Together Tea Read online

  Mina stared at the wallpaper. She realized she really hated wallpaper.

  “Look at this, Mina!” Darya pointed to another sheet of paper titled “Family Background and Health Issues.” “This took me hours to research. No history of disease in his family. Everybody healthy. One sister got divorced a few years ago, but I’m told it was for the best. You have to behave next Sunday at tea, Mina. You must. I talked to your father’s aunt and to her friend in Atlanta and everyone agrees: he’s the one!” Darya handed Mina the folder. “Spreadsheets don’t lie!”

  Mina plopped onto the bed. The sound of Kavita and Yung-Ja discussing integrals floated up from the dining room. Baba’s drilling had stopped. Darya loved to calculate the statistics of available Persian bachelors, factoring in their attributes, family histories, education, the probability for divorce. She had her very own system of assigning numbers to certain qualities. Five for good teeth. Minus 10 for having only a bachelor’s and no graduate degree. Plus 20 if it could be proved that they were kind to their mothers. Plus 7 if they didn’t hold their forks like shovels. Darya was so proud of her knowledge of Excel, fond of making graphs. Where was the mother Mina used to know in Iran? A magician had made that mother disappear over the years and replaced her with this chubby, red-haired meddling matchmaker. The mother she knew back then would never have done this. Find someone who knew someone who knew a well-educated man. Do the research. Make the calls. Send a photograph of Mina, if requested. And then, bound by some ridiculous obligation to their own meddling matchmakers, these men would board trains or planes or get in their cars and come to tea.

  “Darya, I don’t want to have tea with Mr. Dashti next Sunday. I don’t want to meet him. I don’t want to get married. You know that.”

  Darya opened her mouth to say something, but her lips froze in the shape of a perfect zero. Then she turned and talked to the bedspread.

  “My daughter says she doesn’t want to get married. Interesting, no? What makes her say this? Youth. Youth and complete lack of knowledge!” Her hazel eyes shone when she turned to Mina. “Mina, I want you to meet Mr. Dashti. Do you know the percentage of divorce in this country? The probability of women over thirty getting married? Mr. Dashti’s spreadsheet is very hopeful. Forget Jahanfard. Forget Bidar. Forget all those oafs who came over and made you bored and who you conveniently avoided any eye contact with and spilled tea on. I’m forgiving that, forgetting it. Whoosh! Gone. Who cares? But this time, Mina! This time, I’ve computed statistics.”

  “You don’t even know him!”

  “I’m your mother, Mina. I know you!”

  “Did it ever occur to you that I’m a lesbian?”

  “Lesbian?!” Darya snorted. “Don’t think I don’t know about lesbians! We had lesbians in Iran. You know how we knew they were lesbians? From their lovers! You don’t even have a girlfriend, Mina! You’re no lesbian.”

  Mina sighed. She wasn’t a lesbian but she also didn’t want to marry someone just because his GPA had been graphed by her mom in Excel. She stared at the wall, at the paintings from India that Kavita had given Darya after visiting her soon-to-be sons-in-law there. Kavita raised her daughters in Queens, then received a phone call from her father in New Delhi and went over to meet her daughters’ suitors. The new husbands moved to New York to be with their Indian-American wives. Darya had told Mina they were sweet, charming men who listened well. She told her that these new husbands had adjusted remarkably well to the culture shock of moving to America.

  “Darya, I’m still trying to get through grad school. Why would I even want a husband now?”

  “Everybody in this life needs a partner.”

  “I don’t.”

  “You need someone. What’s going to happen when I die? Who’s going to take care of you? When you’re all alone and old? Your brothers? Who’ll wipe your nose when you’re sick?”

  “I’ll wipe my own nose! I’ll call a friend! Hire someone—I’ll put signs on tree trunks for a nose-wiper!”

  “You need someone, Mina. You need to have . . .”

  “Everything you didn’t have?” Mina finished the sentence for her.

  “No, Mina,” Darya said quietly. “Not everything I didn’t have. Everything I had. I want you to taste life the way I have. To give you a fraction of what I was given. I want you to have a passion. I want you to fall in love like I fell in love.”

  “Your marriage was arranged.”

  “It wasn’t arranged. It was . . . encouraged. I got to know your father. I took the time. I loved my mother. I knew she wouldn’t do me wrong. Because my mother . . .”

  Darya broke off and cried silently into her hands. Her mother had been killed by a bomb during the Iran-Iraq War. She had been buying pomegranates at the greengrocer’s downtown when the bomb blew the grocer’s wooden stalls into shreds. Darya often cried when she talked of Mamani.

  Mina’s body grew slack as she remembered asking Mamani for those pomegranates years ago. But she forced her body up straight. Darya’s tears over Mamani were nothing new.

  “Because . . .” Darya looked up, her face wet but suddenly calm. “Because, Mina, my mother gave me a gift when I was nineteen. Don’t you see? She gave me a gift, and at the time I was young too and foolish and couldn’t appreciate what she’d found for me. I attended my own wedding only because in those days we didn’t refuse our parents’ choices. It took years for me to realize what she had done for me. The happiness that she placed into my hands.”

  Mina thought of the man in the bathroom next door, sitting on his knees and squeezing putty onto pink tiles. She thought of her father’s few wiry hairs, his uneven teeth and self-help tapes, his bulging stomach, and the way he listened to American songs on the radio, hearing the lyrics all wrong. That’s the gift Mamani gave her? That’s the happiness Darya was talking about?

  “It’s ridiculous,” Mina said. “You can’t pick a spouse for someone else. How do you know what’s right for them?”

  “It’s been done for centuries. This, the way they do it here, this is ridiculous. You can’t pick a spouse for yourself. How does one person, one young person know what’s right for them? When you were fifteen, did you think the way you do now? Well, when you’re thirty, you’ll look back on today and laugh at your thoughts. It’s like anything else when you’re young. Vegetables. Cod liver oil. A jacket on a seemingly warm day. Your mother says take it, it’s good for you. You refuse, it seems unnecessary. Then you realize she knew you better than you knew yourself. That’s why she’s your mother.”

  Darya’s red bun bounced as she talked. “Don’t you think I know how you feel? I cried like you cry by yourself at nights now. I didn’t want to get married, didn’t even find Baba attractive. I wanted to get a PhD in mathematics and become a professor. I always thought I would contribute something huge to academia, that I would be remembered for a theorem or proof or something. I never thought I’d be sitting with Kavita and Yung-Ja on Saturdays solving equations no one would ever see. I couldn’t even imagine not being a famous mathematician back then. When my mother introduced your father to me, I hated him. I hated her for pushing him on me. I spent several months, years even, resenting the marriage.”

  “So? What happened?”

  “What happened is I grew up. What happened is your father. He gave to me. Consistently and unselfishly worked to make me happy. One day I woke up and looked at him and my house and my swollen stomach and realized I was happy and didn’t even know it. I heard about a woman receiving a prize in mathematics and I laughed. I didn’t care. When my mother died, I couldn’t have survived it without your father. No professorship in math would have saved me then.”

  Darya absently picked up her hairbrush and twirled it in her hand.

  “Besides,” she continued. “Remember when you were eighteen and we went to the mall and I bought you that denim shirt? Remember how you didn’t want to get it? How you
hated it then? Now, you wear it almost every day.”

  “Mr. Dashti is not a shirt!”

  “He wears nice shirts!”

  “Darya!!!”

  Mina felt a tiny tickle in her stomach. A quiver worked its way down to her toenails and her mouth burst open. She couldn’t stop laughing. The insanity of their conversation! Mr. Dashti wears nice shirts. Her father as a gift—Mina imagined a huge red bow tied around Baba’s bald head. She snorted like a pig as tears soaked her cheeks. She thought of the graphs, Mr. Jahanfard, Mr. Bidar, Mr. Dashti, the slopes of the lines Darya calculated. Her sides began to hurt.

  She thought of the gift, her poor dead grandmother’s gift.

  Mina couldn’t speak anymore. She was doubled over on the bed. Her cheeks hurt and her stomach was tight. Through her tears, she caught sight of her mother. Darya stood in her pink and white housedress, her pudgy feet pointing out, the Dashti folder in one hand, her hairbrush in another. Her roots showed, the fiery red dye was in need of a touch-up. When they left Iran, Darya had vowed to dye her hair red if she could ever reach a country where she didn’t have to wear a veil. On one of those first mornings in New York, Darya had disappeared into the hotel bathroom for thirty minutes. When she emerged from the bathroom with her hair in a towel, Baba had clapped loudly for her, whistling and cheering, urging Mina and her brothers to join in. Mina could see Baba now, the pride on his face as Darya shyly removed the towel from her wet hair, how he went to the bathroom and cleaned the walls that had been stained crimson, just as he had cleaned her grandmother’s body after it had been stained crimson from the bomb at the grocer’s those years ago.

  Silence replaced Mina’s laughter. Her body hiccuped slowly a few times as she got up. Darya was quiet, her eyes confused.

  “Oh, Maman,” Mina said as she took the hairbrush from Darya’s hand and sat her down on the bed. “Do you think I should wear the lavender dress with a cardigan or just by itself when I meet Mr. Dashti?” She placed the hairbrush at the gray roots on Darya’s head, and slowly brushed her mother’s hair.

  Chapter Two

  The Man in the Beige Suit

  The following Sunday, Mina took the subway to her parents’ house because her car needed repair. She rang the doorbell as though she were a guest. Baba opened the door, freshly showered and dressed in his best three-piece suit. He had on his Metropolitan Museum of Art turtle tie. His Old Spice was overpowering. Darya ran to the door in the tailored bright skirt-suit that made her hazel eyes look green. Her hair was in a perfect bun, her lips glossy. She frowned at the sight of Mina’s jeans and white shirt with the lavender cardigan tied around her waist, but she didn’t say a word. Mina registered the scent of steaming basmati rice and fragrant ghormeh sabzi herb stew coming from the kitchen. Tea with Mr. Dashti had changed to lunch.

  At exactly 1:15 p.m., the doorbell rang again, and Darya dropped her ladle into the sink and rushed to the door. She took a few deep breaths and patted her bun into place before swinging the door open. On the doorstep stood a short, chubby man holding a bouquet of pink and white flowers. He wore a beige suit and a brown tie. He was clean shaven and had almond-shaped eyes. His few strands of hair were strategically combed across his head but suddenly blew straight up with a strong gust of wind.

  “Mr. Dashti! My goodness!” Darya exclaimed in Farsi, as if completely taken by surprise to see him there. “Well, well . . . welcome! Please come in, come in!”

  Mr. Dashti bowed deeply. “It is my pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Rezayi. It is truly my joy. Please excuse my boldness and impudence in making myself such a nuisance to you. I have inconvenienced you. I am a burden to you and your home. You must forgive me.”

  “Oh, Mr. Dashti, how could you say such a thing? Please, you have made us so very happy. You have brightened our day. You have lit up our eyes! You have embarrassed us with your generosity. Please come in—you who are filled with so much grace!” Darya bowed her head expertly with her reply. They were playing the Persian game of tarof, a verbal tradition stressing exaggerated politeness and formality in interactions, a ritual filled with flowery flattery, endless displays of respect for the other, dramatic self-effacement, and indirect answers to unnecessary questions. Darya and Baba relished this communicative art, though Mina had spent years resisting it.

  “. . . you have truly bestowed upon us a great pleasure,” Darya continued. “Please, please come in.”

  With that Mr. Dashti entered the house and looked nervously around. When he saw Mina, he looked away, at the stairs, then the wall, then his shoes until he was saved by Baba’s booming voice from behind the front door, which was still wide open.

  “Mr. Dashti, sir, I am very happy to meet you.” Baba stepped into view. “You are most welcome in our home.” He extended his hand and pumped Mr. Dashti’s vigorously as Mr. Dashti expressed his rapture at meeting Baba.

  Darya closed the front door, turned around to face Mina, looked confused, and then cried, “Well, my goodness, Mr. Dashti! Please! This is our daughter, Mina!”

  Baba turned around too, and both Darya and he stared at Mina and then at Mr. Dashti as if it was indeed so strange that their daughter, Mina, should be standing there in the living room on such a day when good Mr. Dashti had come by for a visit. What a coincidence!

  Mr. Dashti pivoted in Mina’s direction but didn’t look directly at her. Slowly, from the bottom of his neck, a deep pink blush crept up to the top of his bald head. He bowed. “I am fortunate to meet you,” he said to his shoes.

  Mina looked desperately at Darya, then at Baba. They prodded her on with their eyes until Darya’s slight jerk of the head forced Mina to answer.

  “Me too,” Mina said as Baba motioned to the sofa. Mr. Dashti waddled his way across the rug and sat down with a heavy plop, underestimating the height of the seat. Darya offered Mr. Dashti some nuts and dried chickpeas, and Baba started chatting. Mina noticed tiny bubbles of perspiration on Mr. Dashti’s forehead and chin. Baba asked about his trip, whether his flight was comfortable, how he found New York, how he liked Atlanta, how his family was, and commented cheerfully on New York weather and the immense ineptitude of taxi drivers in the city.

  “Well, they’re all immigrants now, aren’t they?” Darya chimed in as if she herself were a descendant of the Mayflower cluster. Mina didn’t say anything, just sat there, waiting for lunch. We’ll eat, then we’ll have the requisite tea, then he’ll go home. She had accounting notes to review. She had a finance case to prepare. As Mr. Dashti folded and unfolded his legs, Mina saw that his beige suit was far too tight for him. He was much heavier than Darya’s charts had indicated. Mina could picture long straggly hairs on his toes. He most likely wanted a baby within a year and a boy at that. He seemed like the kind of man she could never talk to in the middle of the night. He’d ask Mina to write to his parents in Iran once a week, in Farsi, with a fountain pen and only in blue. He probably liked his stews served steaming hot and wanted their son to do surgery on brain neuromas or become a famous engineer in Maryland where he’d live with his wife, Mina’s daughter-in-law, who would go to aerobics classes while Mina watched the grandkids.

  Mina didn’t want to watch the grandkids. She didn’t even like Maryland.

  DELICATE ROWS OF SAFFRON-SOAKED RICE adorned their plates at lunch. The ghormeh sabzi khoresh was a perfect blend of lamb and red kidney beans mixed with the sabzi of parsley, coriander, scallions, and fenugreek. Mina bit on a dried Persian lime and a rush of tartness filled her mouth. By the time lunch was finished, Mr. Dashti, Baba, and Darya had talked about politicians (they’re all charlatans), the weather (the sun gives light but not enough warmth in this part of America), business (it matters), medicine (it really matters), chemistry (they knew the same genius organics professor), immigrants (they’re ruining Queens), cable TV (it’s a massive commercialized wasteland), and especially the Food Network (it’s a fine concept, but the cooks really should clean thei
r utensils more often and not cut up vegetables on dirty counters). Mina had said a few words, like “good” in response to how is school, “interesting” in response to how she found her studies, and “yes” to would she like more rice. All of the above questions were asked by her parents in their attempt to get her to talk. Mr. Dashti was tongue-tied every time he looked in her direction. Dark spots of perspiration spread in the underarm areas of his beige suit, and he continuously wiped his forehead with a scrunched-up napkin held in his doughy hand.

  Finally, Darya and Baba got up to clear the table, and Mina jumped to help. But Darya said through a tight smile that Mina must sit, and no, they didn’t need assistance in the kitchen. It was clear then that Mina couldn’t escape the dreaded time alone with Mr. Dashti. She sat in silence across from him, as Darya and Baba clattered about in the kitchen. The grandfather clock ticked loudly by the banister.

  “Miss Mina,” Mr. Dashti said finally. “Um, how is it going?”

  Mina looked up, surprised. So far, everyone had spoken Farsi. His accent was not the familiar singsong her brother Kayvon could imitate so well when he did his “Irooni” accent. It was quite American.

  “It’s going,” she said in English. Mr. Dashti’s smooth forehead gleamed under a strip of sunlight from the window. “I mean, it’s going well, thank you.”

  He nodded. The dishwasher turned on in the kitchen. Mina could imagine her father washing the copper pots by hand while Darya prepared fresh tea.

  Mr. Dashti bit his lip and studied the Persian miniatures on the wall. For the first time in all the husband-setting-up meetings, it occurred to Mina that he was just as uncomfortable as she was.