two dozen songs by listening to radio and was accomplished in several dances: the simple waist and buttocks twisting, with the meaningless curling of hands above the head, called the Tehrani dance, which looked like someone trying to screw a light bulb into its socket; the fast artistic footwork of Lezgy, Caucas, Georgian and Kurdish dances; and the favorite of all men, the sexually arousing belly dance. She had memorized the lyrics of several rhythmic love songs with a few slightly profane words thrown in as spice. To her the dancing and singing was not work; it was shameless pleasure and fun – the best way to please her mother at first, and then others and, unknowingly, she had coined an identity for herself.
As Faty grew older, her mole-sized breasts swelled with the sweet juice of youth and became round and big enough to fill up the palms of any adult male, even with enormous hands. The more nightclubs she and her mother performed in, the more fame and fortune poured down on the garden of their fantasies, nurturing the bloom of every bud of their dreams. Their names sounded unfitting and inappropriate for their profession, so Esmat metamorphosed to Helen and Faty, Zee-Zee, to have a more European ring. The new names made them feel as if they had become entirely different people, who had never existed before. With new names they felt their rearview mirrors shattered, they were well protected from their acrimonious past. With no past and no sad memories to chase them, or to hinder their advancement on the road to a bright and glorious future, life began to be more exciting than Esmat had ever dreamed.
They even sang a few rhythmic songs with cheap street language lyrics on the radio one Friday morning when every ear was glued to the sound box. That helped them land a job at the prestigious Shekofeh-Nou Nightclub, where the pay was beyond their imaginations.
Since the press did not have the freedom to publish social and political events of true importance during the Shah's regime, and people who dared to write the truth were jailed and their pens were broken, no valuable material worth reading appeared in the daily or weekly publications. Instead, not one week would pass without Helen and Zee-Zee's pictures appearing on the cover of some weekly magazine – Zan-e Emrooz (Today’s Woman), Weekly Etelauat (Weekly Information), and a host of other publications.
Zee-Zee was only fifteen, but was on her way to becoming a symbol of womanhood in a society that was always preoccupied with its tumultuous past, a past that was wrongly perceived as “glorious,” intoxicated in its aimless present and paranoid and frightened of its unknown future.
Helen bought a three-bedroom house on the city’s north side, where the cool breezes from the Alburz Range soothed the skin in summertime, and where most of the rich and famous lived. She moved to the new house with no intention of ever going back to her old neighborhood. She stayed away from all her previous neighbors as if they had all contracted the plague or some other incurable disease.
When she was known as Fat Esmat, she was fat, poor, and if not ugly to the eyes of the general public, surely unattractive to a certain class. But she was always in demand by a different class of men who were mainly attracted to, among other things, her big body, the texture and the color of her skin, her profanities and perverted way of lovemaking that they couldn’t expect from their wives. If in the past she was destitute and didn’t know what to do to make herself eye-catching to men of distinction, now that the money was pouring in every which way, she knew exactly what to do to make herself increasingly in demand to rich men and even to men of some stature. Now “Helen” wasn’t a sleekly looking model type, but she was proportionately and symmetrically “chubby,” seductively “plump,” and, thanks to the magic of modern beauty salons and all those bottles and jars of chemicals, she had become increasingly voluptuous and attractive – a famous woman who could easily travel within the circle of the nation's wealthiest. She had many rich men hanging around like bees around a freshly bloomed flower. They relentlessly pursued her everywhere. She mixed business with pleasure and made a fortune in both fields. She only slept with rich and generous men, who gave her expensive gifts, men who paid to prove their manhood to others and especially to themselves. In contrast, Zee-Zee never showed any interest in men. She had grown tall, endowed with her mother’s large breasts, her hair was bleached blonde and artfully made up. Her mouth that had resembled a rosebud when she was in her early teens had blossomed to a full-bloomed rose now, glistening with a light shade of red. She was beautiful, innocently sensuous, and more pleasing to the eyes of men than was her mother. Many men were interested in the promise of her awakening sexuality and some of those, ego-driven, became even hungrier for her when they experienced her disinterest, regardless of the expensive gifts they offered.
With a few years of sporadic attendance at elementary school, Zee-Zee had learned how to read and write by the time she was eight, and now in the lonely hours of her teenage years, she showed a great interest in reading all sorts of books, especially classical poetry. Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat became her favorite, and she memorized many of the great poet’s quatrains and often sang them in her solitude.
Helen was very grateful for Zee-Zee’s lack of interest in men. With no competition from her daughter, she freely developed her lucrative profession on the side, which was intended to secure an independent future for her and her future progeny. After each performance, she would take Zee-Zee, “her tired baby,” home. She would make sure Zee-Zee ate the right quality and quantity of healthy food and went to bed on time. She would then accept men. Although men’s appearances were different from the sort she used to serve when she was poor, in essence they were the same; with a fistful of petrodollars, thanks to OPEC, they were at times even more rude and crude.
She never sipped another drop of Iranian brewed aragh sagy, or aragh-e keshmesh-e dow atesheh. Instead, Johnnie Walker Black Label on the rocks, straight shots of imported Russian aragh, a few glasses of aged French red wine or bubbly French champagne became her favorites.
The decade of the 70s appeared to pass with supersonic speed, while Esmat and Faty had the world in the palms of their hands, permanently secure beyond all standards, living among the clouds. With her increased wealth, Helen purchased a brand new Mercedes Benz 600, hired a chauffeur, a maid, and a private secretary. The flow of fortune and fame was unstoppable. She bought another, bigger, more luxurious house, new furniture, jewelry and more European dresses. Acquiring wealth was no problem; money seemed to grow on trees. Like autumn leaves it fell on the stage in the evenings and between her thighs at night. Her only problem was that she couldn’t spend it fast enough. She had come a long way from her past life of deprivation and poverty.
Wealth overhauled Helen’s exterior completely. In the past if she consciously had to defend herself with her profanity and fake external roughness; now she softened and sweetened her words, filtering them first in her mind before passing them through her lips. Of course, now and then, when sexually arouse a few profane words, in compromising positions, sounded exciting, like spice to make her more deliciously palatable.
Wealth had done its magic. No one could imagine this new Helen as Fat Esmat of only a few years ago. Everything about her looks, manner, voice and movements signified a woman of high class – a symbol to be envied by the rest – a woman to be emulated by others.
One night a wealthy unattractive Arab from Kuwait with a lot of unrepaired pockmarks on his dark brown face approached Helen in a nightclub. He confessed his love and desire for Zee-Zee and offered a blank check to Helen if Zee-Zee would marry him, give up show business and live in his palace like a queen. Helen took a good look at the man and refused instantly, lying, telling him that her baby was engaged to a rich young man from good stock, soon to be married. Knowing that Arabs love Persian women, especially the “chubby” ones, she showed him a sample of her own body by pulling up her skirt to a few inches above her knees. She let him peek and touch all that soft and smooth skin that the man had never seen on any woman on the other side of the Persian Gulf.
The man went on fondling Helen’s thighs, inching his hand toward her vagina, while kept bargaining, hoping he could strike a deal with her and lure her to bed. She refused his offers, but allowed him to come close, sample her by touching her shapely thighs and
