The Stationery Shop(64)

History repeats itself. To watch these young students pour into the streets again, convinced that if they rid themselves of the Shah all problems will be solved, is painful. Yes, he was complicit in Prime Minister Mossadegh’s ousting, and the West then propped him up. But the youth today think all their problems will be solved if the Shah just goes away. I worry about what may follow. We want democracy but never seem to get it. What if what follows is worse?

I wonder about you over there in America. I get some news from Jahangir, and for that I’m very grateful. I’m glad the two of you still talk. Amazing to think that in this modern world we can communicate across oceans just by picking up the telephone! Jahangir tells me that you are working, that you have a job at Harvard? Bravo to you, Roya Joon.

You were always destined to do great things.


March 1979

Now the Shah is gone. All I see in the faces of those of us who remember 1953, who can feel under our skin that awful disappointment of having the world plummet in one day, is the return of trauma. The youth are so hopeful. They think we got it right this time. They are glad the Shah is gone. He’s trying to get to America, but I hear your new country won’t let him. How, after everything he did for the US, is your country not letting him in?

Maybe this time we’ll get a true democratic government.

I’ll believe it when I see it.

Do you remember the twilight on the evening when I proposed, the purple of the sky? Do you think I have not looked at the sky on a hundred other nights remembering your kiss?


August 1981

Since Saddam Hussein attacked Iran last September, the war has only gotten worse and worse. We spend our nights in the basement bomb shelter. My children are frightened all the time. You would not recognize parts of this country now. We have been blown up. At night we cover our windows with aluminum foil so Saddam’s planes cannot find our city and its lights. We live in perpetual fear. My children are in their early twenties, and I do not want my son to be drafted into the army, to be told to fight and kill Iraqis. For what? For this new Islamic government to feel powerful and rally us around the flag? And my daughter is forced to wear the hijab when she steps outside. What have we become? I can barely recognize my country anymore.

Roya Joon, Jahangir joined the army as a doctor. My dear Roya, he was killed at the front. His place is so empty here.





Chapter Twenty-Five


2013



* * *



Big Box

Zari’s nose on the cell-phone screen was strangely magnified. One of the few reliefs left in life was phoning people without being seen, but Zari insisted on FaceTiming Roya every week. Call her old-fashioned, but Roya couldn’t stand having her face shown on the phone. Just made no sense. But she had to admit it was a comfort to see Zari, even on a gadget. Her little sister was a grandmother now, had had hip replacement surgery, and engaged in almost daily arguments with her daughter-in-law.

“Walter needs paper clips and a shredder. I have to go, Zari.”

“Okay, Sister. You know, it’s amazing: you have the skin of a young lady. At seventy-seven! Thank God for our genes!”

“Say hello to Jack and Darius and Leila and all the grandkids.”

“Will do. Hope to see you for Nowruz! Big hugs to Walter and Kyle from me.”



The years had had the audacity to pass by. It had been decades since Marigold had died of the croup, and decades since Mossadegh was overthrown in the coup. The world was something else entirely. Iran had had its Islamic Revolution in 1979—now her country was no longer ruled by the Shah but by religious clerics. The losses mounted, and Roya didn’t have time to mourn them all. Walter followed the news carefully, but Roya would rather stick her head in the oven than watch the garbage that masqueraded as “news” on cable television these days.

But babies could not die. They could not disappear and just leave their belongings behind. Her baby wasn’t dead. At the hospital, they’d wanted her to believe that a one-year-old child could die when minutes ago it had been breathing in her arms. Marigold wasn’t just with her every day and night; Marigold was a part of her. She carried her daughter with her at all times. Babies do not leave you.

But, Sister, think of Kyle! Marigold died, but you have Kyle!

At the age of forty-two, after Roya had been working forever at her administrative job at Harvard Business School and had accepted never being a mother to another child—she was clearly not meant to be a mother—Kyle came along. What was considered impossible happened again. A surprise, an accident, a child. She and Walter felt that tiny soft face against theirs again. Again, they were overcome with joy and terror.

Kyle became her new world. On him she pinned her dreams. He brought out Roya’s deep laugh again, woke her up. He was her purpose. For him, she made sure the world did not crumble.

After Kyle was all grown up (a doctor!), Roya’s morning walks kept her sane, kept her moving. Cleared her head. She didn’t walk with friends. Friends talked too much and Roya needed to be alone with her thoughts. Sure, there were neighborhood women who met up to walk at the mall when it was too cold outside. Roya received e-mails from the town Listserv inviting everyone to join in the fun: Let’s meet outside Cinnamon Station! they read. In front of a stall that sold flavored, greasy fried dough. No thank you. Roya didn’t want to go back and forth in a big box of a building, inhale stale air, pass bright stores that sold unnecessary merchandise. The vastness of the junk in the mall overwhelmed her. She’d stick to nature as long as she possibly could. As long as she was still able to move.