The Book of Fate Read online

  Going to school in Tehran became a whole other story. Ahmad and Mahmoud were both against me continuing my education, and Mother believed that taking sewing classes was more imperative. But with my begging, pleading and irrepressible tears I managed to convince Father to stand up to them, and he enrolled me in year eight in secondary school.

  Ahmad was so angry he wanted to strangle me and used every excuse to beat me up. But I knew what was really eating away at him and so I kept quiet. My school was not that far from home and a fifteen- to twenty-minute walk. In the beginning Ahmad would secretly follow me, but I would wrap my chador tightly around me and took care not to give him any excuse. Meanwhile, Mahmoud stopped talking to me altogether and completely ignored me.

  Eventually, they both found jobs. Mahmoud went to work at a shop in the bazaar that belonged to Mr Mozaffari’s brother and Ahmad became an apprentice at a carpenter’s workshop in the Shemiran neighbourhood. According to Mr Mozaffari, Mahmoud sat in the store all day and could be counted on, and Father used to say, ‘Mahmoud is the one who’s really running Mr Mozaffari’s shop.’ Ahmad, on the other hand, quickly found plenty of friends and started coming home late at night. Eventually, everyone realised that the stench on him was from drinking alcohol, arak to be precise, but no one said anything. Father would hang his head and refuse to return his hello, Mahmoud would turn away and say, ‘May God have mercy. May God have mercy,’ and Mother would quickly warm up his food and say, ‘My child has a toothache and he has put alcohol on it for the pain.’ It wasn’t clear what sort of a tooth ailment it was that never healed. In all, Mother was in the habit of covering up for Ahmad. After all, he was her favourite.

  Mr Ahmad had also found another pastime at home: keeping an eye on our neighbour Mrs Parvin’s house from an upstairs window. Mrs Parvin was usually busy doing something in the front yard and, of course, her chador would always fall off. Ahmad wouldn’t move from his position in front of the living room window. Once, I even saw them communicating with signs and gestures.

  In any case, Ahmad became so distracted that he forgot all about me. Even when Father allowed me to go to school wearing a headscarf instead of the full chador, there was only one day of shouting and fighting. Ahmad didn’t forget, he just stopped scolding me and wouldn’t talk to me at all. To him I was the personification of sin. He wouldn’t even look at me.

  But I didn’t care. I went to school, had good grades and made friends with everyone. What else did I want from life? I was truly happy, especially after Parvaneh became my best friend and we promised to never keep any secrets from each other.

  Parvaneh Ahmadi was a happy and cheerful girl. She was good at volleyball and was on the school team, but she wasn’t doing all that well in her classes. I was sure she wasn’t a bad girl, but she didn’t abide by many principles. I mean she couldn’t tell good from bad and right from wrong and had no clue how to be mindful of her father’s good name and honour. She did have brothers, but she wasn’t afraid of them. Occasionally, she would even fight with them and if they hit her, she would hit them back. Everything made Parvaneh laugh and she did so no matter where she was, even out on the street. It was as if no one had ever told her that when a girl laughs her teeth shouldn’t show and no one should hear her. She always found it strange that I would tell her it was improper and that she should stop. With a surprised look on her face she would ask, ‘Why?’ Sometimes she stared at me as if I was from a different world. (Wasn’t that the case?) For instance, she knew the names of all the cars and wished her father would buy a black Chevrolet. I didn’t know what kind of car a Chevrolet was and I didn’t want to lose face by admitting it.

  One day I pointed to a beautiful car that looked new and I asked, ‘Parvaneh, is that the Chevrolet you like?’

  Parvaneh looked at the car and then at me and she burst into laughter and half-screamed, ‘Oh how funny! She thinks a Fiat is a Chevrolet.’

  I was red up to my ears and dying of embarrassment, both from her laughter and from my own stupidity in having finally revealed my ignorance.

  Parvaneh’s family had a radio and a television at home. I had seen a television at Uncle Abbas’s house, but we had only a large radio. While Grandmother was alive and whenever my brother Mahmoud was at home, we never listened to music, because it was a sin, especially if the singer was a woman and the song was upbeat. Although Father and Mother were both very religious and knew listening to music was immoral, they weren’t as strict as Mahmoud and liked listening to songs. When Mahmoud was out, Mother would turn on the radio. Of course, she kept the volume low so that the neighbours wouldn’t hear. She even knew the lyrics to a few songs, especially those by Pouran Shahpouri, and she used to sing quietly in the kitchen.

  One day I said, ‘Mother, you know a good number of Pouran’s songs.’

  She jumped like a firecracker and snapped, ‘Quiet! What sort of talk is this? Don’t you ever let your brother hear you say such things!’

  When Father came home for lunch, he would turn on the radio to listen to the news at two o’clock and then he would forget to turn it off. The Golha music programme would start and he would unconsciously start moving his head, nodding in tempo with the music. I don’t care what anyone says, I’m sure Father loved Marzieh’s voice. When they played her songs, he never said, ‘May God have mercy! Turn that thing off.’ But when Vighen sang, he would suddenly remember his faith and piety and yell, ‘That Armenian is singing again! Turn it off.’ Oh, but I loved Vighen’s voice. I don’t know why, but it always reminded me of Uncle Hamid. From what I can remember, Uncle Hamid was a good-looking man. He was different from his brothers and sisters. He smelled of cologne, which was something rare in my life… When I was a child he used to take me in his arms and say to Mother, ‘Well done, sister! What a beautiful girl you gave birth to. Thank God she didn’t turn out looking like her brothers. Otherwise, you would have had to get a big cask and pickle her!’

  And Mother would exclaim, ‘Oh! What are you saying? What’s ugly about my sons? They’re as handsome as can be, it’s just that they’re a little olive-skinned, and that’s not bad. A man isn’t supposed to be pretty. From back in the old days it has always been said that a man should be uncomely, ugly and bad-tempered!’ She would sing these last words and Uncle Hamid would laugh out loud.

  I looked like my father and his sister. People always thought Mahboubeh and I were sisters. But she was prettier than me. I was thin and she was plump, and unlike my straight hair that wouldn’t curl no matter what I did, she had a mass of ringlets. But we both had dark-green eyes, fair skin and dimples on our cheeks when we laughed. Her teeth were a bit uneven and she always said, ‘You’re so lucky. Your teeth are so white and straight.’

  Mother and the rest of the family looked different. Their skin was olive-toned, they had black eyes and wavy hair, and they were somewhat fat. Though none of them was as portly as Mother’s sister, Aunt Ghamar. Of course, they weren’t ugly. Especially not Mother. When she threaded off her facial hair and plucked her eyebrows, she looked just like the pictures of Miss Sunshine on our plates and dishes. Mother had a mole on the side of her lip and she used to say, ‘The day your father came to ask for my hand, he fell in love with me the instant he caught sight of my mole.’

  I was seven or eight when Uncle Hamid left. When he came to say goodbye, he took me in his arms, turned to Mother and said, ‘Sister, for the love of God don’t marry this flower off too soon. Let her get an education and become a lady.’

  Uncle Hamid was the first person in our family to travel to the West. I had no image of lands overseas. I thought it was some place like Tehran, except farther away. Once in a while, he would send a letter and photographs to Granny Aziz. The photos were beautiful. I don’t know why he was always standing in a garden, surrounded by plants, trees and flowers. Later, he sent a picture of himself with a blonde woman who wasn’t wearing hijab. I will never forget that day. It was late afternoon; Granny Aziz came over so that Father could rea
d the letter to her. Father was sitting next to his mother on the floor cushions. He first read the letter to himself and then he suddenly shouted, ‘Wonderful! Congratulations! Hamid Agha has got married and here’s a picture of his wife.’

  Granny Aziz fainted and Grandmother, who had never got along with her, covered her mouth with her chador and chuckled. Mother hit herself on the head. She didn’t know whether to swoon or to revive her mother. Finally, when Granny Aziz came to, she drank plenty of hot water and candied sugar and then she said, ‘Aren’t those people sinners?’

  ‘No! They’re not sinners,’ Father said with a shrug. ‘After all they’re well read. They’re Armenian.’

  Granny Aziz started hitting herself on the head, but Mother grabbed her hands and said, ‘For the love of God, stop it. It’s not that bad. He has converted her to Islam. Go ask any man you like. A Muslim man can marry a non-Muslim and convert her. And what’s more, it merits God’s reward.’

  Granny Aziz looked at her with listless eyes and said, ‘I know. Some of our prophets and imams took non-Muslim wives.’

  ‘Well, God willing, it is a blessing,’ Father laughed. ‘So, when are you going to celebrate? A foreign wife really calls for a festivity.’

  Grandmother frowned and said, ‘God forbid, a daughter-in-law is bad enough, now to top it off this one is foreign, ignorant and clueless about purity and impurity in our faith.’

  Granny Aziz, who seemed to have regained her energy, collected herself, and as she got up to leave, she said, ‘A bride is a home’s blessing. We’re not like some people who don’t appreciate their daughter-in-law and think they’ve brought a maid to the house. We cherish our daughters-in-law and are proud of them, especially a Western one!’

  Grandmother couldn’t tolerate her boasting and snidely said, ‘Yes, I saw how proud you were of Assadollah Khan’s wife.’ Then she maliciously added, ‘And who knows if she has in fact converted to Islam. Maybe she has made a sinner out of Hamid Agha. In fact, Hamid Agha never had proper faith and practice. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have moved to Sin-estan.’

  ‘You see, Mostafa Khan?’ Granny Aziz snapped. ‘Did you hear what she said to me?’

  Finally, Father intervened and put an end to the squabble.

  Granny Aziz quickly threw a large party and bragged to everyone about her Western daughter-in-law. She framed the photograph, put it on the mantelpiece and showed it to the women. But up until the moment she died, she kept asking Mother, ‘Did Hamid’s wife become a Muslim? What if Hamid has become an Armenian?’

  After her death, for years we received very little news of Uncle Hamid. Once I took his photographs to school and showed them to my friends. Parvaneh really liked him. ‘He’s so handsome,’ she said. ‘He’s so lucky to have gone to the West. I wish we could go.’

  Parvaneh knew all the songs. She was a fan of Delkash. In school, half the girls were Delkash fans and the other half liked Marzieh. I had to become a Delkash fan. Otherwise, Parvaneh wouldn’t stay friends with me. She even knew Western singers. At her home they had a gramophone and they played records on it. One day she showed it to me. It looked like a small suitcase with a red lid. She said it was the portable type.

  The school year had not yet ended and I had already learned a lot. Parvaneh always borrowed my notebooks and lecture notes and sometimes we studied together. She didn’t care if she had to come to our house. She was very nice and easygoing and paid no attention to what we had and didn’t have.

  Our house was relatively small. There were three steps at the front door that opened into the front yard, which had a rectangle reflecting pool in the middle. We had put a large wooden bed on one side of it and on the other side there was a long flowerbed parallel to the pool. I mean its long side was parallel to the short side of the pool. The kitchen, which was always dark and black, was separate from the house and at the end of the yard. The bathroom was next to it. There was a sink outside and we didn’t have to use the pool’s water pump to wash our hands and faces. Inside the house, to the left of the main door, there were four steps that led to a small landing. The doors to the two downstairs rooms opened here. And then there were stairs that led upstairs where there were two other rooms with an adjoining door. The room in the front was the living room and it had two windows. From one side you could see the yard and part of the street and from the other side you could see Mrs Parvin’s house. The windows of the other room, where Ahmad and Mahmoud slept, opened on to the rear courtyard with an open view of the backyard of the house behind ours.

  Whenever Parvaneh came over, we would go upstairs and sit in the living room. There wasn’t much there. Just a large red carpet, a round table and six bentwood chairs, a big heater in the corner and next to it a few floor cushions and backrests. The only decoration on the wall was a framed carpet with the Van Yakad verse from the Quran on it. There was also a mantelpiece, which Mother had covered with a piece of embroidery and on it she had put the mirror and the candelabras from her marriage ceremony.

  Parvaneh and I would sit on the floor cushions and whisper, giggle and study. Under no circumstances was I allowed to go to her house.

  ‘You’re not to step inside that girl’s house,’ Ahmad would bark. ‘First of all, she has a jackass brother; second, she is shameless and fickle. To hell with her, even her mother goes around with no hijab.’

  And I would say, ‘Who in this city wears hijab?’ Of course, I would only mumble it under my breath.

  One day when Parvaneh wanted to show me her Woman’s Day magazines, I snuck over to their house for just five minutes. It was so clean and beautiful and they had so many pretty things. There were paintings of landscapes and women on all the walls. In the living room, there were large navy-blue sofas with tassels on the bottom. The windows that overlooked the front yard had velvet curtains in the same colour. The dining room was on the opposite side and it was separated from the living room by curtains. In the main hall there was a television and a few armchairs and sofas. The doors to the kitchen, bathroom and toilet were here. They didn’t have to constantly cross the front yard in the cold of winter and the heat of summer. The bedrooms were all upstairs. Parvaneh and her younger sister Farzaneh shared a room.

  They were so lucky! We didn’t have that much space. Although on the face of it we had four rooms, in reality we all lived in the large room downstairs. We ate lunch and dinner there; in the wintertime we set up the korsi, and Faati, Ali and I slept there. Father and Mother slept in the room next door where there was a large wooden bed and a wardrobe for our clothes and odds and ends. We each had one shelf for our books. But I had more books than everyone else, so I took two shelves.

  Mother liked looking at the pictures in Woman’s Day. But we kept the magazines hidden from Father and Mahmoud. I used to read the ‘At the Crossroads’ section and the serial stories and then I would tell them to Mother. I would exaggerate the details so much that she would come close to tears and I myself would cry all over again. Parvaneh and I had decided that each week, after she and her mother had finished reading the new issue, she would give the magazine to us.

  I told Parvaneh that my brothers didn’t allow me to go her house. She was surprised and asked, ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you have an older brother.’

  ‘Dariush? What’s “older” about him? In fact, he’s one year younger than us.’

  ‘Still, he’s grown up and they say it’s not proper.’

  She shrugged and said, ‘I for one don’t understand your customs.’ But she stopped insisting that I go over to her house.

  I received excellent grades in my end of term exams and the teachers praised me a lot. But at home no one showed any reaction. Mother didn’t quite understand what I was telling her.

  Mahmoud snapped, ‘So what? What do you think you’ve achieved?’

  And Father said, ‘Well, why didn’t you become the top student in your class?’

  With the start of summer, Parvaneh and I were separated. The first few day
s, she would come over when my brothers were out and we would stand outside the front door and chat. But mother constantly complained. She had forgotten how back in Qum she would spend every afternoon with the women in the neighbourhood, talking and eating watermelon seeds until Father came home. She didn’t have any friends or acquaintances in Tehran and the women in the neighbourhood snubbed her. On a few occasions they laughed at her and she got upset. Over time, she forgot her habit of spending the afternoon chit-chatting and so I couldn’t talk to my friends either.

  On the whole, Mother wasn’t happy that we had moved to Tehran. She would say, ‘We aren’t made for this city. All our friends and relatives are in Qum. I’m all alone here. When your uncle’s wife, with all her airs, pays no mind to us, what can we expect of strangers?’

  She nagged and complained until she finally convinced Father to send us to Qum to spend the summer at her sister’s house. I quipped, ‘Everyone goes to a country house for the summer, and you want us to go to Qum?’