1

It was not yet dawn. Light from the window fell on Hasti’s eyelids and found its way into her heart. A star in her heart winked back. She rose and sat on her bed. Everything was fine. For a moment, like all trusting optimists, she believed that day had been born from the heart of night like the water of life from within the primordial darkness, but the light only lasted a moment: morning had been tarnished at the very beginning by its own lie.

Hasti removed the wax-soaked cotton wads from her ears, and the snoring of her grandmother, who was sleeping in the bed opposite hers, merged with the darkness. Darkness and sound. Hasti lay down and closed her eyes.

She was dreaming. She is in unknown territory. She’s sweating from excessive heat; her dress is stuck to her body; she’s panting from thirst. She sees trees she doesn’t recognize with burnt leaves and broken limbs. They throw no shadow. Several women with black, head-to-toe, Arab-style chadors are coming forward, their hands holding the pots that are on their heads. The chins and necks of the women have tattooed images of scorpions, snakes; no, this one is an image of a star, and that woman has an image of the crescent moon on her chin. Hasti’s eyes do not see clearly enough to recognize all the images. She asks a woman with an image of a scorpion under her throat, the tail of the scorpion reaching to her chin, “These trees . . . ?” The woman answers offhandedly, “Cedar trees.” Hasti thinks that she is referring to the two trees in paradise . . . of which the poet Hafez says one should not expect kindness.

Yet Hasti looks for kindness from one burnt tree and sits under it. There is no shade but one can lean against it. The ground beneath the tree is covered with dead sparrows, their wings broken . . . It seems that blood has also been spilled. Cartridge shells are everywhere. Several cats and dogs are coming, paying no attention to one another. Each is missing either a forepaw or a hind paw. All of them are blind. It is as though a mortar shell has fallen and wounded them. The cats are meowing. The dogs are howling. Perhaps they are hungry. Don’t they see all those dead sparrows under the trees? The odor of carcasses . . . Perhaps they are saying silently, “Is there no one to respond to our cries?”

Hasti passes a ruined wall, goes over bricks and cartridge shells, and arrives at a burnt lawn. She knows it’s a lawn because of the sign beside it: PLEASE DO NOT WALK ON THE LAWN. So much dirt is spread over the lawn—it has so many pits—and there’s a metal cylinder the size of the hot water heater in their house. A collapsed building can be seen in the distance. Several closed doors are visible. Hasti sees herself groping the ground, but she can’t find a key.

Hasti sees two skeletons coming forward in long, jerky strides. They stand in front of her. They hug each other and kiss.

And now Hasti is standing next to a water well. There is neither pulley nor rope.

A voice says, “Those who had the rope and those who had the key, they have all vanished.”

Grandmother was saying, “I have been standing in the waiting room, eyes on the route of the train of death.” And now each breath, which splits and scratches her chest, sounds like a train that has barely arrived before it starts off again.

Hasti awoke. The vanguard of true dawn had yet to appear.

As quietly as a cat, Grandmother got up from bed. She took the kettle of water from beside the charcoal heater at the end of the room and went outside to relieve herself and cleanse herself for prayer. She returned in the same quiet manner, taking her prayer bundle out of the wardrobe. It was a full and precious bundle that held Grandmother’s dearest possessions. A little prayer rug with a drawing of an altar; within the arch of the twocolumned altar was the spot for spreading the prayer cloth. Grandmother’s mother and others before her had probably spread their prayer rugs at the same place, in the same house, and positioned their foreheads in prostration on the same spot. The Quran was also the same Quran from which all of Grandmother’s now-buried ancestors had heard or read and felt in their souls the word of God. It was a handwritten Quran that had been illuminated. In the margin at the beginning of each sura a picture of a cypress tree gave one peace and the good tidings that God is kind and forgiving.

Once, Grandmother knew the word of God completely by heart. But now, where has that memory gone? Hasti had bought a magnifying glass for her. Grandmother kissed the Quran and placed it on top of the prayer rug.

The album of photos of her son and his faded letters were also in the prayer bundle. There, too, was her son’s agate ring, which Grandmother herself had removed from his blood-splattered finger.

Grandmother stood to pray. Depending on the degree of her strength or her agitation about the day ahead, she contented herself with only one morning prayer, or she added more. Many times, Hasti had counted four or five, even up to ten times that Grandmother had stood in prayer and finished over and over again, until the sun shone on her face where time had left its mark, with lines and spots and wrinkles and bags and hollows.

That day, Grandmother said only one morning prayer. When she had finished, she asked, “Hasti dear, are you awake?” She repeated her usual mantra: “Be more powerful than the sun and rise sooner than it does.” But today she also said something new: “There’s plenty of time for sleeping to boot. We are all going to sleep hundreds of thousands of years in the earth . . .”

Hasti ignored the remainder of Grandmother’s words, which were about the Resurrection and the trumpet of the angel Israfil. She thought, alluding to Khayyam’s poem, If luck is with us, we will grow like blades of grass by the side of a stream; but as for me, I would be happy being no more than the potters’ clay, O Khayyam.

She wished she could sleep until noon. She wished she could just stretch out and read Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood.

That Friday Grandmother was expecting a visitor. Akhtar Iran was coming, and together they would remove the charcoal heater. Although it was early in the season, Hasti had bought an Aladdin portable kerosene heater from the first paycheck that she had received. A magic lamp.

Hasti yawned, stood up, and opened the window. The weather was mild. The sun was shining and dancing on the dry branches of the trees in the courtyard. The sun kissed the branches and gave the welcome news that spring was on its way. But one could not trust even the sun’s good tidings. Spring weather sometimes gets delayed. Hasti remembered that once it had snowed in Tehran on the third day of spring. Was it the third or the fourth?

When the doorbell rang Hasti was ready, except for carrying out her mother’s instructions. Her mother had said to wear her New Year’s clothes. Yesterday evening Hasti had stopped by Marusa’s, her mother’s Russian seamstress, but her dark red suit was not ready. Her mother had said to go to the hairdresser and to sleep in a way that her hairdo would not be spoiled. She had advised that she stick her forehead to the pillow. Hasti had gone to the hairdresser, but she had slept like a normal person, and the curls and ringlets of her hair had been disturbed. Her mother had said to paint her nails dark red, put on dark red lipstick, and take off the grease of the lipstick with a facial tissue. She should do this two or three times—the tried-and-true secret of invisible makeup. Hasti had not done any of this.

Hasti opened the door. Her mother’s husband’s driver was standing next to the back door of the car. He said hello and closed the button of his coat with much difficulty. His stomach pressed on the button, which was about to pop off.

“Just a minute,” Hasti said, and she went back into the house.

Grandmother was sitting by the charcoal heater looking at the courtyard through the open window. Hasti hugged her from behind and kissed her white hair.

When they arrived at Pahlavi Avenue, the gate of the Marble Palace was open. Here and there gardeners were trimming the trees, sifting dirt, and planting seedlings in the edges of the little garden plots. They were arranging, clipping, and grooming it all. Whenever Mr. Ganjur, her mother’s husband, wanted to get rid of bothersome people, he would give his address by saying, “Pahlavi Avenue, next to the shah’s house.” But the Marble Palace wasn’t the shah’s house, nor was Mr. Ganjur’s house next to it.

The gate to Mother Eshi’s garden was open. Workers were painting the pool blue. The car stopped by the veranda off the family room. As Hasti had foreseen, the button on the driver’s coat could not withstand the pressure of his stomach. He jumped out of the driver’s seat with his coat unbuttoned.

The family room was warm and clean. Hasti saw her mother in her deep blue, woolen dressing gown standing next to the closed door of the sitting room, her ear glued to the door . . . When she saw Hasti, she left her post and came to her side. She kissed her, scrutinized her head to toe, and said, “Oh, my God! Didn’t I say to wear your New Year’s outfit?”

When Hasti explained that it wasn’t ready, her mother said angrily, “How dare this Russian bear, Marusa, not finish my child’s clothes on time!” She pulled aside the edge of Hasti’s coat. “Thank God you’ve worn a black skirt. Take off your coat and skirt so that I can give them to Pasita to iron.”

Hasti opened the button of her coat. “You’re not showing me off for marriage, are you?” As she took off her coat she added, “You know that I hate showing myself off.”

Hasti, wearing her mother’s peach-colored dressing gown, was sitting on the sofa in the family room, her coat and skirt beside her. She stirred her tea and drew in the scent of Darjeeling as though it were caressing her soul. Her mother was sitting in the armchair across from her, thinking.

“Well?” Hasti said.

“Keshvar, the dealer,” her mother replied, “has been here since early morning to see Ahmad. You know that Ahmad borrows and lends money and takes interest. He takes 3 percent interest. And Keshvar deposits jewelry with him.”

Mother Eshi rose, returned to her post, and put her ear to the closed door. “I hope God will put it in Ahmad’s heart to take a piece of jewelry for me as his profit,” she said softly. “I would even be happy with emerald.”

When she sat, she laughed and said, “You won’t believe what a blaze I set aflame last night. I danced the Baba Karam at Dr. Bahari’s party, and I out-flirted all the American women. Dr. Bahari said, ‘Well done!’”

Hasti laughed. “Now you want a reward?”

“Well, of course!”

“Couldn’t you lower your expectation a bit,” Hasti said, “and be happy, for example, with turquoise?”

“No. Emerald.” Mother Eshi thought for a moment and added, “Hasti, do you remember that deaf and dumb Seyyed who came here a couple months ago and stayed for two weeks? He told the fortunes of our American friends by using sign language, and Ahmad interpreted for them. For me he signed that I would soon come into possession of a jewel or something, but Ahmad denied it. He said that he didn’t give any such sign . . .”

“That deaf and dumb Seyyed is a charlatan,” Hasti said. “He is neither deaf nor dumb . . .”

The door of the sitting room opened, and Keshvar and Mr. Ganjur came out. Hasti rose and greeted them. Mr. Ganjur ran his hand through his salt-and-pepper hair and pulled up his pajama bottoms. He sat next to Mother Eshi, lit a cigarette, and yelled, “Naneh Agha, bring tea! Make sure it’s freshly brewed.”

A bell for summoning the household help was on the table. Mother Eshi pressed her finger on its button.

Hasti stood in front of Parviz’s aquarium, which was installed on the wall of the room. She turned on its electric light and entertained herself watching the exotic fish that glided and wriggled among the rocks, moss, and miniature plants and the bubbles that rose from the aerator. No, it wasn’t a scene worth painting. It was a superficially joyful object for the spoiled sons of those who charge interest, though it’s religiously forbidden, and serve as fixers for Americans, however much they themselves say they are educational experts. They also have misleadingly good-looking bodies and a style that causes American women around them to say, “Oh, how handsome!”

Hasti heard Mr. Ganjur saying to Mother Eshi, “Pretty woman, don’t forget when you are returning from Bowling Center to give Parviz and Taqi Khan a ride home from the zoo,” and Mother Eshi saying, “What do you mean? How could I forget?”

Keshvar was sitting on the sofa. Plump with a peaches-and-cream complexion, she was wearing a chador and made a show of veiling her face in front of Mr. Ganjur. Hasti sat next to her.

Pasita entered carrying Parviz’s cat.

“Well, where’s the tea?” Mr. Ganjur asked.

Pasita answered in English. “Naneh Agha is bringing it.” She gave the cat to Mother Eshi and said in English, “I don’t know what has become of Lady. I gave her meat; she didn’t eat it. I gave her milk; she didn’t touch it. I think the animal is sad. Parviz should have taken her with him to the zoo, so she could visit her relatives.”

Mr. Ganjur bit on the corner of his salt-and-pepper mustache and laughed.

Lady sat on Mother Eshi’s lap as Mother Eshi petted her long white fur. The cat yawned and then closed her rose-colored mouth and shut her big blue eyes. The interior of her ears was pinkish, and her nose was the same color. Mother Eshi pressed her cheek on the cat’s head. Then she put the cat on the floor. She rose, took a ball of wool from her knitting bag that was under the sofa, and tossed it in front of the cat. At first the cat crouched defensively; then she attacked the meadow-green ball, bit it, and began to play with it . . .

In her broken English, Mother Eshi explained to Pasita that she should not be afraid, that there was nothing wrong with the cat.

When Mr. Ganjur had finished his tea, he rose, pulled his pajama bottoms up, and went to the sitting room.

“Mother Eshi,” Keshvar asked, “don’t you want to remove the hair from your legs?”

It was strange that everyone, not just Parviz and Hasti and Shahin, but even the Filipina maid, the Afghan cook, Taqi Khan, the driver, Naneh Agha, Keshvar, and friends and acquaintances all called the lady of the house “Mother Eshi.” Mother Eshi didn’t mind, either. Mr. Ganjur sometimes called her “pretty woman,” sometimes “Mother Eshi,” and when he was angry with her, he would yell, “Hey, you!” Since Mother Eshi would not respond, he would yell, “Hey, I’m talking to you, Eshrat,” and Hasti would be offended.

Mother Eshi gave Hasti’s coat and skirt to Pasita and said in her own special English, “You take; you good brush, iron, and bring soon. Understand?” Pasita understood.

Mother Eshi remembered Keshvar’s question and explained that the hair on her legs had not grown out yet. “I’m postponing hair removal,” she said, “until a few days before New Year’s.” Then she put her head to Keshvar’s ear and whispered.

Keshvar said loudly, “I told him, by God. He said, ‘Leave it for her New Year’s gift.’”

Several strands of yarn had gotten loose from the ball of green wool that had been on the carpet. Hasti was rolling the strands around the ball and thinking. From the time Pasita brought Lady to the family room to the time that she lovingly took her away was a short scene worthy of filming. It would be good for people whose hearts were happy. Perhaps people whose hearts were sad would also be happy for a few moments. At least to the extent that they would be from an antianxiety pill . . . People don’t realize it, but colors, scenes, touches, scents, and tastes, if they caress the senses, drive away anxiety. On the other hand, darkness, clamor, ugliness, harshness, putrid smells, and dirty colors disturb the senses, and after a while, they shatter the nerves.

With her tiny green eyes, Keshvar cast an admiring look at Hasti and asked Mother Eshi, “Are you ready to marry off your daughter?”

“It depends!” Mother Eshi said. “Who will be the groom?”

“The groom works at Omran Bank,” Keshvar said. “And he produced the play Khaleh Suskeh (Auntie Cockroach) that’s on television and in theaters. Have you seen it?”

“No.”

Keshvar turned to Hasti. “You haven’t seen it either?” Hasti answered that they didn’t have a television.

Keshvar chanted from Khaleh Suskeh, “I’m going to find a hubby . . . a hubby and a half . . .”

“Mother Eshi,” Mr. Ganjur yelled from the sitting room, “tell Navidi to take Keshvar Khanom home while you’re getting ready!”

Hasti accompanied her mother to the bedroom and sat on the double bed with its blue suede bedspread. The sheer curtains on the glass paneled interior doors were light blue, and the window curtains dark blue. Navy blue silk tassels were hanging from the ends of the curtains like earrings. Lately, whenever Hasti had come into her mother’s bedroom, she had thought that if it were done in green, it would be more calming. But Mr. Ganjur had bought all the furnishings for the bedroom by the lot at an inexpensive price from an American family whose mission in Iran had come to an end, and so it cannot be made green.

Hasti turned on the switch and light spread poetically from the canopy above the bed. She also turned on the tape player and . . . disco . . . rock and roll, and then probably the twist . . . She turned off the tape player. There were several pieces of gum without their blue covers on the table next to the bed. She put a piece in her mouth and chewed. The scent of mint cooled her mouth. Maybe Mr. Ganjur has bad breath, she thought.

Mother Eshi placed a box in Hasti’s hand and said, “I must give you your New Year’s gift now. This Russian bear, Marusa . . .”

Hasti pulled the violet ribbon that was arranged like a flower on the violet, flowered wrapping paper and opened the box. A violet sweater, of violet wool and violet silk. At the corner on the left side of the sweater, there was a little square of silk. The wide ribbon of a larger invisible square of wool surrounded the small square, and, in the same way, invisible ribbons of silk and wool were repeated and spread over the sweater. One ribbon, two inches wide, of dark color surrounded the wrists. The garment looked unreal. She kissed her mother and asked, “Shall I wear it today?”

“Of course!”

Mother Eshi’s hand touched the bell on the bedside table. “This Pasita,” she said, “her head’s in the clouds . . .” She searched for violet nail polish and violet lipstick in the drawer of her dressing table.

Mother Eshi put on black slacks. She fastened her bra and put a flowered, beige silk blouse over her bare body. At the bottom of the blouse there were two ribbons that served as a belt. Mother Eshi brought the two ends of the ribbons forward and knotted them. A section of her midriff was visible. The blackness of the slacks made the whiteness of her midriff look like ivory, but the weather was still too cold for a person to show off an ivory-like strip of her stomach. She threw a beige mink jacket over her shoulders.

As they were leaving, Mother Eshi shouted, “Bye-bye, Ahmad!” and said to Hasti, “What a miser! Now he’s placing the jewelry in a steel box, and only he knows the secret of its lock.”

On their way to Bowling Center, Mother Eshi spoke a little English. Ostensibly, this was so that the driver wouldn’t learn the family secrets, but in reality, she was practicing her English. She had been studying English for several years at the Iran–America Society so that she would not be speechless in front of American friends. They, especially the women among them, did not bother to learn Persian. A few of the men knew Persian, but neither did the flirting of Mother Eshi nor the flattery of Mr. Ganjur attract the attention of that limited number. But the stilted accents of the couple when they spoke English did attract attention, and sometimes it caused boisterous laughter.

Hasti, too, had studied English at that society in hopes of becoming an English teacher in the high schools of the capital, but it didn’t happen. Touran Jan used to say that, for women, teaching is more sensible than any other work. In front of the class, you are your own boss. You have to work only with a number of innocent children. If you are a sympathetic, knowledgeable, and kind teacher, you can, according to the poet Sa‘di, draw them to school even on weekends. And Simin used to say, “The attractiveness of teaching is that half of it is knowledge and the other half is acting. The acting entertains people.”

Hasti could have asked Mr. Ganjur for a favor, and in the wink of an eye he could have made it happen. Mr. Ganjur used to say, “The Ministry of Education is desperately searching for English teachers. All the students have turned to the study of English.” But Hasti didn’t say a word. She didn’t even divulge to Mother Eshi her motive for studying English.

When they turned onto Old Shemiran Road, Mother Eshi revealed her reason for arranging this date with her daughter, for beseeching her to agree, and for making sure she would definitely come. She stressed that in the sauna Hasti should be friendly to Mrs. Farrokhi. Why? Because she has a son who is a gentleman in every sense of the word and who comes on Fridays to pick up his mother.

“How many times do I need to repeat that I’m disgusted by traditional marriage?” Hasti said angrily. She turned to the driver and said in Persian, “Mr. Navidi, drop me off right here.” It wasn’t far from there to her house on Valiabad Street.

Her mother told the driver, “Never mind what she says; just drive on.” She hugged Hasti. “For my sake, just this one time.” And in Persian she said, “For God’s sake . . .” She continued in broken English, “Let Morad go. He thin and weak. He always restless. Besides, he hasn’t come to ask for you. And he not like me.”

“He will come to ask for my hand,” Hasti said. “If he doesn’t, I will take steps myself.”

“You like him that much?”

“He’s the only man I know who will not exploit me,” Hasti said. “He makes it possible for me to be the new woman that I want to be.”

Mother Eshi said in Persian, “There are new and old among women?”

One day Simin had spoken in class so much about what a woman should and shouldn’t be. She had said that because of the special situation of being a woman, the wife always stays in place in the husband’s home, while the man, in contrast, advances day by day, and the gap between them continually grows. Eventually, a deep abyss divides them and makes their marriage stale and meaningless.

They undressed in a room adjoining the sauna. Although Mother Eshi was plump, she had a well-proportioned figure. That’s because she attended to her body so much. Her breasts had nursed three children, but they were still firm and upright. Hasti had seen her nurse Parviz. She didn’t bend down. Rather, she would hold the baby’s head up and put her nipple in his mouth. Mother Eshi’s eyes were black, just like Hasti’s, and when she gazed seductively from under those bowed eyebrows, those slightly puffy eyelids, and those long eyelashes, it made even Hasti’s heart flutter. Hasti couldn’t remember the original shape of her mother’s nose. This nose had been operated on three times until it came out looking just like Elizabeth Taylor’s.

Mother Eshi gathered her blonde hair to the top of her head and clipped it. Hasti knew that she colored her hair and sometimes rinsed it with boiled chamomile and sometimes with crushed nigella seeds to give it a shine. The waves and curls of that golden hair that came to the top of her shoulders were produced by the experienced hands of the well-known beautician Farhad. All the chic women of Tehran would give an arm and a leg to get an appointment with him.

Very fat and totally naked women were sitting on the steps of the sauna. A slender woman was stretched out on the floor. When she saw Mother Eshi, she stood, and they kissed one another. You could see that the woman had been swimming in a bikini during the summer. Mother Eshi asked how her back was, and she said it was better. She complained that she had lain in the sun by the sea so much that summer, making her sweat, and now, too, the sauna was making her sweat. This woman could not be Mrs. Farrokhi, however much Mother Eshi kissed her. She was too young to have a grown son, especially “a gentleman in every sense of the word.”

Mother Eshi sat on the third step next to the fat women. They were all sweating. Perspiration sat on Mother Eshi’s nose, and Hasti also felt herself becoming damp from sweat. She looked at all the women and compared her mother to the others. Of all of them, she thought, she is the most beautiful, but she won’t sit as a model for me. Hasti decided to keep all these naked bodies in her memory, so that when she arrived home, she could draw them and compare the results with her BA project, for which she had won first mention. (In the Faculty of Fine Arts, expressions like this, in languages other than Persian, were often used.) Her BA project was the naked bodies of women who had sought relief for incurable pains in the hot baths of Sare‘in. When Professor Mani had seen her painting he had said, “It’s Dante’s inferno!”

Raya entered and slammed the door of the sauna. Hasti suddenly feared that the door wouldn’t open again and that she would be burnt to a crisp in that hell that was not Dante’s. It was a pointless destiny—a person on her way to be shown off to Mrs. Farrokhi burnt to a crisp.

Raya was thin, and her skin was the color of a yellow carrot. She was wearing only shorts, and her breasts would fit in Hasti’s palms. She had a pitcher in her hand. Many stones, some smooth, some rough, had been scattered on and around the heater. An electric light peeked out from time to time from among them, and from time to time it glared. Raya filled her fist with liquid from the pitcher and tossed it on the stones. The stones sizzled and emitted steam and a pleasant scent. Mother Eshi explained that the pitcher contained a few drops of eucalyptus extract in water.

A woman with frizzy black hair crouched next to Hasti on the floor of the sauna and told Raya, “Sprinkle again.” Then she complained, “They didn’t tell us as kids that women are supposed to be thin. So we ate on and on, and so we grew fat. Rice, rich soups, fried potatoes, animal fat. Now how much trouble we must go through to lose one pound. Look at me. I get fat just from drinking water. I weighed myself; I was 175 pounds. After swimming, sauna, massage, and exercise, I’m two pounds lighter. But when I drink one glass of water, my weight returns to what it was before.”

The slender woman, who was once again resting on her back on the floor of the sauna, said, “Then don’t drink water, my dear.”

The 175-pound, frizzy-haired woman answered, “I can’t. My heart calls out for water.” Facing Hasti, she asked, “Why have you come to the sauna? Your figure is perfect.”

Hasti didn’t know why she submitted to her mother’s wishes and her plans. She didn’t know why her attachment and that of her brother Shahin to Mother Eshi had no bounds. Was it her attractiveness that seduced them? Did Hasti, deep in her heart, prefer the world in which her mother lived? Did her mother’s world open doors to her that she couldn’t even approach in her life with Grandmother? But Hasti considered those doors of opportunity pointless and the people behind them a group of hollow bourgeois consumers, as did Morad, who attributed numerous other characteristics to them as well. Morad had told her many times, “If you want to be authentic, you’ll turn your back on your mother and leave that foolish class.” Morad himself intended to leave his paternal home.

Hasti turned to the 175-pound, frizzy-haired woman, but the woman was making an appointment with Raya and bargaining to move forward her turn at massage. Hasti now became determined to do a painting of the sauna and title it Carefree, Fat Nudes. She didn’t know why she suddenly thought of Biafra, people thin as a spindle and straw-like children whose ribs could be counted but whose stomachs bulged out. Their stomachs were empty, so why did they bulge? She had asked Morad when he had shown her photos of those people. Morad had talked on and on, concluding, “Swimming with the current is easy, but against the current it’s hard . . . Yet . . . Although it takes more effort, it gives value to life.”

Hasti felt that one of her legs was being pulled by her mother and the other by Morad, just like the two legs of a puppet. And then there were Touran Jan and Simin.

A woman with a mountain of flesh entered and slammed the door. Again, Hasti feared that the door wouldn’t open and that she would be melted in that furnace. Enormous breasts fell on the woman’s stomach, and her thighs were so thick that nothing could be seen. She was a multilayered woman, completely naked, yet all that flesh wasn’t firm. When she stretched out her arms to give her hands to Mother Eshi, the flesh of her arms hung loose and limp. At a sign from her mother, Hasti rose and was introduced to Mrs. Farrokhi.

Mrs. Farrokhi narrowed her eyes and looked Hasti over, although there was no need for her to squint. Two small pillows of flesh in place of eyelids had naturally narrowed her eyes. Mrs. Farrokhi could not seem to get enough of looking Hasti up and down and surveying her face. Her narrowed gaze traversed back and forth, embracing her. Hasti got goose bumps from that all-encompassing look.

“Eshrat,” Mrs. Farrokhi said, “burn incense when you get home, though I don’t have an evil eye.” So, that look was a look of admiration.

Hasti moved away from her mother and Mrs. Farrokhi, who sat side by side on the first step. A jack would have been necessary to raise that enormous body up to the third step. Hasti sat on the floor of the sauna next to the frizzy-haired woman and hugged her knees. The frizzy-haired woman said, “Now I see why you came to the sauna.” And she laughed.

Hasti was drowsy. She closed her eyes and put her head on her knees. She heard her mother’s voice: “She’s twenty-two.” And she counted the first lie. She had taken four years off her life.

Again, her mother’s voice: “I was fifteen years old when Hasti was born. Shahin is three years younger.”

If only Hasti could go to sleep completely, but Mrs. Farrokhi and curiosity did not allow that. This transient, fleeting voice reached her ears: “I didn’t want to phone her; if I had known I wouldn’t have gone. This woman showed me so much arrogance. How can I explain that gesture? She stood and put her hands on her hips . . . ‘I don’t poke into the business of others.’ I understood well. I’m not stupid . . . She didn’t say anything . . . No, she wouldn’t go anywhere. She wouldn’t come anywhere. What happened that they became so busy? Did her husband become the minister of war? Did he become prime minister? It’s as though I’ve killed someone in their family. As if it were my fault that Mina Khanom became our daughter-in-law. Anyone would say the same. Really . . . I told Farrokh A‘zam, ‘She prays, then she sings. After prayer she dances. She doesn’t even pick up the prayer rug.’ I don’t want a sloppy bride like this. They found each other themselves . . . They danced around jerkily with one another at a gathering . . . They call it a party. That damned Morad had given the party.”

Hasti suddenly woke up. Was she talking about her Morad? No! Her Morad wasn’t damned, and he wasn’t into parties and dancing around jerkily. Hasti closed her eyes again and heard Mrs. Farrokhi’s voice. “This time I’m going to find the bride myself. She has nothing? Even better! Thankfully, God has given everything to me. I’m not looking for the wealth of others.”

“All the same,” Mother Eshi said, “my daughter is not without resources. Ahmad is very rich. He would give his life for Hasti. I’m sure a good dowry . . .” Hasti thought that if she counted her mother’s lies, she would soon lose track.

No, they were actually closing the deal. They were making plans, and they were carrying them out . . . Until the hundred thousandth lie . . . What remained was meeting in person the “gentleman in every sense of the word.” If Mother Eshi liked him, it would be all done.

Hasti stood up. Her head was spinning. She waited until the vertigo had passed. “Mother Eshi,” she said, “I’m going to the indoor pool to swim.”

“You don’t have a swimsuit . . . ,” Mother Eshi said.

“My dear,” Mrs. Farrokhi added, “don’t rent a swimsuit from Raya . . . You can catch a thousand diseases.” Without a response from Hasti, she continued, “Anyway, my dear, you should have swum first and then come to the sauna. That’s the right way.”

“I brought a swimsuit,” Hasti said. She went toward the door, and again fear that the door wouldn’t open haunted her. The door was airtight. Hasti turned the round handle to the left and then to the right.

“Dear,” Mrs. Farrokhi yelled, “don’t fiddle with the door handle; it’ll break!”

Her mother rose.

The frizzy-haired woman also rose and said, “If the door doesn’t open, all of us will soon be grilled meat.”

Her mother came to the door. She pushed in the button at the center of the handle and turned the handle. Opening the door, she laughed and said, “After you swim, come to the exercise room.”

“Sorry,” Hasti said as she left, “for frightening all of you. I’m so clumsy.”

“It happens,” Mrs. Farrokhi said. Hasti was glad that she hadn’t said “dear.”

Hasti entrusted her body to the tepid water of the swimming pool and welcomed the kisses of the water on her skin. She no longer feared any closed door. There was good reason that she couldn’t tear her heart from Mother Eshi. She was indebted to her for this happiness and calmness, and for many other joys as well. The caress of the water was like the blessings of her mother. It was like good tidings and good wishes: Morad will come to give New Year’s greetings the fourth day of the new year—your birthday—and you’ll wear your violet wool and silk sweater. You’ll show Mrs. Farrokhi several more examples of your clumsiness. Morad will bring you a bouquet of flowers. But as soon as his eyes fall upon your sweater, he’ll say, “Hasti dearest, take off this fancy sweater. My dear, right now millions of people in India are hungry . . .”

Hasti had met the wife of the Indian ambassador at Mr. Ganjur’s house. The ambassador’s mission in Iran had come to an end, and the ambassador’s wife was worried about her dog. She was worried that her beloved dog would become sick on the plane. She spoke of a shot that the Pasteur Institute was supposed to give dogs, and she asked Mr. Ganjur if he could convince the Pasteur Institute to provide a certificate saying that they had given the shot even though they had not. Although the English of the ambassador’s wife was unfamiliar to Hasti’s ear and she didn’t understand most of what she said, she understood the ambassador’s wife to say, “These kinds of formalities are obligatory, whether you are an ambassador or not.”

Mr. Ganjur scratched his head and said, “Let me see what I can do. I can prepare an inoculation booklet and place an affirmative sign next to ‘inoculation done,’ but it will need a stamp. The stamp of the doctor . . .”

Hasti became so angry that she interrupted her mother’s husband. “Ma’am,” she said, “millions of people are dying of hunger in India and you are thinking of your pet dog that . . .”

The ambassador’s wife pulled the corner of her silk sari over her head and took a cigarette from the inlaid box on the table. Mr. Ganjur gave Hasti an angry look.

Hasti found her mother stretched out on a table in the exercise room. Raya switched on the electricity, and Mother Eshi and the table both began to shake . . . Then she took a round disc that seemed to be made in imitation of a flying saucer and connected it to a metal cylinder with a base shaped like a spaceship. With this she set upon Mother Eshi’s ivory-like stomach. She drew the flying saucer back, she pushed it forward, and she turned it around, and then it was the turn of the thighs and the flank . . . Other women were lying on other tables in the exercise room, and other Rayas, fatter and taller or shorter, but none thinner, had set upon them. It was like surgical operations on hospital beds. But Mrs. Farrokhi was sitting up on a table and watching Hasti, who was still wearing her swimsuit. No ship had been launched into space, but Raya poured oil from a bottle into the palm of her hand and greased every part of Mother Eshi’s body that she planned to rub and pound and slap and turn.

In another room they had mummified the frizzy-haired woman—not her whole body, only her face, neck, shoulders, and hands. With care and some splitting and cracking, she stood and walked. Her ankles had also been mummified. Names and images competed with one another in Hasti’s mind . . . Queen Nefertiti . . . Frankenstein’s bride . . . But Hasti remembered that she had never seen an image of a mummified, 175-pound Queen Nefertiti. Queen Nefertiti, what a swan-like, beautiful neck she had.

Mother Eshi lay down on the table in place of the frizzy-haired woman, and Raya mummified her. Royal Petroleum Jelly, hormone lotion, atomic water spray—all these words that were rightly appropriate for the space age. Morad said that Sartre had said, “Two-thirds of people these days live in poverty and need, so that the other third . . .” Among them, women who took turns to become mummified, without any awareness of the situation.

Mrs. Farrokhi in her Karakul lambskin coat and Mother Eshi in her mink jacket ahead, and Hasti after them, all came out the door of Bowling Center. They found Salim, Mrs. Farrokhi’s son, sitting behind the wheel of a black BMW. Mrs. Farrokhi said, “Thank you, dear.”

Salim Farrokhi got out of the car, came forward, and said hello. Mother Eshi did not shake hands with him, but Hasti extended her hand when she was introduced. Salim did not take her hand, and Mrs. Farrokhi explained. “Dear, he doesn’t shake hands with unrelated women.”

Hasti had only cast him half a glance and had seen his reddish-brown beard. She decided to try a different approach and not look at him again, but she couldn’t.

Salim took his mother’s hand to help her across the culvert. This task was more appropriate for a crane than for Salim, who was shorter than Morad but just as thin.

Mother Eshi looked at her watch and said, “I have a suggestion. I’ll send Navidi after Parviz at the zoo, and Mr. Farrokhi can take us all home.”

“I’d be pleased to,” Mr. Farrokhi responded. He had a deep, protective voice.

“Now that they have the opportunity,” Mother Eshi said, “let them go to Bowling Center restaurant and have coffee.” Then she added, “If they have Turkish coffee, I can even read their fortunes.”

In the restaurant, they sat at a table next to a window overlooking Old Shemiran Road. Jazz music did not allow them to hear one another. Salim stood and went to the information desk. When he returned, the clamor of the jazz subsided.

Hasti heard Salim ask, “Mother, may I help you take off your coat?” His mother made an excuse, saying that she was afraid she would catch cold and that was why she had worn a fur coat.

“Hasti Jan,” Mother Eshi said, “take off your coat. Show Mrs. Farrokhi the sweater that you knit yourself.” Hasti stubbornly refused.

Her mother was reading Salim’s fortune, her intent transparent. Way too transparent! Hasti thought. She said that a dark-eyed girl with turned-up eyelashes; a clear, high forehead; and full lips, round chin, and dimples in both cheeks when she smiles . . . will appear on his path . . . It was so blatant that Mrs. Farrokhi also understood. She snorted and said, “For heaven’s sake, Eshrat.”

“Hasti,” Mother Eshi said, “turn your cup upside down so I can read your fortune.”

“I read my own fortune.”

“Okay, do so. Let me see.”

“I mean,” Hasti said, “that beyond the essence of my spirit, I don’t believe in any fortune.”

And she didn’t know how it happened, but her eyes met those of Salim. His eyes sparkled. This guy has strangely feverish eyes, large and oval. The color of his eyes was between blue and gray, and it looked as though they had eyeliner drawn around them. The pupils of his eyes caught the light, and the light moved around in them. The eyes changed color with changes in the amount of light. Even the shape of the eyes changed with movement of the head, and the oval shape became elongated. Fear gripped Hasti as her heart dropped.