Page 34 of A Perfect Devon Christmas
Jez dropped the remains of the felt angel beside the Victorian pot. Omar bent to retrieve it, ‘Did this vase belong to your family?’
She laughed, ‘No. Fred gave it to me as a Christmas present last year. He must have misheard me saying I liked Victorian poetry but heard it as pottery.’
He raised his eyebrows at the pot, ‘I think, like you, I prefer the Victorian poetry. Have you read much Rumi?’ Omar asked
‘I’m afraid I don’t know much about him.’
‘He was a Persian poet writing in the thirteenth century – a mystic, really. His verses about love and the divine speak to something beyond any one faith. “Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love” – that is not an authentic translation, but it’s true to his teaching, and anyway I prefer the Persian words.’ Omar’s voice grew warmer. ‘In Afghanistan, even those who couldn’t read knew some of his poems by heart.’
‘How beautiful,’ Ivy said. ‘And you read the original Persian?’
‘I used to recite verses at harvests on the family farm.’
Another clue. She seized her opportunity. ‘Your parents are farmers?’
‘Were. They grew pomegranates and apricots mainly, some almonds too.’
‘Did your parents speak English? Your translations sound so fluid.’
Omar was quiet for a moment. ‘No. But I used to have a copy of a translation.’ There was an English man I knew in Afghanistan who loved poetry but didn’t speak Persian. We’d read the poems together; compare the English to the words I remembered frommy childhood.’
Ivy nodded and wondered why he hadn’t brought such a treasured book with him when he came to England. It wouldn’t take up much space in a suitcase, would it?
‘Tell me about your traditions,’ Ivy said, sagging onto the sofa. A moist snout nudged her knee, and she scooped the furry bundle onto her lap. ‘In Brambleton, we gather for a traditional meal on Christmas Day – I always used to invite villagers I thought might be on their own to share dinner with me at the vicarage – Fred has been to mine for the last twenty years, ever since his wife died. Sometimes I’d have nearly twenty people to feed.’
‘That’s a big number to cook for.’
She hugged Jez close, looking down at the puppy to hide the emotion written across her face, then changed the topic to something safer.
‘I understand the timings of Muslim festivals are dictated by the lunar calendar not the Gregorian calendar we Christians follow; Eid moves each year ... but what was winter like in Afghanistan?’
His eyes grew distant, and for a moment she thought he’d ignore the question. Eventually, he spoke.
‘Winter on the farm was something else,’he began, his voice soft with memory.‘The orchard would fall silent, rows of bare pomegranate trees standing stark in a carpet of snow. My sister, Laila, and I would run between them, our boots crunching on the frost, dodging low branches and throwing snowballs until our fingers went numb. We’d come back to the house, and my mother would wrap us in thick wool shawls while the samovar hissed on the stove.’
She watched him closely, not wanting to break the spell. A whisper of a smile touched his lips as his gaze drifted somewhere far off.
‘My father would store the last of the pomegranates in the cellar, packed in straw to keep them from splitting.’ He laughed. ‘Laila loved to sneak down there – she always claimed she could smell the sugar ripening in the dark. In the evenings, we’d sit by the fire, eating walnuts and listening to my mother’s stories.’
He paused, a small sigh escaping him.
‘After our parents died, Laila and I moved to Kabul. She went to nursing school while I worked odd jobs, funding my way through university. Now she’s married. She has two little ones: Sami, who’s five, and Yasmin, who’s just turned three.’
‘That explains why you’re so good with children,’ said Ivy.
He chuckled softly, the warmth in his voice returning.‘Sami never stops talking, and Yasmin ... she’s already telling stories like our mother used to. Laila works at a clinic now. She isn’t allowed to work at the hospital. She says it’s long hours, but worth it when she can help a mother walk out with her newborn in her arms.’ He dug into his shirt pocket, removed a battered photo and passed it to Ivy. She took it, smoothing out the creases, smiling at the pretty, slim, dark-haired woman, a shy child coiled around each of her legs. ‘Laila looks like you,’ she said, passing it back.
His eyes found hers again.
‘We left the orchards behind, but sometimes I think a piece of winter from that farm still lives in us, in the way Laila wraps her children in scarves, or how she keeps dried mulberries in a jar on the shelf, just like our mother did.’He smiled at her, before resuming his tales. ‘On the shortest days, our family would light candles and recite Persian poetry: Rumi, Hafez, Saadi verses about divine love and the changing seasons. The flames would cast shadows on walls that had heard a thousand years of such recitations. In those moments, time felt circular rather than linear, as if all the winters that had ever been, or would be, were happening at once.’
His voice trailed off and Ivy realized she’d been holding her breath. Even Jezreel had settled, his head resting in the crook of her elbow. ‘For a roving handyman, you know a lot of poetry.’
A shadow crossed his face, and she wondered if he was going to tell her who he really was. ‘I am certainly a reader of poetry. I’m enjoying the book you lent me: Tennyson.’
She took a breath, then asked, ‘Why did you leave? Why come here? Is it to earn money to send back to your family?’
He shook his head. ‘I had to leave.’
