The Stationery Shop(76)

Jahangir was home when we took my mother in to see his father. He hugged me and assured us that our secret was safe with him. Jahangir’s father promised not to say a word about what she’d tried to do.

Thank goodness, she hadn’t had a chance to puncture her skin deep enough. I had grabbed the knife in time. In the end, a gauze bandage and ichthyol ointment was all that was needed. “But one more second here and there, one little slip . . .” Jahangir’s father shook his head.

She could have worn a scarf around her neck and gone about town. She could have stayed home until the wound had healed. But we were all—my mother, father, and I—completely stunned. Not just from what she had almost done, not just from knowing it took only “one second here and there” for a very different outcome. But I was still trying to process what had transpired between my mother and Mr. Fakhri. And I wondered if my father, in his own quiet way, knew.

It was Jahangir’s idea that we go and stay in the villa up north. Just for a few days. Just until we got our bearings, until my mother healed, until we all regained some semblance of normalcy. He promised me he’d keep you up-to-date. I guess he wavered on that promise. Of course I knew Jahangir was in love with me—please, Roya, there is no more time for pretense. I won’t pretend I didn’t know. Though at that time, we never would have acknowledged it. We would not have put it into words. Necessarily.

But I loved you. All I wanted was you. I would have given anything for you. And Jahangir promised he’d make sure that you and I communicated. It was he who helped with the delivery of our correspondence. He was my conduit, my confidant, my go-between. He was good at heart, Roya Joon. He was trying to protect us. He wanted above all for me to be happy—I really do believe that. And who was it who ultimately changed the letters so we ended up at different squares? I want to say it was my mother. Lord knows she didn’t want us married. Except, Roya Joon, my mother was in the villa with me up north all along. And even though she was suffering, I do not think it was she who did it. It was someone whom we both trusted but who felt he had a debt to pay.

She convinced Mr. Fakhri to do it. Of course, I only realize this now, decades later, trying to put the pieces together. Because he owed her. He owed her for completely abandoning her and leaving her with her unborn baby. Which she, well . . . there was no legal abortion in Iran then. She took matters into her own hands.

I wanted to tell you the very next day where I was. I thought I could find a telephone up there, call you, let you know. I wanted to have Jahangir tell you.

That next morning, in the villa, I walked into my mother’s room. I didn’t even have to say a word. I didn’t have to tell her that I wanted to contact you. She took one look at me and said, “You call that girl, you tell that girl where we are, you let on to any of this, and guess what, Bahman?” A smile spread across her pale face. “I’ll do it again. And this time, I’ll do it all the way. I promise you.”

She sucked in her breath and held her hand to her neck. “Just let her go, Bahman. For me. You communicate with her and I will do it again.”



I remember the wooden boards of the villa’s main room had a gap, and through this crack the wind blew, and at night it got very cold. Even in summer: you know how those nights up north can be. My father stuffed a shamad cloth in the crack to seal it. It didn’t help much. I sat night after night and let the wind sting my back. I made sure I sat there right at the gap so the wind cut through my spine.

I cooked. My mother eventually joined us for meals. Delusion took over. She spoke constantly of my marriage to Shahla. My father, to change the subject, talked about the problems Prime Minister Mossadegh was having. I missed you; I wanted so badly to see you. But I was too ashamed to tell you that we had escaped the city because my mother had tried to kill herself.

Misery seeped into that place and was impossible to keep out, just like the wind that came in through the crack between the wood panels, no matter how hard my father tried to fill the gap. Your letters kept me going. I didn’t want to tell you all that had happened. It made me ashamed and it made me confused. I wanted my mother to be normal, to be like other mothers. I wanted her to care for and support me, and I wanted her to be at our wedding and to let us live our lives. I wanted that more than anything else. But she was not like other mothers. She was herself. She had the rage, she had the depression, she was violent, she was cruel, she refused to let me live in peace. She wanted to control my life, she told me she loved me so much that she wanted the best for me. That she had been too poor and had given up too much to have me squander it away.

Was my father nothing more than a way for her to attain status? Did she ever even really love him?

I poured out my heart in those letters to you. Do you still have them, Roya Joon? Did you keep the letters? I suppose you wouldn’t.

My father and I shouldn’t have tried to handle all of it alone. I know that now. But I was too young to know better. I kept worrying about you. I still refused Shahla. The more my mother pushed her on me, the more I resisted. And I did not do so, despite what my mother may have believed, out of spite. I did not reject Shahla to rebel. All I could see was you standing in the shop, your hair in braids, your schoolbag on your shoulder. I only heard your voice. In your presence, I found a calm.

I was determined to marry you, despite the threats, the illness, the hell. That’s why I wrote that last letter. She could not stop us. She could not end our happiness with the threat of suicide! I had had enough, and I had decided to escape. She was holding us hostage with her threats, and I didn’t want her to have that power over me.