Rooftops of Tehran (39 page)

My mother says I need to say good-bye to our friends and relatives in Tehran. She turns her head and blows her nose as she wipes the tears from her face. She’ll invite everyone over for a farewell dinner.

“That would be much better, and a lot easier on you,” she explains.

 

The day before my good-bye party and a week before my departure, I’m looking into Zari’s yard from my vantage point on the roof when I decide that I need to tell Mr. and Mrs. Naderi about everything that happened between Zari and me. It would be good for them to know that my intentions were totally honorable, and that I loved Zari more than life itself.

Ahmed agrees with my plan. He thinks they’ll be moving soon because he has been witnessing strange activities in their house. Strangers are coming and going at odd hours of the day and night—they must be the SAVAK agents. They plan these kinds of exiles carefully to ensure that they are carried out as inconspicuously as possible, since according to official claims the SAVAK hardly exists. For months now, there have been rumors in the alley that Mr. Naderi must move to a warmer region for his health.

I ring the bell to their house, and the Masked Angel opens the door. I say hello, and she whispers an inaudible hello in return. As always, she’s wearing her burqa, and I can barely see her eyes behind the lace. Her downcast gaze and hunched shoulders tell me that she’s uncomfortable in my presence. I quickly look away to ease her tension. “I’m here to see Mr. and Mrs. Naderi,” I whisper. “I’m leaving in a few days, and I’d like to say good-bye to them.”

The Masked Angel stands in the doorway without moving or saying anything.

“May I see them?” I ask.

She steps quickly out of the way and gestures for me to enter the house. I try not to look at the cherry tree as we walk through the yard. The Masked Angel leads the way toward the living room and whispers that her uncle and aunt are on the third floor, and that she will get them for me.

There are boxes everywhere, signaling their imminent departure. I stand in the middle of the room, unsure what to do, as she quickly disappears down the hallway. I’m reminded once again of Keivan’s birthday party. The house was full of kids running around, playing, screaming, laughing, and bitterly complaining about one another. Zari snuck up close to me as Ahmed was keeping everyone busy with the Who Am I? game.
“I hope your girlfriend doesn’t mind that you’re helping me out tonight,”
Zari had said, leaning forward to see my eyes.

“My girlfriend?”
I’d asked.

The lump is back in my throat.

There was so much activity and so much life in this house on that warm summer day. This empty room is such a stark contrast. A few meters away, on a small round table that is placed close to the samovar, I see Zari’s notebook of drawings. I walk over to the table and pick up the book. Page by page, I look at each drawing and remember every word Zari uttered to describe them.

Toward the end of the book, I come across the picture she drew of my mystery woman and me. What is this picture doing here? I’ve been looking for it ever since I came back from the hospital. I know that I pinned it to the wall of my bedroom and stared at it every night, fantasizing a million ways to give it to her without saying a word—just as she had instructed me to do. I imagined her face as she was taking the picture from me: those smiling eyes looking directly at me, cheeks blushing with excitement, and her sigh of relief at knowing that she was the woman of my dreams.

Just then, Mr. and Mrs. Naderi walk into the room. I quickly place the drawing book back on the table. Zari’s parents embrace me and tell me to sit down and make myself comfortable. Mrs. Naderi pours me a cup of tea, and tells me she’s happy I’m going away. Life has been too hard for me in this country, and being away will do me a lot of good, especially if I focus my efforts on my studies, away from all that has happened here. Her family will miss me, but this is exactly what I should be doing.

Mr. Naderi nods in agreement as he lights a cigarette.

“Would you study medicine or engineering?” he asks, as if no other academic major is a viable option. Before I have a chance to respond he adds, “Study hard because education is the only cure for ignorance, and it’s up to people like you to liberate this country from the disease of dictatorship and help construct a better future for kids like Keivan.”

The Masked Angel enters the room with a plate of sweets, which she places in front of me and whispers, “Please, help yourself.” She then proceeds to the other side of the room and sits down on the floor close to Mrs. Naderi, in front of the round table where Zari’s drawing book lies. Mr. Naderi says that he and his family are very happy for me, and they hope that I won’t forget them while I’m away. I shake my head no.

Mrs. Naderi wants to know where I’m going, how long I will be gone, and what I will study. Am I anxious about being in a foreign country, and how do my parents—especially my mother—feel about it? The Masked Angel’s eyes are fixed on me as I answer Mrs. Naderi’s questions. I can see them blinking fast behind the veil. But I look mostly at Mr. and Mrs. Naderi because the Masked Angel becomes visibly uncomfortable every time I glance in her direction. I tell them that I hope to get a degree in three years, that I will miss Iran, the alley, and all my friends, relatives, and neighbors. I express my wish that I were leaving under different circumstances. I pause, beginning to sweat at the thought of revealing the secret I never thought I’d share with anyone but my best friends. My hands start to shake, and my face feels hot.

“I would like permission to speak candidly about my relationship with Zari,” I whisper.

No one says anything, and I begin to feel that maybe I should stop right there. My palms are sweaty, and I can feel the heat from my flushed face. I wonder why telling the truth is so hard. I understand now why my uncle and aunt write instead of talking when they have uncomfortable topics to discuss! But I have to go on. It’s too late to stop now.

I drop my gaze to avoid eye contact with anyone in the room, and begin my story. I say that I always thought Zari was a special girl. As a boy, I was impressed with the way she handled herself. Of course, her engagement to Doctor, the greatest guy in our neighborhood, also elevated her status in my eyes. I say that I used to watch the two of them from the roof of our house, and although I couldn’t hear what they were talking about, I knew they always discussed important topics because intelligent people wouldn’t waste time on frivolous things.

I look up and notice a stoic expression on both Mr. and Mrs. Naderi’s faces. Not daring to look at the Masked Angel, I hang my head and continue.

“I loved Doctor. He was an extraordinary man, a great man. He had
That
.” Finally I look up at the Masked Angel. I can tell from the sounds that come from under her burqa that she’s weeping.

“And of course Zari, being engaged to my friend and mentor, always had a special place in my heart. I mean, she was Doctor’s fiancée, right?” I repeat as if I’m trying to drive that point home. “It was impossible for me to think of her as anything but Doctor’s future wife.” Then I pause for a long time because I don’t know what else to say.

The silence in the room weighs heavily on me. This is a lot harder than what Ahmed did for Faheemeh. I would gladly take the beating he took instead of this, as there’s nothing more disgraceful than falling in love with your friend’s fiancée and having to admit it.

Mr. Naderi lights a cigarette, clears his throat, and asks, “What are you trying to say, my son?”

I shake my head, mute and ashamed.

“Damn those bastards that have destroyed the lives and hopes of so many young people!” Mrs. Naderi cries out.

Out of the corner of my eye I see her wiping the tears from her face with a white handkerchief.

“You don’t need to say any more if it makes you uncomfortable,” Mr. Naderi assures me in a soothing tone. “I’m pretty sure we know everything already.”

Mrs. Naderi nods her head in mute agreement as the Masked Angel touches her face under her burqa, wiping her own tears away.

“This tragedy has destroyed so many lives so unnecessarily, so unfairly,” Mrs. Naderi says. “No one—and I mean no one—should feel ashamed of anything. We could only wish that the thoughts that have made you feel shameful were the worst that had happened to us. Damn the devil.”

“I loved her very much,” I finally blurt, as tears stream down my face. “She was my life, she was my future.”

Mr. Naderi blows the smoke out of his lungs, clears his throat, and says, “Listen, my son. Life is like a boat without sails: there is no telling where this boat will take us or which shore we’ll end up on. Sometimes it is wise not to fight the wind and accept things as they are, as painful as they may be, trusting in the wisdom of God and believing in the certainty of fate. No one can justify the pain we have all endured, and nothing can ever take the pain away. God knows, I wish I could offer you an alternative.”

He stops abruptly, draws deeply on his cigarette, glances at the Masked Angel, who is still quietly crying under her veil, and shakes his head. “I swear on your love for Zari—the light of my eyes and the breath in my lungs—that we all wish for an alternative. Maybe someday this will all make sense, but it doesn’t right now.” He hangs his head, brushes at his eyes, and continues to smoke his cigarette.

The Masked Angel walks up to Mr. Naderi, puts her arms around him, and whispers something in his ear that momentarily calms him down. Mr. Naderi’s condition surprises me, but I don’t know what to make of it.

“What he means to say,” Mrs. Naderi adds, “is that you will always be welcome in our home. We know how you felt about Zari, and you needn’t feel ashamed of it. We know that she loved you, too. That’s all I am going to say.” She rocks from side to side and slaps her side a couple of times in frustration. “It’s hard for us to talk about this. I am sorry. What we are left with are lost hopes and destroyed dreams. It’s really so hard for us to talk about.”

Mr. Naderi breaks into a bitter sob, and the Masked Angel hugs him harder and whispers louder and louder, “Don’t cry, don’t cry. Please, don’t cry. For my sake, don’t cry. I beg you to stop.” I see her eyes behind the lace of her burqa, those angelic, sad eyes that now look very familiar to me. I remember them from the picture in Zari’s photo album. She turns her head the other way and walks toward the doorway. Mr. Naderi keeps saying that he’s sorry while still crying.

“Thank God you have her,” I say, pointing at the Masked Angel, who is about to exit the room. “She was like a sister to Zari.”

Mr. Naderi shakes his head and whispers, “Yes, thank God we have her!”

Then Mr. and Mrs. Naderi both hug me as I get up to leave. “You won’t be here when I get back,” I cry out.

“No,” Mr. Naderi confirms.

“How can I find you?” I ask, sobbing like a child who’s being separated from his parents forever.

“We will find you,” Mr. Naderi says. “I swear on Zari’s love for you that we will find you.”

Zari’s love for me.
The sentence tears at my heart. Something inside me is ripped in two. I can’t possibly leave the country, and then I think of Mr. and Mrs. Naderi, Keivan, and the Masked Angel no longer living here, and I know that I must leave as soon as possible.

Moments later I’m back in my own house with a heavy heart.

One More, Please

That same day, my mother asks if I would like to go shopping with her. I say that I want to, but I’m tired and would like to stay home and enjoy my last days in the house. She hugs me and says, “I will miss you.”

“I’ll miss you, too, Mom.”

“Oh, no, no, no. You, my dear, have no idea how a mother can miss her child. So don’t give me that ‘I’ll miss you, too, Mom.’ ”

I nod.

“As hard as this is for me,” she says, while trying to smile instead of cry, “I know that this is the best thing for you. So, I plan to visit you as often as I can, even if it means selling the house, the family car, and all of my jewelry—because we can’t be torn away from our heart for four years now, can we?”

I hug her. “Four years is nothing. It’ll go by in a wink. You should be happy that you’re getting a break from me.”

She smiles and utters something between a laugh and a cry. “You do have a point,” she says.

After she leaves, I sit in a chair by the
hose
in our yard. As the spring sun lulls me into a state of semi-unconsciousness, I think of what happened in Zari’s house. As painful as the experience was, I’m glad that I went over and talked with the Naderis. I feel right about my decision. It was the adult thing to do, and I’m glad I didn’t take the letter-writing route after all.

Ahmed will soon come over, and as much as I enjoy his company, I want to delight in the quiet serenity of my surroundings. I close my eyes and let my thoughts wander. Even at rest, my mind is in a hyperactive state. I distinctly hear a car with a broken muffler pass through the alley. There’s a long silence, and then the chirping of a few birds. A few minutes later a couple of cats hiss at each other, and then a throaty growling noise, then nothing. A roaring airplane passes by overhead, followed by another uninterrupted period of silence. Then, I hear a child’s giggle and a woman’s muffled voice asking him to be quiet. Then another giggle, and another, and finally a young woman’s whisper from the other side of the wall in Zari’s yard. The hair on the back of my neck stands up. A shiver slides down my spine, and suddenly I’m wide awake.

“One more story, please, just one more!” the child whispers.

“Hush!” is the response.