Strange Times, My Dear

by Nahid Mozaffari

  He went down to the cellar and brought up a watermelon, and at two in the morning started to eat it, forcing her to eat it with him. She had been putting up with all this nonsense in the hope of having half an hour to let her thoughts wander before going to sleep. After eating the watermelon, he decided to fiddle with the radio, switching from the Berlin channel to the London channel to the Moscow channel to see what was going on in the world. Then, at three o’ clock in the morning, he finally went to bed, and of course before going to sleep he wanted to have sex. She put up with this too, and then, at four o’clock, he decided to take a shower and pray, something that he did every now and then. From that night on, her heart was filled with loathing for him.

  Golchehreh had finished shaving off his beard. Now he was slowly collecting his shaving things. He didn’t know why he was procrastinating so much that day. It was as if he were waiting for something but didn’t know what. The doorbell rang, and Mosayyeb went to the door. Farrokhlaqa waited patiently to find out who had come and what they wanted. Golchehreh came to the entrance and stood by his wife. Farrokhlaqa turned and looked at him for a moment. One look was enough for both of them to confirm their mutual hatred.

  Golchehreh said abruptly, “Next month you’ll be fifty-one years old. You have reached menopause, Farrokh dear.”

  Farrokhlaqa looked at him silently. His smile, as always, was derisive. Finally she said, “Listen, Sadri, if you think I’m going to put up with your jokes even for one second, I won’t.”

  “I wasn’t joking, dear. Menopause is not a laughing matter.”

  Farrokhlaqa took a deep breath. Mosayyeb returned with the newspaper and placed it at her feet. Then he said he was going to Karaj to buy meat from Nasrallah for Friday’s party.

  Farrokhlaqa said, “I wish we had a garden in Karaj.”

  “Do you think that after menopause you can still enjoy a garden?”

  As she glanced at the front page, Farrokhlaqa said, “Are you pining for a plump young woman to walk behind your coffin? Is that why you say such things?”

  “Maybe. But my queen will not allow it.”

  “Fine, go find yourself a maid. You are really vile.”

  Absentmindedly, she started to read the newspaper. Golchehreh took it from her. She stared at the yard. Mosayyeb put on his coat and shoes and went to the door. As he passed by the garden pool, he asked, “Do you want anything else?”

  “Get some fresh green almonds, too, if you can find them.”

  Mosayyeb left without responding. Golchehreh was sitting on the windowsill fiddling with the newspaper. Farrokhlaqa thought, God, why doesn’t he leave? She wanted to continue her fantasies.

  She remembered the day when they had gone to meet Fakhredin’s American wife. She had arrived six months after her husband, with their two boys, Teddy and Jimmy. How strange those names had sounded. She would never forget how anxious she was that day. She curled her hair and put on a white dress with blue flowers. Golchehreh laughed at her as she put on powder and lipstick and braided her hair. She spent a lot of time trying to get the seams of her pantyhose straight. At the last moment she spun around in front of the mirror. Everything seemed fine, but she hadn’t seen the other woman yet. She had never seen an American woman before. But at least she had seen Gone with the Wind with Vivien Leigh. She was not inferior to her, although she didn’t see any resemblance. But if Fakhredin said there was a resemblance, there must have been one.

  Fakhredin and his wife were staying at Sarim Mirza’s house until their own house in the northern part of the garden was ready. The American woman was standing at the entrance of the five-door living room when they arrived, shaking hands with all the guests. She couldn’t speak to anyone. She just smiled. She was an extremely tall woman, with blond hair and hands covered with freckles and veins. Her eyes were so light that they seemed colorless. If you looked closely, you could see that they were blue, and Fakhredin was fond of the color blue. Farrokhlaqa shook hands with her and entered. There was a full-length mirror in the room, before which she stood and looked at herself. She stared for a while at her own dark eyes and the blue flowers on her dress. Fakhredin appeared behind her in the mirror, and asked, “Why did you get married?”

  People had asked him the same question. But what a strange effect it had on her. The man was staring at her in the mirror, and Farrokhlaqa noticed that he was pale.

  “This white dress with blue flowers looks really good on you.” He hurried over to his wife. That night, the whole night, he and Farrokhlaqa kept running into each other. It was as if a force was pulling them together.

  Years later, on the moonlit terrace in the prince’s garden, she told Adileh Rif all about that night. Adileh was a good woman. She tried to understand. She thought that a woman had a right to love, and that love was worthwhile. She criticized Golchehreh’s behavior. At that moment, Farrokhlaqa’s older daughter and Adileh’s son were walking around the garden. Rumors were circulating, and Farrokhlaqa knew that there was something between Adileh and Shazdeh. So she was telling her all about what happened to her, to loosen Adileh’s tongue. It worked. Adileh cried and told her everything. “Eight years have passed, eight strange years,” Farrokhlaqa said.

  “So throughout the war you were in love. Good for you!”

  Farrokhlaqa yawned and stretched. “Eight years of war.”

  Golchehreh was angry for no reason. “When a woman reaches menopause, do her feelings change?” he asked suddenly. “I don’t know, Sadri.”

  “They must. That must be why every man has the right to marry several women, so that he doesn’t always have to put up with a woman past menopause in his bed.”

  “Perhaps.”

  Golchehreh was thinking about a woman he had known, who had also been called Farrokhlaqa. She belonged to the war years. She was a Polish woman who didn’t know Persian, and Golchehreh had called her Farrokhlaqa. She worked in a bar. Golchehreh used to call her Farrokhlaqa and she would laugh. She couldn’t say the name properly, and it sounded funny to her. When the war was over, the woman said, “Farrokhlaqa go back Europe.” Then she laughed. The next week, she wasn’t in the bar anymore.

  Golchehreh asked, “If I go and get another wife, you’ll get angry!”

  Farrokhlaqa didn’t respond. She went back to looking at the garden. She recalled the last time she saw Fakhredin. They were in his house. They were in a room with the door closed and the curtains drawn. The room was dark, and his eyes shone in the darkness.

  “I have to go home and take care of my children,” he said.

  Farrokhlaqa began to cry.

  “I’ll come back, I promise.”

  When the war was over, his American wife returned with Teddy and Jimmy. She was emotionally disturbed. One night at a party, she shouted, “You’re all crazy!”

  She was probably drunk, or perhaps she just couldn’t take it anymore. Ten days later, she took her children and went back to America.

  Farrokhlaqa didn’t know why, but she knew that Fakhredin would not come back.

  He didn’t: Five months later he was killed in an automobile accident. Farrokhlaqa was left with her own problems and Golchehreh. There were children, but they were busy with their own lives. They grew up and left home so fast that it was as if they had never been born.

  Golchehreh finished the newspaper and put it down, waiting for her to ask for it so that he could say something else about menopause. Actually, he had just come across this word for the first time three days ago, and he had a feeling that it would upset his wife. She said nothing, and Golchehreh got bored. Finally he asked, “You don’t want the newspaper?”

  The woman held her hand out without a word. Golchehreh gave her the paper. She took the paper and lit a cigarette.

  Golchehreh said, “You shouldn’t smoke. Especially at your age, and in the middle of menopause.”

  “Why don’t you go for a walk? You used to go every day.”

  “Maybe I don’t feel like it today.”


  She regretted her question. If he knew that she was happy when he went out, he wouldn’t go out anymore.

  She said, “You’re right, it’s better for you to stay home.” “I’m going out now.”

  He stood up. But for some reason, he felt he had to stay. It seemed as if something was about to happen. He walked over and stood before her in a daze. For a moment he thought that perhaps, after thirty-two years, he no longer needed to look at her with that smile. In fact, for some time he had known that he used this smile as a defense against her strange beauty. He knew that if he had not smiled that way, he would have been like a dead man to her by now. He knew that she must not, even for one moment, know how much he desired her. But now, all of a sudden, he had an urge. He wanted to look at her, just one time, the way he had looked at the Polish woman when he called her Farrokhlaqa. But now she had reached menopause. Her eyes were no longer rebellious. She no longer had any dreams at night. She went to bed early and even snored sometimes. Maybe he could look at her naturally now, without derision.

  “Farrokhlaqa, dear.”

  She trembled. He had never spoken to her that way. He always said “Farrokh” with that smile. She looked up. There was no derision in his eyes; he was looking at her kindly. Farrokhlaqa was frightened. She was certain that he was planning something. She thought, what if he kills me?

  She punched him hard in the stomach. It was like a pillow. He wasn’t ready for the punch. He tripped over one leg and tried to regain his balance with the other, but lost control and fell down the terrace stairs. She stood in front of the chair for a while. She didn’t dare look down the stairs. He didn’t make a sound.

  Three months later she was sitting on the chair wearing black. She was thin and weak. She did not like the house anymore. Mosayyeb brought a message from Mr. Ostovari, the realtor, saying that if she wanted to sell the house, she should not forget Ostovari. Farrokhlaqa, bravely and without reflection, told Mosayyeb to tell Ostovari to sell the house for her on the condition that he use the money to buy a garden in Karaj. Ostovari started looking for a garden.

  He found a garden by a river.

  Mrs. Farrokhlaqa Sadraldivan Golchehreh sold the house, bought the garden, and moved to Karaj.

  ZARRINKOLAH

  Zarrinkolah was twenty-six years old and a prostitute. She was working in the New City at Golden Akram’s house.1 Akram had seven gold teeth and was also called Akram Seven. She had been there since she was a child. At first she had three or four customers a day. She was tired of working. She had complained to Akram several times, and was yelled at and eventually beaten, until she shut up.

  Zarrinkolah was a cheerful woman. She was always cheerful, whether she had three or four customers a day or thirty. She even turned her complaints into jokes. All the women liked her. When they ate lunch, Zarrinkolah would start joking and dance around the table, and the women would die laughing.

  Several times she intended to leave the house, but the women wouldn’t let her go. They said that if she left, the house would be dead. Perhaps all the women encouraged Akram Seven to beat her. Zarrinko-lah never really intended to leave, for if she left this house, she would have to go straight to another house. Once, when she was nineteen, she received a marriage proposal and had a chance to leave. The suitor was an ambitious construction worker who dreamed of becoming a mason, and who needed a hardworking wife. Unfortunately, before they could decide what to do, someone cracked open his skull with a shovel during a fight.

  Although she complained sometimes, she had accepted her fate. But now, for six months, she had not been able to think clearly. The problem had started one Sunday morning when she woke up.

  Akram had shouted, “Zarri, there’s a customer, and he’s in a hurry!”

  There weren’t many customers early in the morning. Usually just a few who had stayed over from the night before and had the urge in the morning. That Sunday morning Zarrinkolah thought, So a customer has come. So what. She wanted to shout, “So what?” but Akram Seven yelled, “Zarri, I’m talking to you. I said a customer has come.”

  She left her breakfast and angrily went back to the bedroom, lay down on the bed and opened her legs. The customer entered the room. It was a man without a head. Zarrinkolah didn’t dare scream. The headless customer did his business and left.

  From that day on, all of the customers were headless. Zarrinkolah didn’t dare say a word about it. They might say that she was possessed by a demon. She had heard about a woman possessed by a demon, who would start shrieking at eight o’clock every night. For a while this scared away the customers until they kicked her out of the house.

  Zarrinkolah decided to sing every night at eight o’clock, so that she wouldn’t shriek like that woman. She did this for six months. Unfortunately, she couldn’t carry a tune. A guitar player said, “You bitch, you don’t even have a voice, you’re giving everybody a headache.” After hearing this, she went into the bathroom every night and sang there for half an hour. Akram Seven ignored it. After all, Zarrinkolah took care of thirty customers a day and was still cheerful. She was always cheerful.

  Then they brought an innocent young girl to the house. One day Zarrinkolah took her into her room and said, “Kid, I have to tell you something. I have to tell somebody. I’m afraid I’m going crazy. I have a secret that’s making me miserable.”

  The girl said, “Everyone has to tell their secrets to someone. My grandmother used to say that the poor Imam Ali, who couldn’t talk to anybody, used to go out into the desert, put his head in a well, and pour out his grievances.”

  “That’s true. Now I’m going to tell you. I see everyone without a head. Not the women. The men. They’re all headless.”

  The girl listened kindly. She asked, “You really see them all without heads?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, so maybe they really don’t have heads.”

  “If they really didn’t have heads, the other women would notice.”

  “Well, that’s true. But maybe they all see them without heads, but like you, they don’t dare say anything about it.”

  So they agreed that whenever Zarrinkolah saw a headless man she would let the girl know, and if the girl saw a headless man, she would let Zarrinkolah know.

  Zarrinkolah saw all the men without heads and the girl saw them all with heads.

  The next day, the girl said, “Zarrinkolah, maybe you should pray and make a vow. Maybe then you’ll see the men with heads.”

  Zarrinkolah took two days off work and went to the bathhouse. Instead of going to the public section as she usually did, she went to a private room so that she wouldn’t have to talk and joke with the other women. She hired a bath worker to scrub her back. She washed herself from head to foot. She ordered the bath worker to scrub her three times. The bath worker scrubbed until Zarrinkolah’s skin was raw. But she wasn’t satisfied that she was clean enough to pray.

  The bath worker finally broke down crying and said, “You poor woman, you must be crazy.”

  Zarrinkolah paid the bath worker well so that she wouldn’t tell anybody about her, and asked her how to perform ablutions after sexual pollution.

  When the bath worker left, Zarrinkolah performed ablutions. She did it fifty times. Her entire body was burning from the chafing of the sponge.

  She intended to get dressed and go to the shrine of Shah Abdu- lazim, but she had a sudden urge to pray. She decided to pray naked, but she didn’t know how to pray. She decided that if Imam Ali was so sad that he went out into the desert to pour out his grievances to a well, it would be all right for her to just repeat his name as a prayer. She prostrated herself in prayer, naked in the bath, saying, “Ali Ali Ali Ali Ali Ali Ali Ali Ali Ali. . .”

  As she was saying this she began to cry. She cried and called out to Ali. Somebody knocked on the door, and then banged on it. She came out of her ecstasy, and asked, sobbing, “Who is it?”

  It was the bath attendant. She said they wanted to close up the bathhouse.

>   Zarrinkolah put on her clean clothes and gave her dirty clothes to the attendant. She went out and walked to the shrine of Shah Abdu-lazim.

  It was nighttime and the shrine was closed. She sat outside in the yard and cried quietly in the moonlight.

  In the morning when they opened up the shrine, her eyes were swollen shut. She stopped crying, but did not enter. Her body felt like a piece of straw. She ate breakfast in a diner. She asked the owner, “If a person wants to drink cool water this time of summer, where should she go?”

  The owner looked at her puffy eyes with pity and said, “Karaj isn’t bad.”

  There was nothing in her face to show that she had once been a prostitute. She had become a small woman of twenty-six with a heart as big as the sea.

  She went to Karaj.

  — Translated by Kamran Talatoffand Jocelyn Sharlet

  Footnotes

  1 Shar-e Now, or New City, was the name of the red light district in Tehran before the revolution. It was burned down by the Islamists during the revolution.

  Moniru Ravanipur

  Moniru Ravanipur was born in the southern village of Jofreh in 1954. She grew up in Shiraz, and received a degree in psychology at Shiraz University.