Strange Times, My Dear

by Nahid Mozaffari

  Their beaten bodies still recalled the pain they had suffered, and their wounds bled at times. Mahbubeh’s uncle cast disgusted glances at them, meant to humiliate. The absence of her mother made Mahbubeh choke on tears. But in spite of all this, her days were filled with caressing sunshine, and at night, listening to the songs of her body, she experienced a slow blossoming that filled her with happiness. She felt a pure contentment with herself as a woman. All this was owed, she thought, to her cousin, who diligently made fresh discoveries of all the things her girlish body could offer, eager to open new doors. But, when it came to opening all the doors, an ancient instinct prevented her from straying too far from the path of moderation. As in the fairy tale “The Imprisoned Princess and the Demon” the unraveling of each knot led to another hidden entanglement that held its promise for yet another tomorrow.

  Until, on one of those tomorrows, her mother came and took her away, and what she had steadfastly kept protected from the sweet attentions of the cousin was handed over to the manipulations of an obscene old sorceress.

  During her two-week absence, Mahbubeh’s father had found her a prospective husband. He had also instructed the mother to make sure that their daughter was still, indeed, a virgin, lest they lose all respect among their neighbors and relatives. The mother took Mahbubeh to an old woman considered an expert in matters regarding virginity. After many humiliating manipulations and tests, their minds were put to rest.

  The suitor was the neighborhood grocer. He was her father’s partner in religious observances. Each time she was sent to his store to buy something, his yellow crust-laden eyes repulsed her. He would ingratiatingly toss a packet of fruit roll, some dried figs, or a fresh pomegranate into her grocery bag. The moment she was out of his sight, she would unburden herself of these unwanted gifts. In her eyes, the grocer was Ahl incarnate. His breath smelled of ill-digested liver. Each time his fingers, like tongues of flame, reached for her chador, she would cringe.

  She had no doubt her parents were trying to marry her to Ahl. Just as in her dream, she made up her mind to die. She would sit patiently, she decided, by the tray of rice and wait for Ahl to come and tear her liver apart. The sweet melodies of her body were now completely silenced. The memory of those joyous nights with her cousin sank into oblivion, never to be re-ignited, even when he came to visit her in secret.

  The wedding was to happen two months hence, after the solemn months of Moharam and Safar.7 During the first half of Moharam, her father spent his nights at the mosque in ritual mourning and lamentation, while her mother was occupied with domestic chores. Mahbubeh’s cousin would come to keep her company. They’d sit silently on the stairs leading to the roof, listening to the sounds of wailing rising from every mosque in the city, and he’d hug his knees sorrowfully. On one occasion, when he made a move to resurrect their bygone pleasures, she ran away, terrified. The poking fingers of the old witch, searching for the evidence of her virginity, had instilled in her a lasting dread. For Mahbubeh, that was the day the idea of love had come to an end.

  One night her cousin had a piece of news for her — possibly hopeful news. It was about Elijah, the immortal, wandering green-cloaked prophet, who comes to the aid of those whose prayerful requests come from the very bottom of their hearts. For the next forty days, he instructed, Mahbubeh was to sweep the threshold of their house before each sunrise and bless the name of the Most High. It wouldn’t hurt to add some of the prayers she had learned at religious school. But her intentions should remain secret. For forty days she was to commit no sin, no matter how small, and on the fortieth day the green prophet would appear.

  No one knew in what form the prophet would reveal himself. Perhaps he’d come as a human being, perhaps not. He might come in the guise of an acquaintance, or of a total stranger. She should not be deceived by appearances. The more he insists that he’s not the green prophet, the cousin explained, the more confident she should be that he is. Cling to his garment and do not let go. That’s the way he is: one should never let go of him. And right then and there, state your request. Talk to him about your pain, and until your request is granted do not let go of him. He shall save you from Ahl and all this nonsense about marrying the grocer. And then we’ll wait until I’ve finished school. When I’m an engineer, I’ll come and make you my wife. Don’t forget to ask for all this from the green prophet. Starting tomorrow I won’t come to visit you. It’s true we’re not doing anything bad, but it’s risky for us to get intimate. You should never sin — never. Say your prayers on time. Each time you sweep, do your ablutions. I’m going. You won’t see me until the end of the forty days.

  During the forty days in which Mahbubeh sprinkled water and swept the alley, he remained true to his promise. But when the fortieth day had come and gone, the cousin didn’t show up. In the days that followed he never came. It was the green prophet who kept him away. The same green prophet to whose garment Mahbubeh had clung.

  The green prophet wore greasy blue overalls and had a long string of yellow worry beads that he twirled around his finger. He sported a huge mustache and spoke like a thug. In the beginning, he pretended not to know what the fuss was all about. He said, “Let go of me, girl. Who the hell is the green prophet you’re talking about?”

  She couldn’t find anywhere to grab onto his workman’s clothes, so she clung to his string of worry beads until the string broke and the beads scattered everywhere. Embarrassed, Mahbubeh ran after them, and as she was busy gathering up the beads, her chador slipped off her head. It was only then that the green prophet agreed to listen to the story that came pouring out of her heart. Before she had time to pull herself together and cover her head with the chador, he had caught a glimpse of her necklace and laughed.

  “Now that you’ve broken my beads, give me your necklace to make up for it,” he teased.

  Mahbubeh hesitated, then told him, “These aren’t ordinary beads. This necklace is a souvenir from my mother’s brother.”

  “If that’s the case, then good-bye.”

  “O green prophet, don’t go. Here, you can have the necklace.”

  This is how the green prophet’s worry beads came to be replaced by her clay necklace. One day, years later, she would see that necklace twisting and turning wildly on his prayer rug.

  Mahbubeh and the green prophet sat on the stoop and talked all night. She poured out her heart, and the green prophet kept asking questions. Each time she answered one, he came up with another. By sunrise he had come to know everything he needed to know about her. He knew all about Ahl, about Hajar, the wind, and the ruined village. He knew about her uncle’s disappearance, the story behind the necklace, the cousin who wanted to become an engineer, the grocer around the corner, even the scary dream she had had in the baths, and the dreadful secret of the ugly crone’s fingers. The sun had come up, and pedestrians had begun to go about their business. The green prophet stood up, shook the dust off of his pants, and banged on the door of her house. Her father, who was about to step out, opened the door, and his face quickened with rage. The green prophet shoved him aside, pushed his way into the house, and announced, “I’m the green prophet. I’m asking for your daughter’s hand.”

  One by one the days, like drops of water, dripped on the calm surface of Mahbubeh’s mind and made a slight noise. Her head felt as if encased in the steamy pool of the bathhouse, her world blanketed by a thick mist of bafflement. The wedding day was drawing near. The green prophet turned out to be a thug by the name of Asghar “Ten-Wheels,” a truck driver. Right from the beginning, from the moment he shoved her father aside, he had everyone on a short leash. The neighborhood grocer, under suspicious circumstances, was assaulted and stabbed. He closed up shop and went on a pilgrimage. Word was sent to the cousin that if he dared show his face he’d end up with a broken leg or be chopped into tiny bits the size of his earlobe. Many a night the cousin would come anyway and keep watch, throw pebbles at her window, climb the wall all the way to the roof, and on many an occasi
on, he’d even call out her name. But the windows were shut, the door to the roof was locked, the lightbulb outside the house was dead, the alleyway pitch black, and his voice got lost in the fog-infested regions of Mahbubeh’s mind. When he finally threw caution to the wind and banged on the front door, they had all gone to the baths to prepare the bride for the wedding. Mahbubeh didn’t see her cousin again for twenty-five years, not until the day her own daughter, Masumeh, was married. He told her then that Ahl and his ilk were everywhere. They are from another planet, he said, just like the rest of us.

  On her wedding night it was windy. At sunset, a large corona circled the sun, and a murder of loud, cawing crows flew close to the earth. The tattered clouds were burned away in a last burst of sunlight, and then the wind began to howl. It rattled the glass in windowpanes and uprooted antennas from rooftops. Lampposts broke. Electric wires snapped, and all the lights went out. They had no choice but to borrow kerosene lamps from the neighbors. They gathered all the dusty oil-burning lamps they could find stashed away until a sickly yellowish light filled the bridal chambers.

  From far away, the wind carried the anxious howls of beasts and drowned out the music of tambourines. Having lost their enthusiasm, the women banged listlessly on their instruments in their quarters. In the men’s quarters, they listened to mournful religious sermons. In the basement, the bridegroom and his buddies drank vodka, and when the wind seemed bent on destroying the world, they came out of the house singing their drunken songs. Even when they seemed to have disappeared into the wind, one could still hear them singing, “Hajar is getting married today, look how she’s being carried away Dum-de-dum-de-dum.”

  That night, in the whorehouses all over town, the riffraff got drunk, lost their tempers, and brandished knives. By the time the bridegroom stumbled into the bridal chamber, the kerosene lamp was sputtering.

  He hung his ripped jacket on a nail, took off his bloodstained shirt, and came to Mahbubeh’s bed. When her stifled cries turned to weeping, the bridegroom’s jacket fell on the lamp and caught fire. According to the solar calendar, this was the year one thousand three hundred and thirty-two of the Hijra, and Mahbubeh was fourteen years old.

  For a few months the young couple stayed in her father’s house. They put fresh paint on the walls of the fire-blackened room, and the broken lamppost in the street was repaired. The grocer quietly came back and reopened his store for business. The father, though he could not abide the drunken episodes of his son-in-law, said nothing, and the mother kept to herself. Because the son-in-law was a truck driver, he spent most of his time on the road anyway. When he did come home, he was either dead tired or dead drunk and out of his wits. He never parted with Mahbubeh’s necklace and was often seen twirling it around his finger, but he would occasionally bring her gifts from his travels: bracelets, gold earrings. When he was in a good mood, he’d tease her about mistaking him for the green prophet and for revealing her innermost secrets to him. She thought he was Ahl himself, and said that he’d been lying in ambush for years, watching her every move. Joking, he would growl and act like a monster, and end up hurting her delicate rib cage. His breath always smelled of vodka and garlic. His lovemaking had nothing in common with her cousin’s affectionate touch. Even after many years, he remained a stranger, a blackguard she could never hope to love. The pale memories of her cousin faded further.

  The husband could be generous, and he helped her father, who because of his excessive preoccupation with religious matters was sinking into financial ruin. The father gradually softened toward his son-in-law and was grateful that things had turned out so well for his daughter. He still hoped that the son-in-law would one day reform and stop drinking, his only obvious shortcoming. Mahbubeh’s mother, meanwhile, nagged her to start having children. But Mahbubeh was still waiting fearfully for the moment when her husband would drag her off to his mother, who, as in the dream, would treat her like a maid.

  The true ferocity of her husband’s soul had not yet been revealed — until one day a group of minstrels passed by the house.

  A group of children and idle men followed the minstrels. Neighborhood women were out watching. The minstrels played their instruments with all the passion they could muster. A young peasant with a thick mustache sang a popular song and the children echoed its refrain. It was during the refrain that Mahbubeh, who still had henna on her hands and feet, opened her window. The children were singing:

  The bride puts henna on her hands.

  If henna is hard to find, she puts on her bracelet of gold.

  The singer had heard the sound of the window opening, so he looked up smiling and sang:

  Out the window you look, smiling, gazing at me from behind your

  chador longingly, still gazing, your chador trembling,

  There’s nothing like your kiss in the whole wide world.

  Then the choir of children gathered under the window and accompanied the singer at the top of their lungs. It was the sly grocer who spilled the beans, informing the husband, Asghar “Ten-Wheels,” of the goings-on, reciting the words of the song as if they were facts. The husband, just back from a trip, saw blood. The image of Hajar the whore popped into his mind, and when he reached home, he went berserk. He tore a gold chain from around his wife’s neck and clawed at her flesh. He undid his belt and began whipping Mahbubeh for what seemed like thirty years. From then on, whenever he happened to be in one of his dark moods, he wanted to know who the singer was, how did he know that she still had henna on her hands and feet? Where and when had she met and probably kissed him? And when he was dead drunk he was seen to weep.

  From then on, in his imagination, all the women he’d pick up on the road were, like Mahbubeh, women whose husbands were on the road, Hajars who’d wear their chadors but go off with truck drivers.

  The father, who had also heard the story from the grocer, said nothing. But he seethed silently as he heard the muffled, tormented shrieks of Mahbubeh day after day. Finally, one morning he declared to his household that they must immediately move. He’d received a message from on high in a dream that the house was no longer suitable for the living. It should be dedicated to the dead, become a Muslim grave- yard. In a fit of madness, he kicked his wife and family out of the house, and as the first candidate for the graveyard, lay down, stretched out his legs, and died.

  The son-in-law took out a loan on his truck and came up with a down payment for a new house. Finally Ahl was able to move his wife into his own home.

  Mahbubeh discovered that she had no mother-in-law, but her husband soon invited an old woman to live with them as her companion — and to spy on her when he was away. The old woman turned out to be the same one who had stripped Mahbubeh of her towel in the bathhouse and admired her flawless body. From the first day, a spirit of dark fear descended upon the house. When Mahbubeh complained to her husband that she was scared of the old crone, he barked at her that maybe she was keeping secrets from him, maybe she was missing her beloved cousin, or the minstrel with his thick mustache; maybe she didn’t want a witness around when she strayed from the straight and narrow path in his absence. He so utterly silenced her with these jealous tirades that even when the old woman’s hulk of a son, who was a sergeant in the army, started visiting while the husband was conveniently away, Mahbubeh was afraid to say a word. The sergeant had obscenely bulging eyes, and he never took them off her window.

  Mahbubeh’s days were spent sweeping the courtyard, cooking, sewing, and imagining things. Although she wanted to avoid the old crone, out of sheer proximity she sometimes found herself chatting with her.

  During one of these talks, the old woman told her that if she were curious, she could teach her how to perform sorcery. Mahbubeh responded sarcastically that she was more interested in learning how to undo sorcery.

  “They’re one and the same,” the old woman declared. “By your conquest of things you undo them. And that’s sorcery.” “What is conquest?” Mahbubeh asked.

  “First y
ou drain the life out of it, then you take its place,” the crone replied.

  “How does one drain the life out?”

  “It depends how strongly it resists death.”

  The conversation ended abruptly when Mahbubeh’s mother appeared in the doorway, and the topic was never brought up again. But this brief exchange contained the seeds of sorcery within it. It lodged itself in a niche in Mahbubeh’s soul, and like an arrow shot expertly, it went on flying forever.

  Mahbubeh’s mother had other children to take care of, so she didn’t have time to visit very often. Her aunt was no longer on speaking terms with them, and so Mahbubeh had no news of her cousin. Her imagination was, in any case, now preoccupied by the two-month-old fetus in her belly. One day, as she was weaving something for her future baby, the door to her room was flung open and the sergeant sauntered in. He said that he had come to visit his mother, but she appeared to be out. He was wondering if he could wait for her in Mahbubeh’s room.

  Mahbubeh had no idea how to respond. She hastily pulled her chador over her head. Since the man had remained standing, she said, “Why don’t you sit down?” But she immediately regretted her misplaced graciousness and searched for an excuse to leave the room. She was about to do so when he blocked her way.

  Twenty-five years later, when she heard that a beefy sergeant had been hacked to pieces, she hoped that it was him.

  That night, when the old woman returned home she went straight to Mahbubeh’s dark room. She turned on the light, but when she saw the crazed look on Mahbubeh’s face and her clothes in tatters, she ran away terrified. The following day the sergeant was back, this time accompanied by his mother. Mahbubeh was still as the old woman had found her the night before. The sergeant ordered her to “snap out of it” and “stop playacting.” Then he slapped her until the flood gate of tears broke open. Mahbubeh cried until exhaustion overtook her. The crone and her son left the house, never to be seen again.