‘Where are you going in your dreams, bad girl?’ Manijoun rose from her basket. Her ancient eyes closed again, but her mouth remained open.
‘Shhh . . .’ whispered Flora with a finger to her lips, her head inside the house and her body already out of it. ‘Sleep, grandma, sleep.’
‘Mustn’t go out now, bad girl, go back to your dreams. You mustn’t.’ Flora heard the old woman muttering as she softly closed the door.
The darkness and the hour felt strange to her. The familiar village had turned quite black. The skyline of roofs and treetops was obscured, and the face of the village sank like that of an old man. The wind fluttered the chador around her head and tore her hair loose, making it flutter like a flag on the pole of her body. When she emerged from the alleys of the Jubareh strange dogs barked at her, then stopped after she passed and listened to the echo of their barking following her echoing footsteps. Reaching the market-place, she stopped beside the fence of the lighted, crowded whorehouse and listened to the men’s hiccups and the women’s laughter. Suddenly she felt very thirsty. Like a sleepwalker, she entered the kahweh khooneh, the coffee-house next to Mamou’s place, that was painted bright blue all over.
She used to peer curiously into its interior and watch the red-eyed men playing chess and backgammon, swearing and singing lewd songs, dragging the pieces and slamming them hard on the wooden boards. Mamou’s customers, after leaving her house and pissing in her yard, would tie their trousers, spit at the corner and harass the women shoppers in the market. Seeing Flora staring at them big-eyed, they would invite her to join them in the coffee-house. But Nazie would tug at her dress in fright and pleadingly drag her away.
Flora walked into the lighted billows of smoke, her eyes half shut like a somnambulist, and passed between the oil lamps. At once the eyes of the drugged men, their hoarse laughter and lewd jokes, were drawn to her full breasts, her backside and belly. They uttered sharp whistles of admiration under their curling moustaches, but Flora did not turn back, because good little Nazie was not behind her, pulling at her kerchief and imploring tearfully, ‘Enough, Flora, come on out.’ She was not afraid, because she knew that Moussa and his dog were asleep and would not be looking for her. Shahin too was gone, and was not there to reach for her nightgown, feel its rustling fabric, and tuck his head between her breasts.
From the depths of the den men crept towards Flora, putting out long writhing arms, their eyes rolling to the ceiling, whispering together with mouths that reeked of hashish and opium and rotten teeth.
‘Miss Flora,’ they buzzed and chirped, ‘couldn’t you fall asleep this black night?’
‘Too hot to sleep tonight, eh, Miss Flora, time to celebrate . . .’
‘Are you cold, Miss Flora, you want us to hug you and stroke you and set your pretty body on fire?’
‘This isn’t a body for sleeping, Flora, it’s a body for partying . . . What’s the matter with you, what are you afraid of?’
Hairy paws multiplied, reaching for her breasts, her buttocks and belly, hovering over her sleepy indifference. Yellowed fingers scratched her skin, lustful hands slapped her flesh, her dresses rustled one on top of the other, and the men grew merrier.
‘My teeth . . .’ Flora mumbled dully. ‘Teeth hurt.’ She pressed her hand to her round cheek, to show that she was in pain.
The men crowed delightedly as if her teeth were a gift from heaven. They spat on the filthy floor, dipped their black-nailed thumbs in the arak bottles and pushed them into her mouth to suck for relief. When after sucking their fingers she said she was still in pain, they slid the stone cover off one of the opium pits in the coffee-house floor.
Flora watched the man who crouched over the little pit and kindled the black lumps for her, and did not struggle when he rose and urged her to kneel and breathe the smoke. Her arms hanging at her side, her knees apart, she submitted to the heavy hand pressing her head down and obeyed the strange harsh voice ordering her to fill her lungs with the smoke. She hoped to find in the cavity the sleep which she and her baby had lost, and her eyelids grew heavy. Intense heat spread in pleasant waves from her womb throughout her body, as if she had mated with the sun and a tiny sun, round and summery, was glowing inside her. She broke out in a sweat and sighed. After a little while she realized that the heat which was spreading soft flames through her came not from the smoke, but from the organ of the man who had lighted the opium for her, and who was pushing her from behind.
Her skirts were up above her waist and her bottom was bare, shining in the dim light of the coffee-house. The man had shoved his knees between her thighs, clasped her waist, and with strong rhythmic movements thrust towards her womb. Flora’s mind cleared and she jumped up in alarm, throwing off the man with his member, who slid down without a protest and rolled on the floor. She rallied her melting limbs and though drained of strength fled into the darkness.
Flora ran and ran towards the Jubareh without looking back, passed the almond grove and left the village through the Jews’ gate. Only when the night sounds of Omerijan had been left behind her, and all around her stretched open black spaces, did she slow down and stand still, panting and shivering.
The sky shimmered with stars without so much as a sliver of a moon to outshine them, and even the clouds could not suppress their twinkling. Flora decided to keep going. Adjusting the chador on her head, she went on without turning to look at the sleeping village and the wind that trailed behind her. Heavy and quiet, she walked down the wide donkey track, and as she walked she began to feel better. The wind behind her abated, and with it the intermittent prickly shower. Silvery mists rose like smoke from the ground and drifted around the tree trunks, muddy streams flowed down the hillsides, beads of moisture shivered on the grass. The smell of the watermelon vomit evaporated, together with the scent of rose oil. Only her own sweet sweat accompanied her on her way.
At the black mouth of a cave with a spring bubbling out of it she knelt down for a drink of water. The breaking dawn turned the rocks of the cave blue and the spring water green. A flock of birds flew from the mountains towards the sea. Flora yawned and looked at the emerging outline of the town of Julfah and the villages surrounding it, where early chimneys were beginning to smoke. Between her and the town lay fields of opium poppies, rice, beans and wheat, melon patches dotted with tiny yellow specks, and blue ponds alive with sweet white fish.
16
When Flora reached the busy market-place of Julfah later that morning, she was blue from the cold and her knees trembled with pain. Her shoes were black with mud and her waterlogged dresses clung to her body, making her swollen belly stick out. But no-one took any notice of her.
Strangers walked around her, monkeys danced to their trainers’ drumming, snakes rising from baskets swayed to the sounds of flutes. A pedlar tried to sell her a bunch of bananas. Flora put out her hand to pluck the yellow fruit, then recalled that she had not brought any money. A dentist invited her to sit in his treatment chair. Beside it was a small table displaying sets of false teeth in pinkish gums. A customer who had just had three of his front teeth pulled out stood up from the chair and opened his mouth wide for the crowd of curious onlookers, who poked fingers into it admiringly. Flora declined to sit in the chair and walked away with the dispersing crowd. The dentist trilled a sad song about a prince whose teeth hurt and who suffered dreadfully, until he found relief in the treatment chair.
Flora stepped aside for a line of creaking handcarts, then made her way to a coach parked on the rim of the sunken square, attracted by the cries of the coachman: ‘Babol-Sar! Babol-Sar!’ He cupped his hands at his mouth like a trumpet, and when he lowered them revealed a pencil-line moustache. His eyebrows resembled a pair of scrubbing brushes.
Flora fell at his feet, spattering mud in her eyes and hair, and at once a crowd gathered around her. The coachman, who had seen her coming, put the trumpet back to his mouth and shouted: ‘Midwife! Midwife!’ Three men carried Flora in a large wicker basket to the side
of the square, thick veins bulging on their foreheads and necks from the strain.
Despite the old saying that warns against calling in more than one midwife – ‘A baby pulled by two midwives will have its head torn off’ – two of them arrived at the Julfah market-place, met on the rim and began to argue who had got there first. Very soon they raised their hands to pull and bared their teeth to bite. Flora rose laughing from the basket and told them that they were both too early. The coachman settled her in the coach, covered her with a plaid blanket from one of the horses, and gave her hot tea and a round Barbary loaf with black olives.
‘Vavaila! How you run around like this in the rain, with your belly hanging out!’ the disappointed midwives scolded the pregnant stranger, shaking their fingers in her face, and warned her that her baby would be sickly and suffer from colds all his life. Flora in alarm swallowed an olive with its pit, and laid her hands on her belly to protect Shahin’s son from the evil predictions. The midwives went home, the crowd went back to its own business, and the passengers for Babol-Sar squeezed into the coach beside Flora.
‘You getting off, lady?’ asked the coachman, taking up the reins, and his eyebrow-brushes rose to his hair line.
‘Can I come too?’ Flora asked.
The man looked at her pityingly, scratched his head, shrugged and whipped up the horses. Throughout the journey to the coastal town of Babol-Sar Flora swayed from side to side between the passengers, huge and laughing.
It was along this route that Flora and Shahin had journeyed on their honeymoon – from Omerijan to Julfah, from Julfah to Babol, and thence to Babol-Sar. The vineyards and tobacco fields reminded Flora of her husband’s kisses and caressing hands. When they were leaving the village, Moussa had scolded her for giggling: ‘You’re laughing again? What’s so funny now? You should cry, not laugh, when you leave home. They’ll say you were miserable at your mother’s house, that’s why you’re laughing. Idiot.’ But Flora clung to her husband’s small body and continued to laugh, until she snorted and fell silent.
Shahin led her to an hotel which had sunflower wallpaper on its walls. There he left her alone in a room overlooking the sea and returned late that night, swearing and muttering in Armenian. Flora wanted to spread the sheet with the humming-birds which Nazie had embroidered for her, but Shahin threw her on her back and entered her, with only the prickly woollen blanket under them. Then they drank wine and arak, distilled by the landlady in the hotel cellar, and Flora laughed all night. A little before dawn Shahin told her to get dressed, and took her to the sea shore.
The moon above was silvery and round as their two faces. ‘Look what’s happening to it, Shahin!’ Flora shouted between her husband’s arms. When the moon was quite overcome by the black shadow it swelled and gave off a reddish glow.
At lunchtime they went to a restaurant which had a channel of sea-water running through it, and mattresses strewn amid beds of immense roses. Shahin sprawled on a blood-and-grease-stained mattress and Flora reclined on the cushions at his side. The landlord served them sweetened rosewater, and slaughtered a tender lamb before their eyes. They remained in the restaurant until nightfall, eating more and more of the roasted lamb, dozing in the pleasant sea breeze, and smelling the fragrant roses. When the sun went down the landlord came out of the kitchen and announced that there was nothing left but the bones. Shahin told him to make soup with them.
When they returned to their hotel room in the dark, Flora was bursting with stories to tell Nazie, Homa and her mother. That night she learned that her husband could not fall asleep without rubbing some fabric between his fingers and making it rustle. He rubbed her fine nightgown, and its rustling stopped only when he dozed off. He slept on his left side during the first half of the night, to rest his liver, then woke and turned on his right, to give his intestines a rest.
During the coach ride Flora also remembered bald Morteza Kachalu. who used to live in Omerijan but moved with his parents to Babol-Sar. She knew that if Morteza was married, his wife was sure to have thick, long and silky hair.
Ten carrier pigeons flew to heaven on the day Flora got her first period. The bleeding began at midday, but only at night did Flora discover the darkening streaks which had run down her legs and dried on her ankles. She followed their trail as one follows a snail’s track, until she reached the sticky opening. Laughing heartily, she told her secret to Nazie, who told Moussa, who told Homa, who told her father, who told Miriam Hanoum, who proudly informed the whole village. The following day she presented her daughter with a deep bowl full of olive oil, to look at her reflection and see that she was a woman, and asked Nazie to start stitching Flora’s bridal sheet.
Nazie worked at it for two years. Every evening she would scrub her housework-grimy hands with lemon halves, to remove the dark grease. When the lemons had turned grey and her clean skin showed, she would pick up the cotton sheet and continue the stitching precisely where she had left off the previous evening. Around the edges she embroidered pairs of courting humming-birds, their wings outspread and beaks gaping in delight, the males blue and the females purple. Nazie worked patiently and carefully, her eyes always on the sharp point, to make sure she did not prick her finger and allow her virginal blood to stain the needlework. Flora would lie on the rug at her feet, tickle them with a goose feather and dream about the man who would make love to her and the blue and purple hummingbirds.
When they returned from their honeymoon, and Miriam Hanoum asked her laughing daughter to show her the blood flower which had blossomed in the embroidered sheet, Flora slapped her forehead – she had forgotten her bridal sheet in the hotel in Babol-Sar.
Flora was eleven when her proud father climbed on Sultana Zafarollah’s roof and sent out the news of her nubility to the matchmakers of the surrounding villages, attached to the feet of ten carrier pigeons. After the weary pigeons returned to their dovecot, young bachelors arrived with their old mothers, as well as desperate widowers and men seeking a second wife. They all came to see who was this Flora Ratoryan, whose father averred that she was ‘beautiful as lemon blossom, smiling like a baby camel, and possessing a good dowry – all assuring a man’s happiness’. He also wrote that Flora was as sturdy as her mother and older sister, and had recovered from all her childhood ailments as if they were no worse than a mild autumn cold.
‘I am certain,’ he wrote in curling Persian script using a raven’s feather dipped in india ink, ‘that Flora, like her mother, will bear healthy children in exemplary calm without screaming,’ and sealed the notes with red sealing-wax.
The pilgrimage to Omerijan was large and persistent, and the house buzzed with aspiring bridegrooms. Manijoun’s basket was moved to the shed, Nazie laboured endlessly in the kitchen, and Miriam Hanoum, dressed in her finest gowns, received the would-be grooms and invited them to eat. Her husband would pour the tea and light the hookah for smoking hashish and opium.
When the prospective groom had presented himself, his attributes and property, Moussa would go with his dog to look for Flora, at Homa’s or in the neighbours’ kitchens. Sometimes, when Moussa took too long to locate his sister, the suitors would fall for Nazie’s cooking, their hearts captivated by her diligence, and they would ask Miriam Hanoum if they could have the younger daughter. Miriam Hanoum decided to lock Nazie in the bean shed, so that she would not disturb the match-making. One evening she forgot to let her out, and in the morning Nazie came out soaked in the urine she had been unable to contain, her hands bleeding from her battles with rats.
Miriam Hanoum and her husband chose the richest suitor, bald Morteza Kachalu, whom Flora had known in her childhood. He had become bald at the age of eight. He suffered from ringworm, and his mother took him to the ringworm healer. The heavy-handed woman shaved the boy’s head with a razor, smeared his naked skull with warm tar mixed with burnt cow’s dung, and bound up the mess with a piece of sackcloth. Morteza wore this heavy cap for three weeks, feeling his scalp burning and his head spinning. On the day he was
due to return to the healer, his mother took him to the hammam, allowed him to play to his heart’s content in the warm pool, bought him a glass of cool faloudeh and a bowl of date porridge.
‘Finish it now,’ she said to the healer that evening. ‘I can’t bear to see the boy like this.’
She gripped him between her knees, covered her eyes with one hand and pushed the other one, clenched, into his mouth. Morteza shrieked and bit his mother’s fingers, but she held on. The healer took hold of the helmet, which had been softened by the vapours of the hammam, and pulled it off his head, and with it, the affected skin and all his hair. When Morteza was twelve years old a fine moustache appeared on his upper lip, cheering the melancholy boy, who shaved it every day until it thickened. His parents left Omerijan after he went bald, and established a glass factory in Babol, and by the time he returned to the village to ask for Flora’s hand his black moustache was as thick and stiff as that of the king’s son, his bald pate gleaming above it. Flora ran to the kitchen and peered through the open door, laughing and snorting. Her laughter reminded Morteza of their childhood games. He cast longing glances at her, puffed out smoke rings and twirled his moustache.
Miriam Hanoum came into the kitchen, sweeping Flora before her, and whispered thunderously: ‘Flora! Beterki, you should burst! There’s a bridegroom in the house – how long can a bridegroom wait for his bride to come in?’
Persian Brides Page 14