Chapter 19
WABC News blared and rumbled from the Jaguar’s six speakers as Yusef rolled down his window to spit a mouthful of sunflower seed shells out onto a slick Route 9W. He wondered what the world was coming to when the former leader of a country could be arrested like a common criminal. Not that he knew much about the history of Chile’s Pinochet, only that the Americans had rightly been behind the assassination of the dirty communist Allende back in the 1970s. No one understood how difficult it was to be an effective dictator, and he was certain this ignorance had led to the arrest of Pinochet. In London, no less. The British had truly forgotten their legacy of clever colonialism, which was to civilize and then utilize the natives to carry out their agenda. The British had turned soft. Not that he had ever liked the British. What Iranian who knew his history did? He remembered their greed and sense of entitlement over oil. Not to mention the sharp racist divide they created between Iranians and their own in oil cities like Abadan, where they had treated the Iranians as if they were lowly Hindis or filthy Arabs. And where was their loyalty to old friends? Even that silly Jimmy Carter had known a little bit about that. Imagine if he had allowed the arrest of the Shah when he came to New York for the cancer treatment in 1979? Of course, the Hostage Crisis might never have happened, but Carter did the right thing, especially since he had already betrayed the Shah by making such a big deal over human rights—that ridiculously impractical concept that had paved the road to Revolution. That’s what the world got when Americans elected a peanut farmer. Now, Eisenhower—he’d been an icon. If not for his people—the Dulles brothers and Kermit Roosevelt masterminding that coup against the communist Mossadegh in 1953—Iran would have been eaten alive and digested by the Soviets. If only that wishy-washy, spineless Carter had been clever enough to do what his predecessors had done: keep the Shah in power. If Reagan had been president, Khomeini would have withered away in exile on French soil.
Yusef swung into a lucky parking space directly in front of The Cigar Shoppe in Devon. The mullions of the new store window had been stained a deep brown. He smiled; cigars had made a comeback. The popularity of tobacco, like port, always measured the success or failure of a society’s economy. It was one of his theories.
He wasn’t low on his stash of tobacco for his pipes, but the aroma in the shop of the processed leaves relaxed him, reminding him of his father’s study. It had been a place where he wasn’t often welcomed, but to him it was the heart of that big house, where business was planned and politics was discussed and vulgar jokes were told.
Entering the shop, Yusef sank into one of the new leather armchairs. The owner, a Palestinian named Omar whose English was as stiff as his joints, ambled out from behind the glass counter with a wide smile.
“Mr. Jahani! I had a feeling you would be in today. May I take your coat? A glass of tea?”
“No, thank you, Omar. I cannot stay long.” He was already late for dinner, but it was the vision of him and Shireen sitting in near silence at the table that had inspired him to take this detour. Her dispirited moods were becoming tedious.
“Allow me to make a special pipe for you, a new blend that arrived from South America just today,” Omar said, and went back behind the counter.
The door opened as another customer came in, and Yusef felt that the chill of autumn had finally set in during the last week. He closed his eyes for a moment. “Sir,” said Omar too loudly, standing over him with a pipe. “Smell first,” he said, waving the bowl under Yusef’s nose.
“Very nice,” said Yusef, taking the pipe and allowing Omar to light it while he puffed. “Mmm. Yes.” He exhaled a stream of smoke above his head. “A bit of coconut, eh?”
Omar bowed slightly. “Exactly.”
“Mmm, yes,” Yusef said again.
“Please enjoy. I will help my other customer. Excuse me a moment.”
Yusef leaned back and closed his eyes again. Immediately he pictured Lubyana, her milky breasts with their tumescent nipples, her white-blond hair touching the curve of her back, her lips smeared with pink and the gloss of his ejaculation. He snapped his eyes open; this was not the time. He was acting like a dreamy adolescent. All week he’d been beset and distracted by such images. His extracurricular women belonged within certain parameters he’d drawn long ago, but Lubyana haunted him.
“This is very good, Omar. I’m enjoying it.”
“Shall I ring up a tin for you?”
“Maybe next time. I’ll just take my usual.” Yusef continued to sit and smoke, and felt a sadness as the tobacco quickly turned to ash. He rested the cold pipe in an enormous butterscotch-colored glass ashtray and approached the counter to pay for his goods. “More peace talks coming, eh, Omar? Pennsylvania this time.”
Omar sneered. “Not peace talks, my friend. With those two, Netanyahu and Arafat, more like fake talks or war talks.”
“Have faith, Omar. One day you will go home.”
“And you as well, my friend.”
Yusef was taken aback. How dare this polyester-clad Arab, this thick-accented new immigrant, this refugee, put himself on a par with Yusef? Even if by some miracle the Shah’s son was reinstalled on the throne and all the Jahani family properties were returned, Yusef would never go back to live in Iran. He realized suddenly that this was the very thing that was weakening the Western powers: all these foreigners with ties to the old country swarming into Europe and America with their own agenda, their outside allegiances. The Cold War was over and the world had turned inside out. The ants were colonizing the earth!
He paid Omar and offered him a stiff goodbye. At this point, Shireen’s sullen company was preferable.
* * *
Yusef swung into the driveway and felt the steering wheel loosen slightly as his tires came in contact with a layer of wet maple leaves. He’d told Manuel specifically to keep the pavement free of them, but gardeners didn’t sweep or rake in the rain anymore. Insolent workers. The slippery leaves reminded him of the accident that had killed his precious daughter.
He heard the oven door closing as he came in from the garage. “You are late,” Shireen said. “The food has gone dry.”
He ignored her and went up to change into his loungewear. Recently, she’d stopped offering him a greeting when he arrived. He found it extremely rude. At first, he’d greeted her nonetheless, stressing his words in an attempt to remind her that she was remiss. And good evening to you, lady. She hadn’t responded to this demand for respect, and he decided it wasn’t worth it to tackle the issue. After more than forty years, he didn’t feel like greeting her at the end of a long, hard day either.
He took his seat at the round kitchen table, noticed that something was missing. He took an inventory; two place settings in mirror images—dinner and salad plates, napkins clutched by silver rings, stemware, forks on the left, knives on the right, dessert spoons horizontal above the plates. Water pitcher. Two iron trivets, serving fork and spoon. Salad bowl with sliced tomatoes, cucumbers, and carrots in perfect symmetry on top of the lettuce mix. He pulled his chair in and spread the napkin on his lap, still wondering what was missing. Shireen brought the meal to the table in two serving dishes, set them on the trivets.
“What’s this?” Yusef asked, sniffing suspiciously.
Shireen pointed. “Schnitzel.” Pointed again. “Baby potatoes and asparagus.”
“I am able to be at home twice this week for dinner and you serve me German food?” he scolded. “I ate a mere yogurt lunch in anticipation of ghormeh sabzi, Khanoom.”
“I am sorry,” Shireen said, not looking at him, taking her seat and unfolding her napkin. “I did not have time. Iranian food takes time.”
No flowers! That’s what was missing. He couldn’t remember an evening when Shireen had set the table without, at the very least, a single rose in a vase. Even in the dead of winter, a snowstorm blowing outside, she managed to have flowers to accompany them at the table.
“You had no time to make me a decent meal?” he said, allowing his incredulity to show. “What important deed kept you so busy, may I ask?”
She served him portions of the breaded veal, potatoes, and asparagus. “I had my Meals on Wheels today.” She plopped a lemon half on his plate, then began to serve herself.
“Wheels and Meals? What is that? It sounds like a gambling game.”
“Meals on Wheels,” she enunciated, though replacing the w with a v sound. “I’ve told you, Yusef, several times. Have you really forgotten, or are you trying to annoy me?”
He squeezed lemon over his meat, purposely letting the spray fall on the table, a pet peeve of Shireen’s. “I remember,” he said reluctantly. He cut into the meat, added a golden potato to the fork, and poured a glass of water for himself.
“Actually,” she said, “it was quite extraordinary what happened to me today. Poor Mr. Higgins with emphysema, who is the second person on my route, lives in the Colony Apartments, where I also have another client, a wonderful Mrs. Manning, who is a writer, though she can’t use her arthritic hands anymore and speaks into a tape recorder. Anyway, when I arrived at Mr. Higgins’s apartment, he wasn’t like his usual self. Even though he has the oxygen, he is normally very talkative, telling me about his grandchildren who live in Arizona and offering me a cup of coffee, which I always decline because I have two more people to go and the food can get cold if I take my time, and believe me, it is not the kind of food you want to eat unless it is hot, as that helps it to taste like a home-cooked meal instead of processed cafeteria food . . .”
What was she going on about? Yusef was half-finished with his veal and Shireen had not taken her first bite, though she was cutting it up. She liked to cut her meat entirely before beginning, like a child. He forbade her to do this when they ate out.
“. . . and Mr. Higgins was slumped in his easy chair, with the television remote fallen to the floor. And he is a very fast channel surfer . . .” She interjected the English phrase here. Where had she learned that? Soap operas, no doubt. That’s where she learned everything. “. . . white as a ghost and I pinched the skin on the top of his hand—I learned that from ER—and realized he was completely dehydrated.” Yusef drank his glass of water and poured another. “. . . and the nurse at the hospital told me to stay there until the ambulance came. Poor man! He was near death! If I hadn’t been there, he surely would have lapsed into a coma. I don’t think anyone visits him, poor soul. The nurse said that not every volunteer would have understood that the situation was serious; others would have assumed he was asleep and left the food without a backward glance.” Finally, Shireen took a piece of meat into her mouth, chewed, and swallowed. “Yes, it was a most extraordinary day.”
Yusef said nothing. The sound of her chewing and swallowing irritated him. He glanced at her face. For the first time since the One Year, her expression was not hangdog. In fact, she looked proud of herself. He leaned back in his chair.
“So this is why you did not have time to make me a decent meal? Next thing you will be serving me hot dogs or hamburgers for dinner.”
Shireen put down her fork and leaned forward. “Well, we are Americans. Why wouldn’t we want hot dogs and hamburgers?”
“Baleh? Excuse me?”
“I think you heard me, husband.”
He felt his lip curl. “This volunteering has made you very big-headed, lady. You go to other people’s houses to feed them like a servant when you should be feeding your own family. You think carrying around trays of food in your trunk like a delivery boy makes you special? And for free, no less!”
Her cheeks flushed, but she did not lower her eyes. “It is good work that I do, Yusef. I saved a man’s life today.”
He chuckled. “And if the man had not lived? Or if you had arrived there and he was already dead? You could get sued. Do you think people will not try to take advantage of our wealth? Do you wish to be responsible for our poverty? For the squandering of our life savings for the mere satisfaction of having an ‘extraordinary day’? This is not Iran, where a well-placed wad of money can erase unpleasant circumstances. Your stupidity amazes me, Shireen. I thought I had taught you better than this. You think like a simpleton.”
Finally, she lowered her gaze. He resumed eating. She pushed her plate away. Tears welled up in her eyes. She blinked rapidly. Just like Anahita, he thought, no control over the tears.
He continued. “Instead of this silly volunteering, give your energies to the family and our friends. We have not had a dinner party since the One Year. Almost two months!” He gestured with his fork. “And I know you have not been getting together with the women—I ran into that Gisu and her sister; they said you never join them for shopping or playing bridge. And what about your looks, lady? I have never seen so much gray in your hair. It is an embarrassment.”
“Parties are not easy,” she said quietly. “It is not like the old days when Olga was here.”
He shook his head. “Olga, Olga . . . I’m tired of hearing this excuse. That donkey hardly did anything but cause trouble in this household. I have told you to hire maids. There are Hispanic girls everywhere. They cost nothing! Hire two or three of them.”
She gave him a sidelong glance, and yes, he knew exactly what she was thinking. Apparently, she had learned of his girl. He shouldn’t have taken Lubyana to that restaurant on Sixty-first Street; it was too popular. But it had been a Monday night late, after nine, and yet he’d come face-to-face with Nezam and Libby as they were ending one of those farcical date nights young couples talked about. It had been awkward, of course. He’d had to make introductions, and perhaps he could have come up with a reasonable lie about Lubyana—that she was an architect or a decorator or even a property owner—but she looked like none of those things in her backless dress and stilettos. He didn’t worry about Nezam; Nezam would say nothing, though he’d refused to make eye contact. But Libby must have told Golnaz, and that was as good as a megaphone put to Shireen’s ear. So what? He would never be sorry about Lubyana or his dalliances with the servant girls. A man took care of his needs; it was the natural way of the world. His only responsibility was to be discreet, and he always was. He would never be sorry. What was he supposed to do? Ask his wife to tend to him the way he liked? Wives were not meant for that. He shuddered with repugnance at the thought of it.
“The problem, Shireen, is that you have become antisocial,” he said.
She threw her napkin on the table. “I cannot go on with my life as if nothing has happened. This is the way I grieve. I have nothing to talk about with our so-called friends. It is difficult to listen to people talk about their grandchildren, and to tell the truth, other subjects seem absurd. I have been thinking that I should perhaps take a class at the community college, make my English better or learn accounting. If I like it, I could go back to school.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Shireen.” He was using his knife to shove the last bits of his meal onto his fork. “You want to become like these American women who wear Gypsy clothes and display their cellulite-covered arms and work in nonprofit organizations that waste taxpayers’ money? Like that Betty down the street, Jim’s wife, as soon as the children went to college, she stopped taking care of the house and now joins demonstrations led by that repulsive hat-wearing Bella Abzug. That Jim used to be a smart man until Betty began acting like she knew as much as he did about politics and economics. Everyone thinks he is a nitwit now.” He placed his silverware on his empty plate, leaned back. “No, Shireen. School is not for a woman like you.”
She rose and collected their plates, hers barely touched, and took them to the sink. She came back to the table with a bowl of strawberries. “I’ll have salad first,” he said, and she used the utensils to break through her tomato, cucumber, and carrot design and dish out a portion for him. Her expression was impassive, with the usual tinge of sadness, so when she spoke, he wasn’t expecting her to say anything of significance.
“Perhaps, then, I should visit our other daughter for a while.”
He had no words for her, just a look of utter disbelief.
Sprinkling oil and lemon juice onto his salad, she said, “What?” As if she didn’t know.
“You. Will. Not,” he said in English.
She lifted the plate and practically dropped it in front of him. “And why not?” she asked. “She is my only daughter now. Why should I suffer because of your differences with her? I have been more loyal to you in these past seventeen years than I have been to her.”
“As well you should be, lady!” He rose from his chair.
She looked up at him, made no move to back away. They were so close he could see the blood vessels in the whites of her eyes. Quietly, tiredly, she said, “This time it is your fault, Yusef. That painting you displayed to everyone in which you erased Mitra, it was cruel. You dashed all my hopes of a reconciliation between the two of you.” She turned and began walking away.
“Again, this!” He kicked the chair away, threw his hands up. “It has become an obsession with you, that painting. I should have forbidden you from allowing Mitra to come to the One Year; her influence over you is diabolical. And now you want to visit her. Hah!” He turned to leave the room, glancing back to throw her his final words. “And what makes you think she would want you?”
* * *
“Madame Shireen, good evening. I am Olga.”
“Olga-joon, good morning. How are you?”
“I am living, Madame. And you?”
“I am living also. These days are difficult.”
“Is something wrong, Madame?”
“Oh, you know. Some people are not easy.”
“Mitra?”
“Yusef.”
“I am sorry, Madame. Perhaps I called at a bad time.”
“No, Olga-joon. It is a good time. You know I cannot mention these things to anyone else.”
“Yes, I understand. Is it the usual problem?”
“In part. He cannot control himself. This one, however, seems to have him very tight in her grip. She is very young.”
“They are all young, Madame.”
“This one is demanding; she is a Russian girl.”
“Ach, Madame, Russian girls have no scruples. Communism made them this way. Love is cheap. Money is everything.”
“You should not disparage your people, Olga. Think what your mother would say.”
“Yes, but that was long ago. My father was Irooni; I lived my whole life in Iran; I am Irooni. My mother, she was from another time when people were different.”
“Are people different now, Olga? I am not sure. The landscapes are different, but the people? I think we are the same. Everyone living their small lives, worried about their children and their health and their hunger for simple things, like sweets and nice clothes. We think we are different from our ancestors, with our cars instead of horses, our medicines that make us live long, our computers and airplanes and wrinkle treatments.”
“Ach, Madame. I am truly sorry to hear about your troubles with the Agha. Just do not think about it. What can you do? You have always kept your dignity.”
“Yes, well, there were many distractions in the past. Now, life is empty. At times, I am envious of our President Clinton’s wife; she has my same problem, yet she is busy and counseled by so many.”
“But, Madame, the world is talking about her husband’s dool. At least you have your privacy.”
“This is true, Olga. So, how is the weather there, joonam?”
“Ey, not so hot anymore, Madame. But the air is bad again. The mountains are invisible.”
“Ach, this is hard to imagine.”
“Even on good days, I see only their outline from my balcony. And the city has grown so much that there are high-rises in the foothills where villages used to be.”
“I have heard this. Unbelievable. Still, I hope to one day visit you. When things are . . . different.”
“Inshallah. Perhaps instead you should visit Mitra in California.”
“I have thought about it, but I don’t wish to be an intrusion. You know how she is, Olga. Like Yusef, she prizes her independence.”
“Yes, but this past year has changed her. I think she is lonely, as you are. And she could use a mother’s advice about those peasants in her house.”
“Ach, Olga-joon, my daughter does not value my advice. She ignores me. When she was here, I told her about a new procedure for reversing her infertility. She ignored me; she thinks I don’t know the difference between science and a fable.”
“Madame, please listen to me. We must stop thinking of what Mitra did as a mutilation. There are girls who commit suicide to avoid marriage, sew up their hymens to hide their promiscuity, cut the skin on their arms or inside their thighs in hidden parts to relieve the pain of their married lives. And what of my own eleven operations? Were they not mutilations simply because I was trying to reconstruct my fertility? Mitra did not commit a sin; she made a choice and followed through. This is fearlessness.”
“Ach, Olga-joon . . .”
“Madame, do not cry.”
“Forgive me for bringing up this subject. It was insensitive of me.”
“Do not be concerned, Madame. I no longer care about that part of my destiny; it was Allah’s wish. I have had other children to mother—your children, and sometimes my cousin Oranoos’s children, and . . . and a new child.”
“A new child, Olga?”
“An orphan, Madame.”
“Ach, very sad, Olga-joon.”
“Ey, Madame, there are childless women, and there are orphans. Sometimes they exist for one another. In fact, I am hoping for your advice about her circumstances. She needs assistance that is only available in America.”
“A sick child?”
“Not sick . . . yet, but . . . in a dangerous situation . . . which could lead to sickness. It is not easy to explain, Madame.”
“All right.”
“She is a great surprise of a girl. She reminds me of Mitra when she was a teenager.”
“I am not sure that is a compliment, Olga.”
“You make me laugh, Madame, but in these times, over here, a girl like that is refreshing. I do not think she will survive . . . here. I am hoping you can help.”
“It is not the old days, Olga-joon.”
“Yes, Madame, I know, but this is a special case.”
“I will see what I can do, aziz, but I cannot promise anything.”
“I do not have expectations, Madame. I can only thank you for being the most generous of women. And if you please, not a word of this to Mitra. Forgive me, but your daughter can be reckless in her conversations.”
“This is true, Olga-joon. She is an American girl after all.”