Once the girls came up with the idea of going to a fortuneteller. There was an Armenian lady who lived in the neighborhood and was well known for telling fortunes by reading coffee grinds. Everyone called her “Madame.”
I wanted no part of it. “I don’t want to have my fortune told,” I said. “It is not fair for all of us to show up and only one pay for her services.” The girls were amused by my hesitancy. “Don’t worry,” said one of them, snickering. “We will keep your secrets.”
“We could all three have our fortunes told,” was the decision.
Madame’s front yard was immaculately kept with flowers and greeneries. The consulting room upstairs was dimly lit. It took us a few minutes to get used to the low light. We sat around a table and looked at an elegant cupboard full of antique china and ceramic dishes and receptacles. Madame watched us from the top of her spectacles and asked how many cups of coffee we wanted. She then left the room and returned with three cups on a tray. The aroma of coffee set off in me a bout of craving.
It was Maliheh’s turn first. She kept glancing at us, clicking her tongue as Madame talked, indicating her astonishment at the veracity of Madame’s prognostications. Manizheh, on the other hand, was not quite so impressed.
“And then what will happen, Madame?” she asked, when Madame stopped talking. There was a touch of skepticism in her voice.
“You will come into some money on two occasions,” Madame declared gravely.
“A whole bunch of money, or what?”
“I can’t tell. But it will be on two occasions. They may be apart two days, two weeks, two months . . .” Madame answered, allowing her voice to trail.
My turn was last. Madame picked my cup and held it up close to my face. The girls craned their necks to see. The grounds had formed into a crisscrossing of tracks and roads.
“Your heart is not here,” she said. “You are a stranger in your own house. You will be leaving this place in a near future.”
“Where is she going, Madame?” the girls asked in unison, clearly enjoying to let the word “Madame” roll off their tongues.
“I don’t know. But she is going,” Madame answered.
“Perhaps you have some secret plans we know nothing about,” said Maliheh, looking at me askance.
“I have a secret plan to make a beautiful quilt,” I said, grinning and pointing to my belly.
THE GIRLS ENJOYED talking about household goods and furnishings. Every time they came for a visit they commented on the pillows in the guest room. In this visit they had concluded that I needed new pillowcases because they showed their age.
“Polyester fill is better for pillows,” Maliheh opined.
“Wool is the best,” Manizheh interjected.
“Then I need to know what to do with all the feathers I have got in mine,” I said jokingly. This made us all laugh.
“We should have gone to the store today to buy pillowcases for feather pillows,” one of them suggested.
MANIZHEH WAS STILL upset about her conversation with Madame. “That was a waste of money,” she complained.
I found myself in agreement with her. “She put me in the mood for travel,” I said.
“Perhaps you miss your dear husband,” said Manizheh, winking suggestively, “so you want to go see him, huh?”
Almost always there was something racy in their comments and body language when they spoke about husbands, matrimony, and such matters.
“He’s going to be here in a few days,” I said. “No need for me to go see him.”
Then we started mimicking Madame. We all thought she was rather miserly in dispensing coffee in those tiny mugs. The girls were pleased and said theirs were good but yours—instead of babies and birds in your cup—was roads and highways. We all laughed.
After I saw my guests off at the top of the alley, I returned home, picked up the baby, and headed for the park to have a stroll and some ice cream. Afterward, near the playground, I plumped down on a bench next to an old women who sat motionless, staring into the empty space. The child left my side and went to play on the slide. For some reason I thought of the winding roads and tracks on the bottom of the coffee cup and Madame’s predictions. Was it possible that I might leave this place for somewhere else? The only thing I had not thought about in recent years was leaving, going somewhere. It occurred to me that I had always trained myself to stay put, to remain static. In my mind I had sealed off all the possible exits to alternative modes of existence.
The sun had already set when I got home, but Mr. Yazdani was still there at the entrance to the house. When he saw me he struck a pose as if he was about to recite an ode. I felt depressed. I said hello and rushed into the apartment, locking the door behind me. A few minutes later he was knocking on the door, offering his company as an antidote to my loneliness.
The old man had discovered in me a solitude and innocence that he desired to be part of and share. At every encounter he would smile at me and ruefully shake his head. Throughout the day he would frequently stop by the apartment and ask if there was anything he could do for me. He would consider it a privilege to be of service. I always had to cut him off. “I beg your pardon,” I would say and shut the door. On leaving the house, I had to make sure he was not anywhere near the hallway. I would bundle the baby, letting her know that we had to be quiet. We would move noiselessly to the door and reach for the lock, key in hand. Even so, more often than not he would materialize behind me and offer to help me open the door. “There is a trick to it,” he would say. “You can’t handle it by yourself.”
Occasionally, Mrs. Yazdani would descend to the world below her upstairs domain. She was openly contemptuous of her husband and the way he looked. “In his seventies and he still wore tight jeans with a big belt buckle,” she would grumble. “He always smelled of a very strong cologne. He combed what was left of his gray hair on the sides of his head to cover the bald patch on his skull.” She found all that disgusting.
“He’s become very effeminate,” she told me once. “He spends more time in front of the mirror than a woman.”
For her part, Mrs. Yazdani had given up on her femininity. She didn’t pluck her eyebrows. She simply gathered her untended hair over her head in a shapeless bun. A black hair grew out of a mole on her cheek, tempting one to reach out and pluck it. She had missing teeth. A lifetime of discontent had tracked her face with lines of a permanent frown that did not dissipate even when she smiled on rare occasions.
When Mammad came for a visit on a weekend, I told him about my problem with Mr. Yazdani.
“Do you mean he is a lecher?” he wanted to know.
“No, he’s not,” I replied emphatically, although deep down, I wasn’t quite sure.
“You should be able to regulate your relationship with others,” he said. “I can do it for you, if you can’t.”
“I can,” I said, and then changed the subject.
Mammad left the next day. I limited my outing, as I knew Mr. Yazdani was always hovering in the background like a phantom watching my every move. I imagined myself as an assertive woman who would resolutely walk up to him, handing back the house key, silence him with a stern glare, and walk away. He would be shaken by surprise, and speechless like a mute.
Once I ran into Madame on my way back to the house.
“You are still here?” she asked, genuinely surprised.
“I’ve just arrived,” was the only rejoinder I could think of. “Why should I want to leave?”
It occurred to me that I really did not have any other place to go.
In bed at night, I often touched my belly to feel the movement of the baby inside. Sometimes I did not immediately detect any motion. I would be overcome with fear that the fetus was dead. I held my breath until I felt some movement, softly kicking the walls of my womb, some indication of a growing, thriving life.
But that night it was not an anxiety attack I was experiencing. It was an overwhelming excitement, as if my whole body was charged with
a renewed energy, a sense of liveliness filling my entire body. It was not an unknown feeling, but it took me a while to recognize the same sensation I had once experienced before.
The sea was tranquil and shimmering in the sunlight. I was lounging under a parasol painted with a sunflower design. The beach was crowded with people, some stretched on the sand, others afloat in the sea, their heads bobbing up and down in the gentle waves. I moved closer to the sea. I did not know how to swim. I sat on the warm, wet sand and stretched my legs as water caressed my naked feet. The wet sand felt warm and soft under my feet. I stretched out on my back, looking at the blue sky. Nobody seemed to notice me, as if I was a part of the scenery. I felt integrated with all around me, feeling the living presence of the sea, the thrill of being alone and forgotten, floating between earth and sky, savoring the deep peace within. I am alone, and I am free, drifting here and there, following the whims of the wind, going wherever it chooses. I had never felt that sense of freedom, that transcendence, before. I had a sensation of being suspended in the wind, gliding over the waves like seagulls effortlessly on currents of air. I was overcome with a sense of gratitude. I was grateful to the sea, to the earth, to the sky, savoring that deep peace offered me, trilled with joy as being a part of the natural world. I had a vague, indescribable awareness of being completely free. It superseded any notions of freedom I had had before.
My heart was racing and the novelty of the experience, the overwhelming beauty of existence, brought tears to my eyes. There was something sacred about it. I promised myself never to forget the exhilaration of that moment, to let it be the guiding light of my life, to live free and never allow the darkness and sorrows of the world to drive that sense of freedom out of me.
I was not able to keep that promise. I convinced myself that the experience was due to too much sun and the sea air. But that night, in the bleak, enclosed space of the room, I felt it again. The gentle movements of the fetus in my womb imbued me with the power of being in harmony with an infinite universe. I got up and pulled the blanket over the baby sleeping in her crib. I opened the window slowly and took a deep breath of the night air, redolent with the fragrance of the jasmine. I did not know what time it was. The lights were out and the night was quiet. Only the muffled chorus of crickets broke the silence of the night.
I saw a tiny speck of light at the far end of the yard. It was the glowing tip of a cigarette. Immediately I recognized the silhouette of a man squatting by the flower-bed holding it. It was Mr. Yazdani. I jumped back reflexively, fearing detection. But the old man was in his own world, oblivious to his surroundings. It was strange to see him silent and motionless. I closed the window and went back to bed.
A day or so later, there was a knock on the door. It was Yazdani. By now I recognized his knock. It had a certain rhythmic quality about it. It brought to my mind a picture of him standing in the hall preparing a flood of words to unleash on me when I opened the door. His confidence that I would open the door engulfed me and made me reach for the doorknob. But something stopped my hand in midair.
I did not open the door.
After a few more knocks on the door, with varying degrees of force, Yazdani gave up and left. An hour later the telephone rang. I reached for the plug and pulled it out of the socket, somehow knowing that it was Mr. Yazdani. He had called several times before. I returned to the kitchen and slumped in a chair. I did not feel like doing anything.
I don’t know how long it was before I heard a knock on the door. I was startled by it, although I had been hearing movement in the hall. I went over to the baby’s room and closed the door so she wouldn’t be awakened by the noise.
I stood next to the door, my heart racing. Inside me, I could feel the movement of the fetus, strengthening my determination not to open the door.
Now Mrs. Yazdani was downstairs knocking on the door. She slapped the door with the palm of her hand, calling me by name. The couple had probably seen me come in, and knew that I had not left the apartment. In the background I heard the voice of one of their sons. They were having a heated exchange among them but I could not figure out what they were saying. After a few minutes they gave up and went upstairs.
I heaved a deep sigh of relief.
It was early evening when I was transfixed by the sound of a key turning in the front-door lock. Then I saw the handle move. I rushed toward the baby’s room, standing in front of it defensively. The door opened slowly and Mr. Yazdani’s head with its shock of gray hair poked into the room. He glanced around and was surprised to see me. I screamed loudly, involuntarily.
By now he was inside the room with hands raised in an attempt to calm me down. A stream of words were pouring out of his mouth so fast I wasn’t able to comprehend. Finally, he paused briefly. “Forgive me, please,” he said, articulating every word. “I didn’t mean any harm.”
Now Mrs. Yazdani came down the stairs, shouting “What’s the matter? What’s the matter?”
She had her husband’s striped pajama bottoms on but no chador. “What the hell?” she yelled at her husband, and rushed to embrace me.
“He made a mistake,” she said. “He meant no harm.”
The baby had been awakened by the commotion. She drifted into the living room, rubbing her eyes. Mrs. Yazdani swept her off her feet and thrust her into my arms. “Please, calm down. You’re scaring the baby,” she said.
Mr. Yazdani was more intensely red in the face than ever before, his eyes sunken in their sockets. He was foaming at the mouth. “I thought something had happened to the innocent child,” he managed to say.
Mrs. Yazdani pushed him out of the room and headed for the kitchen. She came back with a glass full of sugar water and forced me to drink it. She then took my hand and pressed it to her breast. The baby had stopped crying, but kept her arms tightly around my neck. Mrs. Yazdani told me not to move as she left the room, only to return a few minutes later carrying a plate full of fresh plump apricots. She picked one, split it in halves, giving me one and the baby the other half. The intense orange hue inside the fruit indicated that it was ripe. It was from her own tree in the garden, she informed me.
“Mr. Yazdani has gotten old and senile,” she said in a sorrowful tone. “He is scared of death and does weird things. He is miserable. He is in the yard hitting himself on the head, crying. You can go see for yourself if you don’t believe me. Forgive him out of the goodness of your heart.”
She asked me not mention the incident to my husband. When I assured her I wouldn’t, she got up and left.
The next day I ran into Mr. Yazdani in the hallway. It was not a chance encounter by any means; it was obvious he had been waiting for me. He looked older and more decrepit than before. With a deep bow and in a tone more stilted than ever he addressed me: “My dear daughter, I was apprehensive of the welfare of your precious little darling. I had no intention of intruding,” he began, and then proceeded to give an account of the accidental death of a relative by gas poisoning, an incident which he said was his motive to check on me. He followed the narrative by repeated pleas to forgive him, despite my own repeated assurances that I had. He held me up in the hall until his wife called him upstairs.
I think it was at that moment that I decided to move.
I am jolted by Mammad’s mother calling me. We are standing in the middle of a roomful of boxes. “How can you move all this singlehandedly?” she wonders, looking around. She continues, “Some folks are not very helpful. They always come for dinners and receptions but not when they are expected to help.” I don’t know who is the target of her invective.
“Not a big deal,” I say, trying to make light of the situation. “We’ll throw everything in the truck and let it go at that.”
Mr. Yazdani comes into the room, excitedly reporting the arrival of the truck, a fact of which we are already aware. To initiate the loading process, my mother-in-law tries to pick up one of the boxes. I pull her back. “It is too heavy,” I warn. “Don’t even think about it.”
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br /> “Not you, either,” she says, pointing to my protruding belly.
We are milling among the boxes, trying to come up with a way of packing them into the truck.
“Hello,” I hear a voice behind me. I turn around. It is a friend of mine and her husband. For a moment I think they are apparitions. I had never asked anybody for help with moving. But they had come on their own initiative and—what is more—they had brought a few more friends with them. Mammad’s mother, looking relieved, picks up the baby and moves out of the way.
Mr. Yazdani, in his usual harried and hasty manner comes into the room. “Are you sure you haven’t packed the garden hose?” he wants to know. I simply point to it on the hook in the yard.
My friends roll up the carpet in the living room and hoist it up to the bed of the truck where a few of them are standing, working out a strategy to make the best use of available space. From the window I look at them. They are young men, their light-hearted banter echoing in the narrow alley.
I haven’t done such a good job of packing, although I have moved several times in my life. A plastic bag overstuffed with bathroom items bursts and disgorges its contents, among them an unsightly oversized ewer, made of red plastic. For some reason, the young men find the object amusing. They all laugh heartily. I try to share in their merriment, but I can’t. Somehow, I am embarrassed by the plastic baby bathtub, plastic ball, plastic soap dish strewn on the bed of the truck, as if I am defined by them. Why didn’t I throw them away, leave them behind? By the same token, why don’t I dispose of all those sentiments, emotions, precepts that crowd my mind? Can I ever be rid of them?
A young man is holding up the red ewer over his head for further amusement and fun. I feel a sharp pain in my back and the onset of despair. Would that ewer be suspended up there forever as an emblem of my existence? Finally, the ewer loses its entertainment value and is packed away out of sight, but I do not feel any relief from the painful bite of its symbolism.
The Shipwrecked Page 7