Tehran Noir

by Salar Abdoh

  Milad nodded respectfully. “You are absolutely right. Give me one second.” He set the lightbulb on his study desk, took some money from the drawer, and handed it over.

  The old man counted with shaking hands. “But this is only half of it.”

  “Sure, I’ll have the rest soon.”

  Slowly but firmly he closed the door in the old man’s face and came back inside, looking both relieved and exhausted.

  Arash was rolling a hashish joint on a small tray full of loose tobacco. “That old man should have his mouth sewn up. What a windbag! The bastard already owns six buildings in the neighborhood and he still has to come up here and knock on your door. You should tell him to go to hell.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” Milad snapped. “I’m lucky the guy rented me this place at all.” He sat in front of his computer.

  “There he goes again, Mr. Facebook. Oh look, friends, my thousands and thousands of bullshit Internet friends—here’s my pic drinking strong black coffee, here’s me in my green outfit from last year, here’s my cat and isn’t she a jewel? And isn’t meditating and thinking Zen thoughts so damn cool, guys? Let’s everybody meditate together and jerk off. God! People got nothing better to do in this town.”

  “Shut up, Arash! This computer’s got a bug. Half my files are fucked. I’m frustrated as hell.”

  “You say it like the damn machine has the flu. What, you want to French kiss the computer screen? Fuck that thing and its files. Where do all these files and the papers you turn in for your engineering courses get us, college boy? Nowhere. We’re still poor as shit.” Arash lit the joint, took a couple of hits, and offered it to Milad. “Inhale, brother, it’ll lighten you up.”

  Milad put the joint in his mouth and took a long, hard drag, gazing vacantly at the ceiling. He blew the smoke out toward Arash. “So what happened with your plan to leave this shithole country?”

  “My old man says not to count on him for help. Motherfucker! He says he doesn’t have the dough. And even if he did, he wouldn’t give it to me. The asshole!”

  “That kind of money is no joke.”

  “The man I talked to said he didn’t need all the money at once. I can pay him off in three installments. The last one when the visa comes through.”

  “If you have to pay, you have to pay. Three installments or ten installment makes no difference when you don’t have the bread.”

  “I know. My ass is fucked.”

  “Besides,” Milad took another hit, “what if the guy takes your money and runs?”

  “Nah. He’s trustworthy. He does this kind of thing for a living. It’s his livelihood. He’ll lose customers if he fucks me. I asked around about him. Did my research. You remember that guy who was in love with himself?”

  “I know a lot of assholes like that. Who?”

  “You know, the guy who was in the gym like fifteen hours a day. Had muscles the size of Hercules’s dick. Used to roll up his sleeves in the dead of winter and strut around like a pumped-up whore. My contact got him as far as Malaysia. Now he’s waiting to get to Australia.” Arash took the joint out of Milad’s hand. “But forget that for a minute. Let’s talk about this: I got a fail-safe plan. Something deep, something serious.” He took a toke. “We’ll be millionaires if we do it right. A one-shot deal.”

  Milad turned away. “Not another one of your get-rich-quick schemes.”

  “I swear, if you say no, I’ll have to ask that dumbfuck Rasul the Limp, Samira’s one-legged dick.”

  “You’re high. Relax and shut up.”

  “This is real. And even if Rasul says no, I’ll ask the bitch herself, Samira. That girl’s willing to do anything. Remember the time she came to the stadium with us?”

  Milad’s phone started buzzing.

  Arash persisted, “I swear, you’re less than a cunt if you say no to my plan. It’s foolproof.” The phone continued vibrating on the sofa. Arash finally picked it up and checked the number. “You’re going to answer your phone or not? It’s your woman, Zahra.”

  “Don’t answer it.”

  “You’re wasting your time with that piece of ass. Better off jerking off.”

  “Shut up.” Milad was clicking fast on the computer keyboard and didn’t even bother to turn around when Arash slid the phone across the floor to him.

  “She goes around acting like Ms. Innocent. I hear her big-shot father has picked the Twelfth District clean these past four years. Everyone and their mother in the Twelfth is on the take. I wish the bastard would at least give me a job there.”

  Without turning around, Milad stretched his hand out and took the joint from Arash.

  “Let me guess,” Arash went on, “you probably do her from the back, right? But why her? I mean, this town’s filled with bitches—tall ones, short ones, ones with asses the size of a donut, others like a watermelon. We got the pick of the litter, and they’re all looking for husbands. The stupid cunts.”

  The phone buzzed again.

  Milad finally picked it up off the floor, silenced it, and shoved it in his pocket.

  “Come on!” Arash whined. “Let me tell you my plan. We can go out and eat something and talk.”

  “I can make you an omelet right here.”

  “You’re gonna turn into a fucking poached egg yourself if you keep eating so much of that shit. That’s all you ever eat. Come, let’s go out and get some fucking dog burger at least.”

  “All right, let me just change this lamp and we can go.”

  A minute later Arash heard a thud in the hallway and then Milad’s voice groaning about his twisted ankle.

  “Great,” he muttered to himself, “now we got Rasul the Limp #2, and there goes my foolproof plan.”

  Scene 9

  It was dark out and wet. The man drove into the main street. An Allah gold chain hanging off the rearview mirror quivered back and forth every time the car made a turn.

  “I’m sorry if it scared you. I always carry one with me.”

  “It’s all right,” the woman answered quietly. “I’d never seen one up close.”

  “Don’t be afraid. What’s important is that the wrong kind of man doesn’t carry one of these. It’s just for protection.” Saying this, he reached instinctively for the side of his coat and felt the weapon’s hardness. Then he ran the same hand over the woman’s thigh. She froze.

  “Once the work on my country house up in Lavasan is finished, it’ll be a lot better for us. It’s a bit far, but safer.”

  The woman said nothing.

  There was a long line in front of the New Moon ice-cream shop. He drove past it.

  Now the woman said, “I can get off here.”

  “Too many people. I’ll go around. You didn’t tell me what happened to your forehead.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “How old’s your child?”

  “Almost one.”

  “May God preserve him. You are still going ahead with your divorce with that bus driver?” Instead of waiting for her to answer, he reached for a small leather Koran sitting on the dashboard. Inside it was a folded-up piece of paper. He handed it to the woman. “This will help you. It’s a little note to the family court judge in the district you need to go to. Give it to him, and tell him I send my regards. He’ll know what to do.”

  “You are very kind to me.”

  “But don’t call my cell phone anymore. Just send me an empty text message. I’ll know it’s you. I’ll call you back.”

  “I will.”

  He pulled out an envelope from his inner coat pocket. “Take this too.”

  The woman felt the money in the envelope and put the whole thing in her bag. “Thank you very much.”

  He rubbed her thigh one more time and she froze again.

  “Can you get out here?”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  “I don’t want to see you with a mark on your face again. Doesn’t look good.”

  She nodded and hurriedly stepped out of the car. “Thank you, haj agha
. Thank you.”

  Scene 10

  From the back of the bus a woman shouted, “Driver, open the back door!”

  There was hardly room to breathe in that bus. Everyone hung on to some sliver of metal railing and tried not to squeeze too hard against the next person. Even on the bus’s steps people were sardined shoulder to shoulder and could barely move. The last guy in through the middle door had his briefcase half stuck outside and was desperately pulling on it with both hands.

  The light turned green and the bus started to move again. The woman shouted, “I said I’m getting off! Stop the bus!”

  A chorus rose, “Bus driver, stop! She needs to get off!”

  The driver paid them no mind and kept driving. Somebody in the front noted that there was no bus stop here.

  It was a gray morning. Early. The bus moved fast through the express lane. A man pushed his way with difficulty to the front. “Driver, please open the door when you can. I got on the wrong bus.”

  The driver didn’t acknowledge him. Someone nearby said, “There’s no more stops until Vanak Circle.”

  Someone else observed, “The poor guy got on by mistake. Why can’t he just stop for him?”

  From the opposite direction a motorbike came zooming illegally toward them. The driver didn’t slow down at all. At the last moment the biker was forced to turn sharply onto the sidewalk and almost slammed against several pedestrians, who scattered like bowling pins.

  The bus moved on.

  At Vanak Circle the doors to the bus finally opened. Several men got on from the front and ran their metro cards through the machine. One guy had to buy his ticket first and stretched a bill toward the driver.

  “Here you go.”

  The driver just sat there staring directly ahead of him. He saw no one and answered no one.

  Now a large woman came barreling up front. “I hope you rot in hell!” she yelled. “Now I have to go all this way back because you wouldn’t stop!” She threw her coins on the floor of the bus and stormed out.

  The driver checked his watch. Almost ten o’clock. He pressed a button next to the steering wheel and slowly got up.

  One of the passengers said, “Where’s this guy going?”

  “He’s leaving. Hey, where are you going? This isn’t the end of the line.”

  The passengers stuck their faces to the foggy windows of the bus and watched the driver as he walked toward the family court building in Vanak and eventually disappeared in the crowd.

  Scene 11

  As she rode him she pressed her palms into his chest, moving her head back and forth to caress his face with her long hair. He lifted his head and bit on her nipples one at a time and then sank back down and grabbed the back of her ass cheeks and pressed her deeper. She moaned. In one quick movement he turned her so that she hit the mattress on her back while he stayed inside her pumping harder.

  She moaned again and so did he and they managed to come together.

  He rolled off and lay on his back. She put her head on his sweaty chest.

  His phone buzzed. He jumped up but didn’t check it. As he was taking a piss the phone buzzed again. He went and stood by the window and listened to his messages.

  It was Zahra: “Milad, I know Samira is there. It’s not my business . . .” Her voice cracked as she spoke but she went on with the message. “If I made a mistake and slept with others, I was thinking what difference does it make? What’s important is the heart. You know? Milad, listen to me—I’m failing all my college classes because of you. I can’t concentrate. I swear to God, if you don’t talk to me I’ll kill myself.”

  He deleted the message and turned to see Samira stepping out of the bathroom. She sat naked in front of the computer and lit a cigarette.

  “It was Zahra,” she said. “Right? Poor thing. You should treat her better.” She clicked on something and piano sounds came from the computer.

  “Turn off that music.”

  She did so, then picked up an enormous textbook and asked, “What does this title mean? Fluid Mechanics. Is it a novel?”

  Milad didn’t answer.

  “So what happened to your leg? Now you’re walking like that dumb fiancé of mine, Rasul the Limp. He says he wants to wait until we have more money before we get married. More money from where? I asked him. He’s so dumb.” She laughed. “Have you seen how long he’s grown his hair? He’s looking more and more like you these days. Maybe he wants to be you. Everybody does. By the way, I saw Arash the other day. He’s got some crazy idea in his head.”

  Milad was staring out the window. He spoke her name: “Samira.”

  She didn’t hear him and continued to talk. “He said he’d told you all about it. I mean, I’m sitting there listening to him, thinking this guy is out of his mind. You should have seen Rasul’s face. I thought he’d have a heart attack just listening to the plan. But then I thought—why not? I mean, his plan isn’t all bad. So I say to Arash, Do you want me to come instead of Rasul? I can even play like I got a limp like my fiancé. It’ll throw off the police afterward. They’ll be looking for a limping thief.”

  “Shut up, Samira,” he said quietly.

  “Milad, come to think of it, now that you’re limping too, why don’t all three of us—me, you, and Rasul—all go together with Arash?” She laughed louder this time. “Think about it: Arash and the limping bank robbers.”

  “Be quiet.”

  “Has a ring to it, no? I mean—”

  “Samira!”

  “Huh? What, love?”

  He threw Samira’s bra and panties at her. “Get lost!”

  Scene 12

  The hallway was pitch-black. Zahra peeked inside her mother’s room. Her bed was next to the window. A shaft of light illuminated her glass of water and her bottle of pills on the nightstand. Her mother was fast asleep. Now she tiptoed to her father’s room. The door was shut. She drew a deep breath, held it, and turned the doorknob. She stood there for a second. No sound except his heavy breathing. She brushed a hand against the clothes hanging near the door. Pants pocket. The car keys rattled when she reached for them. She fisted them with a sweaty hand and tiptoed back out without shutting the door all the way.

  Downstairs, she put on her orange scarf and manteau. She took another deep breath and stepped out of the house.

  Scene 13

  It was past two in the morning. Except for a few neon signs here and there, everything appeared closed. Puri didn’t remember which pharmacy was open this time of night. She passed several sanitation workers in their orange overalls. A man stood holding a backpack and as she passed him he tried to flag her down. She pressed on the gas and moved on.

  Her phone rang. She didn’t answer. In the distance she spotted a cigarette man. He sat next to a beat-up metal container and had himself a fire going with empty cigarette cartons. She pulled the window down a couple of inches.

  “You got Marlboro Lights?”

  The man nodded and she pushed some money out the window. He gave her the cigarette pack.

  “Is there a twenty-four-hour pharmacy around here?”

  He stared at her. “What are you looking for?” When she said nothing, he asked, “Meth? Crack? Pills—”

  She didn’t wait for him to finish. Several lights down she slowed the car and took out a smoke. Her hands were shaking. This time of night, most of the lights stayed yellow and just blinked nonstop. Her phone rang again. This time she answered.

  “What do you want from me? I told you I’m not home.” She listened for a minute and then snapped back, “The boy is running a fever! I’ve come looking for a pharmacy. No, you let me talk! If you’re so worried about him, be my guest, come and take him. Take him and see if you can look after him for one day.” She listened again, and now answered with a dull, tired voice, “We’ve been divorced four years and you still won’t leave me alone. To hell with you. What makes you think you can call me at two in the morning anyway?” She sped up and shouted into the phone, “That’s right!
Actually, I’m planning to fuck some college kid twenty years my junior. He lives in my neighborhood. You happy now?”

  She threw the phone on the passenger seat and drove faster and faster. The low pressure in the front left tire made the car hard to control. Still, she passed through several more yellow lights without slowing down. And though her cigarette wasn’t finished she was already reaching for another one.

  She did see it coming. The white Toyota approaching from the cross street at normal speed at first. Puri thought she’d pass it before they both got to the intersection. But then the Toyota seemed to be trying to do what Puri was doing, speeding up, and in an instant she was ramming right into that white car, lifting the thing and sending it spinning in the same direction it had come from. Puri’s face banged against the side window upon impact but she didn’t lose control of the wheel. She applied the brakes and simultaneously heard the sound of metal on asphalt and shattering glass as the other car careened and slid, upside down, before finally coming to a stop on the opposite side of the intersection.

  When she finally turned, she saw what looked like an orange headscarf next to the car among all that shattered glass. It was not unlike the color of the overalls of those sanitation workers she’d driven past earlier. She felt like vomiting. The cigarette had fallen to the floor by her feet and was still burning. She lit the other one that was between her fingers and took a long drag. She didn’t even glance back at the upended Toyota again. There were no cars anywhere. No one had seen this. Her engine was still idling. She put the car into gear and slowly inched away.

  Final Scene

  Bank Robber #1 kept pacing back and forth, nervously waving his gun in the air. He screamed, “Hurry up, all of you! You see what I’m holding in my hand? They don’t call it a shah-kosh for nothing. And if it can kill a king, it can definitely kill you pieces of shit. Now out with everything you got in your pockets.”