Rooftops of Tehran (35 page)

“It’s cool out,” she whispers. “And you’re not wearing much. Don’t you know that I don’t want my sweetheart to catch a cold?”

I press myself against her and she tightens her grip on me. I keep my eyes closed. I don’t want to test her existence by opening them. Her voice is all I need.

“I will keep you warm with the heat of my own body until the sun comes up, and then I must go,” she says.

“I don’t want you to leave,” I cry.

She touches my face, kisses my cheeks, and assures me that she is never far away, never too far. In the merest whisper she says she loves me, but I’m not to mourn her loss; this is what was meant to be. She is glad I visited her parents, and was strong enough not to cry in their presence.

You are my angel, I tell her, but she replies that no one can see an angel. No one can hear or feel an angel.

So, I tell myself, if I hear Zari’s sweet voice and if I feel her warm weight, I must be dreaming. I want to turn to embrace her, but a paralyzing heaviness engulfs my entire being.

When I open my eyes, I can’t remember where I am. I look around and realize that I’m sitting under the wall on Zari’s terrace. The sun is coming up in the east, and the air has a chill that makes me want to crawl under the covers. Then I notice that a blanket is wrapped around me. It’s not one of our blankets, and I certainly don’t remember coming out of my room with it. I look toward Zari’s room, and see that her window is shut.
Did the Masked Angel wrap the blanket around me, or was it Ahmed?
Ahmed would have woken me up. The blanket has a sweet fragrance, a brand of women’s perfume unknown to me. Is this Zari’s blanket? Did she once wind it around her beautiful body to keep herself warm at night? Maybe it was she who wrapped it around me last night!

The location of the sun tells me it must be around six in the morning. I look toward the alley, and see the Masked Angel walking back toward the house from the bakery. She’s carrying two large pieces of
Barbari
bread.

She walks fast
.
Much faster than Zari used to.

She enters the yard and shuts the door behind her. Once she disappears inside the house, I fold the blanket and leave it on the wall between our homes. I go to my room and crawl into my bed, consumed with my dream of Zari. The gloom of loneliness crushes my soul. I tell myself that I was sleeping in her arms last night, and realize that even this outrageous lie doesn’t make me feel better.

 

The next evening finds me once more sitting in my room, hugging my pillow and looking out the window. It’s a dark, cloudy night with no sign of the moon and the weight of eventual rain in the air. Although it’s quiet, a persistent hum from an unidentifiable source soothes the ears and calms the soul. I look toward Zari’s balcony, searching for the silhouette that had sculpted a piece of the night into a hopeful illusion the evening before. Maybe if I look hard enough, I can find it. Maybe if I dilate my eyes and watch more carefully, it will appear again.

There it is—a shade, a trace, liquid night outlined. I watch it intently, waiting for it to move like it did last night. Maybe if I could float through my window gently, it would not be scared away. Whatever it is, it’s motionless, completely stagnant in time and space, and it’s watching me back. Suddenly, the wind blows and the curtains at my window fly into my face. Outside, a piece of the darkness vibrates as the dark air flutters, and night itself trembles. The shadow solidifies and dances to the tune of the wind. I know whatever was out there moved, I’m sure of it. I am not hallucinating. The hair on the back of my neck stands up.

I run out onto the balcony, but it’s empty. I stand for a long time, looking around. Finally, I cross over to Zari’s side and sit in our spot. I look toward her room. The lights are on, but the window is shut and covered. After a few minutes rain starts to fall, and the temperature falls quickly. The lights in most of the alley are off. I look at my watch: eleven thirty.

Behind Zari’s curtain, the Masked Angel moves from one side of the room to the other, and I glimpse her profile for a split second. She’s not wearing her burqa, but she passes by the window too quickly for me to see her face. I’m dying to know what she looks like. She lives in the room where my Zari used to live, sleeping in her bed, sitting in the same chair I sat in while holding her in my arms. I walk up to Zari’s window and peep through the opening in the curtain. My heart races and the blood rushes to my head. My hands are shaking, my knees weak from excitement, and the surface of my skin goes cold.

The Masked Angel is sitting in the middle of the room with her back to the window. Her head is lowered and she’s reading a book: Hafiz’s
Divan
, the one she has memorized.

She’s wearing a long dark dress that drapes her body from the neck to the ankles. A blue scarf covers her head and hides her hair. The black burqa is on a chair by the round table. The blanket that was wrapped around me the night before is by the bed. I look to the other side of the room and see the little notebook that contains Zari’s drawings. Oh, what I would give to possess that notebook!

Suddenly, the Masked Angel lifts her head from the book and stares straight ahead, as if she knows someone is watching her through the window. I want to run back to my terrace, but my feet are glued to the ground. I can see her shoulders rise and fall as she breathes. She turns slightly to one side for a split second, and then lowers her head and continues to read.

Thanking God that she didn’t turn around, I creep back to my room.

An Incurable Disease

It’s been over a month since I was released from the hospital. The Persian New Year, celebrated on the first day of spring, has brought a tremendous energy to the neighborhood. The schools are closed for the first thirteen days of the year, when people travel, visit each other, exchange gifts, and forget and forgive old quarrels. The spirit of the New Year even moves the Shah, causing him to forgive a number of political prisoners and to pardon some common criminals. I wonder if he would’ve ever pardoned Doctor. Even my aunt and uncle make up and forget about their differences. I, however, am still trapped in the dark winter of my life, and I can’t find a way out. Ahmed and Iraj stop over often. I enjoy their company, but sometimes as they’re talking, I drift away and tune them out, just as everything outside of me gets blocked out.

Early one evening, I’m outside my room on the terrace when I hear Ahmed’s grandma.

“He’s coming to take me away,” she declares from the balcony of Ahmed’s house.

“Who’s coming, Grandma?” I call.

Her wrinkled forehead tightens up as she says, “My husband. He’s giving me a New Year’s present by taking me away.”

“Oh,” I say, feeling sad for her, but wishing that Zari or Doctor would come to me with the same present.

I notice that she has a touch of makeup on her face. “You look nice, Grandma,” I tell her.

“I wanted to look good for him,” she says. “You know, we talk every night, but he doesn’t let me see him.”

“Do you see him, Grandma?” I ask, thinking about my own Zari, gliding in the night shadows.

“Oh, yes, I see him every night ever since he went away,” she says, the trace of a sad smile on her face. “You see him, too, don’t you?”

“Where do you look for him?”

Grandma squints at me, as if she doesn’t understand my question.

“Does he hide in the dark?” I prompt. “Does he ever move, or does he stay still?”

“Still?” she asks, obviously not understanding what I’m talking about. She shuffles to the edge of the balcony, and again I hear my mother’s voice in the back of my mind.
Hundreds of people fall off these damn roofs every year.
I quickly move closer to Grandma to make sure that I can catch her in case she loses her balance.

“He wants me to go away with him this time,” she whispers, a serious look in her eyes.

“Has he ever talked to you?” I ask.

“Talked to me?”

“Yeah.”

Grandma thinks for a while. “I don’t know. I’m hard of hearing. If he does, I don’t hear him.”

“But you hear my wife crying, don’t you?”

“Your wife? Why does she cry?”

I look at Grandma’s confused face and wish I hadn’t brought up the subject.

“You shouldn’t let your wife cry,” she says. “My husband never let me cry. He never did.”

“Yes, Grandma.”

“You know how he and I met?” she says, a crooked little smile dawning on her face.

“At the American embassy?”

“American embassy?” she murmurs blankly.

“No, Grandma,” I correct myself, “I don’t know. How did you meet?”

“Would you like me to tell you?” she says, animated now.

“Yes, please.”

“When I was seventeen,” she begins, “I was diagnosed with an incurable disease. An incurable disease, they called it. My poor mother prayed day and night, asking God to have mercy on me, as if God had nothing better to do!” Suddenly a bewildered expression creeps over Grandma’s face. “Have you ever been seventeen years old?” she asks.

“Yes, Grandma.”

“Oh,” she mumbles. “Never had an incurable disease though, right?”

“No, Grandma. I never did.”

She thinks for a while, as if she’s lost track of where she is in the story. Finally she asks, “Do you think heaven and hell are connected?”

“What?” I ask.

“My mother used to say that God dug a huge hole in the ground and filled it with fire, then built heaven on top of it. But that doesn’t make any sense, does it? That would make the floor of heaven too hot to pray on, don’t you think?”

I want to laugh, but I hold it in.

“But then, if heaven and hell aren’t connected,” she continues, “what’s in between them?” She turns around and looks at me inquisitively. I shrug my shoulders to indicate that I don’t know the answer.

“My poor mother used to cry all night long because I had an incurable disease, and I was going to die and go to heaven,” she says, “wherever the hell heaven is. She fasted and gave money to the poor, she sacrificed a lamb a month and gave the most tender meat to the poor. She cooked a special soup called
aash
and fed it to the poor, and all along I’m thinking, ‘I’m the one who’s dying, why are the poor getting all the treats?’ ”

Grandma smiles, realizing she has made a clever joke, and I grin encouragingly at her.

“I had a horrible pain in my stomach all the time,” she says. “On top of that, I couldn’t keep food down and always threw up everything that touched my lips. Life couldn’t be more miserable, and all of this when I was only seventeen years old.” She shakes her head. “Seventeen’s not a good age. That’s when you realize that you have a heart. That’s when feelings get in the way of thinking.” She pauses for a while.

“Ahmed’s grandpa lived a few doors down from us. He was a young, handsome man, a very handsome man. Every time I saw him, I cried and cried and cried.” She pauses for a while again, staring into the night. Finally she says, “Did I tell you that he’s coming back to take me away?”

“Yes, Grandma.”

“He came back before, but I couldn’t go. This time I’d like to go with him, I really would.” Grandma is silent for a long time. She looks down into the yard and takes a deep breath. I inch closer to her, fearing that she may lose her balance and fall off the edge. The look on her face is so confused that I can’t possibly guess where her mind is. Finally she says, “One day, I climbed a big hill behind my father’s house, and threw myself off a cliff.”

“You threw yourself off a cliff?” I ask, moving closer still.

“What good is life if you have to live without the person you love? I remember now. I didn’t have an incurable disease—I was in love. But then, love is an incurable disease, don’t you think?”

In a whisper I agree that it is.

“Yes, of course. That’s why all famous lovers die at the end of their stories.”

Suddenly, Grandma seems totally cognizant of everything around her. The dazed, fuzzy look that made her seem half-witted and lost is replaced by the alert expression of an individual in full control of her faculties. She is sitting so close to me that I can count the number of wrinkles on her face, a face I’ve seen many times but never really looked at. She runs her fingers through her amazingly long gray hair and murmurs something under her breath. She was once tall and thin, but has grown stooped with age. Her eyes are a pale brown that borders on gray, the same color as my grandpa’s eyes. I can tell from the shape of her long chin and the way she swallows the saliva in her mouth that she’s wearing dentures.

She seems more like a portrait than a person, and I’ve learned to love her dearly.

“My father’s home was built near a cliff. Did I tell you that already?” she asks in a voice that is scratchy but kind, like my own grandmother’s voice.

“Yes, you did, Grandma.”

“I was in the air forever, thinking I was going to die for sure. Who can survive a fall like that? I lost consciousness in the air. When I opened my eyes, I found myself in his arms. He saw me jumping off the cliff, and he caught me.”

“That’s wonderful, Grandma. He must have been a very strong man.”

“Oh, yes, the strongest man in the world,” Grandma remembers with a faraway smile.

“That’s right,” I hear Ahmed’s voice affirm from the darkness, “he caught my grandma in the air. He was the strongest man in the world.”

“He’s coming to take me away,” Grandma tells Ahmed.

“Yes, Grandma. I told you he’ll be back soon,” Ahmed says, hugging her frail, bent frame.

“He wants to surprise me,” she says, buried in Ahmed’s embrace. “And someday we’ll come back and surprise you two. That would be nice now, wouldn’t it?”

“Very nice,” Ahmed agrees, and I nod. She starts limping back toward the house.