8

Bijan was driving, and Mother Eshi was saying that she had sent Mrs. Hakimi’s Shirazi cookies to Mrs. Farrokhi this morning . . . a lot of them. She had told Navidi to entrust the cookies to Nanny and to say that Mrs. Ganjur has sent them. “Then press your foot on the gas and leave quickly. Otherwise, she’ll tip you the money for the cookies as a New Year’s gift.”

The garden door was open, and Bijan drove up to the building. As they climbed the stairs, Mother Eshi said, “When you congratulate Mrs. Farrokhi on the New Year, kiss her hand.” Hasti didn’t say anything. She had wrapped Salim’s gift in white paper and had put it in her purse.

Mrs. Farrokhi, a silk prayer chador on her head, sat in the living room on a sofa with threadbare brown velvet upholstery, beside her a younger, slightly thinner woman. There was no room for any other being. But in front of Mother Eshi both beings rose, without jack and crane. Then smacks and kisses. “Many happy returns. May God give you a long life, Eshrat. What wonderful cookies! Qodsi and I have picked at them.”

“A bit more than picking, Mother!” Qodsi said.

Mrs. Farrokhi kissed Hasti’s cheek, and Hasti kissed hers. “Nanny,” Mrs. Farrokhi shouted, “come see your bride.” Nanny came from behind a table on which there were two open bundles—in one bundle, a row of folded black chadors, and in the other, a row of prayer chadors. Nanny covered Hasti’s face from forehead to chin with kisses.

Hasti surveyed the side tables full of plates of fruit, bowls of cookies, dishes of nuts, and even bowls of sugar, but she didn’t see a single box of tissues. There was no other door anywhere around the room, and Polish chairs had been placed on four platforms. Mother Eshi sat next to Qodsi while Hasti traversed the length of the room and sat at the other end. She could hear her mother laughing and chatting with Qodsi, and she heard her mother ask, “Why haven’t you come to the sauna?” Qodsi said she had gone to Isfahan to bring Niku, her husband’s niece. Hasti saw her mother pout.

Nanny was not fat, but the woman who, like Hasti, had a scarf on her head and served tea, was fat. “Ladies,” Qodsi said loudly, “please have some cookies. Help yourselves.”

To flee from Qodsi’s eyes, which were looking her up and down, Hasti gazed at the ceiling. A chandelier hung there, but the light was gloomy, reflecting the wornness of the house. The mosaic of tiny mirrors that covered the ceiling was coated in soot, pieces of the mirrors had fallen, and the flowers and bushes of the plaster molding had broken. All was the fault of the passage of time, but even more so the fault of the large iron heater that was burning in the corner of the room. The heater pipe passed through a hole in a window of the French doors and was emitting smoke into the garden. The moldings had rotted around the fanlight windows above the doors, windows that once had had their own special color. The living room was the twin of Professor Mani’s living room, and the two houses had probably been built at the same time.

Women were arriving. Those who were wearing a black chador were taking their chadors off and handing them to Nanny. Nanny was putting a prayer chador on each head and then folding the black chadors and putting them in the black chador bundle.

When the fat woman offered Hasti another glass of tea, Hasti asked softly, “Where’s the restroom?”

“Do you want the Western style or the regular one? The regular one is at the end of the garden.”

Hasti wanted the Western style, and, leaving her tea untouched, she followed the fat woman. They passed the serving pantry next to the living room, where a samovar was boiling; they passed a hallway in which the side carpet had lost color years ago, not from shyness in front of Hasti’s beauty.

The fat woman opened a door and switched on the light. The bathtub and the sink sparkled in whiteness, white tiles all over, everywhere. Light seeped from the cracks around a closed door to the room adjacent to the bathroom. A voice said, “Who’s there?”

“Aqa Salim,” the fat woman said, “it’s me, Taji. I’ve brought one of the guests.”

Salim’s voice: “Is the garden door open?”

“Yes.”

Hasti washed her face. She took the gift from her purse and shut off the bathroom light. She closed the bathroom door and knocked on the closed door next to the bathroom. Salim’s voice: “Farhad, come in.”

Salim was lying on the floor. Seeing Hasti, he quickly sat up. He put his hand on his back and said, “Ow!” Hasti left her purse and gift on a wooden bench next to Salim’s bed. There was only one pillow on the bed.

“Hello,” Hasti said. “Happy New Year. Let me help you lie down.”

“Impossible. You’re an unrelated woman.”

“If a temporary marriage can happen, we can become brother and sister temporarily, too.”

“Put that pillow behind me,” Salim said, “and give me a hand.” Hasti did exactly what Salim had requested.

“Look in the medicine cabinet,” Salim said. “There’s a bottle labeled IBUPROFEN . . .” Hasti found the medicine.

“It can’t be taken on an empty stomach,” Salim said. “Can you go get me an apple or a cookie?” As Hasti started out, Salim added, “Happy New Year. So, you have kept your promise. The first person to whom you have extended your hand is me.”

“My friend is not coming so soon after all.”

The living room was full, and the cashmere box had been closed over the black chadors. The box of prayer chadors was empty. Hasti took a plate full of the remaining fruit and also a knife and fork from the side tables. Mrs. Farrokhi should tell Nanny or Taji to clear the plates covered in fruit peelings and the shells of seeds, pistachios, and hazelnuts, but Mrs. Farrokhi was busy smoking a water pipe. Hasti asked Taji for a small tray and two glasses of tea from the serving pantry.

In Salim’s room she put the tray on the wooden bench. She peeled an apple and, using a fork, put a piece in Salim’s mouth. Salim’s eyes had become sunken and his color pale. Was this backache business going to continue for life?

There were two taps on the door, and Salim said, “Hadi, come in.”

A tall man entered wearing a new, dark gray winter jacket. It was Farhad Dorafshan, the brother of Farkhondeh Dorafshan, but while Farkhondeh was tall and thin, her brother was broad shouldered. Farkhondeh’s eyes were not red. Her brother’s eyes were. Farkhondeh did not have a week’s growth of beard. Her brother did.

Hadi—that is, Farhad—put Hasti’s purse to one side and then sat on Hasti’s gift, which was smashed to pieces. Hasti began to cry. In her heart she said, The big oaf!

“Sister,” Salim asked, “why are you crying?”

“This guy has destroyed my fiberboard.”

“I’ll buy you as much fiberboard as you want.”

“I had drawn a picture on it for you.”

“Well,” the big oaf said, “you can draw another one.”

Crying, Hasti said good-bye and asked, “Where’s the restroom?”

The big oaf got up. He opened the door at the head of Salim’s bed and turned on the bathroom light.

Hasti washed her face and hands. She waited. Sneakily, she flushed the toilet unnecessarily. She turned off the bathroom light. She opened and closed the door between the bathroom and the hallway. She felt her way back and sat on the toilet lid.

Farhad’s voice: “She’s from which of your father’s wives? The one in Monirieh Square? The one in Jaleh Square? The one at Absardar Crossroads? Are you sleepy?”

Salim’s voice: “I took a pill. I’m dizzy.”

Farhad’s voice: “This sis of yours, why does she cry at the drop of a hat?”

Salim’s voice: “She’s sensitive. I wish I could see what she drew for me.”

Farhad’s voice: “Is this fruit for eating?”

Salim’s voice: “Of course.”

Silence.

Farhad’s voice: “How’s the business of finding a wife going?”

Salim’s voice: “It’s going nowhere. From the time it was rumored that a man was in search of a wife, the mothers of spinsters and marriageable girls have come swarming, bearing photos and elaborate descriptions. My sister went to Isfahan and brought Niku, the niece of her husband. For years she never set foot here, but now they have settled in.”

Farhad’s voice: “Is the girl pretty?”

Salim’s voice: “Which girl?”

Farhad’s voice: “Niku.”

Salim’s voice: “She’s very beautiful. She’ll finish high school this year. She wears a prayer chador, and she comes and sits next to my mattress. She peels tangerines for me, and she secretly looks at me.”

The sound of laughter. Farhad’s voice: “So you have gone beyond the one glance permitted by religious law?”

Salim’s voice: “But unfortunately, I have fallen in love.”

“Why ‘unfortunately’?”

“The girl I have fallen in love with has a thousand and one flaws, both religiously and socially. With respect to opinions also, she is the exact opposite of me. She isn’t pretty, either. And she’s old. Meanwhile, she is also in love with another man.”

“And she’s probably both pregnant and a virgin, too. What a mess! You and I have been classmates and friends for twelve years. You were always known for your intellect and wisdom. Do you really want to involve yourself in such a mess?”

Salim’s voice: “It’s out of my control.”

“You are not a person to allow things to be out of your control. Stamp out such an inappropriate love.”

“And we shall see what Fortunata has in store for me . . .”

“Who on earth is Fortunata?”

“The god of destiny.”

Hasti had become tired. She scolded herself. Why had she asked Salim where the restroom was when she had been there half an hour before? Grandmother eavesdropped. Mother Eshi eavesdropped. And now Hasti . . . Why, in the big oaf’s terms, didn’t she stamp out such an ugly habit? She had been sitting on the toilet lid for a while. Since the beginning of patriarchy, she thought, most women have eavesdropped, lied, endured, and compromised because they have not had a way into the serious world of men. Why had their blood never come to a boil? And why doesn’t she stand up, open the bathroom door, and spit in the big oaf’s face? Is this the modern woman that she wants to be? Has she rushed things too much? Has the temptation of Salim’s wealth pushed her to this? If there were a Gillette razor, she could commit hari-kari. But she could only see an electric razor on a shelf above the sink. Salim had a beard, after all, a reddish-brown beard.

Don’t men tell lies? she thought. Hadn’t Salim presented me as his religious and nominal “sis?” Women have lied and do lie from fear of men. Men lie from fear of whom? Oh, my God, the world, especially this part of the world, has been rotten. A healthy, normal person has been one who has a strong mask . . . In any case, men have been the first sex, and they have had the right to come to a boil, and when someone comes to a boil, they boil over. And women have been the second sex. They should only be stressed.

She should go and forget the cunning Salim. A man who is in love doesn’t see so many faults in his beloved . . . She had crossed half the length of the bathroom . . . but the name “Hitti” from the mouth of the big oaf stopped her in her tracks.

“Firuz and I set a time bomb in Hitti’s car. His daughter came and sat in the back seat. She was wearing a dress of Isfahani block-print cotton. She had hung camel bells from her belt . . . Her hair was just like a golden braid . . . So delicate. I felt pity. I opened the door of the car. ‘Run,’ I yelled. ‘Run!’ And since the girl didn’t move, I grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the car. The driver closed the hood of the car. I said to the driver, ‘Get away. There’s a bomb in the car.’ Hitti came. The driver warned him . . . I ran away . . . What an explosion!”

Salim’s voice: “Is this Hitti a military advisor?”

“No. He’s an educational advisor.” Pause.

Farhad’s voice: “May I stay here several nights?”

“Of course.”

Farhad’s voice: “We have been exposed. We had left Farkhondeh in Mashhad, and Firuz and I came back. I phoned you . . .”

Groping, Hasti took herself back to the covered toilet seat and sat down. Hearing that Farkhondeh, her classmate, “the wishing tree girl,” had ended up in politics, Hasti could no longer move from there.

Farhad’s voice: “One day I had gone to Mount Sangi with the guys from the center. Dr. Shariati kept falling behind. I turned and said, ‘Doctor, why aren’t you coming?’ A stranger came to my side. ‘Aren’t you Farhad Dorafshan?’ he asked. I said, ‘No.’ ‘Have you heard of Mr. Hitti?’ he asked. I said, ‘No. Why?’ Dr. Shariati had reached us. ‘Hadi,’ he asked, ‘what is the matter?’ I said, ‘Nothing.’

“Another time we saw that stranger in the courtyard of Imam Reza Shrine. We were praying behind the prayer leader, Sheikh Sa‘id. Baktash was very drunk. He didn’t have a prayer stone. He took the prayer stone from in front of me, broke it in half, and put half in front of himself and half in front of me. Dr. Shariati came toward Baktash and said, ‘Leave the line of men praying before the crowd attacks you.’

“Again I saw the same stranger. I believe he also knows about the Bagheshah incident. Do you remember? Behind Bagheshah Park, Firuz and I half strangled a secret policeman who had followed us. The fellow died in the military hospital.”

Silence.

Farhad’s voice: “I’m very tired, Salim. Come, let’s do something. Give your sis to me, and get off your high horse and take Farkhondeh. Both of us will take wives. We’ll have children . . . We’ll plant flowers . . . We’ll read books. We’ll go work on a farm in the Afjeh suburbs.”

Salim’s voice: “What do you like about my sister?”

“The way her eyes look . . . When she cried, I wanted to get up and kiss her tears, lick them away.”

Salim’s voice: “My sister needs glasses. She concentrates all her power in her eyes in order to see well. Then her eyes become like those of someone who has received a vision.”

Hasti’s inner voice: O wicked Salim. Even I myself didn’t know that my eyes always looked like that.

Farhad’s voice: “Ring the bell so that your sister will come. I’ll speak with her a bit, and I’ll be cheered up.”

“My sister has left home already. She has a husband and two children.” Farhad’s voice: “At least you take Farkhondeh.”

“Do you remember that the first girl I met was Farkhondeh?”

Farhad’s voice: “Who didn’t please you. I wish someone would be found to take Farkhondeh.”

Salim’s voice: “And free the family of her.”

Farhad’s voice: “No. She has done that on her own.”

Pause.

“You have a picture of Che Guevara, don’t you? A large picture in which he has a cigar between his lips?”

Salim’s voice: “A Havana cigar. What do you want it for?”

“I want to look at it.”

Hasti didn’t know what they were doing that they didn’t speak. She could hear them walking and picking things up and putting them down. Were they searching for the picture of Che Guevara? She heard the ruffling of papers. What if the big oaf comes to the restroom? What would he do if he came face-to-face with Hasti? He would strangle her, wouldn’t he? As Grandmother would say, it was as though a kitten were clawing at Hasti’s heart. It was as though they had put a broom in ice water and were drawing it down her spine.

Farhad’s voice: “For now, ten pictures. Aqa Sheikh Sa‘id said, ‘First let’s begin with the slums.’ You know, Salim, armed struggle must be learned. It doesn’t just happen by itself. In time, I will join the Palestinians.”

Salim’s voice: “Take a Palestinian wife, too.”

Farhad related everything . . . They have never gotten together all in the same place . . . That in hiding and in their Mashhadi friends’ houses, they would gather in tens or twenties . . . That one night in Cheragh Maznian’s house, forty or fifty people had come.

Yes, they had also talked about an alliance. Aqa Sheikh Sa‘id had said, “Anger is human nature. It exists in animals, too. Just as roses have thorns.” Baktash had said, “Humans get angry quickly, and they don’t always act wisely. When an animal is full, it doesn’t hunt any more. But humans do . . .”

Hasti wanted to get out of the trap that she had built for herself. She had become tired and was no longer listening well. She was worried that Bijan might have come after them and now her mother and Mrs. Farrokhi and Nanny and Taji were calling her. She guessed that Baktash was none other than Morad. But wasn’t Marzieh the alias of Farkhondeh? No, Farkhondeh didn’t have that much sense to have formed an opinion about a front’s struggle against colonialism. But perhaps she had recently found such sense. It had been some time since Hasti had seen Farkhondeh.

Farhad’s voice: “Ring the bell. Ask them to bring a glass of tea for me.”

There was the sound of the bell. If the big oaf drinks tea, then he’ll certainly come to the restroom. Hasti touched the wall and took herself to the main door of the restroom that opened into the hallway. She took the door handle in her hand and waited for Taji.

Salim’s voice: “So, you were saying?”

“What was I saying?”

“You were speaking about the group.”

Farhad said that Baktash didn’t yield to anyone easily. He had said to Aqa Sheikh Sa‘id that we will help you until you come to power, and then you will put us aside . . . He was of the opinion that Baktash gave priority to political action over armed action, but his friend, Morteza, had said that guerrilla forces are the seed of the party . . . “Guerrilla forces,” he had said, “can bring into motion the revolutionary force of the masses . . .” He had also said, “The nation should be delivered from putrid intellectualism . . . The myth of stability and the island of stability should be broken.” Aqa Sheikh Sa‘id had said, “Oh, bless the one who says that.”

Hasti decided to open the bathroom door and turn on the bathroom light and the faucet . . . to pretend that another guest has come to the restroom . . . But Salim would surely ask, “Who is it?” Didn’t he ask that the first time she had thrown herself into this dungeon?

There was a knock on the door. Taji’s voice: “Aqa Salim, what would you like?”

Farhad ordered tea, bread, and cheese. It would be good if Salim asked Taji to come in and take away the plate of fruit peelings and the tea glasses. But Salim didn’t request it, and Hasti cursed to herself.

Salim’s voice: “I don’t believe in armed struggle, either. Armed struggle destroys the possibility of democracy, as long as it is secret . . . And armed struggle is necessarily secret.”

Farhad’s voice: “Look, Salim Jan. Party politics is no longer of any use. How long should we preach that the workers and the peasants are downtrodden? Don’t they know that themselves? How long should we say, ‘We will improve your situation’? They don’t trust us. They only trust preachers. Once Aqa Sheikh Sa‘id went to the pulpit. You don’t know what tears he wrung from the people. He even made Baktash and me cry.”

“What did he say?”

“He talked of war on the path of God—that is, jihad and martyrdom. And he finished in this way—that we are heirs of the doctrine of blood and martyrdom, and the martyr is someone who is killed in jihad . . . who has been witness to the right, who has been killed on the righteous path . . . Martyr means ‘the ruler of the world’ . . . At the end he strayed from the topic and talked about Jabir ibn Abdullah Ansari, who put on pilgrims’ clothes and went to Karbala. Addressing the martyr of the martyrs, Imam Hossein, he yelled, ‘You are the heir of humanity! You are the heir of the prophets! You were not an atheist and nonbeliever!’”

Salim’s voice: “He didn’t say anything about revolutionary messianism?”

“No.”

“I had told him to rely on revolutionary messianism.”

“He didn’t. But Dr. Shariati talked about revolutionary messianism one night in Ne‘mat’s house. He also spoke about major and minor religious jurisprudence. He said major religious jurisprudence is the basis of Islamic philosophy that begins with Abu Hanifa, and minor religious jurisprudence is the code of religious laws . . .

“Does this tea of your household come all the way from China?”

Salim’s voice: “Probably there was no bread, or there was no cheese. There’s always something missing in this house. If the girl that I told you I love marries me, she will make this a proper home.”

The big oaf’s voice: “A girl who is in love with another man is of no value. Dig into your pocket and hire a worthy servant or steward.”

Salim’s voice: “I can shape her, like wax . . .”

Farhad’s voice: “And what if she shapes you?”

Salim’s voice: “If she’s right, let her shape me.”

Farhad’s voice: “Look, Salim. Since you returned from England, you’ve been constantly delivering religious principles to us. Can you put that aside now?”

Salim’s voice: “No. I’ll convince her that there is no path but the path of religion, because revolutionary intellectuals who are the sources of political information and the nerves of society do not have a direct relationship with the masses.”

Hasti’s inner voice: What revolutionary intellectuals? What masses? You are a handful of quasi-intellectuals who are at each other’s throats . . . And then there are the masses who don’t know A from Z. And you, Salim, whom I thought would take me to a faraway land, to a safe shore, are no more than a paper tiger, a Don Quixote. You’ve lain back while you’re stirring up most of the troubles. You’re using the excuse of finding a wife, but you don’t follow through. You talk about love and you want to make me soft in your hand like wax. You’re dreaming. Then again there’s Morad, half-witted and foolish, as my mother says—Morad without fraud and deceit—the Morad who is honest. Thank God the big oaf smashed the fiberboard on which I had drawn your eyes.

But Salim’s continuing talk did not allow her to do something she would later regret. “If the motive is the toppling of a puppet government whose backbone is American military and educational advisors, it should be carried out on the basis of firm and strong theories. A sound intellectual system should be established through a comprehensive analysis of society, economics, religion, and politics.”

The instant Taji opened the door of Salim’s bedroom, Hasti opened the bathroom door and fled. She went to her mother and crouched beside her. “You’re so pale,” her mother said. “Are you upset?”

“No.”

“He didn’t welcome you nicely?”

“He had a guest.”

After they dropped off Mother Eshi, Hasti asked Bijan if he was free. When she heard a “yes,” she asked if they could go together to Sa‘i Park to take a walk or to Darband to have tea. The white Peugeot took off like a greyhound. Just before they reached Pahlavi Crossroads, Bijan asked, “Which way shall I go?”

“Straight ahead.”

The gate to Sa‘i Park was locked. Pahlavi Avenue was empty, and Bijan sped up. The next park was just as quiet. They passed Kourosh Department Store, and Bijan asked its name. Hasti answered, “It’s the ‘Whoever Knows English Can Enter’ store.” Bijan laughed.

“Is it always so empty?”

“No. Tehran and Shemiran traffic has no match. With respect to air pollution, Tehran is among the top cities of the world, but nearly a million people have gone on vacation, either to the north or the south.”

“No one goes to the east or the west?’

“Of course. Mashhad is the number one tourist city of Iran, and Isfahan is the next.”

“Miss Teacher, may I?” Bijan said.

“You asked, and I answered. Now I’ll ask. Tell me more about America.”

“As I told you, at first I felt rootless and deprived of identity. Later I busied myself so much with Persian books and Persian customs in order to escape exile.”

“Escape exile. What an interesting phrase.”

“Of course! I’m good with words!”

“What books did you read?”

“All kinds of books. Either books my father sent me or ones I got from a book exchange.”

“A book exchange?”

“An Iranian professor who had built the high-voltage electricity system for Chicago had started an exchange of Persian books among students.”

“We are an unfortunate, yet intelligent people,” Hasti said. “We are strangers in our own land, but we go to America and build high-voltage electricity systems.”

Silence. Whether the traffic light was green or not, Bijan went through, since they had not seen any police.

Bijan resumed speaking. “Hasti, I’m disappointed by the kind of literature that has recently become the fashion in Iran. The poetry is so vague that one must get assistance from astrology, and prose . . . it’s all pus, blood, and slime. How well they write about the poor and the destitute.”

“First,” Hasti said, “the reason literature is allegorical and metaphorical is the censor, and the reason that they write about the destitute is that no one is thinking about them. Unfortunately, they lack literacy, money, and sociopolitical information.”

A dog appeared in front of the car, it was not clear from where, and Bijan stomped on the brake and honked. But the dog looked at Bijan and didn’t budge. Bijan was forced to pass to the left of the dog, swerving from his lane.

Bijan put a cigarette between his lips, pushed in the car’s cigarette lighter, and said, “It’s strange.”

“What’s strange?”

“You, like everyone else I have seen up to now, have become political. Everything that I have heard in these ten days is a mockery of something real. My father is saying that as soon as possible I should go and register in the shah’s political party. I say, ‘Father, it’s a fake party. The Parliament is a sham . . . ’”

“Your father has golden dreams for you. When you’ve stayed here for a little while, those dreams will come true.”

Bijan said that his father is nostalgic for the days of the nobility. Each morning he comes to Bijan’s bedroom; Bijan sees him from the corner of his eye. For a while he looks at his son, his eldest heir, the apple of his eye. He puts five hundred tomans on the table beside the bed. He wants to get Hayedeh, the daughter of the aristocrat Mo‘adel al-Saltaneh, for him. When he evokes the wedding for listeners, they become enchanted by his imagination and desires.

“The bride and groom arrive by carriage at the Hilton Hotel, four lantern-holding attendants with red tulips on the two sides of the carriage . . . , wearing red clothes, the edges of their sleeves embroidered in gold . . . All the bigwigs of Tehran are present and watching, awed. They have set up a tent in the hotel ballroom . . . The bride and the groom go into the tent. The groom acts like a king. He also recites the proverb, ‘The night of marriage consummation is no less than the morning of kingship.’ But for the moment, the consummation is left for an appropriate time. Several cages with white doves here and there around the tent . . . One of the former tulip-holding attendants—who no longer holds tulips in his hand—opens the window. Now it’s the bride’s turn to come out of the tent and to free the doves one by one . . .”

Bijan laughed and said, “And probably the doves, in their fear, cover the bride’s dress with their droppings.” He asked, “Is everyone going crazy?”

“If nobility,” Hasti said, “comes from the root noble, it is a good thing. But here nobility also means something else. Nobility in Tehran means squandering resources and showing off through excessive consumption.”

Laughing, Bijan said, “Miss Teacher, what’s wrong with a person having a soft, silk, dressing gown on his body, slippers on his feet? Let him sit next to a wall heater, a fine goblet in his hand. Let him listen to soft music, too, and think, What is to be done?”

“You see, the virus of politics has spread to you, too!”

“I said all this for your sake, to make you laugh, but you haven’t. Believe me, I have heard so much talk about puppet regime, dependent government, and comprador bourgeoisie that I’m about to throw up. Everyone is political, with the minimum amount of political knowledge and the maximum amount of political pronouncement.”

Bijan stopped the car at Darband Square. They got out. He locked the car doors. He tested them. Then he took Hasti’s arm, and they set off.

They climbed the stairs and sat down at a table at New Park Café. Hasti asked for a cup of tea. Bijan lit a cigarette and ordered hot chocolate. He smoked the cigarette halfway down and put it out.

In spite of the cleanliness and warmth of the café, no one was there except for a few policemen sitting at the tables.

“You don’t smoke cigarettes,” Hasti said. “You waste them.”

Bijan extended his hand palm up in front of Hasti, closed his eyes, and said, “Hasti, I’m a beggar asking for your love. Give me a kiss, for God’s sake.”

Hasti was startled. She sat up straight and said, “Enough of this joking!”

“Believe me, I want to take you out of this sorrowful state that you’ve brought upon yourself. Tell me. Maybe I can help. Did your suitor displease you?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t see much of him. He had a guest.”

“Did his guest offend you?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

A bunch of young boys and girls swarmed into the café. The sound of their laughter filled the room. Their rosy cheeks, their shining eyes. Hasti looked at them with regret. In her heart she recited, “O youth, I have memories of childhood.” And what kind of childhood? We always lived with the killing of our father, and our grandmother pulled us in one direction while our mother pulled us in the other.

“I like the Pishdadian dynasty,” Bijan said. But Hasti didn’t laugh. She was destined to like the Ashkanian dynasty, whose name can literally mean “the tearful ones.” After all, when Hasti had learned to speak, the first word that had come out of her mouth was ouch.

Bijan tried harder. “Let me tell you about one of my experiences in America. I was arriving at class two minutes late in the mornings. Alice, my English teacher, said, ‘Bijan, it would be good if you moved from laziness and disorganization to vitality and discipline.’ I said, ‘Sure.’ The next day I arrived one minute late. She asked, ‘Didn’t you move?’ I said, ‘Ma’am, some of my belongings were left behind. This morning I went and got them.’”

And since Hasti didn’t even smile, Bijan said, “All the students laughed.” And he added, “Hasti, I want to know why God has given you these shoulders.”

“So that I can put the weight of my life on my back.”

“No, girl. So that you can shrug them. Don’t take it so seriously. Can I tell you something to do?”

“Go ahead.”

“When you’re all alone, laugh loudly. Little by little you will learn to laugh.”

“Then they will say I’ve gone crazy.”

“Who will say that? You’re laughing in solitude.”

“It’s not possible to laugh in solitude.”

“Something else . . . When, like today, you are sad, hum a happy tune in your heart.”

Hasti recalled that when she had received her first paycheck, she had wanted to buy a radio, but instead she had bought an Aladdin heater. She remembered that one time she had felt indulgent and had wanted to buy a pot of flowers. Upside-down tulips had caught her attention—two upside-down tulips, on a long stem—as if two drops of blood had poured from the leaves.

They took Parkway Highway on their way back. Green pines, about-to-blossom crape myrtle, a smooth road, the scent of spring. “Tehran has become so large,” Bijan observed. “Beautiful buildings have been constructed everywhere, but the city has become an exhibition of European and American architecture.”

“I have a classmate,” Hasti said, “who is an architectural engineer.”

“What has he built?”

“He, too, has ended up in politics.”

“What a tragedy.”

“The description that he gives of Tehran is interesting, though. Shall I tell you what he says?” Hasti asked.

“Certainly.”

“He says that Tehran is a dusty, brown city. It’s similar to a library full of scattered books, unorganized. It has neither a title catalogue nor a subject catalogue. In this vast library, there are lots of books with pornographic pictures like Alfieh and Shalfieh, books on the subject of parents cursing their children, and folk stories, like Amir Arsalan. But there are also books on philosophy and mysticism, collections of poetry by Hafez and Rumi, and the Holy Quran. He says the city has no centrality. Nothing is in its place. Houses and cisterns have been destroyed, and shopping centers and warehouses have replaced them . . . City of high walls . . . In all, Tehran is just like the people who live there.”

“Behind the high walls there is beauty,” Bijan said. “But the façade of the city . . . If they decorated the domes and minarets of the mosques with bright and colorful tile work or the transoms on the houses . . .”

Hasti interrupted. “Tehran is an old, ugly, pockmarked woman, and no amount of rouge and powder can make her pits and bumps pretty.”

“She’s not very old. Besides, the city has become greener.”

They passed a tanker truck that had released a water hose at the foot of pines and crape myrtles. The lights on the two sides of the highway had generously lit even the hills on their left. The pine saplings on the hill gave the glad tidings of a green future. The glad tidings of the small forest of spruce. Wasn’t Tehran the city of pines and spruce? Wasn’t Tehran a dignified, middle-aged woman?

“I think,” Bijan said, “that this is Erect Hill. Isn’t that right?”

“This is the first time I’ve heard that name.”

Following Hasti’s directions, Bijan turned into a secondary street parallel to the hill. He went up, he went down. He went back and forth. To the right, to the left. Straight road, curved road. Curve after curve. Sloping down, sloping up. At last he stopped, put his hand on the steering wheel, and said, “Now we’re completely lost.”

A passerby guided them to a back road. After taking it, they came out in front of the youth center on Old Shemiran Road.

They were next to the Hosseinieh Ershad Building. Bijan lit a cigarette and asked about the domed structure, its architecture and its mission. Hasti spoke about the speeches of Dr. Shariati and the large crowds that gathered round as he discussed faith, martyrdom, and revolutionary messianism.

Bijan said that he had recently read a book titled Revolutionary Messianism, the author of which was a resident of Kenya . . . He couldn’t remember the author’s name. And he smoked his cigarette to the end.