Half a Cup of Sand and Sky, page 1
Praise for
Half a Cup of Sand and Sky
“Brilliantly layered and beautifully written, this PEN America finalist is both a searing character portrait and an incisive examination of Iranian history, which is at once moving and illuminating.”
—The Independent Review of Books,
Reviewer’s Pick
“A powerful and thought-provoking tale that delves into the intricate dynamics of love, politics, and the pursuit of personal identity …. This exceptional story will ignite your imagination and touch your heart.”
—Midwest Book Review
“A wise, beautiful novel featuring a woman facing the eternal challenge: how to create an authentic self …. I adored this book.”
—Joan Steinau Lester,
award-winning author of Loving Before Loving:
A Marriage in Black and White
“Bjursten’s prose is clear, polished, and touched with poetry and insight but never getting in the way of the heart of the story: a woman fighting for her family, love, and freedom from political injustice. Well-drawn characters and a tangible sense of living through history will grip readers …. The final pages will bring tears.”
—Publishers Weekly,
Editor’s Pick
“A captivating story that respects the complexity of Iran and its history and shines a light on the many courageous Iranians striving for democracy, human security, and freedom.”
—Trita Parsi,
author of A Single Roll of the Dice
and Losing an Enemy
“Bjursten’s Half a Cup of Sand and Sky beautifully balances global risks with the stakes of a single woman’s heart, imbuing both with compelling urgency.”
—Anne Welsbacher,
IndieReader
“From beautiful images of Iran, Sweden, and the UK, to heavily researched historical events, and to characters that are deeply human in their joys, mistakes, and dreams, Bjursten has written quite an exceptional book …. [It] will captivate folks of all genres and ages with its craft, vitality, and wisdom.”
—Independent Book Review,
Starred Review
“An engrossing tale of a woman’s quest for love in a world threatened by nuclear proliferation and a nation struggling with the aftermath of a bloody revolution. Deceptively easy to read … richly layered … a real gem.”
—Mahbod Seraji,
author of Rooftops of Tehran
“A searing love story unfolds against the violent background of Iran’s Islamic Revolution and the upheaval that followed …. Persian tradition combines with Iranian modernity to shape a rich tapestry of history and emotion.”
—Stephen Kinzer,
author of All the Shah’s Men
“Enticing …. Thought-provoking …. An emotional historical journey through the recent history of nuclear armament.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“A fascinating depiction of a period with far-reaching consequences in Iran’s history. Evocative, moving, and informative.”
—Jacquie Bloese,
author of The French House
“Bjursten has spun a vibrant and sumptuous tale of a woman’s odyssey amid her country’s political upheaval. Half a Cup of Sand and Sky is a beautifully crafted novel following Amineh’s journey to love and home.”
—Yasmine Beverly Rana,
award-winning playwright of
The War Zone Is My Bed
“Bjursten’s storytelling is both emotionally resonant and intellectually stimulating, making it a must-read for lovers of literary fiction. This novel is a testament to the power of literature to transport readers to different times and places while exploring the universal themes of the human experience.”
—Readers’ Favorite
Half a Cup of Sand and Sky
Visit www.alderhousebooks.com
for a Reading Group Guide,
an interview with the author, and more.
Copyright © 2023 Nadine Bjursten
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without the prior written permission of the copyright owner, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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ISBN: 978-91-988616-0-0 (hc) / 978-91-988616-1-7 (trade pb) /
978-91-988616-2-4 (ebook)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023937800
Disclaimer
Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblances to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
First printing edition October 2023
Text design by Neuwirth & Associates, Inc.
Cover art by Richard Ljoenes
Alder House Books
www.alderhousebooks.com
Printed in the United States of America
To all the activists in Iran and the world trying to save us from ourselves.
To Siri and Nora.
You will find that most things in life are more complicated than they appear, yet I wish you many simple, beautiful moments.
May you always remember your hearts.
“What was said to the rose that made it open was said to me here in my chest.”
rumi
Part I
The Marriage
Prologue
amineh’s mother used to say that their damask rose, which had made her family farm famous, was poetry come to life—not ordinary poetry but the kind that sprang from Rumi or Hāfez, the kind that didn’t merely touch heaven but was it. It was an aspiration Amineh had taken to heart: the idea that careful cultivation can create that kind of perfection. What she hadn’t known then was how easy it was to get it wrong, that decisions that seem right frequently lead to untold heartbreak. It would take a lifetime to understand she was not alone in getting it wrong, nor was heartache limited to her country, Iran. Life is complex. People are complex. Countries are complex. To pretend otherwise is to reduce a thing to one of its constituent parts. The distinction of the damask cannot be known by a single petal, nor can the spirit of a person or country be found in one story. To get a clearer understanding of anything, we must go deeper and be prepared to accept that the truth lies outside our current idea or belief. It is perhaps one of our most important pursuits as human beings. Decisions have effects long after they are made, and eventually they catch up with you.
Chapter 1
May 3, 1977, Tehran University, Tehran
it was one of those bright, windy May days, and Amineh, carrying a picnic basket, did not notice at first the small anti-shah demonstration outside the dorms of Tehran University. For the briefest of moments, she considered showing her support—her best friend, Ava, would not have hesitated—but instead, she took a detour to a side street that would mean walking three extra blocks.
Amineh heard the approaching police sirens and increased her pace on the root-damaged sidewalk. She hurried past a stalled truck spewing noxious fumes and around three students wearing miniskirts and trendy haircuts.
Suddenly she stopped. There was no mistaking that sweet, spicy scent. It was coming from the pink rosebush on the side of the building—the damask. Immediately, Amineh was transported to her family’s rose orchard and the desert village where she’d grown up. It was May, she realized, harvest time, when the fragrance hung so heavy in the village you could taste it. She could still see her mother’s satisfaction as she added the last petals and pistachios to her famous harvest cake, which she then drenched in warm rose syrup. A fast-moving cloud swept over the sun, and Amineh shivered as another memory encroached.
Amineh caught sight of her friend Ava waving from the entrance of Farah Park. She switched her picnic basket to the other hand and waved back.
“well, there she is!” Ava said when Amineh reached her.
Amineh smiled at Ava’s new pixie cut, which so suited her. “Sorry you had to wait.”
Ava adjusted her green miniskirt and gestured to the magnolia blooms behind her. “It’s hardly waiting when I get to hang out here!”
Amineh kissed Ava on both cheeks and hugged her tightly. She thought of the brilliant timing that had brought her and Ava to the same bus on the first day of university despite their being in different schools. She had done something she didn’t usually do; she had sat next to Ava rather than alone, and they had been inseparable since. Ava was Amineh’s opposite—confident, talkative, vivacious—but Amineh felt far closer to her than to her own sister.
The friends linked arms and walked on a path leading through the windy park. They headed toward a large sycamore, and Amineh helped Ava lay out the blanket and drinks she had brought. They took off their shoes and settled themselves on the blanket. Amineh shielded her eyes from the sun as she watched the strong breeze blow the leaves.
“Some students were demonstrating outside of the dorms,” Amineh said.
“That’s fantastic. Who were they?”
“I don’t know. It was a pretty small group, but I heard sirens.”
“There will be demonstrations all over the place soon, and the SAVAK won’t be able to arrest everyone. Guess what? A group of big-shot lawyers just published an open letter protesting the shah
Amineh transferred her dishes to the blanket.
“We should have invited twenty more people,” Ava quipped. “This looks amazing, Amineh!”
“Some of this is from the dinner I made my landlady, Mrs. Moaveni. You can take some home with you.” Amineh looked up at her friend. “Are you serious you would sign, even after what they did to Tahmures?”
“Nothing is ever going to get better unless we’re willing to risk everything,” Ava said. “But before we say another word, Amineh, have you decided if you’re coming with me to the gathering on Thursday? Say yes! Pleeeease.”
Amineh could think of nothing she would enjoy less, and she was close to saying so, but it was impossible with her friend looking at her like that, as if all Ava’s happiness depended on her answer.
“I’ll come,” she finally told Ava. “For you.” The gravity in Amineh’s voice reflected her devotion to her best friend.
“It’s for Tahmures.”
“What? Now they’re using his death to gain points?”
“He was murdered, Amineh,” said Ava, her tone gentle rather than critical. “Who are we if we don’t stand up for him, make something of his sacrifice?”
Amineh didn’t see how listening to Ava’s law school friends get into an ideological debate would do anything for Tahmures, but she was awed by the earnestness that shone in Ava’s eyes. Amineh often wished that she could approach life a little more like Ava did, breaking everything down into practical bite-sized pieces so it could be digested quickly and always with enthusiasm and conviction.
For Amineh, life was complicated. The freedom she dared for herself came in short bursts, usually inspired by Ava’s ready energy. Most other times, she was ambivalent, not quite knowing how to add the world up, for it seemed to be made up of disparate qualities and features rather than clear, concrete forms. This characteristic did not make her a convincing activist. Unlike the extroverted Ava, Amineh cherished reading more than anything. Just now, she was interested in Sohrab Sepehri, a poet from Kashan. When she read his poetry, she imagined her father sitting in Sepehri’s courtyard, discussing the same poem: “One must run until the end of being. . . . One must sit close to the unfolding, some place between rapture and illumination.” Her father would ask a pointed question, and Sepehri would struggle to convey the subtlety with which he approached his mystical journey. Her father gave life to all of Amineh’s studies. Her eyes were his eyes and her reading his reading. Her father’s books had been her lifeline that first year after her parents’ deaths, and they had continued to make her feel close to him. Books were the closest thing she had to home. She didn’t have a complete picture of her father’s politics, only that he had cared for the dispossessed. What would he think of the opposition movement? She was sure he would support the aspirations of most of the groups as they sought equality and freedom, although she doubted that he would give time to the religious conservatives. How often had her grandmother complained that her son had not conformed better to orthodoxy? She would mutter he had been her own Mansur Hallaj, as if his free, God-loving spirit somehow explained his early demise.
And how had their friend Tahmures managed to get himself killed? Amineh had always considered the shy, pale figure who sometimes joined them for hikes the type of person who would go through life without making a ripple. That he had turned out to be the author of The Art of Revolution and had become, thereby, a leading symbol of the opposition movement was as astonishing to her as if he had visited the moon. It had been two weeks since their professor had announced the news of his death, but Amineh still expected to see Tahmures in the hallway: he would shift his thin frame and flat feet and explain it had been a misunderstanding.
Ava drenched her bread in the eggplant dip. “This is so delicious, Amineh. How do you cook like this?”
“You have to know what your ingredients respond best to.” Amineh laughed as Ava made a face. “It’s true! Roasting eggplant brings out its round, creamy taste.”
Ava chewed. “So that’s your trick, knowing your vegetables? Do you give names to them too?”
“Of course.”
“So, who are we eating today?”
“Jamshid.”
Laughter shook the girls as they lay on the picnic blanket. Amineh swept an ant away and picked a blade of grass, which she twirled between her fingers.
Although Amineh knew she was a better cook than many of her classmates, it still felt strange whenever anyone praised her culinary skills. Her grandmother could spend an entire dinner pointing out what was wrong with each dish Amineh had prepared. Part of this was that her grandmother didn’t like anyone deviating from her beloved recipes, but still, if Amineh had listened to her criticisms, she would not have had the confidence to boil an egg.
“So, how’s your writing going?” Ava asked.
“Slow. I have too much coursework right now.”
“Maybe one day you should do a recipe book—teach all of us how to cook—although I think we would benefit from a novel that advocates for women’s rights.”
“That’s not really what my novel’s about.”
“From everything you have told me, it certainly sounds like it is. We need a book like yours right now.”
Amineh had not thought of her novel in activist terms, and this lapse bothered her. Was she wrong to write a book that did not serve the opposition, that did not at least address a social justice issue? The political tension at her school was increasing, and it suddenly seemed frivolous to be focused on roses and a life that had long been gone.
“Did you know Tahmures told me that violence wasn’t always wrong?” Ava asked. “He said that sometimes something terrible had to happen before change was even possible.”
Amineh shuddered. Had Tahmures been planning something? Was that why they had killed him? She could still not believe this was the same Tahmures who had nearly fainted when Ava had sliced her finger with a paring knife while they were picnicking. How they had teased him! He had asked them to stop, and they had, his face surprising Amineh, making her feel mean spirited. She recoiled at her vision of him in prison, the torture he must have endured.
Ava rested her cheek on Amineh’s arm. “It’s almost like he knew he would die.”
They sat in silence. The wind had increased, and the clouds made patterns on the picnic blanket. The rush of light and darkness had an ominous aspect—a hostile wresting of life’s natural cadence.
“Dariush is hosting,” Ava said.
Amineh caught the trace of uncertainty in Ava’s voice and frowned. Amineh had for some time suspected Ava was infatuated with Dariush, and she was sure her friend could do better. He seemed too self-absorbed to appreciate how much more there was to Ava than her beauty.
“Have you noticed he blinks his eyes before he speaks?” Amineh asked.
“No, he doesn’t! I’ve never seen that!”
“Yes, he does. He has a little tick, and he also bites his left thumb. Mother issues, I’m sure. . . .”
“You’re being mean!”
“So, promise me this is not some crush—”
Ava hid her face in her arms. “Oof. I don’t know.”
Amineh caressed Ava’s hair, promising herself that she would keep an eye on both Ava and Dariush.
The sound of police sirens reached them. Amineh thought of the demonstration and wondered if Ava was right, that there would come a time when the shah’s secret police would be helpless against the sheer number of people who thought as Ava did: that the cause was worth losing everything.
Chapter 2
May 5, 1977, Qeytarieh, Tehran
ava and amineh arrived at Dariush’s house for the party thirty minutes late. Dariush greeted them at the door and courteously waved off their apologies.
To Amineh’s surprise, he directed his attention toward her. “I’m so glad you came, Amineh. I know how important it was to Ava.”
Amineh was disturbed by Dariush’s use of her to communicate his affection for Ava—and if the giddy shine in Ava’s eyes was anything to go by, it had worked. Ava squeezed Amineh’s arm as they followed Dariush into the large marble foyer of his family’s house. He escorted them through the inner courtyard and another doorway and down the stairs to a smoky basement packed with students. Chairs lined the wood-paneled walls, but most people stood and faced the deep-voiced speaker who was addressing the crowd from a makeshift platform set up in front of a bookcase.
