Together Tea (8 page)
H
is hair curls the other way, silly,” Bita said. She leaned close to Mina. “Wow. That is really good.”
Mina moved her pencil across the page. Recess was always more fun when she sketched in her notebook.
“
Afarin!
Bravo!” Bita's smile was huge. “Hey,
bacheha
!” she called out. “Look how she can
draw
!”
A few kids jogged over to where Mina sat and hovered around her. Farokh, a boy with thick eyebrows and broad shoulders, slapped her on the back. Mina lurched forward.
“I told you!” Bita said proudly.
“What's going on here?” Mrs. Shoghi strode over to them.
Bita held up Mina's drawing.
Mrs. Shoghi's eyes narrowed. “Hmmm.
Bah bah! Che ghashang!
How beautiful! You've drawn our own crown prince. Mina, I didn't know you had it in you. Such a good drawing for someone who's not even eight yet!”
Bita put her arm around Mina. “She's an
artist
!”
Mrs. Shoghi clapped, lacquered nails shining in the sunlight. “Get in line, children, get in line. Recess is over!” As she gathered the children together, her hand touched Mina's shoulder and stayed there for a minute.
“
Ba honar hasti,
my girl. You are âWith-Art.' ”
Inside their second grade classroom, the Shah's picture hung on the wall and looked down at them as they worked in their notebooks, passed secret notes, and struggled to memorize sums, ancient Persian poems, and the importance of their country's greatest natural resource: oil. The Shah was crisp and stern in his white military uniform with rows of colorful ribbons on his shoulders. The tiny ribbons reminded Mina of Chiclet gum. She wanted to reach up and grab one and taste it. But they were inaccessible, shining under the glass, teasing her.
“I'M GOING TO MARRY HIM,”
Mina whispered to Bita as they dipped their brushes into the ink during calligraphy class. She'd drawn the crown prince almost every day for the past week and shown the sketches to Bita. Maybe she shouldn't have drawn him so much. He was royalty, after all. She didn't want to malign him.
Bita scowled. “
I'm
going to marry him!”
They glared at each other. A test of wills. Bita bit her lip, determined.
Without a word, Mina thrust her calligraphy brush into fresh ink and drew a dripping outline of herself next to her outline of the prince. “There!” she said. “See? That's
me
!”
Bita's standoff evaporated when she saw the ink on the page. The dark-haired girl with a wide jaw and a cocky expression created with a few deft strokes conjured Mina perfectly. Bita gave Mina one last glare, but the stoop of her shoulders conceded defeat.
They picked up their brushes again and wrote the words for the assigned verse from Saadi's poem. For a second, Mina held her brush in midair and looked at it as though she were seeing it for the first time. Those thin bristles dipped in ink had made Bita give in. They'd made Mrs. Shoghi tell her she was “With-Art.” She looked at her ink-stained finger pads as though they belonged to someone else.
“NOT BAD,” HOOMAN SAID THAT NIGHT
after looking at Mina's drawing. “I mean for an almost-eight-year-old!”
“It's great, Mina.” Kayvon grinned. “You should see how Hooman draws! Seriously, Mina, maybe one day you could be a great artist. Maybe one day we'll see your work hung up in galleries.” He put his arm around Mina and squeezed her. “My little sis: world-famous painter!”
When Baba saw one of the drawings, he pretended to stagger backward in absolute awe. “
Bah bah!
Wonderful!”
Mina could only shake her head at Baba's reaction. He did the same thing whenever Kayvon imitated the greengrocer's nasal voice or when Hooman showed him pages from his science homework. He showed the same exaggerated appreciation when Darya brought out her platter of
tahdeeg
to the dinner table or when she dressed up for a party. Baba seemed perpetually delighted by all the unexpected gifts of his own family.
Darya was less effusive. She gently picked up Mina's paper between her thumb and forefinger and held the page up to the chandelier as if she were studying film negatives.
“I see,” she said.
Then she marched to her bedroom and came back with a plain folder. With one of Mina's markers she carefully wrote “MinaâAlmost-Eight” on the folder tab and placed the evening's artwork inside.
After a few weeks, the folder was stuffed and Darya prepared a new one. She stacked all the folders neatly in a drawer in her and Baba's bedroom.
Mina liked knowing the folders were there, safe and organized. At least her mother didn't use her artwork as scratch paper, scribbling “milk, eggplants, cucumbers” on the back and crumpling it into her handbag as she ran in her slippers across the street to the greengrocer's the way Bita's mother did.
“WHO'S THIS IN ALL THE DRAWINGS?
” Darya asked after breakfast one day.
“The crown prince. I'm going to marry him,” Mina said.
Hooman and Kayvon had already left for school. Baba was at his clinic, and Soghra, the housekeeper, was busy sweeping the sidewalk with her wet broom.
“When you grow up, you should marry whomever you fall in love with. That's what's important. And you can't plan it. It just happens,” Darya said and sipped her sweetened black tea.
Mina nodded. Her mother's hazel eyes reminded her of the light green shade in her new paint set.
“Now hurry up so you're not late for school.” Darya got up.
Soghra came in then, broom in hand. “Khanom
,
missus, this shooting pain in my back will one day cause my death. My hands are all twisted up. The city dust is not appropriate for my lungs.
Vay,
my breath is all caught up. O Great Big Godâthe fate you've given me. If my great-grandparents had not lost all their wealth, I wouldn't be reduced to servantry. Fate, you fiend! The foe that prevents me from being a proper lady!”
“Pour yourself some tea, Soghra Joon, and rest your legs,” Darya said calmly. They were all used to Soghra's drama. “Mina, up you get! After school today, we're off to Book City.”
Mina hugged Soghra good-bye. Soghra seemed perfectly fine now that she was seated and sucking on a sugar cube.
Mina grabbed her backpack and followed Darya out the door. Book City! They had the best books, the best stationery, and the best selection of colored pencils, markers, and paints. Mina couldn't wait to go and look at the big sets of colored pencils from Switzerland, the tubes of tempting oil paints stacked in rows, all the colors dizzying and delicious in that shop.
THAT DAY TURNED OUT TO BE
Mina's last trip to Book City. A fortnight later, they couldn't go downtown anymore.
“Please?” Mina pleaded with Darya on a rainy Friday. She held her Snoopy handbag in one hand and the keys to the car in another.
“No.”
“But why?”
“Because there are demonstrations going on, Mina. It's not safe.”
Just then Hooman and Kayvon marched through the living room, their fists in the air. “Death to the Shah!” they yelled. “No more king!”
Mina's stomach started to feel strange.
“Boys, did you finish your homework? Stop this nonsense and focus,” Baba said.
“We will not talk about kings or politics in this home,” Darya said.
Her brothers stopped reluctantly. Baba collapsed into a chair, looking exhausted. Darya looked out the window, her eyes glassy and distant.
FOR MONTHS THE DEMONSTRATIONS IN
the streets continued. Baba would come home bewildered and mention that a cinema or a bank had been set on fire. Darya would receive the news in silence. Hooman and Kayvon sometimes cheered. They were slowly becoming prisoners in their own home, unable to venture too far outside.
It was Darya who said the word first. She said it at dinner, right after she passed a bowl of sautéed eggplants and smashed tomatoes to Mina. “There is a
revolution
going on.
Enghelab.
” Mina hadn't heard that word before.
Enghelab
. It sounded so powerful. Hooman had to explain to her what it meant: a rotation that could turn the world upside down. This “revolution” was going on outside the walls of their house and yet, to Mina's disappointment, her parents were doing nothing to stop it. In fact, sometimes she even thought they liked it. Baba listened to the BBC on his radio constantly. Darya called her sister and asked where the demonstrations were taking place and how many people had shown up. Darya seemed torn, as if she didn't know whether the demonstrations would result in something wonderful or something horrendous.
Later that night, Mina scolded Hooman and Kayvon for yelling bad things about the Shah. She hated that they liked to imitate the demonstrators. Hooman and Kayvon ignored her and continued to repeat slogans as if they were in a pretend parade in the living room. Mina started to hit them and soon the three of them were on the floor wrestling. Baba and Darya stood there motionless watching the three kids fighting on the floor.
“Enough!” Baba yelled.
“They're saying bad things about the Shah,” Mina said in a small voice.
“Look at that!” Hooman got up slowly. “Look how they've brainwashed her!”
Kayvon wiped his nose. A trail of blood trickled from his nostril, over his lips, and down his chin.
“Into the bathroom, now!” Baba said. “Both of you,
now
!”
From the living room, Mina heard the bathroom faucet turn on and could make out some of Baba's furious lecture. She heard him say “brothers,” “fighting,” “absurd,” and “gentlemen.” She heard Hooman mumbling. She could imagine Baba washing the blood from Kayvon's nose with Darya's yellow washcloth.
Darya turned to Mina. “There's absolutely no need . . .” She trailed off. “For you to worry. About this . . . stuff.”
“Bita says the youth are going to kick the Shah out. Kick him out of the country and bring in a new leader for the people.” Mina wasn't sure what a new leader meant, but she assumed it meant an evil king.
“Never mind, Mina,” Darya said. “This king is far from perfect. He's done some horrible things.”
Mina froze. Her own mother was like one of those demonstrators in the street. If the authorities heard her, they would accuse her of being a criminal woman. Mina's hands felt clammy as she remembered all the things that happened to people who spoke against the king. Torture. Execution. They had been taught in school about all he had done for the countryâbrought them wealth, created reform, made them modern and Western. The textbooks were filled with his accomplishments. One did not speak against him. But Darya had.
Baba returned with a glum-looking Hooman and Kayvon behind him.
“She said very, very bad things about the Shah,” Mina whispered. She needed Baba to set her mother straight.
“She's right.” Baba shrugged.
And Mina was left feeling suddenly alone.