Deliverance

by Véronique Launier

  Back in the seventeen hundreds, I had avoided Ramtin instead of chasing him. I hadn’t liked him then either, but back then he’d only been an inconvenience, maybe even a rival. My attention had been captured by a different ancient gargoyle and the way the air around her was always filled with music.

  The taxi's abrupt stop snapped my focus to the scenery at hand. At first glance, there was nothing spectacular, just another Tehran traffic jam. But the song resonating from the building was anything but ordinary. It came straight from the very memories I had just been indulging in.

  I remembered the first time I had heard that song on a hot night in Esfahan. The way the musician's black hair framed her face and wide eyes. She hadn't been my first love, but it was a memorable one. It could have been a great one, except she had guarded her heart too closely. Her honey-tinged eyes and the music that escaped her fingers spoke of sorrow and loss. My heart still tightened when I thought of her.

  I'd never told anyone about her. She was a secret love, someone unattainable. Even to me. She was one of us, but more. The essence that ran through her was pure in a way I never knew existed. Not until she introduced me to Ramtin. They seemed to be the same; him and her. Grace and elegance and a certain edge that the rest of our kind simply lacked. Marguerite had reminded me of her in a way. She had that spirit, though it had been a faded version of it.

  Of course she was the first thing that had come to my mind when I’d first thought of coming to Iran, but I hadn't planned on seeing her this time. For one thing, I couldn’t trust her. She may have been in league with Ramtin. I never understood their relationship. But when I heard that music, it no longer mattered. I asked the taxi to stop, paid him about twice what he would normally make in one day, and walked into the general store.

  The bell on the door alerted the shopkeeper of my presence and he came out from a back room, followed by two young girls.

  One of them looked a bit like her. I should have realized everything in this land would remind me of her, but I thought I was finally free of her. I had hardly thought of her in over a century.

  The girls said their goodbyes to the shopkeeper and tucked fly-away strands of hair into their head scarves before they left.

  "How can I help?" He spoke English with a thick accent. It was usually considered pretty safe to assume I was a foreigner and it seemed everyone was dying to practice their English no matter how little of it they knew.

  "I heard of a good harp player that sometimes plays here," I said. It was an absurd thing to say, but there was no way I should have been able to hear the music from the street if my hearing was at all human. Why would a harpist play in a grocery/electronics store for that matter?

  The man frowned. "You're friends with them, then?" he pointed to the door.

  So she was just an ordinary girl after all. Well, I had a lot to worry about without tracking a musically gifted girl who somehow got her hands on Nagissa's songs.

  I thanked the shopkeeper and was about to exit the building when I saw an antique harp leaning against a wall.

  “Is this for sale?”

  “Hatman! Of course! But it is very old and very, very expensive, my friend.”

  I shrugged and started to walk away. The man followed me to the door.

  “I will make you a very special price,” he said.

  I wasn’t interested. What would I do with a harp? I hadn’t come to Iran on a soul searching mission intent on reopening old wounds. I left the store.

  The late winter air is crisp and a thin layer of powdery snow covers the streets of Tehran. Very soon spring will spread across the city, but for now I shiver against the cold and kiss Leyli goodbye. She's off to the Laleh Café to hang out with some of our girlfriends and, of course, to flirt with boys.

  I grip the piece of paper Davood gave me with the band info. The soft paper feels rough in my hands, like it's trying to get my attention. I breathe deeply. I could do it. I could play in a band. I'm not a goody-goody. I take risks, the same as everyone else. But what if my sudden talent with the harp is nothing but a fluke? People seriously don't just become good with instruments overnight. And what would Maman say? Would she approve? She would worry about my safety, of course, but I don't think she’d mind as long as my other responsibilities don't suffer.

  My footsteps barely make a sound on the sidewalk; actually, it seems as if nothing is making any noise anywhere. Like the sounds of a city of over eight million people have suddenly become muffled and distant. My heart beats faster and I spin to look behind me more than once because the hair at the back of my neck is rising like someone is following me. Yet every time I see the same sight: a nearly empty street. I slow beside the alley I usually take home, but it doesn't feel like a good idea. I hesitate a moment longer, and keep moving. The shiver has spread along the rest of my body. I hurry my pace.

  I'm a few steps from the sanctuary of my apartment building when the ding of my phone startles me. An incoming text message. I swipe my finger on the screen apprehensively to unlock my phone and look around to make sure I'm alone. There is no indication of any danger anywhere and suddenly I'm feeling kind of sheepish and paranoid.

  The message is from Ehsan. I smile and open it.

  "Are you okay, azizam?"

  I take another look around me. Is he here? Why is he asking this? I start walking towards home again, typing as I walk.

  "What do you mean?"

  Fast as lightning, another text comes in.

  "I didn't hear from you all day. I missed you."

  This is why he’s perfect. We've been dating for just over a week and he’s already so attentive. He texts again and says if he can't see me for even one day, he will die. A little melodramatic, I know, yet it affects me and makes me feel all warm and toasty inside. I tell him I miss him too and before I even get through the front gate, he’s already replied asking if I want to go for a quick coffee.

  I weigh my options. I don’t actually want to go out. I'm tired. But he’s so sweet and I don’t want him to stop inviting. Just thirty minutes out won't kill me, and I warned my parents I may go to a café with Leyli anyway, so why waste a good alibi. I text him back, and we make plans for him to pick me up.

  Of course he shows up right on time. I wouldn't expect anything less from Ehsan. He steps out of his sleek silver Benz and gives me his signature cocky grin. My heart flutters. He wears his shades even though it's night time, and his hair is perfect. He looks around to make sure no one is looking and opens the passenger door for me. I appreciate the chivalry, but I would prefer if he just let me get in on my own. No reason to let the whole neighborhood know I'm getting in the car with a boy. What if my parents were to find out? They would be so disappointed with me, not so much for going out with a boy – I honestly don’t think they’d care about that – but for not being careful and discreet about it.

  I lean back in the comfortable seat, turn my head to face him and smile. He takes my hand in his and smiles back. I reach towards him to play with his hair, but I’m interrupted when my phone rings.

  "Alo?"

  "Nakissa jan, could you help out your poor mother and pick up some bread for dinner?"

  I look around. We are already driving in the opposite direction to where Maman likes me to buy bread. I hate asking Ehsan for a favor, but I can't tell my mother no, so I tell her I will and hang up.

  "What's wrong?"

  "My mother wants me to pick up some bread for supper."

  "No problem, baby. We'll go to the coffee shop for a few, and then we will swing by the bakery and pick up some bread. I know the best place in town."

  It's not exactly what Maman wanted, but it should be okay. I'm sure we won't be that long at the coffee shop. And I’m happy Ehsan doesn't mind at all to help me out. I'm so lucky to have him. I watch him as he drives. He leans forward in his seat to see something better and runs his fingers in his hair without messing it up. I wonder what he’s thinking about as he looks at his own reflection in the rearv
iew mirror. Does he think I’m boring? Maybe I should say something interesting.

  "What do you think about the new Fetid Crimson song?" I ask.

  He shrugs. "It's okay," he says. "I just think he's better when he records his stuff in America, you know?"

  "Yeah, I know," I say, even though I’d never noticed a difference in the sound between what he recorded in Tehran and what he recorded in Los Angeles. I'm not about to admit it.

  Since Ehsan and Leyli have some friends in common, we end up going to the same coffee shop she had asked me to come to. The Laleh Café is small but airy. The tables each hold a little bouquet of tulips, the flower from which the café takes its name. The walls are painted in cool shades of cream and cucumber and thick, flavorful smoke from the water pipes – the only traditional element in this modern café – fills the air.

  Leyli spots me and waves at me to join them. She’s in a corner partially obstructed from view by the clean and modern water fountain that graces the middle of the shop with its sharp lines and abstract curves. The other guys are all heavy into conversation. I can hear someone talking politics, though most seem to be talking about music and fashion. Slightly apart from everyone else, Mostafa and Fereshteh exchange glances while they talk, obviously the beginning of a romance.

  I sit at Leyli's table with the girls, while Ehsan sits with the boys. Our tables are so close to each other that they (and we) are nearly touching.

  "So, did you call them?" Leyli asks.

  "Call who?" Ehsan says. Under the table, he rubs his finger gently on my knee.

  I can't concentrate on either his or Leyli's question. I just notice the feeling of his finger on my jeans, how the thick fabric separating our touch is just an extension of us.

  "The band. Didn’t Nakissa tell you about it?"

  I can't believe I haven't. I was so pre-occupied with Ehsan and impressing him, I forgot to tell him my exciting news. The one thing that happened to me that would make me seem more interesting.

  "I was asked to join a band," I tell him before Leyli can spill more of my good news.

  "What do you mean join a band?"

  "They want me to play harp for them." I take the now-slightly-crumpled paper from my pocket and place it on the table in front of me.

  "You play harp? That seems so..." he pauses, searching for the right word, "traditional..." The setting of his chin and curling of his lips makes the word into a bad one.

  "The music is very modern," Leyli interjects.

  I share a look with her. We hadn't even heard Farâsoo play yet.

  "So why haven't you called them?" Ehsan asks.

  I shrug. I haven't had the chance to make up my mind about it, but I don't want to tell Ehsan that. "I don't know."

  "I'll call them for you!" Leyli holds out her hand and I place the paper in it. She walks to a quieter corner of the coffee shop and takes out her mobile phone. She comes back two minutes later. "We have a party to go to," she announces.

  "I can't. I have to pick up bread for Maman and..."

  "Don't worry, azizam. It's not until later, of course. We'll sneak out after bed time."

  I'm about to argue that I can't really sneak out from my apartment, when I notice the approving look on Ehsan's face. I don't want to disappoint him, so I nod to Leyli.

  “I’ll read our Hafez fortunes before we go,” Leyli announces.

  A knot twists in my stomach. Whenever Leyli gets me to pick a page at random in her Hafez poetry book, things get weird. She has a way of interpreting the poems in the strangest ways so they always seem to come true.

  Having completely exhausted my leads, I retraced my steps from the previous days, hoping that I had missed something somewhere. When I passed by the old general store where I'd heard Nagissa's song, I realized there was one lead which I hadn't yet pursued. Nagissa herself. She and Ramtin had had a relationship of sorts, though I never understood it. She seemed to hate him, but her fate was ever intertwined with his. She should have been my first lead, but I was too focused on the present. I couldn’t dwell on the past. With as much history as I carried, the past would crush me. I had also always hated associating the two of them together, always hoping to ignore that connection. I had wanted her to be mine.

  But this wasn’t about my broken heart. It was about finding Ramtin and possibly even saving the world. If it meant finding the love that had gotten away, maybe it was my destiny. I walked lighter as I stepped into the old building and scanned for the sales guy, who eventually came out from the back room. My experience with underground parties, studios and the like made me extra perceptive to what was around me. The merchandise's haphazard placement wasn't due to laziness, but because the store owner wasn't invested in this business. It was just a front for something else. It could have been any number of illegal operations, especially here in Tehran, but the harp I'd heard the other day and the way the shopkeeper had hinted that his last customers were musicians indicated something music related.

  Even if this store did not prove to be a link to Nagissa, it may still bring me to Ramtin.

  "Is this the recording studio that Fetid Crimson recorded their latest song in?" I bluffed.

  The man eyed me warily, rubbing his goatee. "No, it isn't, my friend. Does this look like a studio?” He hesitated. “Is there something else I can help you with?"

  "I don't know if you remember me. I came here yesterday. I’m visiting Tehran."

  He raised an eyebrow. I was getting somewhere. It was safer talking to tourists.

  “Yes, you were interested in the harp.”

  Of course, a sizeable purchase would oil some wheels as well.

  “I was, but it’s in very bad condition. It would cost me over a million tomans just to get it restored.” I planned to overpay for the instrument, but it didn’t mean I wanted to get completely ripped off. This was about building trust with the man and I wouldn’t do that if I appeared to be a complete idiot.

  “Yes, yes, and of course my price reflects this.” Once he realized I was serious, he entered bargaining mode. “I can make you a very special price.”

  We negotiated for a while in the timeless manner I had used in the bazaars over three hundred years ago. By the time I finally bought it, I had only paid a few thousand tomans more than it was worth and we were both satisfied.

  I had bought a harp. I tried to convince myself it didn’t mean that Nagissa was finding her way back into my thoughts.

  “So where are you from? America? Your Persian is very formal, as if you learned it from an old book.”

  "I'm from Canada, and I guess you could say I learned my Persian from an old source," I told him in English. "Someone told me I could find a recording studio here. I was trying to track down Ramtin Zardooz from Fetid Crimson, or the harpist Nagissa."

  "Do you mean Nakissa?"

  "Nagissa."

  "Nakissa? Tall, slim, pale olive-tone skin and large light brown eyes? Plays the harp like an angel?"

  Other than the different consonant, it did sound like we were describing the same person. "Yes, but her name is Nagissa."

  The shopkeeper shrugged. "Perhaps she was trying to be clever, make her name sound more traditional."

  "Any idea where I can find her?"

  "She should be at a party tonight. I can take you there."

  This was one thing I loved about Iran. Everywhere I went, people were only too happy to extend their hospitality. I’d been invited to dinner, to parties, even to strangers’ weddings. The shopkeeper, Davood, and I exchanged information and phone numbers and I left.

  Since I had some time before the party, I made a plan to talk to random people about Ramtin and accumulate more leads.

  I found a shared taxi that headed south, an area I hadn't yet explored, and squeezed in next to a teenage boy and girl who, when introducing themselves, claimed to be brother and sister. The girl eyed me suspiciously at first, but I guess they quickly decided I was cool, because they began talking freely next to me.

/>   "I told you; I can't be home too late," the girl whispered.

  "Don't worry about it. I'll have you home before anyone knows anything." He lowered his voice even more before continuing, "I know this really private place."

  "But it's dangerous in those parts."

  "No, don't worry. Ever since the earthquakes there are empty places where nobody will bother us."

  The girl cast a furtive glance in my direction, so I turned my head to look out the window.

  "It's not the people I'm worried about."

  The boy clucked his tongue at her. "You don't believe in those Jinn stories, do you?"

  "I've heard it from a reliable source. And it's not just the Jinn. I heard about monsters made of the crumbled stones of ruined buildings, as if the dead haunted them somehow."

  "That's ridiculous," the boy admonished.

  But I knew it wasn't. I'd heard of the Jinn before, though I'd never met them. Appearing in old tales as genies and the like. These creatures were made of pure essence; they were only soul and nothing else. They didn't play by the same rules as humans, rules that we Gargoyles also tried to follow.

  Without Aude around to drain their essence, I wasn't sure if entering a territory that was rumored to be overtaken by stone monsters was a very wise course of action. However, as supernatural creatures often banded together, this could turn out to be my best lead to find Ramtin and Nagissa.

  The pretend brother and sister pair exited the taxi and I followed them out. They glared at me, but I simply shrugged and walked in a southward direction, hoping I wasn't making a stupid mistake. As I headed deeper into the slums of South Tehran, stone monsters and supernatural horrors were the last thing on my mind. The natural devastation was too much to take. In the affluent parts of the city, the only reminders of the earthquakes were a few buildings still undergoing some repairs, some cracked foundations, and a few cosmetically damaged places.