The Stationery Shop of Tehran

by Marjan Kamali

  With Claire’s help, Roya went up the stairs and into the church. It was strange but also oddly comforting to see Omid and a woman who looked a lot like him. Omid introduced her to his twin sister, Sanaz. So Omid’s sister had Bahman’s smile too. It took everything Roya had to keep it together as she walked up to Bahman’s children to offer her condolences. Omid introduced Roya to his sister as “an old friend of Dad’s” and squeezed her hand.

  For the service, Roya sat next to Claire in the pews. A minister went to the podium, thanked everyone for coming, and said she’d like to start with a short verse from Mr. Aslan’s favorite poem. Blood rushed to Roya’s face and throbbed in her ears as she heard the words of the Rumi poem she and Bahman had first shared in the Stationery Shop. Between the pages of the book containing that poem, they had exchanged their letters.

  Look at love

  How it tangles

  With the one fallen in love

  Look at spirit

  How it fuses with earth

  Giving it new life

  His children got up and spoke. They mentioned how loved their father was, by his community, by his customers at the shop. Through their speeches, Roya caught glimpses of Bahman’s life.

  “Mom and Dad loved to celebrate Nowruz,” Omid’s sister, Sanaz, said. “Our home was always filled with the scent of Persian rice, and Dad would make sure we set the table with the traditional Haft Seen objects signifying spring.”

  “Dad made sure we always worked hard,” Omid told the assembled crowd. He couldn’t say enough about their devoted father. “He always wanted to change the world.”

  Roya listened to these two competent, articulate adults. She could see that Bahman had changed the world, after all. Here they were, speaking from the podium, from their hearts. His children.

  She had thought at times that what she shared with Bahman could take up all the space in the universe. It had felt that strong. But really, it was just a sliver, a tiny shard of his life. His children and their birthdays and their studies and their boyfriends and girlfriends and spouses and children. That was his life. His wife. She was his life.

  When the service was over, they all moved to a reception hall inside the church. Claire quietly sobbed. Roya wanted to comfort her but wasn’t sure what to do. As guests mingled, she noticed a table of refreshments. “I’ll get you something to eat,” she said to Claire as she patted her shoulder.

  At the refreshment table, Sanaz arranged pastries on a platter. “These were always Dad’s favorites,” she said. She held out the platter for Roya. “He liked to call them ‘elephant ears.’ ”

  Roya wanted to say, I know. The boy who had brought her pastries at Café Ghanadi was right next to her, and always would be; she could smell the cinnamon and sugar in that crowded café. “Thank you.” She put two elephant ears on a small paper plate and made her way back to Claire.

  “What do you have there, Mrs. Archer?”

  “Try these. He liked them.”

  Claire bit into an elephant-ear pastry, and Roya sank into a chair, astonished by the sweep of time.

  Once the younger children were high on sugar, they started to run around the reception hall. The mood grew lighter, people ate and talked and laughed. It felt good to be here with these strangers, who were all connected to Bahman. She knew none of them save Claire, and barely Omid, but it was clear they all shared a fondness for Bahman, for his energy, his kindness. Snatches of conversation floated by: “Remember how much he loved to . . .” “Boy, did he make us crazy with that song he always whistled. . . .” As long as Roya stayed in this room, she could hear more about him, be with people who shared a love for him. Once she left, she’d be back to a life where no one else knew him. She wanted to cry. To distract herself, she tried to figure out which of the kids were Bahman’s grandchildren. One teenage girl leaned against the wall, chewing gum. She was the spitting image of Mrs. Aslan.

  At the end of the reception, Omid and Sanaz and their partners stood near the exit and shook hands with everyone and thanked them for coming. Strangely, Roya wanted to be near them for as long as she could. They were her only link to the boy she had loved. And she would never see any of them again.

  “Ready?” Claire’s eyes were red. “Let’s take you home.”

  Claire pulled into the driveway of the colonial house with its dark-green shutters, and Roya undid her seat belt but did not get out. “Would you like to come in?”

  She said it because it was the polite thing to do, but also because Claire knew more about Roya and Bahman than anyone else. She had been Bahman’s confidante at the center. He had shared their history with her. Roya felt an inexplicable need to be with Claire. His kids weren’t the only link to him. Claire was too.

  “Oh.” Claire looked surprised. “If you’re sure it won’t be any trouble. . . .”

  “No trouble at all,” Roya said.

  “All right. Thank you. I have something I was going to give you when I dropped you off. I’ll give it to you inside then?”

  “What is it?”

  “He wanted you to have it. That’s all I know.”

  Roya put the kettle on the stove and motioned for her guest to sit at the kitchen table. Walter wasn’t due back from his town meeting for a while. Those meetings always ran over and went on for hours as people argued.

  Once she was seated, Claire fumbled in her tote bag and took out a round blue tin box printed with pictures of Danish butter cookies.

  Roya and Walter had shared many of those cookies over the years. There was a box just like it in Roya’s closet. She kept her sewing things in it: spools of thread and pins and needles and thimbles and extra buttons.

  “He was very insistent that this be given to you. His kids took all the rest of his belongings. But he was adamant that no one but you see this box.”

  Roya was feeling slightly faint. Claire pushed the box gently to her, and she pried the lid open, hands shaking.

  Paper. A stack of onionskin paper. She took out a sheet and unfolded it. The handwriting was amazingly familiar but she couldn’t place it. Then her heart stopped.

  It was her own. She dropped the sheet and thumbed through the rest of the box’s contents. These were the letters she had written to Bahman in the summer of 1953. These were the contents of her heart. She quickly put the first letter back in, as though touching it too long could burn her fingers. Then she closed the lid tight and put the box in the drawer of her kitchen desk.

  Claire didn’t say a word.

  “Now then,” Roya said. “What kind of tea can I get you?”

  They spoke only about Bahman at first. Claire shared stories about him from the center, and Roya dared to share a few memories from 1953. Then Roya asked about Claire’s own family. She had lost her mother to cancer and her father had died in a car accident when she was two. Something about Claire’s bereft expression struck Roya. This young woman was especially alone.

  “I should really go,” Claire said after she had finished her Persian tea and baklava.

  “Please, would you like to stay for dinner?”

  Roya barely knew this young woman. What did they have in common but a fondness for the man Claire called Batman? But Walter wasn’t home yet, and it was getting dark, and part of her worried that if Claire left, she would be alone with her grief. This girl looked like she shouldn’t be alone. “Have you ever had Persian food?” she blurted out.

  “There’s a kebab place in Watertown,” Claire mumbled.

  “Oh, forget kebabs. Have you ever had khoresh, any of our stews? Have you ever had Persian-style mixed rice?”

  “I’ve certainly heard Mr. Batman talk about them all the time. His favorite was something called allyballoo—”

  “Albaloo! Sour cherry rice?”

  “Yes. And he always talked about something sabzi?”

  “Ghormeh sabzi! Look, I was going to bake frozen fish sticks tonight. Walter loves the fish sticks with ketchup and with mayonnaise. He’s at the town meeting
. They’re discussing the override. It’s good, you know, for him to stay involved? You have to stay involved. But if you like? We can surprise him with a nice dinner. If you stay.”

  That first night of cooking lessons at Mrs. Kishpaugh’s boardinghouse, Walter had come with his perfectly combed hair under his porkpie hat and she had made him khoresh-e-bademjan with chicken. It was not usual to use chicken; it was supposed to be made with beef. But she’d made do and it had turned out so well and now, well, this young lady looked like she could use a good home-cooked meal. Why not? After all Claire had done for Bahman, the least Roya could do was make her a good dinner. My goodness, it had been ages since she’d showed someone how to cook Persian food. Patricia and Alice had never cared for it. But this young lady who sat in her kitchen, whose parents had died, who had taken the time to talk to Bahman, who had listened to him and taken care of him and gone above and beyond the dictates of her job, she deserved a good dinner. “If you help me?” she said again. “We could try.”

  Claire shrugged. “Tell me where to start.”

  Together they navigated the kitchen. Roya showed Claire where everything was. They washed the basmati rice and soaked it, and then Roya had Claire start the Persian rice cooker that Walter had ordered from Amazon. No more fumbling with a cloth under the lid to catch the steam the way Maman did to create the perfect bottom-of-pot crunchy tahdig. This rice cooker did that for you!

  She got out a bag of dried Persian limes, yellow split peas, and from the fridge some chicken. She had made khoresh-e-bademjan with chicken for Walter that first night in Mrs. Kishpaugh’s boarding house, but tonight she had no eggplants so she’d make khoresh-e-gheymeh and use the yellow split peas. They cut and chopped and sautéed and added saffron and turmeric and Persian allspice. Claire opened up more and rattled on with tale after tale of Mr. Batman. How he had campaigned for the center to hold lessons in tango and had participated in them even in the wheelchair. How he had read every article he could get his hands on about depression and anxiety and the effects of loss.

  “He was determined to learn more about his mother’s condition. Told me that if only she’d been born in a different place at a different time, maybe she could have been diagnosed, treated.” She paused. “Out of all the residents at the center, he was the one I connected to most. He wanted to share his stories. And I loved them. I loved his kindness.”

  In the end, his heart had simply given out. Roya had left the bed with him asleep, breathing. He had died later that evening when his daughter came. She would always be grateful for that hour in the bed with him at the end, for the time the two of them had to just be alone. She would always be grateful to Claire for giving her that. And to Walter. For not standing in her way.

  “Hello?” Walter’s voice sounded from the foyer.

  “We’re in here!” Roya sang out. For some reason, she was happier than she had been ever since the news of Bahman’s death. Actually, happier than she had been in a long time. It was just nice to be with Claire. Maybe it was the scent of saffron from the khoresh giving her a natural high. Zari always said saffron was a natural anti depressant. Oh, and an aphrodisiac, Sister! Dissolve half a teaspoon of saffron in a mug of hot water and drink up, and make sure to put extra in Walter’s food.

  Walter came into the kitchen. “Oh, well, what do we have here?” He looked at Roya and then at Claire and then at Roya again. “Roya, this house smells wonderful! I was wondering whose car that was outside! Hello, Claire.”

  “Hello, Mr. Archer.”

  “I thought I’d be coming home to the fish sticks which, I assure you, are quite the treat, but do I smell delicious khoresh?”

  “I had a great assistant. I wanted to surprise you.”

  “Funny, because I have a surprise for you myself! Look who I saw pulling into our driveway.”

  Kyle’s face was flushed from the cold as he entered the house, and he was in his socks, of course, because she had taught him to never wear shoes inside. She hadn’t had the nerve to tell Claire to take off her shoes—it would have been a bit strange to insist on it that first time. Kyle must have had a busy few days because there was stubble on his cheeks, but it always suited him. Oh, this boy of hers, how handsome was he. “Kyle!” Roya rushed over to hug her son.

  “How are you, Mom?”

  “Oh, Kyle, this is Claire. She is—” She was going to say the administrator at the center. But she stopped herself. “She is my friend.”

  “Nice to meet you.” Kyle walked over and shook Claire’s hand. Claire went the color of crimson.

  Walter set the plates and cutlery and Kyle made drinks and the four of them sat at the kitchen table and shared some khoresh. The scent of the rice and stew permeated the house; she was entirely at home in every sense. They hadn’t downsized, hadn’t moved to an assisted-living place even though Zari nagged her about it every chance she got. Roya wanted her kitchen, her own pots, her cookbooks, her armchair, the comfort of her large bedroom, the beauty of her backyard. She wanted to be in her own home for as long as she could. Would she and Walter end up at a place like the center? She didn’t want to think about it.

  The khoresh was just the right balance of tart and sweet, the rice fragrant and comforting, the flavors all blended together perfectly. For tonight she was happy to share this meal with Walter and Kyle and this sweet young woman who was smiling now and crunching on tahdig.

  Kyle devoured the food. “It doesn’t get better than this, Mom. Thank you.”

  Kyle put on his shoes in the foyer as Walter helped Claire with her coat and said, “Watch those steps. They can be slippery!”

  “Oh my God, neither one of you has gloves. Your hands will freeze!” Roya said.

  Roya and Walter stood side by side at the front door and watched as Claire and Kyle got into their separate cars and drove off.

  “How’re you holding up?” Walter asked after he closed the door and it was just the two of them again.

  “Surprisingly okay.”

  “And the service?”

  “His children were quite something.”

  “Right, then. I’ll finish in the kitchen. You go on up. Sound like a plan?”

  In her bedroom, Roya sat in the armchair that had replaced the rocking chair where she had first nursed Marigold. She had not thought, at the beginning of this winter, that memories from the past would floor her, that she would find that boy from another world, that she would actually go to the center and speak to him. She had thought nothing could get into her tightly sealed life at her age. But of course, it always could. Of course it was never too late for it all.

  Just months ago, if someone had told her that she would sit next to Bahman Aslan again, hear his voice (the same voice!) discuss things that were long ago put away, she would not have believed it. She would not have understood, then, that time is not linear but circular. There is no past, present, future. Roya was the woman she was today and the seventeen-year-old girl in the Stationery Shop, always. She and Bahman were one, and she and Walter were united. Kyle was her soul and Marigold would never die.

  The past was always there, lurking in the corners, winking at you when you thought you’d moved on, hanging on to your organs from the inside.

  Later, Roya would open the blue round box and take out the letters one by one and read them. She would see what she’d written to Bahman all those years ago, and see, too, the last letter, which was not written by her but was written in her voice, in handwriting that looked like hers, from her to Bahman. She would know that someone had added that extra letter telling him she didn’t want to see him ever again. She also read letter after letter from Bahman, the ones he’d written to her through the years. Updating her on his life, telling her about his job, his children, his days. Letters he had never sent. But saved up inside this blue round box along with the letters of her youth.

  She added to the box the last letter Bahman had written to her, after their reunion at the Duxton Center.

  The ice would m
elt. For the first day of spring, for Persian New Year, they would have the curtains washed and the windows cleaned. They would have the house scrubbed from top to bottom. And celebrate rebirth and renewal. She thought of her parents in Iran, who hadn’t gotten to know this son of hers. She thought of Zari and Jack and the kids and all their grandkids in California. She thought of Jahangir doing the tango with Bahman and dying in the Iran–Iraq War. She remembered the day of the coup, how she had stood in that square as the country fell apart around her. She thought of all the times her country had swelled with pride and hope and collapsed in fear and repression. Maybe one day it would be free. She thought of the daughter who should have been in this kitchen with her tonight and of the man with whom she had lain in bed on the last day of his life. She was suddenly wrecked by her love for him and for Walter and for all those who had gone and for those who remained.

  Epilogue

  August 19, 1953

  The Keeper of Secrets

  Others, even of his class, go to the main bazaar downtown every now and then. It’s good for gold and rugs and bangles to adorn the thin wrists of elegant women like Atieh. Saffron is sold in heaps of crimson. Lingerie of lace is hung with clothespins on string. Colorful mosaic boxes are piled in pyramids for the masses. But Ali avoids the bazaar the way one would avoid heartache. To smell the fruit sitting in the sun, to hear the hawkers shout about their wares, to detect even the slightest scent of melon could make him blind. No need for shopping there. Why? The house is stocked. Atieh runs their home with regularity and reliability. His sons don’t give him much grief. The daughters have grown and married well. What more could he even ask for? For God’s sake. For all that is decent, Ali.

  He opens the shop to help the young. He makes it a priority to carry books as much as stationery. Titles from all over the world, spines with lettering that beckon, words of the old greats and the new, tomes of knowledge and risk. This shop—this haven—has saved him, especially since his father’s phlegmy laugh denied a future with the one whose melon-scented skin he still wants. Decorum and tradition and “for God’s sake, for all that is decent, Ali” lead him to a marriage of stability and happy parents on either side. He and Atieh seal their future, and that girl who balanced the tub of melon rinds on her hip and kissed him in the square behind the bazaar is disposed. To be almost forgotten.