Violette turned to us. ‘Poor things.’
We all looked at Violette, who was looking back at us. ‘I meant the locusts.’ Then she turned to Alice and laughed. ‘How marvelous! Congratulations.’
Alice smiled a little. ‘Thank you, Violette. At least one person has sense enough to congratulate me.’ She slid her chair back and stood up, turning her big round head toward Mother, who was still staring at her open-mouthed. ‘I’m going. Are you coming with me, or staying?’
Mother jumped up and tugged hard at her purse strap, slung over the back of the chair. The strap broke. Mother tucked the purse under her arm with its broken strap and walked out of the kitchen after Alice. Her chair tottered back and forth a few times before falling over. We all stared at the toppled chair.
I do not know how much time passed before Violette, to shake us all out of our trance, jokingly recited the line from the children’s game: ‘Red light, green light, freeze! Nobody move...’ Then she stepped forward, set the chair upright and sat down on it.
Now all eyes were on Violette, picking out a pair of cherries connected at the stem from the fruit bowl. She looked them over. ‘How pretty!’ She hung them over her ear as if they were an earring and glanced at each of us in turn. She arched her thick eyebrows. ‘Well, why are you all speechless? Marriage is not such bad news, is it? After all, I’m going to get married, too.’
At that moment both the twins and Sophie ran in, out of breath. They each lifted a finger in the air, imitating a pupil asking the teacher for permission. ‘May we ride our bikes, sir?’
Violette turned her profile to the children, tilting her head left and right. ‘Isn’t my earring pretty?’ The two cherries were swinging back and forth, making the children laugh. Violette laughed as well. ‘Girls, would you like to be bridesmaids at my wedding?’
Armineh, Arsineh, and Sophie jumped up and down, clapping. ‘Super, super! What color dresses will we wear?’
‘Pink for me,’ said Armineh.
‘Blue for me,’ said Sophie.
‘Pink for me,’ said Arsineh. Artoush looked at me, Garnik at Nina, and Nina at Violette. The girls were dancing around in a ring, calling out, ‘Wedding, wedding!’
Violette took the cherries off her ear, plucked out their twin stems, and ate them both.
Garnik asked Nina, ‘What did she say?’
Nina asked Violette, ‘What did you say?’
Violette got up, tossed the two pits in the dessert plate and said, ‘Kids, come on. Let’s decide who will wear what color. I will wear white, of course, because I am the bride. You all...’ And she stepped out of the kitchen with the kids.
Nina stood up. ‘She’s off her rocker.’ She told Garnik, ‘Get up. Get up, let’s go see what in the world’s gotten into your niece; it’s obvious she’s even nuttier than I am.’
I stayed in the kitchen with Artoush, who was scooting the sugar shaker back and forth from one hand to the other. Kshsh...Kshsh...Kshsh...Kshsh. I held my tongue...Held my tongue...Held my tongue. In the end, I shouted, ‘Stop it!’
41
I was uneasy in the green leather chair, tucking up my legs, stretching them out, sitting up straight, slouching to the side. I dangled my arms over the armrests, then folded them across my chest. I leaned all the way back, closed my eyes, then opened them again. I picked up Sardo’s novel from the bookcase, read two or three lines from the spot I had bookmarked, then closed the book. I didn’t care any more whether the man in the story would choose love or responsibility. I hated the hero of the story for being so stupid, and the heroine for not seeing the hero’s stupidity. I got up and went to the kitchen, chiding myself, ‘You are the stupidest of them all.’
A glance at the kitchen clock showed that the children would be back before too long. I opened the refrigerator. We had no milk, not much cheese, and the butter was missing. I was sure we had had butter that morning. Glancing around the kitchen, I spied the butter dish. It had been left out on the counter since morning and the butter was by now almost completely melted. The unwashed dishes from breakfast were piled up in the sink.
How many times over the past seventeen years had the breakfast dishes sat unwashed in the sink until the end of the day? Maybe only once or twice, and that in the final months I was pregnant with the twins. My eyes settled on the silhouette of Sayat Nova. Two of the thumbtacks were missing, and the head of the poet was sagging away from the wall. I went closer. My, it was ugly! How come I had always thought of it as pretty? Maybe because Artoush’s niece had sent it to us from Armenia? But it did not matter where it came from. It was ugly and, stupid me, up until that very moment I had fancied it was pretty.
I tore down the silhouette and crumpled it up. And then I crumpled it some more, balling it up until it fitted in the palm of one hand. I juggled the balled-up paper from hand to hand a few times, turned toward the garbage pail and took a shot. Sayat Nova hit the rim of the pail and fell to the floor. I picked up my purse and left the house.
The gate of G-4 was half open. I walked all the way to the water tank in the neighborhood square. I passed by the benches and the leafless trees and the deflowered oleander bushes. I tried not to look around me as I walked along. I had never seen Abadan the color of dust; the city looked tired and listless. Like myself, very tired and very listless.
At Adib’s store, a sign hanging on the door said: CLOSED. I had never come at this hour of the day to buy anything, and so had never seen this sign before. And I never came at that hour, knowing the store was closed from one to three o’clock.
I looked at my watch. It was five minutes to three and the children would be home in another hour. We had no butter and not much cheese, and the children would be left snackless. How could I have forgotten we were out of cheese and milk, and that the store closed for a long lunch? Instead of tending to the duties of the house that morning, I had squirmed around in the leather chair, resenting the heroine of the story and her stupidity, and the hero’s stupidity, and...
I took a deep breath and rapped on the glass door with my wedding ring, right in the center of the letter ‘O.’
I exhaled when Mr. Adib opened the door. ‘Oh, it’s you, Mrs. Doc? You’ve never come around at this time before!’
The store was hot and dark. Mr. Adib chatted as he weighed out the butter and the cheese. ‘Ever seen such hot weather? They say it’s ’cause of the locusts. After a locus’ attack, the weather heats up. For sure, the kids’ll jump in the Shatt. And God knows how many of ’em the sharks’ll get. What’re the poor things to do? The heat makes ’em reckless. I for one have never seen such hot weather.’
I was looking at Mr. Adib’s scale, rusted in places and the pans warped or dented here and there. I did not have the patience to tell Mr. Adib, ‘You have seen even hotter weather than this. Me, too. Tonight and tomorrow night and the next night, the kids of the Arab quarter, of Ahmadabad, and of neighborhoods I’ve never been to and don’t even know the names of, will jump in the Shatt for the umpteenth time, and if the sharks don’t take their life, they’ll take their arm or their leg, and we’ll hear from Alice that “they brought seven shark-bite victims to the hospital yesterday, eight today, ten last night.” Me and Artoush and Mother will say “tsk tsk” and after a shorter or longer spate of silence – whatever seems appropriate for a death or the loss of a limb – we’ll concentrate on our own children, who will be asking, “What are we having for our after-school snack? What are we having for dinner? The heat is killing us! Why don’t you turn up the air conditioner?” ’
‘I just got a shipment of some first-class Halva,’ said Mr. Adib. ‘Shall I get you some?’
At our house no one liked Halva but me. ‘A few ounces, please,’ I said.
With the bag in hand, I headed for home. Our street was empty and the sun was hot. Even the frogs were quiet. The door of G-4 was closed.
As I entered our yard, I saw him standing by the door of our house. I passed by the dusty flowerbeds and the denuded tr
ees and bushes.
‘Barev, Clarice.’ His green eyes were the only speck of green to be seen.
‘Barev,’ I said, and opened the front door. ‘I bought some butter. Before it melts, let me put it in the fridge.’ He followed behind me into the kitchen. I put the butter, cheese, and Halva in the refrigerator and started to wash the dishes. Behind me I heard no footsteps and no chair dragging across the tiles. So he was not sitting down, but must still be standing in the doorway.
My polite side whispered, ‘It’s bad manners, ask him to sit down.’ I turned my head around. He was staring at the empty space where Sayat Nova had been.
‘Won’t you sit down?’ I said.
He sat down and got straight to the heart of the matter. From the first day he saw Violette in our house something told him, she is the woman you have been searching for all these years. The next day, as he was leaving the Company, he sees Violette again, who happened to be passing by. They go together to the Milk Bar for coffee, and they talk. They arrange a few further meetings on the banks of the Shatt.
The clean dishes were in the dish rack. As I sat listening to him, I remembered: Artoush had said, ‘Violette asked me and Emile all kinds of questions about which division of the Company we work in and what we do. I couldn’t imagine these things would be of interest to her.’
Nina had remarked: ‘Violette is still upset about the divorce. At sunset she walks alone along the banks of the Shatt.’
And Violette herself had told the kids: ‘One day soon I’ll take you to the Milk Bar for ice cream.’
And when Garnik asked her, ‘How do you know about the Milk Bar, you little imp?’ she just smiled.
Emile was worn out. He kept running his hands through his hair, putting them in his pocket, pushing back his chair, pulling it forward, talking. ‘My mother never approves of anything I do. She always thinks I am making a mistake. She doesn’t believe I can reason things through to the end. She has always done things by the book. She doesn’t believe in love. But the meaning of life is love, no? Surely, you agree with me?’
He was quiet for a while, looking at me with anticipation.
I put out my cigarette in the ashtray, and sat quietly, thinking. I don’t want to know what decision the man in Sardo’s story takes. I don’t like Sardo’s writing. I lit another cigarette.
He said, ‘I didn’t know you smoke.’ And then he began to talk about Violette again, about how guileless she is, how kind, how humble. How much she likes poetry and music. He talked just like a Sardo novel.
When we heard the voices of the children coming up the path, Emile got up. ‘Will you talk to my mother? I don’t wish to offend her, but if she will not agree, I will have no choice...’ He said goodbye, and then looked doubtfully at me. Then he took me by the arm and said, ‘Please.’ And then he left.
I gave the kids their snack and tried to concentrate on what they were saying.
‘The math test was very easy.’
‘We have two weeks to go before the end-of-year celebration.’
‘We were practicing the poem “Four Seasons” today.’
‘Emily is Cinderella in the play.’
‘The Prince will be played by a classmate of...’
Armen gathered up his sandwich and his milk, and slid his chair back. ‘I have a geography test tomorrow.’
The twins watched Armen go to his room and close the door. Then they lowered their voices. Armineh said, ‘After the rehearsal, Armen slapped his classmate, the one playing the prince.’
Arsineh added, ‘But before they could fight, the principal came by.’
‘What did Emily do?’ I asked.
They answered in tandem. ‘She laughed.’
42
It was late in the afternoon and the sun was no longer so intense. But our old Chevrolet was parked on the street, and the garage was wide open to welcome the green Cadillac. The twins were leaning on their elbows over the kitchen table, flipping through the monthly issue of Lusaber. I took the magazine. ‘You have an exam tomorrow.’
Armineh pouted, her lower lip protruding. ‘We just got it today.’
Arsineh’s lower lip followed suit. ‘At least let us flip through it to the end.’
I tossed the magazine on the counter. ‘Before bed. For now, revise your history, and I’ll quiz you.’ They looked at one another and left the kitchen without another word. For the last couple of weeks they had not been stubbornly insisting on things. I wondered why. Was it because the children sensed I had no patience?
Artoush said, ‘They’re not big coffee drinkers, they’ll have tea.’ I filled up the kettle and set it on the stove. Half an hour later I took the tea tray to the living room. The guests said thank you under their breath. Artoush smiled and closed the door behind me.
I went to the bedroom and stretched out on the bed, staring at the ceiling fan while I had a little talk with myself: How come you only notice the stupidity of others? Why don’t you listen properly to what people are saying? Why do you criticize Alice? You are worse than she is.
I got up and went to the window. It was sunset and the branches of the lotus tree looked greyish in the fading light. I should be doing something, anything to occupy my mind and keep it from ruminating. Shall I straighten the drawers? I had done that only last week. Read? The books were all in the living room and I did not want to disturb Artoush and his guests. Even that was just an excuse, as I did not feel much like reading. And dinner was already prepared. I could go to the garage – for some time I had been meaning to sort through the junk piling up in the garage and toss some of the stuff out.
As I stepped out the front door I heard a noise. It sounded as if someone was sneaking through the boxwood hedge into the garage. Who could that be? Artoush’s guests were still in the living room and the children were studying. The door to our garage was now closed. So was Mr. Rahimi’s. Armen had better not be messing about! He might scratch the Cadillac or something. Stupid me – here I thought my boy was all grown up. I opened our garage door.
I don’t know who was more scared, me or the young man bent over the open trunk of the Cadillac. I screamed. The man turned around with an armful of papers and as I screamed a second time, his foot caught on the bumper and he fell to the ground. He cried out in pain on the garage floor, his flyers scattered all about.
Artoush was sitting at the kitchen table. ‘How many times are you going to ask me? I said I did not know. I was not aware of it. They decided this on their own.’ He was pushing the sugar shaker back and forth on the table.
I was shaking and shouting and I did not care a whit if I was yelling. ‘You didn’t know? Your precious friend deliberately parks his Cadillac in our garage to...’
‘He’s not my friend.’
‘Whatever. Your precious enemy. Of course he’s not your friend! A friend would not treat a friend like this. He drinks our tea and coffee, spinning his ridiculous plans, and meanwhile orders his minion to come and collect seditious flyers from our garage? What if they were following him? What if they broke into our house? If you were, and still are, so hell-bent on being a political activist, you should never have married. You should never have had children. If SAVAK broke in here, what would happen to me and the children? You don’t think of anyone but yourself!’
On and on, I held nothing back. Artoush just took it. Then he picked up the sugar shaker from the table. I was still yelling: ‘Thoughtless, selfish.’ He was playing with the cap of the sugar shaker.
‘I slave day and night for you and the children, and for what? So you can do just exactly as you please. So you can play chess, devote yourself to your supposedly important political projects, and play at being a hero, while the children suck the life out of me and leave me with no time to do anything for myself, and no one even once stops to ask me, “Are you tired?” And...’ I put a tissue to my eyes and began sobbing out loud. Artoush was twisting the sugar shaker open and closed.
It was the first time that he had not wa
lked out in the middle of an argument.
‘I dance to every tune you play. Living in Braim is bourgeois, fine. What do we need a high-end model car for, fine. I have guests coming, fine. I like chess, fine. I’m going to Shahandeh’s, fine. And now...now things have come to the point where they’re distributing dangerous political flyers from my house and his highness, the master of the house, says, “I was not aware of it. They decided this on their own.” If you are so stupid that you don’t know what happens in your own house, then...’
I did not finish my sentence, but stared in shock as Artoush unscrewed the top of the sugar shaker and without a single word, poured sugar all over the table, the chairs, and the kitchen floor, as though he were watering the flowers. Then he screwed the cap back on the sugar shaker, set it down on the table and left the kitchen.
43
At the kitchen table I was mending the twins’ school uniforms, torn again at the pockets.
The kitchen had been swept several times after the argument with Artoush, both by myself and by Ashkhen. But each morning a long line of ants marching this way or that told me that traces of sugar were left in spots. I had not spoken a single word to Artoush since that day. Instead I had been waging an internal struggle about who was in the right, me or him. The twins were out in the yard, on the swing seat, singing a song:
We had a lovely dog,
We loved that dog to pieces...
The gate squeaked, followed by laughter and shouting from the twins.
‘Thank you, Sophie!’
‘Thank you, Uncle Garnik.’
‘Both of them green!
‘How pretty!’
‘Just like Sophie’s!’
‘Thank you, thank you!’
I had a pot of kidney beans on the stove. I turned off the burner and went to open the door. The twins were jumping up and down, each holding a hula-hoop.
From the front step, smiling, I called out, ‘So you had to go out and do it, in the end?’