The Stationery Shop(83)

Nothing makes him happier than when he nurtures romances with letters in books. The love letters he passes along give so many young couples a mode of communication they would otherwise not have. A small release from the pressures of their parents and the suffocating mores under which they are—all of them—trapped. He transports those love notes for couples he knows cannot be seen with one another. Couples separated by class or religion or cultural dictates but not by desire. For girls whose clothes are too shabby for rich boys. For boys whose income prospects are too hopeless for elite girls. For Muslims in love with Jews. For communists in love with monarchists.

And he is happy to do it. He wants them to have that which was denied him: the freedom to love.

Abbas and Leila Gholami, one of the most philanthropic couples in Tehran, would not have been able to have their courtship without his assistance. Jaleh Tabatabayi and Cyrus Ghodoosi, a communist activist and a monarchist, will probably marry. He’s done well by them. It helps to remember the ones he’s helped. To hang on to the good.

And he helped Bahman and Roya fall in love. Hadn’t he rushed off to the bank knowing they’d be alone together? Hadn’t he gone to the back storage room again and again so they could speak in peace? He helps them along, gives them a sacred space of privacy. The time to be with each other. With delight, he watches Badri’s son fall in love with Roya right there under his roof. And later he exchanges their letters.

Until she tells him to put an end to it.

Why doesn’t his heart let go? Why do some people stay lodged in our souls, stuck in our throats, imprinted in our minds?

Forget the girl, Ali.

Roya is in the square now. Waiting.

God forgive him. God give exoneration.

Badri told him that she had aborted their own child with her own devices, that her body was wrecked for all the rest. Save Bahman. And so Ali tries to save Bahman. To give him all he wants: books, politics, love. But Badri does not want one thing for him and that is for her plan to go awry. For Bahman, she has plans. And they do not include Roya.

When she pierced her neck like that and almost died, when she went away to the north afterward to be by the sea, to recover, she continued to manipulate him. She made him promise.

And yes, at her bidding, he rewrote Bahman’s letter. He changed but one word. That was all. Just the name of the square. But it was the cruelest word to change. To give them that hope, to have them wait at different locations, to not just end it. Badri wanted to draw it out. To see Roya suffer. She kept calling him on the telephone from up north by the sea to make sure he had done it just as she had demanded. She had enjoyed the drama of it. The danger and the cruelty. And to his dismay, Badri dictated two more letters: one from Bahman to Roya and another from Roya to Bahman, and made him promise to write them and mail them a few days before the kids were to “meet” at the squares. So each would receive the other’s shortly after their planned meeting, while both were stung by being stood up.

So Badri could end it her way.

He had agreed. He had not wanted to, but he had agreed. He did as she said, in order to make up for his past failure. Although he knew he was creating even more heartbreak.

His penmanship was perfect—always had been. He could copy anything. Hadn’t he been trained from a very young age at the best schools to master calligraphy, to train as a scholar? He was a product of the age when excellent handwriting signified status. Few could match the control of his hand.

Can God forgive him?

Badri would blame him if Bahman and Roya got married. And then what would he do? What would she do? Would she kill herself? He couldn’t live with that.

He sits on the stepladder, still shaking. Is he really just doing Badri’s bidding? Or is there a part of him that, despite the best of intentions, is jealous of what those two kids would have? A life of love. What he never had.

He remembers how Roya looked at that boy in his shop.

He is drenched in sweat. And as he rests there with his head in his hands, he knows.

No. It is wrong.

He knows in his heart what he must do.

He closes the shop.

And he runs.

He runs and runs and runs. He has not moved this fast since he himself was young, since he himself was in love. With each yard covered, with each stride, there is a sense of new lightness in his heart. Badri is wrong. They cannot do this to the young couple. He cannot forget the girl. The girl who stands in the square.

The alleys and the streets and the swelling crowds of people are a blur as he runs. He finally reaches his destination, entirely out of breath. He pushes and shoves through the mob of people. So much for no more demonstrations. Will the people ever learn? Roya. Roya. Roya. Of course he knows where she stands. He pushes his way through. And then, in the middle of the mob and the chaos, he sees her. He forces himself past angry bodies to her. He grabs her shoulder.

“Roya!” He could cry with relief. He has found her. And he will tell her.

She looks worn out and tired. She is pale and her lips are dry. He is filled with a desire to protect her, help her, carry her away from this mess. He needs to tell her.

“Oh, thank God! Mr. Fakhri! Have you seen—”

“Roya Khanom, please listen to me. . . .” He clutches her shoulders with both hands.

“I just need to find Bahman,” she says.

“Roya Khanom, I need for you to please know something—”

She moves away from his grasp. And then the force of a blast. He is sent up into the sky and onto the ground at the same time. He is shocked by the impact. He struggles to breathe. He knows only that he is now on the ground and his chest is wet and it won’t stop being wet. He wants to find Roya to tell her what he did wrong to tell her she is in the wrong place because of him and that she should go to Bahman who is at Baharestan Square that they should go to the Office of Marriage and Divorce that they should seize this moment that they should not forgo their love that they should have many years together growing old together they will grow up and get older and softer and fuller together they will raise children they will do wonderful things they will grow into old age together he wants to tell her that he is sorry he wants to tell Badri he is sorry and he remembers the square behind the bazaar with the flies and the melon rinds and he remembers how he built that shop inch by inch book by book and he thinks of his children and their squeals of joy when they were young he is wrong and he sees Atieh sitting in her chair at night quietly sewing and he wants to burn onto this world that he is sorry and the child that Badri removed from her womb would be thirty-six years old this summer and he never got to know that child, he never got to hold its hand. And he is sorry. He is sorry. Roya’s face is in front of him. And several others now. A man is pressing on his wet chest and he cannot breathe he is floating. Badri from the bazaar stands there, balanced on her toes for what seems like a snatch of time separate from all the rest. Her lips are warm and sticky on his face. She feels like a burst of fire. And now a snatch of melon cloth on his heart. Is he dreaming it? He looks in the direction of his stationery shop the one he built to make up for his sins to spread knowledge to nurture love and he thinks he sees smoke but he’s sure it’s not that. It will live on. People will walk into his stationery shop even after he is gone. He doesn’t know how but he knows they will someone will not let it go someone will keep it going he is disappearing he is shrinking the sky is becoming darker the curtains are drawing closed from either side he is leaving but the love will continue to live the young will continue their hope the fight for democracy won’t die his books the words the notes the letters the hope cannot ever end. It is a love from which we never recover.