The Last Days of Café Leila: A Novel

by Donia Bijan

  “GET OUT OF THERE!” he yelled in Farsi, losing control. “GET OUT, GET OUT!”

  “Shhh!” she said, fixing her eyes on him.

  “Lily, what do you think you’re doing? We have to go! NOW!” Expressing fury in English eluded him.

  “Shhh! Shhh! Cream, come here! Quickly.” She gestured madly.

  Karim got off the bike and stepped forward awkwardly, lowering himself to see. A girl, fourteen at the most, lay in a woman’s arms. Her lowered face wasn’t a face at all. The side of her head was burnt flesh, her eyes a sticky blood pudding beneath scorched brows, she lolled back and forth beneath a strip of plastic sheeting, making that same raspy groan. He kneeled beside Lily.

  “Ask them what happened,” Lily said.

  The woman bent her leg and tried to raise herself without hurting the girl, “I beg of you. Please, help my daughter,” she pleaded. “Some men attacked us and threw acid at her face.” She had dragged her daughter behind the rubble to hide from the perpetrators.

  “Can you get me some more water? This bottle is empty. I need water. Please.”

  How could he explain acid attacks to Lily? Neither Lily nor Karim could be expected to understand a world where such things were possible, that an innocent girl would be burned alive for refusing a ludicrous marriage proposal. Karim had last seen her unharmed—a wary lowered brow, fresh pink cheeks, the pressed line of her mouth, all gone now, melted into a black tarmac.

  Karim translated for Lily the best he could, but she had already understood “please,” “help,” and “water” and given the water bottle from her backpack to the woman who poured it on her daughter’s face.

  “Cream, hospital. Right now!”

  “How Lily?”

  Karim would have preferred to call an ambulance or even the police and leave before their arrival, but the girl’s mother begged him not to. The assailants would come back if authorities were informed, she explained, and they would ask too many questions at the hospital. She said if they would just take her home, she’d call a doctor.

  And then, everything happened at once. Lily motioned for Karim to fetch the bike. Extending a hand she lifted the ragdoll body and with the mother’s help they brought her to her feet. With tender authority she hiked up the girl’s veil, hooked her shoes into the footholds, clasped her arms around Karim’s waist, then straddled the bike herself to sit behind the girl, cushioning her between them.

  “Tell her we’re taking her back to our house,” she commanded in half English, half Persian, squeezing the mother’s hand reassuringly.

  Wide-eyed, Karim stared at her, “Go back? To Café Leila?”

  “Begoo (say) my mother’s a nurse. Begoo, we won’t tell anyone. Give her the address . . . Zood (hurry), Cream!”

  Color disappeared in the waning light, the noise of Tehran falling in the dark. Three children clutched one another as the scooter wheezed past dark rows of residential blocks and shops closing up for the night, the small headlight shining a path before them to the sanctuary of Café Leila.

  Karim saw the bleakness around him, all the splendor gone now. The parched streets, the dirty shop windows, leafless trees, a lead sky, the weight of ruin against his back, and Lily, like a wildflower, pushing through the crack in the sidewalk, stubborn like spring itself, insisting on coming back and coming back. Impetuous, invincible, unstoppable, Lily jan.

  WHEN THE SCOOTER PULLED into the yard, its wheels crunching on the gravel, all the lights in the house were on. Karim quickly disembarked, running to peer furtively into the kitchen window. There was an eerie silence before the dark square of Soli’s head snapped up to leer back at him through the glass. Did Karim really think their absence went unnoticed? There were one or two afternoons when no one had called or checked on them until after dark and he desperately hoped that tonight, too, they were preoccupied enough to forget about him. Soli thundered towards the door and, once outside, he grabbed Karim by the collar, lifting him up to throw him against the wall. Naneh Goli came screaming on his heels, batting one shoe in her hand, “Where is she? Show me your face you shameless son of a dog. Where have you taken the girl? Where were you?” Karim remained composed, a calm born from repeated blows. He knew the ax would fall and here it was, mild compared to what he had been through. Then Lily’s voice again, “Stop!” And still another, more savage cry, pierced the night, startling Naneh Goli, and she froze with one arm raised in the air.

  The girl with the charred face, propped up against Lily’s strong frame, whimpered under two watchful pairs of eyes. Karim pushed himself off the ground and rushed to her other side. Together, they strode up the path, arms draped around necks, their heads turned towards the injured girl between them, Lily muttering, “There there, you’re safe now, we’ll look after you,” while Karim attempted an explanation to Naneh and Soli, who stood solemnly aside to let the threesome by, following them in, having acknowledged that the two children in their charge were safe, and the third, in desperate need of help.

  Naneh Goli had never felt as frightened as she did that night. Her entire history, apart from her brief marriages, had taken place in this house. She had remained deliberately behind these walls, housebound in her shrunken world, and not only did Lily and Karim break free, but they brought the outside in, and Naneh felt menaced by this damaged stranger in their home. Standing back to survey in silence the three figures moving inside, she knew then that nothing would ever be the same.

  They brought the girl into the kitchen. Lily and Karim lowered her into a chair and she tilted her head back to show them again the horror under the glare of the overhead lights. Soli dialed Dr. Mehran who had only just left after paying Zod a nightly visit. No one had yet mentioned Noor’s or the children’s absence to Zod and if it weren’t for Naneh Goli’s screaming and the telephone, he would have slept peacefully through the whole thing. When they heard his call, Naneh sent Soli to reassure him, knowing that even in his groggy state, Zod would discern something amiss in his home. She instructed Karim to push the girl’s chair closer to the sink, put her head in his hands and dipped it back to show Lily how to flush the burns under the spout while she diluted baking soda and water—a home remedy that may have come too late, but she wasn’t one to stand idly.

  Twenty-Three

  When the overzealous cop hustled Noor into the back of a patrol car and took her to the station house, Noor was strangely relieved to not be behind the wheel, realizing that she hadn’t ventured too far from Café Leila. Traffic hadn’t eased up at all and she relaxed into the backseat, looking out the window like a tourist, seemingly oblivious to the trouble she was in. There were two other women in the detention area. Already, they were making their dissent clear, protesting loudly “We’ve done nothing wrong!” Flustered, Noor made a frantic call home.

  “Are the children back?” she asked six times before Naneh Goli replied.

  “Yes, but it’s a mess, you need to get back here!”

  “What mess? What are you talking about? Are they all right?”

  “They went to the swimming pool! But there is more—I cannot tell you now.”

  “What? How can that be?” cried Noor, as if what mattered was the how. “Listen, I’m at the police station. But don’t worry, I’m okay.”

  Then Naneh came to a boil and shouted over her, “What are you doing at the gendarmerie? Did you wreck the car?”

  “No! I—” she faltered.

  “Do they know who you are?” Naneh could not control her voice.

  “What does that matter? Don’t say anything to my father. I’ll try to clear this up and come as soon as I can.”

  “Should Soli come for you?”

  “No! Stay with the kids. Don’t let Lily out of your sight. I’ll take care of them when I get back.”

  The male officer in charge, in short sleeves and open collar, crossed his massive hairy arms and leaned back into his chair to hear Noor’s story: her reasons for driving without a license in light of her father’s illness,
her inability to find the pharmacy and so on. Then suddenly, as if the ringing in her ears finally ceased, Noor felt the awakening of a long forgotten skill.

  “Officer Husseini was so kind to come to my rescue. Otherwise I would still be sitting on the side of the road in despair,” Noor offered, ingratiating herself. “I sincerely apologize for my behavior. Please commend her, she was right to admonish me but honestly, I ran out of the house without even thinking about my license. I’ve been so worried about my father, I haven’t had a chance to apply for my license, but I promise to take care of it, sir. I promise I’ll go first thing tomorrow.”

  “Tell me something, khanoom, would you offer money to a police officer in America?” he asked with a raised eyebrow. He came around his desk to observe Noor more closely. She held her breath.

  “Sir, it was stupid of me and I’m very sorry,” Noor replied sheepishly. Bribery had not worked, but she thought she might have a chance with flattery and remorse.

  “I would very much like to apologize to her in person. But please, I beg you, don’t tell my father. He would be so ashamed if he knew what I had—”

  The sergeant turned wearily to glance at the address on the report.

  “You are Mr. Yadegar’s daughter?” he asked, surprised. “I know he’s not well . . . and yes, a good man like him would not approve of this.” Dismayed on behalf of Zod perhaps, he walked to the door and called out to another officer.

  Fifteen minutes later, Noor was given a juice box and driven home in a police car, where once again she sat in the backseat watching the street lights come on, as complacent as a runaway child who never got very far. So, the children had gone to the pool on a lark, she thought—it could be worse. Then, feeling expansive after her close run-in with the law and a desire to foster her father’s goodwill, Noor leaned forward between her uniformed escorts to extend an invitation to dinner at Café Leila.

  HALFWAY TO THE KITCHEN door, Noor was surprised that no one heard the gate or their footsteps on the stone path. The two police officers came behind, maintaining a polite distance. As she approached, she saw a strange tableau through the kitchen windows. It reminded her of a Dutch painting she had once seen in a book—dark figures surrounding a supine body lit from above with his listless arms hanging down.

  Unobserved, she stood for what seemed to her a long time, noticing Lily’s cropped hair and her hands intent on a task that from Noor’s angle looked like she was shampooing a girl’s hair. Is this what Naneh meant by a mess—that Lily cut her hair, that the children had somehow gone to the pool? If that’s all it was and her daughter had found a friend to play hairdresser with, then all of the night’s anxiety, the arrest and detention, were worth it, and the thought made her smile as she entered and they all looked up to meet her eyes.

  “Lily, who cut your hair?”

  “My hair? Who cares about my hair! Jesus, Mom, where’ve you been? Look at this poor girl!”

  Noor raised her eyebrows quizzically, stepped closer, and her hands flew up to her face. Dumbfounded, she opened and closed her mouth and tried again to say something, but nothing came.

  “MOM!” Lily shouted, “HELP!”

  Mobilized, Noor was barking instructions, some made sense; others didn’t. She shoved everyone aside to lift the girl’s head from the sink pooled with water and black tissue.

  “Who sent her here?”

  “We found her on the side of the road. We brought her,” Lily said calmly.

  “But this is not a hospital! Don’t you see? She needs to go to the hospital!”

  “Aren’t you a nurse?”

  “What am I supposed to do?” Noor was petrified, separating herself from them.

  Lily wiped her hands on her thighs. Eyes beckoning, she reached over and took her mother’s hand.

  “It’s okay, mom,” she said, “Shhh, it’s all right. The doctor is on the way.”

  A faint voice called from the other room “I’m not sleeping . . . I can hear you.”

  Just outside the door, the policemen were sizing up the situation and the senior officer gave his colleague a knowing look, cleared his throat, and went inside ahead of him.

  Karim felt a hand on his shoulder and a deep voice ask him from behind, “Where did you find this girl, son?” He jumped and turned, taking a step back in astonishment, and gasped, releasing the terrible fear that had been pressing his lungs for hours. He was simply too tired to dodge this one.

  They were courteous, in a way one would expect from dinner guests, but certain forms of politeness on the part of the police could be chilling. Flustered and jabbering, Noor ushered them to the dining room where they stood stiffly and did not sit down.

  “She is your daughter?” Noor did not know who they meant and thought it would be simpler to say yes.

  “Please understand, Mrs. Yadegar,” said the younger officer with a shrug, “we have a duty to report this incident and we need to question the two youths.” They continued to look towards the door, behind which a girl whimpered.

  “We’ll call the station for an ambulance,” said the other officer, “and for backup.”

  “NO! Please don’t! A doctor is already on the way. We can explain everything,” Noor’s voice was becoming shrill. She felt sick with the thought of Lily coming before these men when Soli walked in with a tray and nodded benevolently at the two men. Orange sodas, bread, and two bowls of cold cucumber soup.

  “Please sit down in the café,” he said. “I’ve just lit the charcoal.”

  Ever since Pari’s disappearance, Naneh Goli had an irrational fear of the police, and seeing them in her kitchen sent her running to protect Zod who was sitting up in bed with a searching look. It was an appalling mess and she couldn’t hide it from him. Zod heard all he needed to know—that Noor had been arrested and two gendarmes were in his house. He got up, pushed Naneh aside, and reached for his cane hanging on the back of a chair. In a heroic effort to dress, he pulled on a knitted cardigan with one button too many in the wrong buttonholes, shoved his feet into flannel slippers and shuffled out to meet these unwanted guests.

  Even before he reached the café, smoke filled his clean-smelling rooms and he made a noise in his throat that wasn’t a cough but a growl. The younger cop stood up as soon as he saw Zod step through the door, leaving Naneh lurking behind. The other had taken his jacket off and sat in his yellow-stained shirtsleeves smoking a third cigarette.

  “Have you come for me at last?” asked Zod.

  “I’m sorry, sir?” replied the young officer.

  “Hello, Mr. Yadegar! I’m Officer Sadeghi, this is my colleague . . . ” He rose abruptly to shake Zod’s hand.

  Zod kept his trembling arms at his side. “What are you doing here? The café is closed. Please get out. Now.”

  They gawked at him—at this old, wasted man with pillow hair in bedroom slippers swinging his cane. Sadeghi eased back into the chair, took a sip of his soda, lit another cigarette and blew the smoke towards the ceiling.

  “We have to do our job, Mr. Yadegar. Your daughter here offered . . . ”

  “Your job? You mean murder and abduction? Then do it! Don’t come in here and eat my food and stink up my house.”

  Noor rushed to put an arm around his quivering shoulders but he shook her off. A foamy wrath collected at the corners of his mouth and he spat “OUT! YOU SONS OF WHORES!” None of them had ever heard an obscenity from him. Never.

  The young policeman flinched and glanced around as if looking for an escape from a bad party. Sit? Or stand? Where to stand? Sadeghi blinked twice to clear his vision. They heard the distant sound of a siren.

  “What have I done? Huh? WHAT. HAVE. I. DONE?” Zod roared. “What have I done to deserve such disrespect? Didn’t I feed your father and your grandfather and your ayatollahs? Didn’t I feed the citizens?” He seemed to hover above them now with his cane aloft.

  “There. There. And there,” he pointed with his stick to tables in the dining room. “Your father sat there and a
te beef stroganoff. There he ate pomegranate stew. And there he ate my baklava! Everyone knows you are the devils who took my wife . . . EVERYONE! You left my children motherless! And STILL! I stayed and I fed you and kept the place open by the sweat of my brow. And now, now you dare come for my daughter? Take me! I am the almost dead—less work for you.”

  He took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his mouth. The last flickerings of fury still shone, but bit by bit the fight was going out of him.

  They all stood very still. At last, Zod had spoken the truth and set free the awful cry, trapped for so long in the blackness of his throat. Noor was stunned. Everything her father had never the heart to tell her was unleashed here tonight. The air in the dining room was stale and thick with smoke. Sadeghi was no longer sitting.

  “Why don’t you calm down, Mr. Yadegar? Please go back into the house. We will sort this out. It’s getting very late. You’re wearing pajamas, you obviously need to lie down . . . the captain told me you’re very ill.” The shivers took over his body then and Zod lurched forward to steady himself against a chair.

  “Listen, you bastard,” he hissed, “are you saying I’m not presentable in my own café?” The sparks and flame returned to his eyes. “GET THE HELL OUT. NOW!”

  Dr. Mehran walked in then, having just arrived at the house after being urgently summoned back. He wondered why the house shone like a lighthouse when his patient was supposed to be resting. On his way in he shouldered past two police officers who hurried past him, and he looked up to see the family on the landing watching them until they crossed the threshold, waiting to hear the car start. He indicated with his head the gate through which the men had left.

  “Never mind, Doktor,” said Zod. “They are never coming back.”

  His face red from exertion, Zod rested a hand on Soli’s arm. “Brew us some tea, please, Soli. And put two sugars and some whiskey in mine.” He went inside towards the bathroom. “I may be some time—Noor, call me when it’s ready.” At last there was a lightness in his chest, as the weight of years, days, the hour, came to rest.