Sky of Red Poppies Page 4

  The summer before I started high school, Auntie had put a stop to my "inviting village people to the big house." Her words laid the first brick for the big wall that now separated Zahra's world from mine.

  I put my arms around Bibi's bent back as she held my face between rough hands and kissed my face. Her misty eyes, now covered with a gray film, resembled a dying candle. The year before, Pedar had sent her to town to see the eye doctor; unfortunately her condition could not be helped and she was going blind.

  Bibi took the black kettle from the stove. "I'll get some water for tea."

  I halfway rose to help, but Zahra pulled at my sleeve.

  "Let her be," she whispered. "It makes her feel useful."

  By the time tea was ready, a crowd of children had gathered at the door. Zahra wiped the felt mat with the palm of her hand and put a small ceramic bowl of black tea before me. She put a few pieces of yellowing candy next to it and shooed the flies with the wave of her hand. Had Bibi saved that candy for Norooz?

  Wispy giggles came through the door as children peeked through its cracks to get a glimpse of the master's daughter. I wanted to offer them some of the cumin candy, but figured that was all Zahra had. Besides, she kept cautioning me not to encourage them.

  "It's bake day," Bibi said before she left. She lifted a copper pot filled with flour and balanced it on her head.

  "For God's sake, leave the heavy stuff for me," Zahra said and rushed to take it.

  Bibi's hand stopped her. "I don't need help." And away she walked.

  "Thank you for the tea," I shouted after her.

  Bibi turned around and smiled her toothless smile. I watched her, balancing the pot on her head with one hand, swinging the other at her side. As she waddled away, her long denim skirt made lazy waves around her ankles.

  Zahra sat at the loom and was soon absorbed in her fine work. The rhythmic tap and click made for a pleasant beat. Her old scissors lay on the floor, the handles padded with faded rags.

  I focused on asking the question that had been bothering me since I came in. "Zahra, what's your salary?"

  She gave me a bewildered look. "Salary, miss?"

  "You know? Wages. How much does Pedar pay you?"

  Apparently, I had asked a ridiculous question. "Agha owns this entire village," she said, as if stating that he also owned everyone in it.

  "How much?" I insisted. And at this she looked up. "I guess as much as everyone else," she said. I looked at her, saying nothing.

  "We have this house," she added, and gestured to the bare room as if it were a castle. "Two goats, a good ration of grains and some kerosene during cold weather. . ." She thought for a few seconds. "At the feast of Ghorban, the pilgrims coming back from Mecca sacrifice lambs, and we get free meat and-"

  "That's it?"

  She glared. "I forgot, we get a year's supply of tea, sugar, and tobacco, miss."

  "What about clothes?"

  "Bibi sews mine, but every Norooz, the master - may God keep his shade over our heads - sends us money for new ones." And she smiled with pride.

  My full and cluttered closet flashed before me.

  "Are you telling me that you don't get a fixed salary?"

  "Me? No. My father does."

  "What if you get sick?"

  Zahra chuckled. "The things you ask, miss! Sickness and health is in God's hands, but second to Him, we have the master to turn to."

  I wondered how many of her answers were programmed, and if she was the little parrot, repeating what her grandmother had said over and over. Think!

  As Zahra gave her attention back to the loom, her peaceful expression told me that perhaps she had found better things to think about, things that had nothing to do with the world beyond the dilapidated walls of Golsara. What was it like to believe that the world consisted of a desert and a few villages here and there? Could one wish for things that we did not even know existed?

  Later, we shared a lunch of rye bread and yogurt. While I did my best to chew the stale bread, Zahra sprinkled some water over hers and ate with a hearty appetite. By the time I left, darkness had set in. Bibi returned in time to bring some fresh-baked bread and she sent some to my family. She asked Zahra to take their only lantern and walk me home.

  The evening had just begun, but the sleeping village gave the impression of late night. Even the animals were quiet, except for a dog barking in the distance. The temperature had dropped and a cold desert wind wrestled among the bare trees. Zahra wrapped her large scarf around her head, covering the lower half of her face. We took hurried steps and did not talk until we had reached the orchard.

  "Won't you come in?"

  Zahra smiled and shook her head. "Inshallah another day."

  I reached into my pocket for the only bill I had on me and pushed it into her hand saying, "I didn't get a chance to buy your present. Please buy a scarf on my behalf."

  She took a step back. "God have mercy! I couldn't possibly accept."

  "It's only a gift, Zahra."

  She studied the money in the light of her lantern. "All this for one scarf?"

  "Please, Zahra. It'll make me so happy."

  Petty charity is another form of bigotry, Jenab had said a long time ago. Guilt made me want to give her everything I owned, but now we were in my father's territory, where the invisible barrier once again rose between us.

  "May God pay you back in Heaven for your kindness," Zahra said. She kissed the money and touched her forehead before tucking it in her vest pocket. She held the lantern higher and I found my path in its fluttering glow.

  At the pond, I turned to her. "I know my way from here," I said and waved.

  The desert sky was like black velvet with millions of sequins sprinkled on it. Except for the sound of crickets, the garden was quiet. A few servants prepared to leave, taking home what must have been discarded fruits and leftovers.

  Inside, the heat of kerosene burners was more than we needed. I found Auntie in the family room, working on her cross-stitch. Mitra lay on the rug, listening to a play on her transistor radio.

  "Where were you all day?" Auntie looked up over her reading glasses.

  "At Zahra's."

  Mitra glanced at me with a smirk.

  "You're no longer a little girl, Roya," my aunt said without looking at me. "Time to act like a lady."

  I imagined staying home, doing needlepoint, or helping her to make preserves.

  "Do you mind if I skip dinner?" I said. "I've already eaten."

  "You didn't eat too much, I hope."

  I shook my head, but wasn't sure. Even a morsel from Bibi's limited supply would be too much. There was no way to justify the abundance that my family had.

  I awakened at the sound of the car horn and it took me a minute to believe we were already back in the city. The gardener opened the gate. He had lived at our home during the two-week holiday and, from the look of the garden, had earned his keep.

  The colors offered a bold contrast to the bare village we had left behind. The arch over the driveway had new grown foliage and it would soon burst with blooms of red climbing roses. A variety of pan-sies lined the flowerbeds and pots of pink geraniums had been moved out of the greenhouse to line the edge of the veranda.

  As if life had paused for two weeks, I was soon back in motion preparing myself for school. The next morning, as I saw Shireen enter the schoolyard, I broke away from Nelly and ran to her.

  "How was your Norooz?" she asked me.

  I shrugged. We were at a farm.

  She took a small booklet from among her books. "Look what I've got here." And when she showed it to me, it was a diary-type notebook. "We can talk in this during class," she said with a mischievous smile.

  "What?"

  "You know? Write down things during class time."

  I studied the little diary. It was a promotional calendar for Phillips medical equipment, no bigger than a pocket book, the kind that drug companies gave out.

  Shireen imitated a radio com
mercial. "Trust a Phillips!" And she giggled. "If a class is boring, we can write back and forth in this, pretending we're taking notes."

  "How clever."

  She grinned. "Yes, I am!"

  Shireen's tendency to speak few words had led me to misjudge her as too serious. What a pleasant surprise it was to discover her subtle humor. While she would not resort to anecdotes or make fun of others, her wit made me smile, even in my darkest moments.

  The following week, a class project required that we stay overtime. My study group decided to bring lunch to school and work during the two-hours break. In the past, the only times I had stayed in for lunch were during heavy snowfalls, so I looked forward to the change, especially now that Shireen would be there too.

  We were still working when she checked her watch. "Time for my prayers." She took her chador from under our desk. "Going to the prayer hall. Will be back soon."

  I had been to that room in the basement before. On hot days, it provided the coolest shelter at recess. But the thought of using the prayer hall to actually pray had never occurred to me. I wondered how the old custodian, Baba, a strict Muslim, saw the rest of us giddy girls who never prayed.

  "I'll come with you," I said.

  "As you wish."

  The basement smelled damp and had no furniture. A single bulb hung from its ceiling. We entered just as three girls were leaving. Tahereh Ahmadi, who must have just finished her prayers, gave me a baffled look, then turned to Shireen and said, "May God accept your prayers."

  "And yours," Shireen responded and proceeded to remove her shoes before stepping on the kilim-covered floor. I did the same.

  Shireen peeled her socks off, rolled up her sleeves, and went to the small sink.

  "Can I watch?" I asked, following her into the hallway. She gave me a bewildered look. "Don't you ever say your namaz?"

  "Only when I go to the Shrine."

  This seemed to puzzle her even more. "If you're not religious, then what business would you have in the holy Shrine?"

  "Visiting my mother," I said, and while she rinsed, I told her about Maman's tomb, located on the premises of the shrine. "We share the space with another family I don't know. The room faces the drinking fountains. Sometimes I just sit there for hours, leave the door open, and watch the pigeons in the old courtyard." Shireen turned off the tap. Her keen eyes encouraged me to go on. "My aunt says Maman never missed a prayer, not even when she lay sick in bed."

  Turning the water back on, Shireen was soon so absorbed in her cleansing ritual that I felt invisible. With each elaborate movement, she whispered verses in Arabic, as if to purify her body and soul in preparation for facing God.

  "That water must be freezing," I said when she was done. "Look at your maroon hands!"

  She dried herself and pulled her sleeves all the way over her fingers. "It's not too bad now. It gets much worse in winter."

  Back in the prayer hall, Shireen draped her chador over her head and asked me to pass her a prayer seal. Reaching into the shelf she pointed to, I chose the only unbroken rectangle mohr with Arabic verses on it. Made of the soil of Mecca, it felt cold and slick. She thanked me, then kissed the seal before placing it on the floor and stood facing west, where the sign on the wall advised Kiblah. Now with her eyes closed, it looked as if she traveled to a different place in her mind and resembled a pale angel, bandaged in the wrong cloth.

  I pitied and envied her at the same time. Pity, because she was stuck with a ritual, and envy, for her strong conviction. What did it feel like to believe you had God's full attention?

  When finished, I asked her, "You enjoy namaz, don't you?"

  "It brings me peace." Her smile confirmed that. "Believe me, if you lived at our house, you'd need it, too."

  "Peace aside, what exactly do you pray for?"

  "Not what. Whom."

  Shireen looked as if my question had taken her far away. I wasn't sure I could ask more.

  She put the prayer seal back on its shelf and we left.

  By the end of our junior year, Shireen and I had become the best of friends.

  As we more frequently entered the classroom together, Jenab began to address us as a pair. When he asked questions, regardless of which one of us raised her hand, he would point to our bench. "Let's hear it from our two scholars." Sometimes I wonder if he had foreseen the rise of a friendship, or worse, if he had deliberately paired us to seal our fate.

  While the school authorities pretended nothing had happened, the SAVAK incident seemed to be forgotten. My town went back to its dormant life and school continued as if nothing were wrong. We were but hundreds of girls in gray denim uniforms living in The Lagoon -another one of Jenab's favorite poems.

  My life is like a lagoon

  Still, silent, calm and quiet

  Not a wave of anger rushes through

  Nor rage roars within...

  Despite the calm, I could sense a roar rising somewhere within our quiet lagoon. New rumors were whispered about Alieh. Nelly had heard disgraceful details of a rape, even pregnancy. But no more authorities showed up at school, the police were not involved, and the entire matter stayed out of the press. No one, not even Jenab, mentioned her name.

  I replayed that scene over and over in my mind. Each time I descended the stairs, I saw Alieh down below, struggling, begging for help. In Mrs. Saberi's presence, I did my best not to look into her eyes for fear I might still see the warning in them.

  Like a picture slowly developing in the darkroom, the injustice around me became clearer with time. Forbidden thoughts grew and multiplied in my head. How many other Aliehs had disappeared before her, and who would be the next?

  Three

  SOME TEACHERS DON'T DESERVE to be remembered. I think the profound contrast to such teachers might have been what gave Jenab his grandeur. In most classes nothing worth remembering happened, but I'll never forget the day Jenab proposed the review of a forbidden book.

  Skipping his usual monologue, Jenab wiped the blackboard and wrote in his best calligraphy, "The Little Black Fish."

  When he looked at us, the mischief in his eyes was hard to miss. "How many of you have read this book by Samad Behrangi?" Jenab knew better than any of us that such discussions were taboo at school.

  The dreadful scene that had occurred the day Mitra brought that book home played back in my mind. Back then Nelly had filled me in on a few facts. That Samad Behrangi had been a Socialist was a matter of public record.

  "His fairytales were cute, but Papa agrees that they also carried a hidden message," Nelly had said. "Soon after the banning of The Little Black Fish, his body was found in the icy waters of a river."

  Whether or not Nelly made up stories, I had learned enough to know we shouldn't talk about this book, especially not in class.

  Jenab waited until the initial shock had passed and then a few

  uncertain hands were raised. Only Shireen's hand shot up with confidence.

  "Miss Payan, would you like to tell us the story?"

  Shireen stood. "I wouldn't call it a story, sir."

  Jenab smiled. "Indeed." And he nodded. His eyes danced as if he already knew where this was going.

  "Written in the format of a children's story," Shireen began, "the little fish is only a metaphor. Most people don't realize this and before its ban, I saw copies of the book in the children's section."

  A few students giggled.

  "Please stay on the subject, Miss Payan," Jenab interrupted.

  Shireen swallowed hard and for the next minute seemed puzzled. "The tiny fish is stuck in a shallow stream," she went on, now with less confidence, "but in fact he seeks the freedom of a vast ocean. He has everything he needs to reach his goal; hope, vision, and courage."

  As Shireen captured her audience, I knew exactly where she had learned that and, if only she could mimic the crooked smile, the whole class would know it, too.

  "I disagree," Nelly interrupted.

  "Oh?" Jenab raised an eyebrow. "You h
ave read the book?" He sounded as if he didn't believe the girl could read. "Then do share your wisdom."

  I felt sorry for Nelly.

  Shireen sat down and we both turned around to look at Nelly, who stood behind us and spoke directly to Jenab, ignoring the rest of us.

  "He's just a dumb fish. The book is a childish story and not even well written. But these days, people read something into everything."

  A few others voiced their agreement. Nelly smiled at the girl sitting next to her.

  "What about symbolism?" Shireen argued. "Behrangi chose his metaphors with such care that not every reader gets it." She pronounced "reader," as if it meant "idiot."

  Others whispered, but before class became disrupted, Jenab spoke.

  "Simple, maybe," he said. "But Behrangi's style is far from juvenile." He returned to the blackboard and read the title again, pointing to each word. "Little. Black. Fish," he annunciated. "Not a word wasted. Our protagonist is neither big nor strong; he isn't colorful or showy and, in fact, he is just another being among a crowd, living in an ordinary river. And, most importantly, he has no voice."

  The pride in Jenab's smile was as if he had created this impeccable metaphor himself. "There is a little black fish in you, and me, and every one of the insignificant people in our world. In a society that suffocates its youth, Behrangi dares to suggest that they matter, that even without a voice, they can make a difference. But above all, he is saying that in order to make such a change, one must have a goal and strongly believe in it."

  Jenab sat behind his desk. "If you ask me," he said and shrugged, "the book need not be banned at all. Its message is of nothing but hope."

  Shireen rose again. "Then why deliver it in such an obscure manner?"

  A murmur followed.

  "Quiet!" Jenab commanded, then turned to Shireen. "What obscurity are you referring to, Miss Payan? Tempting as such speculations may be, this is a literature class and I'd like to discuss this exclusively from a literary standpoint and pay attention to its poetic style. Following Antoine de Saint-Exupery's footsteps in The Little Prince, Behrangi has written his book using simple prose to describe the philosophical aspect of life."