The Last Days of Café Leila: A Novel

by Donia Bijan

  Karim gave a short whistle and Sheer ran to leap into Lily’s arms for a last nuzzle. Ala waited with a hose to spray the cars when they pulled away from the curb, no longer needing words but water to wash their sorrow and clear the path for a safe journey. Noor, in the backseat with Lily and Nelson, waved and waved until she lost sight of the six lonesome figures, feeling farther away than ever.

  Lily sat between them, clutching the stem of a red carnation from Karim while Nelson teased, “Better not wear that jersey when we watch Messi.”

  “Dad, Iran held off Argentina till the very last minute!”

  “Ha ha ha! Please, give me a break. Probably they ate kebab for lunch and were too sleepy to play fútbol.” Lily punched him playfully and soon they were chuckling, the quivering lip gone, and Lily’s face brightened as they left Tehran behind.

  They both smiled at Noor. She smiled back, but she was silent. Her native city—bleak, savage, beautiful—retreated from her with a long sigh. Well, go on then, go. Fear and hurt and anger washed through her, reminding her that she was no more or less prudent, no more or less mature than she was at seventeen when her father had driven her to the airport. All that effort to open the world to her, only to see Noor return disheartened. And just when the idea of what she might do had started to form, the intensity of their time in Iran was diminished to an “adventure.” Was the dawning of purpose so fleeting? She shouldn’t be thinking any of this, but here it was.

  They walked into the terminal building, checked their bags, and while Mehrdad suggested going to the kiosk for snacks, Noor excused herself to go to the bathroom. She looked at the clock. Another hour remained before boarding. When she returned to her family, Mehrdad was on Skype with a colleague, Lily was showing Farah a game on her phone, and Nelson handed her a cup of tea.

  Her knees wobbling, Noor accepted the cup and sat beside him, taking his big hand between her own. Nelson saw that her eyes were watery and she was shaking.

  “What’s up? Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked.

  “Nelson, I have adopted Ferry,” she said, exhaling at last.

  “Qué?” He looked alarmed.

  “Mom, really? That’s awesome!” cried Lily over Farah’s shoulder.

  Nelson blinked as if adapting to the bright light. “You are incredibly optimistic, Noor, to think we can bring her to Estados Unidos.”

  “I didn’t say that.” She met his gaze, his eyes a midnight black. Minutes ago, she had locked herself in the bathroom and read the letter confirming Ferry’s adoption and the longer she held the envelope, the heavier it became—a pebble, then a stone, then a rock. A perfect rock.

  “I’m not going back with you and Lily.” Like the tide, the fear that had held her back for so long receded until she could not believe it once came up to her ears, and with newly found courage she hurried forward to reveal her thoughts—or rather her passion, fierce now for her people, for Café Leila and its patrons.

  “I see,” said Nelson, but he could not understand her divided heart.

  “Lily joon, listen to me,” and she reached over Nelson’s lap, pulling Lily to her. “It isn’t because I don’t love you and you know I still love Daddy—but I’ve seen a look in your eyes I’ve never seen before, the way you’ve opened up to me, the way you look at me with joy and a tiny bit of awe, and more than anything, Lily, more than anything, I want to show you that our lives have meaning beyond the everyday things we dwell on. We play a part, however small, in the times in which we live—we are not here just for ourselves. You are so brave and all I’ve ever done is show you how to be afraid.” Noor struggled to claim every word.

  “Yes, okay, okay,” Nelson interrupted. “It is different now . . . you are different, Lily is different, but this is something we carry with us, no? Noor, mi vida . . . no dejes que nos separemos (love of my life . . . don’t let us be apart),” he pleaded. “I cannot understand how you could want to stay here, Noor. You cannot change anything.” Noor caught the edge in his voice.

  “Perhaps, but I mean to try,” said Noor. She put a hand to his face, smoothed the ripple in his jawline. “I can’t abandon them.”

  It was then that he lost patience with her and made a gathering gesture. “Entonces, claro que pueden venir. (Then, of course they can come.)” He shrugged. Nelson still thought that perhaps he could win by making a joke of it. “We will take them all—the whole lot . . . the girl, the boy, la vieja (old woman), el gato (the cat). I’ll build an ark if you want!”

  She expected sarcasm, but it hurt more that he didn’t say their names.

  “No, Nelson! What are you talking about?” she dropped her hand from his face. “Café Leila is not portable! The people are not portable. This is their home and I will do everything I can to preserve it. Everything I do will be to that end.”

  “And what about us?” he asked, shaking his head. “Are you leaving us then, Noor?”

  Through it all, Mehrdad and Farah remained stupefied, her brother giving her long disapproving looks. Lily swallowed hard and tilted her head ever so slightly to gaze at her mother, mouth agape, though smiling a half-smile. Noor could see that she was trying to make sense of it. She remembered how her father had sent her away thirty years ago and the utter despair of parting, how Zod had pushed her into the stewardess’s arms, reassuring her that she was a big girl now, how there was no end to her tears, and his. Oh no! Oh, her raggedy heart! How could this be? These—the worst moments of her life. Noor got to her feet and knelt before Lily, the pain in her chest unyielding.

  “So, Mom . . . can I come back next summer?”

  What? What could she give her daughter to carry so they would not stray too far apart? Noor reached into her purse, withdrew a small antique hand mirror that had belonged to Pari, and tucked it into Lily’s backpack—a looking glass to see behind and to look forward.

  Once, when Lily was learning to ride a bicycle, Noor had tripped while running behind and had broken her arm. Lily had squatted at her side and gently stroked her head until a neighbor called for help. For weeks she was helpless, not being able to lift or carry anything with her right arm, and Lily enjoyed taking charge of the household, playing mommy, insisting on washing Noor every night in a bathtub brimming with bubbles. She remembered sitting back and watching her daughter compete with Nelson in taking care of her. I don’t know what I would do without you, she’d say, only to hear Lily sigh with pleasure.

  Now she held on to Lily for dear life and with her other hand reached for Nelson, to lengthen the hour, to be close like this a little while longer. They used to sit for hours with the cradle between them, chatting about their baby girl—she looks like my mother, no, mi vida, she looks like ju—and here she was, a young woman, their excellent girl, with her chin raised quizzically. It was Nelson’s gesture, and in her eyes, a glimpse of Pari.

  Mehrdad, annoyed with his sister, pushed back his chair and walked away. Farah’s eyes went from Nelson’s blank face to Noor’s, twisted in pain, and she rose to embrace her.

  Moments later, when their flight was announced, Nelson gave Noor his arm, Lily gripped her hand, and she walked between them to the gate, and they cried through it all, as everyone seemed to do at this airport, at this hour of international flights taking fathers and sons and daughters away, parting sometimes for years.

  EPILOGUE

  As I sit here writing this by the light of the stove, it has been nearly three months since my daughter left. Already darkness closes in by five o’clock and the only light is in the kitchen. Naneh Goli is asleep in the opposite chair, too stubborn to lie down. If her room is drafty, she would never say. Under the table, Sheer arches her back and rubs against my calf. I’ve become a cat person despite myself. I hear Ferry running a bath upstairs, all the pipes shuddering to tell me so.

  Today we received a letter from Lily with a photo Nelson must have taken on Stinson Beach—a beautiful suntanned girl with spiky brown hair and the golden retriever she always desired at her side.
It’s still hard to believe she made Karim chop off her hair with my grandmother’s left-handed scissors. Inside the folded note, she had tucked in some soccer cards for Karim and scented stickers for Ferry—it surprises me how at sixteen she still covets such things like a six-year-old. She had signed her name in Persian.

  When my brother kissed me good-bye, he said, “Just promise me you won’t turn sour.” The Persian obsession with pickles and preserves serves not only as a condiment, but a metaphor. It is assumed that beneath a thick veil of loyalty or selflessness, a woman’s deep discontent waits in brine. Perhaps Mehrdad was genuinely concerned—it’s true that whenever I happened to catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I had a hurt look in my eyes, the droopy corners looking for sympathy—a preoccupied, pained look like I’d bitten the inside of my cheek.

  These days I only look in the mirror to comb and pin up my hair. There’s little time for reflection what with running the café, keeping Soli happy (stubborn and seething if a customer dare asks for salt), taking Ferry to her doctor visits, and homeschooling her for now.

  “Don’t worry,” I told Mehrdad. “You, of all people, should know I’m more mouse than martyr.”

  It’s strange sleeping in my parents’ bedroom and finding remnants of them, like a strand of Baba’s silver hair or a nail clipping, even though we scrubbed and polished and bought a new mattress.

  At first Naneh Goli had stood by the door with her hands on her hips.

  “You can’t sleep here!”

  “Why not?” I edged back, sensing her outrage.

  “It’s not right!”

  Then she turned and walked away. I didn’t want to upset her. A few hours later she returned.

  “Perhaps we should throw out the mattress.”

  I repainted, moved a few pieces around, and put a chair by the window where I like to sit in the early morning light when the house is still, my feet propped on the windowsill, and write a letter to my father giving him news of the café and his customers.

  In a dresser drawer I found a bundle of my old letters from America tied together with kitchen string in chronological order. I will say first that it’s embarrassing reading what I wrote so long ago—adrift, entangled with my faraway life and never quite maturing. I’m glad nobody else in the world will ever read them.

  Initially it felt intrusive, that I was in their intimate space, but apart from a few sleepless nights, I’ve comforted myself with the thought that three generations have lived in this creaky old house and that it will remain standing with its doors open.

  There isn’t much certainty to anything, but this much I know, that the trees will bloom every spring and the rooms where we grew up will smell of clean sheets and furniture polish, that the pipes will rattle no matter who washes, and that someone will still buy groceries, light the stove, cook our meals, and we will never be short of company.

  Acknowledgments

  GRATITUDE BEGINS AT HOME with my husband, Mitchell Johnson, and my son, Luca. You are my greatest love and the light of my eyes. Thank you for pulling me often and urgently into group hugs, for giving me the time I needed to write, and for your steadfast support. Without you, this would not exist.

  If it weren’t for my brilliant agent, Adam Chromy, this would have been a lesser book and it would not have found a good home in the hands of my wise and extraordinary editor, Andra Miller. I am grateful for your enthusiasm and proud to be represented by you. I would also like to thank Elisabeth Scharlatt, Brunson Hoole, Sasha Tropp, Anne Winslow, Lauren Moseley, Craig Popelars, Brooke Csuka, Debra Linn, and everyone at Algonquin who gave this book so much of their time and attention.

  For the love my dearest friends gave and continue to give, I am very much indebted to Taraneh Razavi and Stuart Schlisserman for their medical expertise, to Faezeh Ghaffari and Noushie Ammari for sharing their funny hospital stories, and to Belen Byers for her swift translations. Special thank you to Peter Ovanessoff, whose mother’s recipes were an inspiration, and to Nadi Ovanessoff, Jackie Espinosa, and Sia Sobhani, childhood friends and the best I ever had.

  Those who believe they recognize any of my characters are mistaken, for they are all from my imagination except for Dr. Mehran, who is my father, Dr. Bijan, beloved champion of his patients, gone before he could see how much I borrowed from his generosity. Ti jan-e-man . . .

  A heartfelt thanks to my sisters, Shabnam Anderson and Sherry Bijan, for a lifetime of love and encouragement.

  I reserve my most profound gratitude for my mother, Atefeh Bijan, who taught me the meaning of welcome, and home.

  DONIA BIJAN graduated from UC Berkeley and Le Cordon Bleu. After presiding over many of San Francisco’s acclaimed restaurants and earning awards for her French-inspired cuisine, in 1994 she opened her own restaurant, L’amie Donia, in Palo Alto. She now divides her days between raising her son, teaching, and writing.

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  Published by

  Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill

  Post Office Box 2225

  Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225

  a division of

  Workman Publishing

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  New York, New York 10014

  © 2017 by Donia Bijan.

  All rights reserved.

  Excerpt from “Little Gidding” from Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot. Copyright © renewed 1970 by Esme Valerie Eliot. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. While, as in all fiction, the literary perceptions and insights are based on experience, all names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  eISBN 978-1-61620-712-0