Wedding Song (11 page)

Finally, both families agreed that although it was impossible for Shekoofeh to have a separate house, the groom would create a separate space for his bride by adding a bathroom and a kitchen on the second floor of the house that he shared with his mother and siblings. My grandmother resumed her shopping to assemble a dowry.

The banging of metal against metal could be heard long before we entered the coppersmiths’ bazaar. Far from the main market place, this section lacked the protection of a roof and the beauty of handmade tiles and arched doorways. It was the most chaotic section of the bazaar. Donkeys carried loads of metal, fabric, or fruit through the crowd of shoppers and workers, littering the place with their droppings, which accumulated until the city workers cleaned the ground at the end of the day.

I was surprised to see so many teenagers kneeling on the dirt floor hammering at utensils. Apprenticeship was their schooling, and I was frightened by such a fate. I kept away from them, as if their future could rub off on me and leave a residue of misfortune and hopelessness. Khanombozorg found the best price for the pots that we had brought from our home and traded them for new ones to go with the bride to her home. Hanging onto the corner of her
chador
, I turned my head and watched the boys hammering as we walked away.

Since we had traded away our nicest pots, we had to use cheaper ones at home ourselves. Years later, when I was browsing in an antique shop in New York City, I would realize what treasures we had given away. That
day, however, I was merely enjoying the sights, sounds, and smells of various parts of the market.

Back in the main section, we saw a group of Ghashghai women, a nomadic tribe outside Shiraz. They were known to be tough women, who could move herds of sheep over the mountains on horseback, a rifle on one shoulder and a baby on the other. I had mostly known women who seemed powerless and defeated by life. I looked at these nomadic women in awe. They walked tall and regally, their strong presence claiming the ownership of the space they occupied. Strong, beautiful, and feminine, they wore many layers of long puffy skirts in colors of the desert, of the mineral deposits of the mountains surrounding our city: rust, purple, yellow, maroon. Silk scarves, bordered with gold coins, covered their raven hair and shoulders; peacock-colored sashes wrapped around their foreheads and tied loosely in the back of their necks. The group passed us, creating music with the jingle of their gold bangles and anklets. Their many rustling skirts gently stirred the spiced air of the bazaar.

Finally, the shopping was done. The bride’s quilts were specially designed and handmade with beautiful geometric stitching, filled with clean whipped cotton, and covered with blue satin. Pots and pans gleamed; the silver-covered toiletries were delicate and regal; and new clothes, trimmed with ribbons, were ready for everyone, including me.

I watched with excitement as a few strong men stopped by the house, packed and loaded the dowry on top of their heads, and paraded them down the street to the groom’s family. In return, many large trays of sweets arrived carefully balanced on the heads of the baker’s apprentices. Delicate chickpea cookies shaped like clover leaves, puff pastry bows, raisin cookies, and
bamieh
were all arranged patiently and artistically in gigantic pyramids. The trays were marched through the streets so that everyone could admire the generosity of the groom’s family.

Shekoofeh’s wedding was the first one in the family since my grandfather had passed away. My grandmother decided that a garden wedding would be best since our house in the ghetto was too modest for such an auspicious ceremony.

My father hired a large truck with a canvas-covered back to take the fruit, vegetables, and meat to a garden outside town. Neighbors helped load Persian carpets and
kilim
s, some ours and some borrowed; then they put me in the back to “be a big girl” and watch the food. I sat there in my pretty white dress, my baby sister Nahid on my lap. I arranged her dress
around her hip to hide the long incision that had drained an infection after her birth. My mother gave me two bottles and asked me tend to her. I wasn’t sure if I was really being a big girl or if they wanted to get rid of me. Partly, I was sad to leave all the excitement at home; yet I was delighted to be the first one at the garden to watch the wedding preparations.

On the dusty, unpaved road, my sister cried nonstop. I fed her one bottle to quiet her despite orders from my mother to save the milk for later. Then the other bottle fell over and the milk splattered all over the place. I didn’t know if I needed to be more anxious about losing the baby food or for spilling milk over food designated “meat,” which had to be separated from dairy. When my mother finally arrived, I tossed her the baby and the empty bottles and left quickly before she could scold me.

I went snooping around to see what all the excitement was about. There were huge pots set up on top of makeshift charcoal-burning stoves to prepare the rice and stews. The aroma of chopped dill, coriander, and fenugreek mixed with the scent of chickens braised with caramelized onions and turmeric. A cook with stubble and a friendly face was alternating beef and onions on a skewer. Noticing me, he gave me an apple and shooed me away. Fruit trees and grapevines shaded the Persian carpets spread by a stream. The guests leaned against large pillows; a few recited poetry or harmonized with the musicians.

My aunt finally arrived with her future husband, passing between two rows of friends and family. Men clapped. A few women cupped their hands over their mouths, rolled their tongues and ululated, when the others sang wedding songs.

We have come to take the bride away and isn’t she beautiful!
Are the alleyways narrow? Yes indeed!
Is the bride beautiful? Yes indeed!
Don’t touch her hair for it is braided with pearls, yes indeed!

Actually, my aunt’s hair was decorated not with pearls but with white feathers shaped into a halo. Her white silk bridal gown shimmered in the glow of sun filtering through the trees in the garden. Shekoofeh’s eyebrows were tweezed into thin fashionable lines, and she wore makeup for the first time. Her provocative bright red lipstick contrasted with her demure body language—head slightly bowed in shyness, eyes lowered in virginal modesty.

When she reached the carpeted area, her sister Fereshteh helped her to sit on a Persian carpet, and fluffed her skirt around her for a picture. She was a romantic sight, bringing the wedding song to life. She sat there most of the day, looking pretty and finally let me touch her dress and feathers.

At first, she refused every food offering, afraid that even a taste would smudge her lip color. Aunt Fereshteh asked me to help the bride with her meal. Every time Shekoofeh opened her mouth for a spoonful of rice, I giggled, feeling like a mother bird feeding a chick in her nest. When she was finished, I picked at the leftovers and looked for something else to do.

Two belly dancers with colorful dresses entertained the guests. They changed behind a makeshift curtain sheltered between the trees. Fascinated by their costumes, I sneaked behind the curtains to watch them change, and was surprised to find out that I wasn’t the only one interested. A dancer pushed me out, along with male guests who had had too much
aragh
with their kabobs.

My mother found me and told me to join a group of women who were eating and smoking a waterpipe. She put a plate of chicken, rice, and fava beans in front of me. As I nibbled, I scanned the area for action.

Someone shouted for towels to be sent to the far side of the gardens. Apparently a few men, including my father, had decided to refresh themselves in a water hole. I jumped up and volunteered. I would have liked the women to have a turn as well, but that wasn’t modest. I lingered to watch the men exit the water in their wet underwear. They got out one after another to jump back into the shallow water again. They all looked down at themselves first, then at me with a smile, and I smiled back. My father called my mother, who dragged me away.

Eventually, it was dusk and the party had to end. My father, acting as his sister’s guardian, wrapped a piece of silk cloth around her waist, symbolically giving her away. They hugged tearfully. The groom took away my aunt in a black Mercedes decorated with flowers. My grandmother and aunts followed them, singing and clapping, tears streaming down their faces.

The musicians and dancers packed and left. The carpets were rolled and loaded again onto the truck. I climbed in there and fell asleep, dreaming of white satin and feathers, the soft rhythm of Persian music, and my aunts singing
vasoonak
.

My grumbling stomach woke me up from my dreams on the way
home, a reminder that I had been too busy with curiosity to make time for food. The leftovers had been given to the workers. There would be no food at home. After such a bountiful day filled with food, fun, and beauty, I was starving. I looked at my mother sitting across from me with the baby at her breast, a vacant look in her eyes. Her hunger differed from mine.

Little pieces of gloom lodged inside my mother like prickly thorns flown in the wind from the desert surrounding our city. The happiness of Shekoofeh’s lavish wedding worsened Maman’s mental state. She mumbled about her own wedding once in a while when she thought no one was around.

A widowed woman, Anbari, and her daughter came to our house once a week to help with the time-consuming, back-breaking job of washing the clothes. They carried water from the kitchen across the yard to the cooler basement, filled the basins, and soaked the dirtier pieces in the warm, soapy water. They set up laundry lines next to the summer platform by the musk rose tree.

Khanom-bozorg had my mother sit at the basin with the laundry women, and I helped with carrying and hanging the clothes. My grandmother brought in two organza dresses belonging to my aunts Fereshteh and Shekoofeh, the same dresses that were gifts from Tehran. I don’t remember why Shekoofeh’s dress was at our house since she was already married. Homesick, she visited often, and my grandmother was probably trying to ease her load. She told my mother to wash them first, separately, and with more care.

The washer-woman stared at the dresses and, when my grandmother was gone, asked my mother, “Ma’am, which one is yours?”

“Neither one,” Maman sighed. “I don’t have any dresses like those. They both belong to my sisters-in-law.”

There was a twinkle of understanding in the washer-woman’s eyes. A moment of uncomfortable silence marked the unspoken reality that a certain boundary had been crossed. Sharing any grief with these strangers, who went from home to home and gossiped, could taint the family myth of tranquility and shared love. The washer-women, notorious for their gossiping, had a precious piece of information that they could expand and
talk about at various homes in the neighborhood. My mother knew that she was responsible for that opening, for showing her hurt, for having to care for clothes that she could not herself afford; and I, even as a child, recognized the problem. All day I thought about what it meant.

That night, the women gathered in a room on the second floor that served as a living room, dining room, and bedroom for my grandmother, aunt, and uncle Morad. Waiting for the men to return from work, Khanombozorg put a few little potatoes under the ashes of the coals in the charcoal brazier. My mouth watered. Maybe I thought that I could get one as a reward without begging. Maybe I wanted to get at my mother. I don’t know why, but the treacherous words just spilled out of me: “You know what Maman said to the washer-woman today, Khanom-bozorg?”

She smiled at me with both her mouth and eyes. “What? What did she say?”

My mother’s face had a frightened look. She stopped chopping the vegetables and pointed the wide knife toward me. “Stop it,” she said, “I didn’t say anything.”

My grandmother interfered. “Let her talk.”

“Maman said you buy pretty dresses for my aunts and not for her.” My grandmother gave me a potato. I gobbled it up, slightly burned outside, hot and smoky inside, the way I liked it. I couldn’t look at my mother.

“Go to bed,” Maman ordered.

I refused. I was scared to go across the open hallway to my parents’ room to sleep. My baby sister was already asleep there, but she couldn’t keep the night demons away from me.

“I want to wait for Baba,” I said.

Maman jumped up, waving the knife at me, wanting to hit me with its broad side. I screamed.

“Let her be,” my grandmother said, and she told me to sleep in the bed set up for her, my aunt, and my uncle on the floor. I couldn’t go to sleep with my mother in the room still using the knife, but I was afraid that if I got up I would anger her further. I finally drifted into a fitful sleep filled with nightmares. My father held my baby sister in my dreams the way he prepared chickens for slaughtering. He jerked Nahid’s arms back with one hand, grabbed her hair and pulled her head back, and slashed her throat. I stood there in this hallucination and watched with excitement, not caring about my sister with her big, black eyes.

I woke up tired the next morning, and went looking for my grandmother to interpret my dream, to tell me that it was nothing. There was no one in the room. I opened the door and went down the stone steps to the backyard. I saw my mother at the platform standing with her head down. My father stood with his hands on his waist, chewing his mustache, his face red from anger. My aunts, grandmother, and uncles were there too. I had completely forgotten about the troubles the night before and innocently asked what was going on. My father told me to shut up and sit in the corner because the whole thing was my fault. Morad looked at me and smirked. I obeyed.

Baba shouted for someone to summon his half-brother Mashalah. Before my grandfather died, he divided his community responsibilities among his two older sons from his two marriages. My father was in charge of
shekhitah
, the ritual slaughtering which he hated, and Mashalah inherited the performance of
brit-milah
, the circumcision, as well as the weddings and the divorces. He had been summoned once before to Hamedan, my mother’s town, to wed them. This time, he was to perform their divorce ceremony.