A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea (25 page)

Is the stranger a student? A delivery boy?
Gradually the details make themselves visible to her and overtake the bigger picture. The red-faced boy squirming on the bed. A button on his jeans missed in haste. The musky odor hanging low overhead. Clothes tossed in every direction. Condoms on the dresser.
When the truth reflects back at him through Mahtab’s eyes, Cameron doesn’t apologize. He pulls her into the living room and shuts the door. In a too-calm voice he tells his girlfriend that their wishful romance is over.
“I don’t understand,” she says. “You like men now?”
“Not
now . . .”
He looks offended and drops his eyes. “I
have
been . . . I
am
. . . yes.”
“But we were . . .” Mahtab wants to mention the late nights on his couch but, in the face of the guilty scene now embedded in her memory, her own romps with him seem laughable and innocent—a few kisses here and there, a wandering hand that knows just where
not
to go. And so she grasps at something else. Something that triggers a new, more intense hatred of him. “You made me meet your parents. You made me wear
hijab!
” Suddenly his crime is magnified a hundredfold.
“Come on, was that such a big deal?” he says. “You got a nice present out of it.”
Somewhere inside a banshee wakes, eyes his limbs, and tries to choose which to tear off first.
“You’re such a . . .!” Now I can’t complete her sentence for ignorance of the best English curses, but you can imagine. She ranks and burns, furious at that guilty piece of silk.
He starts to beg, apologizes, calls her his best friend. “Please understand,” he says. “I
do
love you, but I had so much pressure. You met my father. I
can’t
tell them . . .”
The banshee looks for some turmeric in which to marinate his pieces when this is over.
“Why not?” demands Mahtab. In a flash of calm she remembers details from the dinner and adds, “You
do
realize that your father already suspects?”
“He doesn’t!” Cameron runs his hand through his hair again, his eyes fixed on her forehead. “And I want to work in Iran, remember? Mahtab, they
hang
people for this.”
“Yes, they do.” Khanom Omidi shakes her head. “Our best days are gone.”
But Mahtab doesn’t notice the fear in his voice. She doesn’t stop to admire him for wanting to go to their shared homeland despite the dangers. She only hears the angry screams emanating from deep within herself. She curses him again and storms out.
Cameron follows. “Mahtab, you cannot tell anyone about this,” he says, and grabs her arm. “You have to keep it a secret.” Her chest throbs at this one final touch.
“Why should I do that?”
“Because! Nobody can know. I can’t have them thinking I’m . . .
like that
.”
Mahtab laughs. “Are you stupid or looking for drama? You’re not going to get hanged. Plenty of people are gay in Iran. Gay is fine. Just be sure to find a wife first.” Then, remembering that this is exactly what he was doing with
her
, she tries to pull away toward the landing at the top of the stairs.
Because, Khanom Omidi, this is exactly what all Persian men do when they fear their manhood might be in question. They find a wife. They protect their secret. They rub out the evidence. This is the part where my heart aches most for my sister. We fall into all the same traps. And like me, Mahtab makes the mistake of goading the beast. Through the fog of humiliation, shock, and an ocean of hurt, a mocking smile creeps onto Mahtab’s lips and she taunts him, though she wants to drop into his arms and cry and cry and see if he will be revolted. “I wonder if there’s a number for the moral police in Tehran.”
Maybe he wants to hurt her now. Maybe he wants to hire a former
dallak
to prove his manhood for him. But this is America, and in America men can’t get away with such violent ways. There money is the only weapon worth having, and desiring this or that kind or person isn’t such a frightening thing.
When Cameron doesn’t respond, she shouts, “Let go of me,” and frees herself from his grasp. She doesn’t cry—not till later. She just walks away marveling at the never-ending ego of Persian men . . . or maybe all men. Because right now more than anything else, Cameron is worried for his reputation, afraid that she will broadcast his se crets into an echoing, cavernous hammam of angry women, assembled there to confirm his repeated failure to consummate the affair. And the reason? Because he’s . . .
like that
.
And now we come to the moment when Cameron, the poor Aryan, solves Mahtab’s next Immigrant Worry and joins all the other thirty-minute anecdotes that make up her perfect TV life. The following week Mahtab avoids Cameron’s calls, though he phones several times a day. He isn’t trying to rekindle their relationship, or even their friendship. He is calling to beg for her silence. Yes, Mahtab plans to keep quiet, but does she tell him so? She would never consider giving him such satisfaction. Until one day she gets home from work and finds a message on her answering machine.
“Mahtab, it’s me. Look, I know you don’t want to talk. But I can’t go to Iran without being sure. I thought of something that’ll free you from doing me any favors. You said you hate your job, right? Well, what about this? You quit and I’ll share my credit card.” Listen, Khanom Omidi, this is a big offer. It means free money. “Check your mailbox. No one will know. You can use it for as long as you do me this one favor, even after we graduate. How’s that sound? Call me back.”
Mahtab laughs. She erases the message and goes to bed, shaking her head at his arrogance, his lack of remorse. She tries hard to hate him. Why doesn’t he say anything about their lost love, about the future she imagined for them? Why doesn’t he admit that he loves her back? It’s two in the morning and she has to be at the theater at eight to sort receipts, but she can’t fall asleep. She spreads herself across the mattress, her limbs reaching out to the edges of the bed like the top half of a starfish, and she tells herself that what Cameron told her is not true—that she can find a way to hold on to him. As she buries her face in her pillow, she thinks that she would never accept such an offer.
It’s a funny thing about manly reputation. They are willing to give all their wealth for it. Do you think it’s wrong to take it, Khanom Omidi? One day my money will come from this same source. The fates of twins are tied together, after all. At least Mahtab experienced a one-sided love. She was allowed to lie on top of Cameron and listen to his heart, to touch her lips to his and make him laugh, to run her fingers across his very white Harvard teeth. I wonder what it’s like to have an afternoon’s access to such a man. To want him and be allowed so near. To touch him and find him moved by me. Sometimes I don’t care if such a man is my husband or a stranger tied to me only by our shared illegal desires. I hate Abbas for being old, for denying me even the smallest knowledge of such things, the slightest bit of pleasure. The feeling that I might be partly human, even with one half of me missing as it is. Sometimes I hate him more for
that
than for the violent thing he did to me.
Maybe I am an immigrant too, wandering through marriage like Cameron and Mahtab wander through America toward a fantasy that used to exist. I want to be my natural self, whole without Mahtab, and wild with uncovered hair. Maybe I could dance around a bonfire like women used to do during Norooz celebrations before the revolution. Black hair flying. Wives kissing husbands and lovers. Running off to bedrooms to do who knows what. Then I wouldn’t want Reza to be like James or Abbas to be like Cameron. I wouldn’t long to be in Mahtab’s place. I would only want to be my most ordinary self, without books or refinement—just a wild, hungry thing running barefoot somewhere.
The world has changed, Khanom Omidi, and now we are
all
impotent.

“Oh, what strange times you children have to face.” Khanom Omidi sighs. “We all wish for the old days, Saba jan, but we have to settle for the small joys. . . . Maybe we should eat something, have some tea. Then you must tell me what that man did to you.”

Yes, maybe later . . . But now it’s my sister’s turn. The next day Mahtab finds the credit card in her mailbox. It even has her name on it. She puts it in a separate corner of her purse, away from her own money. She doesn’t call Cameron or tell her friends or mother. She’s too busy to correct his mistakes. She will handle it in the morning. But the next day her boss needs Mahtab to work more shifts and she has no time to send back the credit card. Besides, a part of her likes this connection to Cameron. He may be gone, but he is still tied to her by this tiny piece of plastic. This is something of his that she can hold on to—like a T-shirt or a book left in her room. This means that he’s thinking about her. She ignores it, telling herself that doing so isn’t a concession. Besides, in a month he will have forgotten that she even has this doorway to his family’s wealth.

One afternoon, hands shaking, she uses the card to buy herself a cup of coffee. To see what will happen. To see if this is real or just another game. The payment goes through without a problem and the card falls heavy in her hand. She has accepted the unearned money and rubbed a thick coat of yogurt over it so no one can see. Two days later she tests the card again. She buys a book, which she returns twenty minutes later. The music of the credit-card machine confirms that someone has accepted her tacit consent.

A week later, when confronted with a sleepless weekend, two deadlines, and an exam, Mahtab quits her job at the ticket office.
Does Mahtab feel guilty? Does anyone know what she has done? Does she soak her pillow at night, and blame that guilty piece of Hermès silk for her poor homeward-bound Aryan with his big dreams and hidden fears?

“So she accepts the money, then?” Khanom Omidi says. “Maybe it’s wise.”
It seems that she does. But credit cards are nothing more than plastic until you use them. That is how they work, each purchase a new bargain. And, as you say, love is an uncut watermelon. You might slice it open and find you’ve bought the wrong fruit.
And by the way, Khanom Omidi, even though you’re nodding at the wisdom of it all, you should know that in English that’s a damn good joke at Cameron’s expense.
Even though she isn’t sure if she will use the credit card again— Mahtab says goodbye to one of her biggest Immigrant Worries. She has vanquished many others so far: she no longer frets about her otherness. She doesn’t worry about success. And now she stops thinking about money too, not because of the access she has to the poor Aryan’s wealth, but because she realizes how easily money can be obtained. Maybe I should learn from my sister. My wiser, stronger, worldlier sister. Maybe I should stop categorizing all the different types of money in the world; stop differentiating between old money, new money, Muslim-Widow Money, and Yogurt Money, judging and separating them into categories when really they are all the same. I’ve left so much sitting on the table unused. Maybe I should be braver, protect myself against the evils of weak-hearted men. Maybe I should stop waiting for my own inheritance to come through.

fter Saba’s story, I tried to tell her without telling her, because, of course, I cannot encourage bad behavior. But trust me when I say that I know what she is missing. I have been Saba’s truest mother for all these years. I have tended to her wounds, whispered a thousand defenses and sympathies into every willing ear, followed behind her as she left a trail of fibs and blunders, and I rubbed a subtle coat of yogurt over it all so that no one would judge her. Who else would do this, especially after we lost Khanom Mansoori? My dear friend . . . God rest her soul, she was right that Saba’s stories are good for her. Yesterday when the lady doctor, Zohreh Khanom, called and Saba wasn’t home, I praised the girl’s imagination and the doctor sounded worried, which is ridiculous.

What did Abbas do to her? I wish I knew. After her story, I began to wonder: is her sadness really about being married to the wrong man or is it something else? It is my personal belief that every woman should have her own private sums, a small bundle she has saved up that is safe from any man and that she can use to take herself out of bad situations. You know, I predict that if one day all the women in Iran woke up and they had their own money, there would be no more marriage. The giving and taking of daughters would come to a quick end. Maybe the whole country would fall. If it
does
fall, I will be safe because I have savings hidden in my chador.

Please do not tell anyone that I am of this opinion, because I will deny it.
I believe that no man will ever be enough for Saba. She lusts for independence and until she has it, there will be no end to the Mahtab stories. But that’s not the
only
thing she lusts for, which brings me to the second thing I noticed.
The poor girl is aching to grow up, to become a woman, to experience a real and true awakening, which she obviously does not have with the old corpse she married. Now here is where I must be careful not to encourage bad behavior, but I tried to hint that there are things she should not miss in life. I said to her, “You are a clever girl. You read the old poetry?” She said yes, and so I said, “Rumi is my favorite. The aching and the hunger. There is a line about a thirsty fish inside that can never get enough of what it thirsts for.” Saba just stared at me and shrugged. I recited more poems about new passion and human need. Such words!
I reach out,
Rumi says,
wanting you to tear me open.
Does Saba understand it? I hope one day she will, even if for one night. One hour. Has the girl not suffered enough? Maybe she should have a lover, just to experience this precious part of life. And before you think I have a sinful mind, let me tell you that it is no sin to be human. When I was young, pleasures were plenty and lovers were like balls of opium at the bottom of a spice jar—if you felt around enough, there was always another to be found.
Don’t give me rules about keeping chaste. Those rules are made up by someone other than God. Don’t give me sentiment about the call of true love and the meeting of souls. Those sentiments are for storytellers. Life is no more than the small joys of many moments added up like coins in a chador. Probably in this world there is no love, only good sense and attraction—the matching of stature and age and smells to make a good fit. In my old eyes, that is what it means to go well together—no more magic to it than two legs, two arms, and, if you’re lucky, a young and beautiful face.