The Stationery Shop(22)

“Mother, can I get you anything?” Bahman interrupted. His voice was strained. “Mother, can I please ask you to stop?”

“I am simply thanking Mr. Fakhri,” Mrs. Aslan continued, “for his services. He is so good at finding the right match for love. For him, love is what matters above all else. Mr. Fakhri would do anything for it. He is just so pure of heart.”

Mr. Fakhri stared at his shoes. He didn’t say a word.

“It is hard for me . . .” Mrs. Aslan’s voice faltered. “. . . to tolerate this. I cannot tolerate . . .” She gazed off into the distance. “Tolerate is all I’ve done.” Her voice choked up.

Bahman’s arm slipped from Roya’s waist. Something in the texture of the air had changed again. Bahman stepped away from Roya and knelt by his mother. When he spoke, his voice was soft. “Perhaps I can get you more tea. Let me get you more tea.”

Mrs. Aslan tilted her head and brought her knitted black shawl to her face. She sobbed.

“Mother.” Bahman took her hand. “Oh, Mother.”

Most of the other guests were deep in conversation. The room was filled with their laughter. Roya envied them for their obliviousness to the scene in the corner. They did not have to bear Mrs. Aslan’s anger, the drama created by her presence. On this sinking ship, she, Bahman, and Mr. Fakhri were alone.

Bahman knelt in front of his mother and pulled her head to his chest. Roya and Mr. Fakhri stood frozen, spectators to a painfully private moment, as the mother sobbed into her son’s chest.

When Bahman got up, his white shirt was stained crimson. The red rouge his mother wore sat in splotches near his heart.

Roya wanted to take Bahman’s shirt and scrub it clean, scour off his mother’s stains. But she was paralyzed, numb.

“I’ll get more tea,” Mr. Fakhri finally said.

“Don’t forget what I told you,” Mrs. Aslan murmured.

“I won’t,” Mr. Fakhri said quietly. “You like your tea strong.”

With small, nervous steps, he moved away.

Mrs. Aslan tightened her shawl around her shoulders and looked at Bahman. “This place is too cold and the lights are all wrong.”

“I am sorry, Mother,” Bahman said softly. “I am just so sorry.”



Everyone went home, and the engagement party ended. Afterward, Maman burned incense to get rid of any jealous energy. She waved the fumes of incense over Roya’s head and muttered for the jealous eye to be blinded.

“Oh, don’t let them cheshm you, Roya Joon, give you the evil eye,” Zari said, even though she’d been quite vocal that she didn’t like the idea of Roya with Bahman from the very beginning. “There is nothing worse than the power of the evil eye. Jealous fools see that you’re happy and successful now with that boy, and then zap! They jinx it all. Watch out!”





Chapter Nine


1953



* * *



Tangled Tango Troubles

Roya’s life kept getting bigger, deliriously exhilarating. Just when she thought she had reached the cusp of something (for example, after she’d finished all the translations of Russian novels that Mr. Fakhri stocked in his shop), another exciting frontier came along. The country was awakening artistically with a new class of intelligentsia. The city blossomed with publishing, cinema, theater, literature, and art.

Now that they were engaged, she and Bahman could mix without chaperones and go out openly, even in the evenings, without worry.

Bahman’s friend Jahangir had a bona fide gramophone. He owned records from the East and the West. They started attending his social gatherings as a couple. At his parties, Roya heard songs in a foreign tongue that was so sexy it was sinister. So smooth, it softened hardship.

Jahangir’s dance soirees were on Thursday nights, the eve of the Friday holiday. His parents had access to all the latest gadgets, such as the gramophone. Bahman said that when his mother first found out that Jahangir’s family dripped with wealth, she’d greedily encouraged his friendship with him. Roya grimaced at this; Mrs. Aslan no doubt had been excited about the sophisticated, rich young ladies like Shahla who could be prospects for Bahman at Jahangir’s house.

“Bah bah, come in, come on in!” Jahangir hugged Roya and Bahman when they arrived. “Look!” he shouted to the other guests. “It’s the Perfect Couple! Do we know two more good-looking people? Just look at them! Tabrik! Congrats!”

Roya and Bahman’s engagement was shiny and fresh, their couplehood something to be celebrated. And based on the expressions of a few women in the crowd, something definitely to be envied.

“What’s on the menu for tonight?” Bahman asked.

“Tango, my friend!”

Roya couldn’t even make it to the table laid with goblets of crushed melon and ice. She and Bahman were surrounded. Bahman glowed with his usual charm as everyone jostled around him. Though Jahangir owned the gramophone and the music and the dance know-how, it was Bahman everyone wanted. With him, they practiced their first steps. For him, they flirted. Bahman had memorized the lyrics, in a language he did not speak, of Sinatra songs and Rosemary Clooney ballads. From being with him at other get-togethers since their engagement, Roya knew that if a part of the room grew quiet, if for a minute the conversation went stale, Bahman’s presence lit everything up again. It was hard not to be glued to his movements as he danced. Roya was well aware that she wasn’t alone in being enchanted by him. The girls laughed in high staccato near him, swooned when he told jokes.