If You Could Be Mine (16 page)

“Sahar, are you okay?” Parveen asks, eyes full of concern. The doctor explains that I fainted. He tells me to sit up slowly, and Parveen helps me to a seated position. She flops her
chador
around me, hiding my face from the doctor. Dr. Hosseini hands me a cup of water while I remain on the floor. I sip from it, and I can’t even look him in the face.

“That wasn’t meant to scare you,” he says. “It’s just the way this process happens. You have to be sure this is something you want.” I think about how I am letting myself down. How can I be the way I am and live in Iran? I look up, and there are two framed photographs, Angry Grandpa and Disappointed Grandpa. I swear Angry Grandpa is smirking. Disappointed Grandpa just looks at me like he knew I couldn’t do it. He knew I wasn’t brave enough.

“I’m sorry to make such a scene. I . . . I don’t think,” I say.

Reza rushes in with a cup of water. He recognizes me now. I could die.

“Sahar? What are you . . .?” He is speechless for a moment. He can see the fear in my eyes, and he knows why I’m here.
I want to be like you
. I hope he doesn’t know why I want to be like him. His mouth is open, but slowly, remembering where he is, he crouches down and hands me the cup of water. “Does your father know you’re here?” he asks. The jig is up. I start to cry. Parveen holds me. The doctor tells me everything will be fine. I thought I could do it. Now what will I do?

16

MY SCHOOL CALLED BABA
to see why I was absent yesterday and he’s been trying to get an answer from me. It’s too bad I’m lying in a fetal position on my bed and don’t feel like talking to anyone. He should understand that. He’s been doing more or less the same thing since Maman died. He bought some ready-made
khoreshts,
stews, in cans from the corner store by our apartment. I would be impressed except for the fact that I am absolutely devastated that this wedding is happening, and I cannot stop it. No more wild fantasies, no more attempts at making this atrocity go away. It’s happening.

I don’t know if Reza told Nasrin that he saw me at the clinic. I don’t know what he thinks or if he suspects anything about Nasrin and me. I can’t get the surgery now because Reza would know. Parveen dropped me off at home, after my fainting at the doctor’s. She didn’t stay long, said she had to get back to work at the bank. Parveen did give me a hug and told me everything would be fine. I felt like she was lying, but it was a nice gesture, anyway. Ali hasn’t called me. He is probably still angry about my making a spectacle of myself at the restaurant. It doesn’t matter. I don’t need anybody.

“Sahar, can I come in?” Baba calls through the door to my room. I do not answer him. To my surprise, he actually comes in anyway. “Sahar
joon,
come have something to eat. I have
fesenjoon.
And
noon sangak,
you love warm bread.” I keep my back to him. I am staring at photographs of Nasrin, taken on my fifth birthday, hanging on the wall next to my bed. In one of them Maman is hugging me from behind, and Nasrin is smearing frosting on her brother Cyrus’s face.

Baba sits on my bed and touches my shoulder. “Your teacher said your grades have gotten worse. I didn’t know what to tell her. Your grades have always been excellent. Even in preschool you were obsessed with knowing the right words to nursery rhymes.” I don’t care if he’s disappointed. Maybe I figured out there is no point to schoolwork. I’ll still be a huge lesbian without a girlfriend. He lets go of my shoulder. Good. I hope he’s finished.

“Should I call Nasrin to come over?”

I start hysterically laughing. I sit up and look at him. He is so confused. He knows exactly who I’ve always needed in times like this. But he can’t know that right now, Nasrin might be the last person I want to see. I’m starting to cry from laughing so hard, and Baba looks concerned.

“Call Nasrin?” I ask. “Do you want to know why my grades are suffering? Why I skipped school? Why everything has stopped making sense?” I want him to know. I want him to know me, to know what I have painfully and silently been dealing with. “Do you want to know what Nasrin does when she comes over here that makes me feel so good?” Won’t he be surprised to know his daughter is an enemy of the state, a lowlife, and an aberration from God’s plan.

“She listens to you?”

The anger leaves me. He looks so helpless and innocent, like a sheep that’s about to be slaughtered for the end of Ramadan.

Maybe that
is
why I am so devoted to her. She listens to me.

For all of her self-centered activities and vanity, when I speak Nasrin listens. She lets me talk when society and the rest of the world won’t. She’s heard my inner voice, and she still loves me. Maybe Baba isn’t the stranger I thought he was.

“Yes. She listens to me. I . . . thank you for buying dinner.” Baba sits there, patient and waiting for more of an explanation. It’s hard to be mad at him. He’s just so clueless. “I’m just sad that I am losing Nasrin. That she’s getting married.” That’s about as close as I will ever come to telling him the truth. I don’t want him to worry about me. I don’t want him to get in trouble or monitor everywhere I go. It’s like Maman said, it’s better to leave thoughts of marrying Nasrin alone.

“Sahar
joon,
don’t be upset. Just because she is getting married doesn’t mean Nasrin doesn’t love you. You can still visit, and she can come here anytime. Her husband can come, too, if he likes. We can make them dinner together.” It’s more than I expected him to say. It doesn’t make me feel better, but at least he’s trying. “Besides, when you go to university you won’t have time to cook, and it’s about time I learned. If you have some time, you could teach me.” University. There is still that. I could be a better doctor than Reza. Maybe I could be a cardiologist and spare other little girls the pain of losing a parent to heart failure. I still have a life to live, even if Nasrin isn’t a part of it.

“Yes. I’d like that,” I tell him, and he smiles. It breaks my heart because I haven’t seen him smile like that in such a long time.

“My rice is even edible tonight. You should try it. I shocked myself.” Now it’s my turn to smile. He’s trying, like I have asked him to. Baba leads me into the kitchen and tells me to call Ali to join us. I might as well. I have yet to apologize for the scene I made. I call Ali’s mobile, but there is no answer. I call his apartment. No answer. He’s probably out with friends. Of course he’s with friends; he’s always with friends. He has thousands of friends, and I am forever friendless and having dinner with my father.

“I think it’s just us tonight,” I say, and plop down into a kitchen chair. I’m not going to set the table. I’m not going to serve the food. I’m not going to do anything. Baba seems fine with that as he turns on the TV to the football match. Neither of us likes football; it’s the noise that we enjoy. It covers up our awkward silence. Baba puts down a plate of semiburnt rice with
fesenjoon
on top.
Fesenjoon
has always looked like diarrhea to me. It’s a pomegranate stew with chopped walnuts and chicken in it. It tastes delicious, if you have a blindfold on.

There’s a buzz at the door. Baba and I look at each other in confusion. He stands up and pushes the intercom button.
“Baleh?”

“Dayi, let me in!” It’s Ali and he sounds drunk.

I rush to the door and usurp Baba at the intercom.

“Ali, what do you want?” He has such nerve to come here in that state. A young girl’s voice comes over the intercom. It’s Daughter.

“Please, let us up? He’s been hurt. We don’t know what to do.” I immediately hit the buzzer. I know Ali enough to understand that he would never bring Daughter here unless it was an absolute emergency. I open the door and see Ali, one arm slung over Mother’s shoulder, the other over Daughter’s. His face looks like it has bits of smashed pomegranate all over. His lip is bleeding, and he has a swollen eye. Baba rushes to support Ali and guide him into the apartment. Baba sits him down on a sofa. Daughter is breathing heavily. Mother coolly takes off her gloves.

“What happened?” I ask, and Baba looks at me, just as bewildered. Daughter begins to cry a little bit.

“I think you’d better wash him up first,” Mother says. “He might bleed on your furniture.” I’ve never liked this bitch. I rush to the bathroom and wet a towel. Daughter is now wailing in the living room. I rush back to the sofa. Ali looks so small as I gently pat his face.

“Should we take him to a hospital?” Baba asks.

“No!” All four of us shout.

Ali winces, and I know whatever trouble he’s in, there’s a reason he’s here. He has nowhere else to hide. I press the towel on his bad eye.

“Baba, hold the towel here. I’ll call for help.”

“Who are you calling?” Baba asks. The last person in the world I would ever want to call. Ali owes me, big time. I walk to my room and dial on my mobile. The phone rings twice before Nasrin picks up.

“
Salam, azizam!
My parents are out to eat if you want to come over and—”

“I need Reza. Ali’s been hurt, and he needs a doctor,” I mutter through gritted teeth. I can hear her gasp. She knows it must be serious because there is no other reason I would sacrifice making out with her. There’s no other reason why I would ask for her stupidly perfect fiancé to come over to my home.

“He’s . . . I think he’s at the hospital. I’ll have him paged. He should be finished soon.”

“Please tell him to hurry.”

“Of course! Do you want me to come over?”

“No! No, it’s . . . Don’t worry.”

“Okay.” We breathe in and out at the same time.

“I can’t . . . I couldn’t find a way to stop the wedding,” I say and she sighs into the phone.

“It’s all right. What could you have done?”

“I have to go.”

“All right, I love y—”

I hang up on her. I walk back into the living room. I turn to Ali. His bleeding seems to have stopped, but Baba keeps the towel on him. Mother has made herself comfortable at the kitchen table. Daughter still stands, her hands shaking. She can’t stop crying, and I stand next to her, rubbing my hand on her back to try to soothe her.

“It’s all right. Shhh. He will be fine, he’s always fine.” I say it for the benefit of both of us. I look over my shoulder at Ali. He doesn’t seem all that badly injured, but he looks like hell. I lead Daughter to sit across from Mother at the kitchen table.

“What happened?” I whisper to Mother. I don’t want Baba to know what Ali has been up to.

“May we have some tea first? It’s not easy hauling a man up the stairs. Even if he is terribly skinny.” I slam my fist down on the table. Daughter whimpers, and Baba looks over, alarmed.

“Sahar? What’s going on?” he asks, and I wish he weren’t home now.

“Nothing! Just getting some tea,” I say. Mother just smirks. I go to the cupboard, pull out two tea glasses, and pour some
chai
for our visitors. I drop Mother’s in front of her, splashing tea onto the table. I gently hand a glass to Daughter, pressing it into her still shaking hands. “No sugar?” Mother asks.

“No sugar. What happened?”

Mother raises an eyebrow and finally concedes to tell me. “We were in the middle of a
negotiation,
and he called us to pick him up. He sounded strange, and when he told us where to find him, I thought he was joking.” I look at Ali.

“
Natars, dayi jan,
” Ali says. “I just had a disagreement with someone. I’ll be fine.” He’s calling to me, but he’s smiling at Baba’s sad, worried face, trying to convince him not to worry.

“Where did you pick him up?” I ask.

“The police station,” Daughter says. They finally caught him. Invincible Ali. Bruised and battered on his dead aunt’s couch.

“He was on the curb when we pulled up. He had the courtesy to make sure we didn’t have to go inside. This one was scared out of her mind.” Mother nods at Daughter.

“I’ve never been arrested,” Daughter says, and I put my hand over her shaking ones. “I’ve heard stories of what happens. Just stories, but you never know.”

The phone rings and I dart over to answer it. “
Baleh?
Hello?”

“Sahar? It’s Reza. Nasrin said your cousin is hurt?”

“Yes. He’s conscious; he’s been beaten. He needs some cleaning up, and I don’t know—”

“It’s all right. I will be there shortly. I’m driving over right now.” He doesn’t mention anything about seeing me at the clinic. I hate that he’s so nice. He and I could have been friends, maybe colleagues one day.

“Thank you” is all I can muster.

“It’s fine. Nasrin would kill me if I didn’t help you. You should have heard her on the phone.” I smile at that. She can get into such a mood.

“Just make sure he stays conscious.” He hangs up, and I’m sure Nasrin has told him not to ask any questions. I hang up the phone, and I crouch down next to Baba and take over holding the towel on Ali’s face. Baba starts to cry and Ali rolls his eyes.

“Can you tell him to stop that? I’m fine!” Ali says. If his face didn’t look like a busted prune already, I would slap him.