3

When Grandmother had come to clean up the room, she had found Salim’s notebook, which had fallen beside the armchair.

“Where is it now?” Hasti asked.

“Next to the bergamot.”

Hasti grabbed the notebook and started turning the pages. She skipped the sections written in Arabic and French. She didn’t understand the short English expressions, even though they had been written in a good hand. Even the Persian notes were only sometimes comprehensible to her. The title of the notebook was “Letters to God,” and it was divided into five sections: Mysticism, India, Islam, China, and Miscellaneous. Of the writers’ names, she knew Rumi well, but she didn’t know Ibn Arabi. In the section on India, she didn’t know the meaning of avatar, but she could read the names Sathya Sai Baba and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Of the third name, only Bhagavan was legible. Salim’s Persian and Arabic handwriting was not that good.

In the Mysticism section, several pages were written in Persian, and Hasti devoured the words and the sentences.

The Burden of Trust

I like the expression the burden of trust. Both Rumi and Hafez as well as others have talked about it. It is obvious that all of them have borrowed the term from the Quran. Seriously, what is the burden of trust that neither the sky, nor the earth, nor the mountains agreed to carry it, yet humans did? Did humans agree because of ignorance? And did this very ignorance cause them to attain favor and knowledge? And was this oppression that they brought upon themselves superior to all justice? Some say that the burden of trust is sorrow because God created humans out of a mud similar to potters’ mud using teardrops that angels had shed for forty years. So humans are made of sadness. Rumi has interpreted the burden of trust to be human free will and freedom. The sky and the earth ran away from freedom. And of course, the mountains could not have accepted it because God had secured them in place like “a pin in the earth.” I have another idea—that the burden of trust is the love that takes humans to the valley of faith. I don’t know why I thought of Moses, who heard God, and Mohammad, who saw God.

But the reason I’m thinking about the burden of trust tonight is a girl I have just met. I think this girl is the burden of trust that I will carry on my shoulders and take to the valley of faith. She is well-mannered and gracious. My mother liked her, too. I have only seen her once. She said, “I read my own fortune.” The only problem with this girl is her broken family. Nor does she know anything about religion.

On the next page, the passage likening God to the nucleus of an atom and the explosion of the mother atom . . . that Salim had read to Hasti and Grandmother.

In the section on India, Hasti’s attention was drawn to the passage below:

We are like a balloon whose string is in the hand of God. He pulls us in whichever direction he wills. He flies us in the sky and pulls the string on earth . . . and how fragile we are. With one flick we burst and vanish.

Under that passage Salim had made a comment:

So what happens to the “will”? Didn’t God give humans the will even to throw themselves into the abyss of sin? And hasn’t the stain of sin made them distinct from the rest of creation?

God, You gave me the thread to weave the silk cloth of my life. May it never happen that I weave a cheap rug out of it . . .

Hasti’s heart tightened. Neither was Salim’s outlook like that of Morad, nor were the words that he composed or had adopted. Who was right?

As soon as she closed the door of the house, Hasti was sorry. She wanted to return, call her secretary, Fakhri, and tell her that she was not coming to the office that day. There were many excuses she could use: “I’m going to the carpet company to see the antique rugs; maybe one of the designs will be useful for us.” “I’m going to the Museum of Ancient Iran’s storage room to see Marlik pottery.” Maybe . . .

Instead of all this, she would go to Tehran University to Simin’s class. She wouldn’t go to listen to her teach for two hours, but would figure out how to find her alone and what to tell her. Finding Simin alone was never easy. She had tried it many times. Usually, students, both male and female, surround her after class and pour down the wide staircase beside her and behind her. And in the corridor another crowd joins her and assails her with questions. Simin’s eyes shine. These are all my children. Marami comes from the faculty administration office and shouts, “Ladies and gentlemen, disperse. The professor is tired.”

Simin goes to the department office, and Hasti follows her. The secretary is sitting at her desk rapidly knitting something. One of her friends, a well-dressed woman, is sitting on the chair next to her and filing her nails. A large table is in the center of the room with chairs set around it. The department office is the meeting room, the office of the secretary and registrar, and the lunchroom for the secretary and her friends. It is also the professors’ lounge, the place for advising, and the place for students and professors to bargain over grades. Amidst all these activities, Hasti once observed the secretary using the meeting table to take a pattern out of an issue of Burda magazine to make a dress for a friend. She was tracing the pattern, and her friend was sitting on a chair basting. Both students and professors testify, however, that the secretary is the best in her work and that she provides a shoulder for all of them to cry on.

Hasti had heard that the secretary’s well-dressed friend was a member of university security. She knows that Simin would suggest having lunch together in a quiet corner of the faculty cafeteria. They would stand in line for a while, where one cannot express certain views or use certain words. Simin would get the food coupons and ask Hasti, “Do you want a soft drink?” Hasti would like a Pepsi, which they don’t have. Okay, Coke? They don’t have it. Bubble Up? Canada Dry? 7up? They have 7up. They would wait for a table to be free and then sit awaiting the food.

One of the others waiting for food would come and greet Simin Khanom and compliment her on her interview published in Kayhan newspaper. He would say that His Majesty, the shah, has also read it, and that they have asked the newspaper to send the second part of the interview to the royal court. Then, the second liar. The third liar. The fourth one would say that he has read her novel Savushun and would ask the meaning of the title. Simin would say, “It’s explained in the book itself, if you’ve read it.” The person would say, “I swear I have read it three times.” Simin would say, “You will understand it if you read it the fourth time.” A woman would come, a man; old and young, everyone lies. Simin would say to Hasti, “They say this to all writers, whereas they haven’t read even one line of their writing. In addition, most of them have come to eye you.”

This one would be the cheekiest of all. He would tighten the knot of his tie, bring a chair, put it next to Simin and Hasti’s table, and sit down. Then he would ask Simin what new jokes she had heard. And he would start: “A person from Qazvin . . .” “A person from Rasht . . .” “A person from Isfahan . . .”

Panting, Hasti entered her office. Fakhri was sitting at the desk typing the annual report. Her body moved back and forth with the clicking of the keys, and her ponytail bounced up and down. But the Aleppo boil on her cheek was fixed in its place.

Hasti was overjoyed by the tidiness of her desk. She picked up a pencil and tried to draw Salim’s eyes on a piece of paper. She drew several, but none of the drawings reflected the secret of Salim’s eyes. The key to this secret was not even in Salim’s own hands. The servant brought tea.

Simin or Professor Mani, from which one should she seek help? Hasti remembers the day when she was supposed to meet with Professor Mani and Simin to determine her undergraduate thesis topic. She and Simin have already sat at the meeting table and have had tea, too. The department secretary is knitting. Her friend comes in with a box of pastry and offers some to the three of them. She has just been promoted. In the security office, no one’s reward is overlooked. Ajami, the department servant, comes in. He has a pox scar on his face, and he is wearing a blue coverall jacket. He whispers in Simin’s ear.

Simin says, “Invite him in, but when Professor Mani arrives, he must leave.” A middle-aged man with a closely shaven head and a dark red shirt comes in and sits down. The department secretary and her friend leave the room with the box of pastry.

The red-shirted man says, “Professor Daneshvar, I have two questions.”

“You’re not a student in our department, are you?” Simin asks.

The red-shirted man says, “No.”

“What do you study?”

“Political law.”

“May I see your student ID card?”

“I don’t have it with me.”

“So how were you able to enter the university campus? No one is allowed in without a card.”

“Well, now I’m here.”

“You’re too big to be able to enter through the fence,” Simin says. “And you don’t have wings that would enable you to fly over the fence.”

“Meaning?”

“You know well what I mean.”

The red-shirted man puts his hand on his heart and says, “I swear that I am not a SAVAK agent.”

“Let’s get to your questions, then.”

“Why don’t you continue on Jalal Al-e Ahmad’s path?”

Simin smiles. “Because I’m not Jalal Al-e Ahmad. Everyone acts according to their own nature and temperament.”

The red-shirted man speaks sarcastically. “Your nature requires you to give financial aid to the families of political prisoners? To use the influence of your family and try to follow the cases of political prisoners? And to protect them? To go to Evin Prison to visit them and encourage them?”

“I don’t have the resources to help financially on a large scale,” Simin says. “But sometimes I give a bit of financial help to friends whose husbands are political prisoners. This is not a crime, is it? Actually, none of the things that you have mentioned is a crime. Besides, what does any of this have to do with you? You said you’re not a SAVAK agent, didn’t you?”

The red-shirted man says, “With all due respect, both you and your deceased husband liked showing off, liked being a topic of discussion. As a matter of fact, what you do is a kind of self-promotion, yet in a feminine way, covertly, and . . .”

Simin laughs and says, “Mister, if it is self-promotion, why would it be covert?” She becomes serious and asks, “So, next question?”

The red-shirted man says, “It’s rumored that SAVAK killed Jalal Al-e Ahmad. I want to hear it from you that . . .”

“Why don’t you ask Chief Nassiri?” Simin says.

Professor Mani enters. Simin and Hasti stand up, and the red-shirted man stands, too. As he is leaving, he remembers to be empathetic. “Professor Daneshvar, I want only good for you. Why should your class be like a travelers’ inn or a mosque, where anyone who desires can enter?”

Hasti breathes in relief that the red-shirted man has finally left, though without saying good-bye.

Professor Mani is fat. His face has turned red, and his eyes are a bit red, too. He has a small mouth.

After a lengthy discussion, Simin suggests, “Because Hasti is skillful at drawing nude bodies, and she is a woman as well, she should go to Sare‘in, to the Gavmish Goli hot springs pool when it is the women’s hour. She can draw at least fifty women and children in various positions and movements, naked and bare.” She pauses and then continues, “Jalal and I went to Sare‘in together, to the inferno. I’m prepared to give her my notes about it.”

“How about Jalal’s notes?” Professor Mani asks.

“No,” Simin says, “not Jalal’s notes, because we are talking about a feminine perspective and mentality. When it was the women’s hour at the pool, Jalal was not allowed to enter.”

“What a pity!”

Fakhri came in and placed the annual report that she had typed in front of Hasti. Hasti thanked her. She wasn’t in the mood to read a report. She picked up the phone and called her house. She told Grandmother that she would come home late that afternoon. Grandmother had to know all the details. Where is she going? Why is she going? When is she coming home?

Hasti explained that she would go either to Simin’s house in Taj rish or to Professor Mani’s house. If she goes to Simin’s house, which is far away, she might sleep over there. Grandmother emphasized that she should definitely call from there and inform her. Well, she’s old and lonely, and . . . “But Shahin is with you!” Hasti said.

The annual report lay there waiting on the desk, unread, and Hasti remembered the afternoon that she had gone to visit Simin when she was sick . . .

Haji Ma‘sumeh opens the door and greets her. She is heavyset and, in her own words, “leggy.” She’s wearing the green wool jacket and slacks that Simin had brought from England. Over that, she’s wearing Simin’s sheepskin vest that Roya had sent her as a gift from Mashhad.

Hasti enters. The room is hot, and there’s a pan of scented water on the heater. The air smells of chamomile. Simin picks up a bottle of rubbing alcohol from the medicine tray that is on the table and says, “Rub some alcohol under your nose.”

Hasti sits at the dining table. A master’s thesis by one of the students is on the table, and a thick, open book is in front of Simin.

Haji Ma‘sumeh brings tea and biscuits for Hasti and sweet-lemon juice for Simin. “Hasti Khanom,” she says, “I implore you to stay the night. I have prepared turnip soup for the lady, and I’ll run out and buy some kebab for you and me, with two bottles of Pepsi.”

She shows her dentures to Hasti, and asks, “Do you like them? I just got them.” As far as Hasti remembers, three of Simin’s servants fancied getting dentures while they were in her house. They kept going and coming, pulled some teeth, made molds, and then put in the dentures. The dentures would hurt; again, they would go, and now it is okay . . .

Hasti knows that Haji Ma‘sumeh is a hermaphrodite; she is neither a man nor a woman, but has in her some traces of both sexes. On her chin a bit of hair grows, which she removes. Her chest is flat, but she has shaped her eyebrows. She has a manly voice. She has covered her long black hair with a yellow and green headscarf.

“Haji Ma‘sumeh,” Hasti asks, “why are you wearing the lady’s clothes?” Simin laughs and finishes Hasti’s words. “The lady is not dead yet!”

“I swear to the Mecca pilgrimage I have made,” Haji Ma‘sumeh says. “May the sacred black stone shame me if I lie. The lady is cool. She doesn’t mind.”

Hasti knows that Haji Ma‘sumeh has neither gone to Mecca, nor has she seen the sacred black stone up close. Only once, as a man, she had been the servant of a haji whose job was selling cement, plaster powder, and limestone.

“Ma’am,” Haji Ma‘sumeh asks, “once I’ve finished shoveling the snow, may I go to the religious ceremony at the Arzani house?”

“Go.”

“May I take some sugar and some tea, too?”

“Take some.”

“Is there anything you need?”

She brings water and pours it into the pan on the heater. She takes a handful of dried chamomile flowers from the box next to the heater, adds it, and stirs with her finger. Then she brings kerosene and pours it into the heater’s storage tank.

When Haji Ma‘sumeh leaves, Simin says, “I must find someone else and fire her. I’ve heard from the neighbors that she smuggles opium. She’s transformed this house into a hangout for people from Qaen . . . Her brother, Jeffrey . . .”

Hasti laughs and asks, “You’ve changed Ja‘far’s name to Jeffrey?”

“Haven’t you seen his frizzy, afro hair, full of small curls . . . ?”

“The summer theft was the work of Jeffrey and his fellow townsmen,” Hasti says. “But you never told me the whole story.”

“Well, I was sleeping in the courtyard under the mosquito net,” Simin says. “Haji Ma‘sumeh came and woke me and said there was a thief. I saw she was holding a long stick with a soft brush at its end to clean spider-webs. ‘You go ahead,’ I said. ‘I’ll follow.’ I waited until the thieves had left.”

Hasti laughs hard and loud.

“When I came in, I saw that the lights were on and the whole house was a mess. They had taken a few pieces of jewelry and nine thousand tomans. When the neighbors and the police came, everyone said that they suspected Haji Ma‘sumeh and her fellow townsmen. But I didn’t let them arrest her. Marshal Naneh said that she had heard Haji Ma‘sumeh’s ‘Oh, thief . . . Oh, thief . . . ,’ but she had not heard any footsteps. Only that amber necklace that Jalal had brought me from Russia was especially precious to me.”

Someone knocks, someone rings the bell. Hasti opens the door. Someone has brought halva to commemorate a death. From Jamshid Khan’s house. The woman is holding a tray on which there are four plates of halva. “Isn’t Haji Ma‘sumeh here?” she asks.

“No.” Hasti says. “She has gone to the Arzani house for a religious ceremony.”

“Well,” the woman says, “it is the night of the saint’s martyrdom, after all . . . Hasn’t the lady gone, too?”

“The lady is ill.”

“If possible,” the woman says, “please put the halva on another plate. We don’t have many plates.”

Hasti goes to the kitchen and does as the woman has requested.

“I’ll come to visit the lady as soon as I’m free,” the woman says. Then she thinks and adds, “No, I won’t have time tonight. I must go to the religious ceremony at the Arzani house, too. Otherwise, his wife will bombard me with a thousand sarcastic remarks tomorrow, saying that I have ignored her religious ceremony . . .”

The phone rings. The telephone is on a small table in the hallway. Hasti picks up the receiver. A young girl’s voice asks, “Is this the Al-e Ahmad house?”

Hasti gives an affirmative reply.

The voice says, “I am Mrs. Arzani’s granddaughter. Please go and ask my grandmother to come to the phone . . .”

“My dear,” Hasti says, “Haji Ma‘sumeh is not home, and the lady is ill. As for me, I don’t know where your grandmother lives.”

“The lady knows the address,” the voice says. “You can ask her. It won’t kill you, will it?”

Hasti hangs up.

Again someone knocks. Hasti opens the door to Marshal Naneh. Marshal Naneh is the servant of the Honorable Major. She comes in. Her heavy cheeks hang from beneath her eyes all the way to her double chin. She’s wearing the major’s trousers, which are tattered at the knees. The front of her blouse is greasy and filthy. She’s also wearing the major’s military jacket, which is both tight and short, its epaulettes torn. A black scarf covers her head. “Say hello to the lady,” she says, “and tell her that the major’s wife has asked her to give her Leila Khanom’s magazines. She has said, ‘I swear to God that I didn’t cut out the pictures.’”

“What’s the name of the magazine?”

“Its name was on the tip of my tongue, but I’ve forgotten it. Please call the major’s wife and ask her.”

“Leila Khanom is not home. Tell your lady that we don’t know where she has put the magazines.”

“But she will be upset,” Marshal Naneh says. “You can’t imagine how bitter she can be.”

“Naneh Jan, go. Godspeed.”

“She has the grudge of a camel,” Marshal Naneh says.

Hasti goes to Simin. “Simin Khanom,” she says angrily, “what kind of a life is it that you have created for yourself? The other day, that SAVAK guy said that your class is a travelers’ inn. Now I see that your house is a travelers’ inn, too. Sell this old place; it’s become a coffeehouse! Go live in an apartment, and don’t give your address or telephone number to anyone. Isn’t it a shame to waste your precious time this way?”

“Why are you standing?” Simin asks maternally. “Sit down and take it easy. I admit that I don’t have more than seven or eight major flaws and ten or twelve minor ones. My first flaw is that I have naïve written on my forehead.”

Hasti sits and says, “And anyone who spends time with you immediately discovers your gullibility.”

“You mean they read the naïve on my forehead?”

“And you let them use you.”

“You mean I let them take advantage of me.” Simin laughs and adds, “I created you myself, and now you are confronting me?”

Hasti has calmed down. “I have been created by a mother and a father,” she says, “neither of whom has parented me.”

“I meant something else completely,” Simin says.

“Creating with respect to emotions and intellect,” Hasti says. “But you taught me yourself that wherever I see wrong, I should say something.”

“It’s true, but in this corner of the world, where we live, social institutions either don’t exist, or if they do exist, they don’t work. Therefore, all of us will gradually become social workers. But I can’t live in an apartment. In an apartment, I feel that I’m hanging between earth and sky, suspended in the air. I feel that I’m suffocating, especially at sunset. Besides, every corner of this house holds a memory for me.”

Hasti respects Simin’s silence.

“I need this courtyard,” Simin says, “with its arches and pool, and the sitting room with its wall heater.”

“And probably the grapevine trellis with its shade where you sit and write,” Hasti adds.

“And the pine trees,” Simin says, “and the plants and the doves and the sparrows. And the neighbor’s pigeons that drink water from the pool and raise their heads and give thanks to God. When I caress the trees, their leaves tremble with joy under my hand. I know that they like me, too. I like the leaves more than the flowers. No one thinks of the leaves. How long they wait for a single flower to bloom.”

“Do you also like the cockroaches, the mosquitos, the lizards, the flies, and the mice?” Hasti asks.

“They have become completely extinct in this house. There are lots of insecticides. There are traps for the mice, and nothing beats the reproduction of cats.”

“Who feeds the cats?”

“The neighbor lady. She has even chosen a name for each one: George Washington, Denis Papin, Shahnaz Pahlavi, Ardeshir Zahedi.”

Hasti laughs.

“The neighbor lady curls her hair just like Denis Papin. She says that she saw a picture of Denis Papin in her elementary school or junior high school textbook. She says, ‘He was the inventor of the steam machine. He was an important man.’”

Simin puts the thermometer under her tongue and looks at her watch. She has a fever of only one degree. She takes an antibiotic pill. Haji Ma‘sumeh has put everything on a tray on the dining table: a bottle of water, a glass, the pills, and the bottles of syrup that she had fetched from the pharmacy. All this after she had put the neighbor’s safe on her shoulder and carried it to their storeroom. Then the towel, and then the newspaper that she had run out herself to buy.

Simin puts the newspaper on the table and motions to Hasti to put the pot of hot scented water on the newspaper. Hasti burns her hand. Simin covers her head with the towel and breathes in the chamomile vapor. Then she puts nose drops in her nose.

“The potholder was next to the heater,” she tells Hasti. “There’s Vali ointment for your burn in the medicine cabinet. In the right-hand side.”

Hasti thinks of the person who created Vali ointment. There was a rumor that its creator had held a sit-in in front of the Ministry of Health. He had wanted to set a part of his body on fire and then apply the Vali ointment to show the officials its miracle so that he could get a permit to distribute it. Hasti didn’t know if the creator of Vali ointment had actually done this or not.

“I’ve come to visit you and see how you are,” Hasti says, “but I’ve upset you. Maybe you are doing the right thing.” She thinks for a second and asks, “Do you remember Faridi?”

“That damn Tudeh Party student?”

“Yes.”

“He’s in prison now.”

Hasti continues. “After Maleki and Jalal died, he told me, ‘I’m going to Simin’s house to find out from her if Maleki’s supporters are thinking of reinstating the League of Socialists and who their candidate is. This issue is important to the party.’”

“So that they could tarnish the candidate right away.”

“He had come to visit you, and you had not divulged anything about this issue. But . . .”

“I know what you’re going to say. But he looked poor, and it was raining that day, and I knew that he didn’t have the money to pay for his return taxi.”

“He always wore your purple wool sweater and tied your violet scarf over it. Most likely, he’s still wearing it now, in prison.”

Simin puts her hands on her temples, closes her eyes, and says, “All these lost, shepherdless lambs.”

Simin opens her eyes and says, “See, when that woman brings halva, you eat the halva, but to avoid being used you do not even say ‘May God bless the deceased’s soul.’ Marshal Naneh wanted the fashion magazine Burda. The magazines are in Leila’s wardrobe in her room. Of course, they cut out the patterns of the dresses they like and then swear to God that it wasn’t them, but it was. The Arzani house is not that far. As Haji Ma‘sumeh would say, you could just run and get the grandmother. Maybe her granddaughter had important business with her.”

Simin continues. “Now, we’ll make plans for ourselves and raise ourselves from the triviality of life.”

“So let’s disconnect the phone.” Hasti says.

“No,” Simin says. “Maybe your own grandmother wants to reach you.”

Simin picks up the thesis and says, “This is the master’s thesis of a girl who has done research on the mystical and philosophical works of Sheikh al-Ishraq (Master of Illumination), Shahab al-Din Sohravardi: Treatise of the Bird, The Red Intellect, The Chant of Gabriel’s Wing, On the Reality of Love.”

She thinks a moment and adds, “Did you know that Sohravardi was killed in his youth? Murdered Master, Martyred Master, and all like him are taken out this way in their youth. But what do we ourselves do with each other? As long as we are alive, we deny each other, and when one of us is executed, we throw flowers at his feet.”

She thinks a moment again and adds, “Even worse, some of us go whichever way the wind blows and try to drive from the stage those who have remained pure, using slander, false accusation, and swear words. Whereas, if, as Akhavan-Sales puts it, ‘This old uncle of ours, history, doesn’t say the last word, the people will.’”

Simin picks up a tangerine, peels it, and offers it to Hasti. “Have some fruit, or halva.” Hasti prefers the halva.

“Today I read this thesis,” Simin says. “I used On the Reality of Love in my own thesis. I was reading a section of it when you arrived. I was mesmerized. Read the parts which I have underlined with a red pencil. Of course, I have interpreted it.”

Hasti laughs and says, “So that I become mesmerized, too? Then, as Rumi says, ‘Who shall take us home?’”

Simin pays no attention to Hasti’s humor. “You might find it a little disjointed. We don’t have time to read it all.”

Hasti looks at Simin’s thesis. Worried, she says, “Simin Khanom, the print is too small. I can’t distinguish all the letters.”

“Maybe you need glasses,” Simin says. “You must see an eye doctor.” She takes her own glasses from her housedress pocket and gives them to Hasti. “Put on my glasses, but please, when it comes to your painting, see only through your own lenses!”

So, how about what you and the likes of you have taught me? Hasti thinks. How about what I have read and heard?

It is as if Simin has read her mind. You could tell from her reply. “Events and past experiences, if you do not become obsessed with them; what you have learned and what you know, even if you might have forgotten them; the sum of all of these leaves knowledge in your mind so that you will be able to see the world with awareness and through your own lenses. But Hasti Jan, don’t remain, until the end of your life, the mindless appendage of those who have taught you, and don’t become their talking parrot, either. You must doubt what you have heard, learned, and read. Maybe I will become a fossil. The likes of me have been wrong.”

Hasti is still thoughtful.

“Read, my dear,” Simin says. “You’ll be late. I’ll close my eyes, and, with the ecstasy I have due to my fever, I’ll fly the heavens. Then we will listen to music. I have two new records. One is My Slender-Waisted Beloved, sung by an Afghan, and the other is You Have Two Dark Eyes, sung and played by Bijan Mofid. He is another martyred sheikh. He is destroying himself all on his own.”

Hasti puts on Simin’s glasses and says, “Wow! This is much better!”

“They suit you, too,” Simin says. “By the way, where do things stand with Morad?”

“Nowhere.”

“As Sohravardi would say, you have left the spirit land only to arrive at nowhere land.”

Hasti reads, “God created wisdom, which is the same as the enlightened or superior being. This primordial light has three characteristics or three forms: knowledge of the truth, knowledge of the self, and knowledge of that which did not exist, but then did.”

Simin explains, “Meaning that it was possible that it would not come into existence.”

Hasti reads, “From the first of these characteristics, that pertains only to the one God—that is, it has to do with absolute perfect knowledge—beauty came into existence. From the second of these characteristics—that is, the one that pertains to the self—came love. And from the third characteristic, sorrow emerged.”

Simin sighs and says, “So it was possible that sorrow wouldn’t emerge. So ‘love’ is the answer to problems.”

Hasti reads, “These three—that is, beauty, love, and sorrow, all of which have been created from one source—are brothers. Beauty, the oldest of the brothers, looked within himself and found the finest divine blessings in himself. He smiled and one thousand angels came into existence. Love, the middle brother, who was close to Beauty, was moved by Beauty’s smile. He was struck by Beauty and infatuated with his perfection. And because after any union, separation appears, the youngest brother, who was called Sorrow, joined Love. And with this mixture, the heavens and earth came into being.”

“Did you understand?” Simin asks.

“No.”

“In Sohravardi’s opinion, the creation of the universe is indebted to beauty, love, and sorrow. These three brothers are the three allegorical forms of enlightened or superior being, which is the primordial creation, meaning wisdom.”

Hasti turns the pages until she gets to the red lines. “After forty days, when humans were created, the inhabitants of the kingdom of heaven wished to meet them. Beauty said, ‘I will go to meet them first.’ So he mounted God’s steed and came to the place where humans were. He found the place very pleasant. He settled there. Love followed him. He wanted to settle there, too. His forehead hit the wall of terror, and he fell. Sorrow took his hand. Love opened his eyes and saw the angels who had all gathered there. He looked at them. They had surrendered themselves to Beauty and bestowed their kingdom on him, and they all joined Beauty’s court. When they came close, Love, who was commander, made Sorrow his deputy and commanded everyone to kiss the ground from afar because Beauty could not bear intimacy. When the angels saw Beauty, everyone knelt and kissed the ground, and humans were ornamented in the angels’ robes.”

Hasti turns the pages again. “Beauty was waiting in nowhere land for a long time until Joseph was created. Beauty went and hung onto Joseph such that no room remained for Love. Hopeless, Love came to the youngest brother, Sorrow, who was in the desert of bewilderment. Sorrow said, ‘We were both at the service of Beauty and have our status due to him. He is our master. Now the right thing to do is that each of us go in a separate direction and follow the path of God and asceticism until one day we will have the chance to serve the master again.’ So Sorrow went to Canaan to see Jacob . . .

“And Jacob gave all that he had. He even gave him the pupil of his eyes and named the monastery of his body the House of Sorrows. Love, as personified by Joseph, went to Egypt and asked for the address of the beloved and ended up in Zuleikha’s chamber.

“But Love would not take everyone in and would not show himself to just anyone, and if he wanted to go somewhere, first he would send Sorrow to empty the house and give the good news that the promised one is coming. Then Love would arrive and go all around the house. He would destroy the irregularities and right the wrongs. Then he would set off for the court of Beauty. So when Love gives us the capacity for union, we must surrender to it.

“Love has been extracted from a vine, which is a plant that emerges in the garden, at the foot of the tree. First it makes its roots firm in the ground. Then it raises its head and wraps itself around the tree. It continues growing until it covers the whole tree, and it takes all the moisture and energy of the tree until the tree dries out . . .

“Love is a servant who was raised in the primordial time and place, and his duty is guarding the two worlds. Wherever he sets foot, the wild bull of self must be sacrificed, yet not everyone is worthy of this sacrifice.”

The phone rings, and Hasti picks it up. It’s Touran Jan.

“Why haven’t you come?”

“I’ll be on my way right away.”

“If only this clinging witch could let you be. Is it my fault that she’s barren?”

Simin laughs and says, “Your grandmother doesn’t like me. Well, I steal you from her, and she’s left all alone.”

“Before I leave, tell me if you agree with such words and ideas.”

“No. Joy and love are part of human nature. Why should love wrap itself around the human body like a vine around a tree and dry out the leaves and branches of this most precious tree in the world? But if you wish to sacrifice the bull of self for Morad, and become the Zuleikha of your time, it’s up to you.”

“Is he worth it?” Hasti asks.

Simin does not answer.

Much later, Hasti reads Sohravardi’s book On the Reality of Love with Morad and asks him his opinion. “Let me read it again,” Morad says, “and I’ll write my opinion for you.”

Morad’s writing was in the desk drawer in Hasti’s office. She found it and read:

My dear Hasti,

This vast and comprehensive book of sorrows that constitutes our literature, save for a few exceptions, is born from our despotic culture, and in our era, from our colonial-despotic culture. It’s precisely because of this that we find in it an ambiguous reality which is at times nightmarish and, at other times, exemplary. But fortunately, Rumi and Hafez, who are at the peak of our culture, were not that fond of sorrow. Sometimes I ask myself, “Isn’t it about time that the poets and writers who express the essence of our era try to surpass these two?”

Your Morad

Hasti was trying to depict the secret in Salim’s eyes on paper, and she was asking herself, Is Morad what I really desire, or is neither of them?

From beyond the centuries, Sohravardi had taken Hasti’s heart in his fist to reveal the secret of love to her. A whisper from a faraway road was murmuring in her ears, “Well done, love; well done the love that we possess, O God!”

Fakhri came to Hasti’s desk. The annual report had not been touched. Hasti had drawn at least ten eyes on the paper and was drawing another one but from the side. And the trash can was full of crumpled paper. She didn’t even raise her head. Fakhri put her finger on one of the drawings and said, “What mysterious eyes!”

Then she said, “Miss Nourian, you haven’t read the report!”

“I’ll read it in the afternoon.”

Hasti dialed Professor Mani’s house to make an appointment. She said that, if it were no trouble, she would visit him that afternoon. The professor postponed it until later. He had discovered that A‘lam al-Dowleh had a few photographs of Qajar women, and he wanted to go there that afternoon and get them from the old man for free, if he could.