Temporary Bride's blog

The only room this way - Part 3

Temporary Bride — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 19:34:07 +0000

I give him my mouth and he pushes me down onto the mattress. I tell him things to encourage him. I whisper his name and hear my own, spoken warm and urgent in my ear. His fresh skin, hidden away since he was an infant, is available for me, reacting to my touch. He smells of himself, but even more so, the scent of cologne, his warm temperature and his long fingers, things I’ve been aware of for days. Every bit of him is familiar to me but at the same time different and new.

The only room this way - Part 2

Temporary Bride — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 19:18:35 +0000

“Joonam azizam” he whispers again, his voice coming out like a sigh. He rests his cheek against the slope of my neck and my hands slide behind to reach around his waist. We stand, sticking to each other like children. The timidity, the guarded approaches, the raw feelings and gnawing away at each other, all this is gone. Gently he spins me around and we are opposite each other, remembering to be brave, confident in what we have to give.

The only room this way - Part 1

Temporary Bride — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 12:33:34 +0000

No one ever goes up the dark stairway in the corner. Mine is the only room this way. I sweep my own floors and make the bed each morning. No one checks on me to see how I am getting on. The pitch black silence now tells me nothing; whether anyone has recently climbed the steps. Maybe courage has won tonight and he is already waiting for me.

Three and a half hours (Part II)

Temporary Bride — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 21:05:48 +0000

Everything inside had been prepared for my own departure early the next morning. The pots I’d used to cook our last meal were washed and hung up. My suitcase was already packed and placed on the landing. A sole peach rested on the tiled countertop to be eaten with honey and a last few spoonfuls of yoghurt for breakfast before the taxi would arrive at 6. I had only to try to sleep for a few hours in our wrinkled, unmade bed until I too would be leaving.

Three and a half hours (Part I)

Temporary Bride — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 21:25:42 +0000

It had been three and a half months since I last saw him. Looking back, it’s hard to say whether the time passed quickly. I could say only that I’d grown acutely aware of time. Three and a half hours to be exact.

Two Cities, Two Taxis - Part 2

Temporary Bride — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 21:04:58 +0000

The flight numbers and Iranian cities on the display board shuffled and rearranged themselves so that it was now my time to board. I glanced out the window and pulled my tired body towards the vintage 1970’s Tupelov that waited to fly us an hour across the desert to Yazd.

Two Cities, Two Taxis - Part 1

Temporary Bride — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 22:53:00 +0000

Yazd, Iran

I woke up frightened. The speakers around me crackled and filled our wing with a wailing so long and high and desperate that I instinctively drew my knees in.

Ashpazkhune - The House of the Soup Cook (Part 2)

Temporary Bride — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 21:49:35 +0000

In London, my first meal of the day often came at 10 p.m.. My assistant Katrina and I would reach for my cheap, Chinese plastic bowls - the ones with red, faded dragon motifs that we often ate from when all the good plates had already been used - and fill them with the remaining scraps of the evening’s food.

Ashpazkhune - The House of the Soup Cook (Part 1)

Temporary Bride — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 22:56:07 +0000

My shopping bags were beginning to cut into my wrists and I struggled to find space to set them down. It was cold and a damp wind blew through London’s Borough Market.

This is one of those days when I seriously question what I do for a living.

Yesterday I had your dream - Part 6

Temporary Bride — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 02:44:30 +0000

“Yesterday I had your dream and I dreamt that you were my wife,” Vahid said. “That you loved me the most and we were peaceful together.”

Yesterday I had your dream - Part 5

Temporary Bride — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 20:25:38 +0000

We knew that we didn’t have very long to stay here, in one place. The peasant, village boys who made up the lower ranks of the religious police would soon begin scouring the riverbanks for signs of illicit behaviour, jostling for bribes to avoid a trip to the police station. The spoiled, unmarried girls were perhaps even worse.

Yesterday I had your dream - Part 4

Temporary Bride — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 22:27:25 +0000

Release came in small doses - in the shadows of the Harunieh mosque, in the twist of a passageway near my guesthouse, in those fleeting, fragmented moments of privacy. Listening always for footsteps or the sounds of voices, we’d grab for each other - my lips to his cheek, his hands around my waist; the hungry closing in on the spaces between us. It was a slow, nagging Iranian torment but the anticipation made my skin prickle.

Yesterday I had your dream - Part 3

Temporary Bride — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 23:20:24 +0000

I'd been expecting Vahid's phone call that he would be coming to Esfahan but when it came I was suddenly nervous. I tried to imagine the restrictions we would be under and all the things we couldn’t openly do.

Yesterday I had your dream - Part 2

Temporary Bride — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 21:12:26 +0000

A girl like me belonged in the kitchen and meanwhile my new guesthouse had paired me with their cook for a few days. Ali had a thick mustache, wore grey polyester shirts and cooked for wealthy families in Tehran where he lived in the off-season with his wife and four children. It was an adjustment to be in the kitchen with a stranger, a man, after growing used to the meticulous calm of housewives.

Yesterday I had your dream - Part 1

Temporary Bride — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 21:04:14 +0000

"Yesterday I had your dream."

It was our fifth resting place in less than an hour - the riverbanks of the Zayand e Rood. A few moments to linger among the plantings of shemshod and mulberry, and it would be time for us to move again.

Labourer's Hands - Part 5

Temporary Bride — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 19:29:58 +0000

Through my indulged, peripatetic lifestyle, I saw the huge gulf that had grown between me and my parents. I was salaried, desk-bound and lax while they toiled in their factory, pulling parts, pouring chemicals and overseeing two long exhausting shifts per day. My mother’s hands were cracked and raw while mine were smooth and rosy. I felt shame at the ease and comfort of my life, and humbled by the pride and austerity of theirs.

Labourer's Hands - Part 4

Temporary Bride — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 19:50:37 +0000

At first, I’d marvelled at my new sense of importance. I had a desk. A digital phone. Not one but three flat screen monitors. Corporate life brought me financial independence beyond my wildest dreams. It’s safe to say that for those first five years in London I lived for the thought of only two things: money and food.

Labourer's Hands - Part 3

Temporary Bride — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 19:38:34 +0000

When I returned to Canada at the end of the year my mother - who had imagined that I’d subsisted on spaghetti and tuna fish - was shocked to see that I’d gained two kilos onto my tall, skinny figure. Instead of being shunted from the kitchen I now took a rightful place beside her forming a partnership as tender and sturdy as the fingerprints we pressed into the chestnut flour dumplings that we scattered on soft tea towels.

Labourer's Hands - Part 2

Temporary Bride — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 22:02:53 +0000

Cont'd.

Labourer's Hands - Part 1

Temporary Bride — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 18:35:02 +0000

Growing up, my memories of the kitchen were of being ushered out of it by my mother. Frazzled from a long day at work but committed to putting something homemade on our dinner table - more to please my father than anything to do with us children - she wanted no obstacles, no potential spillages, and certainly none of our eager curiosity in the way as she rushed to peel potatoes or slice raw onions into a cucumber salad.