Yesterday I had your dream - Part 1

Share/Save/Bookmark

Yesterday I had your dream - Part 1
by Temporary Bride
15-Aug-2010
 

"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.

We were in Esfahan, a city of pleasure gardens, wooden palaces painted with peacocks and nightingales and a river criss-crossed with softly lit bridges. It should have been a romantic place to see each other again, but in Iran, in this new city, we were growing accustomed to behaving like strangers. 

We sat facing the river and I counted the width of five handspans in the distance that separated us. I pulled my scarf forward to hide the blonde streaks of my hair and avoided using my hands - the giveaway of a European background - when I spoke, which I did while either looking across at the horizon or down at my feet. We directed the things we told each other to my black pointed ballerina flats or the shoelaces of his brown loafers, matching them as best as we could with disinterested expressions. I didn't imagine we were really fooling anyone. On the cobbled pavements behind us a group of women in chador lay on scraps of carpet, shoeless but in black stockinged feet. They watched us disapprovingly, grumbling sour-faced commentary while fumbling with the yards of black cloth that they lowered and raised across their mouths.

It was a big deal for us to be here in Esfahan together and I knew it. His family had consented for him to follow me here because it had never occurred to them. When his father had loaned him fifty dollars and his mother had tucked a lunch of lavosh, cucumber, mint and cheese into his travel bag, they were thinking of him as my host and protector. They had enjoyed the sweet, temporary nest I had made for myself in their suburban Yazdi home and smiled at my quirky Western socialisation, that I was bold and animated where their daughter and nieces were reserved and shy; but they had never imagined the unthinkable.

For a traditional, Yazdi family, a relationship was a mathematical formula: you put in the correct variables of age, beauty, morality and finances and the output was a successful, peaceful marriage. It couldn’t be therefore, that their Iranian son could feel desire for someone six years his senior, someone who didn’t come to him pure and untouched. I was an amusing visitor from another world and soon enough I should return to it, fading quietly into an anecdote brought up over tea or a postcard taped onto the fridge; a photograph kept in a shoebox. There was nothing to worry about, for Vahid could never love such a girl as me.

Share/Save/Bookmark

Recently by Temporary BrideCommentsDate
The only room this way - Part 3
7
Sep 06, 2012
The only room this way - Part 2
4
Sep 04, 2012
The only room this way - Part 1
4
Aug 30, 2012
more from Temporary Bride
 
yolanda

......

by yolanda on

Great writing....I enjoyed reading it!

Thank you for sharing!


Marjaneh

Thank you, Faramarz

by Marjaneh on

Thanks for the link. (I just love that "copper" of those two sculptures....)

"We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe." Goethe



Monda

Loved your writing...

by Monda on

as always. Look forward to reading more on how you handled Vahid's insecurities, protecting your own sensitivities.


Faramarz

Marjaneh

by Faramarz on

The sculpture is located at Chehel Sotoon Palace. But I don't know anything else about it. Maybe some of our Isfahani readers know more.

 

//www.flickr.com/photos/27090466@N08/43705571...


Marjaneh

Faramarz

by Marjaneh on

at 3.05 and 3.15min, do you happen to know the name of the sculptor?(Could be a woman)

 

"We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe." Goethe



Temporary Bride

Thanks for reading...

by Temporary Bride on

..and coming along on this journey with me.

Guest cucumbers for everyone! :)


bajenaghe naghi

Temporary Bride jan

by bajenaghe naghi on

A very sweet and tender story. Looking forward to reading the next part. 


Faramarz

Zayandeh Rood

by Faramarz on

Beautiful story T-Bride about Esfahan and Zayandeh Rood

 

برم اونجا بشینم در کنار زاینده رود

بخونم از ته دل ترانه و شعر و سرود

 


Jahanshah Javid

Excellent

by Jahanshah Javid on

Brilliant piece. Thank you.