Things We Left Unsaid Read online

  It was the Company electrician, come to repair our yard lights. He was a young man I had not seen before, very thin, with a large birthmark on his cheek.

  I accompanied him from one end of the yard to the other so he could test every lamp. At each light he paused to talk, explaining that he was newly employed by the Oil Company, and now that he had a good job, he had decided to marry. From childhood our electrician had fancied his maternal cousin for a wife, so his mother had long ago persuaded her sister to promise him her daughter’s hand. And finally, he arrived at the conclusion that one of the lamps had a short. That much I had figured out myself. Then he said his voltmeter was broken and, God willing, we might have one he could use.

  I was sure we had a voltmeter, but could not find it after searching all through the toolbox. Armen had probably taken it again. I knocked on his door and went in. ‘Do you have the voltmeter?’

  He and Emily were sitting on the desk, their feet swinging over the edge. They both leapt down to the floor. Armen, flustered, said, ‘No, I don’t have it.’

  On my way back to the yard, it occurred to me, ‘Strange way to study!’

  The electrician asked, ‘Can you borrow one from a neighbor?’

  Mrs. Rahimi was in Tehran. Mr. Rahimi would certainly not be home at that time of day. I did not know my other neighbors well enough to feel comfortable asking to borrow something from them. ‘Well, yes. Wait just a minute.’

  I crossed the street and rang the Simonians’ doorbell. Emile would not be back from the Company yet. I was praying that his mother had a voltmeter and would not be out of sorts. Emile himself opened the door. He went to fetch a voltmeter and walked back with me to our yard. ‘Maybe the electrician will need a hand.’ I don’t know why I did not protest at this (at least to make a pretense of being polite and saving him the trouble), and I did not ask myself what he was doing home at this time of day. I was feeling a bit better now. Let Alice build castles in the air. She might not be so dumb after all.

  17

  Emile found the problem with the wiring before the electrician did, and the entire time he was fiddling with the wires, the electrician stood idly by, talking about his marriage and how he might be able to get a house in the Bahmanshir or Pirouzabad neighborhoods, and that, God willing, they would go on pilgrimage to Mashhad after the wedding. In the end, he gathered his stuff, and as he was leaving, he said with a laugh, ‘With a neighbor like the Engineer, here, why call us?’

  He was almost at the gate when I called out, ‘Wait!’

  I ran inside, opened one of the kitchen cabinets and took out a box. I went back to the yard and handed the box to the electrician. He stared at it. ‘Chocolate from the Store?’ His eyes lit up.

  ‘Take it for your fiancée,’ I said. He was delighted. He thanked me and left.

  Emile was watching me. His hands were blackened and dirty, so I invited him inside to wash up. While he washed his hands, I fixed two glasses of Vimto fruit cordial I had bought from the Kuwaiti Bazaar. I was the only one in our household who liked Vimto.

  Stepping into the kitchen, he looked all around. Then he smelled his hands. ‘What fragrant soap, what a pretty kitchen, what a lovely drink.’

  I don’t know why the smell of Vinolia soap reminded me of my father and our house with the dim hallway in Tehran.

  He sat down at the table and looked out the window. ‘You built that ledge yourself, didn’t you? Our kitchen window doesn’t have a ledge.’

  None of the homes in Bawarda had window ledges. We had just arrived in Abadan, and I was pregnant with Armen when Mr. Morteza built the kitchen window ledge for me.

  Emile took a sip of his drink. I expected him to say it was tasty, but he did not. He was still looking out the window. ‘The sweet peas are fading a bit.’

  Mr. Morteza had run his dirt-caked hands over the ledge, which was still covered with brick and mortar dust, and said, ‘This ledge is perfect for sweet peas. Their fragrance will bowl you over.’ I did not know what kind of flower sweet peas were, in fact had never even heard of them before. A couple of weeks after Armen was born, Mr. Morteza came over one day for an unscheduled stop with a flower box fastened to his bicycle rack. He set it on the ledge, adjusted its position, and said, ‘Sweet peas! Just a little something to welcome the newborn.’ It was the first time I had seen the little blue and pink and white blossoms. How did Emile know the names of such flowers?

  ‘I have to change its soil,’ I said.

  He drank the Vimto. ‘I planted sweet peas in Masjed-Soleiman. I’ve ordered soil and fertilizer for our yard here. When it’s delivered, I’ll change the soil in this flower box for you.’

  ‘The Company gardener does that stuff for us,’ I said.

  He put the glass down on the table. The chain around his neck had caught on the top button of his shirt. He untangled it. ‘I like digging in the dirt, the soil, and the roots. Watching something grow that you planted with your own two hands gives you a good feeling, no?’

  A ridiculous smile settled on my lips.

  He laughed. ‘Of course, I’m no green thumb, like you.’

  Seeing my confused expression, he added, ‘I heard from the twins that it was you who grew the flowers you brought my mother that night.’ I felt myself blushing. Was it because he had addressed me with the familiar form of the pronoun ‘you,’ or because I was not used to receiving compliments?

  ‘Did you know that electrician?’ Now he was using the formal form of ‘you’ again.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘That was the first time I saw him. He’s just started work for the Oil Company.’

  He looked at the cross around my neck. ‘So how did you know he’s getting married?’

  I straightened the cross, which had gotten twisted. ‘He told me so.’

  He looked at the sweet peas. ‘I know why. Everyone enjoys talking with you. Talking with you is comfortable.’ He looked at me. ‘A person feels like he’s known you for years.’

  The twins came bouncing and sliding up. ‘Our homework is finished.’ ‘Emily’s not finished yet with her work?’

  It only now occurred to me that I hadn’t heard a peep from Armen’s room for over an hour. As I started to get up, Emily walked in, her math book and a notebook under her arm. Armineh and Arsineh went over and attached themselves to either of her arms.

  ‘Shall we play house?’

  ‘Or jacks?’

  Emily looked at her father. Emile took the last sip of Vimto and set the glass on the tray. ‘Grandmother is all alone. She’s got her headache again. Maybe it’s better if...’

  Armineh cut in, mid-sentence. ‘Well, let grandmother rest. Emily can stay with us.’

  Arsineh said, ‘Well, you can stay, too. That way, grandmother will get a good long rest.’

  Emile chuckled and looked at me. ‘Wouldn’t imposing upon you two nights in a row be quite cheeky?’

  I was sure that he was merely trying to be polite. ‘Stay,’ I said. ‘Artoush, wherever he is, will soon turn up.’ Before the sentence had completely left my mouth, I heard the Chevy come sputtering up our street.

  Armineh and Arsineh jumped up and down. ‘Stay! Stay! Please.’ Then they pinned their eyes on me.

  ‘I’ll telephone Mrs. Simonian,’ I agreed. We had all quickly learned that permission – not only for Emily, but also for her father – rested in the hands of the grandmother.

  I returned Artoush’s greeting while he let the twins climb up his back like it was a tree, and dialed Elmira Simonian’s number, wondering how she would react. Her voice sounded tired and listless. ‘It’s not up to me. They can decide for themselves.’ And she hung up.

  I started making dinner – cutlets and French fries. The unexpected occurrences of that afternoon and my sister’s strange conviction seemed like a long ago memory. What had made me so mad? It wasn’t the first time that Alice had arrived at this kind of decision. There was the Armenian doctor at the hospital, after all. And the brother of a friend who came from Te
hran. The reason I had felt queasy this time was that...

  My self-critical streak butted in: ‘...was that what?’

  I poured the oil in the frying pan. It was that I was tired. It was because...I don’t know. Emile and Artoush were playing chess in the living room, and the children were running around outside in the yard.

  I was thinking about Elmira Simonian as I flipped the cutlets over. Mother had said, ‘Her father’s house was like a palace. More than fifty rooms, a huge garden, servants, and retainers. The nurse who committed suicide was English. They said the lady, despite her dwarfish stature, had a hundred admirers, both before and after marrying. Dashing, debonair European men would come to Isfahan just to see her and attend her fashionable parties.’

  I peeled the potatoes and figured that they must have spun a whole-cloth about her out of a single strand of yarn, the stories sounded so exaggerated. After all, short as she is, how...

  I was trying to imagine Mrs. Simonian in her youth when Armen and Emily, breathless and sweaty, burst into the kitchen. Armen got the pitcher of water out of the fridge and poured some, first for Emily, then for himself. Emily’s hair was sticking to her forehead and her eyes were sparkling. It occurred to me that if the grandmother, in her youth, looked like her granddaughter does now...I put the pitcher, which Armen had left on the counter, back in the fridge...maybe what people said about her is true.

  I plopped the potatoes into the hot oil. Mother had said, ‘What a wedding her poor father threw for his daughter! An orchestra from Tehran, a chef from France. He bought the oldest wines from the cellar of Levon the wine-merchant. He invited a crowd of grandees, from courtiers to foreign ambassadors.’ I turned the potatoes over and thought, after the luxurious life Mother had described her leading, this house in north Bawarda must seem quite contemptible. I remembered the dim empty rooms of the house; the quite expensive and once beautiful tablecloth and cloth napkins; the tarnished, almost black, silverware; and the chipped china. Only the twin candelabras retained their long-ago luster and brilliance, along with that wooden cabinet.

  I was standing over the potatoes so they would not burn, lost in my imagination. Where was Elmira Simonian when she first spread out that cotton tablecloth in her dining room? In her house in Calcutta? Or in her apartment in Paris, which she said was opposite Notre Dame? I remembered the long tablecloth almost touching the floor on all four sides of the table, so it must have been designed for a much larger table, a twelve-person setting maybe, with high-backed plush velvet chairs. The hostess – all made-up, her hair jet black, dressed in a gown with a lace collar, maybe, wearing long earrings to match her heavy diamond necklace – would raise a crystal-cut wine glass to her red lips. Her dark eyes must have sparkled like her granddaughter’s did a few seconds ago, over the rim of the glass.

  Emile’s voice – saying, ‘It smells so good’ – cut off my reverie about his mother’s parties in her youth, and I looked down at the potatoes, which were starting to burn.

  ‘Oh, no!’ I shouted, and without thinking, picked up the hot frying pan with both hands and put it on the counter. I didn’t feel the burn until I let go of the pan. I burned my hands on a regular basis while cooking or ironing, so I was used to the pain of it and did not usually cry out, but this time I could not suppress a yelp. I was drenched in sweat.

  Emile shouted, ‘What have you done to yourself?’ He grabbed my shoulders and led me to the table, pulling out the nearest chair for me. ‘Let me see.’

  I sat down. Why was he using the formal ‘you’ again? I looked down at my palms, turning redder by the second. He poured water in a glass and brought the glass to my lips. ‘Don’t you worry. I’ll take care of it in a moment.’ He set the glass on the table and rushed out of the kitchen. This time he had used the informal ‘you’ again.

  Worse than the pain and the worry about whether I would be able to work with my hands for the next few days, and what I would do about meals tomorrow, and who would wash the dishes, and a dozen other what-will-happens and who-will-do-its, was the muttering of Artoush, who had come running into the kitchen in response to my cry. He was standing over me, grumbling as he always did when such things happened.

  ‘I’ve told you a thousand times to be careful. If the potatoes burn, let them burn! Why don’t you think what you are doing to yourself? Why are you making French fries and cutlets in this heat, anyway? We could have ordered food from somewhere. And don’t worry, restaurant food never killed anyone. You’ve inherited this irrational finickiness from your mother. I wish your sister was half as finicky as you...’

  I tried not to hear it. I had understood years ago that Artoush shows his love for people by chastising them when something happens to them. It was the same thing whenever one of the children fell down or got sick or had a pain somewhere. If he seized the opportunity to criticize Mother and Alice at every turn, that was only because Mother and Alice did the same thing to Artoush. I had long ago learned how to play the role of mediator. He was now walking round and round the table, and around me, talking away. It was making me dizzy, and the burning in my hands was getting worse when Emile returned with a large brown jar. Without a word, he dug his hand into the jar several times and rubbed a cream of some sort, black and somewhat sticky, on both of my palms. Artoush stood silently, watching over us. Eyes fixed on my palms, I suddenly felt very hot, and my hands began to burn once again, as if still stuck to the sides of the frying pan. Then my palms started to throb, until they gradually grew cooler and cooler, and finally the burning and the throbbing stopped. I was drenched in sweat.

  When I raised my head, Emile was watching me with a smile that seemed to say, ‘Didn’t I tell you I would take care of it?’

  18

  The three of us were sitting at the kitchen table. As he peeled potatoes, Emile was explaining the properties of the Indian burn cream. He had dumped the burnt potatoes in the garbage pail, and picked out several fat spuds from the basket near the refrigerator. He was now peeling off the skins, and Artoush was trying to lend a hand. I wondered how many times in his life Artoush had peeled potatoes, and how many times Emile had? Listening to Emile, I was still holding my palms open flat. ‘One of our cooks, who was from the south of India, brought two jars of this cream for my mother many years ago.’

  The twins came running in.

  ‘Ramu?’ I asked, immediately regretting the question. It was an unhappy reminder.

  He put the knife down on the table. ‘It was Ramu’s father.’ He was quiet for a minute, then picked up the knife again. ‘I’ve had it tested several times in different places, and no one was able to figure out the ingredients. They could only say that it contained roots and leaves of various plants, a fact which I had already figured out on my own.’

  Artoush closed the refrigerator door and sat at the table. ‘What did the children want?’ I asked.

  ‘Water,’ he said.

  By the time Artoush had patchily removed the skin from a couple of potatoes, Emile had peeled the rest and cut them into even strips. He poured them into the strainer and got up. ‘Only one member of Ramu’s family knew how to prepare that cream, and he taught it to only one other person before he died.’ He put the strainer in the sink and turned on the faucet. I noticed that when his mother isn’t around, he does not speak so formally.

  The phone rang. In the hallway someone picked up the receiver, and a few moments later, Armen was calling out, ‘Mommmm! Telephone. Mrs. Nurollahi.’

  I yelled back, ‘For me or for your father?’

  ‘For you.’

  I got up. ‘Will you be able to hold the phone?’ Artoush asked. Emile turned his head back from the sink. The water was pouring over the sliced potatoes in the strainer. Was it my imagination, or did he look at me with worry?

  I opened my hands and closed them. They hurt much less now. I nodded, indicating that I could manage, and went to the hallway. Through the door to the living room I saw Emily and Armen sitting in the easy chairs. Emily wa
s recounting something, animatedly gesturing with her head and hands. If I did not know better, I would have supposed her a young woman rather than a girl. Armen was in the chair facing hers, his chin resting on his hand, watching raptly.

  I picked up the receiver and wondered what Mrs. Nurollahi wanted with me. I looked at my hands, with a new appreciation for their importance.

  Mrs. Nurollahi, as usual, greeted me warmly, asking after everyone at length, including each of the children one by one, before getting to the point. She had a good memory. She remembered not only the names of the children, but what grade they were in. She even remembered the cold the twins had caught a few months back. Finally, she said, ‘I saw you last Friday at the talk at the Golestan Club. I’m sorry that I didn’t get an opportunity to say hello.’

  There was no hint of reproach in her voice. I was embarrassed. I should have gone up to her after her talk to congratulate her, and had not done so. Mrs. Nurollahi did not give me an opportunity to explain and apologize, and did not seem to expect it.

  ‘I wanted to ask if you would be so kind as to attend the next meeting of our society? The Armenian ladies have not been inclined to join in with us. I know that you have your own society, a very active one, but as you know, the Majles elections are coming up, and as you are also no doubt aware, because of the suffrage issue, the coming year will be an important one for Iranian women...’

  I did not know that the Majles elections were coming up, and had only heard here and there about the issue of women’s voting rights. I reproached myself: you, and most other Armenian women, act like you are not living in this country! I felt embarrassed and ashamed.

  ‘I have a couple of questions I wanted to ask,’ said Mrs. Nurollahi. ‘Would it be possible for me to come see you some time, at your convenience?’