Yesterday I had your dream - Part 5

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Yesterday I had your dream - Part 5
by Temporary Bride
27-Aug-2010
 

We knew that we didn’t have very long to stay here, in one place. The peasant, village boys who made up the lower ranks of the religious police would soon begin scouring the riverbanks for signs of illicit behaviour, jostling for bribes to avoid a trip to the police station. The spoiled, unmarried girls were perhaps even worse. Unloved and unclaimed, they roamed the pavements in groups three or four strong, arms locked and giggling in vicious whispers. The only way to have any privacy or to elude the threat of arrest was through a routine of constant movement - coffee shops, small shaded parks, and quiet tea houses. Each day became a circuit of stolen moments, whispered conversations and hands snaked together. 

Sometimes we were lucky and could manage an hour. The man who ran the halim shop let us monopolize a table at the back for as long as we wanted, eating his dense, turmeric-stained purees from a flat, styrofoam tray. At the beryooni shop we were less fortunate, its owner regarded me from over his scorched iron cooking drum and told Vahid he didn’t want any trouble. Thrusting warm, oily packets of sheep’s stomach fried with cinnamon and almonds into our hands he shooed us away, forcing us to eat from our laps perched on some ruined, forgotten building. Luckily for us in Esfahan there were many such places, and if we kept perfectly still the elderly men and women who lived in the quarters that we frequented at night could be reliably counted on to pass us by, keeping us in the shadows of their diminishing eyesight.

The worst was the goodbyes each night. It was then that I understood that I loved him. I fetched an overnight bag from his belongings kept under my bed - a clean t-shirt, a toothbrush, barbari spread with honey from Ali’s kitchen. We’d meet in the side alley near my guesthouse and say goodnight for hours before he’d begin the two hour journey from shared taxi to shared taxi, to reach his uncle’s apartment on the outskirts of the city. One night, we listened to the patrol of Ali’s footsteps, the creak of his door, the eventual turning off of the lights in the corridor and spent the night in my bedroom. It was our second sex together, on the mattress on the stone floor. 

“Yesterday I had your dream and I dreamt that you were my wife,” Vahid said. “That you loved me the most and we were peaceful together.”

He was interrupted by a loud shriek.  "Listen to how romantic they are speaking!" exclaimed a chubby girl with a loud mane of hair who gestured in our direction. Her cheeks were streaked with violent rouge and she had tiny, cheap-looking diamonds glued into her eyelashes. The group of girls behind her erupted into peals of exaggerated laughter and I fought the urge to smack the satisfied grin off her plastic, doll-like face.

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more from Temporary Bride
 
Monda

So Sweet and Gentle

by Monda on

You could see past his insecurities with your sweet gentle humanity, at that young age. You understood Vahid, even though you came from very different backgrounds. What a lucky man he was/ is (?).

TB, You know so much about Esfahan that most people my generation never discovered. I went there maybe three times in different stages of my life in Iran. I'm learning much about the local cultures through your writings. 


Jahanshah Javid

:)

by Jahanshah Javid on

Very nice.


Faramarz

Eat-Drink-Man-Woman

by Faramarz on

 

A Permanent Groom for a Temporary Bride!

I really enjoy how you always mix food and romance!

Secret love at a Halim Shop! You can’t top that.

And the intrigue of being discovered is like sneaking into a girl friend’s house who lives with her parents; a redneck father with a shotgun, a hostile Doberman, and a squeaky bed!


yolanda

....

by yolanda on

Great writing! You paid attention to every little minute details! Very observant! I got to read previous episodes, also.

It sounds like dating is some kind of stealth mission in Iran.....you have to be defensive, evasive, and secretive, acting like James Bond!

Thank you for sharing!

P.S. It is exciting to fall in international love!