Mysteries of Motion (50 page)

Wert wished hard and sudden for his cousin, far away in a big old house now only a block from a gas station, yet in a town where certain people still did just that. Ordering the traditional magnolias from the florist if necessary—as had been done at his second-cousin-once-removed daughter’s wedding—and tying them into the trees. He could telephone to ask her opinion, which she always gave overpoweringly. Cousin—under the circumstances, am I the bride, or the groom?

Better still, he could fly there. Away.

On second thought, he’d rather not let his cousin know. Women fester toward a wedding, their very skin irritated by the sight of the male in the single state.

His best gambit, the only decent one, is to be stupidly polite. Speak to the aunt.

“Do
you
—speak English?” Wert said.
Englisi harf mizanid?

Everybody clapped.

Not the two girls, who look uncomfortable. Nor Fereydoun, who glances at his watch—and who may have an understandable lack of interest in weddings.

“Don’t fuss, Ferey,” Madame says in French. “That damnable program’s been delayed another hour. Paris just telephoned.” To Wert she says in English: “My husband’s wedding will be broadcast from Isfahan, but on the—the—what is it, girls?”

Manoucher’s wife doesn’t answer her mother-in-law. Her neck grows an inch.

The aunt tucks in her chin, modestly. “Satellite.”

The women purr admiration, passing the English word like a ball.

He wants to clap.

“Machines, tons les deux,
my nieces,” Madame says. “This one”—she points to her daughter-in-law—“a speech machine. And the other Soraya—what are you, hmm?”

Wert waits, fascinated. That beautiful dove-voice, the voice of the phone, what’ll float out on it? She’s hanging her head, as one does in her country when young, subordinate, yet admitting a fact to one’s credit. “Computer programmer.”

“Are they not beautiful together!” bursts from one of the women.

His ears burn.

Fateh rescues him. “Brought up together, Mr. Wert, all their lives!”

A humming from the women. He recalls the cronies, their moist-eyed tales of masculine devotion. Are these girls the new-style heroines? “Did you say—nieces?”

Over there behind Madame, everyone giggles. Seems he can’t make a wrong response.

Fereydoun intervenes. “It’s very simple.” But he’s grinning. “The other Soraya’s mother is Manoucher’s Soraya’s grandmother, married at twelve. The grandmother and her own daughter—Manoucher’s Soraya’s mother, had these two girls the same year, the grandmother first. The
father
of the other Soraya happens to be Madame’s real brother. The father of Manoucher’s Soraya is the half-brother of Madame by
her
father’s second wife—although this half-brother was actually only adopted into that family, being the son of the second wife’s dead sister. So Manoucher’s wife is only an adopted niece; Madame made very sure of it.”

“Otherwise my grandson might know all the parts of speech and still be an idiot,” Madame murmurs rapidly.
“When
he arrives.”

“Otherwise—” Fateh raises a ruby-nailed finger, pointing to the girl, “we would have send her first. As the aunt…and so talented, Mr. Wert.”

“Bakh? He would have sent Manoucher both of them,” Madame says gloomily. “Lucky, your country does not allow.”

“Madame does not approve,” Fereydoun says. “Of the old Islamic marriage. You may recall her family modernized it.”

A silence. Everybody’s recalling.
Shah.
No need to say it. Shah. “And Reza Shah,” Wert says.

“You don’t approve of more than one wife?” Fateh seems to be asking this question for herself. The shadow from her false lashes cross-hatches her pupils, reminding him of the
x
cartoonists used to put in the eyes of a character meant to be blotto. Under all her beige, yes, that other woman.

Only an Arabic answer is possible. “Madame Fateh—
qisma
—Kismet, gave me only one.”

An abdominal groan from the ladies. He won’t dare turn toward their starry expanse, agreeing now with what Bakh used gravely to tell him:
Chador
is a protection for the man. What’s Ferey’s allegiance, to men or women? To neither probably; that’s his value. “Bakh’s new wife, is she of the family, too?”

He’s managed to say something wrong at last.

“She is of Ardebil. As one can see.” Fereydoun confides, buttonhole to buttonhole.

A sudden keening from Manoucher’s wife. “I did not want to leave prison first.
She
makes me.” Palms outstretched toward the other Soraya, the Farsi trembling off her lips, she beats time to it. “We came into that prison nearly together; we should leave together.” Her eyes are shut. Two drops squeeze from them, and a tiny voice from below. “Because she knows I am soft for Manoucher. Yes, it is true. ‘Go,’ she says. She is already getting too old for children she says. Already six months older than me, almost twenty-five.” She opens her eyes. The other Soraya closes hers. They hang onto each other like a pair of just-revealed caryatids waiting for the archaeologist’s pick. “So I say—‘I will wait. I will not have children. Until she, too, comes to America.’”

They remind him of his young cronies of yore. A touch of Damon and Pythias, the complications of the womb notwithstanding. Attacks of adolescent vowing—whose attitudinizings used to strike silvery shadows in his samovar.

He can’t seem to remember that those two have been in prison. Prison, not jail; jail is apolitical. The fact keeps sliding away from him. As does his own possible role here. What’s operating here is the clan, that engine always running during either the light or the dark of lives lived within its enclosure. He wants to get nearer it. Even if it burns.

At this moment, everyone’s ignoring him for what’s being revealed. Not that they didn’t already know. But now the clan’s obligatory scene is upon them.

For Madame is muttering to Fereydoun, in schoolgirl German. “To think. To think—that to ransom those two, Bakh let those
Schweine
have his last two opium fields.”

“Shhh.
Hald dein Mund.”

Wert gives no indication of having overheard. The special myopia of those who use a whispered other language as the last resort of intimacy always amuses him.

“I was just telling Madame,” Fereydoun says, switching to English, “that her daughter-in-law really adores her. Adores you and admires you, Madame. What’s she done but copy you—if I may say.”

“You’ll say it anyway. What hasn’t he said to us, Mr. Wert. In the years he’s managed us.”

And how they smile at each other, the servility perfectly balancing the complicity.

“Then, I’ll say it. Madame—what’s Manoucher’s Soraya done to him but copy what you did—to Bakh?”

“Das war personlich! Nicht Radicalismus!”

Whether it was personal or radical, she likes being reminded of it. “But are those girls really—” Wert says. “Of course, country to country, radicalism changes.”

“In my country, Mr. Wert, if you are in prison, then you are radical. How nice you speak German, too.”

They watch her join the two girls, who are surrounded by the women. “Yes, how nice,” Fereydoun whispers doubtfully. “For your information, Manoucher’s wife was sent to prison for writing something. A lecture—about parts of speech. Very clever. Actually one more manifesto.” He shrugs. “And one more university riot. But the other Soraya—she’s been against the mullahs from the beginning. And that’s serious. She can’t go back.”

“So—Bakh’s really out of opium now?” Or again? He’ll hear nothing good of the old man from now on. The clan being the clan.

“Ah—those fields were earmarked for Madame. Part of her—settlement. He’ll compensate her. He now has interests in outer space.” Fereydoun pets his watch, soothing it like a cat. “Not everyone can arrange a broadcast by satellite.” He smiles at the word; his manner is loosening, his English, too. “The other Soraya—she’s his favorite.” He’s scarcely moving his lips. “We think—he tried to marry her. To get her out of prison, of course. But he wanted to.”

Wert stands rigid. The possibilities open like fans. “Who
sent
those girls to prison?”

But Madame’s already at his elbow, shepherding the girl. “She is very like your American girls,
non, M’sieu
Wert? Like all our girls, she knows for the household—but like yours she is also modernly talented. The
spécialité
computer is very chic,
non?
But
of course
she can have children—if it is wanted. She is not like some.” A glance at her daughter-in-law. And at Fereydoun. “It is understood—she would remain the only wife. But she is also so American she wish to choose her own husband.” Madame’s giggle rumbles in bronze. “She is very hard on us. We are supposed to arrange.
Méchante,
you went even to prison to avoid us. Hah! And then what happens, naughty girl?”

All the women sigh. Or a good many of them. He daren’t look to see.

“Quand même, m’sieu,
a lovely thing happen.” Madame’s eye doesn’t soften.
“Elle a de la chance,
this girl. She fall on her feet anywhere. We are
très embarrassés
but we are all agree,
non?”
A murmur from the others. “She is fallen in love, Mr. Wert. With your letters to Bakh.”

The other Soraya is looking at him steadily. Her face is carved farther past youth than the prettiness he first saw: she can well be twenty-five. Why should that hearten him? When he can’t bear those pink socks.

“They invited you early, Mr. Wert,” she says. “Stop pretending to look at your watch, Fereydoun, you know it wasn’t to be until four. And we all know who gave you the watch.” All the while staring at Wert, her lashes unwavering.
Her
lip doesn’t tremble. “Mr. Wert—I’ll just give you what I have for you from Bakh.” Even in the black that Manoucher’s wife wanted to put her in, she wouldn’t make a man hostile. Pity is, that won’t help the revolution either. Though there are black circles under her eyes. So she was against the mullahs from the beginning—bright girl, if he can believe it. All that will have to be sorted out later. But if she herself’s had a hand in this charade, it’ll be doomsday before he’ll know. What dignity, in either case.

An idea occurs to him, on how to save both their faces. What she’ll have for him—in the ritual way they like to make wreaths of past friendship—will be the letters. Abide by the ritual then. Save her face, poor smart, muddled girl, prisoner of more than revolutions—and save his own skin. For in spite of all their effort, they know he’s not the suitor here. His cousin has not applied for him.

“Then, if there’s time—” Wert said. “I’ve come a long way. Perhaps—” he turns properly to Madame, “the other Soraya will make tea for me?”

How ridiculous—she’s not a sixteen-year-old, to be made to show her jejune accomplishments. Head bent, she’s swaying a little. Well, he won’t ask her to sing. Or to dance. Immediately he’s ashamed of himself. Manoucher’s wife is hovering anxiously near the girl, who says palely, “I came far, too. From Isfahan, day before yesterday.”

“And before that—” Manoucher’s wife cries, but is hushed by the girl’s hand.

“Hush—” the girl says in Farsi.
“You owe me nothing. Ah, Soraya, it’s not each other we owe. Or even Bakhtiary.”

The Farsi cadence doesn’t change her. Not like it does the others.

“And
he
owes us nothing,” she says, looking at Wert. “In prison, any letter is precious. It’s from the outside.”

“When were you let out?” He speaks in Farsi.

“I—” She looks at Manoucher’s wife. “A—month? I had no calendar.”

“And three days. Manoucher flew her at once to the hospital in Shiraz. But she had bad dreams there. Then to Isfahan.”

“I have no bad dreams in prison. I know what I am doing there.” She’s shaking, now. Wert puts out a hand. She fends him off. “It’s nothing.”

“Isfahan—” He can’t help himself. “You saw Bakhtiary.”

“I—saw him. Y-yes.” Her teeth are chattering; is it ague? Malaria? “Ex-cuse me. I have pill for this.” She slides the shoulder bag down, slowly, painfully opening it, moving constrictedly to take the glass of water the servant’s already slipping her. So they know what the trouble is, then. The pill she extracts and swallows isn’t big enough for quinine.

Fereydoun asks low: “You dreamed in Isfahan?”

“No, like in prison.”

Watching her move slowly to open the bag again, it comes to him. They whip them there. She’s been whipped. Out of the bag comes a letter—but only one, and not his handwriting. He recognizes the familiar stationery. An envelope like it is still on his mantel in London. What else can there be, to bring?

A box, a small, red morocco box. How small, to travel so far. Farther than either he or she.
Beautiful,
Bakhtiary said in Venice, the only time Wert ever saw him shy.
It came out so very beautiful, that mask, I had one made for myself.

And better than a gravestone. Wert is reaching for it when the girl topples forward. Fereydoun catches her first, in his long, eighty-year-old arms. The box with Jenny’s death mask in it, eluding all their fingers, has been dropped. No one will ever be able to say by whom.

They’ve laid the girl face-down on the cushioned seat which borders the room, Madame and Fateh waving all the other women back except the servant. The back of the pink turtleneck is stained wet and glaucous. “Not blood, what is it?” Fateh whispers. Manoucher’s wife, bending over it, tosses back her head, agonized but proud. The sweater is slowly peeled off by the servant. Fateh, chafing the girl’s wrists, moans like a cat. The girl’s back rises and falls. The upper back is half scab, here and there oozing. Below, the healed small-of-the-back is like rose-colored leather.

“The hot plate,” Manoucher’s wife says loudly. “The
dastband e gapani
they put her in, first. Handcuffs from over the shoulder. The night they bring her in, the electricity is off in our part of the prison. And in the room where they use the grill. So they use coal-fire, and iron door. Shiraz Hospital say she’s lucky. From the grill, you cannot have skin grafts.”

Across that breathing body, Madame touches her daughter-in-law. “And you?”