Hands by Rebecca Ruth Gould

Reaching from the pages of Pulp Literature Issue 25, Winter 2020, ‘Hands’ by Rebecca Ruth Gould explores connection, time, and memory — and the elusive nature of all that we try to hold onto. We are pleased to share with you an excerpt from this captivating story. 

Hands

by Rebecca Ruth Gould

What struck her most about him were his hands. They were long and lanky, like his body. Even more remarkable than their shape was the way he used them. When they first met, he shook her hands boldly and directly, as if it were a perfectly normal thing to do and not a violation of the law in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Taken aback, she forgot to respond. Her hand hung limply in his palm until he dislodged it. 

Just the day prior, she had read about a poet who, after returning from abroad, had been arrested for shaking a woman’s hand. She wanted to warn him: You shouldn’t do that. You might end up in jail for shaking my hands. But he must have known what he was doing, she reasoned, and who was she to tell him how to behave in his own country?

His hands didn’t fit anywhere, not in his pockets or at his sides. They dangled oddly from his arms, like an expert swimmer more at home in a lake than on dry land. The lines on his palms were long, stretching from his wrist to his index fingers. If a fortune-teller — like the one she had just consulted with in Hafez’s tomb in Shiraz — had been asked to read his palms, she would have predicted for him a long life, a fulfilling marriage, and many children. His hands were like an autonomous body. She imagined them keeping her warm at night, soothing the aches in her back, providing a resting ground for her lips, caressing her hips. 

Before they said goodbye that magical night in Tehran, she asked him why he’d decided to shake her hand. Without answer, he waxed lyrical in a different direction. “I dream of working wonders with my hands,” he said. “I want to become a perfumist. I want to make magic potions and aphrodisiacs based on ancient Iranian traditions.” Although it was not an answer, it opened a new mysterious horizon onto his soul. She wanted to know more. 

To find out what happens next, pick up your copy of Issue 25, Winter 2020 here!

Rebecca Ruth Gould is the author of the poetry collection Cityscapes (Alien Buddha Press, 2019) and the award-winning monograph Writers & Rebels (Yale University Press). She has translated many books from Persian and Georgian. A Pushcart Prize nominee, she was a finalist for the Luminaire Award for Best Poetry (2017) and for Lunch Ticket’s Gabo Prize (2017). Visit her website here.