Rosewater and Soda Bread by Marsha Mehran

Author:Marsha Mehran [Mehran, Marsha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-54466-7
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2008-08-30T04:00:00+00:00

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN you're going to be a Catholic? How can you just decide something like that?” Layla exclaimed loudly from her post at the refrigerator.

“I didn't just decide it,” Bahar replied with an indignant air. “And really, it's not any of your business.”

She looked very uncomfortable, cornered as she was at the kitchen table, with her back to the pantry door. She desperately wanted to reach into her apron pocket for her laminated card, the watercolor rendition of the prayer to Our Lady of Knock, but she resisted, not wanting to have to explain that as well.

“But how long have you known?” asked Marjan.

Unlike Layla, Marjan had had a few hours to mull over what Father Mahoney had let slip.

“Look, I came in here to tell the both of you the truth, because Father Mahoney thought I should, because I think I should. But if you're going to act as if I'm guilty of some crime, then I'm just going to get up and leave,” Bahar said, pushing herself away from the kitchen table. “If you want crime, you know where to look.”

She pointed at Marjan accusingly. “What were you doing seeing Father Mahoney, anyway? Making a confession? Can't do that if you're not a believer, you know.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“I think it's pretty obvious. We've never had any kind of faith, nothing to rely on growing up. Doesn't that just strike you as a little strange?” Bahar crossed her arms with a pointed air.

It took Marjan a few seconds to answer. “Of course we had faith. Maybe we weren't religious as such, but we were taught what was right and wrong.”

Bahar snorted. “You and I have completely different memories, Marjan. All I remember is asking Baba what God was and getting the craziest answer ever.”

“He told you the same thing he told me,” Marjan replied softly.

“What did he say?” Layla looked eagerly to her older sisters.

Bahar smirked. “Go on, Marjan. What did he say?”

“He said… he said that God was all around us,” Marjan replied, feeling defensive all of a sudden. “He said that there was no sense in looking to religion for the divine, that all we had to do was take a breath, see the beauty in our ability to do something as simple and complex as taking in a breath.”

“Simple and complex.” Bahar sniffed. “How can something be two opposite things at once? You make it sound so romantic.”She turned to Layla. “Do you want to know what Baba told us? What jewels of wisdom I have to pass on to you?”

Layla stared at Bahar, not entirely sure she wanted her to continue.

Continue she did. “He told us we come from monkeys—no, wait, bacteria—we all, every single human being on earth, came from bacteria that lived in the sea. And that, when we die, we have nothing to hold on to. No soul, no memories, nothing.”

She turned to Marjan accusingly. “Do you think that's what happened to Maman? She just disappeared? No heaven, nothing to go up to?”

Marjan sighed.

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