Rooftops of Tehran (41 page)

Ahmed’s poor grandma knew what she was talking about. Why didn’t anyone ever listen to her? She kept telling us that the girl next door cried every night, longing for her husband. The girl next door was Zari, and I was the husband. I can’t believe that I thought my sweetheart was dead. I bite the space between my thumb and index finger. There is no doubt that everyone will think I’m crazy when I announce that Zari is alive and hiding beneath the Masked Angel’s veil, but I don’t care. I know what I know, and I know what I heard. It was Zari’s voice that hushed Keivan when he begged for one more story. The Masked Angel is Zari—I have no doubt about it.

The thought of Zari alive fills me with such joy and excitement that I suddenly find myself leaning back with my arms stretched out wide to the sides, eyes closed and face pointed at the ceiling, as if welcoming the sun’s embrace. I feel the warmth of her body against mine as I did on the nights she fell asleep in my arms. I feel her breath on my neck where her face rested. I hear her heart like the beating of wings.
Thank you, God, for bringing my Zari back to me! Forgive me for doubting your wisdom and magnanimity. Forgive me for living a godless life. Let me be your servant, and I promise to make up for my stupid ways
.

I open my eyes and notice that both my parents are watching me. I sit forward quickly and hang my head without saying anything. I expect my father to ask me what’s wrong, but he doesn’t. My mother whispers, “It’s too much pressure for him. He’s been acting strange since this morning.” She reaches over and touches my forehead. “He’s not hot,” she mumbles. “He must be burning from the inside, my poor child.”

“Stop it,” my father snaps with more impatience.

He leaves the room as my mother touches my face gently with her fingertips and whispers worriedly, “What’s wrong?”

“She’s alive.” I’m unable to contain myself.

“Who’s alive, sweetheart?”

“My Masked Angel,” I whisper.

“Of course she’s alive,” she says, thinking I mean Soraya.

“I’m not crazy,” I murmur, looking to the hallway, where I can hear my father approaching.

“Oh, God,” my mother soothes. “You were never crazy. You’ve just been through a lot, that’s all.” My father enters the room with a glass of water in his hands. He gives me a pill, and tells me to take it.

“What is it?” my mother asks.

“Valium,” he says. “It will calm him down.”

I’ve never taken Valium before, but it must be better than anything my mom would give me, so I swallow the pill without arguing.

It isn’t long before a sense of numbness envelops me. I’m reminded of my hospital days, when a sensation of tranquility was followed by a painful awakening to a somber and austere reality. Before I lose consciousness, I want to make sure my mother is okay.

“Why’re you crying, Mom?” I ask. “Please, stop. Zari is alive. I don’t need to go to the States anymore. Isn’t that grand? Doesn’t that make you happy?”

Mom grabs my face in both hands and leans her forehead against mine as she weeps bitterly. “My sweetheart, my little child. What has happened to you?”

“If I ever go anywhere it’d be with Zari, Ahmed, and Faheemeh, and only for a short time. Just on vacation. Isn’t that great? I’ll be very happy from now on, just like I used to be, before this nightmare began. Isn’t that great, Mom?”

She nods. “Yes, it is, my sweetheart.”

“Living is like being lost in the desert where the stars are the only guide you can count on,” I continue, my lips dry, but a river flowing from my eyes. “You and Dad, Zari, Faheemeh, and Ahmed are the stars that guide me. You all have
That
. And someday I’ll write a book about everything that’s happened.”

Then I turn to my father and slur, “Do you believe in destiny, Dad?” My voice feels distorted to me. I don’t remember hearing my father’s answer.

 

 

I wake up on a mattress in the living room—sweaty, hot, drowsy, and aching. My parents are asleep on the floor a couple of meters away. The lights in the room are off, but the moonlight spilling through the curtains makes everything visible. I look toward the grandfather clock that my father had repaired a few days earlier, and the time reads three thirty, while my watch says it’s ten thirty. I see the pendulum moving sluggishly from one side to the other, and wonder why my father and I bothered to try and fix this poor old clock that has long outlived its usefulness.

My mind spins itself dizzy with thoughts about time. To stop it, I get out of bed and head up the steps toward the terrace on the third floor. I will hide there in the dark and wait for Zari to come out, as she often does, to watch me. When she appears, I’ll confront her and reveal that I know the truth.

When I get to the third floor I look out through the window to see if she is already on the terrace. God’s round, glowing orb of light has lit the sky, and I have a great view of everything outside, but the terrace is barren. I cross over the short wall between our houses and move to the extreme south side of the terrace to sit down in the shadows. I look at my watch—still ten thirty.

It’s a quiet night, so quiet you could hear the falling of a leaf, the squeak of a door, or the sound of the night itself breathing through the mild breeze that starts and stops. I sit patiently there in the dark, my chest expanding with a balloon of anticipation, anxiety, and hope. I look at my watch. It’s still ten thirty. I wonder how long I’ll have to wait.

As I’m sitting in the dark on the balcony of Zari’s house, I hope that my parents don’t wake up, because they will undoubtedly panic, rush upstairs, and potentially ruin my plans to expose Zari. A familiar anxiety, similar to the panic attacks I used to experience in the hospital, sweeps through me. Maybe I’m losing my mind. God, I hope not!

But I’m beginning to lose my patience. Maybe I should just storm into her house and demand to see her. I look at my watch, and it still says ten thirty. I shake my wrist and tap the watch. I hear the soft squeak of a door opening. My heartbeat throbs in my ears so fiercely that I fear the whole neighborhood will be woken up. I place my hands on my chest and push down hard to calm myself. I hear her muffled footsteps on the terrace, accompanied by the whispery rustle of her burqa dragging behind her on the cement. She’s still out of my sight, but her long shadow stretches away from the door, rushing toward the edge of the terrace, then contracting suddenly as she crouches low. The weight of the moment turns me to stone, unable to speak or even breathe.

She has a good view of my room from where she sits, and I conclude that she’s waiting for my light to come on. Maybe this wasn’t the best place for me to hide. What is the benefit if I can’t see what she’s doing?

Suddenly, her shadow extends again and she comes into view, moving slowly from my right to my left, toward the spot where we used to sit together under the short wall. Her figure, enshrouded in the black burqa and illuminated by the full moon behind her, seems taller than I remember it. She looks over the wall toward my room, then she stands up on her tiptoes and stretches her neck to try and improve her view. She stands there for a while, then moves to the edge of the terrace and leans over to look into my yard. I’m certain now that she’s spying on me, and that it was she who watched me every night from the safety of the shadows. She returns to our spot, casts one more look at my room, and sits down. I can feel my blood coursing through me, pulsing with an intensity that makes me as weak as water.

She starts fussing with the front of her burqa, as if she’s removing the lace that lines the mask section of her veil. Her fingers work quickly, but it seems she is struggling to untie a hidden knot. Her hands are thin, pale, and slender, just like Zari’s. My God, if she succeeds, I may be able to see her face! With a flick of her hand, she throws the lace back and begins to scratch the top of her head. I strain to see her face, but her arm shields my view.

After a few moments her arm slides down, but now the side of her veil blocks her face. All I can see is the velvet silhouette of her profile, motionless like a model posing for a painter. After a few seconds, she leans back against the wall. Although I can’t see her face, I can tell that her eyes are closed and her lips are moving, perhaps reciting a poem from Hafiz or Khayyam—maybe even one of the ones I read to her. Her chest rises and falls, and I can almost see her breath as it comes and goes. Suddenly, she perks up, as if she’s heard a sound. I can tell from the direction of her gaze that she thinks the sound came from my house. I hope my parents are not on their way up. I know she would run back to her house if she saw them.

I concentrate hard on seeing her face. Her head is tilted to the right, as if she’s looking over her shoulder toward my room, anticipating my arrival. I can tell from the position of her body and the way she wiggles around that she’s anxious and distracted by the sound she thought she heard. After a few uneventful seconds, she leans back against the wall again.

I wrestle with the idea of coming out of the dark and into the moonlight. We would look into each other’s eyes, but wouldn’t say anything. What could either of us possibly say? It would be too beautiful a moment to ruin with words. I would walk up to her, extend my hand, and help her up. We would embrace forever. But what if she tried to run away? I’d grab her and tell her that the nightmare is over, that I don’t care what she looks like, and that she will be mine for the rest of our lives!

“Yes,” I accidentally whisper.

Her head snaps up and fixes on where I’m sitting. Her eyes glow radiantly with borrowed moonlight—undoubtedly the same eyes that have watched me every night. Her gaze is fierce and penetrating, predatory and skittish, like a startled cat’s. Instead of running away, she calmly reaches over her head and pulls the lace down in front of her face, transforming herself back into the Masked Angel. The steady finality of her movements reminds me of her characteristic confidence.

I stand up and step out into the moonlight. She sits motionless, and her pull on me is magnetic. I walk slowly up to her and, after a momentary pause, I fold my body neatly to sit next to her. Her blinking eyes stare at me from behind the lace of her burqa, and my heart adjusts its rhythm to match their cadence. My eyes fill.

“Don’t cry,” she whispers.

I search for a familiar ring in that whisper.

“Please, don’t cry,” she repeats.

“Is it you?” I ask.

She turns her head, hiding her eyes from mine.

“Tell me,” I beg, “is it you?”

She remains shielded and silent. I reach over and take her chin in my hand to turn her face toward me.

“Let me see your face.”

She shakes her head no, but I can see her tears cascading like jewels under her veil.

“How long did you think you could hide from me?” I scold gently.

She tries to turn her head away again, but I hold on tight. “Did you really think I wouldn’t see you?”

She shakes her head, mute in response to my probing.

“Do you have any idea how much I’ve suffered without you?” I choke, anger slipping into my voice. “Do you know how often I thought life wasn’t worth living without you? What if I had killed myself?”

Her hand slides out from underneath the burqa and she tries to put her fingers to my lips to quiet me, but I pull my head away and continue to talk.

“Did you think I was going to go away and forget about you? How could you think that? Didn’t you know that burning in hell for eternity would be a better punishment than life without you?”

“Hush,” she pleads.

“The fire that took you is still burning my heart.”

“Please, stop,” she whispers.

“No! Why should I? How can I?”

“I beg you, please, stop.”

“Did they threaten your family? Was it Keivan? Did they threaten to take him away? Tell me the truth.”

“Please, stop, please . . .” She weeps, her words interrupted by ragged breaths. I stop and listen to her cries, and it feels as if someone is pulling my heart out of my chest. I’m filled with remorse, and I beg her to forgive me. I try to explain that a volcano has erupted inside me, and although I wish I could temper it, I am not in control.

She leans closer and wipes the tears from my cheeks with the palms of her hands, then quickly pulls back. I explain that I could never really picture my future without her, that it would have been like a vast, barren wasteland, waking each morning and not caring if it was sunny or rainy, hot or cold, early or late, winter or summer. I prayed to God to take me away, to put an end to a life that didn’t matter anymore.

She quickly bites the skin between her thumb and index finger and says, “Don’t say that!” then breaks into bitter weeping.

“Oh, God! What am I doing?” I say. “What you’ve gone through, my darling, is a hundred times worse than what I’ve endured. Forgive me for being so selfish.”

“No, no, no! Please, stop saying these things!”

“Your walk, the way you move, your eyes, the way you scratched your head a minute ago, everything tells me that you are my Zari.”

“You must stop.”

“Let me hold you, let me feel the weight of your body against mine. Tell me that nothing will ever separate us again.”

“Oh, God, forgive me,” she whimpers. “I should never have let things go this far.”

“All I want is for you to promise that you will never do anything like that again!”

“Oh, God, help me. Please, help me!”

“What are you afraid of?”

“Please, God, I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?” I say, starting to listen.

“This is going to break his heart—”

“I don’t care what you look like,” I interrupt. “Your appearance doesn’t matter to me. I love you.”

“God help me, I should never have let it go this far.”

She gently pushes me back when I reach out to embrace her, and in the unbearable silence that follows I stare into her eyes, desperately searching for the answer to a question I don’t have the courage to ask. She tries to say something a couple of times but her sobs get in the way.