‘Nazie, Nazie, azizam, where are you?’ Miriam Hanoum shouted as she opened the door to the girls’ room. ‘What, you’ve gone to sleep? . . . Went to bed, the lady bride. Was almost asleep already,’ she announced over her shoulder to the sitting-room.
Trembling all over, Nazie extricated herself from the soft bundle of bedding. Suddenly she became aware of the murmuring of the guests in the house, as if she had woken up from a deep sleep.
‘You can laugh,’ Manijoun said to her, her hair damp and her face bright yellow. ‘Go ahead and laugh at your grandmother, wait till you choke on the egg your bastard husband planted in your belly, stupid Flora.’
Nazie thrust out the false breasts on her chest and left the room, the big laquered shoes slipping off her heels and clattering on the floor with every step, their drumming echoing her heart.
The women greeted her with subdued gilli-li-li cries, taking care not to let the neighbours hear wedding ululation coming from the house. Their kisses pricked her cheeks like skewers, and she felt that her face, without the colourful wedding makeup, was grey and ugly. The men with their trousers hitched high above their stomachs, the points of their moustaches curling downwards, stood around Moussa, who was already waiting for her under the wedding canopy, as if in a hurry to go on to another wedding. Very softly, Mahatab Hanoum’s flute trilled jolly wedding songs, while rabbi mullah Netanel the widower blessed the couple, wedging his big paunch between them.
‘Tonight we have a little bride, tomorrow we’ll have a kuchik madar . . .’ The joyous songs were sung softly, as if they were doleful, wistful songs, and the expression on the guests’ faces was intent, as if they could hear the whisper in Nazie’s ears: ‘Flora . . . Flora . . . Flora . . .’
Only Manijoun’s voice rose loud and clear from the closed girls’ room. Nazie imagined her grandmother capering in her wicker basket like a bride at her wedding, her face gleaming in the dark with oil and tears.
‘Khodaia, God, this lunatic, she’ll ruin everything!’ Miriam Hanoum hissed furiously to Sabiya Mansour, Manijoun’s sister, as though it was all her fault, and disappeared behind the door. When she returned from the girls’ room her arms were folded like a bulwark on her bosom, Manijoun’s voice was heard no more, and the rain fell harder.
Suddenly Nazie felt very tall under the canopy, her head almost touching it. She raised the velvet skirts which hid her shoes to see if she was floating, or if she had really grown that day unawares. But her feet were planted on the Kashani rug, swimming in the laquered shoes she had longed for.
‘Congratulations, mobaraket bashi,’ Miriam Hanoum muttered over her, kissing the air, her eyes turning restlessly to the windows. ‘Go outside now and bring the chickens from the comejdoun like a good bride, go on! The guests are hungry, me and Homa are going to bring in the fish and rice and everything from the kitchen. Go, azizam, go.’ Miriam Hanoum opened the door and pushed Nazie into the back yard.
Homa had earlier buried the pot with the stuffed chickens in the comejdoun under the citron tree. She had laid red hot coals on the bottom of the big, oven-shaped hollow, placed the pot on top of them, and covered it with sacks and sand, to keep hot until the meal. Moussa’s dog followed Nazie as she groped in the dark to reach the citron tree, holding up her skirts, her new shoes sinking in the mud and the thin veil on her head melting in the rain. She crouched beside the buried treasure and poked through the damp soil. But the pot was not there, only the scorched sacks in which it had been wrapped, and ashes which blackened her hands. Inside the brightly lit house the few guests were waiting for her, sprawled comfortably on the cushions around the sofreh, which was covered with steaming bowls full of rice, fish, herbs and hardboiled eggs. The glasses were red with wine, but the copper plates were empty, waiting for Nazie to come back with the chickens.
‘Ameh bozorg, I can’t find the food in the comejdoun,’ she said on the doorstep, and the clapper hanging from the mouth of the lion door-knocker clanged.
‘Nazie, you’re not a little girl anymore, you just got married – go and bring the food!’ An abyss opened in Miriam Hanoum’s black eyes as she rose and came and slammed the door in Nazie’s face.
Nazie opened the door a crack and pushed in a muddy white shoe. ‘It’s not there, ameh bozorg, by my life . . .’ she whispered, and displayed her sooty hands by way of proof.
‘So where did the chickens with the raisins and carrots fly to, Nazie? All right, come in now, come in . . . If it wasn’t for the vow I made your mother – come in, and cover your ears so people won’t see.’ The kerchief and the veil were transparent from the rain, and her dress trailed behind her like a moth-eaten rag. When she came into the room the wine-glasses stopped clinking together and the guests’ loud congratulations to the family fell silent. They looked at Nazie pityingly, at her wet dress, her slipping feather breasts, and forgot that she was Moussa’s wife and remembered Nazichi the orphan.
‘Homa, you go to the comejdoun, seeing that our bride is incapable of finding a pot of chickens buried in the ground!’ Miriam Hanoum roared over Nazie’s slumped shoulders, and Homa limped out.
‘But there really isn’t anything there, ameh bozorg.’ Nazie’s legs trembled under her dress and she needed to pee. ‘The ground ate up everything . . .’
Then Homa came back into the house with the pot full of bare chicken bones, and all the guests rose and gathered in a semi-circle at the door.
‘Homa, damn your eyes, you’ve eaten all the food!’ shrieked Miriam Hanoum, her eyes popping out of her head.
‘No, ma, no,’ Homa flapped her arms in terror, causing drops of rain and chicken bones to fly in all directions. ‘It was Fathaneh Delkasht who ate it all, by my life!’ The pot fell on the floor with a loud bang and rolled noisily. ‘She threw the pot over the almond trees and said that all the curses that you cursed her and her sister, ma, should come down on us – it was like a thousand demons were talking from her throat.’
‘Ptui!’ Miriam Hanoum spat in alarm. ‘Ptui!’
‘And then she said, ‘Your mother slaughtered fat chickens for the miserable wedding she made for Nazichi and Moussa,’ and she was laughing with snorts like Manijoun, and she said that if you tell people that she and her children and peacocks ate our food, she would go tomorrow to mullah Hassan and cancel the marriage, because the poor little girl doesn’t have her period, not even breasts, she said, and father will spend a hundred days in prison because of the bribe he gave the mullah. By my life, ma, it’s all true, and she said that Flora – oh, the things she said about Flora . . .’
‘Shut up, Homa, shut up now!’ Moussa roared, waving his hands in the air. His mother cursed and swore and the embarrassed guests departed, because the sweet stories that rabbi mullah Netanel offered them in place of the stuffed chickens did not satisfy their appetites, and he too left.
Nazie lay in her uncle and aunt’s room, behind the close door, trembling and containing herself not to pee. Miriam Hanoum stroked her face, but her eyes kept wandering to the window. She took the white kerchief from Nazie’s head, passed her fingers through the dishevelled hair, and wiped off the mud which had spattered the girl’s face. Then she bent down and, sighing, removed the white laquered shoes and rubbed Nazie’s feet with her warm hands.
‘Please don’t leave me now,’ Nazie clutched Miriam Hanoum’s arm, because she desperately longed for her mother.
‘No, azizam, don’t be afraid . . .’ Miriam Hanoum pulled away.
‘Please, please, don’t leave me alone, I want to come with you, please, ameh bozorg, please.’ Fresh tears flowed from Nazie’s eyes and her hands did not loosen their grip on Miriam Hanoum’s arms.
‘Enough, Nazie! It’s not nice what you’re doing, you’re not a little girl anymore – soon you’ll be kuchik madar – sit on the bed and wait for your husband to come in.’
‘Stay with me . . .’ Nazie pressed her thighs together.
‘Come now, stop crying, enough! . . . God have mercy on Flora, she�
��s such an idiot. She told you what Shahin – God send him to hell – what he did to her that night, didn’t she?’
Nazie nodded. The copper plates that Homa was stacking in the kitchen made a loud ringing noise, and Miriam Hanoum blew out the candle with one puff.
‘Well, I hope God gives you both better luck than my daughters – and He should pour boiling black tar into the heart of stinking Fathaneh,’ Miriam Hanoum shouted, closing the door behind her. ‘And blood, blood should flow like water all year round from Sultana’s hole, hoy Khodaiah, please God!’
Moussa came in and at once kissed Nazie’s lips. His eyes were shut and his lips tinkled on hers like a teaspoon stirring sugar in a glass of tea. Putting his hand to the front of her dress he unbuttoned it slowly, until the damp feather breasts fell out with the strip of bedsheet and rolled on the floor. He tickled her with his fingers. Nazie giggled, and the stream of urine which flowed into her underpants spread a pleasant warmth between her thighs. Moussa did not notice the odorous circle which spread slowly through her damp dress. He only opened his eyes and saw Nazie laughing in the dark when he heard his mother’s jubilant voice shouting:
‘Well, you finished, Moussa, you finished there?’ Miriam Hanoum thumped on the door enthusiastically. ‘You two finished now?’
Persian Brides Page 19