"What's the matter?"
"He looks..." she sounded baffled, "...familiar."
"You know our gardener's son?"
"He looks like one of Ali's friends."
"Him?" I laughed. "Don't be silly, he's just a kid. Fifteen at the most."
Ali was older than Shireen, but even if he had known the boy (perhaps from school), that wouldn't explain why Shireen would recognize him, let alone justify the boy's bewilderment. I wanted to ask her about it, but didn't want to be rude.
We stayed in my room, studying until dusk. Auntie peeked in once to meet Shireen and to advise it was time for a break. Later, she sent us tea and cake. If she noticed Shireen's chador, neatly folded and sitting on my bed, she did not show it.
During our tea break, I asked Shireen, "Are they still meeting at your house?"
"They are, but for the last few days the topic has changed."
"Oh?"
She smiled a sly smile. "I'm not supposed to tell, but..." She lowered her voice to a mere whisper. "Last night, the supreme court was there to discuss my future."
"What court?"
"The family," she said. "The ones who make big decisions for my pathetic life."
I had no idea what decision she was referring to, and shrugged.
"Marriage," she said.
Oh, no! I prayed they had not found her a rich old man.
"There's this guy."
I had never seen Shireen blush that way before. The dreamy look in her eyes, the way she said "this guy," and those downcast eyes could only mean one thing.
"You're in love!"
She laughed and shook her head. "No, nothing like that. You could say he has asked for my hand in marriage, you know? A suitor. I had kind of hoped." She took a deep breath. "Remember when you asked me what I prayed for?"
I nodded.
"I know one should keep faith separate from personal gain, but I've actually been praying that Agha-jan will say yes."
"You are in love," I repeated, this time with certainty. "What's his name? How well do you know him?"
"I've known Eemon all my life."
"And you waited 'til now to tell me?"
"He's my second cousin. We grew up together." She paused, clearly looking into the past. "I don't even remember when I started having these feelings."
"So, if he's a relative, what seems to be the problem?"
"My father wants me to marry someone more established." She smiled a sad smile. "I have a feeling by that he means someone more like himself: same income, same moral standards." She chuckled adding, "Same age!"
I laughed too, amazed at how alike our fathers sounded.
"If it weren't for Jenab's intervention, I doubt Agha-jan would even consider Eemon's proposal."
That Jenab. He seemed to be at the core of everything.
"At Eemon's request, Jenab had a talk with my father." She looked up and smiled. "Looks like he's done some magic."
"Wow," I exclaimed. "This means you'll be getting married!" I stopped to think. "What about university?"
"Nothing's decided yet. Besides, I'll continue my education no matter what."
Talking of education reminded us of our current study load, and Shireen suggested we go back to our books.
Shortly before dusk, I walked Shireen out. The air in the garden smelled of cut grass and felt clean and fresh from recent watering. Without mentioning him, Shireen and I both looked for the gardener's boy, but he was not there.
As soon as I had returned to my room, Reza came in with his T-shirt over his head to resemble a chador. "Hellooo! I'm Roya-joon's friend," he said, in a high pitch voice.
"Shut up!"
Reza released his mock hejab and sat on my bed. "I'd be careful around those fanatic Muslims," he advised. "I hear they don't take kindly to the likes of us."
"She's my best friend," I snapped.
Reza hesitated for a moment. "Where did you find her, anyway?"
I didn't dignify that with an answer.
Shireen didn't come over to study again. In fact, after that day, she seemed more distant. Our conversations dwindled to mere words here and there. One day when she seemed to be in good spirits, I dared to ask, "Any news of your suitor?"
"Let's not talk about that," she said, and sounded so miserable that I figured Eemon's proposal had been refused. I didn't ask again. She seemed to have enough on her mind, and her body language told me she wanted to be left alone.
I turned to my other friends for companionship. Nelly didn't seem to care about having me back, but a few others welcomed the return. I spent most recesses with them.
"Roya Afshar to the teacher's lounge," the speakers echoed.
Oh, dear, was it my turn now? I did a quick mental check of my actions and couldn't think of any reason that would make them call on me. My chest tightened as I neared the teacher's lounge adjacent to the office. The door was closed and I could hear no sound. I knocked, and exhaled in a gasp at the familiar voice.
"Come in."
Jenab stood by the window, back to the door, watching the volleyball game outside. No one else was present. The smell of mortadella, onions and pickles left behind from the teachers' lunches lingered in the air. Through straw shades I saw the girls outside in their blue uniforms, yelling, jumping and passing the ball across the net.
"Sit down, Roya," Jenab said without facing me.
In the three years he'd known me, this was the first time he'd used my given name.
"These are difficult times," he said. "We're all more or less under pressure." He turned around and studied me. "Do not abandon your friend at a time like this. Shireen needs you now more than ever." And he pointed an accusing finger at me.
What did he know? I opened my mouth, but decided to say nothing.
"A friendship like hers is rare," he said. "Few are worthy of such agift."
I resented the implication that I may not be one of those "few."
"Sir, I don't know what Shireen has told you, but-"
"She hasn't told me anything, Roya, but it doesn't take a genius to figure it out."
"It's she who doesn't want to be my friend." My voice broke.
"But she does," he said, his voice regaining its familiarwarmth. "The key to a good friendship is in tolerating what we don't understand."
If I said another word I would cry.
"You don't have to do, or say, anything," he went on. "Just be there. Listen to her."
"She doesn't talk."
Instead of a response, Jenab recited a verse from Rumi, "The language of hearts is hardly ever wrong. Better to share hearts, than seek a common tongue."
The bell rang and Jenab motioned me back to class.
Before leaving, I turned to him. "Sir?"
He looked up from the desk.
"What about you, sir?" I said realizing there were no good words to substitute for being fired. "Are you going to be okay?" I said.
"Only time can tell." His heavy tone combined with the dark look in his eyes told me he, too, was losing hope.
I nodded and left.
At recess, I found Shireen down in the prayer hall, not praying, just sitting there, reading a book.
"Why won't you tell me what's the matter?"
Shocked at my candor, she closed her book, gave a soft sigh and said in a low voice, "Eemon left."
I plopped down next to her. "He's gone? What happened?"
She didn't answer.
"I can't understand your secrecy," I said. "If I ever had a boyfriend, you'd be-"
"He's not my boyfriend."
"No? Then what is he?"
"I don't know."
Was I jealous? And why not? Her life was filled with mystery, and it sure seemed much more exciting than mine. With the prospect of a marriage, soon she'd forget all about me. I tried to stay calm and, remembering Jenab's advice, waited patiently just in case she wanted to talk.
She did not.
The week before final exams, the office meetings came to
an end and Jenab returned to his class, but we all suspected the matter was unresolved.
"No decision before summer," Nelly the ever informed said. "They just can't afford more student protests."
One day, when Shireen and I were both late to class, Jenab gave us a mock bow. "Let's begin, now that our scholars have graced us." His scorn stung. "Teachers can wait," he went on. "They seem to be a dime a dozen these days, don't you agree?"
Ignoring the laughter of a few students, he turned to the blackboard and wrote.
There is so much pain gathered in my heart,
That if from this maze I should survive
I'll limp my way to the portal of existence
And not allow one soul to come alive.
He turned in our direction and I had never seen him more devastated. I looked for Shireen's reaction, but her downcast eyes indicated she was evading him.
Jenab read the poem in his deliberate fashion before analyzing it. "Pain," he repeated. "What Kashi means here by 'pain' is indignation, but what is he referring to?"
He waited, but no one volunteered. "Anyone?" He looked only at Shireen.
Shireen did not stand up the way we all did when responding to a teacher. She looked away and said, "He is talking about the most unbearable pain. The kind Alieh's mother must have felt when they told her the remains of her daughter had been found."
The entire class gasped as one. That single word, "remains," was enough to send a cold prickling under my skin. How easily I had put that whole incident out of my mind.
A murmur rose and the classroom started to sound like a beehive. I realized this was the first time Shireen had mentioned Mitra's classmate by name.
I looked at Jenab.
"Yes," he said. Everyone stopped talking. "That indeed is pain, one so profound that we can only guess its depth, but nothing is 'most unbearable,' Miss Payan. No matter how bad it is, life can always come up with worse."
Shireen bent her head, and drop-by-drop, tears dotted the front of her uniform.
"There are many kinds of pain," Jenab said with less feeling, as if reading from a textbook. "For example, there is a kind that we all need to be conscious of." He pointed a finger at class and moved it from row to row, like the barrel of a machine gun. "The painful realization that we could have done something." He went to the blackboard and drew a line under the word, 'existence.'
"Enclosed in this word alone is much injustice. We see unfairness everywhere, all the time, but somehow we choose to stand back." He shrugged. "I'm comfortable, so why take a chance?"
Shireen shot out of our bench so abruptly that her books dropped. She bolted out the back door, slamming it behind her.
Someone gasped. Leaving a classroom without permission was unheard of, especially in that manner.
Jenab shook his head as if to imply he understood. Encouraged, I raised my hand and pointed to the door. He nodded. I picked up the books Shireen had dropped and left.
Going down the stairs, I found her at our window, looking out at the dried up mud where the poppies had been. I stood by her side and we watched a crow strut along the roof.
"Where did you hear about Alieh?"
Shireen did not respond.
"I mean, there was nothing in the news, was there?"
She shook her head and whispered, "There wouldn't be."
I could sense she was leading to something more important, but she seemed hesitant.
"They don't want more trouble," she said. "Better to pretend it was a case of rape and murder."
"They? Who?"
With her finger, she wrote on the dusty window, "SAVAK" and quickly wiped it.
I looked down the stairway and into the floor below, remembering the polished shoes and Alieh kicking, struggling.
"I'll never forget Mrs. Saberi's face," I whispered. "She just stood there and watched them take her."
"You saw them?" Shireen asked, wide eyed. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"Madam Executioner. She threatened me." Whispering, I gave my friend a brief account of the scene that had haunted me for months. "Sometimes I can't fall asleep, thinking I could have done something." The remembrance made it hard to breathe.
Shireen put her arm around my shoulders. "Done what? Don't let Jenab give you this kind of guilt. There was nothing you could do."
Regardless of what Shireen said, had she been there, she would have acted differently.
"It isn't only the university students," Shireen went on. "People are ready, and those who take a chance are prepared to pay the price."
"Alieh paid dearly," I said.
She looked away. "In a way, I've paid, too."
"How?"
"My father was seriously considering Eemon's proposal. But when both Ali and Eemon joined the demonstrators, he changed his mind." The expression on her face became so helpless, it was as if the young man had died.
"I don't know what to think," I said. "I feel terrible about Alieh, but maybe what I feel is more for Alieh the schoolgirl, not the insurgent."
I regretted my words as soon as I saw the change in Shireen's expression. She took a step back, the cold look in her eyes shutting me out.
"I have to go," she said and turned around. I watched her walk down the steps and out of the building.
On my way back to class, I passed the old custodian. He stared at me with what I took to be a question on his wrinkled face.
Had he overheard our conversation?
On the last day of school, students gathered in the yard to view their final grades, which were posted on the first floor windows. Some cheered with relief, while a few girls cried in disappointment. I looked around for Shireen and, not finding her, I went to clear my desk. Our classroom, not used in more than two weeks, smelled of dust and chalk. Shireen sat at our bench, and only when I stood next to her did I realize she was crying.
"Hey, I saw your grades," I said jokingly, "and they're no crying matter, buddy."
She started to gather her things and said in a calmer voice, "Eemon has enlisted in the army. He will be away for two years."
"What about your plans to marry?"
"Oh, that's no longer a plan, at least not for some time. Maman got married when she was only seventeen. She is determined that my sister and I wait."
I was on her mother's side.
"The worst part is that Agha-jan has forbidden me from seeing him." She shrugged before adding, "It may be just as well he's going away."
"He doesn't sound like the army type," I said. "What use is it to him?"
Shireen thought about that. "One never knows when it may come in handy." She stuffed her books in a shopping bag. "I guess two more years won't kill me, will it?"
"I'm really sorry," I said.
"Me, too."
Outside, the summer sun had risen higher, spreading overpowering heat. "We will soon be going to the farm again," I told Shireen. "Promise you' ll write."
"I will, but I'll have none of that goodbye business. It's best to say 'see you later,' no matter how late 'later' may be." She reached into the folds of her chador and handed me the Phillips diary. "Would you mind keeping this over the summer?"
I took the booklet and felt as if she had trusted me with her life. Maybe she was worried that her brother might sneak a peek, or that her mother would find it. I stroked the cover and the corners that had started to shred.
"It'll be safe with me."
We saw Jenab coming out of the building with his briefcase tucked under one arm and a thick file under the other. Baba followed, hauling a huge box over his shoulder. Closer, I noticed the box was full of books, files and stacks of paper.
"Well, scholars," Jenab said as he reached us. "I guess this is goodbye."
"Yes, it is," I said. He seemed exhausted. Was it the heat? Or was he tired of so many end-of-the-year activities?
"Mr. Elmi, where did you park, sir?" the old custodian asked.
"Not too far," Jenab said without moving. "The end to another good year,
" he said, smiling his distinctive smile. He followed Baba, leaving without another word.
When Baba came back, he tucked the tip Jenab must have given him into his pocket, shook his head and sighed. "I guess that's that."
I laughed at his morbid tone. "Baba, if I didn't know any better, I'd think someone had died."
He shook his head in sorrow. "Mr. Elmi lost."
I found that no less a shock than someone dying and turned to Shireen for her response, but she didn't seem surprised at all.
"You knew this?" I said. "Thanks for preparing me!"
"I wanted to," she said in her calm tone. "But you're the one who asked not to make this your problem." She sighed. "Besides, you seemed so happy about your grades, I didn't want to spoil it."
I was too devastated to respond.
Baba shook his head in sorrow. "No one can take that man's place." He pointed to where Jenab had stood minutes ago.
"What do you mean?" I said. "So he lost, and there will be reprimands, but he'll be back." I turned to Shireen, "Won't he?"
Shireen seemed equally surprised as she asked Baba, "Do you know something we should know?"
"May God break my hand," the old custodian said, and he held up five calloused fingers. "I myself delivered his letter of resignation."
With that, he left us and went back inside, his head bent down, his back more pronouncedly curved. I didn't even notice when Shireen left.
I just stood there, my feet glued to the asphalt, the hot sun scorching my brain. I looked at the old school building, now appearing so dilapidated. Who cared how old and ugly it looked? Without Jenab, that place might as well crumble and fall to the ground.
PART Two
The KILN
Six
MY AUNT HAD STARTED packing weeks before, and this time I understood Mitra's resentment of spending another summer in Golsara. It was as if, along with the clothes, bedding and boxes of food, a good part of my youth was also being shipped to that remote village, where it was utterly disconnected from city life.
Respecting Shireen's wish, I didn't say goodbye and before I knew it, we were on that long road again. I still couldn't believe Jenab's resignation and since Mitra dismissed it as, "Not a big deal," there was no one else to discuss it with. Baba could have it all wrong. If Shireen didn't write to me, it might be months before I'd know if there was any truth to his story. I couldn't imagine someone else teaching Jenab's class. Without him, I might as well do as Pedar wished and forget literature.
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