The Book of Fate

by Parinoush Saniee

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Mrs Parvin said. ‘They did say it isn’t important. Besides, it’s their own fault for being in such a rush. All the better for you. You can blame them for whatever is missing.’

  ‘I’m not going to send my daughter to her husband’s house stripped and naked,’ Father snapped. ‘We have some of the necessities and we’ll buy the rest this week. And everything else we’ll provide in good time.’

  The only person who had no role in these discussions, who never offered a suggestion, who never asked a question, and whose opinion didn’t matter, was me. I sat awake all night overwhelmed with sadness and anxiety. I begged God to take my life and save me from that forced marriage.

  The next morning I felt very ill. I pretended to be asleep and waited for everyone to leave the house. I heard Father talking to Mother. He wanted to use his contacts and resources to investigate the groom’s family and was not going to work that day. And then he said, ‘Missus, I left money on the mantelpiece for the ring. See if it’s enough.’

  Mother counted the money and said, ‘Yes. I don’t think it will cost more than this.’

  Father left the house with Ali. Fortunately, since the start of the summer he had been taking Ali to work with him, which meant there was calm and quiet in the house. Otherwise, God knows what would have happened to me.

  Mother came into the room and said, ‘Wake up. You have to get ready. I let you sleep longer so that you will have more energy today.’

  I sat up, hugged my knees and said with determination, ‘I won’t go!’ I was bold when the men were not at home.

  ‘Get up and stop acting like a spoiled child.’

  ‘I am not going anywhere.’

  ‘The hell you’re not! I’m not about to let you ruin your good luck. Especially not now.’

  ‘What good luck? Do you even know who these people are? Who is this guy? He’s not even willing to show himself.’

  Just then the doorbell rang and Mrs Parvin walked in, all made up and chipper and wearing a black chador.

  ‘I thought I should come early, just in case you need help with anything. By the way, I found a beautiful pattern for a wedding dress. We have to buy an appropriate fabric. Do you want to see it?’

  ‘Mrs Parvin, help me out,’ Mother pleaded. ‘This girl is being stubborn again. Come and see if you can get her going.’

  Mrs Parvin took off her high-heeled shoes and came into the room. She laughed and said, ‘Good morning, Miss Bride. Come on, get up and go wash your face. They will be here any minute and we don’t want them to think they have a lazy bride, do we?’

  Seeing her, anger flared up inside me and I screamed, ‘Who are you anyway? How much are they paying you as the broker?’

  Mother slapped herself in the face and cried, ‘May God punish you! Shut up! This girl has swallowed shame and vomited modesty.’ And she lunged at me.

  Mrs Parvin held out her arm and blocked her way. ‘Please, it’s all right. She’s just angry. Let me talk to her. You should leave. We’ll be ready in half an hour.’

  Mother left the room. Mrs Parvin closed the door and stood leaning against it. Her chador slipped off and spilled on the floor. She was staring at me, but she wasn’t seeing me. She was looking somewhere else, far from that room. A few minutes passed in silence. I watched her with curiosity. When she finally started to speak her voice sounded unfamiliar. It didn’t have its usual ring. She sounded bitter and subdued.

  ‘I was twelve when my father threw my mother out of the house. I was in year six and all of a sudden I found myself mother to my younger brother and three sisters. They expected of me what they expected from their real mother. I ran the household, cooked, washed clothes, cleaned, and tended to the children. My duties were no less after my father remarried. My stepmother was like all stepmothers. I don’t mean she tortured us or kept us hungry, but she wanted her own children more than she wanted us. Perhaps she was right.

  ‘Ever since I was a small child, I was told that when they cut my umbilical cord they had spoken my cousin Amir-Hossein’s name. I was to become his wife. That’s why my uncle always called me his pretty bride. I don’t know when it started, but as far back as I can remember, I was in love with Amir. After my mother left, he was my only consolation. Amir loved me, too. He would always find some excuse to come to our house, sit on the edge of the reflecting pool and watch me work. He used to say, “Your hands are so small. How do you wash all these clothes?” I always left my most difficult chores for when he was around. I liked the way he looked at me with concern and compassion. He would tell my uncle and his wife what a difficult life I was living. Every time my uncle came to our house he would tell my father, “My good man, this poor child deserves pity. You are being cruel. Why does she have to suffer just because you and your wife couldn’t get along? Stop being so stubborn. Go take your wife by the hand and bring her back home.”

  ‘“No, brother. Never. Don’t ever speak that hussy’s name in front of me. I made sure and divorced her three times so that there would be no way back.”

  ‘“Then think of something. This child is wasting away.”

  ‘When saying goodbye, my uncle’s wife would always take me in her arms and hold me tight against her chest, and my tears would start to flow. She smelled like my mother. I don’t know, perhaps I was just acting spoiled. In any case, my father finally came up with a solution and married a woman who had two children from a previous marriage. Our house was like a kindergarten – seven children of every age and size. I was the eldest. I’m not saying I did everything, but I ran around from morning until night and still there was more work to do; especially since my stepmother was very observant of the codes and tenets of purity and impurity. She really disliked my uncle and his wife, because she thought they had sided with my mother. The first thing she did was to put an end to Amir’s visits to our house. She told my father, “It’s ridiculous for this jackass to come here all the time to sit around and ogle us. And the girl is now old enough to start covering herself.”

  ‘A year later, she used us as an excuse to cut off all contact with my uncle’s family. I missed them terribly. The only way I could see them was if we all went to my aunt’s house. I would beg my cousins to ask my parents’ permission for me to spend the night at their house. To make sure my stepmother wouldn’t complain, I had to take my brothers and sisters with me. A year passed. Each time I saw Amir he had grown taller. You won’t believe how handsome he was. His eyelashes were so long they cast a shadow over his eyes, just like a parasol. He wrote poems for me and bought the lyric sheets to the songs I liked. He would say, “You have a beautiful voice. Learn how to sing this song.” Frankly, I couldn’t read and write so well, and I had forgotten the little I had learned while I was still going to school. He used to say he would teach me. What wonderful days. But little by little, my aunt got tired of us always staying at her house. Her husband was constantly complaining. And so we were forced to see less of each other. The following new year, I begged for us to go visit my uncle. My father was about to give in, but my stepmother said, “I won’t set foot in that witch’s house.”

  ‘I don’t know why my stepmother and my uncle’s wife disliked each other so much. Poor me, stuck in the middle. That new year was the last time I saw them. It was at my aunt’s house. She arranged it so that my father and my uncle would come face to face. She wanted them to make amends. Everyone was sitting in the upstairs living room. They asked the children to leave. Amir and I went and sat in a room downstairs and the children went to play in the garden. My aunt’s daughters were in the kitchen preparing the tea tray. We were alone. Amir took my hand. I suddenly felt hot all over. His hands were warm and his palms were wet. He said, “Parvin, my father and I have talked. This year, after I get my diploma, we will come and ask for your hand. Father said we can get engaged before I go for my military service.” I wanted to jump into his arms and cry with joy. I could hardly breathe.

  ‘“You mean this summer?”


  ‘“Yes, if I don’t fail any classes, I will graduate.”

  ‘“For the love of God, don’t fail a single class.”

  ‘“I promise. For you, I will study very hard.”

  ‘He squeezed my hand and I felt as if he was holding my heart in his grip. He said, “I can’t stand being away from you any more.”

  ‘Oh…! What can I say? I have relived that scene and those words so many times that every second of it is like a movie playing in front of my eyes. Sitting in that room, we were so drowned in our own world that we didn’t realise a fight had broken out. By the time we came out into hallway, my father and stepmother were cursing out loud and walking down the stairs, and my uncle’s wife was leaning over the banister and countering their curses. My aunt ran after my father and begged him not to behave that way, that it was unseemly, that he and his brother should put aside their differences and make up. She begged them, for the love of their mother’s spirit, for the love of their father’s spirit, to remember they were brothers and should support each other. She reminded them of the old saying that even if brothers eat each other’s flesh, they will never throw away the bones. My father was slowly calming down, but my stepmother screamed, “Didn’t you hear the things they said to us? What sort of a brother is he?”

  ‘My aunt said, “Mrs Aghdass, please stop it. It’s not right. They didn’t say anything insulting. He is the older brother. If he said something out of kindness and concern, you shouldn’t take offence.”

  ‘“So what if he is older! It doesn’t give him the right to say whatever he wants. And my husband is his brother, not his lackey. What business do they have meddling in our lives? That pop-eyed wife of his can’t stand to see anyone better than herself. We don’t want relatives like them.”

  ‘Then she grabbed one of her children by the arm and stormed out. My uncle’s wife screamed after her, “Go take a good look at yourself! If you were a decent woman your first husband wouldn’t have thrown you out with two kids.”

  ‘My sweet fantasy didn’t even last an hour. Like a bubble, it burst and disappeared. My stepmother was determined. She said she would make sure my uncle’s family would always bear the grief of my loss in their hearts. She told my father she was already a mother by the time she was my age and that she could no longer tolerate a rival like me in her house. Around that time, Haji Agha came and asked for my hand. He was a distant relative of my stepmother and had already been married twice. He said, “I divorced them because they couldn’t get pregnant.” Now, he wanted to marry a young, healthy girl to make sure he would have children. The idiot! He wasn’t willing to consider for even a second that he was the one who had a problem. Of course, men never have any problems or shortcomings; especially not rich men. He was forty years old and twenty-five years my senior. My father said, “He has a world of money, several shops in the bazaar, and plenty of land and property around Ghazvin.” In short, my father’s mouth was watering. Haji Agha said, “If she bears my child, I will give her a sea of money.” When they took me to the marriage ceremony, I was feeling worse than you do now.’

  Mrs Parvin stared at some distant point and two teardrops fell on her cheeks.

  ‘Why didn’t you kill yourself?’ I asked.

  ‘Do you think it’s easy? I didn’t have the courage. And you should get these silly thoughts out of your head. We each have a destiny and you can’t fight yours. Besides, committing suicide is a great sin. You never know, perhaps this will turn out to be a blessing for you.’

  Mother pounded on the door and yelled, ‘Mrs Parvin! What are you doing in there? We’re going to be late. It’s already nine-thirty.’

  Mrs Parvin dried her tears and answered, ‘Don’t worry. We will be ready on time.’ Then she came and sat next to me and said, ‘I told you all this so that you don’t think I don’t understand what you are going through.’

  ‘Then why do you want to make me miserable and unhappy, too?’

  ‘They are going to marry you off anyway. You have no idea what Ahmad has planned for you.’ And then she asked, ‘By the way, why does he hate you so much?’

  ‘Because Father loves me more than he loves Ahmad.’

  Suddenly, I grasped the reality behind the words I had impulsively blurted out. I had never understood it that clearly. Yes, Father loved me more.

  The first memory I had of his kindness was on the day Zari died. He came home from work and stood frozen in the doorway. Mother was wailing and Grandmother was reading from the Quran. The doctor was shaking his head and walking out with a look of hatred and disgust on his face. When he came face to face with Father, he roared, ‘This child has been on the verge of death for at least three days and you waited until now to call a doctor? Would you have done the same if it was one of your sons lying there instead of this innocent girl?’

  Father’s face was as white as plaster. He was about to collapse. I ran over to him and wrapped my tiny arms around his legs and called Grandmother. He sat down on the floor, held me tight, pressed his face in my hair and sobbed. Grandmother said, ‘Get up, son. You’re a man. You shouldn’t cry like a woman. What God gave, God has taken away. You shouldn’t challenge his will.’

  ‘You said it was nothing serious,’ Father yelled. ‘You said she would get well soon. You didn’t let me bring a doctor.’

  ‘It would have made no difference. If she was meant to live, she would have lived. Even the greatest sage and physician would not have made a difference. This is our fate. We are not meant to have girls.’

  ‘This is all nonsense,’ Father cried. ‘It’s all your fault!’

  It was the first time I saw Father shout at his mother. In truth, I liked it. After that day, Father would often hold me in his arms and silently cry. I knew from the way his shoulders would start to shake. And from then on, he showered me with the love and attention he had denied Zari. Ahmad never forgot nor forgave this favouritism. His angry looks always followed me and as soon as Father went out he would beat me up. Now, Ahmad had reached his heart’s desire. I had lost favour in Father’s eyes, I had broken his trust, and Father, disappointed and heartbroken, had abandoned me. It was the best opportunity for Ahmad to take his revenge.

  Mrs Parvin’s voice brought me back. ‘You have no idea what he was going to do to you. You don’t know what a vile and disgusting man he is. And don’t think anyone would have come to your rescue. You won’t believe the performance I had to put on to finally convince him to say no to that louse and to let this suitor’s family come and see you. My heart was breaking for you. You are just like me fifteen or twenty years ago. I saw how your family just wanted to marry you off and there was no sign of that incompetent Saiid. I thought you should at least marry someone who won’t turn you black and blue with his fists the day after the wedding. Someone who is decent and, God willing, you may grow to like. And even if you don’t, he should be someone who will let you live your own life.’

  ‘Just like you?’ I said in a stinging and bitter tone.

  She looked at me with reproach. ‘I don’t know. Do as you wish. We all find a way to take revenge on life and to make our existence tolerable.’

  I didn’t go with them to shop for a ring. Mrs Parvin told the groom’s family that I had a cold and she took the silver ring I was wearing so that she would know what size the wedding ring should be.

  Two days later, Father, Ahmad and Mahmoud went to Qum and came back with a carload of household furnishings. Mother said, ‘Wait. Wait. Don’t bring these things in here. Take them straight to her own house. Mrs Parvin will go with you and show you the way.’ Then she turned to me and said, ‘Come, girl. Get up and go take a look at your home and see what you’re missing and tell them where you want them to put everything. Come on, be a good girl and get up.’

  ‘There’s no need,’ I said with a shrug. ‘Tell Mrs Parvin to go. I have no intention of getting married. It seems she’s the one who is all excited.’

  The next day, Mrs Parvin brought the wedding
dress for a fitting. I refused to try it on. ‘That’s all right,’ she said. ‘I have your measurements. I’ll make it based on your other dresses. I’m sure it will turn out fine.’

  I didn’t know what to do. I was constantly restless and agitated. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. And even when I did fall asleep for a few hours, I had so many nightmares that by the time I woke up I was more tired than before. I was like someone sentenced to death and approaching the hour of her execution. Finally, as difficult as it was, I decided to talk to Father. I wanted to throw myself at his feet and weep until he took pity on me. But everyone was careful to not leave us alone together for even a minute. And it was obvious that Father, too, was doing everything he could to avoid me. Subconsciously, I was expecting a miracle. I thought a hand would appear out of the sky and steal me away at the last moment. But nothing happened.

  Everything progressed on schedule and the promised day arrived. From early in the morning the front door was open and Mahmoud, Ahmad and Ali were coming and going. They arranged a row of chairs around the front yard and prepared platters of pastries. Of course, they were expecting very few guests. Mother had asked that no one in Qum be told about the wedding. She didn’t want any of our relatives to show up and see the sorry state of affairs. They told Father’s sister that the wedding was going to be a few weeks later, but they had to invite Uncle Abbas. In fact, he was our only relative present at the ceremony. With the exception of a few of our neighbours, the guests were all related to the groom.