Rosewater and Soda Bread (26 page)

Marjan merely stared, unable to find the right words to say.

“Don't worry. We didn't do anything. Malachy got nervous, being in his family's place of business and all.” Layla sighed. “It's not like his dad's going to walk in on us or anything. He doesn't even see him half the time he's down anyway.”

Marjan propped her elbows on the steering wheel, laid her forehead on her fisted hands.

“Marjan …” Layla whispered.

“Yes?”

“I'm sorry. I should have told you, I know.”

Marjan lifted her head. “I just don't want you to do something that you'll regret.”

“You mean like the girl with the baby?” As always, Layla had a way of boiling things down to their most concentrated elements. “That's not something I would ever do.”

“You never know until you are in that position,” Marjan said.

“Malachy and I love each other. We're going to be together forever. And there's nothing to regret. I thought we had been over this when we first started going together. Remember, you
told me about Ali?” Layla turned to her oldest sister with a pointed look.

Marjan stared at the quiet Mall ahead. Ali. Her last real relationship. She rubbed her forehead: What was happening to her? Who was she to give advice on love anyway? She let go of her breath. “Malachy is a good boy. I'm glad you are happy, I really am. Just promise me you'll be careful, okay?”

“I promise. Now can we change the subject?”

Marjan stayed quiet, staring out the van window. She felt so foolish all of a sudden.

“
RIGHT, SO. MRS. BOYLAN
has just handed me a notice from Guard Grogan … let me see now: Will the owner of one galvanized bull's harness, recently left in Saint Joseph's gymnasium, please pick it up at the Garda station. That's down in the square, for anyone new to the area. Next to Shaughnessy's Salmon Hut and the Town Hall…

“And here's a bit of exciting news: it seems that our own Margaret McGuire has been on to her brother Kieran—you might remember his exhilarating group of thespians from the Dance two years back: I'm still reeling from their Punch and Judy exhibit! Hah hah!

“Well, folks, it looks like we might be in for another treat of the McGuire Family Circus this time around. As I speak they're not a hundred miles from here, finishing their gig at the Galway Oyster Fest. And coming up to us for the All Hallows' Eve ceili! How's that for interventions divine?

“So, on that note, and for your groovy pleasure, here's Lionel Richie, with a particular favorite of mine: 1986's ‘Dancing on the Ceiling.’

“I'm Father Fergal Mahoney and you're listening to Craic FM!”

BAHAR AMINPOUR LOWERED the veil over her face. She turned to the tarnished mirror in the bedroom above the café, lifting her chin from right to left. In this dim light, and with her face covered as it was, her profile took on entirely new dimensions; she could be anybody, go anywhere. Under this veil she was sixteen again, young and full of adventure. Blinking, she stepped closer to the mirror. From behind the delicate French embroidery, her large brown eyes looked almost demure, kittenish.

Unlike Layla's bewitching gaze, Bahar was well aware that her own eyes sometimes gave too much of her fear away; panes to her world, they often reflected the sadness that came over her, sometimes without a moment's notice. But now, staring back at her from the latticelike fabric, her eyes gave off a mysterious and confident air. Suddenly she felt like Scheherazade, that Persian princess with the gift of tales, donning a servant's chador to sneak out of her nightmarish palace.

Like Scheherazade, Bahar had covered herself once. On that morning when she slipped out of the apartment she shared with her husband, Hossein, she had vowed never to wear another chador or veil, certainly not of her own free will.

Yet here she was, placing one on her own head, her own hands securing it behind her ears. Stranger things have happened, Bahar told herself.

Turning away from her reflection, she shuffled softly to the bedroom door, which she had locked as an extra precaution.
Bending to peek through the keyhole, she could just make out the small living room across the way, a simple space that had served as a ramshackle office when the Delmonicos ran their little pastry place. The futon sofa was vacant, and the bathroom door was ajar, revealing its empty tiles.

She was alone, Bahar reassured herself, safe for at least another quarter of an hour. Layla was probably reading her little play somewhere, and Marjan was in the kitchen getting breakfast under way. No chance of anyone interrupting her preparations. She would have plenty of time to practice her walk as well.

Bahar made her way back to the middle of the room, but instead of returning to the mirror, she sidled up to the double bed. When they'd first moved in, they had only a mattress, but bit by bit they had acquired some furniture, pine units that were nice enough but nothing like what she'd always imagined for her own home. One day she would have her antiques and lace, Bahar promised herself. Until then, knotty pine would have to do.

Still, she would rather sleep on a rack of nails than share her dreams with Hossein Jaferi again. Even after all these years, she couldn't believe she had given herself to such a man—at the age of sixteen, no less. The signs had been there from the beginning, but she'd paid them no mind. The first time he had shown her his baton, she should have turned on her heels and run, but instead she had indulged him with a young girl's awed attention.

“See these grooves,” Hossein had said, pointing at the lightning bolt lines carved deep in the stick. The baton was his number one weapon against opposing factions, the gangs that were vying for control of the Revolution. “These leave gashes that never heal. They reach deep into muscle and tear apart every strength. No one survives the Jaferi Jab, khanoum. No one.” He had laughed heartily and with such pride then, as she had lowered her chador-framed face in humility. He was to be her husband, after all.

Nine years had passed since Bahar's marriage had ended so abruptly, and in a manner that still gave her nightmares. And over the years she had had a few momentary glimpses into the reason behind her acquiescence, why she had leapt into the fire that was the Jaferi way.

It wasn't exactly fear, not really; Bahar thought the word too mundane; it wasn't fear that had made her join the Women's Party and give her devotion to Hossein; it was something much more sinister. A dark void that was somehow connected to those migraines she used to get. That unnameable chasm had first made itself known to her during those nights when Marjan was away.

Her sister had been working at the Peacock, the Hilton Hotel's premier restaurant, for nearly two years, ever since they had moved out of their childhood home in northern Tehran. With no life insurance, their father, Javid, had left little that could have justified their living on such a large estate. The three of them barely had the means to keep themselves clothed and fed, without having to worry about running a property as well.

Oh, how desperately she had wanted to leave school and apply for a paid position somewhere, anywhere, just to help! Perhaps something at a seamstress's workshop or the local museum, a small building that boasted antiques from all over the world. She had always loved antiques, the weight of them, their certainty, their immutable essence. Working in a museum would have been paradise. But Marjan had forbidden her to drop her studies. She was to take care of little Layla while Marjan washed dishes at the restaurant and studied part-time at Tehran University.

Bahar shook her head. Those shifts when Marjan worked late were the most dreadful times for her. Though part of her knew that her older sister would be home by eleven, midnight at the latest, it did not stop the hole inside her from growing.

Perched at the apartment window, she would watch for hours
as the sun sank behind the neighborhood mosque. Once the moon had ascended over the mosaic turrets, painting the tenements of their neighborhood with its indigo tears, Bahar would begin her own night's mourning.

In the darkness she would imagine an alternate ending, Mar-jan found dead or dying, lying on the side of a road somewhere, killed by marauding gangs or a roaring truck on her way home from the Peacock Restaurant.

The night would tell Bahar that she and Layla were alone now, alone to fend for themselves.

The moon would tell her to begin again, begin with a cleanse.

That was when she discovered the power of the copper scour. As the gory image of their dead sister flashed across her eyes, Bahar would begin to clean, taking a scrubbing coil and bleach to all the kitchen appliances, moving down to the linoleum floor, cheap like the rest of apartment they were living in, rubbing, rubbing away at the hole forming in the pit of her stomach, her breast. She had to be self-sufficient, the hole would tell her; she was mistress of the house now, it was up to her to cleanse it of its terrible fate.

Clean it away, Bahar. Clean it away.

And she would, night after night. It was a method that worked well. By the time her sister came home, Bahar would be back to feeling calm and secure, ready for school the next morning. But she knew that things would change one day, one day when Marjan would finally leave.

Bahar lifted her face off the mattress. She hadn't realized she had laid her cheek on it. Giving the locked bedroom door another glance, she slipped her hand along the base, her fingers touching on a bit of lace. She sighed with relief: it was still there, in the place she had left it on Monday.

At first she had been angry for having to sacrifice her Sunday
morning for Marjan's schedule change, but now she was glad of it; Monday's afternoon break had allowed her the time to go into Castlebar for her necessary errands. Otherwise she would have had to ask Mrs. Boylan to get the last items on her list, and the kind lady had done enough already, keeping her secret all these months.

Unlike the women who frequented the relics shop, Father Mahoney's housekeeper and the chairwoman of the Ladies of the Patrician Day Dance Committee was nothing if not a monument to discretion. Look how she had kept her employer's new radio show a secret—now that must have been a challenge!

Bahar recalled the priest's radio program with a smile. In all her time of taking initiation classes, where they had carefully gone over all manner of Scripture passages, Father Mahoney had not said a word about his new venture. Bahar didn't know what she would have said had he told her of his idea, but she liked to think she would have been as encouraging as the priest had been to her during the last year. His guiding voice had led her to many discoveries within her own soul; it wasn't much of leap, Bahar mused, that he would turn it to a larger medium.

She gave a little giggle. And wasn't it just like Father Mahoney to come up with a send-off that went with the greatest of Scripture verses: “All is right with the world, dear listener.” All is right with the world. Bahar hoped that was true; the events of the last few weeks had her seriously questioning the evil in the world. There was just too much wrongdoing going on, even in places where you least expected it. Even in your own household.

Sure, Marjan was being a Good Samaritan by feeding this stranger, this girl up at Estelle's, but what good did it do in the end? What good was it to help someone who was capable of such lunacy, to try to kill her own beautiful baby? Wouldn't it be better not to have such a person around at all, making room for
someone who really wanted a child? Wasn't that what being a righteous believer was all about?

Bahar sighed. There seemed to be no good answers. Still, she had to admit Father Mahoney's closing message was comforting. His new spiritual sound waves were further guidance, she thought, toward a smooth and clean conversion.
All is right with the world
. Every sign was pointing her in the right direction. Next stop was her first Mass, for which she had bought this outfit.

Bahar hoisted the mattress off its base. She pulled the lacy fabric from its resting place. Even in the darkened room the dress radiated cleanliness, pure and white as the Alborz snow. As white as the peak on that mountain up the street, Croagh Patrick, the Reek.