FICTION

PART 10 (part 1) (part 2) (part 3) (part 4) (part 5) (part 6) (part 7) (part 8) (part 9) (part 10) (part 11)

From: Ms. Firoozeh L.
132567 C…… Avenue
Canoga Park, CA
USA

July 4

To: Mrs. Sedigheh M….
186 Khiabane K…., Plaque B-2
Tehran, IRAN

Dear Khaleh joon,

I am writing to you on one of the most important dates of American history, the day when this country celebrates its independence with fireworks, food, family and friends. There is a level of excitement in the air that reminds me of our own Norooz, where everyone in the street is so happy and giving each other these twinkling looks and bright smiles, on their way home to have a good time. But tonight, I am neither at a party nor am I hosting guests. I am sitting at home alone. Yes, Shahab is here too. He is in the living room watching T.V. and drinking his beloved Vodka. As I have said, I am alone.

Forget tonight: We have never had any guests over. Shahab has not invited anyone or introduced me to any of his co-workers or friends (if he has any!). He is obsessed with people finding out “what goes on” in his private life.” Why? What is he so afraid of? And there is no use arguing about it, you know how he gets!

Of course, it’s not like I have a long list of friends and relatives waiting to drop by for tea. The only person I know is Maryam and until recently, I had not seen her, not since her party. She called a few times, asking how I was, whether we could get together. I made an excuse to get off the phone as soon as possible. So imagine my surprise when she decided to pop in without an invitation! I opened the door and there she was, curly blond hair flowing in the wind, eyes hidden behind a ginormous pair of pink tinted sunglasses and brightly painted pink lips to match.

-- “Salam Firoozeh Khanoom”, she said casually, as if she had been to my home a thousand times. “I was starting to get worried about you. Thought you dropped dead or something.”

I think I actually started shaking, thinking what Shahab’s reaction was going to be. Needless to say he was furious. He made every effort to be rude. He went in the bedroom and slammed the door. Then, when I went in there to plead with him to come out and show some respect to our guests, he actually started shouting that he did not have to show respect to some jendeh-ye do gherooni. He grabbed the car keys and left in a huff, without a look backwards. I had to use every ounce of will I had to show my face to Maryam. To my surprise, she did not seem offended at all. She actually started giggling.

-- “You must not need any sugar to cook my dear, your husband’s tongue is syrupy enough to sweeten any meal!” She laughed, while lighting her cigarette.

When she offered me one, for the first time in my life, I accepted. Why stop there, I thought, enraged at the spectacle Shahab had made of us, once again. So I turned off the kettle and poured some of his beloved Vodka in the tea glasses I had initially set for us. Yes, Khaleh, that is what I have been reduced to. A woman who smokes and drinks. Shahab has left no room for my dignity.

-- “Khob, dokhtar joon,” Maryam began, looking around our apartment like she had smelled something bad, “Begoo bebinam, in che khooneh zendegieh ke baraye khodett dorost kardi? In che shohariyeh ke kardi?”

Dear old Maryam! No matter her physical transformation as “Debbie”, the new sensation of the Los Angeles-based Persian pop scene, she still remained essentially the same. As blunt as always.

-- “Khob”, I replied sheepishly, “Not everyone is as lucky as you to have married such a kind and generous man, Khanoom.”

-- “What the hell does luck have to do with it?”, She exclaimed quite vividly, “Nakheyr Khanoom Joon, believe me when I tell you, everything I have got today, I worked damn hard for, and I deserve it. Haghameh ke gereftam!”

I listened to her story with fascination. Reza, whom I met at her party, is her second husband. Maryam was actually married off when she was way younger, to some half-Arab, half-Iranian real estate tycoon, a business associate of her father’s who lived in Dubai.

-- “Oh that’s right! I heard something along those lines from Poupak and the other girls.” I told her.

The marriage was what you would expect between a millionaire in his forties and a young girl of eighteen. He showered her with expensive gifts and offered her a luxurious life in a huge compound, with servants to cater to her every need. But he was also absent a lot of the time, traveling for business all over the world.

-- “Or at least, that’s what he would have liked me to think”, Maryam snickered, “but I was no fool. I knew that he had mistresses pretty much at every port. So I did not sit back and twiddle my thumbs, waiting to be dumped like my mother had been by my honourable father once he tired of her. I built my own safety nest.”

This was money gathered from women’s only “sales parties” she would hold at the compound. She invited mostly the European and North American wives of local diplomats and corporate chiefs and sell them at discount everything from her Bulgari diamonds to her Paris and Milan-bought designer couture, to knick-knacks gathering dust at the estate’s immense storage facility.

-- “Nasser would buy skis by the dozen! Treadmills, televisions, scooters, you name it. And then, he would forget. But I didn’t.” She gushed triumphantly.

Maryam did not stop there. She regularly dipped into the credit cards her husband provided her for her whims. She would buy furs, and jewellery and other expensive stuff and then go return them for cash, working out a deal with the store clerks who would get a small cut in return for “helping her out.” There were lots of other things she did, all helping to earn her quite a nice little fortune. During that time, she even took a lover, an American real estate developer who advised her on how to invest her money.

-- “The day I sold the lands I had bought for triple their value, that’s the day when I told Nasser, Adios!”

She fled to the United States where she asked for refugee status, claiming that her husband was an Islamic fundamentalist with terrorist links who would have her decapitated if she ever returned. She lived in New York for a while with her American lover before deciding it was “too boring” and moving to Los Angeles. She pretty much implied she slept her way through the Tehran-Geles scene in order to jump-start her career as a pop singer. Reza was one of the men whom she met during her days as a party girl. He actually fell in love with her and convinced her to marry him, with the promise that he would finance her musical career.

-- “From when I was a child, I always admired the American pop singers.”, she reminisced fondly, “I knew I had to get to Hollywood one day and make it. So I did.”

-- “Maryam!” I exclaimed “When did you ever have those aspirations? We all thought you aspired to be the real Maryam Moghaddas, not Madonna from MTV!”

-- “Oh Firouzeh, you are so naïve”, she teased me, “That whole chador yek cheshmi, holier than thou routine, that was my life jacket. And I knew by becoming a good little girl with her nose always in the Koran and talking about visions of the Prophet in my dreams, that was the way I could get to my father. My father was this really rough and tough businessman but deep down, he felt terribly guilty because of all the people he had swindled out of their money. The older he got, the more likely he thought he was going to die and end up in Jahanam. So I became kind of like his security blanket. If he could make a daughter like me, who surely was saintlier than all the martyrs who had gone to heaven, then he would have his place assured in Behesht.”

She drank another shot of vodka straight down, without batting an eye. Then, she went on:

-- “It’s so stupid, Firoozeh, but it’s like that. Men are so easily manipulated. Especially the older they get. Pashmashoon meereezeh. From lions roaring to little cats purring into the palm of your hand. They become afraid of the after-life all of a sudden, after a lifetime drinking aragh during namaz jomeh. It wasn’t that hard becoming Haj Mohsen’s favourite, even winning over my stepmother for his affections. And I don’t regret it one bit. I did what I had to do to survive. I saw how he destroyed my mother and forgot about all her children when he married his second wife. All except for me. Because I knew how I could get to him."

She took a long drag of her cigarette before continuing.

-- “As a woman, you have to learn first and foremost to be a good actress. That is, if you want to succeed in your life. Over there, I had to play Maryam Moghaddas for my father, for my teachers, and yes, even for my friends, lest they betray me. In Dubai, I played the young, innocent, frivolous wife. Here, I played the downtrodden female refugee from the scary lands of the Middle-East. Now it pleases me to play Debbie, the hottest singer Tehran-Geles has ever seen.”

She looked at me pityingly and asked:

-- “And you, Firoozeh, how long are you going to keep playing the role of the miserable wife?”

I did not know how to answer her and I looked away. When Maryam left, she pleaded with me that if I ever needed to, I should call her and she would help me. I had been her only true friend when we were children growing up, etc. I wondered after she left if that too was an act on her part. But I suppose all of us need something real, no matter how small, to hold on to while we are busy playing all these roles.

I don’t know, Khaleh. I am still so dumbfounded by that conversation. If I am playing a role, it is news to me. Maybe I am playing it without even being aware of it. What do you think? And what do you think Shahab’s role is in all this? As usual, I am leaving you with more questions than answers.

Outside, the fireworks are exploding in the sky and the sound of laughter and celebration are pervading the air. It is as if the happiness of all those people outside is mocking me, sitting here all alone wondering who my husband really is and more importantly, who I really am.

If you have any answers for me, please let me know Khaleh Joon. You are the one who has always known me the best.

I leave you with my tender kisses,

Firoozeh ... >>> part 11

(part 1) (part 2) (part 3) (part 4) (part 5) (part 6) (part 7) (part 8) (part 9) (part 10) (part 11)