Butterfly Stitching Page 15

  “I don’t understand you, girl,” Maman said. “Aren’t you happy? What else do you think is out there for you?”

  “I’ll have to move to Tabriz.”

  “Well, of course, child. That’s where your husband is. And what a husband!”

  “I don’t know anything about him, Maman. Nothing at all. What can I—?”

  “Of course you do. You know he’s a well-to-do businessman who’ll provide for you and even give you an education. Can you dream of anything better? Would you rather stay here, get stuck with someone who won’t appreciate your art or force you to stop?”

  “But how can I leave all of you? Leave everything for something . . . for someone I don’t know?”

  “Oh, you’ll manage. We’ll just die of loneliness without our only child but we’ll visit you. You’ll come and see us, and when you have children you’ll bring them here and they’ll run in the fields like you did when you were little.”

  Maybe, Samira thought. Riri purred at her feet.

  “How about Riri? Can I take him?”

  “I don’t think the cat’s part of the bargain, my child. We’ll take good care of him.”

  “But—”

  “Come on, Samira. The man loves poetry, wants to give you an education and encourage your art. You will not find a better match.”

  Samira nodded without knowing what it was she was accepting. She hoped her family had made the right decision for her. It occurred to her that neither Maman nor anyone else had told her Mr. Montazar’s first name and no one found this omission peculiar. It mattered little. His name would not make her happy or sad. It would not define the nature of her marriage. What was to be, would be.

  3

  Baba had never cried before. Samira pretended not to notice. This seemed to help. The driver, who had asked they call him Jafar, waited patiently by the giant black car Mr. Montazar had sent for her and Maman.

  “It’ll be fine,” Baba assured.

  “It’s just not right,” Maman said. “No chaperone.”

  “There is a chaperone,” Baba looked at the driver. Maman rolled his eyes. They all knew the driver was no chaperone. “It’s just two months.”

  “What will you eat?” Maman asked. Samira shared Maman’s concern. In her entire life, she had never seen Baba prepare a meal.

  “I won’t starve!”

  “Well you know where I put the frozen stews, right?”

  “In the freezer!” Baba chuckled. “I might be a man but I’m not an idiot!”

  “And I left you the recipe for rice, and told Avisheh Khanum to check in on you.”

  “Yes, yes, you told me.”

  “And Jaja Khan said you can get a discount for sandwiches for the next few weeks. And don’t forget the fresh produce comes to the market on Tuesdays now not Wednesdays anymore. Make sure you eat your fruit. Oh, and we’re almost out of sugar cubes. You have enough for tea for the next few days but then will need some more.”

  “Azizam, I’ll be fine!” Baba smiled. Samira loved his smile. She did not know how she would live without seeing it every day. At least Maman would come and stay with her until the wedding. Only two more months and she would be a married woman.

  “Still seems wrong,” Maman said. Living in his house before the wedding.”

  Baba sighed. They had been over this. They could not stay in Kandovan during the preparations because it was too far away. They could have stayed at a hotel, but Mr. Montazar insisted. Maman would be there too, and they were promised privacy. Frankly a hotel sounded far more foreign and intimidating. So they had agreed.

  Jafar put his arm in the car through the open window and sounded the horn. He smiled at them, but Samira could tell his patience was wearing thin.

  “The bags are loaded,” Baba said. “You should go. Samira, I know you’ll always prefer your own home, but make sure to compliment his house when you get there.”

  “I will, Baba jan.”

  “And don’t worry about your larger drawings. I’ll make sure they’re properly packaged for the delivery man when he comes.”

  “I know you will.”

  “I think he’s a good man, azizam,” he said, swallowing tears. “A good man.”

  “Yes.”

  Samira and Maman got into the car. The softness of the leather seats was surprising. Riri ran outside. Baba picked him up and walked over to the car. Samira rolled down the window, kissed her kitty, and they drove off.

  Jafar manoeuvred the car through the twisted roads of ancient Mount Sahand to the north of Samira’s village. Samira and Maman sat in the back seat, both of them nauseated by the turns in the roads. Neither had ever ridden in any car other than Baba’s truck. Neither had ever traveled anywhere outside of their five-village radius. Even the times they left Kandovan to go to a nearby village, it was only for market days.

  When they cleared the mountains and Tabriz appeared before them, Samira was stunned. The buildings that stood in the distance were so tall Samira was sure they would collapse. More and more cars, buses and taxis packed the highway, weaving in and out of lanes at fast speeds, leaving only a few centimeters of space for error. With every near-death lane change, Samira and Maman gasped with fright while Jafar merely honked and swerved their car out of harm’s way. In a matter of seconds, the car moved from the far left lane to the far right lane, managing not to collide with any other vehicles, and exited to a narrower street with slower moving cars. There was no farmland on either side of them. Everywhere were buildings. Restaurants, some with names written in Western letters. Shops with plastic people in their windows. Some of the men on the streets had greasy hair and shirts with oversized collars. Other men wore suits and carried shiny leather briefcases. Most women walked about without any sort of head covering. They wore very short skirts and tight tops without sleeves. Sometimes you could see the outline of a woman’s breast through her shirt, probably because she was not wearing a bra! Even more surprisingly, some of the cars were driven by women. At nearly every street corner was someone selling jasmine necklaces, boiled beets, or soaked walnuts. The brick walls were plastered with posters of Western-looking singers wearing bright colored bands around their foreheads and round sunglasses with purple lenses.

  “This place, right here,” Jafar said, “this is where all the young kids hang out. It’s a discothèque. And those posters over there, not the ones with The Beatles, but the ones with all the writing? Those are protest posters. Young people today are political again.” He pulled over to the side of the road to show them one large banner. “You see, you see what they say? Read it! Read it!”

  Maman was silent with shame. Jafar smiled sympathetically. “Oh, right, well . . . the print’s too small to read from the car. Well, you see, the last few years things have really changed a lot in Tabriz. In America, women are burning their bras, and here, the women are—”

  “Burning?” Samira was bewildered.

  “Their brassieres, you know?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s a protest. And here, the women have been shedding their headscarves and demanding equal rights ever since Dr. Mosaddegh began talking about such things. Of course, you know what happened to that poor man.”

  Samira and Maman knew. Even villagers knew of Dr. Mosaddegh, who had been working toward nationalizing Iran’s oil industry before he was ousted by the Shah working in concert with the Americans. Samira’s neighbor, Agha Morteza, even had a poster of Dr. Mosaddegh on his wall. “Iranians still take his spirit to the streets when they protest against the Shah,” the poster said.

  Jafar took a right turn into what might be called a residential neighborhood, except that there were no people to be seen. There were only high gates protecting large gardens, some of which revealed bits and pieces of the houses hiding behind them.

  “Now, do you know what year it is?” Jafar asked.

  “Jafar, we might be villagers, but we’re not ignorant!” Maman said.

  “What year is it
then?”

  “It’s 1386,” Samira answered.

  “Wrong! It’s 1966!”

  “You mean you follow the Western calendar in this city?” Samira asked.

  “Well, no. Not technically, but you’re going to have to westernize yourself if you’re going to be married to Mr. Montazar.”

  Jafar pulled up to a mechanical device attached to the wall outside one of the many gates and pressed a red button. He spoke to the contraption and it talked back to him! A buzz sounded and the gates opened by themselves to a long driveway leading to a mansion. Samira and Maman looked at each other in disbelief.

  “Well, here we are,” he said.

  “What do you mean, ‘here we are’?” Maman asked. “Where are we?”

  “Mr. Montazar’s home, of course.”

  It was now clear to the women that their understanding of Mr. Montazar’s wealth was vastly understated.

  “There are beautiful gardens surrounding the main house,” Jafar said as the car moved up the driveway.

  “How big is the house itself?” The second Samira asked the question, she regretted doing so because it made it seem as if that was the reason she was marrying the man.

  “Oh, I’d say, fifty meters long. Seven bedrooms.”

  Seven bedrooms!

  “Does he have workers?” Maman asked.

  “Yes, ma’am. Inside and outside of the house. There are two gardeners, three maids, a cook, a housekeeper and then there’s dear old me! I mostly just drive Mrs. Montazar to her daily appointments, like the hair dresser or her favorite boutiques. Mr. Montazar drives himself to the office. He enjoys driving.”

  Samira assumed Mrs. Montazar meant the first wife, who likely did not ever cook dinner or anything at all.

  “What kind of car does he have?” Samira asked, thinking that this question made it seem as though she could distinguish between different makes of automobiles.

  “Well! He’s got a whole garage full of ’em! This one that I’m driving is a Cadillac. He had it shipped all the way from America. But he’s got two more German cars, too. He loves German cars. And see, if you look over there, you can see the tennis courts. Right behind them there’s a real nice outdoor pool.”

  Maman began to whisper to herself in Arabic. “Bismillah hir rahman nir raheem. Iyyaka na'a budu wa-iyyaka nasta aeen. Ihdinas sirataal mustaqeem.”

  “Lead us not to false worship,” Samira repeated in Farsi while adjusting her headscarf, knowing that Maman only spoke Arabic when she was praying or when she was very frightened. “Dear merciful Khoda, guide us to the straight way. And thank you, Khoda, for having my maman with me right now.”

  “Just wait until you see the inside,” Jafar smiled. “You’ll live like a princess here, Khanum, if I may say so myself.”

  They pulled up to the door of the mansion. Samira felt sick from the drive and wanted to escape the longest ride of her life. So she opened the door as soon as the car stopped. Jafar hastily jumped out and tried to “open” her already open door. Ah. She should have waited for him to open the door. She nodded at him with understanding. Jafar then extended his hand out to Maman to help her out of the car, but Maman was not about to take the hand of a strange man.

  “It’s not haram,” Samira whispered to Jafar.

  He offered a smile and retreated. Samira began to walk toward the trunk.

  “I’ll get the bags, Khanum,” Jafar said. “Please, let me show you inside.”

  They walked up the steps into the foyer.

  The first thing Samira noticed was the walls. Paintings filled nearly every inch of them. Samira could only dream of one day painting, with real oil paints, on real canvas. Before her eyes now were magnificent pieces, in rich reds and deep blues. The subjects ranged from still lifes to portraits. Rich colors in a variety of mediums but primarily oil. The art was surrounded by spectacular frames of pewter, silver and chrome with gold-leaf impressions and intricate carvings.

  “One of these frames would feed Kandovan for months,” Samira whispered to Maman, who nodded back at her then pointed up to the ceiling. Samira bent her head back to see the crystal chandeliers and mosaic murals that decorated the high ceilings. Then she looked down at her hand-stitched clothes and used shoes that stood upon the impeccably clean marble floor. She felt like a stray dog in this place of luxury. What could the man who owned all of this possibly want, or do, with me? she wondered. How can I not lose myself to the bricks around and the things within this place?

  “Let me take you into the music room. Mrs. Darkan will be there in a minute and she will show you around,” Jafar said. “She’s the housekeeper.”

  He walked down the hall and slid open two heavy wooden doors. Samira, distracted by the many adornments on the walls and ceiling, bumped up against something that made a loud noise. She jumped.

  “It’s just the piano,” Jafar said. “Don’t worry about it.”

  Samira avoided the rosewood piano with ivory keys and moved her gaze over the decorative fireplace mantel next to a window overlooking a garden with cherry tree branches that bore ripe fruit ready for the picking.

  “There needs to be a painting above that mantel,” she heard a man say from behind her. “Don’t you agree? I thought we’d hang our wedding portrait right there.”

  “Mr. Montazar!” Maman said, turning toward him. “I didn’t realize you’d entered the room.”

  “Please, call me Davoud.”

  Davoud. So that was his name.

  He slightly bowed his head toward her then leaned in to kiss Samira’s cheek. She immediately brought her hand to the spot he had kissed.

  He smiled.

  “I’ll go and fetch those bags now,” Jafar said.

  “Thank you, Jafar,” Davoud said before turning back to Samira. “You look stunning. I’m so happy that you chose to wear that red scarf. Well, what do you think of the place?”

  Samira remembered Baba’s advice and said, “Your house is very nice.” This seemed to amuse him. He was about to say something when he was interrupted by the entrance of a short woman with a pointy nose who walked up to him as if expected.

  “Ah, there you are, Mrs. Darkan,” he said, then turned to Samira and Maman. “This wonderful woman is our housekeeper, which is a very prestigious and respected position.” He said this as if Samira was planning on looking down at the housekeeper, whom she actually felt was in a station above her own. “Mrs. Darkan formerly served as the headmistress of the top women’s finishing school in Esfahan before joining us here. She manages all of the staff. Besides that, it will be her job to acclimate you to your new home, and she will help to supervise your education by managing your tutors. I’ll lead that charge, of course, but she’ll manage it on a daily basis.”

  Tutors? Samira was not sure what that was, but assumed it was a way of learning inside the home instead of in a school. So I won’t get to go to school? Her heart sank. Mrs. Darkan gave a thin smile and a polite nod. Samira noticed that, unlike most of the city women she had seen from the car window on the way there, Mrs. Darkan wore the headscarf. She wore it differently than the women in Kandovan or Jamshid. The women back home hand-colored their scarves using the flowers and herbs of their gardens. Samira’s bright red scarf was uniquely conspicuous but all of the villagers wore headscarves that were expressions of themselves, of their passions, and even of their fashion sense.

  Mrs. Darkan, on the other hand, wore a dull gray headscarf which seemed almost a part of her uniform. There was nothing unique, interesting or beautiful about it. Rather, the monotony of it seemed to be its purpose. Samira immediately took a liking to Mrs. Darkan. At least she covered up and that was something Samira could relate to.

  Davoud left shortly after introducing Mrs. Darkan, saying he would see them at dinner. Samira was surprised at how abruptly he exited and left them alone—such a thing would be considered very rude back home. It was Mrs. Darkan who showed them to their rooms, both on the second floor.

  Samira had seen
four-poster beds before in larger farmhouses. The purpose, of course, was to keep the mosquitoes out by throwing a large net over the bed. Yet the four-poster bed in Samira’s new room was foreign to her. It was large enough to sleep an entire family and lacked a net. Instead, draped from the posts were reams of ivory-colored silk that gathered on the floor. What kind of creatures are in this house that such fabric is needed to keep them out of the bed? A black-and-white telephone sat on a nightstand next to the bed. In all of Kandovan only the police station had a phone, which the locals could use for a fee. Behind the phone was a large window. Outside of it, the pool that Jafar had told them about glistened in the sun. Maman came up behind her to see the same view. Samira turned around to face her mother’s best attempt at a reassuring smile.

  “As you can see, the vanity table has been stocked with makeup and several different types of perfume,” Mrs. Darkan said.

  “I don’t wear makeup or perfume.”

  “You will. And over here is the bathroom.”

  “The room has its own bathroom?” Samira asked.

  “This one does,” Mrs. Darkan replied, walking to a door on the other side of the room. “Everything is self-explanatory. There’s a shower and a bathtub so you can bathe in either one. You’ll be expected to bathe every day and can use the assistance of the servants should you desire it. We try to hire maids who know how to style hair, so that will also be available.”

  At least this much was not foreign to her. She had never had her hair styled, but once or twice a year, she and Maman would visit a hamam where the workers helped to wash and lotion them. But to have a hamam in your own home?

  A skinny young girl in a maid’s uniform walked in, interrupting Mrs. Darkan’s tour with some sort of cleaning supply question. Maman seized the moment to whisper into Samira’s ear, “Do they really expect us to bathe every day? I can’t imagine getting naked that often—it isn’t proper for a Muslim woman!”