A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea (24 page)

You never whisper when a scream will do; never reveal truth when a lie will do.
Oh, the miracle of being born below the Caspian. You may be endowed with a shrieking, matricidal, six-horse jinn of a temper. You may be granted the most unfortunate crow’s beak of a nose. And, unless you’re a
dehati
with no roots, or a half-breed, you almost certainly have a history of poetic lunacy in the family. But it’s all worth the ability to metabolize a small deer overnight.

They laugh loudly and spill their drinks as Cameron, in his politician’s voice, proclaims their work finished and Mahtab cheers and decides to be in love. What a strange world. My Mahtab, so many scoops of a teaspoon away, still manages to fall in love with a Persian man. Should I warn her? If I only knew how to reach her.

In this blissful time before he is tested, Cameron seems beautiful to her.
Before Abbas became a monster, he too seemed fragile and gentle, and I loved him in a different way. He was a sort of father to me, when my own was unavailable. But Mahtab doesn’t need a father now. She has Baba Harvard. And so, before his transformation into Abbas, Cameron is his own unique self, his natural self, a wandering, displaced male Mahtab. An exile and a perfect fit.
She doesn’t know that her ideal Iranian other self—though he stands just there, brushing his teeth while she watches him in the bathroom mirror—doesn’t exist.
She wants to touch him, to hold him, to throw away her reservations and crawl into his clothes with him. Why does he not want that too? Sometimes when he’s asleep on his back with all his limbs spread out, she lies on top of him in the exact same formation, so that every centimeter of her is touching him, from the tips of her toes on his ankles to the top of her head just below his chin, with every finger perfectly aligned to his. She listens to his slow heartbeat and wishes they could freeze in this pose, like two halves of a starfish.
Though they’ve lost count now of all the nights they’ve spent together like this, Mahtab senses something off in the way Cameron holds her hand. The way he kisses her. The way he gets up just before the end of every movie and cuts off their numerous but short-lived tangles on the couch. He is traditional, she thinks. His reaction to her causes a deep lingering frustration in her belly, in her limbs as they hover over him. Has Mahtab slept with a man before? This I don’t know. Do American girls sleep with men before they are engaged? On television they do, but maybe Mahtab would not. She doesn’t have to. One day she will marry the man of her choice, and she will have it all.
Once she kisses his stomach and he pulls away. He holds her hands behind her and jokes, “I thought this was an Islamic relationship.” She laughs and decides he is shy.
Sometimes at the theater she reads Forough Farrokhzad.
O stars
,
what happened that he did not want me?
Then, like a good Persian, she lies to herself.
She makes the mistake of telling her mother about Cameron. Maman immediately becomes nervous. “Don’t get involved with an Iranian man, Mahtab jan.” She doesn’t say why and Mahtab doesn’t ask, because her mother too has her private fears.
Two months into their romance, they arrange to drive down to New York for dinner at the Aryanpur home. As the day draws closer, Cameron grows agitated. “They’re very traditional. Very faithful Muslims,” he says. “Please watch what you say. Don’t talk about Iran or politics, and don’t mention you’re a Christian.” He plays with his cuticles. “There’s one more thing.” He looks past her. Seeing him so nervous makes Mahtab curious. “My mother,” he mutters. “She wears
hijab
.”
Mahtab laughs, relieved. “That’s okay. I’ve seen
hijab
before. I did
live
in Iran.”
“No, just listen,” he says, taking her hand in both of his. “I would be forever grateful if you would please consider wearing a headscarf to dinner.”
Mahtab can feel the blood draining from her face. She opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. He says “Please” one more time, and her speech returns, galloping with the fury of a herd of wild horses. “No way in hell. Don’t ask me again.”
Mahtab leaves Cameron’s dorm room in such a frenzy that she expects never to see him again. She slams every door between his room and hers, raging from hallway to street and back to her room. The following days are marked by confusion, a constant obsession with Cameron’s words and intentions. He must not know her at all, after so many nights together. Because there is one thing that’s certain in Mahtab’s world, and that is the unchangeable fact that she will never,
never
wear
hijab
. Why then is she standing now in front of a store called Hermès
—
or is it House of Hermès? I don’t know which name is on the door—examining that expensive blue-and-violetcheckered scarf in the window? Why is she considering it with such care, such mixed feelings, as if staring at evidence of a lifetime of her own crimes? Why does she, on a Friday morning before class, arrive unannounced at Cameron’s door, holding the orange Hermès box— like the ones you see vacationers from Tehran carrying around their seaside villas to show off their foreign shopping—and a filled-up credit card, her head wrapped fashionably (only halfway) in a perfect imitation of Jackie Kennedy, complete with oversized glasses?
“The way the chic-chic Tehrani girls wear it,” says Khanom Omidi, “very nice.”
As she stands waiting, the Mahtab who never sacrifices her dignity struggles to break free, to force her feet to run away. In a deeper corner of her stomach, a wild being, a selfish thing that doesn’t bother with principles, battling instead to satisfy her every hunger, pins her feet to the ground. Reminds her that it’s only a piece of cloth. Makes her aware of a frantic physical longing for Cameron.
When Cameron answers the door, she says, “This is the best I can do.”
He takes her in his arms, kisses her cheek. “I knew you wouldn’t let me down.”
“How could I say no?” she says, pushing past him as she presses the orange box, empty except for a receipt, into his chest. “Look at the pretty scarf you bought me.”
Before you ask, let me explain that in America people don’t buy things with cash. They have cards that record every purchase, and later they pay for everything all at once. So Mahtab hasn’t actually paid yet, and Cameron reimburses her discreetly by slipping cash into her purse. It is all very subtle, very well whitewashed. This way no one can ask what he has just bought.
“This is strange business. Where does the money go, you say?”
I will explain later. But for now, they set off to New York.
And yes, Khanom Omidi, I know the blue-and-violet scarf sounds exactly like Khanom Basir’s. That’s because it too is a guilty scarf— one she doesn’t deserve.
As Mahtab expects, the Aryanpurs are wealthy and gaudy in the way only American Iranians know how to be—the way Baba’s cousins were when they spent a summer in Shomal. They greet her effusively, praising her fine balance of piety and fashion sense. They kiss their son on both cheeks and Mr. Aryanpur frowns at Cameron’s shirt. “Button up,” he grumbles, eyeing his son’s hairless chest. “Shameful habit.” Mahtab likes Cameron’s metropolitan grooming rituals. She finds hairiness the first sign of “too much Iran,” remembering her own struggle to get her mother to allow shaving. After much research, Khanom Omidi, I believe that Iranians have a relationship with body hair that is unique and, to be honest, doesn’t make much sense. What is all the fuss, really?
The Aryanpur home is simultaneously solemn and garish. On the walls hang several round panels of Islamic calligraphy, written in beautiful Nastaleeq script, next to depictions of scenes from Nezami and Ferdowsi. On the shelves, volumes of the Koran are respectfully kept away from other books. The family’s wealth is dripping from every corner. In the dining room, a thick tablecloth of maroon and gold covers a cherry table large enough to seat twelve. Far too many things are made of solid gold.
“Your given name is Mahtab, yes?” Mrs. Aryanpur asks. Cameron’s mother is a living embodiment of her surroundings. Though covered from head to toe, she wears a thick layer of makeup and long red nails. Though she avoids the fashionable style of leaving several centimeters of hair uncovered, a stray strand tells Mahtab that, yes, her hair is that distinct Los Angeles orange—like the showy California Persians you see in photos.
“Yes. But I use May now, to simplify things,” says Mahtab.
Mr. Aryanpur releases a deep sigh that seems to have been waiting inside. “That’s too bad. You shouldn’t abandon your Persian name. It means ‘moonlight,’ you know.”
“Yes, I know.” She notices that Mr. Aryanpur too is no stranger to boxed dye. His impossibly black mustache is a stark contrast to his salt-and-pepper hair.
“Very nice,” he mutters, and meanders away from the door.
There is something familiar as they sit down to dinner—a sort of awkwardness to the pace and flow of the evening. I have seen it myself in the home videos that arrive from Baba’s cousins in California— these meals are a bizarre, otherworldly hybrid of ours and the ones you see on American television. The Aryanpurs, like Maman and every other immigrant family in this world, are in limbo, caught between two vastly different sets of rituals. Not knowing whether to start at six o’clock or ten, they nibble on nuts and dried fruits until they are almost full and they start dinner at nine. Unsure whether to respect the Iranian custom of bringing all the food to the table at once or the American one of eating in courses, they serve green salads as an appetizer, hurrying through them like a chore—a mandatory homage to their new country—before parading the meat courses, each cooked in a combination of at least five spices. The conversation is always easy, though. They begin with poetry and literature, they recite and counter and correct, reminiscing about Isfahan, Persepolis, and the Caspian, and then, hours later, move on to the most basic inquiries about each other. They are much like the families who come for one season to the villas by the sea, peers of my own parents in education and interests. Though in America, they are free to indulge in whatever pastimes and conversations they wish.
From then on, the Aryanpurs spend most of the evening gathering information about Mahtab’s parents, background, and education.
“So you’re in your third year at Harvard,” Mr. Aryanpur says, while struggling to adapt to the American place setting. He is becoming visibly angry as the grains of buttery basmati rice flutter through the fork and land back on his plate. When he thinks Mahtab is not looking, he reaches for his dessert spoon. The sight of him piling grains onto this minuscule spoon, hands shaking all the way to his mouth, reminds Mahtab of her own father—though she’s not sure why. She thinks of José from the diner and considers that maybe this man reminds her of all fathers. There is a pain there, in the empty space where Mahtab stores fatherly longings. She wants to reach out and touch Mr. Aryanpur’s hand, to refill his tea and show that she is no trouble at all, to count all the ways Cameron looks like him. She has the feeling that he spends much of the day in the house, probably because he has no fields to watch over. “We keep telling Cameron to marry a smart girl,” Mr. Aryanpur says in his low, dull voice.
“Baba!” Cameron snaps.
“Well, it’s true, isn’t it?” Cameron’s father looks shocked. “Why should you be embarrassed by the truth of marriage? Why should you waste your life?” Mr. Aryanpur continues as if Cameron had not interrupted at all. “But it isn’t Cameron’s fault. We discouraged dating until he was settled in college.”
And then, as if only just now reminded of it, Mrs. Aryanpur says, “Our son is top of his class, you know? Did you know that?” She looks eagerly at Mahtab.
“Yes, I did.” She laughs, and turns to Cameron’s father, who has begun speaking again.
“I think you would make a very nice candidate. What do your parents do?”
Just as Cameron is about to object, his father turns to him and snaps so loudly that Mahtab almost jumps. “I’ve told you not to sit like that.” Immediately Cameron uncrosses his legs and turns a deep shade of red. Whatever reaction he would have shown to his father’s marriage comment is gone now, and Mahtab wishes she knew what it would have been. Cameron avoids his father’s gaze, smiles lovingly at his mother, who takes his hand. Mr. Aryanpur continues on about Iran and education and the significance of each of their wall hangings. He seems older, more set in his ways, than his wife. She drinks her tea from a cup, whereas he pours his into the saucer to cool, holds a sugar cube in his teeth, then brings the saucer to his lips with both hands—the way we were served tea as children so we wouldn’t burn our mouths.
Mahtab likes this man. By the end of the evening, she comes to believe that she might soon join the array of beautiful fixtures in the Aryanpurs’ life.
Cameron spends the drive to campus thanking Mahtab and apologizing for his parents. Even after Mahtab tells him what a wonderful time she had, he continues to act tense, restless. She makes nothing of it, assuming that he will be himself by the morning.
She tries to call the next day, but he doesn’t answer the phone. Days pass with no sign of him. When they run into each other one afternoon, he says that he is busy with his research on Iran and that his adviser is going to help with his grand plans to return.
“You aren’t tired of me now that you’ve appeased the parents?” she jokes.
He laughs and says that he could never be. But is he telling the truth, this young, elegant Persian? Has he tired of her?
Over the next week Mahtab busies herself with work. She’s always short on money and she spends her evenings selling tickets at the theater. She has a vague, nagging feeling about Cameron, a low-grade nuisance like a blister or an insect, but she is too busy to act on it— until one night when work ends early and she decides to visit him.
She sails past the library and the campus center. In a small shop window, she reapplies her makeup before entering his dorm. She finds Cameron’s door unlocked and slides in, calling his name as she flings her purse on the couch. There is a noise in the bathroom. She rushes toward the bedroom, sloughing off her coat and thinking of dinner. Cameron is there—a flash of skin as he pulls on a sweater, a sad expression on his face.
Next to him on his rumpled blue bedsheets sits a waifish beauty, blond, barely eighteen, fidgeting like a child. But he isn’t a child. He is a man, half dressed, and clearly too young and confused to have ever encountered this complication.
Despite the lack of understanding in Mahtab’s smile, Cameron is far too smart to attempt to hide his indiscretions, and so he has already begun scrambling to contain the damage. Oh, the damage. He runs his hand through his hair. How many problems might this create? Surely he will lose his girlfriend. But what more? Remember, Khanom Omidi, that the poor Aryan wants to work in Iran. Oh, what bad business this is.
“Poor boy,” says Khanom Omidi. “Mahtab will move on. But he will have such troubles.”
Well, maybe he is only experimenting, like Ponneh does with her friend Farnaz—don’t look shocked; I know she told you—or maybe this is his truth and he will grow up suffering for it. Mahtab stands there, still unsure, watching Cameron with tired, black-lined eyes now wide with disbelief.