Read Online The Good Daughter: A Memoir of My Mother's Hidden Life by Jasmin Darznik - Free Book Online

for their son.
    One day passed. Then two and three. By the fourth day, Khanoom, knowing as she did that a long interval of silence was customary, had not yet lost her hope or her good cheer, but Lili herself had grown quite anxious. Had the visitors not thought her pretty? For this, principally, seemed the question afoot, the reason for the afternoon’s game.
    Whenever she saw that Khanoom was busy in the kitchen, Lili slipped away to Kobra’s bedroom and studied herself in the smallhandheld mirror that belonged to her mother. She bore a striking resemblance to Sohrab and had always been much fussed over for this reason. She had his almond-shaped black eyes, full lips, and fair skin. She had two fetching dimples and her hair was a deep chestnut, a shade that is lovingly, if fancifully, described as talayee or golden in Iran. She was, she knew, uncommonly pretty.
    Lili considered her reflection many times and concluded that the problem had something to do with the big feet that her aunts claimed she’d inherited from Kobra’s family.
    But ten days later the word finally came. The Khorramis had accepted Lili. She would be a bride. An aroos .
    “ Che shansi! ” one of her aunts exclaimed. “What luck! A suitor!” A second aunt hauled out the tonbak (a goblet drum) and began playing a wedding song. Many mobaraks went round the house, followed by a chorus of ululations.
    “We must sweeten our tongues!” Khanoom exclaimed.
    When a chickpea cookie was pressed into her hand, Lili began to think of the lovely brides she’d often seen being led through the streets and the musicians and singers following in their wake. She popped the cookie into her mouth and then, imagining herself as an aroos in her very own pretty house and pretty, grown-up clothes, she smiled.
    Meanwhile, Kobra seethed. She pursed her lips and thought of Sohrab and his blue-eyed whore across town. It had been at Sohrab’s insistence that Lili go round without a veil or even a flowered kerchief to cover her hair. Kobra was sure that no suitor would have come for several more years if her daughter’s head had been covered. And it was a sorry match; Kobra was certain of it. Although as a family the Khorramis were wealthy, Kazem himself earned only a modest salary and owned no house of his own. What security would Lili find in such a husband? But on the matter of Lili’s marriage, Khanoom and Lili’s aunts would have no less deferred to Kobra thanto their servants, and all that was left for Kobra was to curse her own lot and set about accepting her daughter’s destiny.
    In the next few weeks the household launched itself into preparations for the khastegari , the day when Kazem’s family would appear to formally ask for Lili’s hand. There was a good deal of debate about whether the girl herself should be in attendance and, if yes, whether she should appear with or without her hair covered. In the end it was decided that she should appear briefly to serve the first tea of the afternoon and that she should be wearing a pink scarf over her head. This wisp of chiffon would not only preserve the solemnity of the occasion but have the further advantage of calling up the pretty pink blush of Lili’s cheeks.
    This time there were men among the party, and so Lili kept her eyes fixed on the tray she was carrying in her hands. Khanoom infused the afternoon tea with the essence of rose water and cardamom and assembled a tower of plump and glistening dates on her best china plate. Lili’s hands trembled as she entered the mehmoon khooneh , guest parlor, with these delicacies, but somehow she managed to serve the party in the proper order: first the oldest gentlemen (the grandfathers of the Khorrami clan), next the fathers and uncles, then the young man in the gray fedora sitting by himself at the far end of the parlor, and finally the women of the family. She had a vague notion that the young man in the hat was her suitor, but she did not dare look at him more