Talking through the Door: An Anthology of Contemporary Middle Eastern American Writing

Na h i d Rac h l i n

227 n A h i d r A C h l i n The Calling EvEn AFt Er A wEEk Mohtaram could not believe that her sister, Maryam, was really with her in the living room of her house. But there she was, her polka dot chador wrapped around her, and sitting in a patch of sunlight on the rug to warm her legs, although it was late May and the temperature hovered around seventy-five. The house too had marks of Maryam’s presence. The gifts she had brought—a cloth with paisley designs covered the kitchen table, a tapestry depicting a caravan hung on a wall. The smell of rose water that she dabbed on her clothes permeated the air. It made Mohtaram feel more at home in her own house since her sister had come. She had not really anticipated what she was getting herself into when she sold all her belongings in Iran, after her husband died, and came to America to live near her son and daughter, how much she would be leaving behind, so much would be out of her reach. She had not even known that her son she had come to be near would not be that accessible to her. She saw Cyrus only a few moments every day when he stopped in before he went to the university in Athens to teach. His two children were at school and busy with their friends. Mildred, Cyrus’s wife, had not learned Farsi and her own English was not all that good and they could not really talk to each other. Feri, her daughter, who had come to America shortly after Cyrus, was studying in Madison and was married to an Iranian engineer but they were busy with their own lives and Mohtaram rarely saw them. She had a few Iranian friends T a l k i n g T h r o u g h T h e D o o r 228 who lived in town but they were all younger than her with different concerns. Ever since she came to America five years ago she had been asking Maryam to come for a visit. She wrote to her. “You will love Ohio. It’s sparkling clean with no dust to settle on things. There are many trees and lakes and rivers . . .” Maryam had always refused, saying, “I have my prayer sessions starting next month,” or “Bahman wants to get married and we’re looking for a proper wife for him.” What had prompted her to come now, Maryam had told her, was a dream she had. In the dream she was searching for Mohtaram and finally found her in a wide, well-lit but empty street, scratched and bleeding. The dream had so shaken her that she decided she must see her sister immediately. Already, in one week, Mohtaram was falling into the old interdependency with her sister. Every day they woke at dawn, prayed, cooked and ate together, went out for walks. One day they went to the shopping center, within walking distance, to buy shoes for Maryam. She had been complaining that her feet hurt. Maryam put on her chador and Mohtaram a long-sleeved dress and a head scarf. Although Maryam complained about her feet and walked rather slowly, she gave the impression of being the stronger of the two with her sturdy arms and ample breasts. Mohtaram felt thin and frail by contrast and was aware that her fairer skin had wrinkled more. It was hard to tell, she was sure, which one of them was older, even though there was a five-year age difference between them. A few passers-by turned around and looked at Maryam in her long black chador and some smiled at her but just as often they acted as if they did not notice anything different. “See, they leave you alone here,” Mohtaram said. “No one interferes in your affairs.” “But it’s so lonely, it’s like everyone has crawled into a shell,” Maryam said. It seemed to Mohtaram that it would be more natural to Maryam if people stared or even poked at her chador and asked her what it was. n A h i d r A C h l i n 229 One thing caught Maryam’s attention which she liked, a pair of soft, flat shoes in the window of Payless store. “They...