Deliverance (4 page)

We walk through some sort of lounge area. It's a lot better decorated than I would have expected. The carpets spread along the floors muffle the sound of our footsteps. Cushions are spread along the walls and a water pipe sits in the corner of the room. The man doesn't pause, but continues down a narrow staircase. I feel a little uneasy at how the old crumbling brick walls close in on me there. The corridor feels rough like it's been chiseled out of the land. Our heads barely clear the few bare light bulbs which hang from the ceiling, the wires tacked to the stone. We should turn back now, before it's too late – if it isn't already too late. I look back to Leyli, to see if she shares my thoughts, but her eyes sparkle in the naked light. She gives me a wide smile but I say nothing. Strangely enough though, for once my instincts are on the same wavelength as hers. Nothing about this situation actually
feels
dangerous.

The corridor isn't very long and before we know it, we are standing in a nicely illuminated room. The sweet smell of flavored tobacco fills the air.

“Who is this?” I spin to face the unknown speaker, but instead I’m distracted by what I see.

Equipment. The metal soundboards glitter in the halogen light. The voice comes from a leather sectional tucked in the corner of the room. There, a boy – presumably the owner of the voice – relaxes next to a girl with bleached blonde uncovered hair and a tank top. They share a water pipe. A couple guitars carelessly lean against the furniture. The glass coffee table contains a pile of English music magazines. Lavish fabrics in reds and gold hang from the ceiling and compliment the warm jewel tones of the Persian carpets underfoot. Directly across this small lounge, the knobs, lights and sliders of the soundboard reflect against a glass partition. This is a real deal professional underground recording studio. 

But before I can come to terms with everything else, I see her. She is a twin to the one I saw upstairs, but in perfect restored condition. She calls to me like she is mine and I am hers. As soon as I put my fingers on her, the dream comes back, but it’s brighter this time. The harp between my hands is the same, yet everything else is different. I'm back on a balcony overlooking the busy square. It's daytime now and the square is filled with the tents of merchants peddling their wares.

A hand falls on my shoulder and I turn around expecting to see Leyli and the studio, but I'm still in the dream and the hand belongs to a familiar man. My heart skips. I'm not sure if I love him or hate him, I think I have done both at different times of my life. His appearance is neat, his dark hair is long, but what catches my attention more than anything is the gentle yet piercing gaze that comes from his murky green eyes.

"Come Nagissa," he says. "The King awaits."

I let go of the harp and stand up. In the dim studio lighting, a small group of people has materialized in front of me and I wonder if I made a scene while sleepwalking. Surely this was some sort of sleepwalking episode, what else could it be?

"Bravo! Afarin!" the shopkeeper praises me. "What talent you have. Are you sure you weren't professionally trained?"

I shake my head, not trusting my voice. Is the harp really so similar to the guitar or is there something really weird happening to me?

"I don't know how you feel about rock music, but I manage the band Farâsoo. Roxana here," he points to the pretty blonde who makes Leyli's makeup application look conservative, "is the lead singer. Amir-Reza," this time he points to the boy who had spoken before I noticed all the recording equipment, "plays guitar. Siavash and Farhad aren't here."

He waits and I feel like he is waiting for my answer, though he never asked a question.

"Hello," I say to the two band members.

Roxana sweeps her long bangs out of her eyes. "What I think Davood is trying to say is we've been looking to add a traditional sound to our music and we've never heard such an amazing authentic sound as what you just plucked the shit out of that harp!"

"You want me to play the harp for one of your songs?"

"No, azizam," the shopkeeper, Davood, cuts in. "We want you to join the band and be a member of Farâsoo."

I tried to flag down one of the reckless cab drivers speeding through the busy streets of Tehran and, frustrated, I looked to the crowd around me to see if anyone else was having better luck. Last time I was here, this land had a different name and, at first glance, a different culture. But I'd been tracking Ramtin through the underground scene for the past few days and I knew, by then, that what you got of Tehran at first glance was very different from its true heartbeat.

Once I finally got a cab, I didn't even bother to negotiate with the driver. I knew he was very politely ripping me off because, let's face it, even with my perfect, though over-formal and outdated, mastery of the Persian language, I was still, obviously, a foreign tourist. A different day, I would have won him over with my charm but not tonight. It was the least of my concerns. Rumors had Ramtin's band playing at a private party in the north end of town, but I'd followed rumors for three nights and always missed him. He was a slippery bastard.

It was not the first time I found myself wishing my family was there to help, but another part of me enjoyed the solitude. The others could be suffocating sometimes. The all too familiar lump in my throat resurfaced as I thought of Vincent; not all my family was still around to drive me crazy. I shook the idea out of my head. These events had to stop before they claimed more lives. I needed to concentrate on Ramtin. He was important.

Actually, here in Tehran, he was very important, it seemed. I'd even heard of him referred to as a hero, of sorts. It made some sense, what with his triumphant return home after successfully taking on the American music scene. I might even have agreed with the people and found it heroic, if not a little bit suicidal. The way he flamboyantly ignored how almost everything he did here was highly frowned upon and, in many cases, illegal, made him an admirable symbol for change. Maybe I would have also looked up to him, were it not for my knowledge of what he is. But I did know, and this is why I was here, travelling to what felt like the other side of the world, for the first time in about three hundred years.

Back in the seventeen hundreds, I had avoided Ramtin instead of chasing him. I hadn’t liked him then either, but back then he’d only been an inconvenience, maybe even a rival. My attention had been captured by a different ancient gargoyle and the way the air around her was always filled with music.

The taxi's abrupt stop snapped my focus to the scenery at hand. At first glance, there was nothing spectacular, just another Tehran traffic jam. But the song resonating from the building was anything but ordinary. It came straight from the very memories I had just been indulging in.

I remembered the first time I had heard that song on a hot night in Esfahan. The way the musician's black hair framed her face and wide eyes. She hadn't been my first love, but it was a memorable one. It could have been a great one, except she had guarded her heart too closely. Her honey-tinged eyes and the music that escaped her fingers spoke of sorrow and loss. My heart still tightened when I thought of her.

I'd never told anyone about her. She was a secret love, someone unattainable. Even to me. She was one of us, but more. The essence that ran through her was pure in a way I never knew existed. Not until she introduced me to Ramtin. They seemed to be the same; him and her. Grace and elegance and a certain edge that the rest of our kind simply lacked. Marguerite had reminded me of her in a way. She had that spirit, though it had been a faded version of it.

Of course she was the first thing that had come to my mind when I’d first thought of coming to Iran, but I hadn't planned on seeing her this time. For one thing, I couldn’t trust her. She may have been in league with Ramtin. I never understood their relationship. But when I heard that music, it no longer mattered. I asked the taxi to stop, paid him about twice what he would normally make in one day, and walked into the general store.

The bell on the door alerted the shopkeeper of my presence and he came out from a back room, followed by two young girls.

One of them looked a bit like 
her
. I should have realized everything in this land would remind me of her, but I thought I was finally free of her. I had hardly thought of her in over a century.

The girls said their goodbyes to the shopkeeper and tucked fly-away strands of hair into their head scarves before they left.

"How can I help?" He spoke English with a thick accent. It was usually considered pretty safe to assume I was a foreigner and it seemed everyone was dying to practice their English no matter how little of it they knew.  

"I heard of a good harp player that sometimes plays here," I said. It was an absurd thing to say, but there was no way I should have been able to hear the music from the street if my hearing was at all human. Why would a harpist play in a grocery/electronics store for that matter?

The man frowned. "You're friends with them, then?" he pointed to the door.

So she was just an ordinary girl after all. Well, I had a lot to worry about without tracking a musically gifted girl who somehow got her hands on Nagissa's songs.

I thanked the shopkeeper and was about to exit the building when I saw an antique harp leaning against a wall.

“Is this for sale?”

“Hatman! Of course! But it is very old and very, very expensive, my friend.”

I shrugged and started to walk away. The man followed me to the door.

“I will make you a very special price,” he said.

I wasn’t interested. What would I do with a harp? I hadn’t come to Iran on a soul searching mission intent on reopening old wounds. I left the store.

The late winter air is crisp and a thin layer of powdery snow covers the streets of Tehran. Very soon spring will spread across the city, but for now I shiver against the cold and kiss Leyli goodbye. She's off to the Laleh Café to hang out with some of our girlfriends and, of course, to flirt with boys.

I grip the piece of paper Davood gave me with the band info. The soft paper feels rough in my hands, like it's trying to get my attention. I breathe deeply. I could do it. I could play in a band. I'm not a goody-goody. I take risks, the same as everyone else. But what if my sudden talent with the harp is nothing but a fluke? People seriously don't just become good with instruments overnight. And what would Maman say? Would she approve? She would worry about my safety, of course, but I don't think she’d mind as long as my other responsibilities don't suffer.