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This story is about an adult subject. If you are under 18
and happen to read this, talk to an adult afterwards. And ask lots of questions. Sarvenaz diaries -- Part 3Poolside swing Never one to be afraid of a dare By Sarvenaz February 15, 2002 The Iranian I sat at the breakfast table with my mom and her friend Mehri Joon. We sipped on tea prepared by Zeynab Khanom, the ancient lady, who had been my naneh. I love Iranian breakfasts. The sangak bread, fresh from the bakery at the bottom of our alley, Bulgarian feta cheese, moist, crumbly and just a touch pungent, and morabaaye albaaloo or sour cherry preserve that Mehri joon my mom's close friend and recognized-by-all culinary magician, had prepared, she said, especially for me. But I think her son's fancy of the stuff had something to do with this labor of love in a jar. Together this combination of the crisp bread, white feta and ruby sweet morabaa, and the sweet tea, make a heavenly balanced symphony of tastes and textures. This breakfast quartet, like Iranians themselves is full of contradictions: at once sweet and sour, crispy and liquid. Ardeshir was coming back soon from America. Mehri joon, ever the proud and competitive mom, could not stop talking about her darling boy's myriad of achievements. It seems that after getting his engineering degree at Amherst, the prodigious son had tried his luck at different inventions. He had, in the end, designed a kind of computer chair that took pressure away from the back muscles. It had become an instant design success. He was now producing it by the thousands. He could not make enough of these computer chairs, the things sold so fast. So Ardeshir khan, the little boy with the glasses, whom I used to chase with a frog in hand down our alley, had become a dollar millionaire. The most coveted of characteristics in the heavily trafficked Tehran marriage market. "They will be at him like vultures," I thought of the nose job brigade with their perfectly sculptured eyebrows and tattooed lips. The latest fashion that summer was to tattoo and outline the eyes, eyebrows and lips permanently. These tattoos did need constant touching up with real make up. The result of this was that when the ladies, lucky to benefit from this procedure, where not in full make up, it looked awful like many days old cheap makeup. These tattooed ladies, sans maquillage, looked like transvestite prostitutes after a hard night of work and abuse in the Bois de Boulogne. I had a friend who could tell who got their nose job where just by looking at it. Another result of this hysteria of plastic and cosmetic surgery was that they, the women who had it done, all looked the same. Big dark eyes, perfectly sculpted eyebrows a little lightened to "bring out the eyes", and totally out of place Swedish noses, framed with a fountain of thick Persian hair, which could come in a variety of colors and highlights but still not lose its, "I am black at the roots", identity. The nose job brigade looked like beautiful genetically modified, mongrels. It was like having the Stepford wives meet the Boys from Brazil in Tehran. "Sarvenaz joon, begoo bebinam, America khosh meegzareh?" ("Sarvenaz darling, tell me are you having fun in America?") I told her that I was really enjoying it and that I would get my degree next semester's end. She told me not to take too long because I would miss out on life. I knew what that meant. Then as if to give me hope she told me that I looked much better than last year because I had lost some weight. I smiled and nodded saying food is the worse addiction. Mehri joon said, as if to comfort me, "every one who goes to the America comes back fat." She was about to embark on the story of how Akhtar Khanom had gained thirty kilos in Texas. But I kissed her, thanked her for the morabaa, and told her that I had to go upstairs and get ready to go shopping with Leila. She nodded smiling as I ran up the stairs proud of myself for having gotten out of Mehri joons powerful conversational web without having offended her. She was not just a great chef but a top-notch orator as well. Leila was going to take me to Shirin's antique kilim gallery. I love old kilims and was determined to get one for my lower east side studio apartment before I left. I kissed my mother and Mehri joon and promised to go to lunch on Friday. Her son Ardeshir will be there and so will his best friend Jamshid, "who is such a success and so nice." I wondered what she would think if she knew about the fantasy (link) I had before coming to breakfast about Nader, Mrs. Sadri's also very ėnice' boy in Paris. I always wondered how Leila managed to keep her scarf on the slippery mid section of her hair without it ever falling. She carried herself with the same awe-inspiring efficiency that she ran her house. She was tall, heavy boned, and good-looking. Nose job yes, tattoo no. She was my maternal cousin. Our moms where sisters. Leila was seven years older than me. As kids she used to make me and the other younger cousins line up and pretend she was a schoolteacher and we were her students. I still remember how she would line us up against the wall and pretend she was whipping us for one or the other school infraction. She never hit us. Just pretended. But I remember a tingling sensation, as I would stand against that wall with my back to her waiting in delicious anticipation for the "tshhh" sound that she made when she brought the imaginary whip down. Leila had always been very girly and I had been quiet a tomboy, so we never did become great friends. We hung out together but she always had that older sister togetherness that shut me out. I would often just sit back and let her take the lead. She was the best tour guide driving through the crowded streets and back allies of Tehran like a cab driver. She still drove that old BMW. In Iran even if you are wealthy you do not change cars that easily. It is probably the only country in which a car's price actually appreciates with time. She had Googoosh blasting. I told her, "shhhhhhhhhhh, meegeeranemoon,"("shhhhhh, they will bust us".) "Shomaa bacheh amrikaaeeya tarsoo hasteen." ("You American kids are cowards") It was true that not living in a police state most of the year does make you a bit more timid about being arrested for music or booze or nail polish than the locals. The Iranians who live here show their refusal to be completely subjugated, in these small gestures of resistance; every time they turned that volume up, pushed that hair scarf back a little more they restored a small piece of their egos. I, perhaps naively, believed that I did not need that kind of affirmation. I was, after all, neither of the west nor of the east, neither Hindu nor... Rumi and Margaret Mead informed my identity, the keen observer of tribal customs the wandering poet everywhere and nowhere at home that is who I wanted to be. I wore a maghnae (scarf) and a navy roopoosh (plain long dress). The kind the schoolgirls wear. I was much more comfortable with the rubber band on the maghanaeh that just tucked in the back and held the damn thing in place. That way I could forget about being forced by decree to wear it. The more fashionable roosari, needing to be adjusted every two seconds, only served to constantly remind one of its' shameful, forced presence. I smiled at Leila letting her take me with her old beamer up the dusty roads of my childhood city feeling both at one and separated from it. Driving up Jaadeh Ghadeem, I stared at the Alborz Mountains rising splendidly through the thick haze of pollution as if reaching for a better place. Leila turned down the music and turned to me, "if I tell you something you have to swear you will not tell anyone." I assured her and told her that if I had not broken a promise all these years I was not about to do it now. She lit up a Marlboro Light at a red light and said, "I'm having an affair." "You're kidding?" I replied not very surprised since this was her third affair since her marriage to Jafar. I thought that it was terrible that she did not even have the decency to keep her mouth shut about it. Jafar, poor man, deserved a modicum of respect. She had met Jafar in Boston when she was studying at Emerson College and he was at MIT. They had been together for five years until they returned to Iran and married. Jafar started working at the University and running his own architecture firm. They had been unable to have children. Some said it was Leila and some thought it was Jafar who had the problem. No one knew for sure. Leila claimed that she did not really want children and I believed her. "Guess who it is," she asked again. I told her that I had not a clue. She replied impatient with my total lack of social acumen, "he was at the parteeeeeeeeeeeee." Was I being reprimanded for not having noticed with whom she flirted? I assured her that I did not, under any circumstances, have any ideas about the identity of her new lover. "Open road on the landscape of death / Alone with Kings once made of stone turning to dust..." She started reciting Banani's poem. "Oh my God, its the poet? That Banani?" "He writes me a poem each time we have sex. After we're finished," Leila replied as if that was a good enough reason for adultery. "He writes it on your buttocks no doubt," I said sounding bitchier than I wanted. "He has a beautiful pen and a quick tongue." She was boasting about cunnilingus with Banani? "But Leila, how could you? He's ugly and old AND a bad poet. He has a nice wife. Jafar is so much better." "Oh come on Sarvenaz, he's so incredibly gifted, and sensitive. And Goli, well if he was not with me he would be with some young gold digger which would be worse," explained Leila. "Oh great" I replied a bit fed up, "now you are making it seem like a charitable act! Hatman meekhaay begee savaabam daareh." I decided that arguing against Leila's libido would be useless. She had a strange proclivity for ugly, older men. The contrast made her look better maybe. Maybe it was some sort of beauty and the beast complex. I did not understand why she had married, handsome, kind and noble, Jafar. He seems to have been her way of claiming legitimacy before going on the eternal night prowl to seduce other women's husbands and boyfriends. Or maybe she just has a great sexual appetite that no one man could ever satisfy. But Banani? How could that man ever satisfy anybody? I thought of Goli and a sadness swept over me. All that beauty in the hands of a bad poet who is an adulterer as well! Oh the unjust ways of the world. The Gallery was located in a step-up empty apartment, the kind you find in the side streets of Shemiran with huge iron cast front doors and old ff speakers to the side. It was big with large windows allowing the mid-morning sun to pour in through the gaps of the shades. The kilims were piled high against the walls. In the middle of the room there were samples of different kilims thrown around pell-mell. There was the smell of dust mixed with Angel, Shirin's perfume, in the air. Shirin came to us all smiles. In a nicely fitted old Qajar robe tied with a multi colored rope the kind they used to tie a donkey's load. Antique clothing from the Qajar period was in vogue. She called out for Ali Agha to bring tea and showed us to the sitting area in the corner. We sat down and chatted for a good half hour over tea and Marlboro Lights before she started showing me some kilims. We talked about her boyfriend who had made her a sigheh so they could come and go with out the fear of being caught. It used to be a shame to become someone's sigheh, in our society, it still was. But since the Islamic Revolution, for the men and women who wanted to have relations without the hassle of the moral police or the commitment of a full-fledged marriage, temporary marriage or Sigheh was now the only option. Still it was not something you would announce or wish for yourself or your daughter no matter how old, widowed or divorced she was. Ali Agha came to flip one after another of Shirin's beautiful kilims. I could have looked at them forever. They were not just carpets these old pieces. They had soul. Their naïve patterns and simple design revealed an aesthetic simplicity that is lost in the ugly, crowded, Tehran of today. Their rich colors that have survived so many years contain so much of their original vivacity that they make you smile, give you hope. Indeed, I thought to myself, as I bathed my eye in the splendid colorful beauty of these rugs, if these humble kilims, originally made for less illustrious purposes than the grand Persian carpets, can retain so much color, after so many years of being trampled, then maybe there is hope for us Iranians to survive this ėnew & improved' repressive regime. I smiled and thanked Ali Agha as he reached the bottom of the last pile and stood up to take a drag of his cigarette that had miraculously stayed hanging between his lips despite his bent position. His scrawny body looked like it had a permanent curve as a result of years of turning carpets. His eyes smiled from behind the permanent puddles of liquid that covered them. I had seen many loyal servants like Ali Agha growing up in Iran. Regimes changed but the Ali Aghas stayed the same. Shirin had a story about how she had found each of these pieces. I was very impressed by her incredible taste, drive and her professional handling of her business. Her husband had a car crash on his way back from the Caspian and died two years ago. She had been left to take care of her two children alone. She had never worked before in her life. Her parents helped her. They sold their car so that she could start this business with her small collection of kilims. Now she was making lots of money selling ėtribal culture' to the Tehran new rich. The other day she told me the son of Ayatollah so and so had come and bought ten of them as if it was nothing. They say he is preparing his Swiss chalet for eventual retirement, or escape, which ever comes first. If all the mollas just left for Switzerland it would be fabulous I thought to myself and smiled. What was amazing to me was that the antique tribal look had spilled over to the Aghazadeh class as well. Oh the leveling power of fashion! I loved all the kilims and simply could not decide. So I told her that I would have to come back when I had made up my mind. We kissed the air good bye and pretended it was each other. Leila asked me to go back to her house for lunch. She told me that she would have to go for her massage therapy after lunch, winking. "How gross," I thought. Every time I spent some time with Leila it became apparent to me again, why I disliked her. It was just that she had this air of arrogant sexuality coupled with a pride in her own hypocrisy, which was physically repelling to me. There is a type of woman in our society who is proud of being a seductress. She flaunts this ability to fool and manipulate as if it were a god given gift, a talent that is somehow essential and necessary for survival as a woman. These women saw themselves as sitting at the top of the female hierarchy of prestige and power. They after all, possessed what all of us, no doubt, desired the most: the ability to seduce and hold onto to a man or many men as in the case of Leila. They looked upon us, poor ordinary women who did not possess such talent for seduction, as either provincial bumpkins, simple spinsters or as quasi-men, eternal tomboys so naïve at the game of seduction that we had to be dressed up, coached, and led by them. I always had Leila lecturing me about the ways of the world, and I listened politely: Margaret Mead ready to decipher a tribal language or the little tomboy who knows more about soccer than boys. But to her a pitiable female not worthy of elevation to the state of woman hood because of her total lack of seductive powers. Maybe that was why Jafar's glances were deliciously heart-melting last night: they underlined in a real way that Leila was wrong. The little tomboy can be desirable as can Margaret Mead! The Tehran heat and the maghnae and roopoosh were getting to me. Maybe heat does have something to do with devilish thoughts! A splash in the pool and all would be better. Leila turned the car into the gateway of their house and honked the horn three long times. The new gardener they had hired and brought over from the Caspian opened the gates with a beaming smile. As we pulled up the circular curve of their drive and stopped by the pool, Jafar emerged, dripping and Greek godlike, and opened my door. His body was tanned, and his stomach was flat. He had broad shoulders of a swimmer and a height that was considered fortunate amongst Iranians. The boxer type drawstring swimsuit that he wore was loose on his hip, as if toying with the possibility of falling and revealing what was inside. The summer heat had gotten to me and I felt faint. I stepped out of the car and tried to steady myself. Jafar took off my maghnae and told me it was okay to take it off now that we were home, as if I did not know, he was always teasing, treating me like a foreigner. Leila said, "You are home early? Chee shod baaz kassi cancel kard?" (What happened some one canceled again?") "Na. Meedonestam Sarvenaz meeyaad zood oomadam khooneh," ("I knew Sarvenaz would be coming so I came home early.") "Well we are not going to stay long we have massage appointments!" said Leila as I cringed, sorry that I had become unwittingly an accessory to crime. "I brought Jamshid here to meet Sarvenaz," said Jafar looking at me with smiling eyes. My heart fell and a gloom took over me like a sudden summer storm. I did not want Jafar becoming one of my matchmakers! I looked at the hair on his stomach that reached his bathing suit and continued from there to that place unseen, and thought I would die. The heat, the blue reflection of the pool and the memory of the dust from the old kilims in my nostrils all came together and made me feel dizzy. I took off my roopoosh and ran inside to change into my bathing suit. I was always a bit too bottom heavy for a bikini. But I had great breasts and had no problem making the most of them. So I wore a simple turqoise blue suit that was tight on the breast and had a big zipper that revealed as much cleavage as one wished or rather willed. I covered myself in a towel robe. I did not want the gardener to run into an almost nude me and the bathrobe, at least, added a layer. Jafar looked at me again reading my mind and laughed, "Don't worry the gardener is gone and no one else is here but Bibi Khanom and us. Or are you afraid of Jamshid and I?" I dropped the bathrobe, never one to be afraid of a dare, and pulled the zipper of my suit down with an exaggerated gesture that made my breasts wobble loose and half-expose themselves and have more effect on the audience than I ever intended. I quickly adjusted to a normal cleavage and walked to the pool and dove in. The cool water washed over me and gave me life. I felt the push of my body against the water; it made me feel like some goddess at one with nature, beautiful and desirable. To let the hair loose and to bare down to the minimum and swim in the strong mid-day sun of Tehran after a day out in the crowded streets is a luxury not many enjoy. That dive into the pool washed in one sweeping swoosh, the burden of all the layers that had come to cover me that day: the dust of centuries old kilims; stories of sad destinies and temporary loves wrapped in the blue smoke of a Marlboro Light. I emerged on the other side of the pool where Jamshid and Jafar were sitting, legs in the water. "That was a nice dive," said Jamshid. I nodded thank you and we exchanged wet handshakes as Jafar introduced us. He was normal weight and height with premature gray hair and these incredible gray blue eyes. His tan and the eyes and hair made him a striking looking guy. Jamshid had gone to MIT at the same time as Jafar. Now he lived in the San Francisco Bay Area and worked in product development for some big company or the other. He was very easy going and had a sweet smile. He talked to me rather than at me, which was refreshing. We chatted as though we had known each other for years while as we sipped on the cold Budweiser (smuggled but date not expired) that Jafar had brought us. "Have you seen the new Kubrick movie?" "Yes I found it to be very sensual, sexy really," I replied and we continued this way, Jafar having left us, for a good hour until we were called by Leila to come to Lunch. We had lunch inside, in our bathing suits, in the big kitchen. I had maast-o-khiaar with walnuts and raisins with ice cubes and rose-petals floating in it. Leila controlled the conversation going on and on about how I was good at this and that in full throttle marketing mode. I punctuated her sales pitch with humble denials and protestations that she stop. Then looking at her watch she turned and told me to get ready or we would be late for our appointments. The beers, the wet swimsuit and the company made me not want to move. I told her, "Can I bail out? I just can't face the streets anymore or the iron hands of Anoush khanom." "Stay with us Sarvenaz. Don't you want to see the final of the Champions League?" I would love to I, replied most sincerely. So Leila left and we went to the TV room. I got up to go and change and Jafar told me, "Don't change." I looked at him a bit shocked. "We will go for a swim after," he explained. In the TV room we watched the match. Barcelona against Manchester United: a classic with Rivaldo scoring in the eighty ninth minute to win the match 3-2. I loved the way that Brazilian player played soccer effortlessly like it was a beautiful tangońwith speed, precision and grace. I lost twenty dollars to Jafar having bet on Manchester United. Jamshid looked at his watch and got up to leave for an appointment with one of his father's friends. He told me he would call, kissed me on the cheek with a squeeze of my upper arm and left. I told Jafar that he should call me a cab, because I had to get home. He turned around and told me he had something for me and flashed a joint that he had cupped in the palm of his hand. I told him that I could not go home looking high. He told me it was still early. I did not need much convincing, I rarely turned the offer of a good smoke down. So I followed him to the garden as Bibi Khanoom washed the dishes in the kitchen. Bibi Khanoom liked me. In her eyes, I could never do any wrong. Jafar grabbed the old lady from behind and gave her a big smack on each cheek. She giggled with joy telling him to stop. Did every one melt for Jafar but his wife? I followed him outside around to the side of the house and to the back where there was a gazebo covered in grape leaf with a little fountain in the middle and a swing to the side. We sat on the swing and dragged on the hashish joint staring at the fountain in front of us rocking back and forth. Our legs were touching, I felt his press against mine, or was it my imagination? I did not dare move. My heart that was beating to the slow rhythm of the swing till then started outpacing it. Oh my god what could I do if he actually tried to kiss me? Jafar turned me around and blew his mouthful of smoke into my mouth, which opened in automatic response. I stole the smoke and turned my face away quickly to avoid the inevitable. Or was I just projecting my secret wish onto his perfectly friendly gestures? "Stop analyzing," I said to myself, drag on the joint and avoid everything else." I let my head fall back as if in this way I could avoid all decisions. Jafar went and came back with more beer. I could smell the chlorine still on his body mixed with his beer breath it was distinctively a summer scent. They should bottle it and sell it as men's cologne. I could just see the adverts for it -- Summer: cologne for active men. I took a long swig and felt the beer wash the guilt of illicit desire down my throat. The hashish wrapped us in a haze. He put his head on my lap and I felt light. Like I might faint. I did not know what to do with this head. There laying heavy on my lap. Should I kiss his lips and put an end to my misery. Should I drop his head on the seat and run for sweet life. Should I become like those I despise, engaging in acts I would have to hide? Oh what was to be done with the hash, the beer, and this beautiful cuckolded head on my lap. Tehran in the summer. Leila with Banani. "And where the hell was Goli now? With someone too?" Some how that thought disturbed me. I got up rather abruptly. He followed me as I jumped into the pool. Ah the cleansing quality of a good deep, dive away from sweaty desires of sun stroked afternoons. I came out the other side and before Jafar had time to utter a word I ran inside into the room upstairs. I changed quickly put the maghnae and roopoosh, and headed out the door. "Where are you going?" shouted a stunned Jafar. "I remembered I have to meet Goli Banani. I want to walk she lives only a few blocks away. Thank you I had a great time." I blew a kiss and disappeared afraid of waiting for a response or protestation. The anonymity that the main street provided the minute I turned the corner of their alley was comforting. I was one more maghnae amongst many. No longer the half-zipped girl after other people's husbands in the hashish haze of lazy afternoons. I walked fast and arrived at the door of the Banani home out of breath. The gate was slightly open so I walked in. There seemed to be no one around. I saw Leila's car and stopped. Then out of pure naughtiness I walked up to the house. I called out several times and no one answered. I knew that this must have been the place of appointment. Goli was probably safely out of town in the Lavassan villa. I walked on regressing to the age of twelve when every occasion turned into a riveting spy game. Once upstairs I could here the sound of human life and followed it. The door to the bedroom from where the noise came was closed. I walked onto and around the outdoor balcony, reached that room, and peaked. There was Banani penetrating her from behind with long rhythmic thrust that made her let out a small "Ah" every time he reached her depths. His glasses were still on, though a bit crooked, and he had a hard time holding on to her rather wide girth. Leila was on all fours doggie style. Her garter belt was still on as were her high heel shoes. He finally as if tired of maintaining a civilized rhythm wrapped his arms around her chest squeezing her breast between his desperate-for-a-hold fingers, and started pumping her like an animal. He did this for a little while and then stopped took out his penis squeezed it with one fist and came all over Leila and let out a not so poetic "aahhhhhhhhh oomaadaam." She turned around took a look at a now limp Banani took his glasses and as he went to kiss her she pushed his head down between her legs with more than a little force. He obeyed. It was his turn to play dog. To be continued...
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