Rooftops of Tehran

by Mahbod Seraji

  I look for a while, then turn back toward her without saying anything. We stare at each other, and then she gets up and heads toward her house. She stops in the doorway to turn around and ask, “Did you ever give her the picture?”

  I don’t say anything.

  “Have you told her yet?”

  I shake my head no.

  She smiles and disappears inside the house.

  It’s Friday and Ahmed and I are in the alley because school is closed. Faheemeh is visiting Zari at her house. We hear a story in the alley that a group of terrorists were planning to blow up a dam in the northern part of Iran during the summer. If they had succeeded, thousands of people would have died in the cities that lay downstream. Doctor and his group were allegedly spotted a few hundred meters from the dam, and were chased all the way back to Tehran. I immediately dismiss the rumor as nothing but a lie concocted by the government to justify Doctor’s arrest. Doctor is a pacifist. He believes in advancing his political ideologies by educating people, not murdering them.

  A few hours after the rumor starts, Ahmed and I are sitting in the shadow of a tree outside my house when an army-style jeep pulls up at Zari’s house. Two men get out of the vehicle, and I recognize one of them as the agent with the radio. While I sit frozen, they enter Zari’s house without knocking. A few minutes later we hear a scream—Zari. Ahmed and I run toward her house. We force our way inside as the two men are walking out. The man with the radio looks at me and winks. I swear to God that I will kill the son of a bitch someday.

  Zari is sitting on the floor, and Faheemeh is hovering over her in concern. Zari seems to be in a state of shock, her face frozen in an expression of despair and disbelief. I run up to her. “What’s the matter? What’s happening?” She turns toward me and the grief in her eyes sends a chill through my body. Ahmed rushes toward Zari’s mother, who has fainted a few meters away. I hear the jeep leave the alley, and soon after, the neighbors rush into the house. The older people start to attend to Zari and her mother. I look at Faheemeh.

  “They want them to pay for the bullet,” she says, bleakly.

  “What bullet?” I ask, going cold.

  “Doctor’s bullet.” She looks at me through tear-glazed eyes. “That’s how they can get his body back.”

  Winter of 1974

  Roozbeh Psychiatric Hospital, Tehran

  “Did I kill you, Doctor?”

  “Did you want to kill me?”

  “No.”

  “Then why are you worried?”

  “People may think that I did.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, have you ever loved someone you weren’t supposed to?”

  “Yes,” says Doctor.

  “Really? Did Zari know?”

  “It wasn’t like that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It just wasn’t like that.”

  “Please, tell me how it was, then. I really would like to know. Would you have killed for her?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Given your life?”

  “Oh, for sure.”

  “Oh, my God. Then you were in love, Doctor. What happened?”

  “I got killed.”

  “I’m so sorry, but I don’t understand.”

  “I fell in love with ideas, dreams, visions. I fell in love with thinkers I wasn’t supposed to admire or even know.”

  “Forbidden ideas?”

  “Forbidden love, forbidden ideas, what’s the difference?”

  “Well, forbidden ideas are in your head, forbidden love in your heart.”

  “Let me tell you something. There isn’t anything in your heart. It’s all in your head. Love, hate, thoughts, emotions, all of it is up there in your head. The heart is just a mechanical organ pumping blood to the rest of your body. Now enough of the biology lesson! Tell me why people might think that you killed me.”

  “Because I love . . .”

  I wake up in a sweat, cold and shivering. I sit up in bed and look around. I try hard to remember what I have dreamed about, but my mind fights back. I think I was trying to tell Doctor that I loved Zari. I hope not. No one should ever know, not even Ahmed. It’s forbidden to share forbidden love, even with your best friend.

  14

  Autumn of 1973 Tehran

  Brothers for Life

  Doctor’s father suffers a heart attack the day he hears the news of his son’s death. Most people believe he will not survive. Doctor’s mother is in no shape to attend a funeral. With no one in Doctor’s immediate family to claim his body, instructions for meeting the agents at the cemetery are sent to Zari’s house. The instructions indicate that only Zari or her parents and one or two friends may attend the funeral. The notice also indicates that Doctor was “destroyed” near the end of Sharivar—mid-September, exactly a week before school started.

  Ahmed and I hear through Faheemeh that Zari wants us to accompany her to Doctor’s funeral, since we were closer to him than anyone else in the alley. Faheemeh says that Zari is the most thoughtful person in the world because she refuses to send a message to her cousin and best friend, the Masked Angel, requesting that she come to Tehran. Soraya would be a great source of support to Zari, but her parents are sick and Zari doesn’t want her to be distracted with someone else’s problems. “Can you believe how sweet this girl is?” Faheemeh says, as she wipes tears from her face. We accept the invitation to go along to the cemetery, knowing that we should keep the plan from our parents. I know my father would worry that the agency would take note of my presence. Fortunately for me, my parents are visiting our relatives in the northern part of the country, and are unaware of anything that’s going on in the alley.

  It’s the evening before the funeral, and Ahmed and I are sitting on the roof of my house. The night is gray, still in its silence and pregnant with grief. I’m wearing a thick brown turtleneck, but the weather still feels brisk and uncomfortable. I watch the sky at the horizon and feel a chill course down my spine. This is a massive world, I think, and in each centimeter of it, a different drama unfolds every second of every day. But we live on as if the next moment in our lives will be no different than the last. How foolish we all are.

  I’m not sure how events will unfold tomorrow. Will they let us see his body? Who will carry his coffin? Will they let us say a couple of prayers before they put him in the ground?

  I shudder involuntarily. Finally, Ahmed breaks the silence. He points to a big, shiny star in the sky and says, “That’s him, I know it.”

  My eyes fill with tears. “He was a great guy.”

  “The best.”

  “Do you think he’s mad at me for falling in love with Zari?”

  Ahmed turns and looks at me. I lower my head to hide my tears.

  “No,” he says with certainty.

  “I think he is,” I mumble. “You’re supposed to think of a friend’s fiancée as your own sister. How could he not be angry?”

  “But you didn’t do anything to disgrace him,” Ahmed argues. “No one else even knows how you feel.”

  “I shouldn’t have fallen in love with her.”

  “You think you had a choice? How do you know this wasn’t the way it was meant to be? Maybe God knew what was going to happen to Doctor. Is Zari supposed to mourn his death for the rest of her life? Should she never experience love again?”

  “And God chose me?” I ask bitterly.

  “Well, Iraj would’ve been an okay choice, too, I suppose,” Ahmed says sarcastically.

  I smile despite myself.

  “Look at that.” Ahmed points to the skies. “Do you realize the immensity of creation? Do you see the prescribed order of the universe? God has imposed his rules and laws on everything. What makes you think he exempted you from that?” He puts his arm around me. “Right now, Doctor is looking down at us from the heavens, thanking God for putting you on earth so that you can take care of Zari. Who would have been a better choice than you? Tell me, who?”

  I wipe my tears. “I�
�m not going to cry at the cemetery because I’m sure the man with the radio will be watching. Promise me something.”

  “What?” he asks.

  “We’re not going to cry.”

  He looks at me. I think he realizes that I mean business. “Okay,” he says resolutely, and turns his face once more to Doctor’s star. “We won’t cry.”

  Anticipation of the next day’s events keeps me up all night. The next morning we’re standing outside Zari’s house and I’m playing with my sleeves when Iraj comes over and asks where we’re going. We don’t respond.

  “Are you guys going to the cemetery?” he persists.

  “Yes,” I say.

  “You shouldn’t. The whole thing will be under surveillance. They’ll come after you.”

  “We don’t care,” Ahmed says.

  “No, please, don’t go. They won’t like that.”

  “We don’t care,” I repeat.

  “This is a trap. They find the sympathizers this way. You guys really shouldn’t go.”

  Zari and Faheemeh come out of the house. Their eyes are red, and they’re both wearing black chadors. Neighbors emerge from their homes as we walk through the alley toward the main street. They look at us quietly with tears in their sad eyes, silently offering us their condolences for the death of Doctor, and their apologies for not attending his funeral. They have families to care for, and the SAVAK cannot be taken lightly. I can hear Zari moaning. She sighs and bites her lips and shakes under her chador. Faheemeh puts her arms around Zari and whispers in her ear to calm her down. I see Iraj following behind us. His worried eyes beg us not to go.

  We get a cab, and I sit in the front seat as Ahmed, Faheemeh, and Zari get in the back. I give the directions to the driver, and as he takes off I look in the side mirror and see Iraj running behind us, waving his arms. I can tell he’s yelling something, probably still begging us not to go. He stops after a few minutes, bending over and grabbing his knees.

  The driver wants to know if the deceased—God bless his soul—was a relative. I say that he was. I turn around and see Zari banging her head against the back window. Faheemeh puts her left hand between Zari’s head and the glass. The driver asks if he was young. I nod yes.

  “God bless his soul. Destiny, it’s destiny, and there isn’t anything we can do about it,” he says, looking at Zari in his rearview mirror. “I had a younger brother who passed away a couple of years ago. Cancer took him. Never smoked a single cigarette in his life . . . a healthy guy, a real athlete. The pain of losing him is killing my mom, but what can you do? God gives and God takes. It’s as simple as that. I have been driving for almost twenty years now. I’ve taken a lot of families to the cemetery. I know how bad it hurts. I know it from experience, and I know it from observing people. God bless everyone’s souls.”

  He says he’s not going to charge us for the trip because it’s not right to take money from grieving people. Then he wants to know who the deceased was, who he was related to, how old he was, and what caused his death. I patiently answer all his questions, but instead of saying that Doctor was killed by the SAVAK, I say that he died in an accident. You never know who may be an agent. The driver whispers a prayer but doesn’t ask any more questions about the cause of Doctor’s death.

  Every time I turn around to look in the backseat my eyes meet Zari’s. She shakes her head and looks away. I wish I could do something to ease her pain.

  I look at Faheemeh and for the first time I realize that she has become an integral part of our lives. She is taking an enormous risk by going to Doctor’s funeral with us. I want to reach over and hug her. I love her as much as I love Ahmed. Today would have been much more difficult without her, and I’m glad she’s here.

  Remembering my promise to Ahmed, I turn to face the road ahead. I look in the side mirror and think of Iraj running after the car. I picture his face, the worried look in his eyes, and the concern in his voice. Maybe Iraj isn’t such a bad guy after all.

  We get out of the car at the gates to the cemetery. Despite our insistence, the driver won’t accept our money. The instructions say that someone will meet us at the gate. There are lots of people dressed in black standing in and around the cemetery.

  Inside the gates, we see a woman throwing herself on a grave. She cries out a name in a strangled rhythm and beats herself on the chest as her relatives try to restrain her. Everyone talks at the same time, while many in the crowd cry. I can tell that the scene has disturbed Zari. She weeps bitterly, but quietly. Faheemeh cries, too, as she watches the woman inside the gates throw her body back on the grave, hugging the earth, kissing it and filling her fists with dirt.

  “It’s her brother,” Faheemeh whispers to Ahmed. “Poor woman.”

  Seeing the rows and rows of graves gives me a strange feeling. Everything is bathed in a lifeless light the color of dust, except the people, who are like shadows dressed in black. There are living people all around, but the eerie presence of death is hard to ignore. The air feels stale and dry, even though the weather is cold. The skies are covered with dark clouds. A few drops of rain make me wonder if a storm is on its way.

  On one of the main roads of the cemetery, a coffin is being carried over the shoulders of a few weeping men as a large crowd follows. A man in the front yells, “There isn’t a God but the almighty God!” and the procession chants the same in unison after him. “Say it loud. There isn’t a God but the almighty God!” shouts the man walking in front of the group again.

  “There isn’t a God but the almighty God,” the crowd repeats.

  The procession leaves the road and stops at a grave that has already been dug. They put the coffin down and the crowd gathers around it. A mullah sings verses into a megaphone.

  “He was graced with the eternal youth, entering the blissful and glorious kingdom of heaven. Don’t weep, for all that live on earth are doomed to die. Only God will live forever. Welcome to heaven, the eternal home of the Muslims. In life, there may be inequalities, but in death everyone is treated the same!”

  The cries of the people around the coffin swell louder as a group of men lift the body, wrapped in a white sheet, and place it in the hole. I’m standing next to Zari, and her knees buckle as she lets out a desperate cry. I reach over and grab her. I can tell from the weight of her body that she has lost all strength in her legs. Ahmed and Faheemeh help me hold her up.

  Back by the grave, a young woman throws herself into the hole, shouting that she wants to be buried with her beloved husband. From the direction of Zari’s gaze, I can tell that she’s watching. I turn her around to make sure she doesn’t see any more of the burial.

  A couple of men are on the other side of the street watching us. I hear Ahmed curse, “Motherfuckers.”

  We all turn and look. These must be our contacts, the SAVAK agents.

  The two men are wearing black suits and shirts. One of them is tall, and the other one is short and stocky. I feel like throwing up just thinking of their dirty profession. There is a sharp pain in my heart, and anger boils inside me.

  Faheemeh grabs Ahmed’s hand. “Honey, please. Don’t say anything, I beg you. You promised me, sweetheart.” She tries to hold Ahmed’s face in her hands, to pull his eyes from the two men to her own face. “Look at me. I love you. I love you. I will kill myself if they take you away. You promised me, please.”

  Ahmed can’t take his eyes off the guys on the other side of the street. Faheemeh turns to me and says, “Please, tell him to take it easy. I beg you. They’ll take the two of you away and that will kill us. Please, I beg you!”

  Zari whispers to me, “Please, stop him.”

  As I look at the two men, my body begins to shake. I let go of Zari and take a couple of steps toward the street. Zari grabs my left arm and stumbles, still weak with grief. I grab her before she falls down. “Please,” she whispers in my ear.

  I turn around and look again at the two men on the other side of the street. Two women and three children have joined them
and they’re all walking away. I’m embarrassed and I can tell Ahmed is, too.

  Faheemeh bursts into bitter tears, and her body trembles as she sits down on the sidewalk. Ahmed tries to calm her down, but she can’t stop crying. Zari whispers to me to get Faheemeh some water. I help Zari settle on the ground next to Faheemeh and then hurry away. When I get back, Faheemeh points for me to sit next to her. She puts her arms around my shoulders as she continues to cry. “He’ll listen to you. Please, tell him to take it easy when they get here, and promise me that you’ll do the same. Promise me.”

  I promise, and walk up to Ahmed, who’s smoking a cigarette a couple of steps away.

  “Let’s stay calm,” I say.

  Ahmed nods tensely.

  A few minutes later a young boy walks up to me and hands me a piece of paper. He says a man asked him to give me the note. I look at the paper as Ahmed, Faheemeh, and Zari anxiously approach me. The note contains detailed directions to a grave. We start walking. We turn left on the second street, then right on the next road, and follow a roundabout that leads behind a building where they wash the bodies of the deceased. The closer we get to our destination, the harder and more wildly my heart pounds. Faheemeh and Zari are holding on to each other, and Ahmed is a couple of steps behind them. We reach an unmarked grave. It’s the third from the building, the fourth from the curb, and a large round stone covers the bottom half of it, exactly as the note said.

  I look at my friends and point to the grave. Zari’s shoulders begin to shake violently. She is inconsolable in her grief. She sits down by the grave. Faheemeh sits next to her and utters incomprehensible prayers as tears stream from their eyes.

  Zari leans over the grave and touches the wet mud with her hands. “He’s just been put in there,” she whispers as she turns around and looks at me. I sit down next to her and put my arms around her for just a split second. “They didn’t just kill Doctor,” Zari whispers to me. “They killed us all, didn’t they?”