The Stationery Shop(46)
On the day of their departure, Maman held a Quran above their heads. Roya and Zari paced under it three times, then kissed the book for good luck on their voyage. It was a small ritual to ensure safety for all trips. Roya and Zari had performed this superstitious rite growing up whenever their family was going on vacation to the city of Yazd or Isfahan or Shiraz. They had held the book above the heads of relatives who were returning to villages up north after visiting them in Tehran. But Roya had never expected to go under the Quran for a voyage that would take her to America.
The pain over Bahman and the death of Mr. Fakhri had been so raw at first; Roya felt like her skin had been torn off. But over time, in place of the exposed skin, a veneer had formed. By the time she boarded the plane, Roya was aware of her skin and bones and eyes and limbs, but her heart was locked away. An enormous amount of what she used to believe had been erased. Her heart would be closed off, this she promised herself. Her hair was carefully set, the handle of a suitcase dug into her palm—and somehow, her feet were moving, one in front of the other. She could see that Zari looked concerned but also slightly thrilled. She heard Maman cry, watched Baba count money—a fistful of unfamiliar green bills that he had gotten from the bank—and hand it to them. She registered all this as though in a dream.
On the ride to the airport, the sky was the color of gunmetal and it looked like rain would come; the clouds were so full. But the gray puffs remained just low and heavy. They drove by familiar buildings and streets, the shops they’d walked past countless times. Café Ghanadi, their old school, and Maman’s childhood home on Soraya Street. Baba took a long route and gave them one last look at this city that would be invisible soon for them—at least for a while. He deliberately avoided Sepah Square and the location of the Stationery Shop. Roya felt a surge of love for her home and for her parents and all she was leaving behind.
“We’ll love the campus, won’t we, Roya?” Zari squeezed her hand.
Roya nodded.
“It’s not worth staying in this country anymore anyway.” Baba tried to sound like he believed it. “They toppled our true democratic leader. Now the foreign powers and their lackeys can do whatever the hell they want with us. Not worth it for now. Go. Go and be free. Learn everything you can. Better than being here with your throat choked by a dictator and with a government that can shoot at will.”
Roya waited for Maman to stop him and say, “Mehdi, stop the nonsense. Enough with your anti-Shah rhetoric.” But she just fought back sobs in the car and said not a word.
The girls boarded the plane. And as they swerved above the city, they held each other’s hands, not quite sure that they wouldn’t just die. How did this thing stay in the air? When the plane picked up speed and magically rose in the sky, Roya felt like she could almost, but not quite, touch the clouds that carried in them torrents of rain. As they rose higher and higher, she wanted the bloated clouds hanging low over Tehran to finally release their deluge, to break down and give out and soak the entire city and everyone in it with a tsunami of tears. But maybe the gray puffs above Tehran just kept it all inside and didn’t release one drop of rain. It stunned her to think as she soared farther and farther away that there would be so much about her hometown that she would now just never know . . .
Part Three
Chapter Seventeen
1956
* * *
California Coffee Shop
California was new and shiny. Everything in it looked like a toy that had just been bought and opened. Sun-drenched buildings, sparkling streets, gleaming shops, tight shirts on men’s bodies and glamorous clothes on the women could have come out of a film at Cinema Metropole. Despite the dazzling sunniness of her new home, Roya was beset by a chronic homesickness. Zari was all that tied her to her previous life.
The two sisters relied on each other to survive. They learned how to live in their new boardinghouse and how to navigate the campus of Mills College in the Bay Area. Together they learned how to practice their new language. At first Roya felt like a mime, hand motions and exaggerated shrugs making up for her lack of English words. All she lacked were painted tears.
Being in a new country felt like being plunged into a darkened room. In the beginning, nothing was distinguishable; it was all blurry blobs at best. But eventually, her eyes adjusted. Forms that were previously incoherent came into slow, painstaking focus. Roya and Zari guided each other even though it was often the blind leading the blind. They smiled politely at their landlady, Mrs. Kishpaugh, in whose home they boarded along with several other female students.
Roya hadn’t wanted to leave Tehran behind, even with all its pain and heartbreak and its political mess. Yet she had no choice but to create—stitch by stitch—a new life. She had to move forward. And Zari surprised her. In Tehran, Roya had often thought of her sister as vain and self-absorbed. But in this fresh chapter of their lives, and with a focus that bordered on obsession, Zari absorbed the new American culture as though she were inhaling the air that would keep her from drowning. By their second year at the women’s college, both Roya and Zari were doing well in their studies and had a small group of friends with whom they went to the movies and ate dinner and sometimes shared strawberry milkshakes. Even through the homesickness.
Successfully mastering the language and her classes in chemistry and biology was more than enough. Roya had sworn off men. But Zari remained open and giggly and silly even as she thrust herself into America. Soon a young man, Jack Bishop, whom she’d met at a classmate’s house, spent more and more time with Zari. Yousof, not to mention all the Hassans and Hosseins and Cyruses back home, didn’t seem to hold a candle to this Jack. Jack looked like a lumberjack: he had broad shoulders, a stocky build, and dirty-blond hair that needed a cut. He was constantly smoking and grinning and shaking his hair out of his eyes. His father was a traveling salesman, but Jack wanted to break the yoke of capitalism and get to know the works of Walt Whitman better. Zari was swept off her dainty feet. Roya watched her sister transform from the busybody Iranian girl who wanted to go to fancy parties and marry a rich man to a girl who wanted nothing more than to understand why Jack Bishop loved poetry so. Roya realized, not for the first time, the fickleness and unpredictability of young love. Zari levitated in Jack’s presence. Just like that, she fell hard in love.