Up to that point, she had simply been someone to talk to, someone who was always laughing and verbally sparring with him, someone who provoked a tenderness he had experienced only in the presence of his mother. Among the many sensations he felt as he kissed her, what came rising to the surface was a sense of loss.
The creak of the swinging kitchen door broke the silence as Mirza came in. Madjid took the filled teapot and whispered to Nasreen. “Until siesta.”
Nasreen looked around, trying to find something to get busy with. “I’ll start on the salad,” she said, then stood at the cutting board and began to dice the cucumbers, closing her eyes as she imagined the meeting to come. Mirza grabbed her hand and shook her out of her stupor. She was about to slice her own finger with the knife. She smiled, embarrassed, and went back to cutting the vegetables with her eyes open this time. He stood beside her, at the sink, washing herbs. “It’s always best to keep one’s mind present,” he said. “One step ahead or one step behind and the world will slip from your grasp.”
LUNCH
Preparations for lunch were in full swing. Mirza had spread the sofreh on the deck just outside the house. He squatted on the thick cloth and set plates on the edges with a spoon and fork for each. He then brought out a tray with two pitchers of doogh and glasses. He placed each pitcher of the yogurt drink at opposite ends of the sofreh and added a glass for each plate. He stood back and looked, satisfied everything was in its right place.
Bibi-Khanoom and Nasreen were in the kitchen negotiating a giant pot of rice while Jafar hovered in the doorway. The scent of saffron and butter wafted through the air. Bibi-Khanoom filled the sink one inch deep with cold water. She and Nasreen placed the pot of rice in the sink and Bibi-Khanoom dished the rice onto a silver platter. When she got to the bottom, she held a round silver platter over the pot and together they flipped it over and set it down on the counter. Bibi-Khanoom slowly pulled the pot up and revealed a perfectly round crust, the tahdig, slightly burned to a golden brown. The tahdig was the delicacy of the meal. There was never enough and it was always a tense experience for all involved as it was broken down and dished out.
After Nasreen’s first kiss with Madjid, she had placed her tahdig on his plate. During the siesta that immediately followed that meal, Madjid chastised her for her carelessness as they kissed. “Do you want them to know what is going on?”
“Of course not.”
“Then stop giving me your tahdig.”
During the lunch preparation Bibi-Khanoom philosophized about food to Nasreen. You can tell a lot about a person, she said, by how much and what parts of the tahdig they take.
“Those with quiet personalities with a slimmer build always take pieces of the light golden edges. And those with rousing personalities and gluttonous tendencies take pieces of the burned, browned center.”
Next they dished out the khoresht. One was khoreshteh ghormeh sabzi, a lamb-and-kidney-bean stew made with finely chopped parsley, chives, and fenugreek, and dried whole lemons. Turmeric softened the bitter scent of the lemon and the lamb and kidney beans gave the stew its earthy color and depth of flavor. The second khoresht was khoreshteh bademjan, made with eggplant and lamb in a tomato base with sour grapes and rich, aromatic cinnamon.
Bibi-Khanoom loved to talk to Nasreen during their preparations. She explained how some foods, such as cucumbers, watermelon, mint in hot water, eggplant, and radishes, had a cooling effect on the body, slowing down its functions, while others, such as garlic, onions, walnuts, lamb, and cinnamon, warmed the body and stimulated its functions. To know these qualities, she told her, was to know your own body.
Persian cuisine, according to Bibi-Khanoom, was a study in equilibrium, an intense negotiation of opposing flavors that somehow found a way to coexist without being overpowered by each other. The tartness of fruits was tempered by the delicate fragrance of saffron, turmeric, and cinnamon—a perfect union of masculine and feminine, of prose and poetry, of earthly and mystical.
She let out a sigh and wiped her hands on a dishrag. The food lecture had tired her out more than the preparation. Talking demanded the vitality that doing created. She reached out and stroked the young woman’s cheek. Nasreen turned and looked at her shyly—the gesture a tonic to her mother’s criticism.
Jafar slipped into the kitchen unseen. His favorite part of lunch, the loghmeh, happened before the meal. He stood in the doorway staring at his mother until she noticed. Bibi-Khanoom took a spoonful of the ghormeh sabzi and used her hand to mix it with leftover crumbs of tahdig in the bottom of the pot. Jafar hummed as he waited, rubbing his stomach in anticipation of the loghmeh. Bibi-Khanoom bent down and pushed a large, savory dollop into his mouth with her fingers. Then she prepared a plate with rice, stew, a piece of tahdig, and pickled eggplants, which she covered with a cloth and handed to Jafar. “Take this to the midwife and come straight back for your lunch.”
The family gathered around the sofreh and waited in silence for the judge. As soon as he sat down, silverware clanked against plates, dishes were passed. The mullah couldn’t keep the frustration off his face. Only moments earlier, when he had sat down, no one made a move to begin the meal. His presence was barely acknowledged. And he was the elder.
Ghamar sank into her chador with a pouty look on her face as her husband piled the rice onto her plate. She then chastised him for overserving her, even though she had asked for it. “You are always trying to fatten me up.”
Nasreen served herself only the tiniest of portions, which didn’t get past her mother. “Why don’t you eat something? You eat like a cow at home.”
Nasreen shot a look at her mother that would make a bull wither and drifted away into the recesses of her mind. She had spent a great deal of time there. She played out scenarios of ways to kill her mother at the hammam. She could hold her mother’s head in the basin of water and drown her; during the afternoon siesta, she could swat the beehive in the tree and let the bees devour her. At last, Nasreen would be liberated. She would stay up past midnight and blast her music and sleep in her own bed with Madjid. This final thought brought a smile to her face as she served herself another portion of rice.
Shazdehpoor fidgeted, trying to find a comfortable position. He hated sitting on the ground. He selected one piece of meat from the stew at a time, then added a few vegetables, then rounded out the plate with a scoop of rice and some herbs he diced on the corner of it. Ghamar whispered to her husband, “Fokoli is dining on bifteck with the queen of England.”
Madjid always sat next to the judge and used it as an opportunity to speak about his newest books, but today he was unusually quiet. The judge studied his face. “What have you been reading?”
“We just read Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard in our literature class.”
“What did you think of it?”
“The discussion we had about it in Mr. Moeni’s class was very intense. So much of what is happening around us here is in that play.” Madjid looked down at his food and pushed it around with his fork.
“What is troubling you?”
Madjid leaned into the judge and whispered, “Yesterday when we got to class Mr. Moeni wasn’t there. He had been taken away by the secret police. They said he was spreading Communist propaganda. What does Chekhov have to do with Soviet Communists?”
“He was Russian. And that’s about as much thought as they’ve given the matter.”
“What are they afraid of?”
“People