Together Tea (12 page)

“And may God protect us from the Revolutionary Guards, damn them, and from the entire entourage of Secret Police that wrecks the lives of the innocent and tortures people's children! And from British spies!” Aunt Firoozeh said, her face flushed with too much wine, as Uncle Jafar almost spit out a stuffed grape leaf.

SOGHRA ARRANGED THE BAKLAVA INTO
tiny diamonds on Darya's wedding china and made sure the rose-flavored ice cream was topped with threads of saffron. She poured dark chai into small hourglass-shaped glasses. Mina rested her head on her hands at the dining table, inhaling steam from the tea. So far, so good. No Revolutionary Guards, no Saddam. Maybe when dessert was over, they could open the presents.

Aunt Firoozeh chewed her baklava, looking sideways at Mr. Johnson. Earlier in the kitchen, Mina had heard Aunt Firoozeh say to Darya, “It's the work of the Brits. They have a hand in everything behind the scenes, don't you know. Just like when they helped the CIA overthrow our only democratic government in 1953. Wouldn't they love to see this country ruined. So they can have our oil. That's what they
want
!” She had waved a cucumber in Darya's face as she said this. Darya had shooed the cucumber and Aunt Firoozeh's theory away. “What things you say,
Khaleh!
Mr. Johnson is our friend!”

Mr. Johnson was engrossed in a private conversation with Mamani and hadn't noticed Aunt Firoozeh's glares. Mamani pretended to smell something in her arthritic hands and Mina heard her say “foody good” in English. Was Mamani trying to convey cumin? Cardamom? Rose petals? Mr. Johnson nodded and then pretended to smell an invisible spice in his own hand with exaggerated delight, raising his eyebrows at Mamani.

The lovely lesson in mime notwithstanding, Mina felt anxious to get to the presents before it got too late. She tugged on Darya's blouse. Darya and Leila's mother were talking in soft voices now, their heads close together, arms touching.

“The new officials,” Leila's mother said, “want to pass a law saying female dentists can't treat men. I can't treat men and look into their mouths. Why? Because they've suddenly deemed it ungodly. Too much closeness between opposite sexes, they say. What, do they think that bleeding gums and teeth turn me on?”

“They're sick,” Darya said. “Everything is about sex to these fundamentalists. We have to cover up so
they
aren't tempted. In the Shah's time, just because we wore miniskirts and our heads were free, did everyone go around obsessed with sex?”

“No,” Leila's mother said. “Though you have to admit, Darya, our last year in university . . .” She broke off, giggling. “Remember those hikes with Behzad and Bahram?”

Darya and Leila's mom burst out laughing over their bowls of ice cream, squealing ridiculously. Mina noticed the tiny creases that formed around their eyes as they squeezed them in pleasure. She suddenly felt an inexplicable anger. Darya and Leila's mom had worn miniskirts in college during the Shah's time and hiked in mountains with boys. But for her, all of that was outlawed. Darya's prophecy had been correct. After much discussion within the government and despite protests by women and some men, mandatory hijab was now law. Mina would never feel the sun on her legs again, never sit next to a boy in class the way her mother had. Her hair would not know the feel of wind or sunshine.

Mina excused herself and went to the bathroom. She needed to escape from the political arguments and her mother's squealing laughter. Mina closed the door and climbed onto the edge of the tub to nudge the window open. The cool night air washed over her, smelling of jasmine and dust. Mina could still hear Baba's music. He had put on Googoosh, the most popular female pop singer, now banned as a voice of sin.

Mina mouthed the lyrics, then she heard a noise. At first she thought it was a car crash. But then she realized. An explosion. Of course. From the open window, she saw the night sky. Burning orange-yellow. Saddam.

WHEN MINA WALKED BACK, DARYA
was clearing away dessert dishes, still talking to Leila's mom. Aunt Firoozeh sat at the table, picking her teeth with a folded piece of paper. Leila leaned against the wall, talking with Mr. Johnson. He nibbled the tips of his glasses, then said something that made Leila laugh. In the middle of the room, Hooman and Kayvon practiced karate moves. Baba stood in front of the cassette player, arguing with Uncle Jafar, who kept showing him a tape with the English words “I Will Survive” marked on it in big letters. Uncle Jafar said something about its uplifting message.

“No, let's play ‘Dancing Queen,' ” Baba said holding his own black-market ABBA tape. He pointed to Mina. “See? ‘Dancing Queen.' ”

Mina's brothers pulled her into a group of people who were beginning to dance in the middle of the room. In a few seconds the emergency alarms would go off all over the city, alerting citizens to the bombs falling outside. They would have to drop everything, get in file, and go to the basement for shelter. The presents would have to be opened later, much later.

But for now, Mina swayed with the guests, dancing to the forbidden music. She threw her head back, pointed a finger in the air, and glided with the group. Uncle Jafar's song had won. A few guests sang along.
I veel survive.
From across the room, Mina caught a glimpse of her mother. She was sashaying, her hands pressed onto her hips. A choo-choo train of dancing guests formed behind her. As the emergency bomb alarm sounded from speakers lining the street and drowned out the music, Mina and her brothers joined the queue. Baba brought up the rear of the line. And they all followed Darya, breathless from their disco dancing, as she carefully guided them down the basement steps.

Chapter Eighteen

11:17 a.m.

T
he next morning, Mamani called to say how glad she was that Mina's party had gone well. No one hurt or killed or arrested. She told Mina to tell Darya that she'd be over at noon to help with the cleaning up. First, though, she was just going to stop by the greengrocer's downtown, the one with the best pomegranates, to get some for her little Mina Joon—wait a minute, make that her big ten-year-old Mina Joon! Mina even remembered to
tarof
, saying things like Oh no, Mamani, don't go down there just for me, you'll tire yourself, it's a long way. But Mamani insisted, and Mina gave in quickly. Okay, thank you, Mamani Joon.

BABA TOLD DARYA THE NEXT
day that the body parts were definitely Mamani's—he recognized her clothes. Hooman showed the article in the newspaper that noted the bomb was dropped at 11:17 a.m. Audacious time of day for bombs, even for Saddam. Darya left that day's rice unwashed, uncooked. She didn't soak anything in saffron. Hooman and Kayvon wept for weeks and stopped karate. They all wore black for forty days. Mina looked around and saw that someone, Saddam, had found a way to shut life completely down. Something had brought unbearable grief. She realized that the something was war. She vowed to stop all wars when she grew up. To make sure another war with Iran never began. She'd always known war brought pain and destruction. She just hadn't known how much.

Chapter Nineteen

Cut Off Their Tails with a Carving Knife

Bread, cheese, herbs spread! Saddam, why are you so scared?

Iran's not going to hurt you bad! It's only messin' to make you mad!

The sweaty palms of the other girls stuck to Mina's after the seventh time they sang the song and soon it was an exhausting, no longer fun, part of recess. In the late morning, the sun cast an orange-yellow hue. The rays burned into Mina's headdress. Mina wanted to free a hand so she could scratch her eyes, but the other girls gripped her fingers as they walked in a circle singing the song for the eighth time. Mina's vote had been for hopscotch, but Bita, in her usual bossy way, had insisted that they sing the Saddam song today. To hex his evil ways. And how could Mina refuse when only a few short weeks ago he had dropped a bomb on the greengrocer's stall and made her grandmother a statistic. Mina had stepped carefully around the spleens and flattened hearts on the messy road in her dreams a dozen times, trying to identify fragments that belonged to her grandmother. Clearly Saddam had not given one thought to what would happen to her grandmother's body once he'd dropped the bomb. Mina clutched Bita's hand tighter.

After recess was Lessons of Religion. When Mrs. Amiri entered the room, Mina jumped to her feet with the other girls. Just the sight of Mrs. Amiri's acned chin and sucked-in lips made Mina wish she were far away from school and in her mother's kitchen sipping sweetened tea. Mrs. Amiri scribbled words on the blackboard, and Mina tried to copy the words neatly into her notebook, but she found herself instead drawing over and over again the slanted boards of the grocer's stall where her grandmother had shopped. Suddenly Mrs. Amiri was behind her. Mrs. Amiri struck Mina's elbow and the calligraphy ink jar spilled over, splashing across the notebook.

“Next time, before you draw, think a little about the consequences,” Mrs. Amiri said.

Deep black blotches penetrated a half year's worth of notes. Mrs. Amiri backed away from Mina's dripping ink. “And don't live so much in the universe of trance. Pay attention to this world.”

Mina tried to mop up the spilled ink with her handkerchief, but there weren't enough handkerchiefs to blot the mess. Bita leaned over and gave Mina her hanky. And slowly throughout the class, girls began passing their handkerchiefs under the desks toward Mina, hoping to help her blot out the blackness. Soon there was a pile of scrunched-up embroidered handkerchiefs on Mina's lap, small pieces of cloth that grandmothers had stitched and initialed, tiny sewn-in cherries and roses peeking out from the corners. Mina's own handkerchief, which Mamani had embroidered with two tiny lemons, was now drenched in black ink. She lifted an arm in the air and cleared her throat.

Mrs. Amiri stopped scrawling verses on the blackboard.

“Khanom, excuse me, is there permission to go to the bathroom?”

Without turning from the board, Mrs. Amiri jerked her head toward the door.

Her handkerchief scrunched tightly in her hand, Mina got up, careful not to disturb the pile of the other girls' hankies under her desk. She hadn't used them because she didn't want to stain them. She left as quickly as she could without seeming too vulgar (a few weeks ago Mrs. Amiri had told them that girls who walk fast are loose).

In the bathroom, Mina washed her handkerchief in the sink. She rubbed it hard. Her tears came as they always did these days, almost entirely on their own, as if an infinite supply were stored up inside her. She scrubbed her handkerchief under the faucet, squeezing it and wringing it and rubbing more broken pieces of beige soap onto it. But the handkerchief was still gray. Mina wrung it out, folded it into a triangle and put it in the front pocket of her
roopoosh
. The two lemons peeked out from the top. Mrs. Amiri's voice rang in Mina's head. “A modest girl does nothing to bring attention to herself.” She stuffed the rest of the handkerchief inside her pocket and walked back to the classroom.

When she opened the door, Bita looked up with concern, but Mina nodded to let her know she was fine. The song from recess played in Mina's head now and got mixed up with English nursery rhymes she'd learned in Mrs. Isobel's English tutoring class.

“There is in this world, dear girls, evil and then there is good. Your duty is to follow the path of good.” Mrs. Amiri sorted through her black bag. She fished out a bottle filled with brownish liquid. Mina recognized the little man in the top hat jaunting happily across the label, walking stick in hand. Johnnie Walker Black. Bottles like this had been passed around at her parents' parties. Just after the revolution, her parents had emptied most of those bottles into the toilet, then buried the bottles under bushes in the yard. But Baba had brought out a bottle just like this one during her birthday party. Uncle Jafar had drunk to a free Iran.

“What am I holding?”

The girls shifted in their seats. Traces of recognition passed across some faces, quickly masked by innocent looks.

“Anyone?”

Silence.

“Khanom, is there permission, that's a bottle of whiskey,” Bita blurted out.

Mina's heart fell. Bita was always speaking her mind. Getting into trouble.

“And how would you know that?” Mrs. Amiri asked softly.

Outside the sun burned into the cement where they had just stood a short while ago. It seemed to Mina like ages ago. She tried to think of chopped parsley and the stew her mother would make for dinner; she tried to focus on a tiny bee flying by the windowsill; she tried to remember more English nursery rhymes like “Three Blind Mice.”
Cut off their tails with a carving knife.

“How do you know?” Mrs. Amiri asked again.

“I just know.” Bita tilted her head as her mistake dawned on her. “I know . . .” She looked around. “I know from books.”

“Books? Don't lie. The liar is the enemy of God. Is there a bottle like this in your home, maybe?”

“Khanom
,
I know. I just . . . remember.” It looked as if Bita were going to explain herself out of this mess. Mina and the other girls got ready to breathe a long sigh of relief. But then, Bita sat up straight and tall. “I drank from one. Just the other day.” She stared at Mrs. Amiri, her black eyes shining.

Mrs. Amiri froze. Then a small sneer curled her lips. “You think you're witty? You think this kind of nerve will serve you well? Clearly, your family is familiar with vehicles of sin.” She slammed the bottle onto her desk. “To the office. Now!” Mrs. Amiri hissed.

There was the scrape of Bita's chair as she got up to leave. There was the
vheej!
sound of her
roopoosh
cutting through the air as she marched out the room. The other girls sat uncomfortably still.

The next day, Mina heard from a few other girls that the Revolutionary Guards had knocked on Bita's front door at seven o'clock. Bita's dad had been arrested and taken to the Comiteh offices. He'd paid a fine, no one knew how much. His name was entered in the Anti-Revolutionary records. No one answered the phone when Mina called Bita's house. Bita was out of school for the rest of the week but came back after the Friday holiday with dark circles under her eyes. When Mina walked up to her, she noticed a film of pink lip gloss on Bita's lips. She begged Bita to wipe it off before Mrs. Amiri came in.

But Bita just looked at Mina with her shining black eyes. “I'm not scared. The only thing that scares me is God. And guess what, Mina? God is not a fanatic.” Bita took Mina's hand and linked her pinky finger into Mina's. “They can't outlaw happiness, can they, Mina? They can't smother it out of us.” She winked. “We're not the type to be suffocated.”

Mina thought of Mamani, suffocating under the bomb debris. “No. We're not,” she said.

“We will be free. You'll see. Your next birthday party just might be outdoors in the garden. We'll dance. Outside.”

Mina dared to think of her eleventh birthday party. In the year 1982. Without Mamani. But maybe, in a free Iran. She squeezed Bita's pinky finger hard. She even tried to wink. They would not crumble. They would not fail.