Fatemeh held little Peyvand to her. She needed to get out of her mother-in-law's house. Curse Hadi! Why didn't he get them a home of their own? She put her hand on the baby's bottom. Wet through. She took off his tiny pyjamas. There was another pair underneath, then another, then another. She had thought his bottom was especially chunky. Instead of changing him, his grandmother had just kept adding dry layers. In fury Fatemeh ripped off his layers and his dirty nappy and washed her baby boy's raw red bottom in the sink.
There was a row that night when Hadi finally got home. 'Just ignore my mother,' he said, 'she's old, ignore her.'
'She wants to give my baby opium. Opium, Hadi! I can't leave him alone with her any more.'
Although Hadi was earning good money, he was supporting a lot of people. He was the eldest son and had been the man of the house since he was six years old.
When they were still barely speaking Madar Jaan announced the latest news. 'Fati is pregnant. That is why she has been so troublesome lately. It is good, my son. When she has another baby to look after, she will be too occupied to keep complaining like she does.'
Then off she waddled to console her daughter-in-law crying in the bedroom.
'Dry your tears, my darling, a new baby is a blessing.'
'A blessing? When my husband is out all the time? When we don't have a home of our own and my other baby is barely crawling?'
'Tsk.' Madar Jaan shook her head and let out a little chortle. 'You young women don't know how lucky you are. You and Hadi have a room all to yourself here. I had to raise four children in just one room for all of us. You complain about your husband but he doesn't even beat you! He is a modern boy. My husband, may God rest his soul, beat me with a spade. Did I complain like you? No, I did not. I loved my husband and did as I was told. When he died I was beside myself. I held that spade to me and cried and cried.'
Fatemeh decided in that moment that there would be no new baby.
For the first time in a long time, she and Hadi agreed on something. They could not cope with another baby as things were. Aside from their crammed living arrangements, Fatemeh was young and desperate to get back to her studies and qualify as a teacher. She wanted her independence. She wanted her own career, which was hard enough with one child but impossible with two. They made arrangements straight away with a doctor.
'Mr Bahmani used him when his wife had an abortion. Apparently he is very discreet,' Hadi told his wife.
At the hospital Fatemeh was a little nervous. 'Don't worry, they turn a blind eye to these procedures. It helps them keep hold of their good doctors if they let them make a little extra money on the side.'
Hadi and Fati sat in the waiting room at Aban hospital. Fati gently rubbed her belly where her new baby was beginning to build a house to grow in. They did not speak. They were waiting for the doctor to call them in so they could stop the new little baby from growing.
What they were doing was not legal, but in Iran, if you had the means to pay and found a willing doctor, you didn't have a problem. Fati and Hadi were lucky. It was unlikely Maman would die during the procedure, like so many poorer women did.
'You're sure he's a good doctor? My mother nearly died when she had an abortion.'
'Your mother went to a cheap backstreet butcher. We are paying a fortune for this one.'
Dr Saman Jamshidi was tall and handsome and young, not much older than thirty. He greeted Hadi with a warm handshake. 'I am delighted to meet you, Mr Khorsandi, it is a great honour. I am a big fan of your writing, a big fan!'
He waggled his finger in the air to emphasise the point and Baba humbly nodded his head in thanks.
'When I saw the name "Khorsandi" on my list I thought "there is only one Khorsandi I know" and how wonderful that it's your good self here today. You look just like your byline photo.'
He led Hadi and Fati down a long corridor, chattering away as they walked. 'I read your column as I sit in traffic on the way to work. Sometimes I laugh so hard that people in the other cars stare at me and think I am crazy!'
Under different circumstances, Hadi would have been very happy that the Tehran traffic was so bad that it allowed busy young doctors to read his columns, but today he wished the abortionist hadn't recognised him. He was not happy about what they were doing. Despite the problems a new baby would bring he wanted this child. They would cope, somehow. But the child was in his wife's belly, not his. It was her decision. Hadi was baffled by laws that banned abortion but allowed the death penalty. 'The death penalty is abortion with a twenty-five-year delay,' he said.
The doctor took them into the examination room. 'SO SO SO!' Dr Jamshidi boomed, 'you have a little problem. It's okay, we will fix it in no time. Mrs Khorsandi, please do not worry, your face is worried I can tell, but there is no need. This will be quick and as painless as can be. If I could ask you please to hop on to the table and let me see your tummy.'
Maman climbed on to the table and lay down. 'Ah yes, there is definitely a baby there, but don't worry, we will have it sucked out in no time!'
Maman looked at Baba. He wanted to do this. So did she. It was the right thing to do. She wished the doctor hadn't said the baby would be 'sucked' out. She was thinking of Peyvand. They had left him with Madar Jaan, who had promised not to rub anything at all on his gums.
Dr Jamshidi put on his stethoscope and continued to examine Fati. As he did, he quoted lines from Baba's own article to him, chuckling heartily after every line and slapping his thigh and saying 'Isn't that funny!' Hadi graciously accepted the praise then tactfully brought the attention of the doctor back to his wife, lying with her belly exposed on the examination table.
'How far gone is my wife?' Hadi was no longer sitting down, he was standing by the bed, holding Fatemeh's hand.
'Oh, I'd say about eight weeks, judging from its size and heartbeat.'
Hadi widened his eyes in surprise. 'A heartbeat? Already?'
'Oh yes, it's very strong. Listen.' Dr Jamshidi let Hadi put on the stethoscope and positioned it at Fati's belly. Hadi listened for a while, then, amid the swirling, whirling noises of his wife's belly, he detected the unmistakable 'baboom baboom baboom' of a heart. His child's heartbeat was fast. He closed his eyes. The beats sounded desperate. Was his child speaking to him? Did she know he was listening and pleading with him to spare her?
'I thought it was just cells at this stage.' Fati had hardly spoken since they got to the hospital, she had just wanted to get it over with.
'It's a bunch of cells with a pulse. But don't worry, we can stop it very easily.'
For the second time in a long time, Hadi and Fati agreed on something. The didn't even need to speak about it.
In the car, on the way home, Fatemeh put her hand on her belly and smiled. She would always remember the look she exchanged with her husband before she jumped off the examination table. He'd grabbed her hand, then her coat and together they left the room.
Dr Jamshidi was not too disappointed at losing his considerable fee. He could tell straight away the young couple were not really prepared to do what they came in for. He guessed the heartbeat tactic might make them realise how they really felt. He was glad he'd been right, it would have been a shame to abort the baby of his favourite columnist.
Hadi and Fati walked out of the hospital together into the sunshine. The bunch of cells with a pulse did a little somersault in glee.
NATIVITY PLAY
I was not an angel at Montpelier School's nativity play. Tanya Forward, Katie Ayling and Victoria Galbraith were angels because angels were blonde.
David Arzooian, Faran Kassam and I were shepherds, 'because you are nice and dark', Miss Price, our new class teacher, said.
Maman was making my shepherd's costume out of an old pair of Baba's pyjamas. They weren't that old really. He still wore them, but Maman had left making my costume until the last minute. Madar Jaan donated one of her headscarves for a shepherd's headdress. It was held down by Baba's pipe cleaners, which Maman had bound toget
her to make a circle. I had a shepherd's staff we made at school with cardboard and foil. At the play, David and Faran's costumes were different to mine. They both just wore old dressing gowns, not their dad's ripped-up pyjamas. My shepherd was the odd one out. How come their mums were foreign and knew stuff like that and mine didn't?
Madar Jaan watched, frowning, as I got ready for my stage debut. 'So what are you meant to be again?'
I sighed. 'A shepherd.'
'Where are your sheep?'
'The really little kids from the first year are going to be sheep.'
Madar Jaan didn't know anything about nativity plays. Neither did Maman; I had to tell them everything.
'So what happens?' Madar Jaan asked.
'We have a doll that's meant to be the baby Jesus,' I explained to my grandmother.
'Who's Jesus?'
'Eisah,' Maman told her. 'They pronounce it "Jesus".'
'Ah! Hazrateh Eisah! Yes, I know him,' Madar Jaan said. 'So, what's a shepherd got to do with the prophet Eisah?'
'It's Jesus, Madar Jaan, the shepherds come to see the baby Jesus and they bring him a lamb as a present.'
'What's a baby going to do with a lamb? Does he want to make kebabs?' Madar Jaan chuckled at her own little joke. She knew absolutely nothing about Christmas. She didn't even know who Father Christmas was when I showed her photos of Peyvand and I sitting on his lap at Harrods.
At Christmas time the whole school was covered in glitter and the classrooms smelled of Copydex as everyone made decorations for their rooms and for the gigantic school Christmas tree.
The older classes made mince pies in home economics and brought them down to us little ones to have with our mid-morning milk. We didn't do any real work at Christmas time close to the holidays. There was a school Santa who came into assembly and gave everyone a satsuma. Some people said it was Mr Greevy the caretaker, but I thought it was the real Santa because he was fatter than Mr Greevy.
'We have to take food in for our class Christmas party.' Peyvand and I went with Maman to Safeway to make sure she got the right food.
When we'd had a summer fête, all the mums had to make wonky fairy cakes with pink and yellow icing on them but Maman bought really posh cupcakes from Harrods and the PTA mums sold them for three pence on the stall alongside the proper cakes. Peyvand and I had learned our lesson when it came to Maman and English food.
So we stopped her buying grown-up stuff for the Christmas party and we told her she couldn't make Iranian food. We took in sweets and cakes and chocolates and added them to the gigantic heap brought in by each class of kids. Everyone laughed at Ela Novak because she brought in Polish sweets that tasted horrible and everyone started to throw them at each other. Ela was upset. She said the Polish sweets were expensive, but what is the point of a sweet or a cake if it's dry and isn't sweet?
I was sick twice after I got home from my first school Christmas party, but it had been the best day ever and I didn't want to wash my hair because I liked having all the red and green and gold glitter in it.
'Can we get a Christmas tree?' I asked Maman as she laid the table.
'You want to bring a tree into the house?' Madar Jaan was baffled. 'What funny things these English people do.'
'But can we have a tree?'
'We're not Christians, azizam, we don't have Christmas trees.'
What did that have to do with anything?
'Oh please, can we, Maman, please please please!'
The second Baba walked through the door, I widened my eyes and used my very best pleading voice.
'Baba, I need a Christmas tree, just a small one. So tiny. They sell them in Ealing Broadway, we can go now in the car.'
Maman came into the hall.
'She wants a tree, all her friends at school have them.'
Madar Jaan waddled up to join the committee in the hallway. 'She keeps mice in the house and now she wants to become a Christian. You are not Armenian, you are Iranian.'
Madar Jaan had been against me looking after the school gerbil Fifi in the school holidays but I had managed to persuade Maman and Baba. Every time I played with him, Madar Jaan shook her head and said, 'A mouse in the house! What next?'
I fetched Peyvand from his room where he was playing cowboys and Indians by himself. He was jumping on and off the beds, shooting himself and falling on to the floor. He was instantly for my idea of a tree and we followed Baba as he went into the living room, lighting his cigarette. We chanted 'canwegetatreecanwegetatree?'
'Fati, get me a chai.' Baba sat down on the sofa and stretched.
I took off his shoes and socks for him as I always did when he came home.
Baba took a long drag of his cigarette, kept it in his mouth for a long time then said, 'Why do you want a Christmas tree?'
I explained for the millionth time that it was because they were pretty, that it was Christmas and all my friends had trees, big ones.
Baba said, 'Ah kids, we have our own Christmas, don't we? We have Norooz, the Iranian New Year, to celebrate. We can buy you a tree then.'
Norooz was in March, though. March, not December. March was about a hundred years after December and I was excited now!
In school we had a post box where we put our letters to Santa, telling him what we wanted for Christmas. The letters were sent to Lapland, where Santa lived. I chewed my pencil and stared at the blank piece of paper in front of me. I didn't know what to write. I didn't get any presents from Santa. Miss came over to me and said, 'What's the matter, Shaparak? You won't get it written in time for Christmas if you don't get a move on!'
'Miss,' I had to tell her. 'We don't have Christmas at our house. Santa doesn't leave us presents.'
I was suddenly surrounded with sympathetic coos and hugs from my teacher and my classmates. 'They don't have Christmas!' whispered the girls in horror.
I made my face look sad and shrugged and said, 'I don't mind, I'm used to not getting presents.'
Miss got everyone in the class to bring me something from home the next day to give to me for a Christmas present. The boys brought me Wagon Wheels and Pez, which I shared with Peyvand on the way home. Some of the girls bought me scented pens and pencils from Confiserie Française and Tina Hills gave me a Sindy Doll which was still in its box. She shrugged and said, 'We're really rich, I'll get tons more at Christmas,' which spoiled the gesture a bit.
Miss Price said that for a special treat for my class I could do a presentation about the Iranian New Year, which is what we celebrated instead.
'Iranian New Year is an ancient Zoroastrian celebration of the spring equinox.' Mitra helped me with my project and got the big words out of Baba's encyclopaedia.
'You have to wear brand-new clothes, even new pants. You have to spring clean your house in time for the New Year. My favourite job is dusting.'
Peyvand didn't have a favourite job; he always avoided all the cleaning and hung upside down on the banisters, giving Maman heart attacks.
'We don't have a Christmas tree, we have a Haft-Seen which means "seven 'S's" – we have seven items on the table, each starting with the letter S.'
I described to my class the special 'Haft-Seen' table we laid out with all the symbols of hope and light to usher in our New Year. I told them we bought real goldfish every year for the table, which made the girls go 'ahhh!'
Rebecca kept interrupting my presentation and going, 'I've seen that, I know what that is' when I was describing our New Year and in the end Miss Price had to say, 'Thank you, Rebecca, there's no need to show off.'
Rebecca Thompson had scowled at the sabzeh Maman was growing in our kitchen to put on the Haft-Seen table.
'Why is your mum growing grass in the kitchen?'
'It's for the Iranian New Year.'
'Do you eat it?'
'No! We put it on a special table, then on the thirteenth day of the New Year, we tie knots in it and throw it in the river so we get a good husband.'
'Just before the New Year, we have Charshan
beh Soori. That's the last Tuesday night of the year and we make fires and jump over them.'
When we jumped over the fire we sang, 'My yellow to thee, thy crimson to me' in Persian. It means you give the fire all your sickness and ask it to give you its vitality.
'Last year my dad's foot caught fire.'
'That sounds rather dangerous,' Miss Price said.
'It is,' I told her, 'but you have to do it for health and luck.'
Miss Price asked Maman and Baba about this tradition when they came in for parents' evening and Baba said it was true. 'It is our ancient National Health Service,' he told her.
In my project I drew pictures of our Haft-Seen and told everyone that the exact time of the New Year changed every year; sometimes it was the middle of the night. Whenever it was, we wore our new clothes and stood by the Haft-Seen and counted down: ten-nine-eight-seven-six-five-four-three-two-hoorah!'
Then we had to hug and kiss each other.
'The Iranian New Year goes on for thirteen days and in that time you have to visit all your friends who are older than you and all the friends who are younger come to visit you at your house.'
Baba and Maman had so many friends that we never got to see everyone in the thirteen days, so when we were home, they were glued to the telephone as every acquaintance rang to say Happy New Year and Maman and Baba fretted about which older friends they may have forgotten to call and may now hold a grudge against them for the rest of the year.
'On the thirteenth day of the New Year, the devil comes to your house and so everyone has to go on a big picnic.'
The thirteenth day, Sizdebedar, ten or twenty families all went on a gigantic picnic together in Richmond Park or Virginia Waters. The mums all made massive pots of loobiya polo, rice with lamb and green beans. They made vats of salad olovieh and huge trays of kotlet and took a stack of flat Iranian bread. We took electric samovars and the men took skewers and a barbecue and made kebabs until the park keeper came over to tell them off.
A Beginner's Guide to Acting English Page 21