaculate hair completely undone.
“I CAN'T BELIEVE IT. What were you thinking?” Marjan turned to Layla in the passenger seat.
“But we didn't do anything! I swear!” Layla's voice was at its highest pitch. Her face was still burning a bright pink.
Marjan looked past her sister, out her van window. They couldn't see him from where they sat, outside the Wilton Inn, but Malachy McGuire was waiting out their talk in the Lucky Lederhosen, a glass of Lucozade in his shaking hands. No doubt he was calling upon the stars he studied so diligently at university to beam him up and fast.
Layla turned to Marjan, her eyes narrowing. “What were you doing in the Inn anyway? Weren't you supposed to be up at Mrs. D's?”
“I'm sorry, Layla, but this is unacceptable!” Marjan pounded the steering wheel with her palm. She turned to face her youngest sister once again. “We are not talking about me. This is about how—”
Layla interjected, “She shouldn't be living up there all by herself.Something could happen to her, and none of us would know for days.”
Marjan shook her head, keeping her voice stern. “Layla.”
“But who could blame her? That cottage is so beautiful. You can even see Clare Island from the kitchen.”
“Layla.”
“Clare Island. Isn't that where that pirate queen used to live?”
Marjan couldn't help herself: “What pirate queen?”
“Grace, Grace a woman pirate. I've heard Danny Fadden talk about her a few times.”
“Layla, we were talking about you and Malachy”
Layla winced. She glanced out the windshield. “Can we not? Please? It's really embarrassing.”
“Joon-e man, I'm not trying to embarrass you. I just need you to understand how important this all is. The whole town will be talking about this little experiment of yours, you do know that, don't you?”
“Now you're sounding like Bahar!”
“Listen to me. You have to be careful, we have a business to keep going. And like it or not, this little town has its prejudices.”
“That's what Malachy said. I don't know what's the big deal.” Layla pouted. “This is 1987, not 1907.”
“You and Malachy have just made a decision that will affect the rest of your lives. What were you thinking?”
“I told you, we were just fooling around. Jerry told Malachy about the empty room, and, well, we just wanted to see what, we just wanted to try—” Layla paused, squirming in her seat.
“What? Come on, Layla, what happened?”
Layla looked out the window and shrugged. “Nothing. It just— We're both kinda not, not…” Her voice trailed off, and her blush turned a deep crimson.
“What? What did you do?” Marjan grabbed her sister's arm. “Layla, did you and Malachy have sex?”
Layla grimaced again. Marjan loosened her grip, sat back in her seat. She took a deep breath. “Well?”
Layla gave another shrug. “Kind of. Not really.”
“What do you mean, kind of? Were you even protected?” Oh, God, she thought. Why hadn't she written to Gloria?
“Malachy got some stuff from his roommate. He tried to get some from the chemist but chickened out at the last minute. Got foot powder instead.” She scrunched up her nose. “Anyway, all the Trinity boys apparently come to Philip—that's his roommate. He's got a Norwegian girlfriend. She gets boxes sent over from her parents! Can you believe that?”
Marjan merely stared, unable to find the right words to say.
“Don't worry. We didn't do anything. Malachy got nervous, being in his family's place of business and all.” Layla sighed. “It's not like his dad's going to walk in on us or anything. He doesn't even see him half the time he's down anyway.”
Marjan propped her elbows on the steering wheel, laid her forehead on her fisted hands.
“Marjan …” Layla whispered.
“Yes?”
“I'm sorry. I should have told you, I know.”
Marjan lifted her head. “I just
don't want you to do something that you'll regret.”
“You mean like the girl with the baby?” As always, Layla had a way of boiling things down to their most concentrated elements. “That's not something I would ever do.”
“You never know until you are in that position,” Marjan said.
“Malachy and I love each other. We're going to be together forever. And there's nothing to regret. I thought we had been over this when we first started going together. Remember, you told me about Ali?” Layla turned to her oldest sister with a pointed look.
Marjan stared at the quiet Mall ahead. Ali. Her last real relationship. She rubbed her forehead: What was happening to her? Who was she to give advice on love anyway? She let go of her breath. “Malachy is a good boy. I'm glad you are happy, I really am. Just promise me you'll be careful, okay?”
“I promise. Now can we change the subject?”
Marjan stayed quiet, staring out the van window. She felt so foolish all of a sudden.
CHAPTER XIII
“RIGHT, SO. MRS. BOYLAN has just handed me a notice from Guard Grogan … let me see now: Will the owner of one galvanized bull's harness, recently left in Saint Joseph's gymnasium, please pick it up at the Garda station. That's down in the square, for anyone new to the area. Next to Shaughnessy's Salmon Hut and the Town Hall…
“And here's a bit of exciting news: it seems that our own Margaret McGuire has been on to her brother Kieran—you might remember his exhilarating group of thespians from the Dance two years back: I'm still reeling from their Punch and Judy exhibit! Hah hah!
“Well, folks, it looks like we might be in for another treat of the McGuire Family Circus this time around. As I speak they're not a hundred miles from here, finishing their gig at the Galway Oyster Fest. And coming up to us for the All Hallows' Eve ceili! How's that for interventions divine?
“So, on that note, and for your groovy pleasure, here's Lionel Richie, with a particular favorite of mine: 1986's ‘Dancing on the Ceiling.’
“I'm Father Fergal Mahoney and you're listening to Craic FM!”
BAHAR AMINPOUR LOWERED the veil over her face. She turned to the tarnished mirror in the bedroom above the café, lifting her chin from right to left. In this dim light, and with her face covered as it was, her profile took on entirely new dimensions; she could be anybody, go anywhere. Under this veil she was sixteen again, young and full of adventure. Blinking, she stepped closer to the mirror. From behind the delicate French embroidery, her large brown eyes looked almost demure, kittenish.
Unlike Layla's bewitching gaze, Bahar was well aware that her own eyes sometimes gave too much of her fear away; panes to her world, they often reflected the sadness that came over her, sometimes without a moment's notice. But now, staring back at her from the latticelike fabric, her eyes gave off a mysterious and confident air. Suddenly she felt like Scheherazade, that Persian princess with the gift of tales, donning a servant's chador to sneak out of her nightmarish palace.
Like Scheherazade, Bahar had covered herself once. On that morning when she slipped out of the apartment she shared with her husband, Hossein, she had vowed never to wear another chador or veil, certainly not of her own free will.
Yet here she was, placing one on her own head, her own hands securing it behind her ears. Stranger things have happened, Bahar told herself.
Turning away from her reflection, she shuffled softly to the bedroom door, which she had locked as an extra precaution.Bending to peek through the keyhole, she could just make out the small living room across the way, a simple space that had served as a ramshackle office when the Delmonicos ran their little pastry place. The futon sofa was vacant, and the bathroom door was ajar, revealing its empty tiles.
She was alone, Bahar reassured herself, safe for at least another quarter of an hour. Layla was probably reading her little play somewhere, and Marjan was in the kitchen getting breakfast under way. No chance of anyone interrupting her preparations. She would have plenty of time to practice her walk as well.
Bahar made her way back to the middle of the room, but instead of returning to the mirror, she sidled up to the double bed. When they'd first moved in, they had only a mattress, but bit by bit they had acquired some furniture, pine units that were nice enough but nothing like what she'd always imagined for her own home. One day she would have her antiques and lace, Bahar promised herself. Until then, knotty pine would have to do.
Still, she would rather sleep on a rack of nails than share her dreams with Hossein Jaferi again. Even after all these years, she couldn't believe she had given herself to such a man—at the age of sixteen, no less. The signs had been there from the beginning, but she'd paid them no mind. The first time he had shown her his baton, she should have turned on her heels and run, but instead she had indulged him with a young girl's awed attention.
“See these grooves,” Hossein had said, pointing at the lightning bolt lines carved deep in the stick. The baton was his number one weapon against opposing factions, the gangs that were vying for control of the Revolution. “These leave gashes that never heal. They reach deep into muscle and tear apart every strength. No one survives the Jaferi Jab, khanoum. No one.” He had laughed heartily and with such pride then, as she had lowered her chador-framed face in humility. He was to be her husband, after all.
Nine years had passed since Bahar's marriage had ended so abruptly, and in a manner that still gave her nightmares. And over the years she had had a few momentary glimpses into the reason behind her acquiescence, why she had leapt into the fire that was the Jaferi way.
It wasn't exactly fear, not really; Bahar thought the word too mundane; it wasn't fear that had made her join the Women's Party and give her devotion to Hossein; it was something much more sinister. A dark void that was somehow connected to those migraines she used to get. That unnameable chasm had first made itself known to her during those nights when Marjan was away.
Her sister had been working at the Peacock, the Hilton Hotel's premier restaurant, for nearly two years, ever since they had moved out of their childhood home in northern Tehran. With no life insurance, their father, Javid, had left little that could have justified their living on such a large estate. The three of them barely had the means to keep themselves clothed and fed, without having to worry about running a property as well.
Oh, how desperately she had wanted to leave school and apply for a paid position somewhere, anywhere, just to help! Perhaps something at a seamstress's workshop or the local museum, a small building that boasted antiques from all over the world. She had always loved antiques, the weight of them, their certainty, their immutable essence. Working in a museum would have been paradise. But Marjan had forbidden her to drop her studies. She was to take care of little Layla while Marjan washed dishes at the restaurant and studied part-time at Tehran University.
Bahar shook her head. Those shifts when Marjan worked late were the most dreadful times for her. Though part of her knew that her older sister would be home by eleven, midnight at the latest, it did not stop the hole inside her from growing.
Perched at the apartment window, she would watch for hours as the sun sank behind the neighborhood mosque. Once the moon had ascended over the mosaic turrets, painting the tenements of their neighborhood with its indigo tears, Bahar would begin her own night's mourning.
In the darkness she would imagine an alternate ending, Mar-jan found dead or dying, lying on the side of a road somewhere, killed by marauding gangs or a roaring truck on her way home from the Peacock Restaurant.
The night would tell Bahar that she and Layla were alone now, alone to fend for themselves.
The moon would tell her to begin again, begin with a cleanse.
That was when she discovered the power of the copper scour. As the gory image of their dead sister flashed across her eyes, Bahar would begin to clean, taking a scrubbing coil and bleach to all the kitchen appliances, moving down to the linoleum floor, cheap like the rest of apartment they were living in, rubbing,
rubbing away at the hole forming in the pit of her stomach, her breast. She had to be self-sufficient, the hole would tell her; she was mistress of the house now, it was up to her to cleanse it of its terrible fate.
Clean it away, Bahar. Clean it away.
And she would, night after night. It was a method that worked well. By the time her sister came home, Bahar would be back to feeling calm and secure, ready for school the next morning. But she knew that things would change one day, one day when Marjan would finally leave.
Bahar lifted her face off the mattress. She hadn't realized she had laid her cheek on it. Giving the locked bedroom door another glance, she slipped her hand along the base, her fingers touching on a bit of lace. She sighed with relief: it was still there, in the place she had left it on Monday.
At first she had been angry for having to sacrifice her Sunday morning for Marjan's schedule change, but now she was glad of it; Monday's afternoon break had allowed her the time to go into Castlebar for her necessary errands. Otherwise she would have had to ask Mrs. Boylan to get the last items on her list, and the kind lady had done enough already, keeping her secret all these months.
Unlike the women who frequented the relics shop, Father Mahoney's housekeeper and the chairwoman of the Ladies of the Patrician Day Dance Committee was nothing if not a monument to discretion. Look how she had kept her employer's new radio show a secret—now that must have been a challenge!
Bahar recalled the priest's radio program with a smile. In all her time of taking initiation classes, where they had carefully gone over all manner of Scripture passages, Father Mahoney had not said a word about his new venture. Bahar didn't know what she would have said had he told her of his idea, but she liked to think she would have been as encouraging as the priest had been to her during the last year. His guiding voice had led her to many discoveries within her own soul; it wasn't much of leap, Bahar mused, that he would turn it to a larger medium.
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