The Stationery Shop(25)

Bahman pressed his cheek into hers and was quiet. They didn’t talk about the prime minister anymore, they just danced, hanging on to each other tighter, as though they could lose each other right there in the middle of Jahangir’s living room. The Perfect Couple!

“Will Shahla and all the rest of these fancy friends cheshm us, give us the evil eye?” Roya asked as they danced across the room. “Sometimes their envy feels palpable. Like you can even touch it.”

“Oh, come on! Don’t believe in that evil-eye stuff. It’s superstitious junk. I wish our culture could move past it. What we have? No one can touch it. Anyway, this is meant to be.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in superstition.”

“I don’t.”

“Isn’t meant to be another way of saying destiny?”

He smiled. “Nothing can come between us. We can’t be jinxed. By anyone.”

“Your mother,” she dared to whisper.

He didn’t say a word.

She looked down at their feet, ashamed. “Sorry.”

“Look.” He was suddenly serious. “She’ll come around. You’ll see.” The music swelled into a crescendo, dramatic notes hitting a climax. Without warning, he dipped her. The blood rushed to her head, the room swam, everything was upside down.

“You can’t get rid of me,” he said as he pulled her back up. “I’m not going anywhere. Ever.”





Chapter Ten


1953



* * *



Letters in Books

The following Tuesday, Bahman disappeared. When she called his house, no one answered. When she knocked on the door, no one came out. Not a tired, wan Mrs. Aslan with rouge on her cheeks. Not a pleasing, generous Mr. Aslan asking her if she wanted tea. No one. Neighbors shrugged. One of them suggested they’d maybe gone to the North? To the sea? To escape the heat. That must be it. Just innuendos, just guesses, nothing clear.

After three days of no news from Bahman, Roya was weak with worry. Finally she broke down and went to the one place that had been at the center of it all: the Stationery Shop. She was afraid of what she might discover there—what Mr. Fakhri might know about political arrests. She had avoided going there at first, but now she had to know.

“My dear girl, are you not aware? Prime Minister Mossadegh has a lot of enemies. He wants to take our country forward, but foreign powers and our own two-faced traitors are trying to topple him. At any cost.”

“Mr. Fakhri, please. Where is he?”

“He can’t be with you right now.”

“We’re engaged. Look, Mr. Fakhri, your kindness is not overlooked—we’ll always be grateful for how you helped us, how you let us . . . meet. But it was one thing when we came here before in secret. Now we’re getting married. At the end of the summer! Please, just tell me what you know. One of his neighbors told me he might have gone up north to be by the sea. But why wouldn’t he tell me? He would tell me, right?”

She was embarrassed to be so open and desperate with Mr. Fakhri. It was completely unbecoming. Zari would have a fit if she knew Roya was pleading so intently, practically begging for information. Roya had finally told her family that Bahman was missing. Baba, convinced that the Shah’s thugs had arrested Bahman, couldn’t sleep. Maman prayed for his safety holding the prayer beads of her tasbih, muttering Quran verses under her breath as she slid each bead to the other side.

“Just leave it be, my girl,” Mr. Fakhri said.

“They’re rounding them up left and right, I know. Please tell me what you’ve heard.”

“Don’t worry yourself, my dear. These things are just quite complicated. You need to rest. Don’t worry—”

“Rest? He’s missing! Tell me, in a city like this where everyone is in everyone else’s business all the time, how is there no word about him or even about his father or his mother—”

Mr. Fakhri stiffened. “His mother?”

“Everyone I talk to knows nothing! How could no one know a thing?” It wasn’t how a young woman should behave in front of an older man, raising her voice and making demands. But it nauseated her to think of Bahman in jail.

“His . . . family.” Mr. Fakhri’s face was pale. He quickly cleared his throat. “Are they all right? What have you heard?”

“Nothing! That’s why I’m asking you!” Roya had the sudden urge to hurl the nearest book at him. Why was he giving her the runaround, acting like he had no idea what she was asking about? She spoke again in a deliberate, calm voice. “I know a lot of the political activists come through here, Mr. Fakhri. We all know that your shop is a safe haven for the pro-Mossadegh people. That you disseminate the information from here for the National Front and even for some of the communist Tudehi groups. Please tell me what you know. I can take it. I can be discreet.”

“Okay then, young lady.” Mr. Fakhri was silent for a moment. His expression was hard to read. “Fine. Did you know the government police come here too? That not everything is easily said?” He raised his eyebrows. “I’m telling you that you shouldn’t worry. Just . . . trust in God. God is big.”

Of course. She had been so blinded by her worry for Bahman that she’d completely overlooked the danger for Mr. Fakhri. She looked behind her, making sure no one else was present for this conversation. Spies could be anywhere. Was Mr. Fakhri on a watch list now? Had he been interrogated?