The Stationery Shop(79)

For that fraction of time, he was entirely hers.





Chapter Thirty


2013



* * *



Blue Round Box

“It’s fine. Some of his friends from the center will also be there.”

“Oh, I can’t, it would be too strange.”

“You’ll be seen as just another resident. Another friend.”

“Yes, well, even so. Walter, he has a town meeting. And I don’t like driving in this ice.”

“Mrs. Archer, I can pick you up and drive you home. I think he would have wanted you there. Deal?”

Americans with their deals and their good plans. But there was something genuinely kind about this young woman, Claire. She insisted that no one would notice anything untoward about Roya being at the memorial service.

So Roya did go.

For decades she’d had no closure, no good-bye, so much unresolved with Bahman. But that last day with him alone—well, she would always be grateful for that time with him. She wanted to go to his service. She wanted to be there for him.

It was held at a Universalist church in Duxton. He’d asked to be cremated. Bahman had never been religious; he did not practice. The white, sun-drenched steeple of the Universalist church somehow fit him perfectly.

With Claire’s help, Roya went up the stairs and into the church. It was strange but also oddly comforting to see Omid and a woman who looked a lot like him. Omid introduced her to his twin sister, Sanaz. So Omid’s sister had Bahman’s smile too. It took everything Roya had to keep it together as she walked up to Bahman’s children to offer her condolences. Omid introduced Roya to his sister as “an old friend of Dad’s” and squeezed her hand.

For the service, Roya sat next to Claire in the pews. A minister went to the podium, thanked everyone for coming, and said she’d like to start with a short verse from Mr. Aslan’s favorite poem. Blood rushed to Roya’s face and throbbed in her ears as she heard the words of the Rumi poem she and Bahman had first shared in the Stationery Shop. Between the pages of the book containing that poem, they had exchanged their letters.

Look at love

How it tangles

With the one fallen in love

Look at spirit

How it fuses with earth

Giving it new life

His children got up and spoke. They mentioned how loved their father was, by his community, by his customers at the shop. Through their speeches, Roya caught glimpses of Bahman’s life.

“Mom and Dad loved to celebrate Nowruz,” Omid’s sister, Sanaz, said. “Our home was always filled with the scent of Persian rice, and Dad would make sure we set the table with the traditional Haft Seen objects signifying spring.”

“Dad made sure we always worked hard,” Omid told the assembled crowd. He couldn’t say enough about their devoted father. “He always wanted to change the world.”

Roya listened to these two competent, articulate adults. She could see that Bahman had changed the world, after all. Here they were, speaking from the podium, from their hearts. His children.

She had thought at times that what she shared with Bahman could take up all the space in the universe. It had felt that strong. But really, it was just a sliver, a tiny shard of his life. His children and their birthdays and their studies and their boyfriends and girlfriends and spouses and children. That was his life. His wife. She was his life.



When the service was over, they all moved to a reception hall inside the church. Claire quietly sobbed. Roya wanted to comfort her but wasn’t sure what to do. As guests mingled, she noticed a table of refreshments. “I’ll get you something to eat,” she said to Claire as she patted her shoulder.

At the refreshment table, Sanaz arranged pastries on a platter. “These were always Dad’s favorites,” she said. She held out the platter for Roya. “He liked to call them ‘elephant ears.’?”

Roya wanted to say, I know. The boy who had brought her pastries at Café Ghanadi was right next to her, and always would be; she could smell the cinnamon and sugar in that crowded café. “Thank you.” She put two elephant ears on a small paper plate and made her way back to Claire.

“What do you have there, Mrs. Archer?”

“Try these. He liked them.”

Claire bit into an elephant-ear pastry, and Roya sank into a chair, astonished by the sweep of time.



Once the younger children were high on sugar, they started to run around the reception hall. The mood grew lighter, people ate and talked and laughed. It felt good to be here with these strangers, who were all connected to Bahman. She knew none of them save Claire, and barely Omid, but it was clear they all shared a fondness for Bahman, for his energy, his kindness. Snatches of conversation floated by: “Remember how much he loved to . . .” “Boy, did he make us crazy with that song he always whistled. . . .” As long as Roya stayed in this room, she could hear more about him, be with people who shared a love for him. Once she left, she’d be back to a life where no one else knew him. She wanted to cry. To distract herself, she tried to figure out which of the kids were Bahman’s grandchildren. One teenage girl leaned against the wall, chewing gum. She was the spitting image of Mrs. Aslan.



At the end of the reception, Omid and Sanaz and their partners stood near the exit and shook hands with everyone and thanked them for coming. Strangely, Roya wanted to be near them for as long as she could. They were her only link to the boy she had loved. And she would never see any of them again.