Women Without Men

“It is a soothing color, but still . . .”

The bedstead was under one of the willows, two of its legs on the ledge of the pool. There was the possibility that they would slide off the slimy ledge, pulling the whole bedstead into the pool. In the afternoons Mahdokht would perch herself on this bed and contemplate not only the rivalry between the green of the trees and the pool water, but also the way the blue of the sky imposed itself, like the verdict of a divine judge, on the green of the orchard.

It was in the winter months that Mahdokht thought of engaging in knitting projects, or taking French lessons, or going on a guided world tour, because the winter air was pure and breathable. In the summer, on the other hand, the air was laden with smoke, dust, pollutants from cars and people, and a depressing feeling from large windowpanes unable to keep out the heat of the sun.

“Goddamn, why don’t these people understand that those windows are no good in this climate?”

Such thoughts brought on a wave of sadness, making her prone to accepting the invitation from Houshang Khan, her elder brother, to join the family in the orchard where she had to tolerate the children who screamed all the time as they gorged themselves with cherries giving themselves diarrhea and eating yogurt at night as antidote.

“The yogurt is from the village,” her brother would say to indicate its high quality.

“It’s outstanding,” she would concur.

The children always felt cold to the touch and looked pale, although they ingested more food than appropriate for their age, and later “barfed,” as their mother said.

Earlier on, when she was a teacher, Mr. Ehteshami would say, “Miss Parhami, please file this form there . . . Miss Parhami, ring the bell . . . Talk to this janitor, whose language I don’t understand.” As principal, Mr. Ehteshami seemed to enjoy having her as assistant principal. She did not mind the arrangement either. But then one day he turned to her and said, “Miss Parhami, Would you like to go to the cinema with me tonight? There is a good movie playing.”

She went pale, not knowing how to deal with this forwardness. What did the little man think? Who did he think she was? What was his intention?

Now she understood why the female teachers suppressed their smiles and pursed their lips every time Mr. Ehteshami talked to her. They must have sensed something. But they were wrong about her. Now she would show them who she really was.

She quit the job without notice. However, when she heard a year later that Mr. Ehteshami had married Miss Atai, the history and geography teacher, she felt such a tightness in her chest as if her heart was about to burst out.

“My problem is that Father has left too much money behind.”

That was the case. The next winter she knitted for the first two children of Houshang Khan. Ten years later she was knitting for five of them.

“I wonder why people produce so many children.”

“I can’t help it,” returned Houshang Khan. “I love children.”

Really, what could he do? He can’t help it, she thought.

She had recently seen a movie with Julie Andrews in it. Julie’s character had become involved with an Austrian man, the martinet father of seven children whom he ordered around by blowing a whistle. Julie had first intended to join a convent but had thought better of it and married the Austrian since she was expecting his eighth child, especially since the Nazis were marching on Austria and there were many uncertainties.

“I am as tender-hearted as Julie in the movie.”

She was right. She wouldn’t hurt a fly. Besides, she had fed four hungry dogs in the street and had given her brand-new topcoat to the school janitor. When she was a teacher, in compliance with the Public Centers Program, she had visited the orphanage three times, on each occasion she had taken several pounds of pastries for the children.

“What nice children!”

She wouldn’t mind if some of them were her own. They would always have clean clothes and no snot running down their faces. They would also use the proper term to refer to the bathroom.

“I wonder what will become of them.”

This was a tough question, especially since the state radio and television had made statements on the need to do something about them. Both Mahdokht and the state were concerned about the orphans. What if she had a thousand hands and could knit five hundred sweaters a week?

“Two hands per sweater,” she figured, “so one thousand hands would equal five hundred sweaters.”

But a person cannot have a thousand hands, especially Mahdokht, who loved the winter and took daily afternoon walks during the season. It would take five hours or so to put one thousand gloves on one thousand hands.

“No,” she reasoned with herself, “with the first five hundred hands I would put gloves on the other five hundred hands and then repeat the process. Three minutes or less. That’s all.”

This is not the real problem. It is up to the government to set up a factory and produce sweaters as needed.

Mahdokht dipped her toes in the pool water.

The first day of her visit she waded in the river. The ice-cold water made her muscles ache. She immediately withdrew, fearing that she might catch a cold. She put on her socks and shoes and strolled toward the greenhouse. The door was open and a rush of muggy air greeted her. Several years ago Mr. Ehteshami had said that breathing greenhouse air is salutary as plants generate oxygen during the day. But that day there were no plants in the greenhouse as they had all been taken out to the orchard and planted in flowerbeds. She walked in the narrow passageway looking at the dusty panes of glass enclosing the greenhouse. She heard a struggle and heavy breathing, something feverish, hot, and scorching—and sensed the smell of bodies.

Her heart missed a beat. The servant girl, Fati, fifteen years old, but more resembling a streetwalker, lay at the far end of the greenhouse with Yadollah, the gardener, with a bald head and repulsive, red-rimmed eyes, panting, panting, panting.

Mahdokht, near collapse and reaching for a shelf to steady herself, could not take her eyes off the scene. The man was the first to notice her. He let out a squeal and tried to disentangle himself from the embrace of the girl by hitting her in the face with one hand and reaching with the other for Mahdokht, who rushed out of the greenhouse and wandered aimlessly in the courtyard, fraught with nausea. She hurried to the pool, dipped her hands in the water, washing them compulsively. She then sat on the edge of the bedstead.

“What shall I do?”

She thought of reporting the whole thing to Houshang Khan and his wife. After all, the girl was in their custody.

“The girl is barely fifteen years old—what outrageous behavior . . .”

Houshang Khan would give her a sound beating before sending her back to her family. Most likely her brothers would kill her.

“What shall I do?”

Perhaps she should pack her bags and return to Tehran and leave behind the agonizing quandary.

“Then what?”

In a fit of indecision she walked back toward the greenhouse. She saw the girl, wearing her chador inside out, rushing toward her. Her face looked scratched and flushed.

“Dear madam,” she whimpered, as she dropped to the ground hugging Mahdokht’s feet.

The girl yelps like a dog, she thought.

“Get away from me, you filth,” Mahdokht snapped.

“Oh no, please madam,” pleaded the girl, “I’ll do anything for you.”

“Shut up. Let me pass.”

“I swear I’ll be your slave for life. I’ll be as good as dead if you tell my mother.”

“Who said I wanted to tell?”

“I swear to God he wants to marry me. He’s going to see the master tomorrow to propose.”

Reluctantly, Mahdokht promised not to tell simply to get away from her. She felt repulsed by the touch of the girl’s hands on her ankles. Fati rose to her feet and stumbled unsteadily toward the building. Mahdokht drew a deep breath, suppressing an urge to cry.

Since then three months had passed and the summer was at an end. Preparations were being made for the family’s return to the city that day. Everyone was surprised by Yadollah the gardener’s sudden and unannounced departure. “That’s weird,” Houshang Khan had said. “He’d told me a hundred times he would never leave my service.” Now he had to hire another caretaker to protect the orchard from the ravages of winter.

“Anybody can set up a maximum of four benches on the riverbank and rent them to Friday visitors for thirty tomans,” Houshang Khan explained to an assembly of villagers, who listened respectfully and approvingly. Mahdokht then heard the girl’s hearty laughter. She had taken the children to the end of the orchard to keep them out of the way. “God knows what games she teaches them,” she wondered, as she paced the floor angrily in her room, occasionally punching a wall in frustration. She worried about the children.

“I wish she had gotten pregnant so they would have killed her.”

It would have been convenient if the girl had gotten pregnant. The brothers would have ganged up on her and beaten her to death. That would have been nice. Then she wouldn’t mislead the children.

Suddenly and unaccountably a thought came to Mahdokht’s mind: my virginity is like a tree.

She felt compelled to look at her face in the mirror.

“Perhaps that is why I am green.”

She had an olive complexion with a hint of sallowness. There were wrinkles under her eyes. A vein tracked visibly on her forehead.

“You are so frigid,” Mr. Ehteshami had once noted. “Like ice.”

“Not like ice,” she thought. “I am a tree.”

She could plant herself in the earth.

“Well, I am not an acorn, but a tree. I should plant myself.”

No way could she talk like that to Houshang Khan, telling him to sit down for a frank conversation, telling him that it was the factories that produced the sweaters. If she mentioned the sweaters, she would have to tell him about the thousand hands. He would never understand. How could she tell him, for instance, that with the factories producing thousands of sweaters, there would be no need for her to be trained and oriented as a knitter?

Well, there was no choice. She contemplated staying behind and planting herself when the winter came. She should have asked the arborists as to the best time to plant saplings. She didn’t really know. It didn’t matter. She would stay for the planting. From a sapling she would grow into a tree. She wanted to be planted near the river and grow leaves darker than algae so she could seriously challenge the water of the pool. As a tree she would sprout offshoots that would spread to the entire orchard and cover it so thickly that they would have to cut down all the cherry trees to make room for the Mahdokht tree. Soon it would spread to the rest of the continent. Americans would buy shoots of it to plant in California and colder climates, although they would mispronounce it “Madokt.” Soon, as a result of widespread usage in other languages, the name would be corrupted to “Medok” or “Madok.” Four centuries from now etymologists would passionately argue that both terms share the same root, “Madik,” and it was originally from Africa. The botanists on the other hand would raise objections that a cold-climate tree could not grow in Africa.

Mahdokht beat her head against the wall repeatedly. She broke down and started crying. As she sobbed violently, she thought that she would take a tour of Africa. She wanted to be a tropical tree. This was what she wanted with all her heart. It is always the heart’s desire that drives one insane.

Fa’iza

AFTER SEVERAL DAYS OF DOUBT and hesitation Fa’iza made up her mind at four in the afternoon on August 5, 1953. Silence was no longer feasible. If she waited any longer everything would collapse. She’d better stand up in her own defense. Even so, despite the fact that she felt empowered by the decision, it took her well over an hour to get dressed. Slowly and deliberately she put on her stockings, a blouse, and a lightweight cotton skirt. During the process she paused to think, what if Amir Khan is there. The thought sent a rush of heat through her body. With him around, she wouldn’t be able to say what she wanted, or say anything at all. She would have to hold back and endlessly revise what she was going to say.

“I’m aging,” she told herself as she stood in front of the mirror powdering her nose. At twenty-eight years and two months she was not old; she just looked prematurely aged.

She put on her shoes and picked up a handbag before going downstairs. Nana Jan, her ancient grandmother, was sitting on a bench gazing at the reflecting pool in the middle of the courtyard. The clacking of Fa’iza’s heels on the steps distracted her.

“Are you going out?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Not a good idea. Demonstrations everywhere.”

The neighbors had the radio on and the noise reached the courtyard. Fa’iza stopped momentarily. Nana Jan was right.

“At least wear a chador,” advised Nana Jan.

Wordlessly Fa’iza turned around and went upstairs. From under piles of clothing she brought out the black chador she wore at funerals and on religious occasions. She put it on. The heavy folds of the material made her look somewhat angular. Amir Khan would tease her, should he be there. She didn’t mind being teased by him most of the time, for instance, for her inability to find a husband, but not for looking the way she did in a chador. That would likely make her cry—not a wise thing to do in front of Amir Khan. Any way, she had no choice, so she went downstairs wearing the chador. Nana Jan made no more comments; it had been a while since she’d stopped bossing people around.

Fa’iza stepped outside into the side street. The noise of the demonstration in the distance was clearly audible. A taxicab arrived almost immediately.

“Sezavar Street,” she said as she got in.

The driver looked at her in the rearview mirror.

“Aren’t you scared?” he asked. “It is chaotic out there.”

“I have no choice.”

“I have to take detours, you know,” the driver said. “Main streets are dangerous.”

“No problem,” Fa’iza answered.

Through a maze of back streets and alleys the driver negotiated his way until he had to stop at a minor traffic jam at an intersection. In the middle of the intersection a man appeared to be directing traffic. But all of a sudden he left the spot and ran down the sidewalk into an alley, chased by another man. The traffic began to move slowly. Suddenly a man hurled himself onto the back of Fa’iza’s cab and started knocking on the rear window with a knife. Fa’iza turned her head and buried her face in her lap. The driver jammed on the brakes, making her lurch forward and hit her head against the front seat. He then accelerated, which threw Fa’iza violently against the back seat. The maneuver made the man slip off the trunk of the car.

“I told you it would be dangerous,” said the driver. “You’re my last fare for sure.” Fa’iza made no response.

“Goddamn!” exclaimed the driver, “Serves me right for being nosy! My old lady told me ten times not to get on the road today.”

Fa’iza remained silent. She didn’t like the way the driver looked at her in the rearview mirror. She was anxious to get out.

Finally they arrived at the destination. She put a two-toman bill in the driver’s outstretched hand, shuddering at the touch of his skin. Not waiting for the change, she burst out of the cab.

The house overlooked the street, which was humming with the noise of the crowds at some distance. Fa’iza rang the doorbell. She had a bitter taste in her mouth for the two minutes before the door was opened. The maid, Alia, opened the door, looking groggy.

“You were still asleep?” said Fa’iza accusingly. “My God!”

Alia muttered something by way of greeting and stepped aside to let Fa’iza in.

“Is Madam Munis home?” Fa’iza asked.

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“In the living room, I suppose.”

Fa’iza started in that direction. Would Amir Khan be there, she wondered. As she took the first step, she told herself “There,” and with the second step, “Not there.” She alternated the thoughts at each step until she reached the living room door, coinciding with “There.” Apprehensively she pushed open the door. Munis was by herself sitting in front of the radio listening intently. Amir Khan was not there. He might be asleep upstairs, she guessed.

“Hello!” Fa’iza exclaimed.

Munis turned, her face suddenly flushed with pleasure at the sight of Fa’iza. “What a surprise,” she squealed. “Long time no see! Where have you been hiding yourself, young lady?” Slowly she rose to her feet, turning down the volume on the radio.

“Long-time-no-see to you, my dear,” returned Fa’iza. “No word, no message, for God’s sake.” The women embraced and continued the stream of pleasantries as they settled on a couch next to the radio.

“Are you alone?” Fa’iza wanted to know.

“Yes, I am,” declared Munis. “Mother and the others have gone on a pilgrimage to Mashad.”1

“Why didn’t you let me know?” Fa’iza asked, complainingly.

“They’ve been gone two days.”

“I see. What is Amir Khan doing?”

“He’s not home. He is at work.”

“What? At work? In the middle of all this commotion?”

“Every time he leaves the house he says he is going to the office. What do I know?”

“That’s interesting.”

“Interesting is the way you are.”

“I take it as a compliment.”

“I’m not sure about that,” said Munis with a touch of playfulness. “Would you like some tea?”

“That would be nice. If it’s not too much trouble.”

As soon as Munis left to get the tea, Fa’iza turned off the radio. It could interfere with the conversation that she had delayed long enough. When she returned, Munis sat directly across from Fa’iza, not saying a word. Somewhere Fa’iza had read that people with round faces are mentally defective. She had run to the mirror to make sure she did not belong to this retarded group, although she had been made aware many times before, mostly by Nana Jan’s pejorative, hurtful comments, that she had horse-like features. Since she’d read this, Fa’iza had developed the habit of evaluating people based on the shape of their faces. Amir had decidedly an oblong face with a strong, square jaw. Munis, on the other hand, had a round face, like the full moon, or an egg. For the past ten years she had thought of Munis as an imbecile. Fa’iza had cultivated a friendship with her despite the fact that Munis was ten years her senior because she found in her a winsome sincerity and personal magnetism. A couple of years after their bonding as friends, Munis’s brother, Amir, entered the picture. Now, every time she paid Munis a visit, it was mostly in hopes of catching a glimpse of Amir Khan. If Munis had had a longer face, Fa’iza had speculated often, she would have been smart enough to arrange Fa’iza’s marriage to Amir Khan. Poor girl, Fa’iza thought to herself, why is her face so round?

Alia brought in the tea tray. As they sipped tea, Munis kept glancing at the radio. Although she was older and in her own house, she did not have the self-confidence to exert her will and turn the radio back on. “Is it bad out there?” she asked.

“It is utterly chaotic,” Fa’iza answered.

“Amir Khan warned me not leave the house. He said I might get my head cut off.”

“Well, he is right. Someone jumped on the trunk of my cab,” Fa’iza added.

Thinking that she should focus the conversation on her intended topic, she immediately asked “Have you seen Parveen lately?”

“I haven’t seen her in a month,” answered Munis.

“Well, why not?”

“The last time I saw her was when her child was sick with rubella. She told people to stay away to avoid spreading the virus.”

“Just as well you didn’t see more of her.”

Munis looked at her companion quizzically. Fa’iza waited for her to pick up the thread of the conversation, but the older woman remained silent, staring at the patterns on the rug. So Fa’iza had to continue.

“Never in my life have I seen such an indecent person,” Fa’iza blurted.

Munis lifted her head and looked at her with eyes awash in surprise. “But why?” she asked in bewilderment.

Oh, God, I wish her face wasn’t so round, Faiza thought to herself.

“She’s mean and vicious,” she said venomously. “It is terrible to find this out about a person you have been friends with for fifteen years. She’s all pretense and not an ounce of sincerity in her.”

There was something close to fear in Munis’s eyes as she asked, “What has she done? Sued for divorce?”

“Oh no. What divorce?” Fa’iza hissed. “That is the last thing she’d do, that filth. My poor brother is wasted on her.”

Munis pursed her lips, completely absorbed. In her mind she was trying unsuccessfully to find a reason for such a view of Parveen. She had known the woman through Fa’iza at parties, funerals, and other such functions and had come to have a casual friendship with her. She’d never detected any serious flaws in her character.

Munis stared at Fa’iza, expecting an explanation. Fa’iza returned her gaze, her eyes turning red. Suddenly she began to cry. This evoked a sympathetic response in Munis who started sobbing uncontrollably. She had always had a tendency to cry at the sight of other people’s tears. She never knew why.

“Don’t cry,” Munis pleaded. “Oh, please don’t cry for God’s sake. What is the matter?”

Fa’iza was looking for a handkerchief, and not finding one dabbed her eyes with the corner of her chador, now fallen in a heap around her.

“Do you know how nice I was to her?” Fa’iza asked, not waiting for an answer. “She wouldn’t be so fortunate had it not been for me. It was just this past year when she had a row with my brother. It was her fault. The stupid woman packed up and ran to her mommy’s. No decent woman with a lick of sense would do such a thing. And who do you think patched things up between them? Poor me! I gave a dinner party that is still being talked about all over town. I went to the best meat market and tipped the butcher for extra-fine cuts of meat. I made eggplant stew with lamb and rice. And grilled chicken. What a grilled chicken! I marinated it in lemon juice and spices and spent a whole hour roasting it on an open fire in the courtyard. I made yogurt and spinach. Do you think it was easy to find tomatoes out of season? I went all the way to the farmer’s market to get them. I had Colonel Sarvbala’s orderly get enough vodka for Parveen’s father to drink all night.”

As if to keep down the bitterness welling up inside her, Fa’iza pressed her lips together. Munis was looking at Fa’iza, her eyes bulging. “Then what?” she asked.

“What do you think? It was like another wedding.” Fa’iza said with a shrug of her shoulders. “My brother took her back. Then two months later she supposedly wanted to reciprocate, but actually the bitch wanted to outdo me and make me look bad. She gave a dinner party serving a European menu. She threw a few pieces of shoe leather on a china plate calling them steaks, like we are peasants, like we have no taste. I knew right away that she wanted to antagonize me. All right, I said to myself, you want war, I’ll show you war!”