ONE

I WAS RUNNING AFTER YOU. Over the cold white tiles of the boarding area. In the haunting thousand-year-old silence. My panting grew louder in my ears with every step, turning the taste in my throat bitter. The international flights area was on the other side. It wasn’t the Imam Khomeini Airport; it looked more like Mehrabad. The boarding area kept moving farther and farther away, but somehow I arrived at the gate. You had your back to me, but I recognized you. You were wearing your light blue coat and you stood there, holding on to your carry-on, waiting calmly. The light was blindingly white. I could only see the light and you. A light blue spot in absolute white. I called your name. You began to walk away, gaining distance. You were sliding over the floor tiles. I ran, reached out my hand, and grabbed yours. Your hand remained in mine, and the airplane took off.

I’m still at the threshold of dreams, that painful threshold between sleeping and staying awake that traps an endless yawn in my cells. I’ve forced my eyes all the way open to end this suffering. I notice the half-open door of the closet in front of me and the unlit lamp on a nightstand full of dirty glasses, a broken clock, and some books. Your books. I run my hand over the sheet next to me. You’re not there. No one is there. Where am I? How old am I? What day is it? I don’t know. The only thing I know is I’m not feeling well. I taste the bitterness deep in my throat and something is fluttering in my heart. I’m thirsty. I have to remember. I pull my left hand out from under my body. The stainless steel watch has left marks on my sweaty wrist. Eleven fifteen. When did it get so late? I close my eyes and squeeze my head in my hands. I think about yesterday, the day before yesterday. I remember it’s Sunday and I have a meeting. I throw the blanket to the side.

When I picked up the phone, he had said, “Hello, Ms. Leyla. I’m Amir Salehi. Saghar gave me your number.”

He had said they were starting a newspaper. That they are going to publish three arts and culture pages every day. One page goes to print around noon, the other two in the evening. He had said if I had the time and was interested, I should stop by the office Sunday afternoon.

I do have time. As much time as he wants. In the past four months, I haven’t had anything except for useless time. Wasted time, time that is not of my life, that doesn’t take anything from it or add anything to it. I didn’t get along with the editor in chief of the weekly I was working for. Four months ago, he had stood in front of me and said, “Your article belongs to me, and I can do whatever I want with it.” I gathered my papers. He asked, “How great do you think your writing is that no one is allowed to change a single word?” I threw my books and pens in my purse. He said, “I don’t want to hear about you making a complaint ever again.” I threw my purse on my shoulder and said, “You won’t, ever again,” and walked out. He didn’t understand that the change he had made had ruined my article. Since the day I quit, I wake up every morning, trace the sun as it moves across the sky, step by step, until it is night, when I fall asleep. I don’t remember doing anything else. Sometimes I see Roja or Shabaneh—they come over or we go out to grab a bite, and then I come back home again. Once Dad came too, and we traveled together to Ahwaz to see Mom and the rest of the family. For three or four days, I don’t remember exactly. I do have time for work. As much as he wants. But I don’t know if I want to work or not. I should. I probably do want to. I used to like my job. You should know that well—we used to laugh together at work. I remember my laughter. But now, what do I like to do other than lying down and counting the days I have left? I don’t know.

Dad said, “Let me get you a job at the National Oil Company. You could work in your own field. Earn good money. Build your future. And you’ll be close to us as well.”

I don’t want to go back to Ahwaz. Best to not look back. During my last visit, I realized I couldn’t. Ahwaz is hot. The heat rises from the ground and crashes on your chest. How many times can you walk to the sea and back, when it only takes twenty minutes? How long can you sit under the air conditioner that brings in a nice earthy smell, reading a magazine? How often can you go to Kian Bazaar and bargain with the Arab women over dates and pomfret fish and laugh? This time when I went back home, Ahwaz seemed smaller. Smaller than what it was during my childhood. I could cross any street by taking only four steps. Chahar Shir was now connected to Palm Square, Palm Square to Seyed Khalaf. The courtyards were small and the trenches left from the war as tiny as matchboxes. When I stared at them, they disturbed the images of my childhood, confusing my memories. I couldn’t relax there at night. I wanted my own house. My own bed. Our own bed.

Shabaneh said, “Come join our company. They’re hiring. We’ll all be together, like in college. It’ll be fun.”

It won’t be fun, I know that. I will have to sit at a desk every day and write numbers on paper, on plans, on the monitor. The fours will combine with the twos, the twos with the fives, and the numbers will line up one after the other and chew my brain. They will have minuses and decimal points. Zero, dot, three. Zero, dot, eight. The diameter of the shaft multiplied by the height of the vane, the length of the piston minus the size of the cylinder decreased from the size of the cylinder, and all this will drive me crazy. Like in college, Shabaneh will turn inward, and Roja will disappear behind her computer. Nobody will talk to me. I will be left all alone in that gloomy office.

Roja said, “Let’s pack everything and go. You just have to pass the language test. I’ll take care of admissions and visas. Why do you want to stay here?”

“If I wanted to leave, I would’ve left with Misagh.”

“You’re being stubborn, Leyla. Stop doing this to yourself.”

I don’t want to leave. Why doesn’t anyone understand what I say? And now, even if I wanted to, I don’t have the energy anymore. I don’t have Roja’s energy or yours. I’ve witnessed what it means to leave with my own eyes. You were there in my own house, and each and every form and paper that you prepared became a step in a ladder taking you farther and farther away from me. It was a hard process. You put together hundreds of letters and documents. You had them translated, notarized, and signed, and you made an appointment at the embassy … Appointment at the embassy? Today is Sunday. Roja had an appointment at the embassy early this morning. I told her I would wake her up. Why did I forget?

“The person you are trying to reach is currently …”

She must have gotten up on time and left for the embassy already; that’s why her phone is turned off. Roja is not someone to miss her appointments. She is strong, like you.

I feel lightheaded. I have to make tea and eat something. The moment I step out of the room, the chaos of the apartment overwhelms me. The ashtray is full of cigarette butts. You hated that and would keep emptying it, saying that the apartment would smell like a dorm if you didn’t. The kitchen counter is crowded with dirty napkins and dishes soiled with the congealed grease of half-eaten food. The glass tabletop is smudged in dirty fingerprints, yesterday’s newspapers and the ones from the day before and the past week stacked high and unread. My manteau is abandoned on the couch. I go back to the bedroom and hide under the blanket. This is not my home. I have to capture the day that is escaping me and make this a home again. If I go back to work and feel better and continue to feel better, I’ll take care of the apartment again. I’ll organize everything. I’ll change the broken light bulbs. I’ll have my red furniture set repaired—the fabric is dirty and the springs are broken. It needs to be polished and a couple of white buttons replaced to make it look like new. You didn’t like the set. You’d grown tired of the color. You’d said you would, from the first day, from the day we went shopping for it. You and I, along with Roja and Shabaneh, skipped our noon class and left campus. Mom had not yet come to help us out. We were going to visit furniture stores around Tehran to pick a set so we wouldn’t have to drag her all over the city. Roja suggested going to Yaft Abad. I didn’t feel like going all the way there. She said it would be just one trip, but I knew she would want to take me to the other side of town a hundred times just for a few pieces of furniture. You suggested we let Roja do whatever she liked, and Shabaneh, as always, looked at us and didn’t say a word. As we were passing the Jahan Koodak intersection, I noticed a big store and a red set in the window. I fell in love with its white buttons and large flowers. You said, “Red furniture? You’ll grow tired of it after a few days. Look at the beige and brown ones. See how beautiful they are …”

Roja frowned. “How old are you two? Now is the time to buy red furniture. When you grow old, you can go sit contentedly on those ugly brown ones and hug your grandchildren.”

I loved the red set. I wouldn’t grow tired of it, I was sure. I looked at Shabaneh. She didn’t have an opinion.

“Both the red ones and the brown ones are beautiful. Don’t you want to go check Yaft Abad as well?”

I didn’t want to go to Yaft Abad. I just wanted those. The red ones that were expensive and too bright and would make our home happy. Like us. I called Dad.

“Don’t think about the price, my darling. You will be using them for many years. You should buy whatever color you like. Whatever you want.”

I did buy them. You weren’t unhappy with them. You passed your hand over the flowers and said they were soft. When Mom arrived, we went and bought brown curtains so that the decor would suit both my taste and yours. It’s been seven years, and the curtains are old now. I have to change them. If I start working again and feel better, I’ll sit down and decide which color fits the red better than the brown and change the curtains. I’ll make the apartment beautiful again. When I feel better again.

I want tea. I try not to look around at the living room and instead walk straight to the kitchen. I pick up the kettle, which is covered with multicolored stains, its heaviness reminding me of the descaler I keep forgetting to buy. I fill it up and put it on the stove next to all the dried yellow and red grease stains, crispy rice grains, and pasta pieces caked with sauce. I stare at the dirty fingerprints on the fridge door; at the cabinets full of bread crumbs and empty plastic bags; at the dried yogurt stain, which turns my stomach with its ugly, cracked, desertlike yellow. I can smell the dirty dishes left in the sink for several days. I should ask Ms. Molouk to come wash them. I’ve been meaning to call her for several months, but I don’t have the patience to watch over her all day long and listen to the stories of her poor divorced daughter and her disabled sister-in-law who has been a burden for the past twenty years. I wish Mom would come and spread good cheer in the home. She would bring Ms. Molouk, fill up the freezer, fill the apartment with the scent of her cooking, and sit and talk and talk. She would tell me about my auntie who bought a new car; of my uncle’s wife who hasn’t called for some time to ask after Grandpa; of Dad, who misses Samira and me, and who, every night when he gets home from his work, wishes his two daughters would be there for dinner with him; of her cousin and how she is handling her twins; and of the new Persian words Samira’s kid has learned and how beautifully he pronounces them. I would just sit across from her on the couch, drink the freshly brewed, beautifully colored tea, eat peeled oranges, and listen to her voice echoing throughout the apartment and just tut-tut in response for no good reason.

I pour the hot water into my tea glass and the brown clouds spread out and swirl into the water. I bob the tea bag. The clouds mix with one another and make instant tea for me. You are not here anymore, and I have, with no regrets, put the teapot away in the upper cabinet. I only use tea bags now. I have to drink tea to feel fresh. I have to go to work feeling fresh. I’ll go back to the job that I’ve always loved, the job that used to make me happy. I’ll have to learn to love it once again. Why don’t I? Why does nothing make me laugh anymore these days? Perhaps it’s unemployment. I need something to lose myself in so that I don’t feel where I am. I have to pass my days somehow. Something to distract me from everything. Right now, nothing distracts me; thoughts just keep sneaking around. When I sprawl myself out on the red couch, I don’t feel bored—even if I sit there for thousands of hours. So many thoughts rush into my head—about myself, you, Samira, Shabaneh, and Mahan. Thoughts about how we ended up here; where we went wrong; where in our origin story and with what force did our foundation crack so deep that, without even realizing it and with just one breeze, we crumbled down on top of ourselves, unable to get back on our feet? We can’t shake ourselves and stand up again, and even if we could, we are not what we used to be before the collapse. Which engineer made a mistake in computing our forces, building our structure in such an unstable way that it could break down at any moment? The thought of a life without laughter and dreams shatters me into pieces, like the ugly yellow yogurt stain on the kitchen counter. But if I have a job, I’ll stop thinking. I’ll work until I’m exhausted, and then I’ll hold my exhaustion in my arms and gradually go to sleep. Roja said, “Why are you so hard on yourself? You don’t need to work.” Why couldn’t she understand that this was the only solace in my fucking life? The only one. Since you left, nothing else remains. But I have to be happy now. I have to remember my happiness. I squeeze my head in my hands and search for the sound of my own loud laughter.

“Come on, Leyli. Stop dawdling. We’re going to be late.”

“Please. Just give me a second. I can’t rush.”

My hand was in yours and I was laughing out loud. I was bent over, on the side of the street. I couldn’t breathe and still remember the pain in my stomach from laughing so hard. You pulled my arm. We were late. What were we laughing at? I don’t remember. I just remember we were in Enghelab Avenue. Bahman Cinema. We had just watched a bad movie in the Fajr film festival and were heading back to campus. On Kargar Avenue, between the CD street peddlers, sambusa stands, cheap print shops, thrift stores, and Fooman cookie sellers, we were looking for a cab, passing through the crowd of arms and shoulders and waists. You were wearing the white shirt Samira had sent you. A man was rushing in our direction with his head down. You let go of my arm to let him pass. I laughed again, and the man looked up at me. You hesitated for a second and stepped toward me. When the man brought his head up, it was already too late. His head bumped into your chest, and the pomegranate juice in his cup sloshed on your white shirt. It left a stain that never disappeared as long as you were here with me. It did not come out with baking powder, nor with vinegar, nor bleach, nor the Rafuneh’s stain remover I used the last time I washed it before I put it in your suitcase. I said, “Only wear it in the house, when no one is around.”

My tea is already cold, and I swallow it in one gulp. I am surprised by the sound. Is it the silence of the apartment that makes the sound of my swallowing reverberate so loudly in my head? Or is it that my ears are not used to hearing things anymore? I’ve gotten used to the silence of the empty home, the stifling air, and the imprisonment behind the double-paned, soundproof windows. I don’t even want to play the piano anymore. How long has it been since I last played? Four months? Eight? I don’t remember. I open my fingers wide, clench them into a fist, open them wide again. I feel the pain all the way up to my wrists. My fingers are not soft and weightless anymore. They’ve become short and ugly; the knuckles have become thick and stiff, pained by any extra movement. With this pain and these long misshapen nails that scrape on the piano keys, I can no longer play the section from Waltz in A Minor that you liked. You came and sat next to me on the piano bench and said, “I like it that you always keep your nails short and never wear nail polish.”

I explained to you that it was because of the piano and taught you to play the bass E minor octave at the beginning of every beat while I played Chopin. You said, “I fell in love with you that very day. The day you sat at the piano in the auditorium and, I believe, played a piece by Chopin. Did you know I was watching you?”

“Were you really watching me? I thought I was the one who first fell in love with you, on that day during the strike when you were sitting on the top step of the student union office, wearing a velvet French beret, more confident than all the others.”

“I still love to watch your fingers dancing on the instrument when you play, unaware of your surroundings.”

Whenever I practiced, I knew you were standing in the doorway, watching me. How can I play now that you are not here to watch me? You are not here, and my fingers have forgotten how to dance. They’ve become stiff, and I don’t remember anything of Chopin anymore. I have to fix things. When I go back to work and recapture the good days that are now escaping me, I’ll have the piano tuned. I’ll practice again until my fingers go back to how they were before you left. I have to find my sheet music.

Why is today just dragging on and on? It’s not even one o’clock yet. I turn on my laptop and open my email, hoping for the one message that is never there. “Important, Important, Important.” “Three Methods to Prevent Breast Cancer.” “Beautiful Iranian Model in New York City.” I delete them all, close my tabs, and go to my blog. My post from yesterday has eleven comments. I’d written about my new job offer, about Salehi, the newspaper, and the good days that are to come, the simplest preoccupations in the world. The comments read, “Congratulations.” “When are you treating us to something?!” “Finally, you wrote something.” “Check out our page too,” and other similar notes. I like that I don’t have to see these people face to face. I like that whenever I want to say something, I can say it from far away and then hide and only hear their responses on my own time, at a distance. I don’t want anyone to sit in front of me and look at me and wait for a response; that’s why I like newspapers. I like sitting in the newsroom and writing, then, the following day, standing by the large plane tree in the alley in front of the newsstand to see how many people pause to read the headline of my piece while browsing the paper.

The phone rings. It’s Roja. She says she’s done at the embassy. “When do you have to be at work?” “Four thirty.” I say, and add, “I lay there awake until the sun came up but forgot to wake you up. Did you get there in time?”

She had. “Let’s go have lunch.” It’s only one thirty, and I still have time to kill before my meeting at the newspaper. “Coming?” she asks. “I’m not in the mood to go to work now. We’ll have lunch, then I’ll go to work, and you’ll head to the newspaper office.”

Something is holding me back. I tell her I am not sure what to do.

“What do you mean you’re not sure? Come on, let’s go. I don’t have a car. I’ll meet you at a quarter past two, at the intersection of Apadana and Niloufar. We’ll walk somewhere together. You’ll come, right? If you remain silent, it means you agree.”

If I remain silent, it means I agree? No, I don’t. When I agree with something, I am not silent. I laugh. I open my mouth and say, “Yes, I agree.” But silence … I know I don’t remain silent. Maybe I had remained silent that day too, and you had assumed that I was agreeing. I sat in silence and packed your suitcase. I was not agreeing with you leaving; I was just silent, and then you left without me. Before leaving, you went to see your parents. Perhaps you laughed a lot and joked with your mother and asked her not to miss you too much. Perhaps you embraced and kissed your aunts who had come to see you before you left and told them you would be back soon. I opened your suitcase two or three times to make sure you weren’t leaving anything behind and closed it again, remaining silent all along. You wandered through the city with friends and said your goodbyes. Perhaps you urged them to keep me company and to take good care of me when you were gone. I remained silent and zipped your suitcase one last time, and perhaps you joked around and smiled with hope at everyone you were leaving behind. I locked your suitcase. You opened the apartment door and came in. I was silent, but I am sure I was not in agreement. I thought that you wouldn’t leave. I was waiting for you to come into the room, kiss me, and say, “I’ve changed my mind. I won’t go anywhere if you don’t support my decision.” I was waiting for you to come in and say, “Of course I won’t leave you. Where can I go without you?” I was certain you wouldn’t leave. Even when you called a cab and said you were headed to Imam Khomeini, I thought to myself that you wouldn’t leave without me. I stood in the doorway. You changed, and I looked away. You wore your new shirt and sweater. I had taken the tags off and put them on the bed. I had bought them myself for your trip, to make sure you would be the most elegant passenger on your flight. A lilac-striped shirt, a gray sweater, and a dark pair of jeans. Your light blue coat was on the bed too. You unzipped your backpack to put in the clothes you had just taken off.

“I’ve packed new clothes for you. Don’t take these.”

You said okay. You didn’t look at me. You grabbed your socks. I went and sat down on the couch in the living room and picked up my book. I had to stop myself from crying. You wouldn’t leave. I was sure you wouldn’t leave without me. You wanted to scare me. I heard the suitcase wheels. You were standing by the front door, and I looked at you over the top of my book. You were wearing your light blue coat. You put your backpack on the floor, put on your shoes, and tied the laces slowly. When you looked in my direction, I looked down.

“Come into my arms.”

I didn’t. I went to our bedroom and closed the door. Your clothes were on the bed—the only bright presence of yours to remain in the house after you. I listened until I heard the sound of the front door opening and closing and the sound of the suitcase wheels moving away. I had to stop myself from crying. You would come back. I was sure of it. You could not leave without me and live and be happy. You would come back very soon. Perhaps from the airport. Perhaps tomorrow or the day after.

Out of all my clothes, I pick a dark pair of jeans and a gray manteau to wear. Can you see me? I look like you did when you were headed toward your new life. Now I’m the one heading toward my new life, and looking like you will bring me luck. I check out my face in the mirror. How many days has it been since I wore makeup? My eyes look so clean. I empty my bag on the bed in search of my eyeliner. I pull the corner of my left eye to unwrinkle the skin and draw a black line above my eyelashes. It goes wrong, like always, like all the lines in my life that I’ve drawn that went wrong, that I erased and drew again only to have them go wrong again. Like the hundred dashes I drew with a red pencil in between the words for “father” in black ink as we did our nightly homework drills, all of which went wrong, so I erased them and drew them once more and they went wrong again, leaving me with nothing but ripped-apart pages. I would beg Samira to draw the dashes for me. She wouldn’t. “You’re crazy. These are fine!” she said. And with eyes full of tears, I would keep erasing and drawing. But I don’t have any energy left to erase now. I just draw another line on top of it, make it thicker so that its twistedness gets lost in the black of the eyeliner.

All my scarves are piled up on top of one another in the closet. Plain black, checkered blue, beige with orange flowers, a two-tone purple-and-brown one, and again plain black. One is ugly, the other wrinkled. I pull the purple one out. I haven’t worn it since I bought it with Roja a few months ago. It has remained all new for this very day.

“Buy it. You’re light-skinned. Purple suits you. You should get used to wearing bright colors.”

I should get used to wearing bright colors, to being happy and energetic. I am starting a new job. A profession I’ve loved forever. I open the drawer under the vanity mirror looking for a cheerful lipstick. I still have one. It is dark pink and smells old. I put it on. I look ugly. I wipe it off. The color that remains will do. I’m not going to a party.

The black Peugeot that’s usually parked in front of my car is not there today, and I can easily get out of my spot. Perhaps today is going to be a good day. I turn onto the highway and get stuck in the mass of cars and sweaty drivers and horns and the heavy air invading me. Traffic shouldn’t be this heavy at lunchtime. Why doesn’t it want to be a good day? The car doesn’t work properly, and my feet don’t sit right on the gas and brake pedals. How long has it been since I last drove? I turn the AC on. The fan cools my neck, but the seat feels odd under my body. I move around, adjust my manteau underneath me. I move the seat forward, push the back down, unbuckle the seat belt … it’s no use. I roll down my window to let some air in. It is hot, hot and polluted. The settled heat of the month of Mordad is different from the fresh heat of Khordad. The heat of Khordad is new, and its sun is clean. It pours light all over you. But Mordad is so filthy, greasy, and musty that even its sun rays pass through a lot of dirt before latching onto your body, and there is no way to get rid of its dead, stifling smell. I want to turn around and go back home right now, sit under the cool water drops in the shower, lean my head on the wall, and listen to the sound of cold water dropping on the blue tiles. A car behind me honks, and something thumps inside my chest. There is no air. I feel like I’m suffocating. In my purse, my fingers brush over my phone and wallet and headphones and pen and dried cigarette packs and a notebook until I find my pack of Librium. The green pill is tiny and slippery, easy to swallow without water.

“You are stressed, my darling. Try not to put yourself in stressful situations. Whenever you feel palpitations, take one. It won’t make you sleepy, and you won’t get addicted. Just don’t overdo it.”

The palpitations had started a while ago. At inconvenient times, my heart would pound heavily on the walls of my chest, and something would flow from it all through my body. Then it would beat fast, so fast that it made me short of breath. I was afraid I would have a heart attack in my sleep, wake up suffocating, panting so hard I’d turn blue and die, alone. Nobody would find me for several days, and I would rot away and begin to smell. I felt ashamed, thinking of the people who would break into the apartment, covering their mouths with white handkerchiefs against the foul smell of my blue corpse. I made an appointment with Dad’s old classmate. He did an ECG and an echo, and then called Dad.

“There’s no problem with her heart.”

Dad told him to prescribe me some Librium. His friend handed me the phone to talk to him.

“Take one whenever you feel distressed. Do you want to come stay with us for a while?”

“No.”

“Do you want me or Mom to come to Tehran and stay with you for a few days? Do you want me to tell Samira to send you a letter of invitation so you can go to France and stay with her for a while?”

I didn’t want to. I didn’t have it in me to go. Neither to Ahwaz nor to France. Nor anywhere else. I just wanted my bed. Our bed. Like now. I don’t have it in me to fight against all these cars. I wish a large hand would drop down and pick me up and take me to the middle of the winter, on a dead-end street, under the shade of a large pine tree. I wish I could just ram into the car in front of me and push the accelerator hard enough to tear through the cars and crush them one by one to pass through.

I turn onto Niloufar Street. I pass the chocolate shop, the sandwich shop, the doner kebab store, the fast-food store, the toy store, and the police station, then reach Roja, who’s waiting for me at the corner, talking on her phone. I call out to her and she turns around. She has dyed her hair red. It looks good on her with the dark green of her eyes. She gets in the car and says goodbye on her phone.

“Your hair looks amazing. It looks good on you.”

She runs her hand through her hair.

“I did it yesterday to look nice for the embassy appointment. I like the color, too. How are you?”

“The same. How did the appointment go?”

“They took my documents and said it could be anywhere from three weeks to three months before I hear back.”

“So is it three weeks or three months?”

“I’m not sure. They didn’t specify.”

She rolls the window down and loosens her scarf.

“I’m super hungry. Where should we eat?”

“Wherever. It doesn’t matter.”

“What do you mean it doesn’t matter? You’re such a killjoy with this ennui of yours. Shall we go to Bandar? With your parking permit, we should be fine.”

Bandar is close by, so I turn onto Mahnaz Street. Roja takes a few DVDs out of her purse and puts them on the back seat.

“Watch these. They’re good. I picked them out from dozens, just for you.”

“Thanks. Any news from Shabaneh?”

“She’s doing fine. After your meeting at the newspaper, you should stop by our office to see her.”

“I don’t know how long I’ll be. Are things okay between her and Arsalan?”

“One day they are and the next day they aren’t. He’s not a bad guy. Shabaneh had to pick someone eventually. Why aren’t you wearing any makeup?”

“I am … Can’t you tell?”

“Are you serious? It’s your first day at work. You should’ve at least put on some blush to not look like a corpse. You’ll scare people away.”

“There’s nowhere to park here. Where should we park?”

“Just park in front of this gate. We’ll keep an eye on the car.”

“We can’t. We’ll block their driveway.”

“Just park! I’ll worry about the rest.”

I get out of the car. I know she’ll take care of the rest. She always has the best solutions for taking care of “the rest” of everything. During our fourth semester in college, I fell head over heels for Misagh, who couldn’t stay put and made me feel like he wanted me one day and like he didn’t the next. When Roja decided to join the school camping trip in Tabriz, she said, “You just come along. Be a good girl, and I’ll take care of the rest.” By the time we got back from the trip, I was Misagh’s girlfriend, and the following year we were living together.

Roja takes a pen and paper from her purse and writes, “We are at the restaurant.” Underneath, she draws a smiley face, and next to it, a big sandwich full of lettuce, and puts the note under the windshield wiper. She grabs my arm and drags me into the sandwich shop. It’s cool and crowded, and there is nowhere to sit. Roja walks up to a table for four and sits down even though a guy is already there, busy eating.

“Excuse me, is it okay if we share the table with you?”

I tug at her arm and whisper that I’m not comfortable sharing the table. She points to the man’s food.

“He’ll be leaving soon. Look, he’s almost done.”

She drops her purse and papers on the table, next to the man’s half-eaten pizza.

“What do you want to eat? Oh, I forgot, you don’t care. I’ll order you something myself.”

She walks to the counter. I don’t feel comfortable sitting next to the stranger. I get up and stand next to Roja, who has her hand on the counter and orders half the options on the menu with such precision, it’s as if she’s solving some component design calculations. When she notices me, she says, “Why did you get up? All my things are back at the table. Didn’t you see?”

She pays, and we walk back to the table and sit. I feel uncomfortable but collect myself on the seat. The man is uncomfortable too. Irritated, he gets up and walks away, leaving his food unfinished.

“Poor guy. He was eating. We made him uncomfortable.”

“He should have been happy that we sat at his table.”

She turns to the waiter, tilting her head and pointing to her belly. Then she pushes her stuff to the side and turns to me. “Why do you look so wiped out again today? Aren’t you headed to a new job? All your problems are solved now.”

“Was my problem not having a job?”

“Yes, it was. Didn’t you keep saying you only had one joy in life? What’s the problem now?”

The waiter brings our appetizers. Roja puts a potato salad in front of me.

“Eat. You’ll feel better.”

When did I ever feel better by eating potato salad? I check my watch. I don’t have much time left before my meeting at the newspaper, but my enthusiasm has already dwindled. I wish I could postpone it until tomorrow and just sit here all day.

Roja says, “When you picked me up, I was talking to Samira. She said her husband is going to defend his dissertation in two or three months, and then they’ll be visiting Iran together for a few weeks.”

“Hopefully she’s back in France when you get there so you’re not all by yourself.”

“I should get used to being all by myself. At the embassy today, they asked me to provide an affidavit of support from someone testifying that they’ll put me up for a while. I asked Samira, and she said she would write the letter. It’ll be hard for her. She has so much work, a husband, a little baby. It will be a burden for her.”

“Don’t worry. Samira loves to help out. Also, my mom has already set aside some spices from Abadan, saffron, and frozen herbs for you to take for her. So leave room in your suitcase.”

The waiter puts a lasagna in front of me and a pizza in front of Roja. Roja puts both dishes in the middle of the table, next to each other. She takes a bite from one and then from the other. You loved the way she ate. You said watching her eat made you crave food, even if you were completely full. Why can’t I keep you out of my mind today? “Do you remember Misagh used to call me Leyli?”

My heart begins to beat a thousand times per minute. It is one thing to just think about you all the time and another to speak of you out loud. When I speak of you, you become real. You become a wave in the air, and everyone sees you. Roja has heard what I said, and once again I share with her the joy of remembering you and the fact that you called me a name no one else did. You would put on your round steel glasses, look at me over the top of your book, and say, “Leyli means the beloved, embodied in the eyes of the lover. It means the purity of love, transcending the beloved. Leyli is the goblet, and love is the wine within. One should hold the goblet and get drunk with the wine.”

“Yes. He used to call you Leyli. That’s more romantic than Leyla. But why are you thinking of Misagh?

“I dreamed of him last night.”

“I sensed that something was wrong with you today. Please, don’t think about him—just for today. Eat. Today is an important day. You should have good thoughts.”

Something squeezes my heart. She’s right. Thinking about you has stopped being a good thing for a long while now. What difference does it make whether you called me Leyli or Leyla? What difference does it make that the furniture of our house was red instead of brown? That you wore your light blue coat instead of the dark blue one? That you liked the way Roja ate or not? What matters is that you shouldn’t have left, but you did. I should not be thinking of you on such an important day.

“You’ve made a habit of feeling sad, Leyla. You’ve turned your life into a wake—all you are missing is some chest-beating mourners. Go ahead and dig a grave for Misagh and cry over it day in, day out, but don’t turn the rest of the world into a graveyard too. Eat your food.”

I run my hand over my throat. The hard lump is back, blocking everything. The lump that has been in my throat since the day you left. No doctor’s prescription has had any effect on it. I took some pills for two months, then had some injections, and grew weaker by the day. Until Dad came to Tehran. But even he failed to see the lump.

“It won’t heal, Dad. There is no way it can heal.”

“Your throat is completely healthy, my darling. Who prescribed antibiotics for you?”

Roja puts her hands on her belly and calls the waiter.

“Can you please give us some to-go boxes? We’ll take the rest home.”

I give her a look. She bristles at me.

“Don’t be so bougie. You didn’t eat anything, so what do you care anyway? I’ll take it to Shabaneh.”

She takes her phone out of her purse and makes a call.

“Hi, Shabaneh. What’s up at the office? … My appointment took longer than I expected. I just had lunch with Leyla … Pizza and lasagna. I’m bringing you some lasagna … Okay.”

She hands me the phone.

“What’s up, Shabaneh?”

“Nothing. I mean, I’ll tell you later. Was lunch good?”

“Yes, not bad. Do you want anything?”

“A sandwich.”

“I’ll tell Roja to get you one. What kind?”

“You know what, I don’t want anything. Don’t worry about it. We’ll go grab something together some other time.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I’ll call you tonight. I need to talk to you.”

“I’ll be waiting for your call.”

Roja gets up. I hang up and say, “Let’s go together, Roja. I’ll give you a ride.”

“Are you crazy? In this traffic, if you drop me off and go back, you’ll be late for work. I’ll just get a cab around the corner.”

“But how long could it possibly take?”

“A long time. You’ll have a hard time on the way back. Instead of giving me a lift, just walk to your office from here. Do some window-shopping, watch the crowds and the busy streets. Buy yourself something. It will do you good. Haft-e Tir Square is close by. Don’t you need anything?”

Don’t I need anything? I do—scarves, manteaus, shirts, pants, everything. All my clothes are old now. Mom said, “Not even Ms. Molouk’s kid dresses like you do. Do you want me to ask Samira to buy you some clothes and mail them to you?” I didn’t want her to ask. But now that I’m going to work and I’m supposed to feel better, I can just go and buy everything I need and head to work with several bags of new clothes, like a regular happy twenty-eight-year-old. Then I can tell everyone that I was passing Haft-e Tir Square, saw these clothes, liked them, and bought them for myself.

Roja says goodbye and runs with her purse and papers in hand toward Motahhari Avenue. There is now an empty parking spot in front of my car. I move it there. I can wander around until four and then head to the office. I walk toward the shops, and the crowds and busy streets make me feel better. I walk down the street and make a right. Then I walk along Mofatteh Alley all the way to Haft-e Tir. Every time I make a turn, the number of people grows, and they walk faster and faster, and like fluid molecules with Brownian motion, they bump into one another and pass by one another. The sidewalk and the street, the spaces between the large buses and small cars, are all filled with people who talk with one another or on their phones. Their lips move as if in a nightmare, and they speak strange words in a language I don’t know. There are thousands of people. They all seem to be speaking in my head. The heat is driving me crazy. The loud horn of a bus startles me. Someone bumps into me. I step aside and find refuge in a cool, uncrowded store. When I catch my breath in the cool air of the AC, I look up and see a wall of colorful socks. The shelves behind the saleswoman are full of scarves, and, under the glass counter, there is an assortment of glittery hair clips. The saleswoman has large lips and breasts and thin eyebrows. Frowning, she is busy fumbling with her phone. I can hear the sound of colorful balls being shot and exploding. She has dyed-blond hair under her black lace scarf. I’m not sure whether I am looking at her breasts or her lips when she puts the phone aside and asks me what I am looking for. Roja said I should buy something. I glance around at the walls and say, “A pair of socks.”

“They are behind you. You can just take any pair you want.”

My eyes search through the socks, from yellow to blue and from red to black, and I pause on the pink ones. They are decorated with a ribbon and two small white flowers on the top edge. Shabaneh would like them. I put them on the glass counter. “Five thousand tomans,” the woman says. When I pay, she puts them in a bright thin plastic bag and goes back to exploding more colorful balls on her phone. I walk out. The weight of the crowd collapses on my chest again. This is enough for today. I’ll come back another day to buy everything I need. Another day, when I’ve started work and feel better. I turn onto the least crowded alley and walk back to my car. The incline makes me short of breath. Roja once said, “It’s because you are not active enough.”

She walked into the bedroom, took me by the hand, and brought me to the living room. She turned the music up and started to dance. Her colorful body twirled in the air. I stood by the counter and looked at her hands moving up and down. She took my hand and swirled me around the room.

“Dance. Move your hands and twirl. You can’t keep living life like this.”

I couldn’t twirl. The music sounded like guns, mortar shells, sirens, and rockets. Roja held my hand and kept turning around. Her feet shifted back and forth between her toes and her heels. Her arms waved like fish in the air. She shook her head, and her long curly hair fanned out in the air.

“Why are you just standing there? Dance, Leyla. Move a little. Look, your body is as limp as an old woman’s.”

I couldn’t. My brain couldn’t process the rhythm of the song. My arms remained hanging, indecisive, in the air, and I kept forgetting which foot had to go on tiptoe. The music was driving me crazy. I sat on the couch and covered my ears.

I get into my car. I am approaching my new office. A new environment with new people. New, fresh, novel. All of it is good. I should be happy. I should think of good things. Maybe of you. When I think of you, my mind doesn’t wander around restlessly. Maybe you could be here, sitting next to me, giving me a ride to work. Maybe I had been out of work for a while, and you were going to work in the mornings, and whenever you came home in the evenings, the apartment was clean and dinner ready. Maybe in these months of unemployment I had turned into the woman of the house. Maybe you would say, “Now that you’re going back to work, should we order takeout?” And maybe I would laugh and look at you in a way that would imply, “What nonsense is this?” And you would say, “Your cooking was just beginning to get good!” “That’s not fair! When did I ever feed you bad food?” Then I would take a deep breath and say, “I’m really worried about this new job. I’m afraid I won’t be able to handle it.”

You would put my hand on the stick shift, under your own hand. I would look at my hand hidden under your long fingers. You would say, “Don’t worry. I’m sure you can handle it.”

And add, “I’ll make dinner tonight.”

My heart would burst with joy. When we would arrive at the office, my fingers would be all sweaty under yours. I would say goodbye in a way that meant I was head over heels in love with you and I would get out of the car with the weightlessness of a bird that has flown from a tree to pick a seed from the ground.

I park the car in front of the office building. Salehi had given me the address. It’s a beautiful new building with huge plants in front of its glass doors. It doesn’t have a sign yet, but everything else looks like a first-rate newspaper office. A guard sitting on a plastic chair by the door follows me with his eyes. I tell him I have a meeting with Mr. Salehi.

“Please go ahead. First floor, to the left.”

I walk upstairs and strain my ears, hoping to hear a familiar voice. The building is quiet, and I can’t hear the usual newsroom sounds. To the right, there is a small room where an old man is busy talking on the phone. I don’t know him. Two workers are carrying a desk down the stairs. I hold my purse in my arms and step aside to give them space. When they pass, I see an open-plan office to the left that is full of desks. It looks like an apartment whose walls have been removed. If I utter anything, I know my voice is going to echo through the space. Two people sit at one of the desks, and at another, a man appears to be lost among bits of computer hardware strewn across the desk. He is separating entangled colored wires and connecting each to a different port. One corner of the office is partitioned off into a small room, perhaps for interviews or meetings or as one of the editors’ offices. I’m wondering if I should say hello. I hear a drilling noise. The man looks up from the wires, and I say, “I’m looking for Mr. Salehi.”

I look around. If one of the people there is Salehi, he will look up.

“Please take a seat. That’s his desk. He’ll be back in a moment.”

I walk to the desk at the end of the hall. The sound of my heels on the stone tile floor makes me nervous. I tiptoe the rest of the way to Salehi’s desk. I sit and put my purse on my lap. I don’t remember whether, in such situations, I used to put my purse on the desk or on my lap or on the floor or hang it on the back of the chair. I have my back to the room, and the empty space behind me is making me anxious. I wish Salehi were here, talking to one of the men—to break the silence. I don’t know how much time passes in silence before I hear one of the men saying, “Amir, someone’s here to see you.”

I turn around. A chubby man with long hair and a beard walks out from behind the partition. He wears a loose white shirt with nastaliq calligraphy on it. He dries his hands with a paper towel, smiles, and says a warm hello, as if he already knows me very well. I get up. Not sure what to do with my purse, I put it on the desk.

“Welcome.”

Salehi looks different than I had expected. I imagined him to be a tall, thin man, with glasses, with no beard or mustache, wearing formal men’s clothing. He would be serious and not talkative, his hands always in his pockets, giving orders without even glancing at anyone. But this Salehi looks me straight in the eyes and stretches his hand out. It is still damp, and I like that he doesn’t really care.

“I’ve read your writing, both on your blog and in different journals. You write well. Saghar said you’re also organized and reliable.”

He laughs. Perhaps he is a cheerful person—otherwise, why would he laugh about someone being organized and reliable? I laugh too, and my laughter tells me that I’m happy.

“The team we work with is a good one. Other than Saghar, who else do you know?”

He doesn’t wait for my answer.

“It’s important to me that the staff be friendly with one another—it makes the work easier. That is, of course, assuming we don’t get tangled up in some nonsense.”

He laughs again, and I too allow my laughter to find its way deeper into my chest.

“Regarding the workload, I should say that we don’t have a big team. Our budget is limited for now. We have two journalists for each desk, and that makes the workload a bit heavy. I thought you would be a good choice for one of the desks that needs to wrap up its pieces before the evening shift. It’s culture-related entertainment news for a public audience. Things like which actor has reconciled with which director, how much an author’s book has sold, who’s spoken against whose Oscar prize, which philosopher has recently married and what he’s said about it, things like this that the average reader would want to know.”

Happiness leaves the deepest place in my chest and disappears in the air like cigarette smoke. I look at my fingers. One of my nails has chipped. I start to pick at it.

“Some of the articles require original reporting, but most will be translated from foreign sources. Your English is good, right?”

I don’t want to hear more. My new job was not supposed to be like this. I wanted to be offered a serious cultural reporting job, an adult job. He should have said that I would need to get exclusive interviews, or write long reported pieces, or write reviews. Being part of the paparazzi reporting on philosophers’ weddings was not supposed to be my job. I have picked at my nail, and now it’s twisted on the other side. If I try to set it straight, it will dig into my flesh. To hell with it. I won’t accept this shitty job.

“I’d better tell you about the financial aspect up front. We’ve set aside six hundred fifty-thousand tomans a month for the journalists. It’s not much, but we’ll try to pay on time.”

He laughs once again. I turn away from his meaningless laughter—it’s making me anxious. What would you think if I told you I’ve joined a newspaper to write about philosophers and writers getting married? But what would I do with my life if I don’t accept? Once again the same dragging days that never turn into nights, once again insomnia, once again the daily calls to Roja and Shabaneh to ask what they’re up to later so that I don’t have to be alone in the sad evenings. If I accept, maybe I can stay with the team and then get another position. Perhaps they want to see my work first before they offer me to write for another section of the paper. I’m fooling myself. Like a lover who, instead of a kiss, has received a slap in the face and tells herself that if he didn’t desire her he wouldn’t … If they had another position, they would’ve offered me that. I run my hand over the sharpness of my broken nail, and my heart beats heavily in my chest. I wish I had a nail file in my purse.

When are these detestable situations in my life going to end? These tormenting decisions between bad and worse. Junctures that all lead to a burnt city. The road to failure should be the only road available so that its suffering results only from that failure. There should always be just the one road, so you can simply go all the way to the end without any guilt, without the torture of temptation by the road not taken, which makes every step you take feebler than the previous one. There should always be just the one road. Just the one. A job needs to be either good or bad, so that I can clearly know whether to take it or not.

He says, “So I’ve covered everything. What do you think?”

I don’t have it in me to respond to his laughter with more laughter.

“Do you accept? Any thoughts or suggestions?”

I don’t have any thoughts or suggestions. I just don’t like this job. I wish I could ask whether they have a real culture-related position to offer me. I ask, “Do I have to respond right away?”

“I can tell from the look on your face that you aren’t very happy with what I’m offering. Go ahead and think about it and give me a call in the next day or two. Do you want to see the newspaper?”

I say no and thank him. I pick at another piece of my nail, and my finger burns. I squeeze it in my hand, and the pain, like a bright stroke of lightning, burns all the way to the bone. He gives me his number. I grab my purse, no longer a nuisance, and say goodbye. Still sitting, he waves goodbye, saying he’ll be waiting for my response. The man who was fumbling with the colored wires has put them all in their places and has immersed himself in the computer on the desk that’s up and running. I say a loud goodbye and walk out.

The hallway and the staircase don’t look the same way they did when I came up. The walls are closer now and the ceiling lower. As I’m getting into my car, I search for a feeling that can look me straight in the eye and tell me in a loud voice whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. I should make up my mind right now. When I get home, I won’t be able to think anymore. The advantages and disadvantages will weave so tightly together that I’ll get a headache and abandon any decision. I’m terrified of decisions—they are always wrong. It’s a fear I’ve had since I decided not to come with you. It projects an image of great uncertainty at the end of any road I want to take. But now I have to think. The decision not to be with you was one I made for the rest of my life. Jobs, though, are short-term, here today and gone tomorrow. Choosing them has always been easy. I never cared about the money, how much of my time they took, how they helped advance my career, or whether they were related to my major. A job was either good or bad—I either liked it or I didn’t. I didn’t even care what you thought. You said, “What are you doing? If you don’t want to finish your studies, then don’t. But go work with Shabaneh so you can build up your résumé.”

I had just come back from Bagh Bookstore alight with joy. I had met an old man named Mr. Ferdowsi, who loved books. I had bought a few books from him and was about to leave when he said they were looking for a bookseller who loves books. Hearing the words “loves books,” wings of joy sprouted from my back, and I had felt that was my future embracing me. I was not as well-read as you were. But Mr. Ferdowsi had said that he would teach me everything I needed. We all had only a few courses left. Shabaneh had started an internship at an engineering firm. I wasn’t interested in that job. Roja gave private tutoring lessons and wanted to get a master’s degree. I didn’t want to. And you kept harping on the same string, saying that we should pack up our life and emigrate. Every day you went through and counted an armful of translated documents, recommendation letters, and forms, and put them in an evil, ugly, yellow envelope. You went to the Mofatteh post office and sent the envelopes out to many corners of the world. East and west and north and south. I hated those envelopes, but I felt assured that you would not leave without me. The only thing I wanted was a job. I wanted it so that I could know where I was going to be the next day and the day after that and in ten years. I wanted to plant you and me like trees in this very land and strengthen our foothold right here so you couldn’t go anywhere without me. I didn’t want to become an engineer. I was too laissez-faire to be dragged to work early every morning for signatures and contracts. You and Roja used to laugh and say that I was raised like a flower petal wrapped in silk and any hardship would cause me to wither.

That day, though, I had found a job all by myself. In a small bookstore that had customers like you, where you could smell the dust covering the spines coming from the shelves. I had told Mr. Ferdowsi that I didn’t care about the pay, that I would start the next day. And I had come home with my joy to share the good news with you. You should have been happy that I had finally realized that even though Dad paid for all my expenses, I needed to work. That we would grow even closer to each other through books. You stood by the kitchen counter, and I paced around the room. I paced and said I wanted to change the way the shelves were arranged and sort the books based on the authors’ countries of origin. I said I wanted to tell Mr. Ferdowsi to put an upright piano in a corner so that I could play for the customers. I said that when there were no customers, I would sit in the back and read all the books there so that you would love me more. I said it wasn’t fair that you and Roja knew all the books in the world, while I had only read a few insignificant novels. I said once I had read all the books, I would speak to anyone who came to the bookstore, figure out what they liked, and put the best book in their hands. And then I would wait for them to come back one day and tell me that they really liked the book. I said that after a while, we would even open our own bookstore. I said I would keep cleaning my dusty hands on my manteau so much so that when I came back home, it would be dirty down the sides. I showed you my pockets and said, “Look, it would be really dusty here.”

And I laughed. But you didn’t laugh. You just leaned on the counter, reprimanding me for not realizing that it was not a proper job. You said that I hadn’t studied so hard simply to open a bookstore. You said that I should come to my senses before it’s too late and that even if I didn’t want to continue my studies, I should build up my résumé so I could still get admitted to a foreign school, because you would leave regardless, and we had to be together. You said I had better put my feet firmly on the ground and see real life. You said, “Real life, real like everyone else’s, not like your Dad’s.” I stopped pacing. I lost my wings of joy, and Bagh Bookstore disappeared from my heart. My feet were firmly on the ground, if only you wouldn’t take yours off the ground and board that fucking plane. For you, real life was one thing, and my life had nothing to do with that. I wanted to be a teacher, a bookseller, a piano soloist, a journalist. I didn’t want to let go of any of my dreams. Whenever I started one, my heart soared toward another; and when I focused on that one, I missed yet another one.

The closer I get to home, the less I want to be there. I wish the traffic jam would never end so I could continue to be stuck between the cars’ red and white lights. My heart would be happy with anything but the darkness and silence of the apartment. I want to go out to dinner with some friends. I want us to sit around a semidark restaurant, eat, and laugh out loud at everything in the world. The people at the surrounding tables would frown upon our behavior, and we would keep laughing out loud. I hate arriving home alone like every other day, with nobody there to open the door for me, and having to use my own key. I hate turning on the lights at night, hearing my own voice sometimes, speaking to myself, every time growing more and more afraid that I might be going crazy. I don’t want to go home. Not tonight. Roja has a class. Maybe I can go visit Shabaneh. I want to speak with Mahan until morning while he keeps looking at me astounded, merely looking at me and not saying a word, as usual. I stare at my phone and can’t make up my mind to dial Shabaneh’s number. I am not in the mood for anything. Not the apartment, not Shabaneh, not even myself. I throw my phone in my purse and turn into the darkness of the garage.

As I open the door, the silence of the empty apartment slaps me in the face, and the heavy air collapses on my chest. I open the windows. I turn on the TV to have something alive around me. That movement on the screen will do. It makes me feel like someone is breathing in the apartment, even if they’re behind the thick glass screen of the TV. The weak late afternoon light lingers still, but I turn the lights on so that the sadness of the setting sun won’t surprise me when it comes. I sit on the red couch and change the channels. There is nothing on to watch. I turn on my laptop. Facebook, my blog, email. Nothing is going on. I should call and ask someone to come over. I should find a job as soon as possible to avoid staying home in the evenings. The empty apartment is driving me crazy. Its walls keep getting closer to one another, and one day not too far away, they will crush me between them. There should be either you or a job. My life can’t go on any other way. I have to get a job, no matter what.