The Immortals of Tehran

by Ali Araghi

  “You must get some rest sometime,” Pooran said with a disappointed concern, knowing Khan would do what he had dressed up for. She stepped aside when Khan reached for the door with a smile for an answer. Like the rest of them, like Agha and Nosser, like her own Ahmad, in Khan’s veins ran the secretive blood. But he had something the others lacked. An elegant charm that demanded respect, an equanimity that seeped even through anxiety and fear, even through absurdity. Sometimes Pooran felt that she had looked at Khan more as her own father than Nosser’s, not just after she became a widow, but since the very day she met her father-in-law.

  That night Khan positioned himself on the street that his charts showed would see the opening scene. The patrol Jeeps passed, but either did not see him or were not threatened by an old man dozing off on the steps of a red brick building, his cane across his lap. The stores opened like every day: first the bakeries, then the coffeehouses and lamb-brains shops. The grocers whispered the name of God as they drove their keys into the padlocks. A few hours after the sun was in the morning sky, people started gathering, first as passersby. A military bus arrived. Conscript soldiers jumped down and blocked traffic. The chanting began. Behind Khan, an old woman stepped out of the building and spread a piece of cloth on the step before she sat down.

  “Is your grandson there, too?”

  Khan shook his head.

  “Mine is,” she said, “God save him. God save them all.”

  Fists started to pump the air and the shop owners pulled down the blinds and put the padlocks back on. With the help of two other men, the woman’s grandson held the ankle of a teenage boy and carried him, running, to an ambulance. On his way back, the grandson picked a rock from a sidewalk flower bed and hurled it through the window of the Iran National Bank branch on a corner. A Molotov cocktail followed and flames flew out like a genie. With their expected shrewdness, the street cats nimbly avoided stampeding crowds, crouching in the heart of things, the nooks and crannies that the city offered, not to men, but to them only. The when and where of these animals Khan had been able to answer for long now, but he could not yet solve the problem of how. It was then that a tank arrived. Khan and the old woman could not see it. They only heard the people running away, warning others with grating cries. Later that day, it would run through the wall of the theater.

  The reinforcement had succeeded in dispersing the protesters, but Khan knew the second act was about to unfurl and he knew where. He had seen enough though. He clutched his lion and went back home. He did not hear Ahmad’s speech the next day, but the grocer, the butcher, and the neighbors had things to say about it. The Prime Minister was changed in five days and the new cabinet was introduced to the parliament for a vote of confidence. All the sixteen ministers were voted in by a landslide majority. Among the hands that shot up was Ahmad’s. The paper had arrived at his house from Great Zia the night before. The messenger boy had rung the bell and waited on his moped for Ahmad to nod his approval before throttling away. It was a simple list of the names of the ministers, and in front of each, a yes or a no.

  The house was dark when Ahmad went home that night. Homa and the girls were already in bed. He did not turn the lights on, but sat in the low telephone bench and, as usual, called Mr. Zia, waiting for him to start. “The Great Zia thanks you for your vote today,” he said after some pause. There was not much else to say. They had gotten what they wanted. “How is your family by the way?” Mr. Zia asked. That was not a question Ahmad could answer on the phone, and both men knew it, but Mr. Zia could not help asking. His question was not a real one, but a camouflage for another he meant to ask: “How is Leyla?”

  Ahmad hung up. That night was the tenth in a row his mother had not called. Since Ahmad had been elected, Pooran listened to the live broadcast of the parliament sessions from beginning to end. In the evening, she would call to ask what he had voted. “The bill on the salary raise for nurses?” Ahmad would tap once on the receiver for a yes. “The one about the budget, the second one?” Ahmad would tap twice for a no. She had become a mother worrying about her boy’s homework, just like those first nights in Tehran when she came back from being a maid in her own daughter’s house and checked that Ahmad was sitting on the floor with his books and notebooks open before him.

  Ahmad was at first relieved when she stopped calling, then saddened. The night after he voted the new cabinet in, he remained in the low chair after Mr. Zia said goodbye. He wiped the receiver with a piece of cloth. He untangled the twists of the cord and, with the same rag, dusted the table that did not need dusting. He flicked small pieces of things off of his pants. His mother did not call. The night was calm and warm. Light from the half-moon came in through the French door spreading over the rugs. His mother was the last person he thought could stop believing in him, and yet it had happened. Somewhere in the dark of that house, though, there were three people who were still with him. He still had them.

  The ceiling fan lashed the air around the bedroom. In the faint light of the night lamp Homa sprawled on her back, head turned to one side, each limb flung out in its own direction. Ahmad crawled in and coiled himself as close to Homa as he could, and listened to her breathing until he fell asleep.

  * * *

  —

  THE NEXT MORNING, HOMA WOKE up with a strange feeling that it was late. The clock showed twenty past eight, over an hour after she usually woke. Maybe she had forgotten to unlock the alarm. Then she realized that Ahmad was not at work, but lying beside her. His alarm had not gone off either; both had overslept on the same day. “Up, up, honey, it’s late!” She shook Ahmad on the shoulder and sprang out of the bed to check on the girls. Ready in their school uniforms, Leyla sat in an armchair in the living room, hugging her bag, while Lalah hopscotched on an imaginary court on the rug. Leyla had prepared breakfast for both of them, dressed her sister, and sat down to wait. Homa was hurriedly getting ready when Ahmad stepped out of the room and motioned for them to stop, announcing that Wednesday was off. “What do you mean?” Homa asked, baffled, already standing at the door in her navy-blue dress and black pumps, with puffy eyes and barely combed hair. “The kids have school.” But Ahmad was serious in his jovial good mood. They would later call the principal and explain, but they were going to spend the day together. Once the bewilderment of Ahmad’s strange proposal turned into the acceptance of an unexpected holiday, it was not easy to make an excited Lalah wait. She quickly changed out of her school uniform into her favorite green dress and kept calling, “Is it time yet,” while standing ready at the door.

  Two hours later, the taxi pulled over by the side of the road and the family stepped out. To their left were high rocky hills and to their right trees spotting a green strip of land that stretched along a riverbank. Ahmad paid the driver and asked him to return late in the afternoon. They laid the blanket in the shade of the tree. Ahmad tied a strong rope to a bough. Homa folded a sheet into a seat and sat on the swing first. The girls took turns pushing her. They played tag. Lalah found a turtle and loaded its shell with three rocks. In the changing room Homa devised—holding up the sheet against her body—the girls changed into their swimming suits and ran for the stream. Leyla splashed Lalah and Ahmad. Lalah cut her toe and cried. They dried up as they ate lunch. Homa climbed a walnut tree, sat on a branch, and as she swung her legs, dared anyone to climb as high. The girls tried and failed to get a foothold on the tree. “Come on, girls!” she called down at them and then teased them more: “I thought you’d beat me. Oh, it’s so beautiful up here.” Ahmad sprang up and sat by Homa’s side. The branch bent dangerously under the weight of the two adults who had arms around each other’s shoulders. The girls looked up at the soles of their parents’ dirty feet. In the afternoon, they waited by the roadside for the taxi. Cars zoomed past in both directions. Ahmad’s glance shifted from his watch to the end of the road. Tired and bad-tempered, Lalah rested her head on her sister’s chest. Leyla threw an arm around her. “We can
try the passing cars,” Homa said to Ahmad, touching him on the arm. She was tired, but happy. “Someone’s bound to take us.”

  But then their taxi appeared far away in the bend of the road.

  * * *

  —

  THE RIPS IN AHMAD’S RELATIONSHIP with the Great Zia’s circle were mended. Before every parliamentary session, the messenger boy rode his moped to Ahmad’s, rang the bell, and handed Ahmad the papers from the Great Zia. They tell me what to say, Ahmad wrote to Homa after dinner one night. They tell me what to think. That’s what they wanted from the beginning, a puppet who would raise his hand when they pull the string. He threw the papers to the floor.

  “This is their condition for their continued support,” Mr. Zia said on the other end of the line each time they spoke. “I say we meet at your place this evening and talk about a few things,” he suggested over and over again. Ahmad thought the reconciliation between himself and the uncle had been the doing of Mr. Zia. He also had noticed the shadow of the involuntary smile on the man’s face when he had talked to Leyla that day in the hallway, and the way he touched his glasses as he did when he was nervous. Ahmad knew he could have been wrong, that he might have mistaken the shining astonishment Leyla kindled when she talked for a deeper passion. But he made sure they would not see each other again. With the pretext of confidentiality, he would ask Homa to take the kids to her mother’s or Khan’s house before Mr. Zia arrived. Meeting after meeting, Mr. Zia sat in his leather armchair waiting for that door to open. The common question of “how’s your family?” brought forth a flash in Ahmad’s eyes that told him I suspect. The first time he brought a box of candies, Mr. Zia placed it on the coffee table. “For the kids,” he said. “A friend brought it from abroad. Best chocolate in the world. Well, I don’t have children. This will be put to better use here.” A silence fell. Mr. Zia felt Ahmad’s quiet spiraling up his throat and pressing on his windpipe.

  On the next visit, Mr. Zia put his papers down on the table and bent his head low.

  “I know you know,” he said.

  He took his glasses off and buried his face in his hands. It did not take long before a tear dropped from between his fingers. “I’m ashamed of it, but I can’t help it.” Mr. Zia did not know what to expect at that moment. He was ready for rage. If Ahmad beat him, he would take the blows and be kicked out of the house. He would not raise a hand. Deep down, he was even asking for it. For something. Silence and uncertainty weighed on his head as if his brain had turned into lead. The night coalesced behind the curtained French doors. At Ahmad’s touch on his shoulders, Mr. Zia raised his head to the writing on the notepad: Wait ten years.

  Mr. Zia sprang to his feet and straightened his suit and tie. “I will,” he said as if standing at attention.

  Ahmad wrote on the pad and held it before Mr. Zia. Then if she wants you, you will have my blessings.

  Mr. Zia was not thinking how far in the future ten years was. The path had disappeared from before his eyes, leaving only the shiny end, the delicate, brilliant Leyla.

  “Can I see her sometime? Once a month only?”

  Ahmad shook his head. Something crumbled in Mr. Zia.

  “What if she finds someone else? What if she forgets me?”

  The few moments that it took Ahmad to pen down his sentence on his notepad was the longest period of Mr. Zia’s life. He went back to his childhood, to his old age, to his happiness and despair, before he arrived in the living room in Tehran to the words, I won’t force anything on my daughter. This is your bet. Are you ready to wager?

  His eyes welled up and he nodded his head. Before he left, Mr. Zia wiped his face on the sleeve of his suit and put on his glasses.

  21

  ANA SHAMSI DIED a little into the winter that lasted for fifteen years. After the tank rode into the theater, a journalist was audacious enough to write—and the editor-in-chief too radical a critic of the regime not to publish—an article with a trenchant political bent against the regime that ended with a bleak paragraph:

  The land that has seen the age-old hero, Rostam, defeat demons and enchain monsters in the heart of the mountains, the land that witnessed our today’s national hero, our exiled Prime Minister, Mosaddegh, shackle the Brits and sever the hands of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company from our God-given natural resources, how can this land bear to witness so much oppression and injustice? I don’t know. Will this soil ever bloom again? I don’t know. Will the life-giving warmth of spring thaw our frozen hearts one more time? I doubt it. My heart testifies to the opposite: that it is worsening by the day. I can feel it in my ancient joints: a long winter is on its way.

  Nana Shamsi caught the pearl eyes and her sight declined rapidly. Pooran would take her to the doctor, but Nana said, “I have seen more than I would have wanted to.” When the world became too blurry, she relied on the guidance of her granddaughter. With her trembling hand on Zeeba’s shoulder, Nana walked across the yard and sat on a low stool by the front door to listen to the sounds of the world without seeing the faces that greeted her. When all light left her eyes, Pooran called in a doctor. Lying in her mattress, Nana Shamsi listened to the sound of the stranger and felt the fingers that pried open her eyelids. After a short pause, she heard the man’s voice. “God giveth life and He taketh it away.” She did not hear the rest of what the doctor said to Pooran before he stepped from the edge of the roof onto the planks that formed the floor of the elevator: “It’s not just her eyes. She has no more life in her.”

  Shortly after the doctor’s visit, the sounds began to go. She had thought she would fight to the very end. Now she was calm. Her skin was still there. The pressure of caresses, the weight of the quilt, the soft of the water going down her throat, she still had those. Warmth and cold, she had those. The weak vibrations in her throat when she said something, she had that. And the pain. She wished the pain would go, but then how else would she know she was still alive? That went on for some time. How long? Some time. Nana! Nana! Do you remember, Nana? What was your name? Raindrops on dry soil. What was your name, Nana? Do you remember the rocks? Where is my son? I knew Ahmad would not come. Name. Someone is waiting at the door. I want another kiss. Clouds, white and fluffy. I knew he would not come. Rain…

  * * *

  —

  THE GAPING HOLE IN THE snow-covered graveyard—a dark rectangle in the flat sheet of whiteness—devoured the small, shrouded body. Dressed in heavy coats under black umbrellas, the family Nana Shamsi had lived with for so many years watched the shovelfuls of moist dirt spread over the white cloth. Two circles formed around the grave; Pooran, Zeeba, Khan, and Ahmad were the smaller one; the rest of the family together with a few of the neighbors stood behind them around Nana. Squatting in the snow and with a lantern by his feet, the Quran-reciter intoned in a sad, husky voice. Homa and Maryam consoled Pooran, keeping close to her, rubbing her shoulders and arms. Like a child, Agha clung onto the back of Majeed, his frail arms around the young man’s neck. His blue coat flapped in the wind like a cape. Behind Majeed, Leyla and Lalah could see the tip of Agha’s black tie hanging out from between his legs. Fall had only recently left them and they did not know the winter was there to stay.

  Until the day they bulldozed the cemetery flat, Pooran visited Nana’s grave every Thursday night. For fifteen years, she could not do the traditional washing with water and dousing of the gravestone with rose water because the water would freeze. She could only brush the snow aside to reveal the words in the stone:

  Zinat ol-Moluk Shams-Abadi

  Born 1254

  Departed 1342

  She would gouge the snow out of the carved words with the tip of her fingers, then dig a pebble from under the snow and knock on Nana’s gravestone with it, as if on her door. Then she would whisper chapters from the Quran.

  In the small backroom of the fabric shop, she sat on the thin mattress Seyf Zarrabi laid on the floor. He opened the fri
dge and gave her a bottle of Coca-Cola. She took a swig. “Tonight, you’ll have to talk to me, Seyf.” She lay down. “Talk Seyf, talk.”

  In the next hours, Pooran began to see some beauty in the way light reflected off of Seyf’s bald scalp and in his awkwardly telling her stories of his childhood, not quite sure what Pooran wanted to hear. The sternness that Khan and all of his family had in their blood was absent from him. Seyf’s days were full only of colorful bolts of fabric, of measuring, and cutting; like fabric, he was see-through. Unlike Nosser. Nosser was an impenetrable soul. On the other side of Khan there was nothing to be seen with certainty. Pooran liked the way Seyf was not sure how to please her that night, bringing her a pillow, then a second, then deciding it was too high, a third thinner one. She liked the way he made tea and sour-cherry drink at the same time. It felt good to have a man struggling to make her happy. “Do you have another?” Pooran asked. Seyf wrapped his arms around her from behind and Pooran shivered as she held the cold bottle of Coca-Cola in her hands. “My boy came today,” she said. “I didn’t think he would.” She could feel Seyf’s breaths glide over her ear. “I don’t know my boy anymore.”

  An hour before the call for morning prayer, Seyf pushed up the blinds from inside his shop and stepped out. Even at three in the morning, no matter how much Seyf insisted, Pooran would not let him walk her back home. “Not even a dog is out in this snow,” Seyf would say. “You never know who’s peeking behind the curtains,” she answered. From the orange sky, flakes of snow drifted down softly onto the white blanket. In the assurance of snow, Pooran left the fabric shop. When she got home, she could not feel her toes.