“I love how Americans name their roses after famous people.” She spoke between bites as I tried to place the elusive spices in the vinaigrette. While Jawid had no accent, Nasrin’s voice was thick with the music of her homeland. I vaguely recalled that she’d come to the States as a young adult. “That white one is called a Kennedy, after the President. The smell is so light and fresh. The pink is a Princess Diana. Such lovely blushes on the petals, as befits a beautiful princess, yes?”
“Yes,” I said.
Nasrin’s face glowed when she spoke about her flowers. “The deep red one with the white markings is a Dolly Parton. Very full-bodied.” I almost choked when Nasrin winked wickedly. “And this. .” She leaned to the side of the table, cupped an exquisite, lavender bloom in her slender fingers, and inhaled deeply. “Mmmm. This is my new Barbara Streisand. She is beautiful enough to inspire song, I think.” Her laugh was contagious. “Please.” She smiled up at me and motioned for me to sniff. I bent forwards, inhaling the comforting scent, suddenly aware of the faint sandalwood perfume of Nasrin as well. “Ooh,” she laughed, turning her hand as a ladybug climbed on to her fingers. She lifted it carefully back on to the leaves. “I try to keep them happy. They’re so good for the garden.” She waved around her. “Do you tend flowers, also?”
“No,” I laughed, looking at the subtly organized riot of vibrant colours that surrounded me. “I just tend to other people’s problems.” At her raised eyebrow, I shrugged. “I work long hours. That’s how I met Jawid. .” I closed my eyes, a wave of shame and guilt and pain washing over me. I quietly set my fork down.
“I apologize,” I said stiffly. “You’ve been very gracious, Nasrin, but I have no idea why you asked me here. I have no business sitting here talking to you as if we were friends, even though I like you. God knows why, because I’m still in love with your husband.” I took a deep breath, my voice trembling. “My behaviour has been inexcusable. I didn’t know he was still married, but if you want my apologies, I offer them. Truly. I’m so sorry.”
I’d been going to add that if I’d known, I wouldn’t have done it, but these days, I wasn’t at all sure about that any more. And I was crying again. I wasn’t sure I’d really ever stopped since I’d told Jawid to leave.
I was surprised to feel Nasrin’s hand on mine, pressing a tissue into my palm. I looked up to see her smiling sympathetically at me.
“Men do not always explain themselves well. But then, they are only men.” She patted my hand, and the sparkle in her lustrous brown eyes had me smiling tearily back at her.
“Since you’ve been working so much, I assume you have not been to the Arboretum lately.”
“No,” I said, wiping my eyes. “Not at all, actually. It’s rather far out.”
“Oh, then we will go now,” she said. “The gardens are wonderfully healing when one is upset.” Before I could say another word, Nasrin took my hand and reached down to collect our purses. The next thing I knew, we were in her Mercedes, heading north towards Arcadia. I gave up and called my friends to cancel. The sunshine felt good, and I decided one more weekend at home wouldn’t kill me. At least I was out of the house and away from work, if not away from all memories of Jawid.
Nasrin and I spent hours in the gardens. At first, her arm linking with mine felt awkward. My American sense of personal space was well developed, and I was still uncomfortable with my role as the Other Woman. But the unexpected comfort of Nasrin’s touch and her love of the flowers, and the incredible breadth of her knowledge, soon had me holding her hand in awe as we watched tiny lizards scurry beneath the open orchid blooms in the rainforest greenhouse. Through the thick glass walls we could hear the cry of the peacocks outside on the walkways.
“They are such sexual birds,” she said, as a domineering male scream echoed through the walls. “Just like human men.”
I smiled as a second shrill cry rose in unison with the first. I was beginning to understand that while Nasrin seemed quiet, she was more than willing to voice her surprisingly uninhibited opinions. And I was finally starting to understand a little bit of where Jawid had been coming from with his insane idea of marrying me as well as Nasrin.
“I have always expected that Jawid would take a second wife.” We rounded a corner, and Nasrin stooped to trail her long, carefully manicured fingers through a small waterfall between two towering ferns. “I assumed it would happen later.” She smiled up at me. “And that she would be much younger than me. Someone who would catch his eye and give him another lifetime’s worth of children when I had grown older and more matronly. But one can never tell when love will strike, can one?” She stood up and rubbed her hands together briskly, drying them in the air. “After all, I certainly did not expect to love him.”
I stared at her. “Why not?” I didn’t care that I was being rude. Despite the soothing moisture of the man-made mists and the perfume of the flowers, and the solace of Nasrin’s company, I was still raw inside. She had Jawid, and she hadn’t wanted him. It wasn’t fair!
She took my hand in both of hers, the warmth of one contrasting starkly with the water-cooled touch of the other. “Ours was an arranged marriage, Amanda. I thought you knew.”
“No,” I said bluntly. To my mind, arranged marriages only happened in faraway places where women were treated like chattels. Places where men had up to four wives, regardless of how the women felt, and divorced them with the throw of a stone. I sighed heavily. Faraway places like where Nasrin and Jawid were from. I was amazed at how little I’d known of someone I’d thought I’d come to understand so well.
Nasrin moved to my side and again linked her arm into mine, leading me back outside and on to the pathway. The sun was higher now, the call of the birds and the dryness of the afternoon heat stark in comparison to the comforting coolness of the greenhouse.
“My family was dispersed when we left the refugee camps. I went to Germany with my brothers and my eldest uncle.” She steered me on to a eucalyptus-lined path, pausing to run her hand over one huge, smooth-barked trunk. “My uncle had a friend whose cousin went to school with Jawid’s father. When Uncle got the address, he wrote to Jawid’s father, and sent my picture. Jawid approved. So his parents and my uncle and aunt made the arrangements.”
She paused to watch a screaming peacock spread his tail feathers in a glorious fan of greens and royal blues. The white eye-feathers seemed to wink at us as he raised and lowered his tail at the plain brown peahen, which was studiously ignoring him.
“I remember sitting for that picture.” She hugged my arm to her breast, laughing as she shook her head. “I was so nervous. I wanted to look my prettiest, to look smart, so I’d catch a good husband. My uncle told me to look practical instead, as Jawid was going to be a doctor, so he would need someone to tend to his home, not someone frittering about the garden, tending flowers and flaunting the fact that she could read.”
Nasrin wrinkled her nose, and made a sombre face. I laughed.
“I looked like this,” she said, “until just as the man’s hand moved to uncover the lens cap. Then I smiled.” Her grin lit her face. “Uncle was mad, but he didn’t have the money to pay for two pictures. So he told me it would serve me right if I ended up married to a poor man who made me hoe other people’s vegetables all day.” She wiggled her fingers at me, and I saw the callouses from her gardening tools beside the light peach of her nail polish. “Little does Uncle know, but now my orchids win state prizes and bedeck my husband’s house. And I grow champion tomatoes!”