The Septembers of Shiraz Read online

  She unlocks the glass door leading to the terrace, hears its rattle as it slides open. A breeze rushes into the bedroom, sending the curtains into an unchoreographed dance. She stumbles through them and steps with her bare feet on the icy marble outside. Leaning against the balustrade, she sees it—a man wrapped in a white sheet, hanging on a low branch of their cherry tree. Isaac? Urine gushes down her legs. She goes back inside, makes her way down the stairs and out to the garden.

  When she reaches the damp cloth she runs her hands over it, front then back, finds nothing in its folds but dead air. The housekeeper, Habibeh, probably hung it there after drying the dog and forgot to remove it. She sits on the grass, its wetness seeping through her already-soaked nightgown and into her skin. Feeling a chill settling in her thighs, she goes back in, to her quiet house, which suddenly seems unnecessarily vast—the white limestone facade, the lanterns illuminating the garden path, the shimmering blue of the pool, all posing as elaborate gatekeepers to the unraveling inside.

  “FARNAZ-KHANOUM? ARE YOU all right? Shall I bring you some tea? You don’t look so good. And why are you sleeping with just a camisole? You’ll catch cold…”

  Farnaz opens her eyes, sees Habibeh standing over her bed. “No, I’m getting up, thank you. I have to go out.” Her mouth is dry, a bitter taste trapped in her throat.

  “Yes?” Habibeh looks at the bed, at the unruffled side, where Isaac should have been. “Amin-agha never came home?”

  “No, Habibeh. They got him.” She pushes back the comforter, brings her feet to the floor and stares at them, her toenails painted a pinkish white—like seashells—reminding her of promenades along the beach, where they had been, just weeks ago.

  Habibeh rests her hand on Farnaz’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, khanoum. He is a good man, and he will get out.”

  “Yes. But wasn’t Kourosh a good man? Where is he now?”

  “Don’t think about that now.” Habibeh walks to the windows and pulls open the curtains. The room plunges into a harsh brightness.

  “Remember Farnaz-khanoum, that gold silk sari Amin-agha brought me from India? I still have it wrapped in its paper in my closet. From time to time I take it out and run my fingers over it—it’s the softest thing I’ve ever touched. You remember that, khanoum?”

  This reminiscence, Farnaz thinks, has the flavor of old stories rehashed at funerals. “Yes, of course I remember,” she says.

  “It breaks my heart to think of such a good man behind bars.” Habibeh shakes her head, taps one hand against the other. In a lowered voice she says, “I’ve never been the religious type, khanoum, but I will ask Kobra, my half-sister who prays five times a day, to say a few words on agha’s behalf. I’d do it myself but I don’t think my plea would carry much weight. That’s my way of wishing his safe return. Har Haji yek jour Makeh miravad—Every pilgrim goes to Mecca his own way.”

  “Thank you, Habibeh. You are so good to us.”

  “Now get up, khanoum. Get up. Go do what you have to do.” She stands for several seconds, then reaches out to the night table and takes the empty glass of cognac. “This, Farnaz-khanoum, will have to stop.”

  “I take only one glass, Habibeh, you know that. It calms me down.”

  “One glass or ten, makes no difference. Not only is it bad for you, it’s illegal now.” She puts the glass back down and leaves.

  Illegal? Yes, drinking alcohol was now on the long list of illicit activities, along with singing, listening to music, going out with uncovered hair. But when did Habibeh become so law-abiding?

  Farnaz showers quickly and wears navy slacks, a white turtleneck, and her long black coat—the new government enforced uniform. Her shapeless reflection in the full-length mirror strips her of the one lure she had possessed before the days of the revolution, when a hip-hugging skirt, a fitted cashmere sweater, and a red smile were enough to get an entire room of a house painted for free, or the most tender meat saved by the butcher. She leans into the mirror and applies powder to conceal the dark crescents under her brown eyes. She twists her long black hair into a bun and covers it with a scarf.

  Out in the garden the air is crisp, diffusing the sweet, clean scent of jasmine. The dog is sprawled by Isaac’s old Renault, sniffing a tire. She will take Shirin to school then start looking for Isaac. Last night she told Shirin that her father had gone on an unexpected business trip. “Yes? Just like that?” Shirin said. “Yes, just like that.” And when the questions would not stop, Farnaz told her to keep quiet and go to bed. The questions stopped, leaving in their place a muddy silence.

  She stands by the iron gate, tea in hand, watching the day unfold—pedestrians walking hurriedly past, cars honking to salvage lost minutes, children bearing the anxious look of the first weeks of school, their backs hunched under massive book bags. A neighbor emerges from her house and hurries down the street. “They brought eggs today!” she yells to Farnaz, and whizzes by. The war with Iraq, already a year old, has made the most mundane items—eggs, cheese, soap—worthy of celebration. Farnaz cannot reconcile the normalcy of the world around her with the collapse of her own. That the city is short by one man this morning makes so little difference—stores still open their doors, schools ring their bells, banks exchange currency, grass-green double-decker buses—men on the bottom, women on top—follow their daily routes.

  THE PRISON SQUATS under the afternoon sky—sterile, unsparing, and gray.

  “Yes, Sister?” A young man at the gate walks toward her. He is barely eighteen, with that seriousness of expression peculiar to young people given a grave task for the first time. A cigarette hangs loosely from the side of his mouth.

  “I’m looking for my husband, Brother. Can you help me?”

  The boy removes the cigarette, exhaling with exaggeration. “Who is your husband?”

  “His name is Isaac Amin.”

  “Yes? Who says he’s in this prison?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out, Brother.”

  The boy takes another drag, looks out in the distance. “Why should I help you?”

  “Because my husband is innocent. And because you’re a kind, decent person.”

  “You say he’s innocent. Why should I believe you?” He drops the cigarette and crushes it with his foot.

  “Brother, I’m just asking you to tell me if he’s here. I’m not asking you to release him.”

  He bites his lower lip, considering her request, then flings his arm in the air. “Ah, to hell with you,” he says. “I don’t want to help you. And you can’t make me do anything I don’t want to do, not anymore. Now get lost…Sister.”

  She walks for a long time through the city. Above her, windows and balconies close, shutting out the cool September breeze. Summer is leaving, and with it the buzz of ceiling fans, the smell of wet dust rising through air-conditioning vents, the clink of noontime dishes heard through open windows, the chatter of families passing long, muggy afternoons in courtyards, eating pumpkin seeds and watermelon.

  FOUR

  The chant of the muezzin fills the cloudless sky above the prison courtyard. Bismi Allahi alrrahmani alrraheem. Alhamdu illahi rabbi al alameen—“In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful. Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds.”

  Isaac walks along with a few others toward the prison mosque. He has pursued this path already once today. Now, the sun directly above, he knows it must be noon, time for the second round of prayers. Alrrahmani alrraheem. Maliki yawmi alddeen—“The Beneficent, the Merciful. Owner of the Day of Judgment.” He stops at a corner shaded by a single poplar. There, clusters of men stand in front of concrete basins, pouring water over their faces, hands, and bare feet in preparation for prayer. He walks to a vacant spot by a basin and removes his shoes and socks. For years he has watched friends, employees, housekeepers perform this ritual of washing for prayer, but somehow he has not retained all of it, does not know which hand pours water over which, which foot must be wiped clean first. “Thee we worship; Thee we
ask for help. Show us the straight path.”

  During the morning prayer Mehdi, who occasionally prays at the mosque to ingratiate himself to his captors, had shown him all the movements, but afterward he had been taken for interrogation and has not returned. Isaac tries to remember his cellmate’s lesson; the whole thing is like the memory of a dream trying to surface. “The path of those upon whom Thou hast bestowed favors. Not of those upon whom Thy wrath is brought down, nor of those who go astray.” He watches the man next to him gargling water in his mouth and spitting it out, three times. The man turns to Isaac. “What are you waiting for?”

  “I’ve forgotten how it goes,” Isaac says, as though he had once known it, as though the procedures have simply evaporated from his mind, like lyrics of a song.

  The man cleanses his nose and nostrils three times, then washes his face from ear to ear and forehead to chin. “How does anyone manage to forget this?” he says as he dips his right arm, up to the elbow, into the running water.

  “What’s all this talk?” a guard yells from behind. Then, noticing Isaac, he says, “Aren’t you Brother Amin?”

  “Yes.”

  “Nice gesture, Brother, pretending to be Muslim. But it won’t change anything.”

  “No, sir…Brother. I’m not pretending to be anything. I thought everyone has to attend prayers, that’s all.” This is not entirely true, Isaac knows. Like Mehdi, he had hoped that attending would improve his situation, regardless of his religion. The sun beams directly into his head, dilating the veins on his temples.

  “Unless, Brother, you wish to convert.”

  “Well, I…It isn’t that simple.”

  “Then go back to your cell! This incident will be added to your file.”

  Another guard takes hold of Isaac’s arm and drags him across the desolate courtyard. Isaac pictures the men inside the mosque, down on all fours facing Mecca, bodies bowing to the floor and rising again, prayers forming underneath their breaths. He had always been glad that he did not have to partake in this ritual, did not have to drop everything five times a day to pray. Now he wishes he could have stayed with the others—to kneel and rest his forehead on the cool prayer stone.

  When they reach his cell he asks for an aspirin and the guard agrees to bring him one. Alone again, he lets his body fall back on his mattress. The sour scent of blood reaches him from across the room, where Mehdi’s soiled bandages are piled up. He turns on his side, faces the wall, where someone has inscribed, “I have a bad feeling today. Allah-o-Akbar—God is great…” He has been captured for about twenty-four hours now. Today’s date, September 21, 1981. He would like to link to these numbers an event, concrete and retrievable. The one that emerges is nearly four decades old—the night he made love for the first time, to a girl named Irene McKinley.

  He was eighteen years old, and was working in Abadan, at the petroleum refinery. Every morning he would put on his trousers and starched white shirt, slip his feet into the leather oxfords that had made their way from the trash of the well-to-do villas of southern Abadan to the closets of the modest Khorramshahr port where he lived, and hop on the bicycle that would take him six miles south, to the center of the city where the refinery gurgled.

  On his way back in the early afternoon he would pedal through the city aimlessly, postponing as long as possible his return to his quarreling siblings and his unhappy mother, and to the void left by a father with an affinity for liquor. This is how he met Irene, on one of those nomadic afternoons, on the breezy September 21 of 1942. She was in a coffeehouse with a group of American soldiers, stationed with other Allies in Iran to transport supplies to Russia. The only woman in the coffeehouse, she drank tea while the soldiers swilled beers, though from time to time one of them would slide a glass toward her and she would take a sip. Isaac found her not beautiful but attractive, red hair tied back at the nape of her neck, ivory-white freckled skin exposed to the fading sun.

  As he entered the coffeehouse a dozen or so men were sipping tea, sugar cubes melting in their mouths as they jabbered. Two of them were playing backgammon, their forceful rolls of dice echoing in the carpetless room. Isaac liked seeing the fair-skinned Americans there, loud and lighthearted, tongues twirling as they spoke. He sat at his regular table by the window overlooking a row of old houses, but instead of his regular tea he ordered a shot of arrack. He felt fluid as he drank it, the chipping teal-colored walls spinning in slow motion, so he ordered another, then a third. He felt everything around him—men, laughter, wooden tables, glimmering glasses, clattering plates, and the girl, the lovely girl with the red hair—blend into a single sensation, a tickling in his stomach, the happiness to be alive, and to be here, in this moment, waiting for the sun to give way to the coolness of the night, when nothing is seen and everything is possible.

  He offered to barter a bottle of arrack, which would cost him a few days’ salary, for an American military cap. Seeing the effect of the drink on Isaac the Americans found the deal worthy, and already lightened by several rounds of beer, they invited him to their table. Once seated among them he began telling jokes in his broken English. He had never told jokes before, did not know his memory could retain them. The men’s laughter gained volume after each punch line, and the girl’s smiles, flashed at him sporadically from across the table, fired his momentum. Isaac swilled his arrack. He was grateful to the drink, revered it now more than anything or anyone. He even felt a sudden pang of affection for his drunk father, perhaps for the first time in his life.

  He left the coffeehouse with them, American army hat on his head, and along the moonlit streets of Abadan he sang Frank Sinatra’s “Shake Down the Stars,” which he had recently added to his record collection. When the lyrics escaped him he simulated the sinuous sound of a trumpet, and the girl sang along, her mellow voice curving against the walls of sleepy homes and reverberating in the dark.

  They reached the villa-turned-military-station and the soldiers playfully bade him farewell. The girl looked at him with glassy green eyes. “Stay with me,” she said. Isaac was speechless. How was it possible that the girl with the coral-red hair, transplanted at this time to this place thanks to some maniacal despot in Europe, wished to be with him, a lanky boy from Khorramshahr? And what right did she have to be so indiscreet, so chancy, so resolute in her request? “Stay with me,” she repeated. Isaac sensed the lightness in his head weighing him down—his limbs, his eyes, most of all his eyes—as though bits of lead were swimming in his blood. He felt an overwhelming desire to sleep.

  The memory tickles him now, as though the event had occurred only recently. His headache persists, a steady pounding that refuses to let go of his temples. He ignores it as best he can.

  “Get up!” the American girl had said. “You have to leave!” He saw her frantically rummaging through the sheets, producing from the comforter’s folds articles of clothing—his trousers, his white shirt now creased and damp, one sock, and his underwear, the sight of which paralyzed him, leaving him lying flat on his back, watching pieces of himself brought together by a stranger’s hands. She threw the shirt in his direction.

  “You have to go!” she repeated. “It will be daylight soon.”

  He despised himself at that moment as much as he had marveled at his charms just a few hours earlier. The event he had fantasized about since the onset of puberty had come and gone. He sat up, slid one arm into the shirt’s sleeve, then the other. The moist cotton stuck to his back. The smell of his own sweat, blended with her pungent perfume, wafted to his nose. He watched her now as she sat on the edge of the bed, her bare back facing him. When she reached for a carton of cigarettes on the night table, he caught a glimpse of her breasts, as though for the first time. He held the swelling between his legs like a prisoner, wished he could release it.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I am new…at this. But I can do better, I promise.” He felt ridiculous.

  She pulled the sheet up with her free hand to cover herself and turned to him.
r />   “Oh, baby,” she said, a cloud of smoke trailing her voice. “Nothing like that. You’re not supposed to be here, that’s all. You understand that, don’t you?”

  She explained that she was Lieutenant Holman’s secretary, that all day long she shuffled papers dealing with the railroad operation carrying supplies to Russia. He felt better suddenly, could breathe more easily despite the smoke in the room. Yes, he could understand that. Army policy. She was doing good, was helping the global force against the Reich, and he, by putting on his clothes as quickly as possible and vanishing from her quarters, would be doing his bit for the war effort too.

  As he dressed he wanted to ask if he could see her again. Instead he said, “How long will your unit be in town?”

  “What do you think, this is a circus act?” She laughed. Her voice sounded older to him now, more bitter. “I don’t know how long,” she said.

  He was all dressed except for the sock missing from his left foot. “Can I see you again?” he ventured.

  She paused, inhaled, exhaled. “No, that wouldn’t be a good idea,” she finally said.

  He scanned the moonlit room for the sock. He cared less about leaving without it than about her finding it, the hole at the toe howling in daylight. He looked under the bed, wiggled the sheets, ran his fingers over his pants.

  “Hey,” she said. “What’s with the glum face?” She put out the cigarette in a glass; the butt sailed along with a dozen others on the ashen water. She stood, slipped her naked body into a bathrobe. “I tell you what. Let’s cut a deal. If you ever come to America, look me up. Irene McKinley, Galveston, Texas.”

  He nodded, put on his shoes, forgot about the sock—told himself that one day he would forget about the girl too.

  But from time to time throughout his life he had thought of her, even though he could no longer recall her face. From that night on he had come to see himself differently, as someone to whom exciting things could happen. Despite her brief appearance in his life, which did not even end on a particularly cheerful note, she had managed to change him. It is to her that he even attributed the fact that, years later, he was able to win over Farnaz.