16

Teimur Khan could be heard quietly singing in the living room a poem by Rumi that described exactly how Hasti was feeling:

O beloved, align your heart with mine.

If I don’t follow you, then you can whine.

She went to the kitchen. Brigadier General’s new orderly was pouring tea. Hasti was hopeful. Had her mother been found? Was Touran Jan celebrating? “Who are the guests?” she asked Abedi.

“Our very own Brigadier General, a third lieutenant, and the guy with a handlebar moustache who’s singing.”

With the Quran in your hand, you entered seclusion.

I am that Quran; give up that seclusion.

She went into the living room, and Shahin rose. He put his officer’s hat on his shaved head, stood up straight, and saluted. “Third Lieutenant Shahin, the long-necked, reporting!”

Brigadier General said, “At ease.”

Sister and brother embraced each other and couldn’t be separated. Hasti sat beside Shahin, held his hand in hers, and kissed him again and again. “It’s so good that you are back, the man of our household!” Then she picked up a glass of tea and handed it to him.

“He came last night,” Touran Jan said, “after you left. I prostrated myself and kissed the ground.”

And then most likely she had burnt some incense.

“Why didn’t you give us any news all this time?” Hasti asked.

“Well, we were in Aqdasieh barracks. Thanks to Lieutenant General Tondar and our very own first sergeant, I was sent to Aqdasieh; otherwise . . .”

He turned and said, “Brigadier General, you must forgive me. The lieutenant general had come to review the military academy. I . . . At first we were all at school . . .”

“The lieutenant general is my close cousin,” Brigadier General said. Then he lay his hands on his claw-footed canes that were standing on either side of him.

“At the order of the first sergeant,” Shahin continued, “I reported to the lieutenant general. He said, ‘Soldier, prepare a statement.’ When I took the statement to him, I said . . . I respectfully said that I am your neighbor and that we are very close. To be honest, I exaggerated as much as I could.”

“Did he ask how I am?”

“Yes, he did. He asked how your legs were and said, ‘This cousin of mine must have surgery.’”

“I was afraid to have the surgery in Germany . . . and here they will cripple me. Who is there to take care of me?”

Touran Jan put her hand on her chest and said, “Me.”

Shahin then went on to talk about his first sergeant, saying what a rascal he was. He never thought of his soldiers. He shifted most of the work to those under his command. His room was full of opium pipes, charcoal braziers, and bottles of cognac and whisky. He didn’t know which son of a bitch had reported him. The commander had come for a review, and after watching the march, he had ordered Shahin, “Soldier, come forward! Tighten your bootlaces!” The door of the first sergeant’s room was locked. The commander had ordered, “Unlock the door.” The first sergeant had dithered, put his hand in his pocket, but didn’t find the key. The lieutenant general ordered Shahin, “Soldier, break the lock.” The first sergeant found the key.

“Oh, God, what did we all see? On the mantle, there was a collection of Hafez’s poetry with a Quran on top of it. There was a prayer rug spread on the floor. Imam Ali’s picture on the wall. A clerical robe by the prayer rug. The first sergeant raised his hands and begged to do a divination from Hafez for the lieutenant general. The commander slipped his lash into his riding boots and entered the room. He sat by the prayer rug and asked, ‘Don’t you have some fine Shirazi wine?’ The first sergeant swore by the life of the lieutenant general that he did not.”

As Shahin told the story, after picking up the collection of Hafez’s poetry, the first sergeant bored the lieutenant general with a litany of supplications to Hafez. With closed eyes, he raised his head toward the ceiling and kissed the Hafez collection. He opened it and gave it to Shahin to read. Shahin noticed that there was a bookmark in the book. He read the first sergeant’s designated poem:

Good news, O heart, that there is someone Messiah-like coming,

From whose sweet breath, the beloved’s scent is coming.

Shahin laughed and said, “What a trickster he was!” Teimur Khan and Grandmother were breathless from laughter.

“The lieutenant general said, ‘What Hafez means is that my wife is having a good time in the United States, and she will come back soon.’”

His wife had gone to the States as a companion to the queen. The queen was to deliver a speech about women’s rights at the United Nations . . .

“The lieutenant general’s wife always wears splendid dresses . . . ,” Brigadier General said.

Hasti was thinking, The queen’s speech must have been written by the prime minister’s brother, or Majid, or Gholam Ali. Whoever has written it has prepared a fiery speech. Why is Shahin, whose favorite teacher was Hamid Khan, giving all these compliments and being so happy to serve in the army . . . ? If only Teimur Khan would start singing . . . She knew why she couldn’t laugh herself.

“My dear Imam Ali, my dear,” he sang loudly.

Abedi passed the tray of fruit by everyone. Hasti took an orange, peeled it, and arranged the pieces like a flower on a plate for Shahin.

“The lieutenant general had gone to inspect the kitchen,” Shahin said. “He asked the first sergeant, ‘What do you have for lunch?’ He saluted and said, ‘Sir. Soup, sir.’ The lieutenant general asked them to raise the covers of the pots. When the first cover was raised, he said, ‘But this is lentil rice!’ ‘Even better, sir.’”

Sister and brother went to Shahin’s room. “How long do you have off?” Hasti asked.

“One week. Until they assign us to different cities. I have chosen Shiraz or Isfahan.”

“You gave so many compliments to the lieutenant general so that he would recommend you, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Shahin, you bootlicker!”

“These two are proper cities.”

He took off his military uniform and threw it on the bed. He took a new pair of pajamas from his bag and put them on. Hasti hung his uniform on a hanger and thought, For one week we can manage to keep Mother Eshi’s disappearance hidden.

“Where’s Mother Eshi?” Shahin asked. “I called three times today, but each time her husband picked up the phone and asked, ‘Bijan, good news or bad news?’ And I hung up.”

“She’s gone to visit the historical monuments of Shiraz and Isfahan with a group of Americans,” Hasti said.

Shahin put his arms around his sister’s neck and asked, “Why have you lost weight, Hasti? Do you remember when you were little, whenever you cried, Touran Jan would say, ‘If you cry, your dimples will get mad and fly away’? Now your dimples have flown away.”

“Well, I’ve grown old.”

Shahin sighed. “Our whole life we’ve lived in this run-down house with the story of our father’s death.”

In the office, Hasti was turning the pages of the previous night’s newspapers and gazing at the photos of unidentified corpses. Whenever the phone rang, her heart would sink, and when she called here and there, it seemed like her heart would leave her chest and rise up to her throat. Father and son had checked all the three-star and two-star hotels and even all the hostels. They had gone to the coroner’s office and to telephone taxi agencies. They had even gone to the Shah Abdol Azim Shrine, and Ahmad Ganjur had sent Bijan to Mashhad.

When Hasti came home in the evening, she would sit and chat with Shahin. She was happy at her brother’s happiness. The lieutenant general had fixed things so that he was about to be transferred to Shiraz. For dinner, they would eat chicken and pomegranate stew, meat and yellow split-pea rice, meat and green-herb stew, and chicken and red currant rice. Perhaps Fatemeh Sabzevari’s wish that Hasti always eat good food had been granted, although it was meat and fava-bean rice that she had specifically mentioned. Touran Jan would send with Shahin a plate for Brigadier General and one for Teimur Khan. She would also put halva on the side of each plate. Shahin didn’t know that the halva had been made as an offering for the souls of people who have no one. He didn’t even notice Touran Jan’s motion and Hasti’s shaking her head in refusal.

As soon as they saw Shahin off in Mohsen Run’s minivan, Hasti called Mardan Khan. She couldn’t wait any longer. Secretly she hoped that Mardan wouldn’t answer. If he didn’t, it would mean that Mother Eshi was in his house. But Mardan did answer, and he asked, “Any news?” Then he added, “I’m coming to see you.”

Mardan came to Hasti’s office. In response to Hasti’s question, whether tea or Turkish coffee, he asked only for an ashtray. When he left, the room was filled with smoke.

The morning of the appointed day her mother had gone to see Peggy. Mardan hadn’t gone to work that day. Peggy had listened to what Eshrat had to say. Then she had said, “Men love variety. One cannot expect a man, even a non-Muslim man, to spend all his life with one woman. You’re lying that the baby is Murray’s. Murray knows what to do. I’ve been married to Murray for sixteen years, and I have only three children.”

Then Peggy had gone to yoga, and Murray and Eshrat had been left alone.

“Poor Ahmad, he’s a wreck.”

“You’ve seen Mr. Ganjur?”

“Of course. We’ve sat together, gotten drunk together, and cried together. A lonely pregnant woman in a cruel city. And it’s all my fault.”

Her mother had gone home . . . With five suitcases, a fur coat, a fur jacket, and her box of jewelry, she had telephoned for a taxi. She had gotten five hundred tomans from Taqi Khan. When Taqi had called Ahmad at his garage at Azari Crossroads, Ahmad had said, “Damn all of you! Why didn’t you get the taxi’s license number?” Naneh Agha is illiterate, and the others hadn’t thought of it.

Bijan was still in Mashhad, and there was still no trace of Eshrat.

“The last words that she said to me were, ‘I’ll give to charity whatever I have, and I’ll go to Imam Reza Shrine. I’ll tie my neck to the steel bars and starve myself to death. I’m sinful,’ she said. ‘I must suffer.’”

Hasti cried along with Mardan. But suddenly an idea flashed through her mind. “Mrs. Farrokhi! Maybe Mrs. Farrokhi has some news.”

“No, she doesn’t. Ahmad said that since you refused the marriage proposal of Farrokhi’s son, the Farrokhis are not friendly with Eshrat.”

Hasti thought, When did Farrokhi’s son officially propose to me that I could have refused?

“Besides,” Mardan continued, “Eshrat is wiser than to take this shame to the Farrokhi house.”

“So we must go to the police.”

“It will bring shame on all of us. To hell with me! I’m going to leave this damn country anyway. But this shame will affect many people, including you.

“Hasti,” he begged, “forgive me. How much pain I have caused all of you with my carelessness, and worst of all, Ahmad, on whose shoulders I added so much weight, but he never complained. Only once he called and asked, ‘Is my wife at your place, you jerk?’”

One night, Ahmad had said, “Eshrat has loved me for twenty years; I have plucked the flower of her youth. If she is found, I’m ready to send her to England with Bijan. Now that I am certain that the baby is mine, I’ll do whatever she wants. The best hotels. If she wants to live separately from me for a while, I’ll get the best house for her. I’ll spend lavishly on her. I wish my hand had been broken, that I hadn’t raised it against her . . .” That night Ahmad had been very drunk.

As soon as Mardan left, Hasti opened the window. A piercing gust rushed in. She closed the window. But another spark in her mind was still glowing . . . She would go to Bowling Center. Maybe Raya would know something, and if Raya didn’t know, she would call Salim. Her mother didn’t need to go to the Farrokhi house with the whole story. She could have said just that she was not speaking with her husband and was seeking refuge with Mrs. Farrokhi, couldn’t she? But this whole time? Anyway, Mrs. Farrokhi, fearful as she was of Mr. Farrokhi’s womanizing, would intervene so that mother and Ahmad would reconcile. Even if she couldn’t reconcile them, at least everyone would be happy at mother’s existence in this world.

Hasti’s heart was not in her work. The days they had council meetings she would try to just get them over with. Even Professor Mani had noticed her distraction. He had asked several times, “What is it, my dear girl?”

One day, after the council meeting, Dr. Zandi had said sarcastically that Miss Nourian was worried about Morad Pakdel, and Hasti had become so angry that even she herself could hardly believe it. She had pounded on the council table and shouted at Dr. Zandi, “My private life is none of your business, Dr. . . . Do you think I don’t know what you do? You well know that I do! Do you think that I can’t shout everywhere at the top of my lungs that your honor has . . .”

Professor Mani had put his hand on her back and said, “You and Pakdel are like my children. I won’t allow anyone to ridicule you.” He had insisted that Dr. Zandi apologize, which he did. He had even wanted to kiss Hasti’s hand, but she didn’t let him.

One day, when everyone had gone to see the wedding exhibit that the Italian engineer had built, Hasti hadn’t gone, saying that she had a headache. Besides, of the trousseau, only the inlaid table and the Bahadori-design carpet were ready.

Fakhri sympathized with Hasti and told her, “Miss Nourian, maybe your constant headache is due to eye strain.” Hasti put her hands on her temples and said, “I have to go to the eye doctor.” She felt like crying. Her mother had wanted to take her to her eye doctor. She had insisted that she should wear contact lenses instead of glasses and had promised her that it would be worth the trouble. Her whole life she had lived with the death of her father, and she still didn’t know if he had been a hero or had been shot by accident . . . And now, the suicide of her mother, whose body couldn’t be found.

Peace and quiet only came to Hasti when she was working on her poem, “The Earth’s Complaint,” and she put the weight of her feelings onto the planet. When the poem was finished, she read it to Fakhri. Fakhri didn’t quite grasp it, but she said, “It’s a sad poem.” She typed four copies and took one copy for herself so that she could read it carefully and understand it.

Hasti picked up the phone and called Ahmad Ganjur’s house. “It’s me, Mr. Ganjur, Hasti.”

“Do you have any good news, my daughter? If you do, I’ll give you any reward you want.”

“I think I have found a clue. A last hope. If we are disappointed, we must then inform the police.”

There was silence.

“Can you hear me, Mr. Ganjur?”

“Yes, my daughter. I was thinking that I will sacrifice my honor for your sake. I didn’t have much honor to lose anyway. But you will be affected, and so will Parviz, and your other brother.”

“Shahin,” Hasti said.

She blurted out, “Maybe Mother Eshi has gone to Mrs. Farrokhi’s house.”

“I called several times. Once a young woman said, ‘There’s no one here by that name.’ The second time, an old woman said, ‘I don’t have any news.’ I asked for Mrs. Farrokhi, and right away she asked, ‘Why doesn’t Eshrat come to Bowling Center anymore?’”

Hasti wouldn’t give up. She hoped that maybe all of them were lying at her mother’s request. Maybe her mother wanted everyone to suffer. And weren’t they suffering? This time it was Ahmad Ganjur who asked, “Can you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“I, too, got a bit hopeful, but there were no more phone calls.”

“Who called, Mr. Ganjur?”

“One day, the phone rang three times. But when I answered, the caller didn’t talk. Maybe it was Eshrat. Maybe she had missed me.”

Hasti said that she would go after the clue anyway, knowing that the person who had called was Shahin.

Is life a bad dream that everyone interprets as they like? Is life a historical misunderstanding? In any case, “time” is its warp and weft. That night Simin had said that sometimes time passes like the wind, extinguishing the flame and fire of disaster. Sometimes, it is no more than a breeze, repelling only the flame. But sometimes it doesn’t blow. Then, moments stop, because time has not been able to overcome emotions. Then, the flame of disaster spreads beneath the ashes of time, and its sparks burn body and soul all over again . . . But for some, like Ahmad Ganjur, this misunderstanding is mixed with optimism, and some even celebrate this very misunderstanding. Then Eshrat Ganjur couldn’t have committed suicide.

Isn’t life a type of poker? A type of twenty-one? But one cannot read the other player’s hand, and the root of the disaster is right there. Mardan Khan had talked about the useful number. He had said, “In twenty-one, I could have twenty. In that case, my only useful number would be one.” Was Mardan’s useful number my mother? Was she Ahmad Ganjur’s useful number? Whose useful number was she? And now she is the useful number of all her family members and relatives, even Touran Jan. She must be found.

Hasti kissed Fakhri and asked her to somehow provide an excuse for her absence. And life? This most precious gift given to humans. Has this gift been given to the residents of the shantytown, too? Has it been given to all the oppressed people of the world? They are fed at weddings and funerals, and they don’t even know whose food they are eating. They are not seeds, but birds eat them from the surface of the desert lands. Do those birds ever think that they are not seeds to be pecked? . . .

Dr. Zandi hadn’t said that Hasti misses Morad . . . He had said that Hasti is worried about Morad. Professor Mani had taken advantage of the ambiguity of the words he had used, had interpreted worry as missing, and had connected it to the private lives of Hasti and Morad . . . How much did this Dr. Zandi know? Was he also a bird that was seeking seeds named Morteza, Morad, and the like?

If only she had gone to Bowling Center sooner. “Every Friday,” Raya had said, “Mrs. Ganjur comes to the spa with Mrs. Farrokhi. Mrs. Ganjur comes in a prayer chador. She doesn’t take a bath or get a massage. She sits on my chair and knits baby clothes. But she makes Mrs. Farrokhi get a massage as soon as she comes out of the shower and makes her melt away her fat in the gym . . .” Raya laughed and added, “Me, I can’t manage massaging her . . . Me and Soheila together . . . She keeps saying, ‘Oh, it feels good.’”

Hasti called the Farrokhi house from Bowling Center. If they gave her the runaround, she would quote Raya’s words. How come they hadn’t asked Raya to lie? Well, maybe no one had thought of Raya. A pregnant woman wouldn’t go to the sauna. Her baby would die.

Salim answered the phone, recognized Hasti’s voice, and asked if she had had a good trip. Instead of responding, Hasti asked how Salim was and said that she missed her mother and Salim . . . Salim explained that the other night when his father had behaved so shamefully . . . he had come out of Mrs. Ganjur’s bedroom into the corridor in pajamas, and how much Mrs. Ganjur had screamed. Now he had a backache. Hasti was too happy to feel sorry for Salim’s back. She asked to talk to Mrs. Farrokhi or her mother. Thank God that her mother was under a safe roof . . . Morad wanted to sleep under a safe roof. Will he now? . . .

“My mother has gone to Mr. Ganjur’s house,” Salim said, “to sympathize about your mother’s absence, but she will be back at noon.”

“When did my mother leave your house?”

“It’s been three or four days now.”

“May I come to see you?”

“I would be honored.”

Hasti was elated to know that her mother existed, but worried about where she had gone now. She had to buy a headscarf and go to the Farrokhi house by taxi. The eye doctor could wait until later. Her eyes could still see. Suddenly, she felt that she had become damp. She needed pads, too. She washed her face. Raya had Johnson’s Baby Powder, which she used to rub on the bodies of women like Mrs. Farrokhi after massage, and she said that she also had a bit of lipstick in her bag.

Hasti knew the way to Salim’s room. He was lying on the floor and had pulled the blanket up to his neck. The empty bed with the pillow was in its place. Hasti sat on the floor next to the mattress. She asked how Salim’s backache was and said she hoped that he would feel better soon. She quoted Touran Jan, saying, “A young person’s flesh is as if it were on the top shelf; he can extend his hand and pick it up.” She was talking nonsense.

Salim smiled and said, “There’s nothing wrong with my flesh. The vertebrae are apparently made of bone.”

Hasti hadn’t gone there to talk about flesh and bones. Taji cured her fatigue when she brought tea and fruit. Taji was wearing an apron and a headband. The orange was so big that Hasti thought it was a grapefruit. The knife was sharp, too. She peeled the orange and arranged the pieces in the shape of a flower on a small plate. She put one piece in Salim’s mouth and remembered Niku who used to peel tangerines for Salim.

Eventually Salim told her more about the disgrace of that night . . . That night Mrs. Ganjur had screamed nonstop . . . His father had snuck into her room at 2:00 a.m. Salim had arrived just as his father was fleeing the room in his pajamas, with a pillow thrown after him . . . Salim had heard Mrs. Ganjur’s voice . . . Once she was no longer screaming, she had yelled, “Do you think I am a walnut tree in the middle of the village that anyone who arrives can pick its walnuts and break its branches!?” Then Mrs. Ganjur had cried . . . Salim finished the story by saying that when Mrs. Ganjur was there, his mother felt well, and the house had some order.

Mrs. Farrokhi hadn’t shown up, and Salim, with those eyes (Were they magical? Visionary? Mysterious? Scary?), assumed that Hasti was restless. “Call Mr. Ganjur’s house,” he said, “and ask when my mother is coming home.”

It wasn’t necessary; she was just happy to be with Salim. Salim smiled at this flattery, and the smile was lost in his reddish-brown beard. They didn’t have anything else to talk about. Hasti took her poem from her bag and said, “Salim Khan, I have written a poem.”

“You also compose poems? I thought you were a painter.”

“Do you want me to read it for you?”

Salim closed his eyes.

The Earth’s Complaint

In infinity you adorned me with the robe of life.

Life, the outcome of the most extraordinary accidents.

Allegorical forms of love and beauty remained in the heavens.

And you made the younger brother, Sorrow, a part of them.

They wove lies and were damned.

They found the question to be obsolete religion,

And they never found the answer.

Now, don’t you hear the sound of cries?

Their first word is “Ouch, ouch,”

And the tear flower is their gift to one another.

Upside down tulip, cages with nine layers, each one inside the other.

I am turning around myself and the sun,

And there is no planet by me, so that I say,

“What good will come from this loneliness and suspense?

And from this lost sphere that is me?”

Salim opened his eyes. It seemed as though he had awakened from an otherworldly dream. “Is there a flower called ‘tear flower’?” he asked.

“Yes, there is. Tulip buds just like two bloody tears, at the end of branches and leaves, upside down, as if they are about to fall. If one has a tear flower at home, one doesn’t need to cry oneself.”

“That’s strange. Do you remember one night I told you that your bewilderment is a mystical bewilderment?”

Hasti did remember.

“Do you remember that you had painted me a picture on fiberboard and it was broken right on this bench?”

She remembered that, too.

Salim wanted to know what Hasti had painted on the fiberboard. Hasti wasn’t too shy to say that it was a picture of a bitter orange and Salim’s eyes in profile and in full face . . .

Salim closed his eyes and said, “Be nicer to me, O bitter orange girl!” He opened his eyes and said, “There’s a notebook and a pen on the side table. Get them.” Hasti found the notebook and the pen. Oh, my God! Perhaps the thirty-fifth notebook . . . the thirty-sixth . . . and now a literary piece or several maxims . . . or maybe he wants to write down Hasti’s poem.

“We will marry ourselves,” Salim said.

“What did you say?”

“We say the marriage vows ourselves. Say, ‘Ankahto nafsi laka.’” (I give myself to you.)

Like a parrot, Hasti repeated the unfamiliar Arabic words.

Salim said, “Qabalto alnekaha lenafsi.” (I accept you in marriage.)

“Write it down on the last two pages of the notebook,” Salim said in a commanding tone. “‘With the good omen, protection, and blessing of the Twelfth Imam.’”

He repeated the marriage vows, and Hasti asked, “Do you spell ankahto with an h?”

Salim smiled. “Yes, it’s with an h.”

Hasti signed both pages of the notebook. Then she gave the pen and the notebook to Salim, who put it on his chest and signed both documents. The notebook remained on Salim’s chest, but no one knew where the pen had fallen. Now she could kiss Salim’s pink nails, his ears, and his eyes, and Salim could kiss his wife so hard that she couldn’t breathe.

Hasti put her face on Salim’s beard and whispered in his ear, “O Salim, the lesson of love cannot be found in a notebook.”

Salim whispered, “You’re now my wife. Man and wife. You’re my everyone and everything in this world. You’re the oil in the lamp of my being. I will extinguish your confusion and your depression . . .”

“My love, put your hand behind me.”

“As soon as my back stops aching, I’ll come to your house with my father, mother, and sister to officially ask your hand in marriage. Our parents have a right to share in our happiness . . .”

Hasti heard Mrs. Farrokhi’s voice asking, “Why didn’t you bring her to the living room?” This Mrs. Farrokhi, who didn’t come and didn’t come. What timing that she came now!