by Deno Trakas
“You didn’t call the police?”
“No.”
“And you didn’t recognize him? You’d never seen him before?”
“No.”
“Did you see the car he was driving?”
“No, I sorry, I no think.”
“Let me take you to the police to report this.”
“Thank you Sir, but no.”
“Why not?”
“I am Mus-lim bitch,” she said, staring off across the room. She pronounced the words as if the sounds were imprinted permanently and exactly on her memory. And she was right—no one here was going to put much effort into protecting an Iranian student. For the first time I realized how difficult it must be for her, for all the Iranians, who were trapped behind enemy lines. Some had probably gone home, but most had stayed, and they stayed at the mercy of our benevolence. God help anyone who had to depend on that, I thought. Just the other day I’d heard a local congressman on a TV talk show say that what he wanted for Christmas was a machine gun and a room full of Iranian “students.” He’d pretty much summed up the mood of the country.
Our pizza arrived, so I went back to the other side of the table. I put a slice on Azi’s plate, then took a big one for me and started eating with my hands. I was embarrassed by my hunger and slowed down. She used her fork and only nibbled.
“Listen,” I said, “America is a violent country, and there’s a lot of hostility”—the teacher in me noticed the squint in her eyes that meant she didn’t understand the word—“anger toward your country, but all Americans don’t hate you.” She half-nodded. “And you ought to move, at least for a while, in case he comes back, and so you can forget what happened. Do you have another friend you can stay with?”
“I have one girl friend, Nadia, room-mate.”
“Well maybe you should both move.”
She smiled. “Thank you Sir—”
“Call me Jay, please.”
“O-kay, Jay, but I go home. Tehran. I plan many day.” Here was another shock for me, and, noticing, she explained. “Mother sick. And cousin Sadegh is new Foreign Minister, and he say I go home.”
Sadegh Ghotbzadeh, of course. I’d heard the name and seen the man on the news, had wondered if there was a connection although they didn’t look alike at all. I laughed—this was theater of the absurd.
“What is funny?” Azi asked.
“Hell if I know. It’s just, for three months I’ve wanted to go out with you. Now, finally, I get the chance, but I find out that you’re the Iranian Foreign Minister’s cousin, and you were attacked today, and now you’re going back to Iran. The next time I see you you’ll probably be on the six o’clock news, marching in the streets of Tehran, chanting ‘Death to America.’”
“No,” she said simply.
“But you’ll be mad, you should be, after what happened today.”
“Yes mad with man, no mad with America.”
I leaned back, idling, looking at her, staring at her, admiring her, wondering what she was thinking. After a moment I asked impulsively, “How old are you, Azi?”
“Twenty-four.”
“I’m twenty-seven.” Then, because I couldn’t think of anything better and because I didn’t want to take her home and give her up, I asked if she wanted to go to a movie. She said o-kay, though I could tell she was indifferent to the idea. Al Pacino was in it—Azi said I looked like him—but I don’t remember much else except sharing a big bucket of popcorn and a Coke.
In the yellow light outside her apartment, she smiled and said “Thank you Jay, I have good time.”
“When are you leaving for Tehran?”
“The next week, Thursday.”
“Will you go out with me again?”
“Yes, I like.”
We stood looking at each other, the early December air visible between us as we breathed. I held still, nervous, not wanting to go. “Will you be okay tonight?”
“Yes, Nadia here, I think.”
“Why don’t you check, just to be sure?”
“O-kay. Come in, please.”
The decor inside the apartment was attractive, the furnishings matched in shades of peach and lime as if they’d been ordered from the same page of a department store catalog by a woman who didn’t trust her own taste. There was no trace of Mid-East culture, except for some photos on an end table of people with dark skin and black hair. Compared to my place, this was elegant.
Azi returned, after having checked the back rooms, and said that Nadia was out. “Why don’t you stay with me tonight? You can have my bed, and I’ll sleep on the couch.”
“Thank you, but I, no.”
“It won’t be any trouble.” She hesitated a second, looking over her shoulder to her room, but said no again. “I can’t leave you here alone.”
“I am o-kay. Nadia come soon.”
“Then I’ll stay until she gets here. Do you mind?”
“No, thank you. I make the coffee.” But before she even got to the kitchen, the doorbell rang. She stopped, looking at me to tell her the next move. I held up my hand to make her stay, and I went. There were Saad and Abbas, bowing, smiling uncertainly, saying, “Hello, hello Azadeh, hello Mr. Nickel.” For a second we all stood awkwardly, then Azi invited them in and went to the kitchen to fix the coffee.
I wondered about the lateness of their visit—almost 11:00 P.M.—but I just assumed this was their custom. Without taking off their brown blazers, which, I’d noticed, they wore in all kinds of weather, they sat on the edge of the sofa. I faced them from an armchair, and we talked about the holidays. They told me they were not going home to Iran but were planning on driving to California, with a stop at the Grand Canyon. I said I thought that was a great idea and wished I could go with them, but since I was broke I had to go home to Spartanburg and let my mother supply room and board for a couple of weeks. Actually, I was dreading it, going home for the holidays, but I didn’t want to open that closet for the boys.
Azi returned and the small talk continued over coffee and halvah, but soon the gaps in conversation made it clear that four was a crowd and someone had to leave. Under other circumstances I would have bowed out, but slowly the feeling had grown in me that Abbas and Saad had come just for that reason, to make me leave. So I was determined to stay. Azi showed no sign of wanting me to go; in fact, she seemed indignant too and had begun to speak faster and louder to Saad in Farsi or Arabic. Suddenly he was shouting and waving his arms as if he were in treacherous water and didn’t know how to swim. Abbas had been telling me about Saad’s car, a ’68 Grand Prix that they’d gotten up to 108 miles an hour on the interstate, but he stopped to join forces with his buddy in battle. Azi seemed embarrassed and tried to stay calm, clenching the saucer with both hands in her lap, rattling her half-full cup of coffee. Their glances in my direction indicated that I was part of the fight, and I wished like never before that I knew their languages.
Soon it was over. Azi said something, the tone of which sounded like “Get out,” Saad argued and called her something, she repeated her orders, and the boys left, glaring at both of us on the way, trying to slam the door, but the plush carpet slowed it to a click.
I waited for Azi to explain, but the first thing she said was, “O-kay I sleep with you tonight?”
I was surprised by the phrasing and didn’t answer, so she began to tell me about the argument. She had politely asked the purpose of their visit, but when there was no answer, she indirectly asked if they had come to check on us. At first they denied it, but eventually they admitted that they were afraid the American would take advantage of her.
“Oh, so now I’m The American?” I asked.
“Yes, I am angry and I say you are teacher and friend, but they say no American is friend. Then I say you protect I, and I say about man who attack, and I say you want for I to be safe in your apartment. They say I no to go to your apartment, Islam say no. They say where Nadia. I say I no know. They say they protect I, but I say no, you. Then they say bad
word and I say they leave.” She was seething and shaking now and had to put her cup and saucer on the coffee table to keep from dropping them.
I put my hand on her arm and said, “I’m sorry it happened like this, but I’m glad you’re coming over. Let’s go.”
“Yes, o-kay. I write the note and take the clothes.”
Abbas and Saad were sitting in their car in the parking lot when we came out, and they followed us to my apartment. I asked Azi if she thought they’d try to hurt us—she said no. I could’ve tried to lose them, but my beat-up Toyota was no match for their old Pontiac, and they probably knew where I lived anyway. Ignoring their car as it pulled up to the curb across the street, I took Azi inside my half of the duplex.
I gave her the tour, meaning I swept my arm around to indicate the wobbly Goodwill recliner, the duct-taped couch, the concrete block and board bookshelves, the decent stereo, the thirteen-inch TV, the wooden spool coffee table, two posters on the walls, one of Goya’s dark paintings and a quote by Jimmy Carter: “America did not invent human rights . . . human rights invented America.” My place was messy with books and legal pads, but at least there weren’t dirty dishes in the sink or dirty socks on the floor.
I made sure the door and windows were locked, and for a while we kept an eye on their car through the curtain as we sat on the couch in the living room and watched Saturday Night Live. I had a beer as usual before bed, but Azi didn’t want one. I could tell by her heavy eyes that she was exhausted—what a day she’d had—so I gave her a towel and showed her the bathroom, which wasn’t too embarrassingly dirty, while I went into the bedroom and straightened up.
When Azi came out of the bathroom, dressed in pajamas and a robe, she thanked me again, kissed me on the cheek, and retired. I pulled on a coat, stepped outside, and walked across the street. The windows were all fogged up except for two portholes the boys had cleared with their hands. At first they didn’t respond to my presence, and I wondered if they’d fallen asleep. Or maybe they were afraid I meant to bash in their windshield or something. But finally, as I stood a couple of feet from the passenger’s side, hands in pockets against the cold, they rolled down a window and looked at me defiantly, the American Satan holding their woman. I took out my hands and held them up to show them I wasn’t carrying a weapon. “Why don’t y’all go home where it’s warmer? Azi is safe, she’s sleeping in my bedroom. I’ll sleep on the couch. You don’t have to worry about anything.”
Saad rattled off something to Abbas, then turned to me and said, “We watch. No do bad.”
“I won’t. You don’t have to sit out here in the cold.”
They looked at each other and Saad said, “We stay.”
I shrugged, said, “Suit yourself,” which I knew would confuse them, then turned around and went back inside.
In the morning, when I opened my front door to get the paper, I half expected to see the boys’ Pontiac still parked across the street, frosted over, but it was gone. Instead, I saw my car resting on its rims—they had cut off the stems of all four tires and let out all the air.
I was furious, stomping around the car and cussing when Azi came out, already dressed, with a coat thrown over her shoulders. “What, Jay?” she asked, and then she saw. “Oh no, I sorry.” She came over to where I squatted, trying to determine if I’d have to buy four new tires, and she put her hand on my shoulder. I was thinking I’d have to pay for a tow truck at least, and how much would that cost—twenty dollars? fifty? Maybe I should just leave the car there in the street and let the neighborhood thieves haul it off piece by piece. “This my problem, Jay. I call to Nadia, she help.”
“That’s okay, Azi.” I stood up. “I just don’t know why they have to be such assholes.”
“They are angry. They are . . .”
I supplied a word. “Frustrated, I know.”
“Saad is divooneh, crazy I think you say, very Islam, and he think I am bad. . . . I talk to he.”
We went inside and I called a garage on Harden Street, less than a mile away, and arranged for them to come get the car and check the tires. Azi called Nadia, who gave us a ride to school in exchange for a full account of the dramatic last twenty-four hours.
Azi and Nadia went to see the boys that evening and scolded-explained-argued that their personal lives were none of the boys’ business, and threatened to go to the police if anything else happened. Abbas apologized and gave Azi ten dollars to help pay for the damage; Saad did neither. Azi insisted on paying me back, and I let her split the cost with me. That night, at the girls’ invitation, I slept on the couch at their apartment, happy to be close to Azi. I lay awake for at least an hour thinking of her in the next room, but eventually I fell into a comfortable, heavy sleep.
The following night, we slept in our separate places, but Azi spent all the next day with me, and most of every day after that. My classes were over except for exams, so my schedule was flexible and I took her everywhere. She always carried at least one book, always in English, and read whenever I studied or graded papers. She wanted to be with me not because she was afraid, but because she wanted to live the life of an American for her last few days in the States. Ordinarily I guarded my privacy, but I loved having her with me. I loved her waiting for me to pick her up, running out of the apartment and hopping into my car, kissing me on the cheek to greet me. I loved her beauty, her quirky questions, her attention, her honey hands holding my hands as we walked. But that was the limit of our contact. She seemed guarded—with good reason—so I didn’t push her although I wanted more.
I took her to my office building and introduced her to my best friend, Richard Santiago, a young, married English instructor at USC who was always trying to set me up, sometimes seriously, sometimes not, and he winked at me with approval. I told him Azi was an opium merchant with the finest shop in Tehran, and I was going to help her open a stall in the farmer’s market in Columbia. “I’m sure you could do a good business up here on the T.A. hall,” he said, “and there’re some faculty members who might be interested too.” We laughed, but I wasn’t sure he was joking.
Her English seemed to get better every day, and we talked about everything. She liked hamburgers and French fries, Loggins and Messina, the hour after sunset, poetry by the Persian poet Rumi, and she was passionate about improving her country, making it safe and democratic. Her dream was to study law at an American university and return to Iran to practice, also to marry and have children; her fear was that the Islamic revolution and Sharia law would destroy Iran, or bring danger to her father because he had once supported the Shah, or to Sadegh, who had many enemies.
One day, on our way into Piggly Wiggly, a name she found hilarious, she stopped and pointed to a teenage girl pulling into the parking lot in her family’s station wagon. “This is America, Jay—every person, even little girl, drive big car, and every place have big store with everything.”
“I don’t have a big car,” I said, “but you’re right, we’re a rich nation, we’re lucky.”
“Yes, you are rich, and other countries are jealous, so they attack you.”
“Yeah, you’re right about that too. You think that’s the reason the students took the embassy?”
“Yes. They say the Shah, they say America is Great Satan, but they are jealous.”
“So what should we do?” I asked.
“You have solution for jealous?”
“No.”
She shrugged. “Okay.”
When we were looking at butter, she noticed I was reading the fine print and asked why. I told her I tried to follow my dad’s doctor’s advice on avoiding saturated fat, even though I believed my dad died from stress. She stopped and touched my arm in sympathy, and all the memories came back—the funeral, my mother and sister crying uncontrollably, the wispy clouds of incense hanging in front of the altar, Dad’s waxy face, his olive complexion gone gray . . . . She broke my reverie by hugging me and whispering something that sounded like a prayer into my ear. When she let go
she asked, “You believe in God?”
Surprised, I said, “I was raised Greek Orthodox, so yes, but it’s complicated.”
“I believe in God and Heaven,” she said, “and I believe your father there. He is good because you are good and he is your father.”
Her consolation was loving and, in a strange way, sexy, and that’s when I asked her the first time, looking into the variable shadows of her eyes. “Why don’t you stay here, Azi? Live with me. I need you.” The last part surprised me as I heard the words leave my mouth, but I also thought it was true.
Her answer was soft but immediate. “Thank you, Jay, but I no stay.”
Tuesday night the pathetic heater in my apartment broke down completely so we sat on the floor, wrapped in a blanket, leaning back against the couch, drinking hot chocolate with marshmallows, watching Happy Days. The Fonz snapped his fingers and two blondes rushed to his side. “Why they like this man?” she asked.
“He’s cool. He rides a motorcycle, he’s tough, independent, street-smart, handsome, calm, confident, in control.”
“Yes, o-kay, cool, like you.”
I laughed. “Thanks, but I’m not any of those things.”
“Well, okay, I don’t like the boys like he, Fonz. He is only self.”
“Self-centered.”
“Yes, self-centered. In Iran I have friend she love man like he. She is sixteen and he is twenty-one, in Army. Many time she say to mother she is in my house but she is with Amir. Now she is with baby.” She shaped pregnancy with her hands, looking at me for the word.
“Pregnant, she got pregnant.”
“Yes, pregnant, and they marry, but he leave her three month.”