By Bruce Livingston
Hawthorne Fellow 2012
Bruce Livingston has deep Oregon roots, and came out of the womb searching for food and adventures, which he’s found in the mountains of Iran, the taiga forest of the Siberian Arctic, Paris, and the Katmai Coast of Alaska.
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Taking care of the sheep was best, because she could roam around outside the village walls pretty much as she pleased. It was much better than washing clothes and bedding, or looking after her little brother, whose nose was always runny, his crusty eyes ringed with flies. The grazing land was open as far as she could see, much farther than she could walk in a day.
When Nilufar wasn’t working, she played with the other village children. Sohrab was her favorite. He was a shepherd, like her. They loved using a stick to make a hoop roll along. They laughed and ran like the wind, tiny swirls of dust popping up each time a bare foot hit the ground. Nothing fenced them in.
When Nilufar turned nine, she wasn’t allowed to go beyond the village walls alone. She hated the rules that took her freedom. She couldn’t play with Sohrab anymore. They spoke with their eyes whenever they met, by the village gate, or in a passageway.
When Nilufar was sixteen, her parents told her she would marry Mohammed Ali.
“Mama, no! He’s old! His personality isn’t right for mine.”
“You’ll get used to him.”
“I hate him. He’s lazy.”
“Our families are related. It’s the proper thing to do.”
Nilufar wept, but the wedding took place in spite of her protests. Sohrab joined the Navy.
Nilufar’s mother-in-law nagged. She complained that her bread dough was too wet, that she didn’t sprinkle the dirt floor with enough water before she swept, that she took too long going to the well for water. Nilufar had never liked her mother’s cousin, even less now she was her mother-in-law.
Not long after their wedding, Mohammed Ali was hired to work in the port of Bushire, and he didn’t return for more than a year. While he was away, Sohrab came home briefly, on leave from the Navy. Nilufar became pregnant. Desperate, she confided in her aunt Maryam, who had been her ally as long as she could remember. Maryam thought the nurse and the doctor who came to the village every fortnight might help.
“I have a question for you,” Maryam said to the nurse. “It’s private.”
“Of course.” She took Maryam aside. “What is it?”
“Water is scarce, and we only change the water in the village bath once a week. Men and women use the bath on alternate days. Is it possible that human sperm could live long in that water?”
“I don’t…” the nurse hesitated. “I’ll ask the doctor. Is someone pregnant, unexpectedly?”
“Yes.”
The nurse huddled with the doctor. They returned together.
“Yes,” the doctor said. “It is possible that she became pregnant from the bath.”
“It was an act of God,” Maryam told the village women. Most agreed that Nilufar’s pregnancy was no one’s fault, and nothing should be thought amiss. Nilufar told Maryam she was the happiest woman alive, the night her son was born.