Read Rosewater and Soda Bread for Free Online

and Ali had chosen to keep their bond fairly chaste. It would take a separation and the coming of the Revolution to bring them together in a deeper union.
    When she allowed herself to think of those days, in moments when neither of her sisters was present, Marjan always marveled at the circumstances of their first night together. Unlike the white satin romance they had planned on that school trip to Istanbul, when he had bought her the brass box, their first encounter had been a hushed affair, played out tenuously on a springy cot in the darkened offices of
The Voice
, the revolutionary newspaper she and Ali helped print underground. The word
irony
did not have an equivalent in Farsi, but Marjan had long since come to regard that night as ironic.
    It was ironic, after all, that she and Ali had come together only after she had joined his cause and started wearing a
roosarie
, a traditional head scarf. Ironic that through their words of rupture and revolt, constructed piecemeal on an old printing press, they had joined their bodies for those brief moments of bliss. Pure, uncomplicated happiness.
    It was as if the secrecy of their revolutionary venture had allowed them a separate space of their own, a room with walls that only they could enter. Was it only within boundaries that people were allowed the freedom to be themselves, to be fully naked in both soul and body? Marjan sometimes wondered. It was, after all, the Iranian way, separating one's public and private worlds, allowing no stranger beyond your closed door. All those walled gardens and veils, those captive singing nightingales.
    Was it better to give all of yourself and open up your wounds, your darker moments to another person? Or were you richer for being conservative, for keeping your emotions to yourself?Maybe it was necessary to have a bit of mystery in life, Marjan told herself, to keep some things hidden from others. Perhaps there were secrets that you could share only with yourself. Or was this an argument for justifying the ever-gilded cage, the Republic that Ali had fought and, perhaps, died for? She just did not know. It was a puzzle that would probably never be solved. One of those questions that would eternally confound the human heart.
    Maybe it was better to concentrate on the chickpea cookies she was toting for the Bonfire, thought Marjan, turning down Main Mall.

    WITH THE COOKIE TRAYS held securely in her arms, Marjan quickly crossed over to a packed Fadden's Field. Even before she stepped onto the grassy knoll adjacent to Danny Fadden's Mini-Mart, she could feel the ground quiver with the excitement to come. This would be the first year Ballinacroagh would be celebrating the end of the harvest season in such a grand manner. There had been an attempt at organizing a celebratory event last year, but that had gone the way of the proverbial smoke.
    Bonfire Night 1986 had been a massive letdown thanks to a gale that had blown in from the nearby Atlantic. The night was to be forever referred to as Fadden's Big Fizzle, after the pile of birchwood that steamed out within a minute of being lit.
    “Marjan! I'm so glad you're here!” Fiona Athey dodged a trio of nuns, two of whom Marjan recognized as Sisters Agatha and Bea, to get to her. The robust hairdresser was wearing an orange UCLA sweatshirt and her favorite pair of olive green fishing pants, handy for all their secret pockets and folds. Not a fan of feminine accessories, Fiona seemed slightly perturbed by the large plastic earrings hanging from her earlobes. Marjan recognizedtheir shape—husks of yellow corn—as her friend approached.
    “You wouldn't believe the mess I'm in, even if I told you.” Fiona breathed heavily, taking one of the trays. “Have a look over there, Marjan, and tell me what you see, now.”
    Marjan followed her friend's gaze, past the already crowded refreshments tent, to the middle of Fadden's Field. Planted amongst the dark heather, in two semicircles that repeated