Reading Lolita in Tehran_ A Memoir in Books - Azar Nafisi [146]
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“Our Sanaz has so many qualifications,” Azin was saying as she meticulously inspected her fingernails. “She doesn’t need a two-bit boy whose greatest accomplishment has been to dodge the draft and move to England.” Her tone was needlessly ferocious, and at the moment, she was targeting no one in particular. This was when I began to pay serious attention to Azin’s nails. She had taken to polishing them a bright tomato red and appeared totally preoccupied by their shape and color. Throughout class, whenever she found the opportunity, she would scrutinize her nails as if the red varnish connected her to a different dimension, a place known only to Azin. When she stretched her hand to take a pastry or an orange, her eyes attentively followed the movement of her red-tipped fingers.
We were discussing Sanaz during the break. She was due back from Turkey the following week. Mitra, the only one who was in touch with her, updated us: he was very sweet, she loved him, they were engaged. They had gone together to the seaside; there will be pictures, lots of pictures. The aunt doesn’t think he’s such a catch. She thinks he’s a nice boy, better as a boyfriend, needs someone to help him hold up his pants (dimples widen). That didn’t seem to bother our Sanaz.
“Nothing wrong with being young,” Yassi chirped in. “That’s how my uncle and his wife started—and on top of that, they had no money. Actually, come to think of it, three of my uncles married that way. All but the youngest, who never married—he joined a political organization,” she added, as if that explained why he had never married.
We were hearing about the uncles more often now, because the eldest was in Iran for a three-week vacation. He was Yassi’s favorite. He listened to her poetry, looked over her sister Mina’s paintings, commented on their shy mother’s stories. He was patient, attentive, encouraging and at the same time a bit critical, pointing out this little flaw, that weakness. Yassi was elated whenever he came for visits, or on the rare occasions he wrote home or called from the States and asked specifically to talk to her. He was the only one who was allowed to put ideas into Yassi’s head without any reproach. And he did put ideas into her head. First, he had encouraged her to continue her musical practices; then he had said, Why not go to the university in Tehran? Now he advised her to continue her studies in America. Everything he told Yassi about life in America—events that seemed routine to him—gained a magical glow in her greedy eyes. She regularly checked these stories with me, and I always had something of my own to add. I felt as if her uncle and I were co-conspirators, leading young Yassi astray. And I worried: what if we were encouraging her into a life that was essentially not good for her? I could see how our encouragements also made Yassi, an affectionate and loyal girl, very much attached to her affectionate family, feel conflicted and depressed for days on end. She’d make fun of herself and say that she constantly feels . . . Indecisive? I’d ask. Nooo, what’s the word? Suddenly her face would light up. Cantankerous! No, Yassi, that’s not it. Definitely not cantankerous. Yes, well, indecisive as well as inadequate—that I do feel; maybe I also feel cantankerous.
Nowadays all my girls seemed to want to leave Iran—all except Mahshid, who was more than ever preoccupied by her job. She wanted a promotion and permanence, which she was denied on the basis of her past political affiliation with a religious opposition group. Mitra had already applied for a visa to Canada, although she and Hamid had their doubts. His mother was against