Rooftops of Tehran (4 page)

“I think you should tell her that you love her,” I blurt, suddenly.

Ahmed exhales with a derisive snort. “What good will that do? Besides, don’t you think she already knows?”

“
Maybe
she knows . . .
maybe
she thinks that
maybe
you love her—but she doesn’t know for sure, does she? You haven’t told her how you feel, and you certainly haven’t done anything to show her.”

“I communicate in silence with her every day,” he mumbles.

His answer makes me smile. “Ahmed, she’s the only one who can stop this wedding. Her parents may still force her to marry him, so there’s no guarantee that your actions would change anything, but you have to give her a reason to fight.”

“You think she might?” Ahmed asks, genuine wonder trembling in his voice.

“I think she might if you intervened, and if she doesn’t, what have you lost?”

The light above Zari’s door blinks on, and she comes into her yard and kneels gracefully at the edge of the
hose
. The night has been slow to cool, and she leans down and to the side to wet her hair, dipping it in the water, then twisting it artfully and pinning it to her head so that the water slides in drops down her neck and back. I’m not sure how long I’ve been looking into Zari’s yard when I feel Ahmed staring at me.

“So,” he says, scratching the top of his head thoughtfully, “you think if someone walked up to Zari and told her he loved her, she would reconsider marrying Doctor?”

“That’s not . . . that’s different,” I stutter. “Zari wants to marry Doctor, so that’s not a fair question, and this is not about Zari and me. I mean, this is about you and Faheemeh.”

Ahmed bites his lower lip to mask his smile, then asks, “You think she would go against her parents’ wishes?”

“I said Zari’s situation is different!” I bark back.

“I didn’t mean Zari. I was talking about Faheemeh.” This time Ahmed doesn’t bother to hide his smile. “So you think she would go against her parents’ wishes?” he repeats.

I shake my head slightly to dislodge any more thoughts of Zari, then fix my friend with a confident stare and answer, “People do amazing things for love. Books are full of wonderful stories about this kind of stuff, and stories aren’t just fantasies, you know. They’re so much a part of the people who write them that they practically teach their readers invaluable lessons about life.”

Ahmed notes the gleam in my eye, shakes his head and chuckles. “I know, I should read more.”

 

 

I wake the next day alone, squinting at the hot sun hanging dead center in the sky, and realize I must have slept late. My waking fog clears sharply as I notice that Ahmed is already gone. I run downstairs, pull my shoes on, and mumble a hello to my mother, who is heading up the hallway with a large glass of her special engine oil for me. I grimace, then sprint past her into the yard to my bike.

My mother yells, “Where’re you going? You haven’t eaten breakfast!”

“No time!” I shout as I’m jumping on my bike, and hear the familiar muttering of my mother cursing under her breath.

I pedal as fast as I can to Faheemeh’s alley, and my heart sinks as I round the corner. A bunch of kids are holding back Faheemeh’s two brothers, and Ahmed’s face is covered with blood. There’s lots of screaming and yelling, and Faheemeh’s oldest brother is telling Ahmed to get lost. Ahmed is standing quietly, with no one holding him back. I jump off my bike and run up to him.

“What’s going on?” I ask, anxiously. When Ahmed doesn’t speak, I assume the worst and whirl to face our attackers. I will my body to become loose and ready, bouncing lightly on the balls of my feet and shaking my hands briefly to warm them before I curl them into fists.

Ahmed smiles gently and grabs my arm. “I followed your advice. I was trying to tell Faheemeh I love her,” he explains, pointing up to the weeping girl on the roof, “but I think the whole world heard.”

Faheemeh is watching us, knowing full well that a seventeen-year-old boy has taken his first step toward becoming a man, and in the process has made her feel more like a woman than all the aunts, uncles, and formalities of the night before. If she must marry a man her parents have chosen for her, at least she knows that she is loved by someone with enough courage to defy tradition.

I can only hope that she will summon her own courage to defy her parents, for Ahmed’s sake.

 

 

A few nights later, at dinner, my mother mentions a rumor she’s heard about a sweet young girl in a nearby neighborhood who is being forced to marry a man she doesn’t love. “I don’t know her,” Mom says, “but I feel horrible for her.” I listen hard, but keep my face still. “I hear that she has locked herself in a room and refuses to come out, eat, or speak to anyone,” Mom reports.

My father shakes his head. “It’s time for the parents in this country to learn that the souls of their children are more important than tradition,” he says. “You young people need to assume responsibility for your own futures,” he tells me. “If someone’s old enough to be married off, then they’re sure as hell old enough to decide who they should marry.” My mother nods in agreement.

Sitting out on the roof after dinner that night, I smell Ahmed’s cigarette and hear his steps on the stairs long before he settles down beside me.

“Do I have a star up there?” he asks. I know he isn’t expecting an answer, so I remain silent. “I see yours,” he claims, pointing at a brilliant star far from the horizon. “It’s blinding!”

“That’s not me,” I argue, my face warming imperceptibly. “Too bright. Must be Faheemeh. The light is stronger because she’s thinking of you.”

Ahmed sighs as he stretches out on his back and closes his eyes. I follow suit, knowing that the hushed symphony of night noises won’t be nearly loud enough to rescue us from our worries. I breathe in the scent of wet asphalt, enjoying the way the night breeze brushes my closed eyes.

I wake just enough to turn over beneath the covers, missing the heat my body leaves behind as soon as my skin hits the cool, unused sheets on the other side of the bed. I lie still with my eyes closed because my mind feels too weary to process anything I might see. Sounds draw my attention—the hollow click of a cane followed closely by the drag of slippers on linoleum, the muted ticking of a wristwatch in the drawer of the bedside table—but the relative silence wakes me. I am alone in the room, feeling lost without the old man’s rhythmic chanting. I turn to my other side, only to find the sheets already chilled, and wonder if I’ll ever open my eyes again.

It is either a few minutes or several days later the next time I am conscious. I notice pink patches of healed skin on my hands and forearms. The new skin looks tender, but doesn’t hurt.
Was I burned? Why? How? Did someone try to kill me?
Not that I care. The back of my skull aches to the dull beat of my pulse, while each slow breath I draw between my sore ribs feels as if it is struggling to lift a weight.

My days and nights begin to be plagued by dreams. Dark clouds roll over the roof of our house near enough to touch, and lightning strikes so close that the thunder knocks me off my feet. I open my eyes to see the wheelchair on the other side of the room.
Can I walk? Am I paralyzed? Maybe I fell off the roof, as my mother always feared. Or did someone push me off? Why?
More shivers, more hours of unconsciousness.

The next time I’m awake the clouds are even darker. I am still on the roof. I see a man dressed in a black suit looking up at me from the alley. His predatory eyes glint. His face is bloated. He howls into a radio clutched in his hand. A muffled sound fills the air, more like an angry roar matching the thunder in its ferocity. A cold wind blows through the alley, whirling up dust and debris as the color of everything turns into winterish gray. I can’t tell if it is the man down below or the dark clouds overhead that send a chill down my spine.

It’s difficult not to like Doctor. His thick round glasses slightly magnify his smiling brown eyes and his tidy appearance makes him look like a young professor. His calm demeanor and strong, gentle voice tend to disarm even his worst enemies. He lives nearby with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Sobhi, and comes over often to see Zari.

When we play soccer in the alley, Doctor cheers us on like a true fan, jumping up and down, encouraging both sides, and admiring unselfish plays. We sometimes invite him to join the game, but he always laughs and says something like, “Oh, no, no. I’m too old.” Then he turns to Zari, who smiles and shrugs her shoulders, as if to say he should do what he likes. In the end he never joins us, and I don’t blame him. What would the neighbors think if they saw the young scholar, engaged to the prettiest girl in the alley, running after a plastic ball with a bunch of kids?

I admire Doctor, but I can’t stop myself from thinking about Zari. This, of course, is something I would never admit to, especially given how we pester Iraj about looking at Ahmed’s sister. My thoughts about Zari are pure and innocent, most of the time. The most shameful fantasy I’ve indulged in was to think that if I ever got married I would want my wife to be exactly like her: smart, beautiful, delicate, proper, and polite—everything a man should want in a woman, or so I thought. Reviewing Zari’s qualities, however, quickly led to imagining our first kiss on the night of our marriage, which felt as if someone had poured boiling water through my veins: her bright eyes closing as our faces came together, breathing in her delicious scent as our lips met in a silent flood of softness. I forced my mind to empty at that point, and haven’t had thoughts like that about her since, at least not consciously.

Doctor is always reading, even while he’s walking. Ahmed swears he’s seen him walk right into a light post a couple of times. That’s how he became my friend and mentor, as one of the only people who liked the same books I did. He admires the philosophies of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Bertrand Russell. He owns every play by Bertolt Brecht and George Bernard Shaw, as well as the works of great American storytellers like Jack London, John Steinbeck, and Howard Fast.

I met Doctor through Ahmed. “He is the smartest guy in our neighborhood,” Ahmed said. “Much smarter than you,” he teased, before looking around and whispering, “I think he’s one of those guys who doesn’t like the Shah.”

“That makes sense,” I mumbled, knowing that most university students violently opposed the tyranny of the regime. “What makes him so smart?” I asked.

“They don’t call him Doctor for nothing,” Ahmed responded in a smart-ass tone. “He’s not a physician—you know that, right?”

I smiled and nodded yes.

“He’s read everything. He knows everything. He’s like an encyclopedica.”

“What’s an encyclopedica?” I asked, laughing at his slip.

He ignored me and continued. “I think he may be the only person who uses bigger words than you! And he is always arguing politics; thank God you don’t do that.” He showed me the back of his right hand, as if he was about to smack me.

I laughed again.

In time I really got to know Doctor. His Marxist language became a welcome part of my days. He discussed dialectical materialism, determinism, and the centralization and concentration of capital, praising and quoting scholars like Louis Althusser, Erich Fromm, and Antonio Gramsci—Marxists scholars whose publications were banned in Iran.

Doctor asked about my interests, my hobbies, and my school experiences. His eyes lit up when he learned that I was a fellow reader.

“Who’s your favorite author?” he asked eagerly.

“I love Gorky’s work,” I said hesitantly, a bit intimidated by the guy who was supposedly an encyclopedica. “I like all the Russian writers I’ve read, Dostoyevsky, Sholokhov, Pushkin.”

“Really?” Doctor shouted, grinning. “Where have you been, my friend? That is so great.”

After a long discussion of Russian literature and its impact on the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, Doctor asked, “What do you think about the condition of the people in our villages?” His question did not surprise me, given my conversation with Ahmed earlier. Before I had a chance to respond, he said, “Their living conditions are deplorable. Have you ever been on a farm?”

I nodded yes.

“You know, some people think I’m too idealistic, but I wish for a day when no one goes to bed on an empty stomach. I want to find a way to educate every human being so that they can achieve their fullest potential. I want equality and justice for all regardless of social status and class.”

I sensed the heat of Doctor’s enthusiasm along with his sincerity. Soon I was overtaken by a startling surge of goodwill toward him.

“I don’t know about you,” he continued, “but I can see myself as a missionary in the villages helping people dig wells, teaching them new irrigation techniques, harvesting crops and filtering drinking water. Do you know how many people die annually from drinking polluted water?” I shook my head no. He shook his head, too, naked sorrow in his expression, before continuing. “I want to help them take control of their lives instead of waiting for some God to deliver them from their troubles. Do you understand?”