“Asher has left for an urgent business matter in one of the villages. I will take her back.” Zolekhah looks at Fatimeh, a firm determination in her eyes, but the corners of her lips betray her. Fatimeh sighs deeply and wipes her hands with her chador.
“But Kokab’s brothers, they will seek revenge to save face.”
“I will take her back.”
“But what if they harm you?”
“They will not harm an old mother.”
“What plans does Allah have for us wretched women?” Fatimeh says. She turns to walk to the stables. Her legs feel heavier this morning, and when she reaches the stables, the mule refuses to budge. She takes the broom resting by the stable door and slaps his hind quarters from a good distance, but the beast senses her own fears, and Fatimeh does not begrudge the creature his hesitation.
“Pshh, psshh,” she says, “Ya Allah, you have a delivery to make.”
The mule snorts and tosses its head. Then he steps forward and Fatimeh takes hold of the rope about his neck and drags him toward the courtyard. She leaves him standing by the pool and rushes to her own room to put on her street chador and ruband. She comes out to find Zolekhah waiting beside the mule.
“Zolekhah Khanum, I’m coming with you.”
“It’s not necessary, Fatimeh, their house is not so far and my task won’t take so long.”
“No, Zolekhah Khanum, it is better for three women to travel at this hour than two, and better that you have a Muslim with you. No knowing what her brothers will do.”
The two women wait in silence by the pool. They hear a door open, and both turn expectantly in the direction of Kokab’s room. She emerges already covered in black, her face veiled, clutching the bundle she arrived with. She walks a few steps and stops, then crumples to the floor, a cascade of black fabric flowing about her. Both Fatimeh and Zolekhah run in her direction, but by the time they reach her, she rises again, supporting herself with the wall, and picks up her bundle once more.
“Child, you are weak. Let me carry your burden,” Fatimeh says.
Kokab drops the bundle and keeps walking slowly toward the pool. Zolekhah and Fatimeh stand close beside her, one at each side, ready to catch her again if she falls, but neither of them dare to touch her. The mule looks nervously over his shoulder at the approach of the three black figures, sniffing the air for danger. Kokab stops at the pool.
“Do you need help, child?” Fatimeh asks.
Kokab shakes her head no and mounts the mule. Fatimeh hands her the bundle of her possessions.
“Daughter, you have not eaten for days. Let me fetch you a piece of bread for your journey,” Fatimeh says.
Zolekhah holds on to Fatimeh’s arm and shakes her head. Kokab does not respond. The women leave the courtyard wordlessly and head toward the heavy wooden doors that open into the street.
When Fatimeh pushes the door open into the street, the morning sun already casts shadows from behind the buildings. She peers her head out and looks in both directions. Not a single soul walks the tight street of the Jewish mahalleh. She turns to Zolekhah and motions with her hand. Zolekhah steps forward, holding the rope about the mule’s neck. She pulls the beast and its sad burden out. Fatimeh runs behind them and shuts the door. She looks once to heaven and says, “Bism’ Allah.”
They walk but two steps when they hear the creek of another door and a man, prayer tallith about his neck, steps out into the street. Then, it seems as if all the doors in the neighborhood open at once. Men appear, merchants set out their wares, street peddlers shift their bundles from one shoulder to another and amidst all of them, the two women walk with their heads down, pulling along the mule, a woman in black riding atop it. The men stop to watch the women pass. They do not step forward to ask what business the women have on the street at so early an hour, where their menfolk are, if they need help. The two old women carry such a somber air in their passage that the men simply stop in their tracks for a moment and watch them go by, silently. Then, they shake their own heads and resume their business.
Fatimeh and Zolekhah wind their way through the mahalleh. By this time, the street crowds with men and boys, who step aside to watch the women pass. They finally arrive at the home that belongs to Kokab’s brothers and Fatimeh reaches out to the brass knocker on the right that announces the arrival of a woman. She knocks once and steps back from the door. They wait a moment. Then Zolekhah steps forward and knocks three times rapidly, but the door opens before she pulls her hand away. A young woman stands before them, wrapped in her indoor chador.
“Good morning,” she says. She looks at Fatimeh and Zolekhah, then at the figure atop the mule.
Zolekhah reaches and unfastens the ruband covering her own face and looks the young woman in the eyes. “I am Zolekhah Malacouti, the mother of Asher Malacouti. I have come to return this woman to her home for she has shamed my son and ruined our family name,” she says.
The woman takes a step back, her mouth open. Then she turns and runs, crying, “Agha joon, come quickly!”
Fatimeh realizes that the doors to the homes around them have opened and heads peek out. Women come to stand in their doorways, men stop to watch. She turns to motion for Zolekhah to enter and the two walk across the threshold, pulling along the mule. A man comes running out from the andaruni of the home, another man closely at his heels. Zolekhah stands firmly, staring at the two men, though Fatimeh notices a tremor in her hands. Fatimeh unfastens her own ruband and stands beside Zolekhah. Kokab moans once and slumps forward, but before she falls, one of the men runs and catches her in his arms.
“Stand up,” he says. He pulls the ruband off Kokab’s face. “Stand up.”
He shakes her until she stands on her feet. Kokab buries her face in her hands. He pulls her hands away from her face and looks at her. Kokab’s eyes are sunken in and black. Her face seems unnaturally white in the sunlight and her lips tremble, but she keeps her eyes on the man who stares furiously at her. He raises his hand and slaps her hard across the face.
“Go,” he says.
Kokab turns to walk in the direction of the andaruni. She stumbles to the ground, too weak to rise. He follows quickly behind her and kicks her once. She remains still for several moments.
“Allah help you, daughter,” Fatimeh whispers. “May He forgive you. May He take pity upon you.”
Kokab rises from the ground with great effort. She stands, finally, and the morning sun shines brilliantly around her. The birds sing madly from treetops. She looks at Fatimeh and Zolekhah. “Even in this,” Kokab says. “Even in this, a spectacular grace.” Then, she turns and walks until she disappears in the andaruni of her brothers’ home.
“So Asher had his way with our sister and wasn’t even man enough to bring her back himself when he was done?” the taller man says. He brings his face close to Zolekhah’s face, his mouth tight, the veins in his temple bulging. “Well, then, his old mother will have to be the man and take back our response.”
He raises his fist and hits Zolekhah in the jaw. The old woman topples backward and falls to the ground. Fatimeh screams and runs to help her up.
“Don’t hit the goyim,” the other man says. “Best not to have the police involved.”
“No, my business is only with Asher. And since he cannot be here, his representative will have to do.”
He approaches Zolekhah and kicks her hard in the stomach. Fatimeh screams again and rises to pull the man away. With one hand, the man pushes her against the wall and kicks Zolekhah again, who lays on the ground, moaning, gasping for breath.
“You’ll kill her!” Fatimeh says. “I’ll call for help, step back! Help! Ya Abolfazl! He’s killed her! Help!”
The man steps forward and with one deft move, grabs Zolekhah’s arm and lifts her off the ground. He pulls her toward the mule and like a sack of corn, throws her on top of the beast. Then he takes hold of the rope and walks toward Fatimeh.
“Here,” he says, handing her the rope. “Take the old bitch to tha
t na’mard and tell him we look forward to his visit, unless he has an aunt he wants to send instead.”
Fatimeh takes the rope hurriedly and heads toward the street. When she sees the neighbors peering in, she hurries back over to Zolekhah, who labors to breathe, and pulls the woman’s chador over her face so that no one recognizes her. Then she fastens her own ruband in place and pulls the mule out of the yard. The crowd parts slightly to allow her passage, then surrounds them to watch as Fatimeh mutters prayers and pulls the rope to get the mule to move.
The crowd disperses slowly and the old servant pulls the mule away by its rope. Silence. Mahboubeh slaps her hands against the hard wood surface of the kitchen table, palms open. She does this again and again. Then she turns to look out of the window.
Silence. The air is still. Outside, dusk settles.
All the windows remain shut. Mahboubeh cannot remember if she just closed them to turn in for the night, or if she never opened them at all, and just sat in this stagnant air from sunrise through sunset, listening to nothing, nothing at all.
Silence. She cannot remember any other stories of Kokab after this. Her history is limited to the scandal of her divorce, the fact that her husband takes her daughter and never allows her to see her child again, that Kokab becomes Asher’s second wife for a brief period, and is divorced for going to the wheat mill. From there, Kokab disappears from the family stories.
Mahboubeh rises with effort from the chair and walks to the kitchen window. She opens it, then opens all the living room windows. Only a small report about Kokab’s daughter. When she came of age, the father recognized in her the tendencies of her mother. He immediately sent her to a remote village for nine months, during the time of which no one heard from her or saw her.
Mahboubeh walks to her room and eases herself onto her bed. She remembers when Kokab’s daughter returned to Kermanshah. Mahboubeh was a young child then, but she remembers the women talking of her. Her father has subdued her, they all said, no trace of her mother left.
“What have they done to my mother!” Asher roars.
Zolekhah hears him through the open window from her bed. She tries to raise her head a bit, to look out the window, then winces in pain and lays her head back down.
“What have I allowed to happen?” he says.
Zolekhah starts when she hears the sound of shattering glass. The movement cuts her breath short.
“Brother, brother, please . . .” she hears Ibrahim say. She struggles to raise herself in her bed, again. She must reach him, to soothe him. Somehow, she must get out of bed, and walk to his study, to calm him.
“Bring a length of rope and let me end my days. Let me die a coward’s death. Bring rope and let me die, to save me, least from facing this shame. My mother beaten, like a mule. My brother beaten, like a woman. And the woman I took as wife, gave my name to, spreading her legs open for any man, any man.”
Zolekhah manages to sit in bed, but when she makes the effort to stand, the movement causes a sharp jag of pain throughout her body. She groans, quietly, and holds on to the bedclothes until it passes.
“Brother, please, calm a moment, calm down a moment,” Ibrahim says.
“I must go to the brothers’ home, I must kill them, or they me, but it cannot stand like this. No. It cannot stand like this.”
“Brother, end it here. Enough tragedy has passed for both households.”
“Why, Ibrahim? Why must I beget shame, only?”
Through the open window, Zolekhah hears Asher weeping. Choked sobs.
“Please, brother,” she hears Ibrahim says. “You are like a father to me, please, I cannot see you thus.”
“I am no man, brother. I am no man to be called father.”
Zolekhah cries in her bed. She looks to the ceiling. Lord, she prays, please find some way to end my child’s suffering, some mercy to end his longing. She hears a soft knock at the door. Zolekhah raises her hand with effort and wipes her face. “Come in,” she says.
Khorsheed walks into the room carrying Yousseff. “Naneh Zolekhah, I came to keep you company,” she says.
Zolekhah watches the girl’s face as Khorsheed sits with effort and places Yousseff onto her lap. Khorsheed’s cheeks seem flushed and she keeps the child at a distance from her stomach. She looks up, and the two women’s eyes meet.
“How long?” Zolekhah asks.
“Three, maybe four months.”
“Why didn’t you say?” Zolekhah says.
“There was so much trouble in the household,” Khorsheed says. She places the squirming child on the rug and holds her stomach with both hands. Yousseff crawls to the bed.
“Does Ibrahim know?” Zolekhah asks.
“He hasn’t noticed yet.”
“He will be happy.”
“He’s too upset about Asher’s situation.”
Zolekhah considers the girl’s words. At this time, for Ibrahim to father another child . . . Neither of her sons will take this news with joy. “You are right,” Zolekhah says. “Wait a bit longer for this sorrow to pass.”
“When will it pass, Naneh Zolekhah?” Khorsheed asks. “Asher will always want for a child. He will only become more and more unhappy. And my husband, too. Rather than taking joy in his own son, all Ibrahim can do is speak of his brother’s suffering. It has come to this, that he does not even take his son in his lap, without some look of guilt coming across his face.”
Zolekhah feels Yousseff’s little hands holding on to the blankets, trying to use the cloth to pull himself up. Zolekhah looks at Khorsheed and another surge of grief overwhelms her. Not so long ago, she thinks, this one was a child herself and here she sits, anxious over her growing belly, tired already, and so soon?
“Tired,” Zolekhah whispers. She closes her eyes. “Leave, daughter, so I can sleep.”
Khorsheed rises to leave. Zolekhah listens to the sound of Khorsheed strain with effort to lift Yousseff, then the slow shuffle of her feet. When Khorsheed leaves the room, Zolekhah allows herself to cry. “Rain down your mercy upon us, Lord,” she says. “Show the grace of Your mercy.”
Eleven
Ibrahim hears the sound of the horse in the courtyard. Asher is home, he thinks. The women will tell him the rabbi is here. He will not come out of his study until the old man leaves. Ibrahim turns his attention back to the old rabbi.
“I don’t know,” Ibrahim says. “I don’t know.”
“It is a mitzvah, son. An act the Lord will smile upon.”
“What about the child’s mother?” Ibrahim asks.
“You say she is due with another?”
“Yes.”
“Ibrahim, G-d rewards a righteous deed. Tenfold. You will have more children. Many, many more children, G-d willing. Think upon a rich man. What is a loaf of bread to him?”
“A child is not a loaf of bread.”
“A child is sustenance for the soul, as bread is nourishment for the body.”
“And my brother . . .” Ibrahim looks out of the window at Asher’s study. Each evening, his brother walks in through the street door and retreats to his study. He no longer places records on the gramophone and opens the window to the gardens. The dusks pass in silence. If Asher does come to dinner, he eats without a word. If he speaks, it is brief. Business. Formalities.
“Asher is starving,” Ibrahim says. He shakes his head and raps his knuckles absently against the wall. He stops and looks at the rabbi a moment. The rabbi meets his gaze, then nods his head.
“What will be the loss for you, son? And what will be his gain?” he asks.
“Yes . . .”
“The Lord still speaks to us, Ibrahim, still as loud as he did when he spoke to our forefathers. It is only the din and racket of this world, our entanglement in greed and selfishness, that distract us from hearing the melody of His voice.”
Ibrahim clasps his hands in his lap to keep them still. He draws in his breath and holds it, then exhales heavily.
“And there comes a time when He asks
of us to be men. To act with courage, selflessly, to sacrifice for the good of others.”
Ibrahim rises from the ground and paces the room. He stops before the window and looks at the empty courtyard, at the shut window of Asher’s study, at the empty room that stands farthest down the breezeway. He leans his body against the window and presses his face against the cool of the glass. From somewhere in the courtyard, he thinks he hears his wife singing.
“Ibrahim?”
“Here I am,” Ibrahim answers. “Here I am.” He holds his face a moment, then looks at the old man.
“I will. It is clear that I must, there is no other way,” Ibrahim says.
The rabbi smiles and leans over to pat Ibrahim’s knee. Then, he searches for his walking stick and struggles to rise from the chair. Ibrahim takes hold of the rabbi’s elbow to help him. The rabbi stares for a moment at the light coming through the curtains. He nods his head.
“G-d will reward you, son, for this sacrifice. You will have many children, and they, too, will have many children. Your lineage will feel the tide of the Lord’s blessing for forty generations for such a noble deed.”
Ibrahim opens the door and helps the old man out into the sunlight of the late afternoon. The ground is littered with gold, brittle leaves.
“Forty generations, Ibrahim, forty generations will receive tenfold blessings for this one act of giving,” the rabbi says as they walk slowly toward the street.
It must have been in autumn when Ibrahim made the decision. Mahboubeh sits in the grass, looking at the trees. The trees naked then, not like this. Not green, like now. She looks at the leaves shimmering in the sunlight. The garden must have been empty of roses. Mahboubeh inhales deeply. She can smell roses. She is here, now. In a garden bloom full of roses. She hears him talking. Insisting. At first, quietly. But then, his voice becomes louder and she sees Ibrahim standing in the room, and Khorsheed listening. Exhausted from a night of tending to Yousseff, Khorsheed fails to understand Ibrahim’s meaning at first. Then, when the words become solid and heavy, when they become a menacing presence, moving toward her and her baby like the shadow of a predatory animal, Khorsheed lifts the baby to her breast and Yousseff, sensing the danger through the cadence of her heartbeat, the quickness of her breath, the deft motion of her movements, startles and begins to wail. Khorsheed runs toward the door, recognizes that it leads nowhere, stops and turns, staring wildly about the room for a corner, a place where the words will not advance any further, where they will be forgotten and she can tend to the screaming baby.
The Girl from the Garden Page 19