Veil of Roses

by Laura Fitzgerald

  “Please,” I encourage him. I can use all the advice I can get.

  He keeps his eyes locked on mine as he speaks. “Divorce laws are very different here than in Iran. It is nothing, to get a divorce here. It is so easy and common, you can do it by mail. You don’t need to prove your husband is unfit, and you don’t have to go before a judge.”

  My heart pounds as I listen to him. I look at him questioningly. What do you know about Haroun that I don’t know?

  Dr. Haji reads the question in my eyes and shakes his head. He cannot tell me. He leans closer.

  “You can file papers without the other person even knowing. You don’t need your husband’s permission, is what I am telling you. Do you understand?”

  I let his words sink in, and then I nod at him. I am sure my eyes are now very big and scared.

  He again pats my knee like a father. “I will give Haroun a clean bill of health on you. And I will tell him that I want to see you every month for the next year for a quick checkup.” He grins at me. “He will like that.”

  Now I am the one who laughs without intending to.

  “And when you come in, we will have honest communications about your marriage.” Dr. Haji’s eyes turn stern. “I will ask you every time how you are doing. And I want you to tell me the truth. Do you agree to this?”

  I nod and feel the tears forming.

  “I will ask, Are you okay? Are you safe? Are you ready to file some papers? I will have papers right here in my office. Do you understand what I am saying?”

  You are saying Haroun is mentally unstable. You are saying I must be careful. You are saying that maybe what I am doing is not so smart.

  “Is he dangerous, Dr. Haji? Do you think he might hurt me?”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t think so. But he’s never shared living space with anyone since developing his…his health concerns. I am not sure how it will affect him. It may be a huge stressor. I want to watch the situation closely.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And make sure he takes his medication.”

  “All right.”

  “Do you have family here in town?” he asks.

  I tell him about my sister and Ardishir. He recognizes Ardishir’s name, has met him at various gatherings over the years. Dr. Haji is so pleasant, so nice, I am tempted to ask him if he has any sons just sitting around waiting to get married. But I am sure this is not the case. I am sure if he has sons, they are off living exciting lives of freedom, dating and marrying anyone they wish.

  “Do you have any daughters?” I ask instead.

  He beams. “I do. My youngest is a girl. She lives in Colorado.” He pulls out his wallet and shows me a picture of a ravishingly beautiful woman whom I’m sure has had a nose job, based on how perfect her profile is. She is posed with an American man and two beautiful children.

  “She’s beautiful,” I tell him. “So are your grandchildren.”

  He thanks me.

  “Your daughter looks very happy.”

  He gives me another smile, and again I am struck by his laugh lines. I want laugh lines. He pats me one last time on the knee before standing and walking me to the door.

  “You’ll be happy, too, one day,” he says. “Life is very long, and you just have to get past the bumpy parts as quickly as you can.”

  “Thank you so much,” I tell him. And it is all I can do not to throw my arms around him and hug him like I would if he were my own father.

  “I’ll see you soon, Tami,” he says by way of good-bye.

  “I’ll stay in touch,” I promise.

  Maryam and Ardishir are celebrating their wedding anniversary tonight with a dinner at Anthony’s in the Catalinas, so when we arrive home from seeing Dr. Haji, she heads to her side of the house to soak in a bath and make herself even more beautiful than usual for her husband.

  My plan for the evening is to be as scruffy as possible. As soon as they leave, I will change into sweatpants and a T-shirt and flop on the couch to watch movies in the dark.

  On the way home from the doctor, Maryam and I stopped at Casa Video, where I rented the movie documentary Divorce Iranian Style by Ziba Mir-Hosseini. It shows actual divorce cases in Iranian court and it is clear how badly women are considered in Iranian divorces. Maryam has already seen it, and she insisted I rent it, especially in light of Dr. Haji’s comments. I also rented Bend It Like Beckham, since Ike has mentioned this movie to me more than once.

  I am in the kitchen making for myself a cheese sandwich on wheat bread with mustard and lettuce when the doorbell rings. I hurry to answer it and find a skinny man dwarfed by a gloriously fat bouquet of flowers. From Ardishir for Maryam, I think as I accept the flowers and thank the deliveryman, but then I notice it is my name and not Maryam’s on the card.

  My heart pounds from the fear of getting caught by Maryam with this card in my hand, for I know Haroun well enough to know these are not from him. I would expect to receive flowers from him on special occasions, but not as everyday demonstrations of affection. He is too measured, too organized, to be spontaneous in such a manner.

  I set the bouquet on the coffee table in the living room and hurry upstairs to my bedroom, thankful Maryam has not called out to see who was at the door. I close and lock my door and sit on my bed and stare at the handwriting on the envelope. For Tamila Joon.

  My breathing slows and my fear dissipates as I determine perhaps I was wrong about my soon-to-be fiancé. These flowers must be from Haroun. Ike does not know my full name, and he certainly doesn’t know the term of affection favored by my family. Joon, or loved one. Or does he? The moments we’ve shared are already blending into memory.

  I slide open the envelope and pull out the card. My hands start shaking almost immediately. The flowers are indeed from Ike.

  Please, Tami, don’t stay away. It’s too soon to say good-bye. I need to see your smile. If I don’t see you tomorrow after class, I will come to your house and pound on your door until you let me in. Love, Ike.

  Love, Ike.

  Love, Ike.

  Love, Ike.

  These are the words I read over and over. Somewhere along the way, I lose the comma between them.

  Love Ike.

  I hear the front door open. Ardishir is home.

  “Where’s my beautiful bride?” I hear him call out.

  “What lovely flowers!” I hear Maryam say.

  The flowers. I sigh. Why can nothing be easy for me?

  I force myself up from the bed, when all I really want to do is bury myself under the covers and hide. I tuck the card from Ike along the edge of the mirror. My hejab cloaks it from sight. I stick my tongue out at myself in the mirror before heading back to the living room.

  I walk in and find Ardishir and Maryam kissing passionately in the foyer. Ardishir clasps his hands around the small of her back, under the depths of her long black curls. She is on her tiptoes kissing him back, with one hand resting on his buttocks and the other clutching a grocery-store bouquet of flowers. They press each other close, so close there is no space between them. I should leave, but I cannot move. The thought strikes me: I will never have this sort of romance. I will marry Haroun and we will peck each other on the cheek as brother and sister.

  I grab the remote control and turn on the television at full volume. They jerk back from each other and look to find the source of the interruption.

  That would be me.

  “You don’t mind, do you?” I ask with raised eyebrows.

  Ardishir looks amused, as if he knows I am looking for a fight and he isn’t going to humor me.

  He squeezes Maryam’s arm. “I’ll go get ready.”

  Maryam smiles at him and pointedly ignores me.

  “Nice flowers,” I say.

  “Not as nice as yours.” Her bouquet is less than half the size of mine.

  “But you’ve got the nicer marriage.”

  Her eyes soften and she comes over to me. She reaches out to stroke my cheek. “I’m sorry,
Tami Joon. I wish it were a better arrangement. We needed more time, didn’t we?”

  I let my cheek rest in her soft hands. “You’ve never looked more beautiful, Maryam.”

  She gives me a smile of thanks, but her eyes look sad, even on such a special night. In her sadness I see the sorrow of every Persian woman I know.

  Why must we all be so sad in our hearts?

  “You’re the best sister a girl could ever hope to have.” I kiss Maryam on both cheeks and reach for her anniversary flowers. “Here, let me put these in a vase for you.”

  When Haroun calls later that night, I am watching the end of Bend It Like Beckham, at the part where Joe shows up at Jesminder’s door demanding to see her. His is the last voice I want to hear just then, so I let the machine get it.

  I should not have watched Bend It Like Beckham last night, for I am not allowed a happy ending. I approach Starbucks with one thought in mind: I must say good-bye forever to my good friend Ike.

  I am fifty yards away when he catches sight of me, and I see such relief in his eyes. He keeps his eyes locked on mine as I approach, and he stands beside his table and waits for me. My resolve falters before I even reach him.

  It is like in a movie. Life may go on all around us, but there is no one in the world but the two of us.

  You’re here to tell him good-bye.

  I feel heaviness in the pit of my stomach. I hope it doesn’t show in my face. I want Ike to remember this moment and see only my smile.

  “My God, you’re like a vision,” he says when I reach him. He pulls me close for a hug and reaches to cradle my head in his hands.

  When Ike steps back and takes both my hands, he looks at me earnestly. “We’ve got to make the most of the time we have left, Tami. We can’t waste a single minute.”

  I let out all my breath slowly and feel my smile leave my face. How can I hurt him like this? He has been nothing but kind.

  “Let’s sit,” I urge him while squeezing his hands. He does not release mine as he takes his chair. We seem to have crossed some threshold at The Rustler in sharing our feelings for each other.

  “I want you to meet my family.” He looks at me earnestly. “I want you to come to dinner and get to know them. I want them to know you, too.”

  “I can’t,” I say softly with regret.

  “You can,” he insists. “I’ve researched this, and there are tons of Internet cafés now in Tehran. So we’ll be chatting online all the time until you can come back again, and I want you to meet my family so that when I tell you stories about them, you’ll have their faces in your mind.”

  “Ike, there’s no way.”

  “I’m inviting your sister and her husband, too,” he says with conviction. “They’ve got to get to know me, too.”

  “Ike—”

  “I’m not taking no for an answer.”

  “This isn’t a movie.” I smile sadly. “I’m not Jesminder and you’re not Joe. This is real life, and I’ve come here today to tell you good-bye.”

  Ike furrows his eyebrows. “That’s ridiculous. I don’t accept it.”

  “You can’t reject my good-bye!” I say indignantly.

  “Yes I can. You don’t leave for, what, ten days or so?”

  I’m getting married, Ike! Married!

  But I do not say this, of course. I can barely stand to even think it.

  I shake my head. “It’s too hard, being with you.”

  “I told you, I’m going to make sure your sister loves me.”

  My lips are suddenly very dry. I lick them and bite the bottom one, and when I get my courage up, I reach out and stroke his cheek. “It’s not that.”

  “Then what is it?” His impatience is playful. Endearing. He is my dear. He is my heart. I lower my eyes and take his hand. I try to memorize the path of his veins. “I won’t be coming back. I will probably get married when I get back to Iran. It’s time.”

  “Don’t.” His breathing becomes very heavy.

  I look up. “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t get married.” He shakes his head and his voice takes on an increasingly desperate tone. “Don’t just do it because that’s what’s expected of you. Be the one who’s different.”

  “That’s exactly what you don’t want to be in Iran.”

  “Fuck Iran, Tami.”

  “What does that even mean, Fuck Iran?” I feel my blood boil. I am sure my face is red with anger.

  “Don’t go back.”

  “You think I want to go back?” I say bitterly. “You think I’d rather be there, wearing a veil and being afraid whenever I go out in the street, when I could be here, sipping coffee in the sunshine and taking pictures and laughing the day away with you? You think I’d rather have every last thing I do determined by corrupt old men? Do you think, Ike? Do you think I wouldn’t do anything I could in order to stay?”

  “I’m sorry,” he apologizes.

  But I do not accept his apology. Instead, I slap my palm to my forehead. “God, you Americans, you make me crazy! You think everything’s so easy. And maybe it is for you, but for the rest of the world, you know, well, lots of us struggle just to get through the day alive, and then we wake up to go through it all over again another day. Our lives are like a nightmare that never ends.”

  “Groundhog Day.”

  “What?”

  “Groundhog Day. With Bill Murray. It’s a movie.”

  “What-ever, Ike.” I stand, exasperated. “It must be nice, to be able to base your view of the world on nothing more than the movies you’ve seen, but they’re not real. All the American movies end happily, haven’t you noticed? And that’s not how it really is, in case you didn’t know.”

  Ike looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. Like I am hurting him just for spite, and maybe he’s right. I’ve said too much, and of course, it’s not what I really want to say. I have not spoken the words closest to my heart. Nor will I.

  I sigh. “Listen, I’ve got to go. Things are really crazy from here on out. My sister’s got a bunch of things planned and we might go out of town for a while….”

  He stands, too. “We’re not ending things like this, Tami.”

  “Ike, what do you expect from me? I’ve got to spend time with my family, with my sister. I have no idea when or if I’ll be seeing her again.”

  “Fine,” he concedes. “But this isn’t the end. Today, I mean. Today is not the end for us. Our last day is not going to be spent fighting.”

  I grab my backpack and head toward the sidewalk. “We weren’t fighting.”

  He follows, calling out, “You’re so argumentative today, Tami. What’s gotten into you?”

  I close my eyes to stop the tears, but they pour out too strong, so I stand there like a fool and cover my face with my hands and try to steady myself.

  “Hey,” he whispers in a husky voice, and pulls me to him from behind. “I’m sorry.”

  I turn into his hug and bury my head into his shoulder. My tears immediately stain his shirt and wet his neck. His arms tighten around me.

  “You’ve gotten into me,” I whisper. “My heart is just breaking, and I don’t know what to do about it. I never meant for this to happen. I promise, Ike. I never meant to hurt you.” My words are reduced to a jumbled sob by this point.

  He steps back and lifts my chin. He lowers his lips to mine. And then he kisses me, and it is the softest, most soothing kiss the world has ever known. I never knew a kiss could be so gentle. It is like I am a child in my mother’s arms, and for this moment, there is no such thing as fear. I had forgotten I could ever feel so safe.

  “Ohhhh,” I murmur, and close my eyes so I can imprint this feeling in my brain. I reach for his face and press my fingers against his cheekbones. I trace an outline of his ears and press my fingers onto his lips. So soft. His warm breath envelops my fingers, and then he catches one of my fingers in his teeth. He bites it playfully and caresses it with his tongue. He is so alive.

  I love this man.

  I
open my eyes to smile at him and find that his eyes have been closed this whole time as well. He, too, is trying to memorize this moment.

  “Ike,” I say softly, and when he opens his eyes, the love in them is more than I can walk away from. He kisses me again, and such a surge of tingling warmth rushes through me that my knees threaten to give out. Ike feels this and presses me back, against the ledge of the Starbucks patio. He kisses me deeper and uses his tongue this time, and in my mind is a big white swirl with a little round black hole anchored in the middle. Amidst all the swirling white, my only goal is to get closer and closer to the hole in the center. I lean into Ike and whimper at how he feels against me. I try to drink him in, his taste, his tongue, his touch. I don’t even know where I am anymore.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  All of a sudden, I hear the screech of Maryam’s voice and the smack of her presence behind Ike. I flinch and push him away. I am drunk from kissing Ike and paralyzed by the anger in Maryam’s eyes.

  “Did you forget you have a hair appointment? I’ve been waiting for you at home for over an hour.”

  “I’m sorry,” I beg her. “I’m so sorry.”

  “You,” she hisses at Ike and shakes her finger at him, “don’t you dare ruin things for my sister. You stay away from her.”

  “You must be Maryam.” Ike fakes composure, but I can tell how shaken he is. My sister glares at him with narrowed eyes.

  “I’ve got to go,” I tell him, making big, telling eyes at him to beg him not to argue with my sister. My heart races so much that I am sure if I looked down, I would see it beating through my chest. But I don’t look down. I look only at him, telling him good-bye and I love you with my eyes.

  “I think we should—” he begins.

  “We need to go,” Maryam says firmly, reaching past Ike to take my arm.

  “Tami,” Ike says in a stern voice.

  “Please don’t,” I say back, my voice breaking. “I have to go. I’m so sorry.” I squeeze his arm once as I rush past him to Maryam’s car. I hurriedly buckle my seat belt as Maryam gets in after me and starts the car.