The Stationery Shop(74)

My father got a fresh bottle of ink, pushed the calligraphy pen closer to her, begged her to write out a few lines of a favorite poem. Anything to have her concentrate on something other than her rage.

“If Bahman marries that girl, I’ll lose him, I know. Roya won’t be like Shahla. She won’t let me stay close to him. As if losing the others wasn’t enough.”

My father shrank when she said this, put his head in his hands and stayed still.

She stormed off. We heard her open and close drawers in the kitchen. Then we heard her bedroom door slam. Like always.

We sat in our usual uncomfortable silence, my father and I, waiting for her anger to dissipate, for the ugly storm to pass. I closed my eyes and recited Rumi in my head to distract myself. Eventually I smelled something sweet and cloying. I opened my eyes. The air smelled like rotted roses. My mother had come back into the living room fully dressed and made-up. She had put on too much perfume. Layers of thick rouge covered her cheeks. She held her handbag tightly. She stormed out the front door before my father could say a word, before I could beg her not to go.

Sometimes when she left the house, it felt like a suffocating layer of soot had suddenly lifted. But this time the discomfort remained. I couldn’t move. For I don’t know how long, I waited to get the energy back in my legs, to get up and go out after her. My father said nothing. He looked undone. Of course we had to go after her. Who knew what trouble she’d get into when she was in these moods? I worried for her sanity, for her safety, even for the looks on the faces of people in the street as she strode by. For the spectacle she could make of herself.

“I’ll go,” I said. “I’ll bring her home.”

I went out the gate. I had no idea where to turn first. I cursed myself for sitting on the couch longer than I should have, for not running after her immediately. I didn’t know where she’d gone, which street she’d taken. Because it was the Friday holy day, most people were at home resting or at the mosque praying, and there were few passersby. And what would I ask of them anyway: Have you seen a woman smeared with rouge walking by in a rage?

All I wanted was to be with you. I wanted to see you, hold you, feel you next to me. I was tempted to walk to your house. But I had to find my mother. Once at the greengrocer’s, she had bitten the tops off several eggplants because she said the greengrocer had treated her like a lowly peasant dahati. “You treat me like an animal, I’ll act like one for you, how’s that?” And I had melted in shame. Another time, she cornered the beet seller and his young daughter as they pushed their wagon down the street. He should never take his eye off his daughter, she told him, because she could easily become a whore, a slut, a piece of trash, pregnant before her time. When she was overtaken by these manic forces, my mother’s cruel streak whipped out of her like a snake, unexpected and unable to be contained.

I couldn’t find her. The shops were closed for the holiday and few people were around. Once or twice, I saw a woman from behind, but of course, it wasn’t her. I searched and searched, going in circles and feeling more lost.

Worn out, my nerves jangled, I went to the one place that could calm me down. I knew Mr. Fakhri sometimes used Fridays to catch up on his inventory and to organize things in the back storage room of his shop. In my high school days, I’d even helped him unpack boxes of books on Fridays, proud to be his assistant of sorts.

The clear sound of the bell when I opened the door to the Stationery Shop was a relief. The door was unlocked, so Mr. Fakhri must be there then, working. I remembered how my mother had spoken to him at our engagement party. She’d been rude and forward, blaming him for helping our romance. I suppose I wanted to apologize on her behalf just as much as I wanted Mr. Fakhri’s calm, soothing presence.

When I walked into the shop, muffled voices rose as if in argument. I looked around but I couldn’t see anyone in the store. The familiar scent of dusty books and pamphlets was laced with something else. Withered roses. My mother’s perfume.

I moved to the door leading to the back storage room. The voices grew louder. The floor felt suddenly uneven. The clock in the shop hiccuped as if it were broken. I hated the smell of that perfume; I wanted so badly to be wrong. But by now I recognized my mother’s voice from behind the door.

“Tell me you love me,” I heard her say.

“Don’t do this, Badri.” I had never heard Mr. Fakhri sound so vulnerable. In that moment, I knew what he’d sounded like when he was a boy. Why did he call my mother by her first name? What was she doing here?

“Remember the sword my father used to slash the melons?” she said. “I was expert at it. I can use this right now and end all the pain you’ve caused. You were and always will be a useless, spineless coward who murders his child.”

“Badri, please,” Mr. Fakhri said.

It was then that I opened the door. My mother was standing on a small stepladder. Her arms were by her sides. In her right hand she held a large butcher’s knife. My body went cold. I wanted to believe that the knife was simply hanging there by her thigh. It could not be attached to her hand. Where would she have gotten this knife—was it from our kitchen? Was it the one my father used to cleave chunks of meat, was it the one he kept at the back of the kitchen drawer? In its large sickle-shaped reflection, I saw Mr. Fakhri’s spectacles.

In a swift move, she lifted the knife. Then she pierced her own throat.