My bookcase shelves a copy of the Holy Qu’ran
with pages water damaged from the four times I drowned the book in a bowl of
water and said a prayer to the Prophet. This is traditionally one of the many
ways to break the curse of a Muslim witch. At first, my mother’s advice
couldn’t have sounded more insolent; yet, I did it out of desperation to make
all of it go away. Written in Arabic, full of shariah codes of conduct and
misinterpreted veiling rites, this holy book sends a message of my past. Acting
as a provocation to a thought, it marries cultural and personal disappointments
while situating me in an unfortunate zone where outer and inner realities meet.
It started at age 13, as a frizzy-haired girl
in Iran desperately trying to get through the annual family summer vacation
when I saw him: my mother’s second cousin, related through marriage. He was
handsome and tall, and upon my return to Iran on a snowy winter night at age 23
he was handsome and tall. And when I walked into the room he noticed, and I
noticed that he noticed.
That chilly night his mother gave me a gold
bracelet accompanied by a smile and a tray of lemonade. I smiled back and
accepted both. The offer of a trip along the Caspian crept its way into our
conversation and I readily accepted. We left a week later and I thought it was
love. He really got me, and I so badly wanted to be gotten. After 3 hours
of windy roads and Persian carpet picnics along rivers and waterfalls, we
arrived at our rented villa in the North. And after the perfunctory post-dinner
game of gin rummy, we waited for everyone to go to bed, and snuck out to the
seaside. We drank vodka smuggled in from Russia, and smoked cigarettes from
Afghanistan and let our obsessions run along former soviet waters.
But, that night was the end of it all. The
one room beach house does not make for comfortable mornings when a very Muslim
mother sees a woman spooning her very Muslim son. I awoke to screams and curses
pregnant with references to Allah and Muhammad and the departed. And then I
knew I was fucked.
The next few days were difficult, as the
shackles of Iranian propriety were fixed tight. Knowing that I was a guest and
wouldn’t eat at her table unless offered, she didn’t offer me food for two
days. Enduring these days of starvation, attempting to sneak food while she
slept, getting caught, getting hit, yelled at and called a whore in more ways
than I thought possible in Farsi, I ran away to a bus station. This was only to
find that a woman cannot buy a bus ticket without a marriage certificate or the
company of a man, same with a hotel room, and I had neither. All those
emergency notes with Benjamin Franklin’s name and picture in my purse were
worthless to me—just like his autobiography in high school.
I literally had nowhere to go. Hours
later, and quite cinematically, he appeared at the bus station and bought us
each a ticket to Isfahan. I spent a majority of the 10 hour bus ride to my grandmother's house mustering up the courage to ask about us...about this which we created on the beach. Together. Once he bid
his farewell, I finally had the nerve to ask: “What happens now?”. His
reply was honest, and for that I will always be grateful; “I could never marry a whore. My mother sees you that way and that's what
you'll always be in my eyes." A whore. A kiss whore. Because the reality
was that we had only kissed that night on the beach…or ever. That was the last
time I ever saw him.
But the story doesn't end there. While at my grandmother’s house I got very
sick. I started throwing up blood and dizziness ensued unless bedridden. This
lasted for three weeks. After
various diagnoses, endless pills and tonics, I gave up. Soon after, my mom
rushed into my room with a strange question: had I recently accepted gold
jewelry from anyone? I realized the bracelet still encircling my wrist that his
mother gave me. My mom ordered me to take it off immediately and pee on it. It
was a way to break the curse. After three weeks I was willing to try anything.
I was also curious as to why I was still wearing that bracelet. I peed
on it and was better the next day.
Now, years later, even though the physical
part of the curse has been lifted—the greater and more profound cosmological
effect still lingers. I have made this sequence of emotional events into a
one-dimensional and quite simplistic vision: a witch put a curse on me that
eliminated any chance of romantic happiness. I know this because I’m not
married, and although I have had many offers, it never works out. This was the
other part of her curse. I never thought I would fall in love with a distant
relative, believe in witchcraft, pee on jewelry, or immerse holy scripture in
water in order to ward off spirits. But, then I look at my bookshelf and
cringe. I obviously believe in the curse, as I have tried to break it four
times. Some objects exert a holding power because of the particular moment and
circumstance they came into a person’s life. This Qur’an links the winter of
2000 to my historical narrative: a time machine to that week in the Caspian,
lost love, a broken heart, and a witch’s curse fulfilled.