Rooftops of Tehran

by Mahbod Seraji

  She enters the yard and shuts the door behind her. Once she disappears inside the house, I fold the blanket and leave it on the wall between our homes. I go to my room and crawl into my bed, consumed with my dream of Zari. The gloom of loneliness crushes my soul. I tell myself that I was sleeping in her arms last night, and realize that even this outrageous lie doesn’t make me feel better.

  The next evening finds me once more sitting in my room, hugging my pillow and looking out the window. It’s a dark, cloudy night with no sign of the moon and the weight of eventual rain in the air. Although it’s quiet, a persistent hum from an unidentifiable source soothes the ears and calms the soul. I look toward Zari’s balcony, searching for the silhouette that had sculpted a piece of the night into a hopeful illusion the evening before. Maybe if I look hard enough, I can find it. Maybe if I dilate my eyes and watch more carefully, it will appear again.

  There it is—a shade, a trace, liquid night outlined. I watch it intently, waiting for it to move like it did last night. Maybe if I could float through my window gently, it would not be scared away. Whatever it is, it’s motionless, completely stagnant in time and space, and it’s watching me back. Suddenly, the wind blows and the curtains at my window fly into my face. Outside, a piece of the darkness vibrates as the dark air flutters, and night itself trembles. The shadow solidifies and dances to the tune of the wind. I know whatever was out there moved, I’m sure of it. I am not hallucinating. The hair on the back of my neck stands up.

  I run out onto the balcony, but it’s empty. I stand for a long time, looking around. Finally, I cross over to Zari’s side and sit in our spot. I look toward her room. The lights are on, but the window is shut and covered. After a few minutes rain starts to fall, and the temperature falls quickly. The lights in most of the alley are off. I look at my watch: eleven thirty.

  Behind Zari’s curtain, the Masked Angel moves from one side of the room to the other, and I glimpse her profile for a split second. She’s not wearing her burqa, but she passes by the window too quickly for me to see her face. I’m dying to know what she looks like. She lives in the room where my Zari used to live, sleeping in her bed, sitting in the same chair I sat in while holding her in my arms. I walk up to Zari’s window and peep through the opening in the curtain. My heart races and the blood rushes to my head. My hands are shaking, my knees weak from excitement, and the surface of my skin goes cold.

  The Masked Angel is sitting in the middle of the room with her back to the window. Her head is lowered and she’s reading a book: Hafiz’s Divan, the one she has memorized.

  Why is she reading the book if she has memorized it?

  She’s wearing a long dark dress that drapes her body from the neck to the ankles. A blue scarf covers her head and hides her hair. The black burqa is on a chair by the round table. The blanket that was wrapped around me the night before is by the bed. I look to the other side of the room and see the little notebook that contains Zari’s drawings. Oh, what I would give to possess that notebook!

  Suddenly, the Masked Angel lifts her head from the book and stares straight ahead, as if she knows someone is watching her through the window. I want to run back to my terrace, but my feet are glued to the ground. I can see her shoulders rise and fall as she breathes. She turns slightly to one side for a split second, and then lowers her head and continues to read.

  Thanking God that she didn’t turn around, I creep back to my room.

  28

  An Incurable Disease

  It’s been over a month since I was released from the hospital. The Persian New Year, celebrated on the first day of spring, has brought a tremendous energy to the neighborhood. The schools are closed for the first thirteen days of the year, when people travel, visit each other, exchange gifts, and forget and forgive old quarrels. The spirit of the New Year even moves the Shah, causing him to forgive a number of political prisoners and to pardon some common criminals. I wonder if he would’ve ever pardoned Doctor. Even my aunt and uncle make up and forget about their differences. I, however, am still trapped in the dark winter of my life, and I can’t find a way out. Ahmed and Iraj stop over often. I enjoy their company, but sometimes as they’re talking, I drift away and tune them out, just as everything outside of me gets blocked out.

  Early one evening, I’m outside my room on the terrace when I hear Ahmed’s grandma.

  “He’s coming to take me away,” she declares from the balcony of Ahmed’s house.

  “Who’s coming, Grandma?” I call.

  Her wrinkled forehead tightens up as she says, “My husband. He’s giving me a New Year’s present by taking me away.”

  “Oh,” I say, feeling sad for her, but wishing that Zari or Doctor would come to me with the same present.

  I notice that she has a touch of makeup on her face. “You look nice, Grandma,” I tell her.

  “I wanted to look good for him,” she says. “You know, we talk every night, but he doesn’t let me see him.”

  “Do you see him, Grandma?” I ask, thinking about my own Zari, gliding in the night shadows.

  “Oh, yes, I see him every night ever since he went away,” she says, the trace of a sad smile on her face. “You see him, too, don’t you?”

  “Where do you look for him?”

  Grandma squints at me, as if she doesn’t understand my question.

  “Does he hide in the dark?” I prompt. “Does he ever move, or does he stay still?”

  “Still?” she asks, obviously not understanding what I’m talking about. She shuffles to the edge of the balcony, and again I hear my mother’s voice in the back of my mind. Hundreds of people fall off these damn roofs every year. I quickly move closer to Grandma to make sure that I can catch her in case she loses her balance.

  “He wants me to go away with him this time,” she whispers, a serious look in her eyes.

  “Has he ever talked to you?” I ask.

  “Talked to me?”

  “Yeah.”

  Grandma thinks for a while. “I don’t know. I’m hard of hearing. If he does, I don’t hear him.”

  “But you hear my wife crying, don’t you?”

  “Your wife? Why does she cry?”

  I look at Grandma’s confused face and wish I hadn’t brought up the subject.

  “You shouldn’t let your wife cry,” she says. “My husband never let me cry. He never did.”

  “Yes, Grandma.”

  “You know how he and I met?” she says, a crooked little smile dawning on her face.

  “At the American embassy?”

  “American embassy?” she murmurs blankly.

  “No, Grandma,” I correct myself, “I don’t know. How did you meet?”

  “Would you like me to tell you?” she says, animated now.

  “Yes, please.”

  “When I was seventeen,” she begins, “I was diagnosed with an incurable disease. An incurable disease, they called it. My poor mother prayed day and night, asking God to have mercy on me, as if God had nothing better to do!” Suddenly a bewildered expression creeps over Grandma’s face. “Have you ever been seventeen years old?” she asks.

  “Yes, Grandma.”

  “Oh,” she mumbles. “Never had an incurable disease though, right?”

  “No, Grandma. I never did.”

  She thinks for a while, as if she’s lost track of where she is in the story. Finally she asks, “Do you think heaven and hell are connected?”

  “What?” I ask.

  “My mother used to say that God dug a huge hole in the ground and filled it with fire, then built heaven on top of it. But that doesn’t make any sense, does it? That would make the floor of heaven too hot to pray on, don’t you think?”

  I want to laugh, but I hold it in.

  “But then, if heaven and hell aren’t connected,” she continues, “what’s in between them?” She turns around and looks at me inquisitively. I shrug my shoulders to indicate that I don’t know the answer.

  “My poor mother used
to cry all night long because I had an incurable disease, and I was going to die and go to heaven,” she says, “wherever the hell heaven is. She fasted and gave money to the poor, she sacrificed a lamb a month and gave the most tender meat to the poor. She cooked a special soup called aash and fed it to the poor, and all along I’m thinking, ‘I’m the one who’s dying, why are the poor getting all the treats?’ ”

  Grandma smiles, realizing she has made a clever joke, and I grin encouragingly at her.

  “I had a horrible pain in my stomach all the time,” she says. “On top of that, I couldn’t keep food down and always threw up everything that touched my lips. Life couldn’t be more miserable, and all of this when I was only seventeen years old.” She shakes her head. “Seventeen’s not a good age. That’s when you realize that you have a heart. That’s when feelings get in the way of thinking.” She pauses for a while.

  “Ahmed’s grandpa lived a few doors down from us. He was a young, handsome man, a very handsome man. Every time I saw him, I cried and cried and cried.” She pauses for a while again, staring into the night. Finally she says, “Did I tell you that he’s coming back to take me away?”

  “Yes, Grandma.”

  “He came back before, but I couldn’t go. This time I’d like to go with him, I really would.” Grandma is silent for a long time. She looks down into the yard and takes a deep breath. I inch closer to her, fearing that she may lose her balance and fall off the edge. The look on her face is so confused that I can’t possibly guess where her mind is. Finally she says, “One day, I climbed a big hill behind my father’s house, and threw myself off a cliff.”

  “You threw yourself off a cliff?” I ask, moving closer still.

  “What good is life if you have to live without the person you love? I remember now. I didn’t have an incurable disease—I was in love. But then, love is an incurable disease, don’t you think?”

  In a whisper I agree that it is.

  “Yes, of course. That’s why all famous lovers die at the end of their stories.”

  Suddenly, Grandma seems totally cognizant of everything around her. The dazed, fuzzy look that made her seem half-witted and lost is replaced by the alert expression of an individual in full control of her faculties. She is sitting so close to me that I can count the number of wrinkles on her face, a face I’ve seen many times but never really looked at. She runs her fingers through her amazingly long gray hair and murmurs something under her breath. She was once tall and thin, but has grown stooped with age. Her eyes are a pale brown that borders on gray, the same color as my grandpa’s eyes. I can tell from the shape of her long chin and the way she swallows the saliva in her mouth that she’s wearing dentures.

  She seems more like a portrait than a person, and I’ve learned to love her dearly.

  “My father’s home was built near a cliff. Did I tell you that already?” she asks in a voice that is scratchy but kind, like my own grandmother’s voice.

  “Yes, you did, Grandma.”

  “I was in the air forever, thinking I was going to die for sure. Who can survive a fall like that? I lost consciousness in the air. When I opened my eyes, I found myself in his arms. He saw me jumping off the cliff, and he caught me.”

  “That’s wonderful, Grandma. He must have been a very strong man.”

  “Oh, yes, the strongest man in the world,” Grandma remembers with a faraway smile.

  “That’s right,” I hear Ahmed’s voice affirm from the darkness, “he caught my grandma in the air. He was the strongest man in the world.”

  “He’s coming to take me away,” Grandma tells Ahmed.

  “Yes, Grandma. I told you he’ll be back soon,” Ahmed says, hugging her frail, bent frame.

  “He wants to surprise me,” she says, buried in Ahmed’s embrace. “And someday we’ll come back and surprise you two. That would be nice now, wouldn’t it?”

  “Very nice,” Ahmed agrees, and I nod. She starts limping back toward the house.

  “That would be very nice. Yes, very nice indeed,” she mumbles as she disappears inside.

  Ahmed shakes his head and smiles. “My grandma’s stories are getting more creative and amusing. She is an amazing person. Did you know she was one of the first women in her town to do away with the chador?”

  “No!” I reply, surprised.

  “Most people don’t know it, but she was. And in Ghamsar, of all places! Not the most progressive city in the world.” A sad smile softens his face. “She was the first woman in her town to get a high school diploma. She was rebellious, tough-minded, and hard as a rock. Her parents married her off to my grandpa to get rid of her.” Ahmed smirks. “Grandma didn’t want him, hated him. In fifty years she never said an affectionate word to him, not that he expected it.”

  I shake my head. Grandma’s endless dreams of Grandpa remind me a bit too much of my nightly search for Zari in the shadows. I wonder if someday I’ll be wandering around the neighborhood making up stories about Zari being a college professor or saving cats from burning buildings.

  “He was a good man, and put up with her patiently,” Ahmed continues. “I think he was the only one who took her seriously. He never complained about her, either. Some of Grandpa’s friends thought he was a weak man. Neighbors in Ghamsar would say that he wasn’t a man at all, that he couldn’t take her in bed and that’s why she was as aggressive as she was. Grandpa didn’t mind, didn’t listen to any of it—but she did. So she had four kids in a row.”

  A sly expression creeps over Ahmed’s face.

  “I wonder if those were the only times she let him have her.”

  I smile.

  “Did you know that she’s an atheist?” Ahmed asks.

  “No.”

  “A woman of her age, with her upbringing in Ghamsar, not believing in God? Can you imagine? She’s lucky she wasn’t stoned to death. My dad says she has never prayed for anything, but that all of her wishes have come true.”

  “How?”

  “Grandpa,” Ahmed says, lighting up a cigarette. “He was the God she never worshipped, and now she sees him everywhere.”

  29

  An Angel Calling

  My mother brings up hot tea, but I pretend to be asleep in my chair. She leaves the room without waking me up. I’ve told her that I fall asleep faster when I’m not in bed. Lying in bed seems to shift my brain into hyperactive chaos. I toss and turn and get frustrated, so I end up back in the chair with a book, dozing off after reading only a few pages.

  I don’t know what time I really fall asleep, but my much-needed rest is suddenly interrupted by a woman’s cry. I’m not sure where the sound has come from, but I feel the hair on the back of my neck rise. It was undoubtedly the cry of a woman, and it definitely came from outside my window. I want to open my eyes and look outside, but I’m too tired. I listen carefully, only to hear the silence of an undisturbed night. I remember Ahmed’s grandma saying that she heard the girl next door crying. Your wife misses you. She cries for you every night, like I cry for Grandpa. A shiver ripples down my spine.

  I hear another soft cry, this one from directly outside my window. A chill sweeps through me, and I begin to shake uncontrollably. I open my eyes and look at my watch. It’s four in the morning.

  There is another cry. I throw my pillow on the ground and rush outside to the terrace. I’m afraid to look toward Zari’s room, but that’s where my attention is drawn. Her window is open, but the curtains are shut tight. Who’s crying, and why? Is it the Masked Angel? Why would she cry? Does she miss Zari? Maybe she’s homesick and misses her parents. Maybe she’s in love with a man back home and misses him. No, that can’t be; she doesn’t strike me as that kind of woman.

  I listen carefully and attentively, but hear nothing more. I sit on the short wall that separates my balcony from Zari’s and wonder whether I should walk up to her window and look inside. A mild breeze moves her curtains; the light in her room is off. Should I cross over? What’s the use? It’s too dark, and I won’t
be able to see anything.

  The pounding of my heart fills my ears and chest. Suddenly, something moves beneath the short wall on Zari’s balcony. I look down—it’s the Masked Angel. She’s sitting motionless in the same spot where Zari and I used to sit, where I was sitting a few nights earlier dreaming of being with Zari. I want to say something, but my voice has died. I want to walk back to my room before she looks up, but I can’t move, just like the night Doctor was taken away.

  Gracefully and silently, she stands up, as if she knew all along that I was there, as if she expected me to be there. She turns toward me. The moonlight penetrates the black lace that makes up the front of her burqa, and beneath it two moist, turquoise eyes shine like stars in a velvet sea of darkness. She breathes gently, and I feel there’s not enough oxygen in the universe to fill my lungs. The Masked Angel is about the same height, maybe even the same shape, although the veil makes it impossible to know for sure. It’s amazing how long a moment of utter stillness can last!

  Suddenly a mild wind blows from the south and shifts her black burqa, reminding me of the evening when a piece of night fluttered outside my window. Oh, my God, could that have been the Masked Angel, woven into the darkness of the night, seamlessly riding the shadows, watching me rock back and forth in my chair?

  The Masked Angel turns and starts walking back toward Zari’s room. The tail of her burqa drags behind her, collecting dust from the concrete. Her head is turned toward me as she walks away. I want to tell her to stop, but my voice is hiding. She enters the house and closes the glass door behind her. I sit for some time on the edge of the wall that separates our houses. Is the Masked Angel watching me at night? Why? What curiosity draws her to me? What did Zari tell her? Maybe she wants to see how badly I hurt.

  Hours go by, but I’m sleepless.

  30

  Enshallah

  Ahmed wasn’t kidding when he said that no one could break his spirit by beating him up in a stinking jail. He’s more defiant and rebellious than ever. He says what he wants, and does what pleases him. According to Iraj, he openly criticizes the school officials, especially Mr. Gorji, our onetime powerless religion teacher turned maniacal school principal.