Rooftops of Tehran

by Mahbod Seraji

  We all hang our heads in silence. Then Mr. Naderi sighs and lights up another cigarette. Brokenhearted over the outlook of someone else occupying their house, I ask, “May I ask where you’re moving to?”

  “To Bandar Abbas.”

  My heart sinks. The government exiles its unruly employees to Bandar Abbas, a town on the Persian Gulf famous for its intolerable heat and humidity.

  “Why Bandar Abbas?” Ahmed asks.

  Mrs. Naderi looks at her husband, but doesn’t say anything. “Who would ever forget Zari if her family continued to live in this alley?” I answer gently, although I’m furious at the thought of them in exile.

  Ahmed suddenly gets it. He seems embarrassed by his question.

  “But the SAVAK is wrong,” I say. “No one will ever forget her anyway. Not her and not Doctor. People in this country don’t forget and never forgive.”

  Mr. Naderi’s eyes fill. His pain-worn eyes are frozen on me as he puts out his cigarette and lights another.

  I wish I had the courage to tell them about myself and Zari, but love is a private matter, and the vault of the heart is not to be opened lightly, nor the treasure of love exposed. I always wondered why, despite our passionate spirit as a nation whose poetry is filled with declarations of love, our reality is one of guarded emotions when it comes to members of the opposite sex. Although Mrs. Naderi saw Zari and me in each other’s arms, she will never talk about it, and neither will I. It doesn’t matter that their daughter was the center of my universe, or that I have grieved her loss every waking moment of the last few months. Some things must remain sealed in the cage of the soul.

  I look toward the Masked Angel, and realize that she is still looking at me. Her eyes blink fast behind the dark lace panel in the front of her burqa—eyes that remind me of the eyes of my own angel, except that they don’t smile like hers.

  We sit in that room for hours without saying much, taking refuge and comfort in the fact that we share a common pain. And for the first time since Doctor’s death, we are able to mourn together.

  26

  The Eyes of an Angel

  The weather is unusually warm and springlike for this time of year, the middle of Esphand, the end of February, but my mother insists that I wear warm winter clothes when I go out. “This weather can turn on you without notice,” she says. “It’s warm one minute and then suddenly it starts to snow.” She brings out a bottle of herbal juice from her medicine cabinet and insists that I swallow two full teaspoons of it. “This will boost your immune system, which has been weakened in the last few months.”

  It’s good to know some things never change.

  The whole world has heard that I’m out of the hospital, and they all want to see me. Everyone has decided to come for a visit at the end of this week. My mother is busy preparing the house. She dusts, sweeps, washes the sheets, and tries to figure out where everyone will sleep and what she will serve for every meal. She names the guests without counting them: “Mr. and Mrs. Kasravi, your two aunts and two uncles, Mrs. Mehrbaan, and your grandparents from your father’s side—however many that is.”

  “That’s nine,” my father says.

  “Don’t count! Don’t you know it’s inauspicious to count people?” she scolds, a concerned look on her face.

  “Why?” my father asks, shaking his head in exasperation.

  “I don’t know. It just is.” Then she turns to me and says, “They’re all coming to see you, aren’t you excited?”

  “I am,” I say. But I wish I knew why people feel they need to visit someone who’s sick. When I’m not feeling well, the last thing I need is people telling me that I look good, and that all will be okay. The forced smiles and laughter will drive me insane.

  My father seems unusually agitated and restless. He follows my mother around without helping her, and I can tell he’s getting on her nerves.

  “Do we have enough vodka?” he asks at least three times. “There’ll be a lot of drinking and celebrating tonight. We’ll all be drinking, including Pasha.”

  I remember the last time I drank vodka—the night of Doctor’s funeral—and the idea doesn’t strike me as celebratory.

  Mother says, “Yes, there is plenty of vodka.”

  “Is Mrs. Mehrbaan coming?” he frets.

  “Yes, I told you that already.”

  “Did you talk to her personally?”

  She gives my father a dirty look.

  “Did she say she is coming for sure, or that she would think about it?”

  My mother turns around, looks at my father and starts to say something, but decides against it. Instead she throws her arms up in the air, mumbles something under her breath, and walks away. I wonder why my father is so concerned about Mrs. Mehrbaan.

  “Okay then, I’m going to check to make sure we have enough vodka,” my father says, as he walks toward the refrigerator.

  My paternal aunts, uncles, and grandparents arrive a few minutes before noon. They hug me, kiss me, and tell me how glad they are that I’m home again. They say I look great and that I will soon look even better, thanks to my mother’s superb cooking.

  All my aunts and uncles are in their thirties, but only my aunt Mateen is married. She is the largest woman in our family, and the kindest woman on the planet. Her first husband died tragically four years after they were married in a head-on accident on a pilgrimage to Imam Reza’s mausoleum. Aunt Mateen was single for ten years, but eventually fell in love again and married Mr. Jamshidi, a middle-aged man who owns a dairy factory in the northeastern city of Mashhad. One year after their wedding, she found out that Mr. Jamshidi was already married. She cried day and night, threatened to kill him, asked him for a divorce, and even locked him out of the house for a few days. Eventually, however, she decided that being married to a bigamist was not so bad, as long as he loved her, respected her, and was faithful to her. So Aunt Mateen told Mr. Jamshidi that if she ever caught him with his first wife, she would circumcise him, little by little, until he was little more than a eunuch. Everyone in the family says that Mr. Jamshidi is the most faithful man on the planet, not because he doesn’t like women, but because he knows my aunt is a serious lady with extremely sharp knives in her kitchen cabinet.

  Aunt Maryam is a pretty woman, with a face that looks more European than Iranian. When my grandparents aren’t around, her brothers tease her that she is an illegitimate child, perhaps conceived by the Russian soldiers who were occupying the north during World War II. Aunt Maryam always shakes her head and laughs. She has a great sense of humor, and I have always liked her a lot. Aunt Maryam is almost always argumentative and sometimes even contentious toward her brother, my uncle Mansoor. Sometimes they don’t talk for months, and although they live in the same alley, they avoid each other at all costs.

  It’s fascinating to watch the two of them argue because neither of them ever gets a chance to finish a sentence. So now when they fight, instead of talking they write letters to each other, which they read to the entire family before mailing to the intended receiver. Their letters always start with an expression of love, but quickly disintegrate into bitter disclosures of the sacrifices one has made for the sake of the other.

  “Dear Sister,” Uncle Mansoor once wrote, “I’ve heard you told everyone that I don’t love you. Bullshit! You know that I do. I’ve always loved you, but I never will again. In fact, no brother—and I mean no brother in the world—could love his sister as much as I have loved you! Remember when your tonsils were taken out, and you were in bed crying for ice cream? Who ran six kilometers in the rain to get it for you? Do you recall the time you twisted your ankle on the way home from school? Who carried you home on his back? Don’t I always check up on you, and ask you if you need anything when I’m going to the market? Have you ever done anything for me, or for anybody else? You are so selfish. I will never love you again!”

  Aunt Maryam responded with a letter of her own. “Dear Brother Mansoor,” she wrote back. “You never loved anyone but you
rself. You are the selfish one. I have sacrificed my life for you. I mended for you, cooked for you, cleaned for you, washed dishes for you. I can fill a book listing what I have done for you. Maybe two books! I will never do any of those things for you again because you are selfish and you don’t understand the love of a sister. Too bad for you. Good-bye forever. No one will hear your name from my lips again, no one. I will forget that I ever had a brother named, well, whatever your name is! Good-bye.”

  Of course, someone always intervenes and the two kiss and make up, promising never to discuss the stupid conflict again.

  “It’s water under the bridge,” Uncle Mansoor says.

  “What’s past is past,” Aunt Maryam agrees.

  “Only a fool reopens a wound that’s already healed.”

  “Who hasn’t had a fight with her brother? Fighting is the salt of life; a small amount makes life more delicious!”

  They go on as if nothing ever happened until the next time they fight, and then all the old issues resurface.

  My two uncles look like twins, even though they were born two years apart. They both have thick mustaches that mirror the darkness of their black hair. They are big and muscular, and often in trouble with the local police in Noshahr, the town they live in, because they fight strangers all the time. My father says my uncles are a picture of what my grandpa was like in his youth. Now, of course, he is a quiet, skinny man who walks with the aid of a cane and always wears a gray suit. He was a revolutionary activist during Mosaddegh’s era, and hated the Shah and his “pseudo reform policies” that only strengthened his position as the sole authoritarian voice in Iran. Grandpa, like many in his generation, hates the British with a passion that makes his face red every time someone mentions Churchill’s name.

  “The goddamn colonialist, he regarded the Indians the same way Hitler viewed the Jews,” he says of the British prime minister. “Given the chance, he would have incinerated the Indians just like Hitler did the Jews!”

  As an atheist, Grandpa also hates organized religion. “Show me an honest clergyman, and I’ll show you a skunk that doesn’t stink,” he says every time there’s a discussion of religion.

  My father always laughs at his remarks. “Thank God he hates everybody equally: the mullahs, the priests, the monks, the rabbis, and the politicians.”

  “There is no God,” Grandpa whispers bitterly every time Grandma prays. “Haven’t you learned that yet? Marx tried to tell everyone, but only a few of us listened.” Every time Grandpa says something blasphemous, Grandma bites the skin between her thumb and index finger without looking in his direction. She’s lived with him for too long to think that she could influence his beliefs.

  Grandpa never watches television or listens to the news on the radio. My father says he has a collection of magazines and newspapers from Mosaddegh’s era that he guards with his life. Every morning he takes one of the papers out of the box by his bed and reads it, cover to cover, as if it’s fresh off the press. I wonder how many times he’s read each article by now.

  Grandpa kisses my closed eyes, then sits in a chair by the grandfather clock that hasn’t worked for years and asks my grandma for a cup of tea. My mother tells Grandma to sit still and runs to the kitchen to bring tea, sweets, and fruits. Grandpa looks at the clock beside him, and I whisper that the time is wrong. He looks at me, and then looks at the clock again, but doesn’t say anything. After a few seconds, I hear him whispering, “It’s not wrong, it just shows a different time!”

  “Thank God you’re back; thank God you’re okay,” Grandma repeats, her hands shaking as she reaches over to touch my face.

  Grandpa whispers something under his breath, as he does every time Grandma mentions God; my father and uncles chuckle. Grandpa then turns around and looks at the broken grandfather clock again.

  All the attention is on me now, and I don’t like it. I can tell from everyone’s eyes that they are saddened by my frail appearance, but no one wants me to think so. Every time I catch someone looking at me, they smile and try to look happy—except Aunt Mateen, who just hides her face so that I can’t see her tears.

  Just as everyone begins to drink their tea, the doorbell rings and Mr. and Mrs. Kasravi walk into the yard. Mr. Kasravi is carrying Shabnam, my future wife, in his arms. Everyone runs to the door and creates a happy commotion by all talking at the same time.

  “How was the trip?”

  “It was fine.”

  “Oh, God, you guys must be tired!”

  “That’s a devil of a road. If someone just added a few lanes to that damn highway, the trip itself wouldn’t be more than ninety minutes long.”

  “My nephew is destined to build a four-lane highway that will connect Tehran to Noshahr,” Uncle Mansoor interjects.

  “Mosaddegh wanted to do that, before the Americans and the British arranged a coup.”

  “Yeah, that’s a tiring trip, really, really tiring.”

  “Come in, come in! The tea is ready.”

  Mr. Kasravi sets Shabnam down and hugs me. “So how are you, my boy? Really, how are you?” he asks. “I called every day to get an update on you. I’m so glad you’re back, really glad!”

  Goli Jaan looks at me and begins to cry. “You have lost so much weight!” she says. “You better come up to see us soon. The clean air of the mountains would do you lots of good.”

  My father leads the way to the living room, and everyone follows. As we are walking through the yard, I look up and see the Masked Angel on the balcony of the third floor. She steps back as soon as she realizes she’s been spotted. In the living room, Aunt Mateen sits next to me, puts her arm around my shoulder, and whispers, “How do you feel, dear?”

  “Oh, he’s fine,” Uncle Mansoor says boisterously. “Look at him, he’s a strong kid.”

  “Yes, he is,” says Mr. Kasravi. “My future son-in-law is most certainly very strong.”

  Aunt Mateen looks at my frail body and shakes her head as she tries to hold back her tears.

  “Don’t do that,” Uncle Mansoor chides. “The kid is going to think there is something wrong with him.”

  “Yeah, he’ll be boxing in no time,” Uncle Majeed says.

  Uncle Mansoor interrupts Uncle Majeed. He’s so happy that I’ve learned the basics of boxing from my father. Now he intends to teach me the advanced stuff. Everyone, including Dad, laughs. Then Uncle Mansoor says while I’m studying civil engineering at the university in the U.S. and making plans to build the four-lane European-style highway that will connect Tehran to Noshahr, I’ll be beating the living daylights out of my opponents in the ring. A large grin flashes on his face.

  Aunt Maryam tells me that she loves me, and that she can’t wait to host me in her home so that she can feed me kebob, rice, fresh vegetables, homemade yogurt, and her special salad of cucumber, salt, pepper, and mint, followed by some nice Lahijan tea. Then I’ll be ready to play tennis. Yes, tennis—because boxing is the sport of fools and I’m too smart to follow in the footsteps of her crazy brothers, who take pride in beating people up. She tells me to forget everything my father has taught me and prepare for my tennis lessons, which she will pay for out of her own pocket. My mom uses this opportunity to give my dad a dirty look, which he ignores completely. A heated argument ensues with Aunt Maryam shaking both her head and her finger vigorously.

  Now everybody is talking at the same time and nobody seems to be listening to anybody else.

  My father watches everyone without saying anything. I can tell from the anxious look on his face and the frequency with which he glances toward the door that he is impatiently awaiting Mrs. Mehrbaan’s arrival. I still don’t understand why he’s so eager to see her.

  “Look at your noses, both of you!” Aunt Maryam says to her two brothers. “Do you have any idea how our mother cried when she saw your broken noses?” Grandma looks at her two sons, shakes her head, and says a prayer. Grandpa shakes his head and whispers profanity under his breath, prompting Grandma to bite the skin betw
een her thumb and index finger.

  “It’s not shameful for a man to have an ugly, broken nose,” Uncle Mansoor argues. “A man’s not supposed to be pretty.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake!” cries out Aunt Maryam.

  “Besides, nobody can even tell that my nose is broken! See, it’s like I don’t have a bone in there,” Uncle Mansoor says, putting his finger on the tip of his nose and pushing down. His nostrils come together, making him look like an old man, and I begin to laugh. Everyone notices that I’m laughing, and they all join me with relieved expressions on their faces. My mother comes out of the kitchen with more tea.

  The doorbell rings again, and Mrs. Mehrbaan walks in. Like Zari’s mother, she looks much older than I remember her. The mood in the house becomes somber as soon as she enters. My father is excited to see her. He runs ahead of everyone to greet her. “I’m so glad you’re here,” he says. “I was so worried that you might have decided not to come.”

  She ignores my father completely and pushes through the crowd toward me. “I get to see Pasha first,” she says. “I get to see him first. How’re you, my dear?” She hugs me and whispers, “We missed you very much. I prayed for your safe return every day. I wish Mehrbaan were here to see you, too. I don’t know if anyone has told him in jail. I would have told him myself, but they won’t let me see him. They won’t even tell me where he is. Oh, your poor dad has tried so hard to get some information, but they won’t tell us anything.”

  “I hope they release Uncle Mehrbaan soon,” I say.

  Mrs. Mehrbaan hugs me again. “Oh, God, I hope so, my son, I really hope so,” she whispers.

  Right at that moment, Ahmed and Faheemeh arrive. “Look, our soon-to-be bride and groom just walked in!” my father says joyfully. Mr. Kasravi runs ahead of everyone to greet them. The chaotic din of everyone talking over one another is restored. Faheemeh is introduced to everyone, and they take turns hugging her and welcoming her to the house. Uncle Majeed thanks Faheemeh for having mercy on a guy like Ahmed, whose shortcomings he can count on the fingers of one hand. He counts one, two, three, four, five on one hand—and then six, seven, and on using the same hand. Everyone laughs, and Uncle Majeed puts his arms around Ahmed and says to Faheemeh that she has landed one of the best men in the world. Faheemeh smiles and thanks him. I hug Faheemeh, and as we start walking toward the living room, I look up toward the roof and see that the Masked Angel has returned to the balcony of the third floor.