The Heart's Desire

by Nahid Rachlin

  Jennifer could understand Karim’s envy of her. In the United States she could just get on a plane and visit her family any time, while for many years it had been hard or impossible for him to do the same. Now the situation was reversed.

  A young woman, wearing a kerchief and a long roopush, came out of a room and sat down behind the Exit Visa table and promptly started making a phone call. Jennifer went over to her.

  “May I help you?” the woman asked when she finally got off the phone.

  “I need exit visas for myself and my son.”

  “Can I see your passports.”

  Jennifer gave her the passports and the woman handed her a form to fill out.

  The questions were routine: the length of the visit, the purpose of it. After finishing it she gave it back to the woman who looked at it perfunctorily, then turned to a calendar in front of her. Jennifer could see that the calendar was thoroughly marked with appointments.

  “You can pick them up on August 28.” She spoke in a laconic manner as if nothing of significance were going on.

  “That’s more than a month away! I may have to leave the country immediately, my child is sick.”

  “Madam, everyone who comes here thinks they have an urgent problem.”

  Then for no reason Jennifer could understand the woman’s tone of voice changed. “If you get a doctor’s permission that your son must see a specialist in America, then you can obtain exit visas much quicker.”

  “I’ll see if I can do that, thank you,” Jennifer said. The woman gave her a receipt for her passports.

  When she got back Darius was in their room absorbed in looking at the pictures in a blue pamphlet.

  “How do you feel?” She went over to him and put her hand on his forehead. He was still a little hot.

  Instead of answering, Darius said, “Grandma said it’s bad for you to go out alone.” He spoke in that incongruously grownup manner he had assumed at times lately. Just as disconcerting as when he regressed, clung to her, sucked his thumb.

  “Did she? What are you looking at? Can I see it?”

  He handed the booklet to her. “Path to God,” was written on the jacket in Farsi. She turned to the first page. It showed a picture of a child looking at glowing sunrise. Underneath it said, “What is your goal? Are you looking for fleeting pleasures on this earth or are you looking toward the eternal life afterwards?” She closed the pamphlet and gave it back to him.

  “Grandma says only praying will make me feel better.” He went back to the pamphlet.

  Chapter 14

  “Damn it,” Jamshid said, “Did you see how that car cut right in front of me? No one ever follows rules in this ruined, damned country.”

  Cars were coming at them from all directions at the intersection. It could take hours to go a few blocks, Karim thought. “Is there a way to avoid going through the town?” he asked.

  “The back roads aren’t in good condition. They’re made for donkeys, not cars!”

  There was a screeching sound, and then a strange, guttural moan from Jamshid as the car crashed into something, and came to a jerky stop. Karim gave a start as he saw blood trickling down the side of Jamshid’s face. He was leaning on the wheel, breathing heavily, slowly.

  “Jamshid, are you all right? Are you hurt?” Jamshid just moaned.

  Some of the drivers had come out of their cars and were shouting and accusing each other. Several police cars and an ambulance appeared on the scene. Two men came out of the ambulance and went to the car next to theirs. They carried the injured driver, whose arm and face were bleeding, into the ambulance. Karim got out of the car. “Please help, my uncle has been injured too,” he said to the ambulance men.

  He helped them take Jamshid out of the car and put him in the ambulance with the other injured man.

  “Where’s the hospital?” he asked. “I’ll follow you.”

  “On Martyred Hassan Avenue, that way, about fifteen blocks.” The ambulance sped off.

  One of the policemen who had been questioning someone in another car came over to Karim. “Is this your car?”

  “No, it belongs to my uncle. He was taken away in the ambulance. I must get to the hospital.”

  “Can I see your license?”

  “I have an international license. I’m visiting.”

  “Let me see it, and your passport.”

  Karim got his briefcase and took out his license and passport and handed them to the policeman who was now staring at him with a suspicious glint in his eyes. Then he walked around his uncle’s car, inspecting it for serious damage, but there were only dents.

  “What are you doing in Iran?” the policeman asked.

  “Visiting my family.”

  The policeman wrote down some things and gave him back the passport and license. Then he asked more questions—how long did he intend to stay in Iran, how long had he lived in the United States.

  Karim, more and more upset, got into the car and said, “I must go.” Other than for making a few odd sounds, the car seemed to be running normally.

  Now looking at his own face in the mirror he saw a thin thread of dried-up blood on his temple. He tried to wipe it off with a tissue.

  After an excruciatingly slow drive through the traffic he reached Martyred Hassan Avenue and turned into it. A small building with “Kholi Hospital” written on the canopy came into view. He brought the car to a stop close to the emergency entrance where several other cars and ambulances were parked.

  In the lobby nurses were standing behind two counters. A sign on one said, “For Soldiers Only.” Two soldiers were standing in front of that counter. One of them had his leg in a cast, the other had bandages on the side of his face and head.

  Karim walked to the other counter and said to the nurse, “My uncle was just brought in here by an ambulance, he was in a car accident.”

  “His name?”

  “Jamshid Soleimani.”

  The nurse checked a list. “He’s in the intensive care unit.”

  “Can I see him or speak to his doctor?”

  “I’ll find out.” The nurse walked down the corridor.

  Karim went to the sofa and sat down. The afterimage of his uncle with blood trickling down his face wouldn’t leave him. What will his family do if something happens to him? Of course I’ll do my best for them. He remembered so vividly Aziz announcing Zohreh’s and then Azar’s births to him. “Your uncle had a baby, a girl.” Each time she had hung lanterns on the tree branches and kept them burning for a few days in celebration.

  Then he saw the nurse he had spoken to, accompanied by a doctor, approaching him and he got up.

  “There was blood in his mouth that might be from an internal injury,” the doctor said to him. “We’ll have to keep him here under observation. He might have had a minor heart attack as well.”

  Karim thought about all the smoking, the stress his uncle had been under. “Can I go in and see him?”

  “He shouldn’t be disturbed right now. Come back tomorrow. It’s lucky we have any space,” the doctor said. “Every day they fly in soldiers still suffering from war injuries. Take care of yourself now.” He walked away, then the nurse gave Karim some forms to fill out. It took Karim a long time—he had to think about certain facts, his uncle’s exact age, for instance. He wrote fifty. He was not sure about his allergies, his history of illnesses. He left many of the questions blank. Then he went to the car and brought back his uncle’s suitcase and gave it to the nurse with the forms.

  He wondered what to do, where to go. He decided to go to his aunt’s house anyway by himself.

  “I haven’t seen you for so long, I can’t believe you’re here,” his aunt Khadijeh said as he stood with her and her son, Fereidoon, in the courtyard of their house. “We’ve all missed you so much.”

  “You know how impossible it was to get visas, but suddenly they made it easier, so we came .”

  “Did you come to Babolsar alone?”

  “My wife and son are
in Teheran, I came with Uncle. He had a job interview in Naushahr” He hesitated, then said, “Unfortunately we had a car accident. He’s in the hospital right now.”

  “Oh, my God, what happened?”

  “Don’t worry, it isn’t too serious …”

  “Why is he in the hospital then?”

  “Just to make sure he has no internal injuries.”

  “My poor brother, he’s been through hell already.”

  Fereidoon said, “Why don’t we go and see him?”

  “Not today, they think he should be resting. But maybe tomorrow.”

  “Are you sure they won’t let us see him?” his aunt asked.

  “They want him to be quiet and rest.”

  His aunt sighed, a habit like his mother’s. “I hope you’ll stay a while with us.”

  “If I’m not imposing, coming here without notice.”

  “Of course not. You’ve become Americanized to ask such a question. Sit down, have some fruit.”

  Karim sat on the rug spread in the shade of a big fir tree.

  Aunt Khadijeh took a pear from a platter heaped with fruit, peeled and sliced it, and put it on a plate for him. “The tea will be ready in a minute.” She pointed to the samovar hissing, giving out sparks. Then she sank into silence, obviously upset about her brother.

  Karim looked around. The house was as he recalled it—with the rooms on two floors, and there was an oval pool in the center of a brick-covered courtyard. The cobblestoned street had remained almost the same too—narrow, lined by houses with vines bearing gold or red grapes hanging over the courtyard walls.

  “HI go and buy chelo kebab for us,” Fereidoon said.

  “Please, Pm not hungry,” Karim said. His stomach felt tight. “Do you by chance have a phone, or is there one nearby? I want to call Teheran.”

  “We don’t have a phone, but the lines to Teheran are out again. At my shop we haven’t been able to do any business for the last few days,” Fereidoon said.

  “It’s the war. So many of our young men were dragged to the front and then killed. Practically every family in Babolsar has lost someone,” Aunt Khadijeh said and sighed again.

  “There are no winners in a war, both sides are losers,” Fereidoon said. “They bribed families with promises of monthly payments and free education for their sons when they came home from the army. Some boys were simply taken away from their high schools and their families weren’t told about it until much later. I was lucky, I managed to get out of the army because my mother is dependent on me—she has no husband and I’m her only child.”

  Somewhere in the distance beyond the house a radio went on, playing music. The water in the pool was perfectly smooth, reflecting the white, fluffy patches of clouds above.

  “I guess it had some positive aspects for some of the young men, the aimless ones. It gave them a sense of mission,” Fereidoon went on. “But I have my work, and poetry.”

  “What kind of work do you do?” Karim asked.

  “I transport fruit. I get up before dawn and go to the market to find the best fruit and then take it to different stores. My father did the same thing.”

  “I remember that,” Karim said.

  “One night a week I go to my poetry group—we recite poems by Khayyam, Hafez, Saadi. Sometimes we play instruments—I play the lute.”

  Karim remembered writing poetry too when he was Fereidoon’s age. One poem was about a boy standing at the bottom of a valley, surrounded by dark, tall mountains. “I am lost in the dark cloud of the unknown …” or something like it.

  “You look tired, do you want to lie down for a while and rest?” his aunt asked him.

  “I’m sorry to be such poor company.”

  “We aren’t strangers,” his aunt said.

  In a moment Fereidoon took him into a room. Together they spread a mattress on the floor and put sheets on it.

  “Do you have a suitcase?” Fereidoon asked.

  “Just a small bag, I’ll get it later. I want to close my eyes for a few moments.”

  As soon as Fereidoon left the room, Karim fell asleep on the mattress with his clothes on.

  Chapter 15

  Dr. Bijan Daneshpoor’s office was on the first floor of a small, two-story building on a busy street. On one side stood a tiny courtyard, filled with shrubbery and bushes, and on the other side, a bank.

  As Jennifer entered the reception room, a nurse wearing a white uniform and a white kerchief that covered her hair completely approached her and asked, “May I help you?”

  “I’m Jennifer Sahary, we spoke on the phone, this is my son, Darius …”

  “Oh, yes, Sahary khanoom, please sit and wait, the doctor is with a patient, but he should be done shortly.” The nurse’s tone was very friendly. “You speak Farsi fluently.”

  Jennifer and Darius sat down and she filled out the form the nurse gave to her. There were many children in the room, some of them sitting close to their mothers, others standing around a fish tank in a corner. A sign on the wall advised, “Prevention Is The Best Weapon Against Illness.” It was like any doctor’s reception room in the United States.

  In a few moments the doctor came out. His eyes focused on Jennifer. “Jennifer Sahary?”

  “Yes, and this is my son Darius.”

  Darius leaned on her more closely.

  “Let’s go to my office.”

  A glass case in a corner of the office displayed old medical instruments, a hammer, a scale. A large print of Avicenna attending a patient hung on one wall and several diplomas on another.

  “What’s the matter with him exactly? Low fever, tiredness, anything else?”

  “The fever comes and goes but in general he isn’t himself, hasn’t his usual energy.”

  “I’ll give him some tests and see. By the way, your Farsi is excellent, I’m impressed.” He had a boyish look, massive dark hair, lively eyes, and a casual, assured manner.

  “My husband is Iranian.”

  “Still …”

  Jennifer picked up the folded green robe from the table and helped Darius put it on. Then she stood there while the doctor examined him, looking into his eyes, ears, throat, taking his temperature, blood pressure, listening to his heartbeat. “His temperature is only slightly above normal right now,” the doctor said. Then he took a throat culture. “Is he allergic to penicillin?”

  “No,” she said, helping Darius put his clothes back on.

  “You’re a nice, brave boy,” the doctor said. He wrote a prescription and gave it to her. “Give him one of these four times a day until we know the test results, in two, three days.”

  She said to Darius, “Do you want to go out there and look at the fish?”

  Darius left the office immediately and went over to the fish tank.

  Jennifer turned to the doctor, “I have a favor to ask you, I may want to take him back home before we had planned, I need . .

  “Why, you aren’t happy here?” he said, touching her arm, his voice a bit flirtatious.

  “It isn’t that, I’m worried about my son. Anyway this isn’t the best time for us to be here. I went to the passport office to get exit visas and they said it would take at least a month unless I had an urgent reason to leave. I told them my son was sick and they said if I could get a letter …”

  “Wait here, I’ll see what I can do.”

  He left the room and came back in a few moments with an envelope. “Here’s the letter.”

  She was startled. “You already wrote it?” She took it out. On the top was the mandatory statement, “In the name of God, the Merciful, the Beneficent,” and then,

  To whom it may concern,

  Darius Sahary has been my patient for the past

  three weeks. He has an obscure virus that most

  likely is caused by water, food, and air unfamiliar

  to the child. It is urgent for him to return to his

  native country, the United States, as soon as possible.

  Sincerely,
/>
  Bijan Daneshpoor, M.D.

  “I can’t thank you enough,” she said, putting the letter in her purse.

  “I like to help when I can. Besides, I may need your help one day—a letter of invitation by an American is required for me to be able to obtain a visa to go to the United States,” he said jokingly. “I’d like to go back and really live. All I did during the six years I was there was work.”

  The phone on the wall started to ring. He picked it up. “I’ll be there as soon as possible.” He put down the phone and turned to her, “An emergency. If you have any questions or need more help let me know.” He walked with her to the door. As she was about to open it he leaned over and put his mouth to her ear and—it shook her—did he kiss it? “Come and visit me …” Did he really say that? She wasn’t sure, she was feeling so nervous.

  In the waiting room she said to the receptionist, “I can settle the bill now.”

  “The doctor gave me instructions not to accept any money.”

  On the way back she continued to wonder about the doctor, what kind of a person he was. He wasn’t wearing a wedding band and there were no photographs of children, a wife, or anyone for that matter, in his office. But what difference does any of that make? Still, she could not suppress an attraction she felt, sparked by the kiss, or whatever it had been, in the middle of her turmoil. And his letter in her purse, an act of generosity no matter how she interpreted it, created a link, an intimacy.

  On Jamali Avenue they went into the drugstore and filled the prescription, then they went to the toy store at the mouth of the alley, where she bought a yo-yo, crayons, a few coloring books, and a set of Chinese wooden eggs nested inside each other for Darius. In Athens, every Saturday, Karim used to take Darius to the hobby shop near the university and they picked out something. Then they’d come home and spend hours playing, putting together a train and its track, building a house with pieces that came in boxes. Karim also liked to measure Darius’s growth every few months, making him stand against the wall, and then marking his height with a crayon. The marks were all there on the kitchen wall. They had made sure, when they painted the house, that they were left intact.