“You mean I can’t enjoy your company tonight?”
“Sure, why not? But not in the shelter.”
“Where then?”
“Somewhere else, maybe a coffee shop.” They had reached Nadereh’s place.
“Won’t you invite me in?”
“Not now. I’m very sleepy.”
“Where can I see you later?”
Nadereh waited for a moment. She stamped her feet on the ground to clean the snow from her boots and said, “Tonight my shift starts at eleven. We can see each other in the evening.”
“Where?”
“In the coffee shop at Yonge and Queen.”
WHEN NADEREH HAD ARRIVED, Goodarz was sitting at a table with a cup of coffee; he had a book of poetry by Baudelaire on the table. She went straight over to him and asked, “Do you want to have something to eat?”
“No, thank you.”
“Don’t be bashful. Have you eaten anything today?”
“I had a coffee. That’s enough for me. Thanks anyway.”
Nadereh went to the counter and came back with another coffee and two muffins. Without removing her coat, she sat down and picked up Goodarz’s book. “Poetry! In English! Your English must be excellent.”
“If I understood every other line of it, I’d be happy.”
He took the book from Nadereh and read a poem entitled “Benediction.”
She listened in silence. When he was finished, Nadereh said, “Now, translate it for me. I didn’t get a word.”
Goodarz translated the poem in a few sentences, then laughed.
“What’s so funny? Are you laughing at my stupidity?”
Goodarz wanted to say that the poem mirrored his life story, but he didn’t. Instead he stared into Nadereh’s big, black eyes and said, “Do you know that you have the most beautiful eyes? I have been to many places and seen many beautiful women, but—”
“I really must tell you I don’t like this kind of cheap compliment.”
Closing the book, Goodarz tried to hide his awkwardness. “Do you call a simple fact a ‘cheap compliment’?”
Nadereh said seriously, “Get those thoughts out of your mind. Do you think that your cheap compliments will get you any closer to jumping into bed with me?”
“What makes you imagine that I want to sleep with you?”
“Do you think I am some silly thirteen- or fourteen-year-old kid, Mr. Poet? I want you to think of me as a wise and worldly woman. Do not insult my intelligence. Otherwise you might as well be on your way.”
Goodarz had an apologetic smile on his face. The thought that Nadereh might get up and leave scared him. “Why are you angry with me?” he implored. “We’re two grown adults, having a mature discussion. It isn’t something to be ashamed of.”
“I know. But you should be careful”—The words came out without her thinking—“You might be carrying something.”
He thought for a moment, then asked, “AIDS?”
Nadereh answered seriously, “Maybe not that, but…”
“It’s okay. Please believe me. I was not trying to sleep with you.”
“I know. You don’t have to explain. You should see someone about your problem. You know, your addiction…”
Goodarz’s heart sank. “So you asked about me?”
Nadereh was cold and formal, as if she were dealing with someone at work. Without looking at Goodarz, she said, “Of course I’ve asked about you. It’s part of the job. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here right now treating you like a friend.”
Goodarz felt his pulse begin to slow. “So I’m not a stranger to you any longer,” he said.
Outside, Goodarz lit a cigarette. It was so cold that their skin tingled as they walked side by side to the shelter.
Nadereh said, “If you have any more cigarettes, I’d like one. When I work nights I don’t bring mine with me, so I won’t be tempted to smoke. I’m trying to quit.”
Goodarz lit a cigarette for Nadereh and said, “If we gave up all our vices, we would be saints.”
“Saints or not, that’s the way it is. You have to dance to the music they play, or they’ll think there’s something funny about you and you won’t be able to do anything about it.”
Goodarz exhaled and said, “Labeled just like me: homeless, a wretch, useless—or a poet, if you wish.”
As they walked east along Queen Street, a cold gust of wind swirled around them. They moved faster, trying to get warm. The streetcars and cars were making their way home, but Nadereh and Goodarz were indifferent to the traffic. When Goodarz stopped talking, Nadereh started. After a while their faces, hands, and feet became numb with cold. By the time they reached Nadereh’s work place, they felt as if they had been friends forever. After a few nights, Nadereh gave Goodarz her spare key and told him, “I’m working the eleven-to-seven shift this month. You can sleep over at my place, but please make sure you’re gone when I get home in the morning. I have to sleep too.”
Nadereh’s generosity left Goodarz speechless. He was consumed with humility as he gazed into her enormous eyes; her smile made him feel warmer than he’d felt in months. He was so glad to have met a fellow Iranian, even though he could see now that she was not like other Iranian women at all. She could be of mixed descent, maybe with some Indian or African blood, with her beautiful face, dark complexion, and slight build.
Nadereh said, “What’s wrong? Why aren’t you saying anything? Am I making a mistake?”
He replied, “I’m thinking back to the first time I met you. You really aren’t like other Iranians. But I realized at first glance that—”
Nadereh interrupted him. “Yes, at first glance, no one believes I’m Iranian. But I am. Do you have a problem with that? Now answer me. Do you think this is a good suggestion? It makes more sense than coming to the shelter and talking to me all night. Also, some nights I am so busy that I don’t have time to talk to you.”
“Your offer blows me away. How can you trust me? You don’t even know me.”
“Don’t even mention ‘trust.’ I’ve told you my life story. I’ve got nothing to lose. I don’t have any standing in the Iranian community, I don’t have any money, and I’m not even a poet or an artist like you. I’m just not important. When someone reaches out for help, I help. I accept people at face value. If they want to be my friend, I welcome them. This offer is only for the time being. You have to find your own place as soon as possible. And remember I told you: you can only stay at night and must be gone during the day.”
SOON A MONTH HAD GONE BY, and Goodarz still hadn’t found a place. He told her he had saved some money, but Nadereh wouldn’t let him leave.
CHAPTER 8
FERDOUS IS SITTING AT A TABLE in the coffee shop in the lobby of St. Michael’s hospital, an untouched cup of coffee and a muffin in front of her. People and ideas rotate through her head as quickly as the hospital’s revolving door, but still her mind seems cloudy and unfocused. An old man in a wheelchair accompanied by a female orderly sits nearby. A young woman approaches them and says something to the staff member, who pushes the old man in the wheelchair to the entrance and then outside. Samanta and Sasha appear in the hallway with their grandmother. Seeing Ferdous, Samanta runs to her and throws herself into her arms, crying loudly, “Oh, Auntie, Mommy died, Mommy died.” She sobs so deeply that her tiny body shakes violently in Ferdous’s arms.
Sasha and Grandma stand by quietly, choking back their tears, saying nothing. Ferdous holds Samanta tenderly in her arms, looking over her shoulder at Grandma. Her resemblance to Frida is remarkable—only their age distinguishes mother from daughter. They share the same deep black eyes, but the older woman’s are surrounded by deeply carved wrinkles. She has the same small mouth and lips, and her nose is pointed like Frida’s. The older woman doesn’t speak a single word of English, and Ferdous knows that she wouldn’t
be able to understand her if Ferdous were to try to express her condolences. Finally, she takes Samanta’s face in her hands. She wants to say in English, “I don’t believe it.” Or, “No, it isn’t true.” But her command of English fails her at that moment. Instead she says in Farsi, “Oh, azizam—”
Suddenly a man approaches them and says something—Ferdous doesn’t hear what—and Grandma doesn’t let Ferdous finish her condolences. She grabs Samanta’s hand, pulls her out of Ferdous’s embrace, and follows the man out of the hospital. Ferdous follows them, but they get into a waiting car and are driven away. She waits on the sidewalk until the car turns right at the intersection and disappears from sight.
Samanta’s words—“Mommy died, Mommy died”—won’t leave Ferdous’s head as she walks aimlessly down the street. The little girl’s cries match the rhythm of Frida’s stride, and Ferdous imagines Frida dancing. In her mind, Ferdous sees Frida being whirled around the dance floor, occasionally spinning so fast that her skirt lifts to show her beautiful legs and allows a glimpse of her panties and lacy slip. She sees Frida proudly wearing her open-collared red dress, her long, thin neck graceful like a swan’s. Her small breasts stand out under her dress. Her eyes are two shiny black stones, brilliant and mysterious, and her whole body rhythmically proclaims, “This is me, Frida, the dancer.”
The first time she watched Frida dance was at Samanta and Sasha’s birthday party. Both she and Ladan had been invited. Ladan was living with her mother at the time, and her company was helping Ferdous to overcome her depression.
Ferdous had heard about Frida from some Iranians she knew. She had been a dancer working in the cheap nightclubs in Madrid when she caught Ghobad’s eye. Barely into his twenties, fleeing from the Iran-Iraq war. He was immediately bewitched by Frida’s dancing. Money was no problem for Ghobad as his father was a wealthy man in Iran, and he showered Frida and her mother with gifts. He had realized quickly that if he was to gain Frida’s love, he had to win over her mother first. He accomplished this with the money that his father sent him for his studies. The mother, too, was wise enough to realize that if her daughter married Ghobad, she would enjoy a far better life than she would if she kept dancing in filthy nightclubs among a bunch of drunks and ne’er do wells. When Ghobad’s father found out about Frida, he wasted no time travelling to Madrid to try to prevent his son from marrying her. He had high hopes for his son, but he arrived in Madrid too late—Frida was pregnant. He offered to pay a considerable amount of money to Frida and her mother to get rid of them and the unwanted child, but even after Frida miscarried, Ghobad wouldn’t give her up. So his father unhappily arranged a lavish wedding for them and made Frida promise never to dance in public again. He helped them immigrate to Canada and set Ghobad up in a currency exchange office and in an Iranian rug import business. It took Ghobad only a few years to amass considerable wealth, just like his father.
Frida kept her promise to her father-in-law for a few years, but she missed dancing—it had been her whole life from an early age. A mother of twins, she began to dance only at house parties or family events. Ferdous saw her dance a few times; once, when Frida was dancing on a small table, Ferdous had been afraid that she might fall. Ferdous remembered Frida’s boast: “I was born to be a dancer and I will die dancing.”
When Frida danced, it seemed to Ferdous that she was lost to the world. Dancing transported her to some elevated place where she reigned as a goddess, where nothing and no one could stop her. She was totally in the rhythm of the dance, her eyes fixed on some far-off point, living and breathing perfectly to the music. Her heels and toes beat out a staccato cadence, mesmerizing her audience. Ferdous remembered the first time she had seen Frida dance. During that performance, her daughter had fallen and was hurt, but Frida had been so lost in her dancing that she hadn’t even realized her daughter was crying.
Frida’s dancing shadow flickering in her mind, Ferdous gets onto a streetcar without thinking, but she gets off after a couple of stops at a place she thinks she’s been before. Then she remembers: she is at Nadereh’s apartment building. Outside, Mahan is sitting on a bench. She asks, “Did you come to tell Nadereh about Frida’s death?”
“To tell her what?”
“Didn’t you know?”
“Yes, I knew.”
“It was my fault. If I…”
“Why you?”
She stares at Mahan for few seconds and then turns away, not saying anything. All she hears are Frida’s shoes, tapping madly to the music in her mind. She runs down the block to the intersection, then turns around and comes back. She thinks she should find Nadereh. Nadereh would assuage her guilt and make her feel better. Nadereh would tell her, “Ghobad should have taken Frida to some other country where he could buy her a kidney. Frida was growing older and sicker each day, becoming a burden. Ghobad might have wanted a younger wife. Ghobad might be just like Ibrahim. Ibrahim got rid of you and then went to Iran and married a twenty-two-year-old.”
Ferdous sees Mahan on the other side of the street, walking away. She wants to call out to him and ask him again whether he told Nadereh about Frida’s death. But at that moment a truck drives slowly by. When it is gone, Mahan is nowhere to be seen. Inside Nadereh’s building, she dials her apartment number, but there’s no answer. She keeps on dialing—ten times, twenty times—and still there is no response. Then she remember she’s dialing a wrong number. She tries to remember Nadereh’s number but she doesn’t.
She leaves the building again, and still the tapping of Frida’s shoes resonates in her head. Disturbed and confused, she walks the streets and rides public transit aimlessly, switching from one bus to another. Finally, she realizes that she doesn’t know what part of the city she is in. The sky is cloudy, and a chilly wind is blowing. She gets on a bus using her last ticket and asks the driver which direction he is going. When Ferdous tells him where she wants to go, he tells her to take another bus going in the opposite direction. When the bus arrives she sits in a seat by the window and lets her thoughts run freely. When the bus reaches the Don Mills and Sheppard intersection, she gets off and enters Fairview Mall. She realizes she hasn’t eaten since last night in Parvaneh’s place. She is so hungry that she feels nauseated. The sound of Frida’s dancing feet is still resonating in her mind.
In the food court, she approaches a counter at random and buys something to eat. But when she takes her first bite, the smell of the greasy meat makes her feel even more queasy. She runs into the washroom to throw up; her whole body is covered in a cold sweat. She washes her face and leaves the washroom, walking aimlessly, window shopping, looking for nothing. She sits on a bench and watches people coming and going. No one notices her. The sound of Frida’s feet beat out the message in her mind: Frida died, Frida died.
You will be flogged until you tell me where your brother is or you’ll be tortured to death.
I didn’t tell them, I didn’t tell them.
She leaves the mall and walks the streets. Nighttime is coming on, and she watches the city gradually light up. The wind has died down and it is drizzling. She knows this area very well. Finally, she decides to go home. By the time she reaches her building, she is soaking wet. Entering her apartment, she thinks to herself that she hasn’t cleaned her place in weeks. She imagines that she can hear her mother scolding her: “My dear, you are so messy….” It is so real.
I didn’t betray my brother. I didn’t tell them he was hiding behind the bookshelves. I didn’t. I didn’t.
The answering machine is flickering. She pushes the button and Parvaneh’s voice fills the room. “Ferdous, sweetheart, where are you? Why didn’t you come up to give your condolences to Frida’s children and her mother? I looked for you everywhere. I’ll call you….”
She can’t hear anything else because the sound of Frida’s heels is drowning everything else out.
Zohreh and Nahid, Zohreh and Nahid, they were called at dinner time.
“Lucky them. They’re released.”
“Released? How do you know that? Perhaps…”
“No, they didn’t get released.”
“It’s not clear. They might be released.”
I didn’t betray my brother, I didn’t tell them.
You will die being flogged if you don’t tell us. And if you want to go to paradise, you have to tell us what you know, otherwise…. There’s always a palace in paradise for tavabs.
The words from an old song run through her mind the whole night long.
I have a delight in my head
I have a revelation in my heart
The song was only in her head. There was no one else around. It was dawn when the sound of the barrage of bullets filled the ward.
They were released, they were released, they were released.
Mommy died, Mommy died, Mommy died.
She sits by her desk, opens the drawer, and takes out the letter she wrote for Ladan before going to Parvaneh’s place. She reads the letter one more time and stares at nothing. Then she tears it up and scatters the pieces on the floor. For a while, she feels as if she has accomplished an important job. She stands still in the middle of room, looking at the pieces of the letter, and then she goes out onto the balcony and leans over the railing. A deep melancholy paralyzes her. It seems as though the end of the world is closing in on her. Soon it will swallow her. The silence of the city is shunning her, as it has from the very beginning, making her want to turn away from her daily sorrows and the failure she has carried within herself for a lifetime. The vast sky invites her to eternity, promising peace and freedom if she leaves behind the life she has lived so far.
I have a delight in my head
I have a revelation in my heart
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