Persian Brides

by Dorit Rabinyan

  ‘Ma, ma,’ Flora whined, her ear caught between her mother’s pinching fingers, ‘I don’t want to marry him, he has no hair.’

  ‘Na kon, don’t be like that, how you talk! He’ll get away, you fool . . . Well, do you think I wanted to marry your father?’ Miriam Hanoum scolded her daughter and suddenly chuckled. ‘Hair’s not what matters, you dope. You’ll grow your own hair and he’ll bring the money for you to curl it and put on it flowers and butterflies and hats with grapes on them. You hear me? Now come inside.’

  ‘But ma, ma . . .’

  ‘Shut up, Flora. I’m going back in there like a bride’s mother, and you come in after me, holding the tray carefully so you don’t drop the lemonade, like a good hard-working bride, and bring some seeds too. And don’t laugh too much, Flora, you hear? You hear me?’

  Miriam Hanoum returned to the guests, smiling an apologetic hostess smile, followed by Flora who was holding back her laughter. She knelt on the carpet and set down the copper tray, on which rattled the jug with the juice and the lemon halves, and the gold-rimmed glasses. Flora stood up before Morteza, hands on hips, presenting herself to his avid eyes, and said in a sweet voice: ‘I’ll just get some seeds and come back, all right?’

  His eyes glittered, and she tripped lightly to the bead curtain. In the kitchen she took a handful of the sunflower seeds Nazie had heaped on a plate, picked up her chador and said, before slipping out of the house: ‘He probably stuffs himself with halwah, this Kachalu, that’s why he has no hair. I don’t want him at all.’

  Moussa found Flora spitting out seed shells in one of the alleys and brought her back. Miriam Hanoum smashed the lemonade jug and fell on her daughter in a rage, dragging her behind the bead curtain. Not wanting the guests to hear blows coming from the kitchen, she silently bit each of Flora’s ten fingers, then brought her and the plate with the seeds back to the sitting-room.

  In the evening Morteza and Flora went for a walk in the village. Flora kept quiet, toying with a flowered handkerchief which she wound tight around her bitten fingers until the marks of Miriam Hanoum’s teeth turned yellow. Morteza stopped and begged her to take the kerchief off her head and loosen her hair, as she had done when they were children. Blinking like an owl, compressing her lips into a thin line, Flora freed her hair and let it fall on her shoulders. Now she held a handkerchief in each hand, a flowered one and a gold-threaded one.

  Morteza raised his hands to her head, caressed it gently and sank his fingers into the thick hair. For a long time he circled Flora and silently fingered her hair, curled it, softly scratched her scalp, and all the while his moustache tickled her ears and cheeks. Finally he sighed with relief, and took her back to her parents’ house.

  A blazing summer’s day followed. ‘Flora, get up, come on,’ Nazie shook her excitedly. ‘You don’t know what you’re missing, must be somebody dead, there’s an enormous funeral.’ She did not stop until Flora rose sleepily, put on her slippers and stuck her head through the open front door. A long procession of men and donkeys laden with baskets straggled through the alley. It was led by three musicians – a drummer, a bell-ringer and a flutist. The procession was followed by the neighbours and their children and all the hungry village beggars, shouting and pointing at the Ratoryan house.

  One by one, the porters laid the baskets of plenty before the house door, and held up long wooden trays. On one tray were red apples wrapped in gilt paper, on another yellow apples with silver ribbons, others held cucumbers, melons, dates, dried apricots and figs. The baskets overflowed with pistachio nuts, almonds, nutty sweetmeats, sugared peanuts, honeycombs, jars of jam, bottles of wine, various fresh pastries, dry biscuits and crisp bread. The village poor and the children stared at the abundance of sweet foods, but did not dare to snatch anything.

  The bell-ringer, a tired little clerical-looking man, whom Nazie and Flora had never seen before, asked everyone to be quiet, signalled to the other musicians to stop playing, and asked which of the girls was the honourable lady Flora Ratoryan. Flora laughed and pointed at Nazie. An astounded murmur passed through the audience.

  ‘What are you doing?’ whispered Nazie in fright.

  ‘Don’t be an idiot, Flora,’ said Flora in a loud voice. ‘Don’t you want flowers and butterflies in your hair?’

  The man smiled at them, happy to have found the girl at last, because the trek to her house had been long and arduous. He did not notice Nazie’s scared expression or hear her mumbled protests. He stuck the bell in his cummerbund, wiped the sweat from his forehead and said: ‘I have been sent on behalf of Mr Morteza Kachalu of Babol. He wishes to say that he remembers from his childhood that the lady likes sweetmeats and fruit, and he urges her to sweeten the fine hours until he returns this evening to the village, to ask her parents to hold the wedding at the end of this week, because his love is pressing.’

  ‘Where must I put the presents, Miss Flora?’ he asked Nazie when he had finished his speech. Flora stopped laughing, laid an apologetic hand on her nose, which went on snorting, and said: ‘Excuse us, sir. My sister Flora is a little excited about the beautiful gifts of Mr Morteza Kachalu, and she asks you to distribute his sweet presents to the hungry and the children.’

  With a shout, the crowd broke through the line of porters and donkeys standing in the sun, fell like locusts on the food, tore the baskets, overturned the wooden trays, and scattered the delicacies on the paving stones. The little man pulled out his bell and rang it vigorously, but his men were unable to drive back the jubilant crowd and protect the bounty. Faces were smeared with jam, children filled their clothes with sweets, and Flora laughed like a madwoman. The following day the bell-ringer returned, this time without a procession and musical instruments, and informed Flora’s father that Morteza would not marry his daughter, because his honour had been slighted. Since that time, his moustache and bald pate were never again seen in his native village.

  17

  As Flora alighted from the coach in Babol-Sar, evening too descended on the town. The air was damp and sharp-smelling. Flora was exhausted and so was the coachman. Tiredness made him impatient, and he put the trumpet of his palms to his pencil-line and shouted for passengers to Julfah.

  When Flora asked him, between the little ivory yawns escaping from her mouth, if he knew of an hotel which overlooked the sea, had a lot of arak in the cellar and sunflower wallpaper, the man again looked at her pityingly and shrugged his shoulders. He thought that he ought to take her back to the market-place in Julfah, but Flora walked away, still draped in the plaid horse-blanket.

  Local people directed her to the seashore, to the row of hotels on the front, and warned her against thieves and pickpockets. She followed their pointing fingers, walking hunched against the sea wind, which was blowing in her face, cracking her dry lips and scratching her eyes. Keeping her eyes half shut, all she saw through the thick curtain of lashes were small children, cats and beggars.

  Her thoughts kept returning to the bald head of kindly Morteza Kachalu, who had lavished fruit and sweets on her, and in return wanted only to play with her hair. Flora thought about his happy, thick-haired wife, whose bald husband loves her and does not abandon her with a baby in her belly and lice in her hair. Every step she took made her belly and breasts bounce, and the sweaty tussling of the three great balls of flesh wearied her. She would have liked to rest, but her belly hurried on. She hung back, but the baby leapt towards his father. In place of the childish courage which had accompanied her, hand in hand, all the way to Babol-Sar, shame suddenly overpowered her. And the shame did not come alone – with it came her mother, cursing and swearing with blazing eyes, her father looking strange with his moustache shaved off, Moussa carrying Manijoun in her basket, followed by his slavering white hound, Nazie walking with her eyes lowered, Homa limping after her husband, swinging her massive arms, Homa’s mother-in-law Mahatab Hanoum, Sabiya Mansour, Fathaneh Delkasht and her sister Sultana Zafarollah, and all the villagers with their dirty clothes, ugly fac
es and barefoot children. They were all chasing after her, shaking sticks and yelling about honour and shame. Flora turned around and gathered her skirts, poised for flight, but there were only small children, cats and beggars walking behind her.

  Breathing heavily, Flora reined in her rushing belly and saw a circle of boys of about her age. She pushed in among them, as if she were one of the gang, and saw in their midst a younger boy, pallid, scrawny and small. He was wearing a big woman’s dress which the boys pulled up, to reveal that he had on a baby’s diaper between his legs. The boys were pointing at his loins and singing mockingly: ‘He’s been trimmed! He’s been trimmed! He’s been trimmed in front!’ Flora extricated herself from the ring of boys and went on walking, wearily and clumsily. For a moment it seemed to her that the boys were singing ‘Flora the whora . . .’ and she wanted to cry like the boy trapped in the circle. A man who was pissing against a wall smiled at her, showing his rotten teeth and shaking his member.

  Flora walked past the pissing man and past a lamplighter, who was walking from one street lamp to the next, filling them with oil and lighting them, illuminating her way to the row of hotels, which was lined with carob trees whose sharp odour struck her nose like the smell of Shahin’s semen.

  There on the sea-front stood the hotel, exactly as Flora remembered it. Salty tongues of foam licked the stones, which were coated with a soft velvety green mould. Fishing nets lay in tangled heaps beside the door, and a seagull circled screaming overhead. The sky was the same as it had been, but lacked a moon.

  The landlady opened the door. A short woman with a short temper, she was holding an earthen lamp which lit the black moles standing out on her face. Her tired scowling glance swept over Flora’s body, from belly to breasts, from chin to eyes, and Flora almost fell into her arms like a long-lost relative. The woman moved back uneasily, fingering the moles on her chin. Then she stepped forward cautiously and raised the light to the big girl’s face. The sea breeze blew out the flame and Flora giggled.

  The woman went back into the dark house, relit the wick and threw shadows on the sunflower wall. The light revealed hairs growing from her moles and blue rings around her eyes. ‘Come in, come in, lady,’ she shouted. ‘The wind’s blowing, it’ll blow out my brazier too. What’s the matter with you, why’re you standing out there laughing?’

  ‘Thank you, madam, thank you,’ Flora whispered. The sunflowers looked back at her from all the walls, their dark eyes winking at her from their yellow crowns.

  ‘Why’re you standing there like a stick? D’you have any money?’ the woman went on shouting, wondering if Flora was deaf or drunk. ‘I’ve only got two unoccupied rooms without heat – you want them, take them – if you don’t, go to the old Kurd, he’s sure to find room for you in his stable.’

  ‘No, please listen to me, please listen . . .’ Flora clenched her chattering teeth and whispered quickly: ‘I’m looking for my husband . . .’ The scowling landlady’s eyebrows rose doubtfully. ‘We stayed here some time ago, in the early spring, to be exact . . .’ She smiled apologetically and laid her hands on her belly.

  ‘Mobaraket bashi, congratulations. So what do you want from me, lady?’ Flora remembered that in the spring the landlady had been hospitable and generous. She treated Shahin like a relative, told him dirty jokes in Armenian, and filled him up with arak. Her weary face confused Flora. She stammered and bit her tongue and could not explain what she was hoping to find in her house.

  ‘What did you drink, lady, huh? D’you have any money, or you want to stand here all night telling me stories? I don’t have time for this stuff. It’s money or goodbye. Go to the old Kurd, maybe he’s got some pity left for poor children like you,’ she grumbled and pushed Flora out of the house.

  Flora shook the door with her fists and shouted at the top of her voice: ‘Open up! Hoy hoy! D’you hear me? Open the door! Hoy hoy! You must open for me, please, please, please!’ She sank slowly to her knees, her eyes full of tears, and scratched the wood with her fingernails. Sharp splinters stuck in her flesh and her voice rose till it squeaked: ‘You must tell me where he is, hoy hoy! Open now, it’s night, and Shahin . . . I can’t find my husband, he said he was coming back, I swear, so help me, that’s what he said, Shahin, my husband. How could you forget so soon? How is it you don’t remember, huh? We were here on our honeymoon, Shahin sells silk cloth, and he has a donkey with patches around its eyes, and he, Shahin, my husband, his left eye is a little weak, you forgot? How is is it you don’t remember? Please open, please, please!’

  After a few minutes of silence the landlady opened the door slightly, pushing it against Flora, who was clinging to the wooden panel imploringly with broken nails. The two women peered at each other through the crack. The landlady squinted one eye in a dubious wink and asked slowly: ‘A weak left eye, you said, weak?’

  Flora swallowed nervously. ‘Hmmm . . . It’s lazy, my husband’s left eye. Well, not just weak, lazy.’

  ‘No,’ the woman closed her eyes decisively. ‘I know one Shahin, don’t know his family name or where he comes from, probably from the mountains. But he sells linen, not silk, and he lives not far from here, with the Bahaïs, but it must be somebody else, ’cause he’s walleyed, really walleyed, in his left eye . . .’

  ‘Walleyed! Right, right, he’s really walleyed!’ Flora shrieked and leapt to her feet, forgetting the great belly which curved before her. ‘Walleyed in his left eye, that’s him, yes, where did you say he lives? Here in Babol-Sar? Not far?’

  ‘Yes, child, yes, he’s Baboli, isn’t he? And you say you’re his wife? That I can’t understand at all . . . Where did you come from with what you’ve got in your belly, you poor girl?’ Her eyes boded no good and a trace of doubt lingered in her voice, but Flora did not notice. She felt Shahin’s hands peeling the wet dresses from her body, caressing her shivering skin, cradling her butter breasts, relieving her body of all its thick, sweet milk, emptying it of all its sorrow and longings, until she was once again as light and happy as she used to be. She did not feel the intense cold that blew from the sea and shook the carob trees, was not deterred by the sudden downpour which fell on the town, nor did she wonder why the irritable woman had been overcome with compassion and invited Flora to come into her house, to eat and rest and look for Shahin the following day. Flora, weeping and hearing only her own beating heart, begged to be told where her husband lived, and ran to him.

  18

  The closer she drew to the Bahaï house, the faster beat the tambours in her chest. By the time she reached the handsome two-storeyed house, set in an orchard of pistachio trees, the drummers were thumping frantically.

  Fear brushed her back, crept along her backbone, flickered on her nape and thrust its slimy tongue into her ears. To expel it, Flora shut her eyes tight and tried to remember Shahin, but the sly demons of Omerijan, who had followed her to Babol-Sar, erased the memory of his face, leaving only his hairy, evasive arms. She was tired. She pinched her big cheeks to redden them and shook out her wet hair.

  A low stone wall surrounded the orchard, encircled by a fresh water channel on which floated blackened windfall pistachio fruit. Flora opened the gate cautiously, and was greeted by the happy braying of Shahin’s donkey, which was tethered to a tree, its coat glistening in the rain. She looked up at the arched windows with little open balconies that overlooked the orchard. Her eyes caressed the colourful mosaic of shells on either side of the door and stared at the stuffed fish set above the doorway, at its glazed eyes and gaping, saw-toothed jaws.

  She knocked on the door. No answer. She banged on it hard with her fist and heard wooden clogs clattering inside. A slim woman in a white silk gown opened the door, holding an oil lamp in her delicate hands, which were tattooed with blue and green snakes down to the pale fingertips. Flora’s eyes descended from the snake tattoos to the Bahaï woman’s belly in its silk drapery which fluttered in the wind. The slim woman was pregnant. Her hair was the colour of milk and her teeth were small, whi
te and regular, like the string of pearls around her pale neck.

  ‘What are you looking for, girl?’ the woman asked in a voice as thin as her body, and shaded her eyes with her snake-ornamented hand. Flora gazed at her admiringly and said nothing. The woman drew her inside and closed the door, fearful of the wind.

  The entrance hall was high and marble-floored, with an empty fountain in its centre. Beside the stove stood a round marble table with a carved pedestal, its top inlaid with a black-and-white chequerboard on which were clustered chess pieces. Heavy velvet armchairs surrounded the table, awaiting the players who had abandoned the game and gone about their business. Flora looked at the stairs leading up to the balconied storey lit by little oil lamps on the treads. The baby smelled his father and butted and kicked Flora joyously.

  ‘Uh, bebakhshid, forgive me, I’ve come to Shahin, I’m looking for Shahin, his donkey is outside, he’s here, isn’t he? I saw his donkey outside so I came in, excuse me for coming in like this . . . You know him, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, girl, of course I know him. I’m his wife, who are you?’

  At that moment Flora knew that it was not his father that the vigorously kicking baby recognized, but his brother, and that they were both short-legged like their father. The clothes were bursting on her body.

  ‘Who are you?’ the woman repeated. The words in Flora’s mouth felt as hard as rocks. She walked over them as on a rugged track and suddenly stumbled and shrieked at the staircase: ‘Shahin! Shahin! Come here, Shahin! Come down now! It’s me, Flora! . . . What have you done to me, Shahin? What have you done to me? Who is this woman? What’s she talking about? Shahin!’ Her shrieks sought to mount the stairs, but the slender woman overtook her and barred her way.

  ‘God almighty, girl, what’s the matter with you, who are you, anyway? Are you crazy, or what? This is my house! Where did you come from – from hell?’ the snake woman cried, her arms crossed to form a single winding snake, her clogs stamping on the marble floor.