The aghd ceremony has long ended, but there are still several women, holding small jewelry boxes, waiting their turns to offer a bridal gift. Mom’s ruby necklace looks beautiful on Vida, but from her forced smile I can tell how tired my sister must be. I knew jewelry was the traditional gift, but didn’t expect the items to be so elaborate. I watch Vida reach up to another lady, who is now presenting her with an ornate gold chain. She kisses the woman’s cheek and passes the gift over to Aunt Mandy to hold.
“Yalda-joon, could you bring me that velvet sack, please?” Mom calls out over the cacophony of women huddled around the sofreh. Amid all this, poor Bijan sits idly, his cheeks covered in all shades of lipstick. I’m surprised that the Islamic law allows the groom to be among women; then again, I suppose in his vulnerable state, he is not considered a threat to their virtue.
I rush to the adjoining room, where I’ve left my purse. There in the middle of what must be a dining room, is a large table with a few gift-wrapped boxes and a mound of handbags, shawls, and scarves. I lift a paisley shawl from over the other purses and can’t help wondering why so many women carry a black purse.
“Hello, Yalda.”
His voice is deep and even though I haven’t heard enough of it, I know it well. My swift turn knocks something off the table, but neither of us bothers to check. He stands less than three feet away and now seems taller than the man at the airport. His eyes are dark, but they are filled with tenderness. Their warmth hooks me, yet I can’t find a name for how I feel.
His smile is lopsided, filled more with sorrow than joy. He leans forward and opens his long arms. I instinctively take a small step back. I am not going to let him come any closer. Touching him would only validate his presence in my life. It’s hard enough to be in the same room with the man, and I realize that despite the days and weeks of being here, I’m not ready for this. How much time does one need to accept that the dead is in fact alive? I look at my sweaty palms and remind myself how he has long missed the chance for such an embrace. It is now my turn to reject him and I want him to feel what it’s like. No matter how many times I have dreamt of my father’s arms around me, I feel compelled to refuse him. Doing so is a touch of ice over my deep sore.
From the corner of my eye I watch him lower his arms in slow motion. I stare at my trembling hands and pray that, with my back to the light, I’m just a dark shadow to him and that he can’t see my anguish. A few seconds pass before I slowly circle the table. Hoping to appear casual, I continue to sort the pile of purses through a blur. Under the weight of his stare, and of all that is going on in my head, the thought that he might be checking my imperfect steps is the clearest. For the first time in years, what’s left of my limp no longer seems so slight. I won’t allow him to feel sorry for me. Does he have any idea what I’ve endured to come this far?
The fear that I might stumble and fall is back and the timidity that I left behind years ago now creeps back with full force. Am I sweating?
“Yalda jan, it’s wonderful to be reunited … at last.”
Oh, what a voice. I bet this is what attracted his woman to him, this warm, loving, conniving tone and his theatric performance. I prefer the Shirazee “ jan” over Tehran’s “ joon.” How strange it is to enjoy his voice, his rolling “rrr”s and how he annunciates every word. Part of me wants him to go on talking. What a cozy feeling it is to be standing here, facing my father, a living, breathing person who despite the gray hair is still strong and handsome, more so than all the after-school-fathers of my childhood.
In a few small steps, I have distanced myself as far as the small room allows. I turn to the single window, where a blue curtain separates us from the world out there. For a moment, I let my mind paint a variety of endearing pictures. I imagine him in his car waiting in front of my school. He opens the door to his car, helps me up and fastens my seatbelt. He goes around the car and waves to my friend Tanya’s father. I picture him clicking his camera as I blow out the candles on my birthday cake. I hear my young giggle as he picks me up for a ride on his broad shoulders. He looks so great in all those visions that I want to hold on to them. But then I turn and flinch at the man across the room. Warm as his eyes may try to be, his mere presence sends a cold sensation through me.
Here is my purse. I open it and take out the green velvet sack Mom has brought along for the bridal jewelry. I toss my purse back among the others and go around the far side of the table. He doesn’t move and I have a feeling is no longer looking at me, either. I grab the door’s handle, but before leaving, I turn and nod politely.
He looks up, his jaws tight, his eyes dark. No, I’m not going to let his sad expression soften my heart. I’m only here to make sure my mother’s future, and mine, will have nothing to do with this man.
“Good to meet you, too, Colonel.”
I don’t think my voice has ever been colder. The mere mention of his army rank builds a wall of ice between us. His tormented face bears no resemblance to the arrogant man in that picture Mom had shown me. The faint smile has vanished and he suddenly looks old, fragile even. He looks down and I want to believe that he is bending down his head in shame. Then again, maybe he’s just studying my feet.
When he looks up, I think I see the sparkle of tears in his eyes and I’m surprised at the sting of regret inside me. Have I pushed him too far? Am I hanging the man without the benefit of a fair trial? For all I know, this could well be my only chance to exchange words of affection with someone whose absence has left a huge void in my life.
Stop it, Yalda!
I am back in the crowded room where many women are talking at once and no one seems to be listening. Mom’s eyes find mine and as I pass the velvet sack into her outstretched hand, her fingertips stay on my hand a bit too long. She stares into my eyes before taking the sack then turns back to Vida, but in her hesitant touch she has already told me she knows.
Loud music blasts through the room and Bijan’s sister—whose name I’ll never be able to pronounce—starts her solo dance in the middle of the crowded room. Women step back and open a circle and everyone, including the bride, claps to the beat.
Of all that I had pictured, that sure was the worst way to meet him.
I join the clapping and marvel at the woman’s swift moves in a seductive dance. Someone circles the room with a tray of burning wild rue. I take a deep breath and pull in the pleasant aroma. Mom is finally sitting down with a glass of tea and has removed her shoes. I study her across the room. She takes a sugar cube, dips it in her tea before putting it in her mouth and sipping the tea. Back home, she never did this. Like the rest of us, she poured a package of sweetener in her large mug. Then again, back home she wasn’t so animated, either. As much as I hate to admit it, my mother seems to be home for the first time.
Mom looks up and I wonder if her eyes are questioning me. Did she know when she sent me for the pouch that Moradi would be there? I must be crazy to think this. How could she? Fascinating as this ceremony has been, my mind won’t leave the adjacent room and I’m not too happy about the way I’ve handled the situation.
Then again, I was polite. At least I did tame my anger. A Colonel might consider such discipline good enough for now. But will he call again?
I help Aunt Mandy with the cleanup and gather scraps of wrapping paper from the floor. Over and over I revisit the scene in the next room and try to be objective about it. I know Mom’s side of their marriage, but what’s his? There has to be more to find out. If I am to ensure Mom’s freedom, I will need something to nail him.
Chapter
Twenty-Four
MR. ESKANDARY’S DARK OFFICE furniture prepares me for the gloomy job ahead. This must have been how the place looked when his father practiced law, but now that it’s his alone I can’t see why he doesn’t make it more cheerful. It’s as though lawyers anticipate unpleasant discussions and set the mood. In the heavy silence of the room, I glance across the desk at our lawyer and detect a stern expression on his face.
Mr. Eskandary clears his throat. “I’m afraid I have some bad news.” He wiggles in his chair. “Colonel Moradi has sent back the documents.” He flips through a few pages of the file before him and adds, “Unsigned.”
“Why?” I ask as a reflex.
The young lawyer looks at Mom, then at me. “He demands to be present at the hearing.”
I look at Mom and wonder if she feels my anxiety. If she has any of her own, she sure has a good way of masking it.
So far, my father has only discussed the matter of a divorce with Mr. Eskandary. Throughout the proceedings, he agreed with Mom’s suggestion that his lawyer represent him whenever she was present. This is the first I hear of this, and judging by the expression on Mr. Eskandary’s face, it can’t be good.
The next minutes go by in silence. I study Mom and wonder why she decided to wear black today. Lately she hasn’t worn any bright colors, not even at home. She also seems more distant and I sense a world of cultural differences standing between us. Here, my mother’s otherness is more evident to me. It’s hard to see her contentment in a place that is so foreign to me. I love listening to her chatter, or to catch the sparkle in her eyes. But the new distance between us scares me. The fact that we share so little makes me feel like an intruder. Sometimes I wonder if she resents having left this place, resents her American life, and I don’t even want to consider how she feels about her daughter being so American.
As for me, it’s just a journey, a chance to know the family I didn’t know I had and become familiar with my mother’s background. Sometimes I think I’ve had just about enough of it. Like a common cold, the melancholic mood of this nation has spread, affecting each one of us. Sometimes the only thing Mom and I seem to share is a charged silence.
I loosen my headscarf and let the breeze from the ceiling fan cool my sweaty neck.
“Good idea,” Mom says and she unties her own scarf, fanning her face with its sides.
Mr. Eskandary looks away and ignores our lack of hejab, but he stays on the subject. “Trust me, I was surprised to hear this request.” And he sounds ashamed for my father’s behavior.
A bitter smile parts Mom’s lips and she recites a verse, “Each moment another new harvest arrives from this garden.” Mr. Eskandary nods his understanding and I wonder if this is another one of her word-for-word translations. For as long as I can remember, my mother has put Persian expressions to English words, disregarding how much of the meaning may be lost in translation. But lately it happens too often and sometimes sounds like a whole new dialect. I have also noticed she has a heavier accent, dragging her words and ending most of her questions with a ‘yeees’ or a ‘nooo’. “You’re going shopping with me, nooo?”
“In another circumstance this should make no difference,” the lawyer says in a calm voice. “It’s just that Colonel Moradi’s charisma may make it harder for us to convince the judge of his … neglect.”
Neglect indeed.
I realize that for a polite lawyer, there would be only a few words to describe my father’s indiscretions, especially his bigamy.
“Maybe it would be best if we weren’t present,” I suggest, not knowing what else to say. “I’m obviously not going to be much help before a Persian-speaking judge. And as for Mom, I’ve said this before, I won’t send her in alone.”
“I understand. But you’re my key witness.”
“What witness? I was just a baby, remember? Why not call on my sister to testify?”
Mr. Eskandary looks disturbed. “I did. But Miss Vida has specifically requested to be excluded.” He gives me a desperate look. “You’re all I’ve got.” He smiles bitterly and points to the street. “Unless I hire one from out there.”
“Hire? I’m not sure I know what you mean.”
“Madam councilor,” he addresses me formally, as he did when we first met. “Please don’t forget you’re in Iran. There are thousands of jobless people who for a small amount would swear to anything you want them to. You’ll see them hanging around the courthouse like hungry flies. But that’s not the kind of witness you want, especially not when the judges know them all.”
Mom is quiet and I wonder if she is losing hope the way I am.
I think for a moment. “Everything I know is already documented.” I nod to the file before him. “Can’t you use that?”
Mr. Eskandary gives me a sad look.
“We could. But I’m afraid Colonel Moradi’s request is very specific. He has insisted that both of you be present.”
Out on the hot sidewalk, Mom and I are instructed to take the back seat of Mr. Eskandary’s car. “Islamic rules,” he explains while holding the door for Mom.
The first time I saw his beat up BMW, it surprised me that a successful lawyer could not afford a better car, but now I’ve been here long enough to know. With a declining economy and a ban on foreign imports, a luxury car, no matter how much of a wreck it may be, is still an indulgence.
With Mom and me safely tucked away, Mr. Eskandary gets behind the wheel and plunges into Tehran’s heavy traffic.
“You’re a great driver,” I comment.
“Thank you, but as we say, all the drivers in Tehran are great because the bad ones are already dead.” He chuckles at his own joke.
As he settles into what resembles a normal lane, I try to organize my thoughts. I am definitely not prepared for this court session. Moradi’s request has taken away some of my earlier confidence and I feel the kind of jitters that were saved for finals. I try to picture the situation as a game of chess but, no matter how I look at it, I can’t guess what the lawyer’s plan of action is.
Mr. Eskandary breaks the heavy silence, “You’ll see a crowd outside the courthouse, Some may offer to step in as your witness— shahed—family, and even be your lawyer.”
Mom chuckles. “Only in the land of flowers and nightingales.”
I don’t understand her using such poetic description to criticize or mock the system, but gather that maybe Iranians use poetry even in their insults.
We turn into a side street and stop by a two-story building. Mr. Eskandary inches forward through a crowd that takes little notice of the approaching car. Finally he pulls alongside a whitewashed wall without running over anyone. “Please, ignore the mob and follow me into the building.”
A single flag hangs above the narrow doorway and the guard standing outside has his hand on the barrel of his shotgun, watching the crowd. The building looks so ordinary that, had there not been a flag, I would have thought it to be a residence.
“This is the Courthouse?” I say, not hiding my ridicule.
Mr. Eskandary eyes me in the rearview mirror. “It is, and it isn’t. You won’t find the glamorous courthouses of America here; however, this is just a small branch of the main court.” He chuckles. “We’re not that bad.”
I think I have offended him and want to say something, but he gets out of the car and opens the back door. “The main courthouse is in the central portion of the city. This one is what we call The Family Support Court.” He shakes his head in sorrow. “When you consider that only matters of divorce, domestic violence and so on are brought here, the name becomes an oxymoron.”
There’s no parking meter. Mr. Eskandary takes out a heavy chain from the glove compartment, wraps it around the steering wheel and locks it with a padlock. “Car theft is so common that we need to take matters into our own hands,” he says and then calls a boy standing nearby and gives him some money. I figure he’s asking the guy to watch the car.
I adjust my headscarf and follow Mom, who is trying to keep up with Mr. Eskandary’s fast pace. Suddenly people swarm around us, “Khnoom, shahed?”
Mr. Eskandary looks back and calls out to me. “This way please.”
No sooner do they hear a foreign language than the younger guys start yelling, “Mademoiselle? Hey, Mademoiselle!”
Mom grabs my hand the way she used to when I was a little girl and pulls me. I willingly follow and try hard not
to look around as we pass through.
Mr. Eskandary presents the guard with a document, which is probably our entry permit. We step into a long and poorly lit hallway. Here, too, there are many people, though these pay little attention to us. There are a few benches, but they are occupied and people are also sitting on the mosaic floor, leaning against the wall. A woman holds the edge of her chador between her teeth while rocking an infant in her arms. As I pass by, she looks up with suspicion. She has dark, beautiful eyes, but I sense hostility in them, even resentment. Men stare and one says something to Mom, but she doesn’t seem to notice as she continues to follow Mr. Eskandary. We stop in front of room 11. I know this number because it’s the only one in Persian that resembles ours.
Mr. Eskandary knocks on the wooden door and a guard opens it halfway. They exchange greetings before he steps aside, leaving the door wide open.
The room is no larger than Aunt Mandy’s guestroom. Its meager furnishings consist of a long table, where two men are seated facing three short rows of metal chairs. Two of the chairs are already occupied. A turbaned clergy sits behind the table with a young man next to him, sitting erect, hands on his typewriter. The other two have their backs to us, but I have no trouble spotting my father’s tall torso. At the sound of our high-heeled shoes on the mosaic floor, he stands and turns to face us. My father’s lawyer and the young clerk also stand up in a show of respect; only the clergy remains seated. He glances at us sideways and continues to twirl his prayer beads.
We reach the row of chairs and I notice my father’s eyes are on Mom. No, it’s more than that. Their eyes are locked. The moment lasts long enough to make me uncomfortable. I don’t know what to make of it, so I look away.
Mr. Eskandary is saying something to the clergy, then turns around and pulls up a chair for Mom. My father has finally taken his eyes off Mom. He beckons to the chair next to him, but I pretend to miss that and take a seat on the second row behind Mom. When Mr. Eskandary gives a bow and presents the clergy with a file, it is clear that we are indeed in a courtroom and the turbaned man must be the judge.
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