Rooftops of Tehran

by Mahbod Seraji

  “That would be much better, and a lot easier on you,” she explains.

  The day before my good-bye party and a week before my departure, I’m looking into Zari’s yard from my vantage point on the roof when I decide that I need to tell Mr. and Mrs. Naderi about everything that happened between Zari and me. It would be good for them to know that my intentions were totally honorable, and that I loved Zari more than life itself.

  Ahmed agrees with my plan. He thinks they’ll be moving soon because he has been witnessing strange activities in their house. Strangers are coming and going at odd hours of the day and night—they must be the SAVAK agents. They plan these kinds of exiles carefully to ensure that they are carried out as inconspicuously as possible, since according to official claims the SAVAK hardly exists. For months now, there have been rumors in the alley that Mr. Naderi must move to a warmer region for his health.

  I ring the bell to their house, and the Masked Angel opens the door. I say hello, and she whispers an inaudible hello in return. As always, she’s wearing her burqa, and I can barely see her eyes behind the lace. Her downcast gaze and hunched shoulders tell me that she’s uncomfortable in my presence. I quickly look away to ease her tension. “I’m here to see Mr. and Mrs. Naderi,” I whisper. “I’m leaving in a few days, and I’d like to say good-bye to them.”

  The Masked Angel stands in the doorway without moving or saying anything.

  “May I see them?” I ask.

  She steps quickly out of the way and gestures for me to enter the house. I try not to look at the cherry tree as we walk through the yard. The Masked Angel leads the way toward the living room and whispers that her uncle and aunt are on the third floor, and that she will get them for me.

  There are boxes everywhere, signaling their imminent departure. I stand in the middle of the room, unsure what to do, as she quickly disappears down the hallway. I’m reminded once again of Keivan’s birthday party. The house was full of kids running around, playing, screaming, laughing, and bitterly complaining about one another. Zari snuck up close to me as Ahmed was keeping everyone busy with the Who Am I? game. “I hope your girlfriend doesn’t mind that you’re helping me out tonight,” Zari had said, leaning forward to see my eyes.

  “My girlfriend?” I’d asked.

  “Yeah, the one who’s softer than . . .”

  The lump is back in my throat.

  There was so much activity and so much life in this house on that warm summer day. This empty room is such a stark contrast. A few meters away, on a small round table that is placed close to the samovar, I see Zari’s notebook of drawings. I walk over to the table and pick up the book. Page by page, I look at each drawing and remember every word Zari uttered to describe them.

  “This is a picture of you guys playing soccer in the alley. Can you guess which one is you?”

  “Which one?”

  “You weren’t there that day!”

  Toward the end of the book, I come across the picture she drew of my mystery woman and me. What is this picture doing here? I’ve been looking for it ever since I came back from the hospital. I know that I pinned it to the wall of my bedroom and stared at it every night, fantasizing a million ways to give it to her without saying a word—just as she had instructed me to do. I imagined her face as she was taking the picture from me: those smiling eyes looking directly at me, cheeks blushing with excitement, and her sigh of relief at knowing that she was the woman of my dreams.

  Just then, Mr. and Mrs. Naderi walk into the room. I quickly place the drawing book back on the table. Zari’s parents embrace me and tell me to sit down and make myself comfortable. Mrs. Naderi pours me a cup of tea, and tells me she’s happy I’m going away. Life has been too hard for me in this country, and being away will do me a lot of good, especially if I focus my efforts on my studies, away from all that has happened here. Her family will miss me, but this is exactly what I should be doing.

  Mr. Naderi nods in agreement as he lights a cigarette.

  “Would you study medicine or engineering?” he asks, as if no other academic major is a viable option. Before I have a chance to respond he adds, “Study hard because education is the only cure for ignorance, and it’s up to people like you to liberate this country from the disease of dictatorship and help construct a better future for kids like Keivan.”

  The Masked Angel enters the room with a plate of sweets, which she places in front of me and whispers, “Please, help yourself.” She then proceeds to the other side of the room and sits down on the floor close to Mrs. Naderi, in front of the round table where Zari’s drawing book lies. Mr. Naderi says that he and his family are very happy for me, and they hope that I won’t forget them while I’m away. I shake my head no.

  Mrs. Naderi wants to know where I’m going, how long I will be gone, and what I will study. Am I anxious about being in a foreign country, and how do my parents—especially my mother—feel about it? The Masked Angel’s eyes are fixed on me as I answer Mrs. Naderi’s questions. I can see them blinking fast behind the veil. But I look mostly at Mr. and Mrs. Naderi because the Masked Angel becomes visibly uncomfortable every time I glance in her direction. I tell them that I hope to get a degree in three years, that I will miss Iran, the alley, and all my friends, relatives, and neighbors. I express my wish that I were leaving under different circumstances. I pause, beginning to sweat at the thought of revealing the secret I never thought I’d share with anyone but my best friends. My hands start to shake, and my face feels hot.

  “I would like permission to speak candidly about my relationship with Zari,” I whisper.

  No one says anything, and I begin to feel that maybe I should stop right there. My palms are sweaty, and I can feel the heat from my flushed face. I wonder why telling the truth is so hard. I understand now why my uncle and aunt write instead of talking when they have uncomfortable topics to discuss! But I have to go on. It’s too late to stop now.

  I drop my gaze to avoid eye contact with anyone in the room, and begin my story. I say that I always thought Zari was a special girl. As a boy, I was impressed with the way she handled herself. Of course, her engagement to Doctor, the greatest guy in our neighborhood, also elevated her status in my eyes. I say that I used to watch the two of them from the roof of our house, and although I couldn’t hear what they were talking about, I knew they always discussed important topics because intelligent people wouldn’t waste time on frivolous things.

  I look up and notice a stoic expression on both Mr. and Mrs. Naderi’s faces. Not daring to look at the Masked Angel, I hang my head and continue.

  “I loved Doctor. He was an extraordinary man, a great man. He had That.” Finally I look up at the Masked Angel. I can tell from the sounds that come from under her burqa that she’s weeping.

  “And of course Zari, being engaged to my friend and mentor, always had a special place in my heart. I mean, she was Doctor’s fiancée, right?” I repeat as if I’m trying to drive that point home. “It was impossible for me to think of her as anything but Doctor’s future wife.” Then I pause for a long time because I don’t know what else to say.

  The silence in the room weighs heavily on me. This is a lot harder than what Ahmed did for Faheemeh. I would gladly take the beating he took instead of this, as there’s nothing more disgraceful than falling in love with your friend’s fiancée and having to admit it.

  Mr. Naderi lights a cigarette, clears his throat, and asks, “What are you trying to say, my son?”

  I shake my head, mute and ashamed.

  “Damn those bastards that have destroyed the lives and hopes of so many young people!” Mrs. Naderi cries out.

  Out of the corner of my eye I see her wiping the tears from her face with a white handkerchief.

  “You don’t need to say any more if it makes you uncomfortable,” Mr. Naderi assures me in a soothing tone. “I’m pretty sure we know everything already.”

  Mrs. Naderi nods her head in mute agreement as the Masked Angel touches her face
under her burqa, wiping her own tears away.

  “This tragedy has destroyed so many lives so unnecessarily, so unfairly,” Mrs. Naderi says. “No one—and I mean no one—should feel ashamed of anything. We could only wish that the thoughts that have made you feel shameful were the worst that had happened to us. Damn the devil.”

  “I loved her very much,” I finally blurt, as tears stream down my face. “She was my life, she was my future.”

  Mr. Naderi blows the smoke out of his lungs, clears his throat, and says, “Listen, my son. Life is like a boat without sails: there is no telling where this boat will take us or which shore we’ll end up on. Sometimes it is wise not to fight the wind and accept things as they are, as painful as they may be, trusting in the wisdom of God and believing in the certainty of fate. No one can justify the pain we have all endured, and nothing can ever take the pain away. God knows, I wish I could offer you an alternative.”

  He stops abruptly, draws deeply on his cigarette, glances at the Masked Angel, who is still quietly crying under her veil, and shakes his head. “I swear on your love for Zari—the light of my eyes and the breath in my lungs—that we all wish for an alternative. Maybe someday this will all make sense, but it doesn’t right now.” He hangs his head, brushes at his eyes, and continues to smoke his cigarette.

  The Masked Angel walks up to Mr. Naderi, puts her arms around him, and whispers something in his ear that momentarily calms him down. Mr. Naderi’s condition surprises me, but I don’t know what to make of it.

  “What he means to say,” Mrs. Naderi adds, “is that you will always be welcome in our home. We know how you felt about Zari, and you needn’t feel ashamed of it. We know that she loved you, too. That’s all I am going to say.” She rocks from side to side and slaps her side a couple of times in frustration. “It’s hard for us to talk about this. I am sorry. What we are left with are lost hopes and destroyed dreams. It’s really so hard for us to talk about.”

  Mr. Naderi breaks into a bitter sob, and the Masked Angel hugs him harder and whispers louder and louder, “Don’t cry, don’t cry. Please, don’t cry. For my sake, don’t cry. I beg you to stop.” I see her eyes behind the lace of her burqa, those angelic, sad eyes that now look very familiar to me. I remember them from the picture in Zari’s photo album. She turns her head the other way and walks toward the doorway. Mr. Naderi keeps saying that he’s sorry while still crying.

  “Thank God you have her,” I say, pointing at the Masked Angel, who is about to exit the room. “She was like a sister to Zari.”

  Mr. Naderi shakes his head and whispers, “Yes, thank God we have her!”

  Then Mr. and Mrs. Naderi both hug me as I get up to leave. “You won’t be here when I get back,” I cry out.

  “No,” Mr. Naderi confirms.

  “How can I find you?” I ask, sobbing like a child who’s being separated from his parents forever.

  “We will find you,” Mr. Naderi says. “I swear on Zari’s love for you that we will find you.”

  Zari’s love for me. The sentence tears at my heart. Something inside me is ripped in two. I can’t possibly leave the country, and then I think of Mr. and Mrs. Naderi, Keivan, and the Masked Angel no longer living here, and I know that I must leave as soon as possible.

  Moments later I’m back in my own house with a heavy heart.

  33

  One More, Please

  That same day, my mother asks if I would like to go shopping with her. I say that I want to, but I’m tired and would like to stay home and enjoy my last days in the house. She hugs me and says, “I will miss you.”

  “I’ll miss you, too, Mom.”

  “Oh, no, no, no. You, my dear, have no idea how a mother can miss her child. So don’t give me that ‘I’ll miss you, too, Mom.’ ”

  I nod.

  “As hard as this is for me,” she says, while trying to smile instead of cry, “I know that this is the best thing for you. So, I plan to visit you as often as I can, even if it means selling the house, the family car, and all of my jewelry—because we can’t be torn away from our heart for four years now, can we?”

  I hug her. “Four years is nothing. It’ll go by in a wink. You should be happy that you’re getting a break from me.”

  She smiles and utters something between a laugh and a cry. “You do have a point,” she says.

  After she leaves, I sit in a chair by the hose in our yard. As the spring sun lulls me into a state of semi-unconsciousness, I think of what happened in Zari’s house. As painful as the experience was, I’m glad that I went over and talked with the Naderis. I feel right about my decision. It was the adult thing to do, and I’m glad I didn’t take the letter-writing route after all.

  Ahmed will soon come over, and as much as I enjoy his company, I want to delight in the quiet serenity of my surroundings. I close my eyes and let my thoughts wander. Even at rest, my mind is in a hyperactive state. I distinctly hear a car with a broken muffler pass through the alley. There’s a long silence, and then the chirping of a few birds. A few minutes later a couple of cats hiss at each other, and then a throaty growling noise, then nothing. A roaring airplane passes by overhead, followed by another uninterrupted period of silence. Then, I hear a child’s giggle and a woman’s muffled voice asking him to be quiet. Then another giggle, and another, and finally a young woman’s whisper from the other side of the wall in Zari’s yard. The hair on the back of my neck stands up. A shiver slides down my spine, and suddenly I’m wide awake.

  “One more story, please, just one more!” the child whispers.

  “Hush!” is the response.

  I open my eyes and listen. Nothing.

  “Zari!” I say involuntarily. I turn and look at the wall behind me as I listen with every fiber of my being to the unusual silence that has filled the air. I walk up to the wall that separates Zari’s house from mine. I put my ear against it and listen—nothing but absolute quiet. Was this a dream? It must have been, and I’m probably still dreaming, otherwise how could the whole world plunge into a state of total noiselessness? I look around and touch the brick wall with my hands to ensure that I’m functioning in a world made of solid materials. I’m not dreaming.

  I wish I could see into Zari’s yard. I run toward the steps that connect the yard to the terrace on the first floor, and then up the steps to the second and third floor, skipping two or three steps at a time. I open the door to the balcony and rush to the edge where I can see down into her yard.

  No one is there.

  I lean over the edge to see if I can see anyone on her first-floor terrace. There’s no one. I look toward Zari’s room on the third floor. The curtains are pulled tight. I pace back and forth on the balcony as my whole body tingles.

  “It was only a dream,” I whisper to myself. “Besides, what if Keivan was just begging the Masked Angel for one more story, like he used to do when his sister was alive?”

  I look into her yard again. I want to tell myself that my suspicion is absurd, preposterous, and downright stupid—but I don’t. My tormented heart defies my logical mind.

  She wouldn’t do that to me, I keep thinking. She would never inflict so much pain on me, no matter what the circumstances.

  But what if the Masked Angel is my Zari, hiding her scorched face under a veil? Why would she do that? Does she not know how miserable my life has been without her? Does she not know the pain that her absence has caused me? I hunch down and lean back against the short wall, biting my hands to hold back my whimpers.

  “God, please, I want my Zari back!” I cry, belatedly remembering that I don’t believe in God anymore.

  I look into the empty yard again, and can’t believe how everything seems to have come to a standstill, as if the world is holding its breath in anticipation of an answer to this mystery. I run to my room and look around, unsure of what I’m hoping to find. I run back onto the terrace and take a deep breath of the fresh air. I wish Ahmed and Faheemeh were here. I sit on the short wall and try to put the p
ieces of the puzzle together methodically, but I’m overwhelmed by a storm of emotions that blows me farther and farther from the shores of reason.

  I try to focus on the moment I heard Keivan’s whisper, “One more story, please . . .” Was that a dream? Did I really hear him? What did I hear before that? The car with the broken muffler! Does anyone own a car with a broken muffler in our neighborhood? If that sound was real, then Keivan’s whisper was real, too. What else did I hear? The cats fighting and hissing at each other. I look in the neighbors’ yards for the cats. The growling must have been real. Why would I dream of two cats fighting? But none of our neighbors own cats; they must have been strays.

  I think of the shadow that watches me at night. I already know it’s the Masked Angel, but why would she watch me unless she were actually my own Zari? It was her veil the other night that moved with the force of the wind, I know that now, too. Everything is beginning to make sense. “The Masked Angel never rushes anything,” Faheemeh once said. “She glides like the spring breeze—calm, gentle, and deliberate. There is nothing expeditious about her.” Then why does she walk so fast every time I see her coming back from the bakery in the morning? The person under the veil is not the Masked Angel. It is Zari, hiding from me, either because she was told by the SAVAK to do so, or because she doesn’t want me to see her charred face. Oh, my poor, dear little Zari!

  She told me once that she wanted to become an expert in interpreting the poetry of Hafiz. How could I not see it all these nights, staring at her through the opening in the curtain? The Masked Angel has all of Hafiz memorized. She wouldn’t be reading his Divan because it’s all in her head. It’s Zari who reads the book, trying to fill the lonely nights. And earlier today, I found the picture Zari had drawn of me and my mystery woman in their house. Somehow Zari must have taken it out of my room when I was in the hospital. And then the outburst of Mr. Naderi—it’s all making sense now. He said he wished he could offer me an alternative, and that’s when Zari walked up to him, hugged him, and whispered something in his ear. The Masked Angel would be too religious to embrace a man who is not a blood relative!