“I did.” I pulled the sack of dates from among my school supplies and handed her the change that remained. She counted the coins, short the few that I had left behind in my hasty escape.
“They look fresh. Whose store did you go to?”
“Sheragha. His mood was even worse than usual,” I said, hoping to explain how much money had gone toward the dates. KokoGul clucked her tongue and put the sack to the side.
“From that bear’s paws, nothing escapes. Go on into the living room. Your grandfather’s been waiting to see you.”
I sidestepped the living room and went to wash up. I was convinced my grandfather would see right through me in a way KokoGul never could. I couldn’t look at him with the flush of embarrassment still on my cheeks.
Another day, I thought and put my exam in my room.
CHAPTER 5
Fereiba
IN MY LAST YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL, THE ORCHARD DREW ME IN more than ever, the fruit-laden branches like curled fingers beckoning me to enter. In the cradle of peach trees, sucking on the gummy, amber-colored sap I’d peeled from the trunk, I considered what I might do after my graduation. Some girls were going on to university. Others were becoming teachers. Many would be married. I wasn’t sure what I wanted, but I had no interest in marriage and the household that would come along with it.
When my chores were completed, I would slip into the orchard with a book. The grass felt cool against my feet, its soft blades tickling my toes. I would read with my back against a mulberry tree or sometimes lying on my stomach. My sisters asked me why I was so drawn to the mulberry trees and I told them it was there that I dreamt best.
“What do you dream about?” they would ask.
“I dream about tomorrow.”
“What will happen tomorrow?”
“I don’t know. I can’t remember what happens, but I wake feeling that it is amazing. A story worth telling.”
It was that summer that my grandfather fell ill with a bitter, relentless cough. He lay in bed for days, nursing cups of herb tea meant to exorcise disease from the body. I watched his heavy breathing, perspiration on his upper lip. Padar-jan summoned a doctor who gave an injection and then left two bottles of pills. I held the cup of water to his lips to wash the chalky tablets down.
I went to see him almost daily, hoping for signs of improvement. But his face paled even as his fever spiked red and hot. On my fourth visit, I made him soup and sweet tea. He took no more than a few sips before begging me to let him rest.
We called for the doctor again. Boba-jan looked so frail and small in his bed. I longed to see him stand up, reach for his cane, and walk to the kitchen. My father and I were at his side most of the time, but neither of us spoke of just how weak Boba-jan looked. Padar-jan did not say much at all but that was his way, as if he was afraid of his own voice.
“Fereiba-jan,” my grandfather called out.
“Yes, Boba-jan?”
“My sweet granddaughter. You’re nearly finished with high school, are you not?”
“Yes, Boba-jan. Just this year left.”
“Good, good. And what will you do after you have completed your high school studies?”
“I’m not sure, Boba-jan. I was thinking of college but . . .” His eyes were half closed. I let my voice trail off, thinking he’d fallen asleep. He hadn’t.
“But what?”
I had no answer for him. I shrugged my shoulders and wiped his forehead with a cool cloth.
“Fereiba, you have watched your father in the grove, haven’t you? His talents come alive there. I taught him what I could when he was a boy, but before he became a man I could see there was more he could show me. He is a master at cultivating and grafting trees.”
This was true. One winter, I’d watched my father strip a carefully selected scion from an apple tree. I followed him to the edge of the orchard where he had picked out a well-rooted apple tree of a bright red-skinned variety. Humming, he’d stroked the bark and circled the trunk, looking for the perfect place to introduce the graft. With surgical precision, he sliced into a branch at an angle, creating a lip that he pulled back. Into the opening, he slid the tapered end of the scion, placing the two raw faces in direct contact, an interface of two species. He continued to hum as he bound the scion to the host with long strips of cloth that circled the joint. He covered the tip of the scion and its three buds with a paper bag, shielding it from the drying air. By spring, we had a new kind of apple from a sapling branch that should have withered and died. Instead, two living, breathing species were made into a new fruit unique to our orchard, a fruit of my father’s creation.
“I wish your father could carry his talents into his home, but they seem to dry at the threshold. That leaves things in your hands, Fereiba-jan.” Boba-jan shook his head. I wanted to disagree, to tell him my father was nothing like KokoGul, but he continued.
“Even your brother has found his way, without obligation to anyone. I do not know who is to blame. He has the body of a horse but the mind of an ass.”
“But you have always looked out for me,” I said, holding his hand.
“Maybe I am hard on your father because he is too much like me. You, you are different. More like your mother, may Allah give her peace. She could see beyond her nose. With her, your father was better. It’s too bad. She would have made a man out of him.”
My legs were going numb, sitting beside Boba-jan, but I dared not move. I wanted to remember every word of what he was saying.
“No use speaking of such things. You are an intelligent girl. Trust yourself to know what’s best for you.”
“You always know what’s best for me, Boba-jan. I can always turn to you.”
“It’s best not to depend on the gray haired. We’re too close to God to rely on,” he warned with a tired sigh.
He was exhausted, so I changed the subject and talked to him about the rosebushes growing outside his home. I told him about the chicken vendor who had to chase his clucking hens down the market street when a child opened the latch on the cage. He smiled and nodded, his eyes drifting off as sleep overcame him.
I kissed his hand and promised to return in the morning, but some time between then and sunrise, Boba-jan left to be with God and my mother. I wondered if the angel from the orchard had come to claim him. I wept for two weeks, away from my father and KokoGul and my siblings. I wanted to be as alone as I felt, and the only place I could do that was in the thick of the orchard.
FORTY DAYS AFTER MY GRANDFATHER’S PASSING, I WENT WALKING among the fruit trees. Boba-jan’s death made me think of the angel from my childhood again, though I was fairly convinced he was nothing more than my youthful imagination toying with me. Still, I had the fleeting thought that if I saw him, I’d like to ask him about my grandfather and mother.
Behind a row of mulberry trees was our neighbor’s orchard, separated from ours by a high clay wall. As I spent more time in the shade of the mulberry trees, I began to feel I wasn’t alone. It was different from the time I’d seen my guardian angel. This time the presence felt earthly. This time the presence sneezed.
I sat up straight, suddenly very self-conscious. I closed my book and straightened my skirt, looking all around me for the source of the sneeze. There was not even a bird in sight. I was walking around the trees when I heard a rustle of leaves from just beyond the perimeter wall and a thump, followed by the sound of running feet. Someone had been watching me!
In the following days, I wasn’t sure if I should return to that corner of the orchard. But, in my heart, I knew the mulberry tree had always brought me good fortune, so I wandered through the brush again, walking quietly and listening closely. A week later, I crept along the wall and looked up into the neighbor’s trees. I was surprised to see a pair of legs dangling from a heavy branch.
It was him, I was certain. I tried to get a better view of the rest of him but I could only see his pant legs. Leather sandals hung loosely from his swaying feet.
This had to
be the son of the neighboring family. He was a few years older than me, but I had never seen him before. Had my academics not been so delayed, we might have met in school. What was a boy, a young man, of his age doing perched in a tree?
Feeling a bit brazen, I stepped purposefully on small branches and kicked at a rock as I made my way over to the mulberry tree, taking my usual place in its generous shade. With an upward glance, I noticed the legs had disappeared from view. He was hiding! I took out my book and stared at the page, the words blurred together as I asked myself why I’d come out here. After an interminable period of silence, I got up and walked back into the house, hoping I didn’t look as panicked as I felt.
Nothing is foolish to the adolescent. The adolescent acts, without questioning the wisdom of the action. I returned every day after that, slinking through the trees, spying the familiar leather sandals, and taking my place under the mulberry tree. It became routine: school, housework, and orchard. I would stay awake late into the night to work on homework since I couldn’t concentrate in the orchard. After two silent weeks, I decided to let the stranger know I was aware of his presence. The stalemate was driving me mad.
I spent the walk home from school working up my nerve. By the time I snuck into the orchard that afternoon, I was feeling so bold I barely recognized myself. I walked loudly and approached the wall. When I was sure I was within earshot, I said loudly, but not too loudly, “It’s not polite to stare. It would be more respectful to say salaam.”
I heard nothing in reply. Not a single word. Had I imagined the whole thing or was he not here today? Worse yet, perhaps he thought me shameless to speak this way to a stranger. I spent all my time either in a classroom of girls or at home. The only boys of my age that I knew were my cousins. To have any interaction with a boy outside was taboo and I knew it. I was at that age where I needed to be mindful of my comportment, but it was the orchard and I was invisible. I allowed myself some latitude.
That he ignored when I had crossed a line to interact with him disappointed and angered me. I stormed off.
I returned the following day, curiosity getting the best of me. Defiant, I sat beneath the tree for a few moments when I heard a voice.
“Salaam.”
My back straightened and my face reddened with the affirmation that I’d overstepped my limits. I was suddenly ashamed and scared. I stood up, blurted salaam in reply without looking up, and scampered back into the house.
THESE WERE AWKWARD DAYS FOR ME. FOR TWO WEEKS, KOKOGUL had hinted cheerfully that a well-to-do family wanted to pay us a visit. They had a son, a handsome young man who was likely to follow in his father’s accomplished footsteps. My father had met the young man’s father, Agha Firooz, in the course of official business, here and there. Agha Firooz now saw potential in forming a union with my father, who had inherited Boba-jan’s influence in the community. Aspirations of local prosperity and influence brought Agha Firooz’s wife to our door.
I felt anxious. Like any other girl, I’d dreamed of having suitors, of having my family turn down a few persistent families before we settled on one that was good enough. The courtship was enticing, the feeling of being wanted by an entire family, not to mention the lavish celebrations and gifts that came with engagements.
But something didn’t feel right about this. The interest felt conniving and mercantile. KokoGul approached me on a Friday, while my father was at Jumaa prayers. She was wearing a freshly pressed dress and her most delicate chador, mauve chiffon with lace trim one shade deeper. She hummed cheerfully as she entered the kitchen where I was making a snack of flatbread and walnuts.
“Agha Firooz’s wife and daughter are stopping by this afternoon. Why don’t you go brush your hair back and wear something nice—maybe your purple dress? When they come, you can bring tea and the salted biscuits. No sweets, mind you! I don’t know exactly what this visit is about but we don’t want to embarrass ourselves.”
Sweets were given to a suitor’s family as an affirmative signal, a nod of agreement to give the daughter’s hand in marriage. It would be shamefully forward to serve candied almonds or chocolates to guests on the first visit.
“If you hear me call out for tea, then it means I want you to bring it into the room and serve the guests. And that’s all you’ll do. This is not their chance to strip you down and see it all; it’s just to give them a little taste. You’ll set the cups down, offer the biscuits, and then politely go back to the kitchen. Now, if you hear me call out for more biscuits, have one of your sisters bring the tray in. Do not enter the room at all.”
It was a game of strategy, and KokoGul didn’t want to show her hand until she knew what her opponents were holding.
My appetite spoiled, I went off to make myself presentable. I rummaged through my wardrobe, trying to imagine a way to escape this orchestrated visit and not sure why I was diffident about something every girl should want. I wanted to disappear into the orchard.
At the knock on the gate, Najiba ran outside to welcome our visitors. She led them through our modest courtyard and garden. KokoGul waited at the main door, eager to receive them. I watched from the upstairs window as the two women folded their embroidered shawls and draped them over their arms, almost synchronously. KokoGul and the women kissed cheeks and exchanged pleasantries before she led them into our parlor. I tiptoed to the upstairs landing to eavesdrop.
Agha Firooz’s wife was a short, stout woman with gray hair and an inauspicious mole over her left eyebrow. Her lower lip puckered out in an unintentional look of displeasure. Her eyes roamed about, taking stock of our home and measuring it against her own. KokoGul led our guests to the hand-carved sofa Boba-jan had given my parents as a wedding gift.
Agha Firooz’s daughter shared her mother’s comportment but was very different physically. She stood six inches taller and measured half her mother’s width. Heavy, penciled-in brows arched over kohl-rimmed eyes, and her bright fuchsia lipstick matched her dress perfectly. She almost looked pretty until I saw her smile politely at KokoGul. Even from my hidden view, her teeth looked jagged and unsightly. I felt my stomach reel at her smile, though I wasn’t sure why I had such a visceral response.
I knew KokoGul well enough that I could imagine her sizing up Agha Firooz’s daughter and deciding how I would compare to her. Her eyes moved quickly, as did those of Agha Firooz’s wife, as she calculated what the family would think when they saw me. Far from stunning, I did have my mother’s fair, even skin and her dark hair. I knew KokoGul was already calculating the effects of Agha Firooz and Padar-jan joining forces. If my father helped Agha Firooz expand his textile commerce into new areas, both would surely reap the benefits. KokoGul was restless, her mind spending money she eagerly anticipated.
“Fereiba-jan, please bring some tea in for our dear guests! You ladies must be parched, traveling in this weather. It’s been quite warm the last few days, hasn’t it?” KokoGul said with great poise.
I made my way down the creaky steps and went to the kitchen. I arranged KokoGul’s china teacups and plates onto a silver tray and brought them into the parlor. My face burned as I felt all eyes on me. I kept my gaze on the tray, gripping the handles so tightly my knuckles blanched.
“Salaam,” I said softly as I set a cup of tea before Agha Firooz’s wife.
“Wa-alaikum, dear girl,” she echoed with a greedy smile. I let my chador fall across my cheek, hiding my flushed face. Doing my best not to tremble, I placed the second cup in front of her daughter and then held the tray of biscuits out to them. Agha Firooz’s daughter grinned as she plucked two from the plate. Up close, her smile again sent shivers through my body, but this time I was conscious of why.
She had the same gap-toothed grin as the lewd boy from the market.
Had I not already set the teacups down, I’m sure they would have rattled right off the tray. I kept my head lowered and made a quick escape from the parlor. I could hear Agha Firooz’s wife casually suggesting to KokoGul that I join them for tea. KokoGul w
aved off the suggestion and began to extol my virtues. Najiba was in the kitchen gulping down a glass of water—ever neutral, ever oblivious to what was going on around her.
“Najiba, can you stay here and listen out for Madar-jan? Wait a few minutes and then refill their teacups, please. My head is spinning and I need to lie down.”
Najiba looked at me as she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “Okay, Ferei,” she replied affectionately.
I kissed her cheek and went out the back door of the kitchen, creeping up the stairs as noiselessly as I could.
I leaned against the upstairs wall, my heart pounding. I prayed Agha Firooz’s emissaries would soon take their leave.
CHAPTER 6
Fereiba
COURTSHIP AND GIFTS LOST THEIR ROMANTIC APPEAL AS I WAS slapped with the reality of marriage. I could not imagine becoming part of Agha Firooz’s family. How could I tell Padar-jan how I felt? Through KokoGul’s oblique comments I learned that Padar-jan was exploring Agha Firooz’s business propositions. I couldn’t confess my worries to my sisters or my brother. I had much to hash out and no one to talk with.
KokoGul eagerly anticipated a second call from Agha Firooz’s wife. A respectable courtship was a slow, deliberately coy dance between two families. KokoGul rehearsed for that call, her chance to feign surprise and hesitation. With me, she was especially lenient in the next few weeks. I was excused from many of my duties around the house, a pampering that made me feel more suspicious than grateful.
“Fereiba-jan, do not bother with the pots today. Too much scrubbing will roughen your soft hands. Let your sister help you,” she called out. I put the washcloth down and turned my palms up. Years of hand-washing the family’s clothes, sifting dry rice, and scrubbing burnt cookware had callused my fingers. I wiped my hands dry. The orchard called.