The Stationery Shop(43)

Zari didn’t arrange her hair in newspaper scraps that night. She repeated how much she hated that lying dog, Bahman Aslan, and his opportunistic, money-obsessed wack job of a mother.

And with shame and a heart pulverized, Roya just said, “Sister, you were right.”





Chapter Sixteen


1953–1954



* * *



Pioneers

“You’ll get accepted, inshallah,” Baba said at breakfast. “How long can a father stand to see his child heartbroken? You can’t just sit around, Roya Joon. You too, Zari. Both of you. In a country that’s lost hope and its youth . . . Well, you can’t lose your future. I won’t let it happen. God gave us two beautiful and intelligent daughters, full of promise, didn’t he, Manijeh Joon? God gave us just these two children; it wasn’t in our destiny to have more. He hasn’t allowed our country to be democratic, why? All we wanted was a say. For the people to have the say. Right, Manijeh Joon?”

Maman crossed her arms and looked out the window.

“See, despite the heartbreak and Mossadegh’s ousting and the loss of life, we have to go on, no?”

Baba had insisted that Roya start English lessons so that she could consider applying to an American university. He even suggested that Zari sign up and start learning English as well. After initially resisting, Roya agreed. It became her one distraction from heartbreak and grief.

“This is an unprecedented opportunity,” Baba continued.

“It is impossible to even think these things. Girls going abroad? To study? I know of boys. Rich boys. From wealthy families. We’re just . . . we’re in the middle. What even are we doing to ourselves?” Maman looked like she might cry.

“But it’s the modern age. Women can go to study abroad just like men. Europeans do it. Americans do it. What are we, backward? We are not. And why should it be just the rich ladies? There is a special program now. My boss is willing to help. He has already helped so much. His son did this program. You would be pioneers, girls! Think what this would mean. What an opportunity. An unprecedented opportunity. When your mother and I were your age, if someone had told us that young Iranian women could go study in American universities, do you know what we would have said?”

“That they were stark raving mad,” Maman mumbled.

“Yes! I mean, no. We would have been astounded. Proud, I think.”

Zari sighed. Kazeb came and took away some dishes. Roya sat still.

“Say what you want about the Shah, but he is making this kind of thing actually possible. He is helping women so much, I have to give him that. Do you know what you would be if you went to America?” Baba asked.

“Mad,” Maman said.

“No, not mad! I said it: pioneers! Your generation is the first that even allows Iranian women to have this kind of opportunity. It’s mind-boggling.” Baba rubbed his face. “Relatives are saying things about me. That it is dishonorable to send one’s daughters abroad. ‘How can you even consider sending your unmarried daughters to a foreign land?’ they say. . . .”

Unmarried. Roya winced at the term. An unwanted image of Bahman marrying Shahla in a garden in northern Tehran played in her head. Bahman had been married for two months now. According to Jahangir, the wedding had been quite glamorous. Shahla looked like a movie star. Mrs. Aslan had outdone herself.

“All I’m saying is that we have to do something! Sitting here and sulking will only pave the path to becoming a pickled old spinster. You would waste away. Or you could go and study in an American university. Just think of that. Getting on an airplane to fly in the sky?”

“We are not rich,” Maman said.

“We are richer than many. It can be done.”

Roya had told her parents that she would never marry nor go near another boy. In the four months since she’d stood in that square, waiting for Bahman, seeing Mr. Fakhri die, she had mostly stayed home. Cried in her room with the door shut, barely ate, felt empty. High school was done anyway, and her plan had been to start a new life with Bahman, so without that, she actually had nothing.

Eventually she’d ventured out with Zari and sometimes walked with her to the grocer’s. She always dreaded the possibility of seeing Bahman or any of his friends in the city. Shame filled her, shame and regret at her own lack of judgment, her stupidity and na?veté. Dances at Jahangir’s felt as distant and alien now as the foreign films she’d seen at Cinema Metropole. Had she even gone to those dances? Had she once done the tango in Bahman’s arms? Had any of it really happened? Now it was all she could do to study English and to help Zari practice the new words. Roya found some relief in studying together. As always, work of the mind came to the rescue.

She thought of the days spent in Mr. Fakhri’s stationery shop. She avoided that street entirely now. She couldn’t bear to go near it, not with all the memories it held, not after she’d seen it scorched. She still had the dream where she went to the shop and saw Mr. Fakhri again. Who was the girl who had run into his shop so full of hope, wanting to give or receive a letter? What a fool that girl had been.

“. . . which is why I want to preserve them,” Baba was saying. Roya had lost track of his words and didn’t know if he was talking about his daughters or pickles. “Even if that means my daughters have to leave me to get a university education on the other side of the world. Don’t look at me like that, Manijeh Joon. For the children, we make the sacrifice.”