“He was a good man,” Zari says. “He used to give me candies when I was Keivan’s age. I really miss him.”
There’s a caricature of Iraj surrounded by girls. His eyes are wide open, as if he’s trying to devour each girl with his gaze.
“You’re an observant woman,” I say.
“It’s hard not to be observant when you feel his eyes burning a hole through you!” she says, and laughs loudly. I laugh, too, but inside, I wish I could get my hands on that horny little prick and pluck his beady, shameless eyes from their sockets.
Then Zari takes out a family album and shows me a picture of the Masked Angel.
“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”
I glance at the picture. The Masked Angel is about the same height as Zari. Her long straight hair covers her shoulders and comes all the way down to her waist.
“Her eyes are blue, too. Just like yours,” I say.
“It’s our Russian background. Most girls in my family have blue eyes. By the way, this is the only time she has ever taken her burqa off in front of a camera.”
“Your face lights up when you talk about her.”
“She’s my best friend,” Zari says. “Her real name is Soraya. She’s a brilliant girl. She’s memorized all of Hafiz’s poetry, can you believe that?”
“That’s incredible,” I say, as I think how grueling a mental practice it must be to memorize so much. “By the way, have you ever taken a fahll with Hafiz?” This is a customary tradition in Iran that involves closing your eyes, making a wish, and opening the book to a random page to find the answer to your dilemma.
“Yeah,” Zari says. “That’s one of my favorite things to do, but Doctor says it’s an insult to Hafiz. He says Hafiz never intended to write a horoscope.”
I laugh. I want to say that Doctor should relax, but I don’t. Instead I say, “One of these days, I’ll bring my Hafiz book here and we’ll take a couple of fahlls together. And we won’t tell Doctor. That’ll be our other little secret.”
A radiant smile covers her face. “I would love that.”
One day I’m standing next to her as she is washing dishes in the kitchen. “Are you nervous about going to America?” she asks.
“Nervous?”
“You know, being so far away, alone, in a foreign country. And then your father’s expectations; I hear he has big dreams for you. Doesn’t it all get to you?” She stops washing dishes and turns to face me. She apologizes quickly. “Sorry if I sound like I’m prying.”
“No, you’re not,” I say, as I hear my mother’s voice in the back of my head: People are dying from hunger in Africa and you want me to worry about your father sending you to the States? Would Bangladesh be a more suitable place for you?
Then I remember the time I was frustrated with Dad’s insistence that I go to America, and said to my mother, who knew how I felt about his plans, “See? Your engine oil is not bringing me out of my shell. I still can’t discuss any of this with him. So, would you please stop pouring it down my throat?”
“You’re right, my medicine isn’t working,” she conceded. “What a pity!” And with that she doubled my daily dose. “This should do the trick.”
A smile creeps across my lips.
“Why are you smiling?” Zari asks.
I tell her the engine oil story, and she laughs heartily and says that I do a great imitation of my mother.
To answer her original question, I explain how a few days earlier my father came home with a magazine that was sent to him by a friend living in Europe. “It was the last three years depicted in pictures with a brief explanation of each photograph,” I explain. “People starving in Biafra, a Chilean mother running to an ambulance outside a morgue to see if her jailed kid was among the ones executed that day, and many more. One picture in particular deeply troubled me. A little twelve-year-old girl had been repeatedly raped by the Nigerian soldiers in Biafra and left in a ditch to die. The picture was taken after she was transferred to a hospital. She had a smile on her face because she was told her mommy was on her way to visit.”
“Oh, my God.” Zari puts her hand on her mouth.
“Stuff like that helps put things in perspective, doesn’t it?” I say.
She seems extremely sad now. Then a wistful smile appears on her beautiful face. She taps me on the shoulder and says, “You’re so together. I love that in you.”
A wonderful sensation rambles through me as she uses the words “I,” “love,” and “you.” God, if she had only dropped those other two words from her sentence.
On the last Saturday of August, almost a month before the end of the summer, Ahmed and I take two roses to Zari’s house and present them to the girls. The rose Ahmed gives to Faheemeh is red, meaning that he loves her. The one I give to Zari is white, meaning that she and I are good friends. The girls are genuinely touched by the gesture. Faheemeh hugs Ahmed and kisses him on the cheek. Zari shakes my hand and tells me that I am really sweet. Then she puts the rose in her hair, looks me right in the eye, and smiles. I’m so nervous that I immediately drop my gaze and blush. From that day on, I notice that Zari seems to dress nicer when we go over to her house.
“She’s trying to look pretty for you,” Faheemeh whispers. “Why don’t you tell her you appreciate that?”
I vigorously shake my head no, and she and Ahmed laugh. The thought of complimenting Zari, however, feels extremely tempting. So one afternoon, when Zari and I are in the kitchen and she’s washing the teacups, I muster up enough courage to tell her that her hair looks nice. I mumble my compliment in such an incomprehensible way that she turns around and asks, “What?”
I nervously try to repeat what I said, but my voice gets caught in my throat.
“Did you just say my hair looks nice?” she asks.
I nod yes. She smiles, turns around and continues to wash the dishes. I’m not sure what to do or say next.
“You like it better this way?” she asks.
I struggle to respond. “No, yes,” I manage to stammer. “I mean, I like it both ways, but this way is very good. Of course this way or like before, I like them both. Both are nice, very nice.” My jaw moves involuntarily and I have no way of stopping it.
“Okay, this is how it’ll be from now on,” she says quietly, without looking at me.
A special tenderness fills my heart, the likes of which I have never experienced before.
When I tell this story to Ahmed, he pats me on the back and says, “Excellent, excellent. Your plan is working.”
“What plan?” I ask.
“The plan to make her wonder if you love her. Nothing makes a woman more curious than the suspicion that she’s loved by someone. She’ll do anything to confirm it now, you’ll see. She’ll go out of her way to find out if you really do. That’s just human nature. Who doesn’t want to be loved?” Then he scratches his head and continues. “Trust me. A storm is brewing inside this cool cat now. She’ll gradually break down and you’ll see what’s behind the clouds.”
7
One More Story, Please
It’s Keivan’s seventh birthday and the four of us are assigned to chaperone the party. Most of the small kids in the alley are invited to Zari’s house, and Ahmed and I are there to help. Or, at least that’s how Faheemeh and Zari explain our presence. We spend all day decorating the house with red, white, and yellow ribbons and balloons, which we hang from the ceilings and the walls. Faheemeh and Zari prepare sandwiches as I set out paper plates and cups and plastic knives and spoons. Ahmed has volunteered to be in charge of music. He has borrowed a small, inexpensive stereo-cassette player from a friend and has been working on setting it up all day.
“Preparing the right music for a party is the most critical part of the whole thing,” Ahmed says. “You realize that, don’t you? The whole party can be ruined if I don’t come up with the right assortment of songs.”
Faheemeh says, “Yes, honey, we do,” as Zari laughs at Ahmed’s clowning.
“D
o you really realize it, or are you just agreeing because I’m so good-looking?” he taunts.
“Both, honey. You’re right, and very good-looking,” Faheemeh responds.
Ahmed begins to play his favorite songs as he dances in the middle of the room.
“You’re a good dancer,” Faheemeh compliments him.
“I had dance lessons from Tennessee Williams himself.”
“Tennessee Williams was not a dancer,” I argue.
“I tried to tell Tennessee that, but he wouldn’t hear of it.”
It seems as if all the kids show up at the same time. Ahmed says they must have been waiting outside the door, planning their invasion. His arrangement of songs is messed up within five minutes. Keivan is thrilled to be the center of attention. He wants to play horsey, and would like Ahmed to be his horse. Ahmed bends over and spends the rest of the day giving everyone horsey rides. I try to get on him once, but he kicks me away and mumbles profanities under his breath. Faheemeh and Zari laugh and applaud my attempt.
Kids run in the yard, up and down the steps, and from room to room. They yell, scream, push each other, and fight constantly. At one point, Keivan falls down and scratches his knee. Zari and Faheemeh and I sit down beside him to try and soothe him, but he keeps on crying.
“You know, I once broke my shin in three places and never cried,” I say.
“How come, didn’t it hurt?” Keivan pouts.
“Oh, yes, it sure did,” I say. “But I figured crying wouldn’t make the pain go away.”
“Really?” Keivan asks.
I lift my arms in the air, doing my best to look puzzled. “My mom thought that was pretty weird, too. She said, ‘How can you break your shin in three places and not cry?’ ” My imitation of her makes Ahmed chuckle in the background. “So now she gives me a tablespoon of syrup that’s supposed to help me cry when I need to.”
“Do you?” Keivan asks hesitantly.
“Only when I’m taking her syrup.” I twitch my face as if I’m drinking my mother’s horse urine potion.
Everyone laughs as I gently touch Keivan’s knee. “It doesn’t hurt anymore now, does it?”
“No.” Keivan shakes his head.
“See, the pain goes away when you laugh.”
Keivan jumps up and the games resume. Zari whispers thank you. Her gentle gaze makes my heart go wild.
Late in the afternoon we decide to play a game called Who Am I? All the kids gather in a circle, and Ahmed mimes a character while we guess who he is. The kids love the game, and so do Faheemeh, Zari, and I because it gives us a chance to sit down and relax. As we watch Ahmed assume different characters, Zari leans toward me and says, “You know, the question for you is not who am ‘I’ but who is ‘she’?”
“Who is she?”
“Yeah, the one who’s as soft as flowers and majestic as mountains? What else did you say?”
“Oh, forget that. That was stupid,” I say, bashfully.
“I thought it was beautiful. She’s a lucky girl to have you. You know that, don’t you?”
I want to melt. I want to scream. I want Ahmed to hear this.
“Thank you,” I say.
“I hope she’s not jealous that you’re helping me today.”
“She’s not the jealous type.”
“No? All girls are jealous, don’t you know that?”
I want to ask if she is jealous, but that might be rude.
“Well, how does she describe you?” she asks with a curious look on her face.
“I don’t know. We haven’t had that kind of talk yet.”
“No? You haven’t told her you love her yet?”
“I think she knows,” I say hesitantly.
“But you haven’t told her?”
“Not in so many words.”
“Have you consulted Hafiz yet?” she asks. “Taken a fahll?”
I shake my head no.
“Well, you should and you’d better tell her soon. A girl wants to know she’s loved, you know. Now, what did you say her name was?” she asks abruptly, hoping to trick me into revealing my secret.
I smile. “I can’t tell you yet.”
“You can’t tell me because . . . ?”
“I . . . I don’t know.”
Zari keeps smiling. I’m shaking, and I think she knows it because she slowly slides away from me and we continue watching Ahmed miming different characters. A few minutes later, Zari goes to the kitchen and comes back with a plate full of different kinds of sandwiches. “I knew you wouldn’t get a chance to eat, so I set these aside for you,” she says.
The knowledge that she was thinking of me spirals around in my head like a song.
“I hope you like cold sandwiches,” she continues.
How could I not when they were made by her?
After the kids leave, Ahmed, Zari, Faheemeh, and I sit around a small dining table completely exhausted. I stare at a bowl of ice cream that has been in front of me for at least twenty minutes. The girls look at the mess created by the kids and can’t believe that we still have to clean up.
“My back is killing me,” Ahmed says. “You know, my parents are going away for a few days. Why don’t you come over and we’ll have a party for the four of us to celebrate surviving these kids? We’ll play slow songs and dance all night long.”
My heart sinks as I think of Zari in my arms. I look at her and she smiles and drops her gaze.
“Are we going to have any kids?” Ahmed asks Faheemeh.
Faheemeh shows him four fingers and winks. Ahmed grabs his head.
“You two would make beautiful babies,” Zari says, looking lovingly at the two of them.
Ahmed points to me and says, “He and his honey would make beautiful kids, too.”
“Oh, yes. Beautiful, beautiful kids,” Faheemeh agrees.
“He should’ve invited her to the party,” Zari says. She waits for Ahmed and Faheemeh to respond, but they don’t say anything. Then she turns to me. “This would’ve been a perfect opportunity for you to tell her how you feel.”
Ahmed immediately snaps into his scholarly pose and says, “Well, I don’t know about that. You see, he believes he has to get to know her before telling her that he loves her.”
I know where Ahmed is heading, and I want to reach across the table and strangle him.
“What do you mean?” Zari asks.
“You see,” Ahmed lectures, “most people in Iran fall in love without knowing much about each other. In the U.S. and Europe people date for a long time and get to know each other before falling in love.” He points to me and continues, “He has a very intelligent theory about this. He told me all about it a few nights ago on the roof.” Facing me he says, “Tell them.”
I kick him as hard as I can under the table.
Zari and Faheemeh look at me, waiting for me to talk. I cough, mumble, and eat a spoonful of my melted ice cream to buy a little time. Finally I say, “Yes, in Europe and the United States people do spend a lot more time getting to know each other before declaring their love,” and then I don’t have anything else to say. After an awkward pause, I add, “In the West, relationships between men and women are readily accepted. In countries like ours, we’re more concerned about God’s will and destiny. Anthropologists should study the correlation between the advancement of technology and the forms of relationships between couples in these different kinds of societies.”
I feel like a complete ass as I look at Ahmed’s grinning face. Why do I let him do this to me?
Zari thinks for a while and says, “Interesting.”
Ahmed puffs out his chest again and I kick him so hard that he stiffens up, trying his best not to groan in pain.
Zari looks at me and says, “When will you tell me who she is?”
“Probably not until the anthropologists publish their findings,” Ahmed says, as he throws me a wink.
I will kill him! I swear I will!
We start cleaning the house. In the living room I see a picture
of Doctor and Zari on the shelf. Doctor is smiling and has his arm around her shoulders. She has her patented crooked smile on, and her head is resting on Doctor’s left arm.
“That’s a horrible picture of me, but my mom likes it,” she says, walking up behind me. “I keep hiding it away, but she finds it and puts it back on the shelf. One day I’m going to burn that picture.”
“Why? It’s a nice picture.”
“Doctor looks nice, but not me,” she says, avoiding my gaze.
I look down at the picture, and whisper, “I don’t know about that. You have that smile.”
“What smile?”
“Your crooked smile—your trademark,” I whisper.
“My trademark,” she says, as if it were a statement and not a question.
“Yeah, no one else smiles like that. I like it.”
“You do?” she asks, head still down.
“Yeah. I also like the way you have your head tilted to one side.”
“Yeah?”
“I like your eyes, too. They’re smiling, like they do most of the time.”
“They don’t always?”
“They always smile when you’re happy.”
She looks up at me. “Are they smiling now?”
“Yes, they are.”
We look at each other for a while. We’re standing so close I can feel her breath on my face. My knees feel weak. In one split second, everything I’ve learned about her flashes in my head. Her favorite color is blue. She says that blue is associated with vastness; the skies are blue, the oceans are blue. I wonder why she always omits the fact that her eyes are blue, too. She is a storyteller. She and Keivan lie on a red blanket under the cherry tree in the yard every day after lunch. Zari always lies down on her side with her face toward the roof. I can tell she watches me by the way she follows my movements. I hear Keivan begging, “One more story, please, just one more.” I wish she would whisper tales of our future into my ears, and then I, too, would beg for just one more. She wakes up early every morning and walks to the bakery at the end of the alley to buy hot fresh lavash for breakfast. I watch her all the way there and back from my position on the roof. She knows that I’m watching her because she looks up often.