The Stationery Shop(53)

“To the chicken we also add some cinnamons, cardamoms, and saffron waters,” Roya said. “And chopped tomatoes.”

She made her way to the left burner on the stove, careful not to brush against Walter.

When she lifted the pot lid, steam billowed out and drenched her face and neck. She felt self-conscious and warm, knowing he watched her.

“The saffron mixed with water is like liquid gold. No? We call it liquid gold.”

He looked confused.

“Because saffron is so expensive, you know?”

“I see.”

“It’s all still here?” She laughed and tapped her head just as Walter had done.

“Yes.” He was staring at her. Then he placed his hand on his chest. “And right here. It’s all right here.”

The steam from the pot condensed into droplets of water on Roya’s face. She felt the droplets roll down her face, her neck. This had to stop. She could not fall for a man again, even though this Walter was so very different from the boy who had betrayed her. She grabbed a Persian lime, placed it firmly on the counter, and stabbed it hard. A large jagged gash pierced its skin.

“Whoa!” Walter stepped back from the stove and from her.

“Sometimes you have to cut hard,” Roya said sharply, “to get flavor out.” She turned away from him. “Now we make the rice.”



They sat in the dining room as night fell. “Go ahead,” she said, as she served him a plate of the chicken and eggplant khoresh they’d made together. “Try. Please.”

It was a dish she had learned to cook at her mother’s side in Iran. Kazeb always selected fresh vegetables at the market; sometimes she slew the chicken right in their own backyard, the limes drying in the sun next to the watering can in the garden, her mother on her haunches mixing the advieh spices. They would sit together—her and Baba and Maman and Zari—with their legs under the korsi on winter nights and share stories about their day as they ate.

Walter lifted a spoonful of her khoresh, her past. It should, if done right, be a mixture of sweet and tart, a fragrant, delicate combination of flavors.

She waited for him to try it.

“Wow,” he said. He took another bite. “My God.”

With each bite he took in the dining room of Mrs. Kishpaugh’s boardinghouse, another layer of Roya’s sturdy shell slipped away.





Chapter Twenty


1957–1959



* * *



To-Do

Walter’s presence at the dining room table tasting her dishes became a mainstay of Roya’s Saturday nights. When Zari heard of their ritual, she slapped the side of her mouth. “Akhaaaay! So cute! You cook for him and he devours it.”

“Something like that,” Roya mumbled.

The Tintin look-alike who had sauntered into that California café, who said to her “Sound like a plan?” whose memories of lobster summers and sledding winters seemed like they’d come straight out of an American film at Cinema Metropole, soothed her. Their courtship wasn’t even supposed to happen; it was based on a feeling of goodwill, centered on feeling safe—it was just supposed to be a cooking lesson in Mrs. Kishpaugh’s kitchen. She wasn’t supposed to cautiously crave his calm.

When he asked for her hand, over extra-crispy tahdig rice served with ghormeh sabzi on a Saturday night about a year after the first cooking lesson, Roya felt again that dissociation, as if she was floating above the scene at hand, watching a girl in a movie play her role. She found it hard to breathe. She let Walter’s proposal hang in the air for a moment, the smell of melted butter, saffron, and rice on his breath.

All of it—their gentle courtship, their growing affection for one another, the promise of a new life in New England—was a script for someone else’s life. Someone better equipped for a relationship, someone less broken and foreign. She had somehow discovered the blueprints for things that happened to American people.

“Will you, Roya Joon . . .” She had taught him the term of endearment in Farsi, and he said it perfectly at the dining room table that evening. “. . . marry me?”

Her cheeks and ears burned. She was on alert, even alarmed. These were words said in the movies. Similar to words said to her in another language a lifetime ago.

“Think about it: Roya. Archer.” Walter said the two names slowly, methodically, as though he had practiced saying them one after the other. “We could move back east. I got accepted to BU!”

“Beeyoo?”

“Boston University. You could work at a lab while I go to law school. There are so many hospitals and universities there. You could get the job you want. Roya. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. If you need time . . . look, maybe I’m being—”

“Yes.”

It was as quick as a second.

Later she would replay the scene in her head. He had asked to marry her, and she had said yes. And to think she had faulted Bahman for jumping so quickly into the life his mother had scripted for him. Maybe they were both just following the fate invisibly etched on their foreheads.

Walter’s breath on her neck was warm, Walter-ish. How excited he was when she said yes! Jittery, flushed. He almost tripped at the doorway when he turned for one more hug. After he drove off that night, Roya sat motionless in Mrs. Kishpaugh’s living room with all the lights off. The other boarders, including Zari, were still out on their Saturday night dates. Mrs. Kishpaugh hadn’t yet returned from visiting her daughter and grandchildren.