The Last Days of Café Leila: A Novel

by Donia Bijan

  Zod was buried in a shady spot next to Yanik and Nina. The government never having released her body, Pari’s grave lay empty with a simple stone that read GIVEN TO US TOO BRIEFLY, PARVANEH YADEGAR 1943 – 1982. Reading this, Noor felt a blow deep in her gut and her body coiled in reflex. There lay the Yadegars, side by side, deeper in the earth than the roots of trees they had planted. Maybe Zod had been right to keep the truth of her mother’s death from her. Noor wondered how he stayed alive. The pain of keeping it to himself must have been more than his sorrow, greater than his loss. This thought filled Noor at once with profound gratitude and regret.

  Ferry came to lightly grasp her elbow, propping her up, and she stood between her girls with a comforting arm around each, wondering how the story of her life would someday be etched into stone in the dash between two dates.

  NIGHT CAME AT LAST and they returned to Café Leila, drawn and deafened from the noise, with adrenaline still surging through their bodies. In this house they had never known a day without work, so Noor followed Karim and Soli into the kitchen to prepare dinner, tying an apron around her waist. Traditionally, callers visit the bereaved family unannounced three days after a death to express their sympathy, so this evening was a gathering of family with a few close friends. Hedi and Ala pushed the tables close together on the marble floor and arranged the extra chairs and benches against the brown wood wainscoting. Naneh Goli ironed a thick white tablecloth and big square napkins with red scalloped edges. Aunt Farah polished Nina’s silver and crystal goblets, arranging white lilies and hydrangeas with long tapered candles for the centerpiece.

  Oh, how nice it looked. They had eaten here for decades, inside this wood-paneled room with its large windows through which the garden and its fruit trees were visible, but tonight, even with everyone in black, it gleamed in the flame of the candles Farah lit at dusk. What else to do, if not eat and drink? Bread, vodka, barley soup, roast beef, pickled cauliflower and beets, yogurt, dilled cucumbers, olives, bowls of spicy, warm, cold, red, green, and pink—a buffet russe as Yanik would have prepared.

  At the head of the table, Mehrdad set a place for Zod with black bread over a shot glass of vodka, as they had done before at Yanik’s, Nina’s, and Davoud’s wakes—a reversal of the Russian custom of breaking black bread when meeting someone for the first time.

  In the salon where Dr. Mehran drank tea with Nelson while Lily and Ferry played with Sheer on the floor, Mr. Yazdan, one of Zod’s oldest friends, sat on the piano bench and lifted the wing to test the keys. It wasn’t tuned but you couldn’t hold that against him when he tapped the first chords to “Mara Beboos”—a classic Persian ballad. These four notes brought the two doctors from the couch, two girls with their cat, three cooks from the kitchen, two elderly waiters, a kind auntie, a brother and his ancient nanny, into his aura. Shoja Yazdan wasn’t naive, but there were songs everyone knew, which touch the most intimate raw emotions, songs that can turn you inside out.

  One by one they detached themselves from tasks and slipped over to the piano, giving in to an overwhelming tide of sentiment. And Mr. Yazdan knew he would have to continue. They substituted prayer with music and circled the piano to sing the lyrics—for the first time, maybe ever, hearing one another sing. Even Nelson and Lily, who didn’t know the words, swayed to the melody.

  Kiss me. Kiss me. For one last time.

  May God keep you safe. May God be with you.

  Our spring has passed. The past is past.

  I will arise and go now to my fate.

  Noor didn’t meet Nelson’s eyes. She grew attentive instead to her surroundings, safeguarding the moment. Does this sort of thing really happen? Does it? Could they sing shoulder to shoulder with their eyes half closed? Did Zod have fellowship in mind when Pari sang? Was Café Leila a cloud cover above all their lonesome lives?

  Noor felt protective, intertwined with the people who stood beside her. Dr. Mehran’s hand on Karim’s back, Sheer sheltered in the folds of Naneh’s lap, Mehrdad’s arm slung over Soli’s shoulder, Ferry leaning into Lily, Lily’s eyes regarding her parents, and Noor nearly undone by the glow of trust in them. Nothing would change the goodness within those around her. Nothing ever changed in their needs for security and affection. Minds changed. Bodies changed. Passions evolved. Nelson knew her in ways both joyful and bitter that the others never would, and she would keep that part of her past, their trysts and tussles, sealed in an envelope.

  What diverted her thoughts was another envelope, hidden in her purse. It had arrived with the evening post from the adoption bureau. A letter sent cannot be unwritten.

  Maybe we don’t really grow up until our parents die, she thought. Maybe her infant memory was forever looking to Zod and Pari to make things better because they always did. Because if our parents didn’t exalt us, we spend our adult lives blaming them—for not doing this, and not doing that, not being “supportive,” not making an appearance at our first recital, being overprotective or aloof, damaging our self-esteem. Yet at our best or worst, who sees everything? Who knows us best? Who waits and waits to see what we yet may be? Then one day they’re gone and it’s just you, and there’s nothing left to squeeze, no one to blame for the dismay over the course your life has taken.

  Once the tears have stopped, it’s just the here and now and the desire to do better, to be closer to the person you want to be. Noor didn’t want to wish that she had been a better person. As a mother, she wanted to draw from Lily’s trust in her to realize that whatever her own parents did or didn’t do was nothing short of heroic and Noor couldn’t hold up a candle to them. But she would try.

  Thirty

  There was talk of closing the café in the days following Zod’s funeral, but a steady stream of people wore the day out coming to sit with the family, ignoring their need for solitude because their need to be consoled in the intimacy of Café Leila was greater and to close the door on them was unthinkable. Pausing on the bleached steps to offer a bouquet, they filled the house with flowers and wreaths until it smelled like Mr. Azizi’s shop and Karim was put in charge of refreshing the water in the dozens of vases and sweeping the petals into the yard.

  Noor roused Naneh Goli’s and Soli’s spirits by recalling her father’s desire to feed unannounced callers like fledging chicks and she saw that they trusted her, that a sense of security prevailed when there were tasks and expectations to keep the household running as it always had.

  “Remember what my father used to say,” she said. “ ‘Nothing the cook can do is ever enough.’ ”

  Thus Soli bolted to the market every morning, returning breathless, and before long they heard him shouting orders at Karim, pounding sorrow with his meat mallet, and resuming the familiar clatter of pots and pans. Grief could not seize them as long as they kept moving.

  But by week’s end Noor found Mehrdad and Nelson in the salon bent over their laptops making travel arrangements. There were crumbs and orange peels on the coffee table and when she bent to sweep them up with her hands, Nelson caught her wrist and winked at her. For a second she thought she might lean down and kiss his lips, to feel his rough cheek with her fingertips, but Mehrdad snapped his computer shut and said, “Well, that’s that.”

  “What’s that?” Noor turned to her brother.

  “We booked our flights for Friday,” said Mehrdad.

  “Wait . . . already?” she gasped.

  “Yep, your ticket to freedom, sis.”

  “We have to get back to work, mi vida,” said Nelson. “I mean, what keeps us here?”

  Noor bristled but said nothing. Up until that moment Nelson had been so kind, friendly to everyone, but in the week since Zod’s death, the amicability slowly muted with talk of imminent departure. Both men became prickly and anxious to leave. They played cards to pass the time but had trouble concentrating. It was over, they said, no choice in the matter. They didn’t want to wait another week.

  Noor and Mehrdad, in the house together for the first time since they were t
eenagers, found it difficult not to fall back into their old roles. Not the adults they had become in America, but the needy sister and the exasperated older brother. They knew each other better than anyone, but it was as if he hadn’t seen her yet and every time he met her gaze, she would feel the pressure of tears and look away. But Mehrdad sensed what was happening to Noor.

  “You have to untangle yourself from all this, Noor,” said Mehrdad. “Your life is not here—you know that. I’ve spoken to a lawyer about selling the café and he’s confident that he can do it without our presence. Once he finds a buyer, I’ll come back to sign the paperwork. It’s valuable real estate, you know.”

  Noor felt like she was being shoved onto a moving walkway, a fierce tug against the soles of her feet.

  “Untangle? How can we just turn our backs on Naneh and Soli? How can you hire a lawyer without even talking to me?” she screamed, for he knew exactly what to say to make her furious. Her hand flew up as if they were kids again, playing one moment, fists flying the next. Then he calmly took her hand and held it securely between his own.

  “There are limits to what we can do for these people.”

  Nelson sat back and crossed his arms. “Lily has to go back to school, Noor, or she’ll fall too far behind. We have to think about college soon. It’s been a good adventure for her, and you, pero (but)—” He stood up to put his arms around her, pressed her close and rested his chin on her head.

  Here we are, entangled again, thought Noor. And how good it felt. In the mirror above the piano, she could see their reflection, a portrait of a marriage becoming more vivid, forgiving all with her hand on his sleeve. It wasn’t lost after all—here’s a chance to have it back.

  Of course he’s right, how could you argue against it, the very things that mattered—keeping her family intact. Lily has to start school. Nelson has to work. She has a daughter. She has a husband. She had nursed and buried her father. Sooner or later she would get over the loss of Café Leila. Soon they could go back to live in their big, tidy house. They would ski at Lake Tahoe in the winter and spend summers in Spain. Soon she would have the simple pleasure of sleeping beside Nelson again and hearing Lily’s voice singing in the shower from across the hall. Could she rely on Nelson’s warmth, every day delivering the same smell and the same flare? How desperate she had been to put herself back together, and now here it was: a plane ticket and a safe place to go, even if she had left it once in despair.

  Maybe Noor should have never come back to Iran, become so attached to these people. What had Mehrdad said? There are limits to what we can do. Who did she think she was? If only she had known about limits then, she would have spared Lily this voyage, spared her the torrent of tears in June and July, spared her the horror of August, and now the pain of having to leave her new friends behind. Her daughter was too young to know so much disappointment. Noor had imagined she could change, imagined she could comfort her father, or Naneh Goli, or Ferry, or Soli and Karim, imagined them waiting for her voice to tell them what to do next. She felt herself a poor substitute for her father.

  Nobody would have to know about the envelope in her purse, yet unopened.

  “We have to find a place for Ferry,” she said quietly.

  “No point in doing that . . . she can stay here for now with Naneh Goli, to help out,” said Mehrdad, suddenly in command. “There’s nowhere safer than here. When the time comes I’ll deal with it, okay? I’ll figure something out for her, and a home for Naneh Goli, too. I’m sure there’s plenty of work for the boys.” Well, he’s got it all figured out, thought Noor bitterly.

  “I’ll talk to them, okay? Let me tell them,” she said.

  “Fine,” he shrugged, “but we have to start packing.”

  From the café came the collective sound of hushed conversation—the usual thunder of laughter and boisterous goodwill, slapping tabletops, clinking glasses and cutlery was reduced to a pitter-patter. Murmuring was all the regulars could muster.

  LATER THAT EVENING NOOR heard the children in the kitchen with Farah. Farah, who brought the fresh smell of her Beverly Hills home with her, had thought to pack Kit Kats and Goldfish and cereal boxes into her suitcase, thinking perhaps that Lily missed her candy and her sugary breakfast and Noor had to laugh when she found the three kids shuffling cards, sharing a bowl of Lucky Charms between them like peanuts.

  Noor asked if Ferry could give her a hand with something. A brief rain had polished the path and she took Ferry outside to sit on the stone bench in the cool dusk, the days growing shorter now. Noor wiped the seat with her handkerchief and took Ferry’s hand. Her skin was warm and they sat in comfortable silence like in a waiting room.

  “What can I do for you, khanoom?” Ferry asked sweetly, still addressing Noor as “ma’am.”

  What can she do for me? thought Noor. She could not stand it. All the goodness in the world right here beside her. Ferry so painfully eager to please.

  “Ferry joon,” her voice cracked, “you’re healing so nicely.”

  “Khanoom, do you think my face will always look like this?”

  Noor turned to her then and stroked the crater that used to be Ferry’s smooth right cheek with her fingertips, a slow, gentle examination of the wound that broke Noor’s heart.

  “Ferry, Ferry, look at me, azizam (dear one). Another few months and you’ll have your surgery. I’ll pay for it. You won’t believe what they can do these days.”

  “Yes, you told me. Lots of times. But what about my old face, you know the face I didn’t have to think about or feel . . . you know, like breathing?”

  Noor nodded. “You mean like a habit.”

  “Yes, I suppose. I miss not thinking about it even more than I miss seeing.”

  Noor took Ferry in her arms. She couldn’t put it off any longer.

  “Ferry, I have to go back to America, but I want you to know that we’re not leaving you on your own. You’ll stay here with Naneh Goli and Karim. He’s like a brother to you, no? Soon your left eye will be all healed and you’ll have new eyebrows, too. And I will send for you. It might take some time, but I promise that I’ll send for you and you’ll go to school again.”

  Gripping her, Noor felt a young girl’s strength in the small, firm back that somehow conveyed reassurance, and she found herself drawing from it to abate her own misgivings. What can you do for me, indeed, she thought.

  ON THEIR LAST EVENING, Noor lit a few lanterns and spread out blankets for a picnic in their cherished place under the mulberry tree that had their names scratched into its bark. Soli prepared a feast but the children had no appetite for it. Neither Naneh Goli nor Soli were surprised so much as they were disappointed. They knew they would be left alone to fend for themselves, but the haste in departure seemed eager and disrespectful. They also knew that their opinions didn’t matter.

  It wasn’t easy for Ferry and Karim to absorb the news of Lily’s departure. It made almost everything and every moment with her so big that they could squeeze inside it, draw the drapes and tighten the knots. Lily joon was leaving. Lily-merci (for it had become her nickname), was packing her bags. Lily, who arrived only four months ago sulking in her hoodie. Lily, who spoke a little Farsi, with a twang, and could even write her name. Their minds were full of “the last this” and “the last that” and for their last meal, they baked a cake and cut it messily in three and let Sheer eat the crumbs from their palms.

  It was Lily’s idea to swap clothes.

  “How do you say shirt again?” she asked Karim.

  “Pi-ra-han.”

  “Give me your number six pi-ra-han and I’ll give you my Cal hoodie . . . Ferry, you can have my high-tops.” The shoes would be too big, of course, but Ferry would grow into them. The younger girl tugged on a gold bangle and nudged it onto Lily’s wrist.

  Everything that mattered to Karim was about to be lost, an ocean muscling its way between him and his first love, leaving nothing but a navy blue sweatshirt in his hands. But to Karim, it was laden with mea
ning. She pulled the shirt over her head, revealing the pale skin of her belly and he had to look away, still shy of Lily joon.

  That night he opened to a clean page in his tattered notebook and started writing Lily a letter because his stammer had returned and when he tried to speak—“no, don’t go, stay, don’t leave”—the words shattered in his mouth. He wrote down what she meant to him. He wrote what he had felt that first morning in the kitchen and what he still felt, only more deeply. He wrote about the sound of her laughter like a tiny waterfall and how that sound alone could bring him to his knees. He wrote about how he loved the way she said his name, “Cream,” like the word on the blue Nivea tin. He wrote that he didn’t know what she would remember about him, but it didn’t matter because he would love her forever and would remember her always. Lily moon. Lily sun. Lily, the light he held secret in his heart’s very core. Then he turned off the lamp and fell back onto his new bed with that dark blue sweatshirt for a pillow, listening to the autumn wind shaking the tall trees.

  TWO SHINY BLACK TAXIS were parked by the gate. No need for an entourage, Mehrdad insisted, and he called for cabs instead of letting Soli drive them to the airport—another affront that Soli accepted stoically. Huffing and puffing, Hedi helped the cabbies carry the bags outside. Both Noor and Farah had shopped for souvenirs, stuffed their suitcases with kilos of pistachios, lavashak (fruit leather), dried figs and barberries, spices and pomegranate paste.

  The children were huddled under their tree, heads ducked and arms draped around each other’s shoulders like before a match, exchanging their last-minute vows and promising to write. Naneh Goli wept into a napkin, so weary she was of love and the endless tug on her heart. Would it never stop, this coming and leaving? I’m too old for this, she thought. Had she not sent these children away once already? Why did they have to come back? “Good-bye, good-bye,” they called, bending to kiss her hand and sniff her rosy scent once more.