Rosewater and Soda Bread (27 page)

It was on that mountain that she had discovered her need for something greater than her own pain, a need to surrender to whatever it was God held in store for her. It was as though a prism had turned inside her during her climb, letting in light, letting in air, as she ascended.

She had felt happy, simply happy for standing on that peak, turning her gaze out to the Atlantic. She had needed no copper scour while up there; she was cleansed all the same.

Bahar held the dress up to her body and studied her reflection. Yes, she told herself, everything had changed once again; now she was happy to be alone, happy to wear a veil again.

TACHEEN
IS A DOMED MEDLEY of baked saffron rice and chicken, forming the shape of a cathedral ceiling. On first glance, the dish looks curiously like
chelow
, plain steamed rice; it is only after slicing through its center that the layers of fortitude
are exposed: first buttered rice and almonds, then fried chicken and sautéed spinach, the yogurt binding them into a brotherhood of delicious play.
Tacheen
.

Marjan estimated another ten minutes before she would need to turn the baked dinner from its casserole dish. She usually had much more patience when it came to making
tacheen
, especially that last step, which always verged on exhilaration, but the unease in her belly was making it impossible to stay still today. She had not been feeling entirely rooted since her disappointment yesterday. Just thinking about her uneventful date sent a flush of embarrassment across her chest. Dreaming up possible excuses for Julian did not ease the strange loneliness that was making its way into her stomach. Had she really been so ready to plunge again into an idea of romance, one that might never fully blossom?

Marjan sat down at the round kitchen table, her thoughts traveling back. She had never, not in all these years, blamed Ali for her having ended up in Gohid Detention Center. He hadn't forced her to help out at the offices of
The Voice
. She had come of her own free will, decided to contribute what she could without being asked.

She had even chosen to wear the
roosarie
scarf—motivated not from a spiritual yearning but from a need for solidarity: she had wanted to show her support for the Revolution that had begun to sweep through the university halls, she had wanted to bear witness in the form of a dark scarf.

That scarf had turned into a blindfold, quite literally, the day
The Voice
's offices were taken down by the Shah's police. The day she said good-bye forever to Ali's sweet green eyes.

Marjan sighed. She had never told her sisters about that time; not being involved in the cause, not meeting up with Ali after
their high school years, not even the reason she had disappeared for three days that spring of 1978, disappeared without even a phone call.

How could she? Where could she have started?

How could she have stood in front of those two—Layla not yet seven, Bahar only sixteen—and explained how she had placed them all in danger for the sake of a man's affection?

“
Tacheen
always reminds me of Christmas.” Layla's voice startled Marjan.

“When did we have tacheen for Christmas?” she asked, rising from the table and making her way back to the casserole. She adjusted the platter over its hot rim, closing in the plume of steam that was escaping over the edges.

Layla shrugged, bounding down the stairs. “Never. But it kind of looks like a Christmas pudding, its shape and all. A savory Christmas pudding. It makes me think of cozy things, like blankets and fireplaces and Bing Crosby.” She plopped down at the table with her copy of
Much Ado About Nothing
. “Though I hear old Bing wasn't that great of a guy offscreen. You wouldn't know it, to look at his twinkly blue eyes.”

Marjan gave her youngest sister a fond smile. Layla would never stop surprising her. “Don't you have that memorized by now?” She pointed the spatula at the book.

Layla smiled. “Yeah, but I like to see the words on the page as well. It's awesome. Listen to this:

Layla sighed. “Now that's what I call sexual tension.”

Marjan laughed.

Layla gave her a quizzical look. “What?”

Marjan shook her head. “You are so funny sometimes.”

Layla shrugged. “Don't tell me you don't think of that English guy. What's his name? Julian?” She said the name in a singsong manner. “Have you read his book yet?”

Marjan remained silent as she slowly circled the spatula along the inside rim of the casserole dish. Dominions of Clay remained where she had left it yesterday, jammed under a road map of Mayo in the van's cavernous glove compartment. “Is Bahar asleep?” she asked, changing the subject.

Layla wet her thumb and flipped a page. “I don't know. She said she was taking a nap. I don't think it's a headache, though. No medicine near the bed,” she said.

“I hope not.”

“Maybe she's praying or something,” Layla said, scrunching her nose. “I still can't believe she wants to be a Catholic.”

“It is a bit unexpected,” Marjan admitted. But then, it was Bahar.

“She'd have a fit if she knew about me and Malachy” The corners of Layla's mouth rose mischievously.

“If she doesn't know about it yet, she'll surely know all about it by tonight,” Marjan replied, thinking of the Ballinacroagh grapevine. She turned to Layla. “You're going to keep your promise to me, aren't you?”

Layla sighed. “Yes.”

“And what was that promise?”

“To tell you the next time me and Malachy think we are ready. To tell you so that we can talk about it and figure things out.” She closed the play tucked it under her chin. “How about you spring for a hotel room in Dublin? I'd pay you back.”

“Oh, Layla, what am I going to do with you?” Marjan shook her head. It really wasn't up to her anymore. Her youngest sister was about to embark on her own, become the woman she was meant to be. It was time for Marjan to let go.

Turning back to the stove, Marjan secured the platter over the casserole. She could tell the
tacheen
was ready from the way the steam had gathered along the sides of the dish.

She turned to Layla. “Okay. Ready?”

Her youngest sister nodded, her eyes widening with anticipation.

Marjan held her breath and held tighter to the tea-toweled platter: “One, two … three!” She flipped the casserole upside down.

The structure that emerged a moment later was a cake of buttery rice ensconcing honeyed almonds and chicken, the lot.

Layla clapped her hands as Marjan took a bow. “It's perfect! Mrs. D's going to love it!”

Marjan smiled at her little sister, wondering how it was that Layla could sound so grown-up and so young in the space of a single second.

It was a mystery as deep as the treasures found in her sweet and savory
tacheen
.

IT WASN'T OFTEN
that the moral scions of Ballinacroagh were correct in their conjectures, but in the case of Estelle Delmonico's new ward, they were not all that far off-course. A descendant of Biddy Early's may well have been channeling her powers inside the Delmonico homestead. But rather than calling forth the eventide of Judgment, her results were as glorious as the morning dawn.

Marjan noticed a marked change in Estelle right away. The widow was snuggled into her hearth chair in the blue and yellow kitchen, in her favorite lace and eyelet nightgown. With her hair held jauntily back by a lavender ribbon, and a healthy twinkle in her warm brown eyes, Estelle Delmonico looked like a sweet toddler waiting for her bedtime story. You wouldn't think she's nearly seventy, thought Marjan, placing the
tacheen
on the pine counter.

“You look so nice,” Marjan said. “Like you've slept for ten years, refreshed.”

Estelle smiled coquettishly. “Thank you, darling. You look so pretty too. Just like Sophia Loren.” She pointed to the Lavazza coffee sign blinking sleepily over the periwinkle cabinet. The neon was one of the few mementos the widow had kept from Papa's Pastries, having it rewired so that it gave off a brilliant red hue.

The coffee sign illuminated a framed poster stationed beside it, a large photograph of that buxom actress Sophia Loren, a crush of her late husband's.

“Is that a new skirt?
Bellissima!
”

Marjan looked down, nodding. She spoke softly: “I wore it last night. On a date.”

“A date! Oh my goodness! How wonderful!” Estelle clapped her hands like a schoolgirl.

“It would have been,” Marjan replied. She explained Julian's disappearance. “I guess I just feel foolish, really. I got so excited over nothing.”

“But why shouldn't you get excited?” Estelle said. “It is only natural that you want to feel joy and love, especially when you are young. I tell you, men are very difficult to understand. Even my Luigi, who was almost perfect, he had problems also, my goodness.”

Estelle paused for a moment. “Maybe this Englishman, maybe something happened like an emergency? Yes? You must first wait and see before thinking the worst. And if no, then there are many Irishmen waiting for you. You are famous, in newspapers, and you own the best café in Ireland.”

“Maybe you're right,” said Marjan, believing the kind widow's words as she uttered them. “We'll just have to wait and see. Now, how about some
tacheen
?”

She lifted the cheesecloth off the casserole. The scent of saffron and almonds wafted around them.

“It's still warm, but I could heat it up for you again. Is she awake?” Marjan nodded toward the hallway, where Estelle's bedroom door remained closed.

“No, so tired. Sleeping already.” Estelle lifted her eyebrows and grinned. “We walk around my garden today.”

Marjan looked surprised. “Your meditation garden?”

“Yes. For three hours today! Yesterday also! Can you believe it!” Estelle turned to her guest with eyes shining. The Lavazza sign blinked, lighting up a series of pearly droplets above her upper lip.

Marjan gasped. “Are you sweating again?” She peered into Estelle's face.

“Sweat?” The old lady drew the pad of her thumb along the soft slope above her lip, wiping off a band of glistening water. “Look at this!” she said, showing Marjan her thumb. “And it is still cold outside!”

She popped the end of her thumb into her mouth and sucked on the water, a concentration better known in baking circles as sugarcane extract. “Did I ever tell you how I met my Luigi? No? It is all because of this sweat. Remind me, I will tell you the story one day.”

Marjan was astounded. “But if you're sweating, that means your arthritis is much better.”

Estelle nodded and grinned, as though she had a wonderful secret. “Yes, much better.”

“But how is that possible?”

Estelle winked. “Magic, Marjan. Magic.”