She looks at the skies a moment longer, then turns and walks to the stables to drag a tremendous basin back to the center of the courtyard. She rolls up the cuffs of her tumban and the sleeves of her shirt. She goes to the pool and washes her arms and legs, her hands and feet, and sits for a moment on the ledge for the sun to dry her skin. Yes, it will be the wine she has pressed that Asher will bless and drink. Rakhel jumps to her feet and hoists bucket after bucket of grapes into the basin. She feels the strain of the work in the muscles of her arms and back, in the tension of her thighs. Her clothes are wet with perspiration, she can feel the sun on the ridge of her nose. A fly hovers near her face. She swats at it and it returns. Rakhel looks at the basin full of red grapes, holds her breath and steps in. An explosion of grapes beneath the soles of her feet. Cold against her calves.
“Whoever drinks this wine will also drink the resolve of my heart,” she says beneath her breath.
She begins stepping up and down, one and two, a rhythmic dance. She keeps her hands on her hips. She thinks about Kokab, she sees the vision of her in Asher’s arms. She pounds her feet harder, brings her legs up and down faster, breathes heavily.
“You will see,” she says out loud, kicking and thrashing the pulp. “You will see what I am worth!”
She slips to her knees, throws her hands forward instinctively. The liquid pulp is beneath her chin. If she could just overcome the impulse to breathe . . . She clutches grapes in her hands and squeezes them, the juice dripping from between her clenched fingers, the pulp falling from her closed fists. She grunts and stands, her clothes stained deep purple and dripping with juice. She begins pounding the grapes beneath her feet, again. She thrashes wildly about the basin, the liquid sloshing back and forth violently. She slips again and yells, jumps to her feet and resumes, kicking her legs, dripping with juice.
“Rakhel, G-d be merciful, have you gone mad?” Zolekhah says.
Rakhel turns to see Zolekhah’s bewildered face. Khorsheed, Kokab, and the servants stand behind her, their mouths agape.
“Fine, fine, Naneh Zolekhah. Just seeing to the wine, that’s all.”
“Now? In the heat of the noon?”
“Allah forgive us, Rakhel Khanum, you will die of heatstroke,” Fatimeh says.
“Don’t worry, I’m capable enough to do this task alone.”
“Rakhel, three grown men couldn’t do this task. Get out of that basin before you bring black calamity upon us.”
Rakhel continues to step up and down, now with a measured pace. She steadies her voice and says, “If we let the grapes go any longer, they will spoil, and if I leave the task now, the grapes will cook. Someone must see to this year’s stock of Sabbath wine?”
“I can help her,” Kokab says.
Rakhel stands in the basin. The liquid settles around her calves. She looks down to where her legs disappear in the juice and pulp. The skin above the line is stained purple. Her clothes are sticky. She looks up and sees the women staring at her expectantly.
“Yes, Kokab jan, and Khorsheed, too,” Zolekhah says.
“Zolekhah Khanum, Khorsheed, the poor child, is a nursing mother. You put her in this sun to do this work and, G-d mute my tongue for uttering these words, she will perish,” Fatimeh says.
“Well, then, Kokab and Rakhel can share the work.”
Kokab bends to roll the cuffs of her tumban. She steps into the pool and washes her legs and her arms. Khorsheed looks at Rakhel and lifts her eyebrows. Rakhel shrugs her shoulders and looks away.
“Rakhel, step out a moment and rest. Kokab will take over,” Zolekhah says.
“Naneh Zolekhah, really, I’m already stained and doing the work, no need—”
“Out, Rakhel.”
Rakhel takes one leg out, then another and stands in front of the basin, barring Kokab’s way.
“Thank you for allowing me to help,” Kokab says.
Rakhel ignores her and walks to the pool. She hears Kokab step into the basin. Rakhel bends and splashes water on her legs and arms.
“Rakhel, your clothes are ruined,” Zolekhah says.
Rakhel does not respond. She sits on the ledge of the pool and turns to look at Khorsheed. The two girls stare at each other for a long time, then the baby begins whining and clutching at his mother’s hair. Khorsheed turns her attention to Yousseff, and Rakhel finally looks in the direction of the basin, to watch Kokab stepping on the grapes.
Kokab moves with slow, deliberate steps. She closes her eyes and tilts her chin up slightly. She places her braceleted hands on her hips. She lifts one leg, presses down, lifts another. Rakhel imagines Asher’s hand on Kokab’s legs. He will think the beauty of her white calves heightened by the stained skin.
“Strange sensation,” Kokab says and smiles with her eyes closed.
Kokab’s upper lip glistens in the sun. Sweat beads on her forehead. She shakes out her hands, and the jangle of her bracelets startle Rakhel from her trance. There is something in Kokab’s face, something in her expression, Rakhel thinks. Then she imagines that same look on Kokab’s features, in Asher’s embrace. Here, before all these witnesses, Rakhel thinks, she is polluting the Sabbath wine, sweating into it her wicked thoughts, the scent of her sinful body.
Rakhel imagines Asher reciting the kiddush. She imagines him pouring a glass of the wine for the prayer. She sees Kokab in the glow of the Sabbath candles. Asher puts the translucent garnet of the liquid to his lips, closes his eyes, and drinks. And Kokab spreads warm inside him, flows deep into his veins. He opens his eyes, only to see Kokab. He passes her the glass, one hand to another, red black wine wetting their tongues, in their mouths. And Rakhel, too, would have to raise that glass to her own lips and believe in the sanctity of wine, Sabbath, prayer, marriage, even though she bore witness to the profanity of this moment, now, where the grapes are being pressed beneath Kokab’s feet. She sees herself in the dark of the cellar, each morning and evening, a slave to the fermenting liquid. Her fingers stained purple as she draws off the fluid from the settled refuse. She sees herself kneeling, funnel in hand, doggedly filling bottle after bottle with the wine of the woman who has intoxicated her husband.
Rakhel jumps to her feet and runs to the basin. “That’s enough, you will tire yourself,” she says. Kokab stops to look at her.
“Rakhel, Kokab just started . . .” Zolekhah says.
“No, no, it’s fine. Get out. Get out, now.”
Rakhel leaps forth and grabs a handful of Kokab’s hair. She pulls hard and the woman loses her footing and falls forward. Zolekhah grabs Rakhel’s shoulders and tries to pull her back, but Rakhel doesn’t release her hold.
“You’ve done enough,” Rakhel screams.
Kokab struggles to stand in the liquid. Rakhel pushes down on her head until Kokab’s face submerges in the juice and pulp.
“Khasveh shalom, you are killing her!”
“Allah protect us, Allah forgive us this sin!” Fatimeh says. She pulls Rakhel’s arms and pleads, “Rakhel Khanum, let go, let go!”
Rakhel finally releases her hold and steps back. Kokab raises her face, coughing and gasping. There is a clear, still moment. The women around Rakhel wait to see what she will do next. Rakhel looks to the sky, then opens her mouth as if to scream.
At first the women hear a sound like the rumble of low thunder, then it becomes a shrill pitch that fills the whole sky. The women look at Rakhel in bewilderment, then look up to where she gazes. A thick moving cloud covers the sun. It looks like a torrential flapping of birds’ wings, until the cloud splits apart and they see the luminous gray-green armor of the insects, the thick of them settling in the trees, plummeting like hail at their feet. The women scream and run in the direction of the sitting room. Rakhel ignores them, and watches, in stillness, the downpour of the locusts, undisturbed by the large insects that settle on her hair, on her arms, on the grass, splash into the pool and bring the hungry fish up to the surface to feed. She stands and watches as though she had been waiting all along for
this answer to come falling from the mute blue skies.
Zolekhah and the women watch Rakhel with horror from behind the windows of the guest hall. The locusts land on Rakhel, crawl on her arms and legs. Khorsheed begins rapping on the glass frantically and screaming, “Dada, Dada!” Yousseff wails and Zolekhah bounces the child absently, clucking her tongue.
“Ya Imam Hossien, the girl is out of her right mind. Those insects will eat her face,” Sadiqeh says.
Khorsheed pounds harder on the glass with her fists. Zolekhah puts a hand on her shoulder. “You are upsetting your baby. I’ll get her,” she says.
Zolekhah knocks on the window to get Rakhel’s attention, but the girl does not respond. Zolekhah looks around the room and spots a broom.
“Fatimeh, hand me that broom, I’m going out to get that girl.”
“Zolekhah Khanum, those insects will eat the broom. I’ve seen them before, they’ll eat right through that straw, maybe down to the stick,” Sadiqeh says.
Zolekhah pulls her chador over her head so that only her eyes are visible. She braces the broom in one hand and steps to the door. Khorsheed stops crying and the women turn to watch Zolekhah.
“Zolekhah Khanum, it is thick as fog out there with those insects,” Zahra says. “Leave it be for a while, until they clear.”
“The poor, poor child,” Fatimeh says. She looks at Rakhel, frozen by the pool, and clicks her tongue. “It happens this ways, sometimes, when a woman suffers too much.”
The women look at the storm of green bodies, the thud thud of them against the window. A few crawl on the glass, revealing the white of their bellies, the clasping forceps of their mouths, the nervous twitch of antennas, their red eyes.
Zolekhah hits the window with her knuckles. “Come this way, Rakhel, come inside!”
Rakhel looks at them. She raises her hand to wave. Then she looks at the back of her hand. A locust crawls over it, to the palm and out to the tips of her open fingers, then flies off. Rakhel drops her hand limply to her side.
“She’s going inside,” Zahra says.
An hour later, armed with the broom, Zolekhah braves the journey to Rakhel’s room to see what has become of the girl. She sweeps her path clear of the bodies of insects, carefully treads her way across the marble. She enters the room to find Rakhel sitting beside the window, still wearing the torn, stained clothes, staring vacantly at the courtyard.
“Rakhel?”
Rakhel turns slowly to look at her.
“Say something, child, you’re aging me.”
“They came because of her.”
“Who came, child?”
“They came to cleanse her sins from the earth.”
“What nonsense are you speaking, girl?”
Rakhel looks out of the window again, places the tips of her fingers on the glass where locusts crawl. “She is evil.”
“Who?”
“Kokab.”
“Rakhel, you’re not yourself.”
“No. I have seen her wickedness. In the clear light of day.”
“What wickedness, poor wretch? She is a sad woman, trying to find a place in this world, pining for the child she’s lost.”
“She is destroying Asher.”
“Enough, Rakhel, enough.”
“She is, but I won’t allow her.”
“What has the poor woman done to you? She is here to help you and Asher.”
“She’s bewitched him.”
“Nonsense.”
“He walks in a dream state, he has forgotten everything else.”
“You are speaking from jealousy.”
“He cares for nothing but her.”
“She is a new wife, it is natural for a man.”
“He is trapped by her spell. They say Eliyahoo divorced her for this wickedness. She brought him near the brink of insanity. And he wasn’t enough. She lured other men, common men.”
“Rumors started by Eliyahoo’s sisters to save face.”
“The truth is before our eyes. He spends all his time in her room, leaves late, sometimes never leaves for near the day, the whole of the day.”
“It is normal, Rakhel. She is new to him. He will tire of her soon.”
“She will be his death.”
“Asher needs children, Rakhel.”
Rakhel turns to look out of the window again. The locusts hit the glass, crawl over its surface, cover the sill, cluster on the pots of flowers on the ledge. Outside, the trees are covered with breathing, glittering leaves. The grass of the courtyard crawls and clicks, the vegetable and herb garden of the kitchen is already bare down to the black soil.
“It’s a hunger that leaves the earth barren,” Rakhel says.
“What?”
“This longing.”
Nine
It will stop, do you hear me?
She looks out of the window at the garden.
Do you hear me?
She wants to rise from the chair, to walk into the morning air.
What would you prefer me to do? Spend every night with you? Send her away?
Her legs feel leaden. Her body aches. She is tired. Early morning and she is tired.
I need children. Do you understand this? And what will my future be if I don’t have a son? All I work for?
If Mahboubeh does not work in the garden, now, if she misses these early mornings, the day will come when the garden becomes unmanageable.
Where will all my melk, all that I have built go after me? I, alone, must be the man for this household, and my position undermined by a girl of fifteen, sixteen?
The weeds will be too many, too strong. The rosebushes untamed. The fruit trees less productive.
I am not made of stone! Every day I leave this home, I know full well that any street beggar, any ruffian could beat me the way they beat my brother! My brother, abused in the street like a dumb beast! And no one stopped them!
Mahboubeh thinks about rising from her chair, but her legs hold fast to the ground.
Do you know how hard it is to work with men for years and years, men who take your money, but still deem the touch of your hand to be najis? I see these men each day at the caravansary, and whenever it rains, they stay away from me for fear that the water will spread my contamination. Jew. Jew. They whisper behind my back like the word itself is filth in their mouths. Do you know what this does to a man? Shamed by men less than me? And now, by my own wife?
“Stop,” Mahboubeh says quietly. “Stop telling me.” She knows that no one is with her, that she is alone, all alone, in a home in a place too far away for this story to unravel itself at her feet, and bind her to her chair to keep her a prisoner to its telling.
My home is the only place I have peace. Where I can be respected, and you . . . You disrespect me with your childishness! She is my wife, too. A woman ten years older than you! What if this story gets out? That I can’t control my wives? Did you ever think of the effect that would have on my name? Stop crying. Stop! Look at me. I will do whatever it takes to maintain the peace of my household. Do you understand what I mean? Do you understand what I mean?
“Let me be,” Mahboubeh yells into the silence of her home. “Let me be.”
Rakhel sits alone in the corner of her room.
“She has gone mad,” the girl servants whisper from behind the door.
“She is possessed,” they whisper, then turn to run.
Rakhel wakes up screaming. It is night outside. The bed is wet, her body on fire. The door opens to her room. Asher runs in, behind him Zolekhah. Darkness. Rakhel opens her eyes. Daylight. Zolekhah’s face before her. The old woman asks her something. Darkness.
Rakhel stands in the courtyard. Beneath her feet, a chasm opens. She looks into it. No bottom. Khorsheed beside the window. She waves. She smiles. The men hold Khorsheed, their big hands on the length of her arms. They pull in the opposite direction of each other. Khorsheed splits, her body tears. Black bleeding. Khorsheed turns to stone. Time passes. Stone becomes soil. Time passes. Fro
m this black soil grows a pomegranate tree. It blossoms, fruits. One falls to the grass, splits open, pours forth her ruby-coated seeds.
Rakhel wakes up lying on her stomach, her back is bare. She struggles. Somebody holds her arms, there is a weight on her legs. She sees Naneh Adeh looking into her face. The old woman holds a horn-shaped glass over an open flame. Then she places the glass between Rakhel’s shoulder blades. Rakhel hears herself scream. It feels as if her skin has been torn off and her flesh is melting. She turns her head to see a red rose blooming on her back. Darkness.
Kel na refa na la. The voices of women respond, Amen. Someone lifts Rakhel until she sits. Someone lightly slaps her face. Rakhel opens her eyes to see the room full of women. The old rabbi folds a small scrap of paper full of writing in black ink. He drops it into a glass of water, stirs until the water is blue. He moves toward her. Someone tilts her head back, holds her face with one hand, presses hard into her cheeks with a thumb and forefinger. When Rakhel opens her mouth to moan, they bring the glass quickly to her lips and flood her throat with the ink water. She drowns. The torn paper lodges in her throat. She swallows and swallows words. She sees Khorsheed standing in the far end of the room, holding Yousseff. A son. A son for me. Darkness.
Rakhel, wake up, please. Dada, open your eyes. Dada, please, please, open your eyes. Look, Yousseff is holding your finger. If you open your eyes, I’ll show you how he can stand when I hold his hands. It’s lonely here, without you. Remember when we ran out in the rain? It’s been raining. Raining and raining.
Thunder. Rakhel stares into the chasm that opens between her feet. No bottom.
When she opens her eyes, the light is a dusty blue. She tries to swallow, but her throat feels full of sand. She sees a glass of water beside her bed. She tries to lift her hand. She whimpers with the effort.
“Rakhel Khanum?” Fatimeh stands beside her.
Rakhel tries to say water, her tongue like stone in her mouth. She looks frantically to the glass beside her bed. Fatimeh places an arm behind her back and raises her, then brings the glass to her lips. The water is cool. She gulps and gulps. She pulls her head away from the glass when she finishes.
The Girl from the Garden Page 16