The Last Days of Café Leila: A Novel

by Donia Bijan

  Eighteen

  Noor remained single among her married colleagues and they could not help pecking at her, trying to set her up at every opportunity. There were friends and relatives who wished to settle her life for her, perhaps in order to feel settled themselves. Yet Noor never bothered to correct their poor choices, nor their assumptions about her desires. To do so seemed impolite, and she wanted to remain hopeful that, given the chance, one of these men would appreciate her, that she would marry, and life could begin.

  “Good luck meeting a man in San Francisco,” a resident at the hospital once said, upon hearing where Noor lived. “What, why?” Noor asked.

  Less than fifteen minutes from the city and people were suddenly homophobic. AIDS was the plague that frightened even the president, and Noor wept for the young men she nursed and watched waste away. Jerry was a waiter at a little Italian restaurant who had served Noor her first bowl of risotto Milanese, annoyed that she ordered the same boring spaghetti each time. The idea of a creamy bowl of rice did not appeal to a Persian palate and she shuddered at the thought of porridge for dinner, but she eventually relented and after that she rarely ordered pasta again—ultimately finding the short grains infused with broth and saffron heavenly. When she tried to describe it in her letters to Zod, he assumed it was a Persian saffron rice pudding that Italians had hijacked and skipped the rosewater.

  Persian food is the mother cuisine, he wrote. Remember, Noor, everything you eat originated in Iran.

  In fact, Zod traced everything back to the ingenuity of Cyrus the Great’s empire. His allegiance was disarming but not uncommon among immigrant communities who found refuge and prospered in Iran before the revolution. Noor shared Zod’s observations with Jerry, who laughed and dared her to go tell this to Umberto, the chef.

  Jerry didn’t stay long at Kaiser, but while he was there his boyfriend Liam slept in the chair next to his bed. When Jerry’s mother came from Indiana, she and Liam fought over who would stay overnight, who would shave or bathe Jerry or wipe his chin, and Noor had to be the arbiter. Sweet Jerry, a skeleton now but for his belly, bloated grotesquely from the medication that could not save him, still teased her while she fed him teaspoons of take-out risotto from Enrico’s—the only thing he managed to keep down.

  “Look at all these handsome doctors, Noor. Don’t tell me you haven’t gone out with any of them,” Jerry nudged every time she wheeled him to the sunny terrace.

  “I don’t want to date a doctor like in those hospital soap operas, Jerry!”

  “Well aren’t we Miss Picky-Picky. Hmm?”

  “I’m not picky. It’s not as if they’ve asked me, you know.”

  “Noor, what century are you from? You do know it’s 1991 and women ask men out, or do you suffer from some Persian hang-ups?”

  “Ha, too many to count. But I’d rather die a virgin than ask a man on a date.”

  There was a pause and Jerry slapped his knee, shaking with sudden, brief laughter.

  “Oh, oh, dear lord! Don’t tell me! Please don’t tell me you’re a virgin! Can I please change your name to Prudence? Because a sexy name like Noor just doesn’t suit you with your turtlenecks and white Wallabees.”

  “Shhh. That’s enough about me,” Noor objected. “Let’s talk about you.”

  “Oh no, sweetheart, we’re not done here.” And he counted off his fingers compiling a list. “First, shopping. Liam will go with you to pick out some clothes that don’t make you look like a warden. A haircut—at that new salon on Sutter, and your eyebrows could use some thinning, too. Oh, and your nails! Would you please quit gnawing on them like little Bobby Burmeister from down the street who used to wet his pants in third grade?”

  He wasn’t finished. “So get a decent manicure and, while you’re at it, a pedicure . . . then, I’ll give you a crash course on how to pick up guys.” He smiled and nodded knowingly at her.

  There was a moment of quiet assent.

  “Should we warm up your risotto for lunch?”

  “Yes,” he said with new vigor.

  It was nice to give Jerry a project, something he could command from his hospital bed, and he moaned anytime she wore brown or corduroy, “Oh, I think I might just die today, Prudence.”

  Although Noor tried to make adjustments to her wardrobe to look the part of a foxy nurse, if only to please Jerry, it made her uneasy to try, as she was no kitten, and even he realized that Noor’s makeover would not happen in his lifetime.

  Jerry was gone before another blind date was arranged, this time with a radiologist. He asked Noor to lunch and maybe it was just as well that Jerry wouldn’t know, because he would not have approved of this reticent, sluggish man who dressed like an eight-year-old in Bermuda shorts and ball caps. They went to a handful of movies where popcorn filled their mouths and the dress code was lenient, until Noor found herself longing for her sofa and flannel pajamas. She had moved into the second floor of a Victorian house, her apartment uncluttered except for a dusty, dry flower arrangement she was too lazy to discard and thought might give the space a sense of domesticity.

  Noor and Liam were close friends now—they had comforted each other after Jerry died, crying for days to Whitney Houston records. They went to dinner once or twice a week and sometimes shopped together in boutiques, where Liam patiently selected dresses for her to try that she would have never chosen on her own.

  Noor had not inherited Pari’s sense of style. Her mother had a sensual relationship with fabric, she appreciated soft leather shoes and well-made handbags, polishing and caressing her accessories like house pets. Her closet wasn’t stuffed with impulsive purchases of ready-made, hastily stitched ensembles, but rather an exquisite, handcrafted collection. A cobbler on Jamshid Avenue still had a pair of Pari’s custom-made cream-and-white slingbacks in his shop, for he never had the heart to tell Zod to pick them up. Every so often he took them out of the shoebox to admire his craftsmanship, the clever left heel he had designed to accommodate the little hitch in her step—a memento of a discerning woman from another era.

  Maybe Noor should have spent more time on the sewing bench instead of filling saltshakers and enjoying the attention of the customers who always stopped to pinch her cheeks whether she was doing homework or entertaining dolls at a tea party. Mehrdad, on the other hand, or “Mr. Armani,” as Liam had nicknamed him when they’d met on one of his visits, was the stylish one, and Noor never felt as dowdy as when she was out with her brother and Liam, but they made her laugh and their companionship felt good.

  Friendly and cheerful, Mehrdad came to see her often, never without chickpea cookies from the Persian mini-marts in Westwood, and sometimes with a girl on his arm. They happily crashed on the sleeper sofa and Noor tried to act casual each time a pretty, long-legged woman in her brother’s oversized T-shirt perched on a kitchen stool, eating the scrambled eggs he had cooked for her. Noor would observe the flirtation between them, the longing look in the eyes of a girl with a fantasy already taking shape in her mind, of a big life with this beautiful man who was steaming milk for their coffee. Mehrdad fawned over his girlfriends, but he did not love them. Noor’s own solitary existence provided the luxury of imagining committed couples living in domestic bliss—all the things she thought she wanted in life, too.

  One night late in the fall, Noor was covering a shift for a colleague. Everything was slightly wet from the rain, making her hair frizz and look uncombed. She ducked into the bathroom to tie her hair back, wishing that it was 1952 and she could just pin a cap to her foolish hair. Ever since she agreed to the most expensive haircut of her life, she had a miserable time coaxing the layers of indeterminate length into a rubber band.

  Back at her station, she studied the charts and two names popped out: one, a Dr. Olivero, new to Kaiser and rumored to be gallant, though she had not met him yet, and his patient, Mr. Ali Nejad, an Iranian man in room 220. Mr. Nejad had undergone surgery earlier that week and been moved out of intensive care to her floor. When Noor looked in
, she found him awake. His head had vanished into the pillow and dull eyes were glued to a blank television screen.

  “Agha (Mr.) Nejad, how are you feeling?” She greeted him in Persian and he took so long to respond that she thought he hadn’t heard. Nearing the bed, a small, bald head lifted to look towards the sound of these familiar words, showing Noor a pair of bewildered eyes that were instantly wet with tears.

  “Sweet girl,” he said, considering her closely. “How old are you, sweet girl?”

  “Twenty-seven, sir,” Noor replied.

  “The same age as my son! He lives in Seattle. Are you married? He’s coming tomorrow. He couldn’t get off work. Are you here tomorrow?”

  No sooner had she checked his blood pressure than he was matchmaking, asking for his wallet to show Noor photos of his son—a prodigy, a wizard, a virtuoso. Noor tried to change the subject, asked if he’d like some tea, suggested he watch some TV or try to get some sleep. He couldn’t find the remote, he said, and didn’t want to bother the nurses. She brewed some of her own Darjeeling in a water glass (knowing Iranians preferred their tea in a clear glass to see the amber liquid) and served it on a saucer with some Lorna Doones, then flipped the channels until settling on Murder, She Wrote.

  Before taking a sip, he lifted the glass to admire its color as she knew he would, moaning a Persian “Akh, akh, akh,” of pleasure and pain. Returning later with his medicine, she helped him to the bathroom and turned his pillow to the cooler side. Just before falling asleep, he took her hand and whispered, “Merci, my sweet girl.”

  The next morning, on her day off, Noor went to see Mr. Nejad, stopping to buy him a potted blue hydrangea and some fruit. At the nurses’ station she exchanged greetings with colleagues who didn’t know a Mr. Nejad when she asked about him. “Oh, you mean Ali!” they’d exclaimed. “What a sweetheart!” It was disconcerting, the ease with which first names were thrown about in America. There were people she’d known for years—supervisors, grocers, landladies, building supers—whom she never called anything but “Mrs. Campbell” or “Dr. Starr,” yet who called her “Noor,” though not without a reminder for her to drop the “Mr.” She would not dream of calling Mr. Nejad “Ali.” And then there he was, in the corridor outside his room, wearing the striped hospital robe, leaning on a walker, a smile of recognition growing on his face.

  Noor put her arm around his shoulders and encouraged him to walk, but he said, “My leg hurts, and besides, I don’t want to miss my son.”

  Noor thought of when she was small, waiting for her mother to pick her up from school and how fretful she would get if Pari was late, how rooted to the spot by the front steps of the nursery school lest Pari come and go home without her. She found herself praying, as she did back then, that Mr. Nejad’s son would arrive soon, but instead a man in pale blue scrubs approached—a free and easy walk like a promenade by the water.

  Dr. Nelson Olivero smelled of soap and pine, and beneath a globe of thick, black hair was a pair of chocolate eyes searching Noor’s face, as if maybe they had met before and he couldn’t place her.

  “How are ju today, Signor Nejab?”

  “It’s Nejad,” Noor corrected him. Did he think Mr. Nejad was Hispanic?

  “Ethcuthe me?” Those eyes again traveling from her forehead down to her feet and back.

  “His name. Your patient’s name is ‘Nejad,’ ” said Noor.

  “Ah, bueno. And who are ju, Signorina?”

  Noor wasn’t sure where the accent was from, but it was as if the man spoke through a pocket of saliva. She explained that she was a nurse, that she’d come back today to check on Mr. Nejad since he didn’t seem to have family here yet. The doctor took all this in, appraising her again with that slow, appreciative gaze. Poor Mr. Nejad, now a spectator to this exchange, interrupted them.

  “Doktor, please, when I get for there, it hurt my lamb shank.” They both turned now to look at their patient.

  “Did ju say lamb, Signor?”

  “Yes, Doktor.” Mr. Nejad motioned to his right shin.

  “Do you mean your leg?” Noor tried to clarify.

  “No, no, no! My lamb shank creak when I go for there,” and he pointed to the end of the polished linoleum where he must have ventured before Noor’s arrival. She understood then that he meant his tibia and translated for him.

  Dr. Olivero ushered him back to his room. “Then I can ethamine your lamb shank, Signor,” and turned to wink at Noor who trailed behind.

  They lifted this fragile, featherweight man onto the bed, their faces so close she could count the orderly row of his perfect teeth, and when her hand brushed against the doctor’s, Noor would say later that there was a sizzle—so hot she wanted to run it under cold water.

  She stayed to help Mr. Nejad out of his robe, to be his interpreter and surrogate daughter through the exam and in the days that followed. By then Dr. Olivero had invited Noor to coffee, then lunch, then to Café Jacqueline for chocolate soufflés, to La Traviata, to his favorite sushi bar, and one clear morning in November, to a picnic on Angel Island.

  They saw each other every day, sometimes just a quick glance across a patient’s bed, but she lived for this. The secret smiles, the light touches. He strolled past her in the corridors with a flock of interns on his heels, then turned around quickly to look, to see if Noor had turned (of course she had), and the rest of the day was all about the next time she might see him in the places he was expected to appear, and there he would be as if waiting for her.

  Everything was as it had always been, going to work, walking past the lobby gift shop displaying buckets of premade bouquets by the entrance, sampling a piece of coffee cake in the nurses’ lounge, but oh, the Golden Gate Bridge was so beautiful, and the flowers gave off the sweetest scent, and every cake she had tasted before paled in comparison to this cake. She loved him and didn’t think of anything else but the flame in her belly.

  Sex at twenty-seven with Nelson—not that fumbling clumsy endeavor with the radiologist she slept with just to get it over with for heaven’s sake—was to break free, like tumbling on summer grass.

  “Would ju like to see my home?” he asked her after the soufflé, and they walked hand in hand to his little garden apartment on Russian Hill with its subdued lighting and emerald sheets, and she overlooked the haphazard housekeeping, the ring in the tub, the pee-stained toilet bowl, even the hideous painting of a fat naked woman above his couch. Lush, with all her shyness gone, Noor’s thinking on this evening was anything can happen. And it did, only it was nothing like the scenes of urgent, breathless arousal she’d seen on film, but a murmur, a slow and quiet awakening of a fantastic feeling she didn’t know existed; his body moving around her, an explorer’s voice in the dark, responding to her smallest breath.

  It wasn’t about the parts of her body that had been in the shadows, but the all of it that was now lit. And because he loved Van Morrison, he played “Sweet Thing” for her and she put her arms above her head and gave in to the lyrics, too. In the morning she woke up to the smell of coffee and chocolate toast, raised her eyes to the ceiling and asked Jerry, “Who’s Prudence now, huh?”

  It seemed that Noor spent the first year of their relationship in one of Nelson’s white undershirts. Yes! Noor thought, Finally I can walk around braless in my boyfriend’s T-shirt. He was her boyfriend. “My boyfriend, Nelson,” she would say out loud to no one and a ripple ran through her. When she stayed overnight at his place she brought flowers and bags of groceries to cook elaborate meals.

  Before long, she filled his small kitchen with cutlery and ceramics, replaced curtains, towels, and bath mats, arranging them with such vitality that when she wiped the bathroom mirror, a prettier woman with fuller breasts and flushed cheeks gazed back at her. She would go to the hospital and a boy would come out of the elevator carrying two dozen red roses through the ward. The nurses always gathered to see who the flowers were for and seemed genuinely surprised when they were for Noor from Dr. Olivero, finding it hard
to imagine an erotic charge between those two. Noor sensed their doubt and saw how easily Nelson flirted with them, as he did with the cafeteria ladies who wore their hair in paper bonnets and scooped extra servings of mashed potatoes for him. He called them all “mi amor” and brought chocolates for each one on Valentine’s Day. But Noor was “mi vida,” and that’s what set her apart.

  Who can explain the spark between two people? It wasn’t that Nelson tired of the glamorous rumors about his affairs—some of which had turned messy and one that required a move from Boston to San Francisco—but he appreciated nuance and found Noor’s well-shaped, desirable little body, her unruly dark hair and honey-hued eyes that changed color like fall leaves, captivating. She was beautiful and didn’t know it until he’d come along and plucked this rosebud and put it in a vase. She never quite believed it, which may be why Nelson held an upper hand that never quite gave way, skewing their relationship from the start.

  Noor, the person least likely to be interested in nature, now accompanied Nelson on long hikes through the woods and camping trips to Point Reyes and Yosemite. The camping frightened her, especially when she had to go to the bathroom at night, even with Nelson’s headlamp strapped to her forehead. Mehrdad suppressed a chortle when he visited and found outdoor gear piled in her apartment, but it was nice to see his sister happy. He was baffled by their attraction but kept this to himself. After all, Nelson was charming and easy to get along with. In Los Angeles, Mehrdad, too, had recently met Chrissy Kaufman, and he was starting to cultivate emotions that were new and warm, making him evasive if Noor asked him about the absence of girlfriends.

  Letters home diminished and Zod, though melancholy, suspected that romance had finally distracted his children and he was glad, recognizing that it was long overdue. Aunt Farah was curious, feeling it was her responsibility to check on this heart doctor Mehrdad casually mentioned to them. Over the years she had grown increasingly protective of Noor, assuming a motherly watch over her. Though Morad accused her of being meddlesome, she accompanied Mehrdad on one of his visits to Northern California and they brought Marjan along. Marjan, now a senior at UC Irvine, had outgrown her petulance but was prone to a gloominess in her mother’s presence that only Mehrdad, with his good humor, could diffuse.