The Stationery Shop(38)
Badri stands on tiptoe next to the bin, hoists the tub higher on her hip, and then in one swift move, neatly and expertly tips it over and empties its contents. Rinds of melon and slippery seeds fall in an arc and the air is filled with the sweet smell of melon. The scent catches in Ali’s throat. He can almost taste the sugary fruit in his mouth, can almost feel the cool melon flesh between his fingers. Badri shakes the tub a few times to get out the last remnants. Then she whips around.
“Why are you following me?”
Her voice is a lot more adult and bossy than he’d expected. She addresses him with the informal singular “you,” not the plural “you” that should be used by a peasant girl when addressing a young man so obviously of a much higher class. Is she so uneducated that she doesn’t know any better? Something about her haughty look makes Ali doubt this. The girl looks like she knows exactly what she’s doing.
“You can speak, can’t you? Or are you mute?” She hoists the empty tub back onto her hip and plants a hand on the other hip. Her feet are wide apart, a pose that Atieh and girls of her class would not dare in the company of strange men. “Hey!” the girl calls out. “I asked you, why are you following me?”
“I’m not.” His voice is a whisper. Here she is, a melon seller’s daughter, a child, really, and for some reason Ali is weak in the knees. It’s her round face, the eyes that dare to look right at his, the rosebud lips.
“I’ll tell my baba to cut your throat! Don’t you come near me. I don’t care if you’re a highfalutin posh man or whatever you are. I know what your kind thinks about girls like me. Well, you come near me and I’ll scream so loud your ears will rupture. I will kick you! Hard!” She lifts the tub with both hands high above her head. “I’ll bash your head in with this tub. I’m sick of men like you. Thinking that just because I’m poor, you get to have a taste. Well, you don’t. My baba will slit your throat with his knife if you come near me. Understand?”
Ali is speechless. No one has ever spoken to him this way. At home, his mother defers to him; he is the prince of the house. The maids don’t dare even address him; the male servants only do to say what he’d like to hear. His father is the only person who is honest and forthright with him. No girl has ever spoken to him like this. He is at once amused by her pluck and mortified. He must look like a pervert. Like nothing more than an entitled lout lurking around a peasant girl.
“No, no, I’m afraid you’re mistaken. I am not here for untoward reasons. Please, I don’t mean to scare you.”
A wave of heat permeates the air, and it’s as though someone has sprayed every particle of dust with the suffocating melon smell. Despite himself, Ali walks closer to the girl. He must reassure her. He wants to prove her wrong—he feels a strange need to show that he is not after that kind of thing at all. The closer he gets to her, the more the sweet scent fills his lungs. Every scrap of fabric on her body, every strand of hair peeking out from the headscarf, even the tassels on her torn slippers must be infused with that melony scent. Her face, now that he is closer, is tan and remarkably healthy, as though she’s received a dose of nutrition inaccessible to the girls he knows, the ones whose mothers have warned them to avoid the sun, the ones who are taught to embroider and study reading and writing, the rich young women who are trained to arrange roses immaculately in crystal vases. Badri glares as he nears her, the tub still balanced above her head.
“Put the tub down.” Ali finds his voice again, the steady and calm one, the one used to talking to servants, the one accustomed to giving orders and being obeyed.
“His melon knife!” Her voice is higher and less confident as he nears. “He will cut you with it!”
Now she sounds like the young girl that she is, vulnerable even though she’s trying so hard to be tough. Ali is drawn to her more than ever, to her wide stance, her rude speech, the rosebud lips, the round moon face with its quivering chin raised up. And the sweet melon smell that will forever be associated with her.
“Put the tub down,” Ali repeats, more calmly this time.
She drops the tub and it bounces on the dirt a few times, with a muted noise that is almost comical. It should have landed with a loud crash, there should have been a huge sound, but the tub bounces softly and lands a few feet away from them, settling quietly on its side. No one could have heard it fall from afar. In fact, Ali realizes, the girl has reason to be scared. This square dock is shielded by trees; they are unseen, no one knows they are here. Everyone is at the mosque praying, holding their palms in front of their faces, whispering verses of faith.
He will tell her again that he’s not here to hurt her. He will reassure her that he is simply . . . what exactly is he simply doing? Following her. Of course he cannot help but be attracted to her, but he’ll explain and reassure her. She needs to realize he’s a gentleman. Ali is confused, and angry that this girl can make him confused. She is nothing. She is below him. He will let her know he is to study religion and the classics in Qom after he is married—
Before he can decide how best to word all this, the sweet flavor of melon envelops him. In the noon sun, Ali is momentarily blinded, he must be hallucinating. Something sticky and warm has landed on his cheek, and for a minute he is unable to identify it. Then he realizes the girl is next to him, she has walked right up to him and kissed him. She stands there, balanced on her toes, for what seems like a snatch of time separate from all the rest. For a few seconds—seconds that will be suspended in Ali’s memory until the day he dies—for a moment encased in a sphere, sealed off from the rest of his life, her lips are warm and sticky on his face. She feels like a burst of fire.