Page 60 of The Mismatch

Neda

Tehran, 1977

It was impossible to forget what had happened on her wedding night, but in time Neda learnt to forgive, or at least told herself that was what she was doing. Hossein proclaimed his innocence, vehemently and unwaveringly. But the fact he had had a girlfriend before her and kept it secret displeased her.What had gone wrong?she had asked.We were too different, he replied.She was kind of crazy, he said another time.She didn’t have good morals, he commented later.She wasn’t you.

Neda presumed, and rightly so, that if she had had a boyfriend in the past, Hossein wouldn’t have wanted to marry her. However, it was unsurprising really that his expectations of men’s and women’s morals were vastly different. He was, after all, a man, no matter how different she’d once thought he was.

But he was still Hossein. The same man who unwaveringly rooted for her, no matter if she was trying out a new recipe or applying for scholarships to do a Masters degree. He always voiced his faith in her, made her feel boosted by his belief in her.

She couldn’t leave him; it would be humiliating. Not just for her, but for her family. And she couldn’t divorce him for no reason; only men had that power. Anyway, she wasn’t sure she wanted to lose him, despite everything.

In time she began to wonder whether it was right to judge someone based on their past. Whether she was no better for begrudging him something he did before he had even met her, if that was in fact the truth, which deep down she believed it was. Surely word would have spread sooner if it were not? Their social circle was small and Neda knew all the gossip.

As they settled into their new life together, she began working as a medical laboratory assistant, and Hossein continued working at his uncle’s factory and coaching under-16s football.

It was once they were living together that Neda really noticed his slight limp. The way, every morning when he woke up, he carefully stretched his leg. He had never explained his accident to her in detail. It was only when she saw his prescription for painkillers that she understood the extent of his injury.

‘My leg almost had to be amputated at one point,’ he said, casually buttering himself a piece of bread one morning when she asked about it.

‘What?’ Her mouth was agape.

‘My injury was more serious than my mother likes to admit. But I’m OK now, thank Allah.’ He looked up, as though he could see Him above.

Neda muttered, ‘Alhamdulillah.’ Then, ‘But your mother said you might be able to play again?’

Hossein smiled, shaking his head, his eyes sad. ‘Shewantsme to be able to play again. The doctor has already said it’s over. I made my peace with it, but she … she had her hopes set on it. She knew how proud it would have made my dad.’

Neda looked at her husband across the sofreh. She saw him in an unaccustomed light, saw him as he was when she first accepted his proposal, when she was so excited at the prospect of a new life with this man. He was the same man, the same good, kind man; he had just made a mistake. And that was when she finally forgave him, deciding he had suffered enough already.

The longer they lived together, the better acquainted they became with each other’s habits. At first it was awkward for them both; they had never lived with so few people in a house before, everything they did magnified, no longer masked by hordes of family members. They took it in turns to wake each other up for fajr prayer. And when they went back to bed, they snuggled into each other until they fell asleep.

Whereas Hossein liked to press snooze on his alarm for as long as possible, Neda woke up immediately to get ready for the day ahead. She always made them breakfast. In return, on the nights he wasn’t coaching, he would collect dinner from their favourite pizza shop on the way home from work.

And of course they engaged in the activity only married people could in a halal way. It was something she enjoyed, to an extent. But wasn’t sex always for the man, anyway? His body reacted in different ways from a woman’s, it was more obvious with its clear ending, the predictable release.

She thought back to their first time, a haze now. They did not have sex on their wedding night. That had been filled with awkwardness tinged with bitterness. Hossein slept in the living room without any argument.

It was weeks later, once the ice had thawed, that he had made her smile again with his boyish charms. All she remembered was the sudden haste, both his and hers. She had made the first move, and that was important. It had been drilled into her what would be expected of her, what she would finally be allowed to do with Allah’s blessing. There was fumbling and pain. A lot of pain.

‘It’s like sticking a sausage into a needle hole!’ her cousin had once joked, and her relatives had cackled. At the time Neda had been fairly young and hadn’t quite understood what was meant. But upon losing her virginity, the reference became clear to her. Hossein wasn’t quite patient. He was gentle, yes, but not patient. All Neda remembered of that night was being uncomfortable and shedding a tiny amount of blood. She had imagined a bucketload, a dramatic signifier of what they had just done; her passage into womanhood. But instead it was anticlimactic, a few watery drops.

The lack of blood made her panic.

‘It’s so strange, I expected more,’ she ventured to say to him the next morning.

‘Everyone’s different, it’s normal.’ He shrugged. The implication of his statement scorched her. She was reminded of his girlfriend, and the barrier was raised between them again.

‘Really?’

‘Azizam, I know you were a virgin, don’t worry.’

Despite his words Neda felt her heartbeat quickening.Sheknew she was. ‘What about your mother?’

‘There’s blood, isn’t there? If you weren’t a virgin, you wouldn’t have been that uncomfortable. Don’t worry, it’ll be better next time.’ He brushed his hand across her bare stomach, causing shivers to run through her. And then suddenly his lips were upon hers, and there was never the chance for Neda to ask, both bitterly and boldly,howhe had such wisdom.

CHAPTER 29

Neda