Wedding Song Read online

  Bath keeper, bath keeper, refresh the water in the hamam

  The bride is coming, prepare for her a refreshing sharbat

  That was the group with a new bride! Many circles of women joined in singing to the bride, and their ululating voices rose and bounced off the high wet ceiling. My grandmother asked me to carry the waterpipe, as all of us went to the bridal group, clapping and singing, offering them our best wishes and a smoke. In return, they offered us sharbat made with the essence of fragrant flowers and sugar.

  I saw my friend Mahvash. She spotted me and skipped her way toward me, her wet, blond hair shining, a devilish smile parting her lips. “I guess the bride doesn’t have to spend an extra hour shampooing and combing her pubic hair any more,” she said, chuckling.

  I looked at her dumbfounded.

  She parted the naked bodies and made room for the two of us in front of the bride. She pointed to the woman’s privates and whispered. “Look, now she is all bald! I used to tease her for taking so much time cleaning herself there.”

  I covered my mouth and joined her in giggling.

  I looked at the bride’s body. She was soft and beautiful, stomach flat, breasts hard and round, hair shiny and flowing. That was the way all the young women looked. The contours of their bodies differed, but they all looked healthy and radiant. This was the best place for match-making. Mothers and grandmothers with eligible sons and grandsons came to look and choose; mothers and grandmothers with daughters and granddaughters came to show off their merchandise.

  But even as a child, I could see how fast new brides lost their vibrancy. The arrival of consecutive children and poor medical care ruined women’s bodies, stole the shine from their hair, and sometimes even from their eyes. For every beautiful girl and bride, there were many married women with stomachs bloated and wrinkled like giant prunes, breasts lined with dark vertical lines and drooping as though children had squeezed not only the last drops of milk, but also the substance of the breast itself, the fat, muscle, and tissue.

  Years later I would look at my mother’s pictures at the time and marvel at her beauty that was so hidden from me. All I saw then were her lusterless eyes and her permanent fatigue, her sacrifice for me.

  I didn’t want to get married.

  A stench came from another corner of the hamam. An old, wrinkled and stooped woman with white and disheveled hair stood next to a column, smearing a brown pasty substance on her arms, legs, and private parts. I stared at her, since I had never seen body hair removed chemically.

  She cussed at me, screaming, “Boro gomsho nane jendeh, go get lost, you daughter of a whore.”

  I stood there smiling until my mother heard her and dragged me away.

  At my mother’s request, I threw some dirty clothes on and went outside to tell the hamami to leave. It was time for using the mikvah. My mother climbed in and immersed herself completely three times. Her curls disappeared under the murky water and surfaced longer and straight. Each time, I worried that she might slip and drown and I would be helpless to save her. I prayed that she would be okay, and, at the same time, I resented having to watch over her. She finally came out shivering and blue, and we headed back to the baths. It was time for a final soaping and rinse, and then we dried and dressed. My mother braided my hair into two long plaits and covered my head with a flowery kerchief so I wouldn’t catch a cold outside with my wet hair exposed.

  I walked home in front of everyone. Sunshine felt good on my skin. Rubbing with the rough cloth had given my body a wonderful tingly sensation all over. I skipped every few steps, happy with a feeling of belonging and a satisfied sense of adventure. My mother, grandmother, and aunts kept reminding me to stop such immodest acts since we were passing Moslem shopkeepers, who were bombarding us with their matalaks. I had to be reticent and dignified. But I felt too good to allow the shopkeepers’ dirty little phrases to bother me.

  I took a long breath, closed my eyes, facing the sun, soaking its warmth. I opened my arms and twirled around, letting my kerchief slide down and my braids fly. When I opened my eyes, I came face to face with my mother. I expected a look of disapproval, but she had a little smile on her face, and there was a brightness in her eyes that I did not know she possessed.

  The Question of Virginity

  Winter was finally over. No more snow would fall to bring down the thatched roof on our heads as we slept. My father hired laborers to patch the roof before spring showers poured through the makeshift strips of metal covering the holes. Tiny green leaves waited to push their way through raised spots on the rose tree. White petals burst out, perfuming the air, flavoring our teas. Sparrows sang again among the orange grove.

  My mother and I sat across from each other, rubbing the soap into dirty clothes. I took my eyes off Maman’s nails, thick and cracked like those on the hoofs of a mule. Instead, I stared at the clear blue sky stretched over the orange trees. I wondered how the birds had sneaked back without me noticing them. The sun made rainbows in the bubbles. I made them bigger and bigger, prettier and prettier, while trapping them between my two thumbs and index fingers like a heart. I blew the rainbow in the air. My mother smacked me with her soapy hand; she had winter in her heart, washing and hanging the clothes in silence.

  I didn’t want to help her anymore, so I went looking for my grandmother for something more exciting. Like the facets of polished ruby in my father’s workshop, the geometric designs of a Bukhari carpet surrounded Khanom-bozorg. Facing the open French doors, my grandmother ran a wooden comb through her henna-colored hair. The morning sun filtered through the large rose tree and brought in warmth mixed with strange shadows. The house was quiet.

  My grandmother felt my gaze and turned to find me perched at the door, an invisible shadow with the darkness of the hallway behind. She fanned her right hand fingers toward herself, motioned me to come closer, and gently sat me on her lap. Khanom-bozorg combed my hair, splashing a few drops of water on it to harness the unruly mess. When the black hair hung softly, she cleaned the pulled hair from the comb’s teeth, and braided my hair into one single strand. My head hurt but the price of pain was worth the moments of love and intimacy. I took the comb with its missing teeth, two in the middle just like mine, and wove hers into two braids the way I knew my grandmother liked, very close to each other, hanging side by side on her back. When I was finished, Khanom-bozorg covered her hair with a large flowery kerchief and tied it loosely under her chin. She opened her mouth in a toothless smile and made a scary face. I covered my mouth with both hands and giggled. Then I ran to get her false teeth from a chipped water glass on the mantel. She thrust them into her mouth and moved her jaws to adjust the fit, drawing out more giggles.

  She examined me critically. The colorless dress hung on me like a wet sheet hung on a tree to dry, the leftover fabric thrown together carelessly, wrinkled after being slept in the night before. I was suddenly ashamed. The dress was big to accommodate a year of growth. My mother had dressed me in mismatched pants and a long-sleeved shirt underneath the dress. As fall led to the colder days of winter, more layers of shabby odds and ends would be added in an effort to keep warm.

  “Feri,” she addressed me with my nickname, “don’t you have anything better to wear?” She made a face.

  She knew our financial situation; after all, we lived in the same house as one family. As the eldest, she was in charge of the household allowance. I knew that. I recognized this as an indirect way of criticizing my mother and felt my usual pang of insecurity that came when the two women I loved used me as a tool against one another. I tried to evaluate the situation, averting my eyes. In an Iranian gesture, I threw my head back for a “no.”

  “Anything cleaner?” She squinted her eyes. When no answer came, she sighed, “Run and ask your mother.”

  I hesitated, fearing my mother’s anger that would undoubtedly come.

  “Well, do you want to go out or not? I can stop by your aunt’s house and take one of your cousins if you don’t.”
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  She knew I was dying to go out, to get out of the lonely house. I tiptoed to my mother, who was still in the same position I had left her, in the backyard washing the dirty clothes in a large, soapy aluminum wash tub. I could see her back, bent and rounded. Her short curly hair was a mess in need of a haircut. Her hands were rough and raw from the rubbing and contact with cheap soap. Her dirty, deeply cracked heels hung out of a pair of rubber flip-flops. I couldn’t bear to watch them. She was sitting there alone, in silence, mumbling stuff to herself, just stuff. I felt sorry for her, for her hard work, for her loneliness. My job was to hang the wash on the clothesline, and part of me felt ashamed for leaving her by herself. At the same time, I hated her for creating such emotions in me.

  I swallowed hard and asked, “Maman, is there anything clean for me to wear?” She turned, obviously embarrassed to have been caught complaining to herself, and looked at me with a child’s eyes, vulnerable, hurt.

  “Going out with your grandmother, haa?” she mumbled.

  I stood there, not knowing what to say, hating her and pitying her. She pointed to another dress hanging on a tree without looking at me and disappeared again into her own world. I grabbed the dress, changed quickly, threw the dirty one on the pile next to her, and happily ran back to my grandmother.

  Khanom-bozorg pointed to a large sugar cone sitting on the mantel to be brought to her. I pressed the heavy piece against my stomach as I carried it and laid it down on a large flowery napkin. She tied two opposite corners on top of the cone and then the other two. It was a pretty package. I was curious to know what it was for, but knew not to ask any questions. I didn’t want to be called a verag. The despicable adjective was attached to me, and I couldn’t cleanse myself of its negative connotation. Adults didn’t appreciate too many questions from children; I had learned to draw information by deciphering the circumstances and by listening and watching. I knew we had to be heading to a simkha, a happy event, since the sugar cone was used as a gift for such occasions.

  Khanom-bozorg adjusted a white calico chador with tiny black polka dots on her head, making sure the sides were of equal length. I picked up the gift and followed her. We walked down the old stone stairs to the yard and stopped by my mother’s station. While my grandmother gave her instructions for the day’s chores, I refused to make eye contact with Maman, refused to feel like a traitor. I was heading out for adventure and would not allow anyone to ruin it for me.

  My grandmother and I walked down the narrow alleyways of the mahaleh. Khanom-bozorg gathered and lifted her chador when she reached a small puddle in the middle of the road, and held its top corners with her teeth to keep it from slipping down her head and disgracing her. She cussed from under her breath, “May they meet the washer of the dead!” She stopped, turned sideways, and made herself as small as possible to avoid any contact with a man passing through. “It’s hard enough to walk down the alley without touching the walls. It’s so narrow. How is one supposed to stay clean in this place?” She bent her head and added her own spit to the dirty water.

  We stopped by the Great Synagogue, put our lips on its heavy wooden doors, made a wish, and kissed it. On my grandmother’s request, I ran inside to give the old homeless woman living there a few rials. Her fragile, wrinkled frame was bundled up in a black chador as she sat in a corner of the yard trying to soak up the warmth of the morning sun. “May God give you a good life for remembering this forgotten old woman,” she said.

  This was a good beginning. My grandmother’s face had a glow now that I loved. We stopped by the public water spouts, where she was greeted by women drawing water. “Khebeen, khesheen?” They asked of each other’s health in Judi, a language spoken only by Shirazi Jews, which I understood but did not speak.

  “Shalomalekhem, shalomalekhem,” may God be with you, everyone said, as if the two words were only one—none knew Hebrew and the words had become an extension of Judi. I watched and listened, invisible. They stood in a tight circle, heads together whispering secrets, looking like a pyramid of patchwork quilt.

  When the women finally tore apart, we continued the trip to the deeper sections of the mahaleh, places I did not recognize. We stopped and asked for directions many times. I started to wonder if we would ever find the place or make the event in time. We stopped by a pair of small wooden doors in the mazes of alleyways. “Where’s the house of Maryam, daughter of Yehuda, the grocer, the wife of Raheem, the carpet man who has a shop by the Karim-khan Bazaar?” my grandmother asked. We were pointed to the direction of another alleyway but were soon lost again in the crossroads of narrow passes. Khanom-bozorg clutched the brass doorknob to another house, but before she could knock, the door opened. She gossiped with the women inside, then asked for directions. Alluding to the event that we were attending, the woman said, “Always good occasions.”

  My grandmother responded, “May happiness come your way too.”

  A little later, Khanom-bozorg stopped by a kiosk crowded with half-filled burlap bags of split yellow beans, short-grain rice, whole turmeric, and odds and ends of the household—charcoal, short home-made brooms, and knick-knacks that were jammed into a small corner of a wall. She asked the shopkeeper where Maryam lived. But she didn’t leave without asking for the price of the dried limes and powdered sumac and complaining that they were too expensive. The sugar cone was getting heavier at each stop.

  Finally, we were there. The house was like most homes in the mahaleh, with a small sturdy door opening to a narrow walkway that ended with another set of heavy doors. We entered the house through its courtyard paved with bricks and the usual little pool in the middle, now temporarily covered with a piece of plywood and a kilim on which the musicians were to perform later. Men were busy spreading worn-out Persian carpets on the floor of the yard. I imagined the wedding party, families sitting cross-legged on the carpets, the musicians playing Persian drums and violin, women ululating and singing wedding songs.

  Like any traditional Iranian home, the living quarters surrounded the courtyard, each section having a basement, a first-floor living area, and an attic. When male members of the family married and had children, they would be entitled to a section if the house had enough rooms. Otherwise, they had to share the space with their parents and other siblings.

  I followed my grandmother up the stairs and into a room crowded with women, and surrendered the sugar cone to a woman who seemed to be the bride’s mother. We took off our shoes at the door and lined them up by the wall as the etiquette required. A few pillows were piled up on top of a blanket in the far corner of the room. I wondered if we there to watch someone sleep. Was that possible? I watched the women draped in colorful chadors, covering their mouths with a fabric-wrapped hand when listening and uncovering their lips when pouring out the words.

  I stood on a chair by the exit, watching the women’s backs. The mother of the bride entered holding her daughter’s elbow, and walked through a path that the women opened for them. The bride had light cocoa skin with a nap of soft black hair on her upper lip and full, connected eyebrows; the bandandaz would surely take care of the facial hair. She was unadorned and natural in a modest dress. Her black shoulder-length hair barely moved as she walked. Her feet were bare like those of the rest of us. Her eyes, dark and shy, avoided eye-contact with the spectators. Without a covering, her hair and body were there for everyone to judge.

  Women unveiled their mouths slightly and murmured to each other. My grandmother whispered to the woman next to her, “She is najeeb, chaste-looking.”

  The woman answered back, “Poor thing. She is so shy.”

  Khanom-bozorg added, “She is dark, but it’s all right. She has ‘salt,’ she has charm.”

  The bride’s mother helped her lean against the pillows. A person in the back of the room warned, “Cover the windows, cover the windows!”

  But someone from the groom’s family complained, “There isn’t enough light.”

  A woman wearing a light brown chador with pink fl
owers opened the door a crack and ordered everyone to leave the yard. I couldn’t see anything over the head of the women, so I bent down to look through their feet. Two women knelt by the young bride-to-be, took off her panties, spread her legs apart, and leaned down to examine her.

  One plain dark-blue figure said, “Look, here it is.”

  The voices from the groom’s side protested, “Where is it, where? We can’t see anything.”

  Finally all the women managed to see whatever there was to see. They dressed the bride, who was shaking too hard to manage the job herself, and began to sing: “Kililili.” Their ululating voices signaled the completion of the task. There was going to be a wedding. The courtyard filled again with men hurrying about. Someone walked in with trays of sour cherry sharbat. Everyone insisted that the bride should be first to drink.

  The bride looked flushed and unsteady on her feet. Her mother consoled her, “Don’t worry, dear. It’s done!”

  The sound of ululation in the small room was deafening. My grandmother pushed me to leave the room, congratulating the two families. “A good fortune,” she blessed the bride.

  Another woman added, “May she be blessed with wealth and happiness.”

  My grandmother and I left first since we were in the back, put our shoes on, and headed down the stairs. She asked others to point out the groom.

  Covered in sweat, the groom was helping the other men set up the chairs. He looked old to me. Though he had covered the baldness on top of his head with a long strand of hair from the right side, it had moved to his forehead, leaving the bald spot bare. He had a big smile that showed small yellow teeth.

  My grandmother blessed the groom, “Don’t worry. Everything is fine. May you grow old together.”

  Another woman chimed in, “Mazal tov, congratulations! Next year may you have a son in your arms.”

  The groom blushed and bowed in a gesture of gratitude. I had never seen a man turn color in shyness. Maybe he was going to be a good husband, I thought. The two of us, short and tall, headed for home. I was content. I felt a deep love for my grandmother, who had shared her outing with me, although at the time I was not quite sure what it all meant. I was also pleased not to have the burden of the sugar cone. As we maneuvered our way through the busy alleyways, I felt tired, and a bit worried. The image of women gathered by the waterspouts and at the ceremony contrasted sharply with the picture of my mother’s lonely figure at home—a picture I had successfully managed to forget for a while.