Sky of Red Poppies

by Zohreh Ghahremani

  He laughed. "Close enough, ma'am. But I won't be a doctor for another week."

  He said he had a little time the following day. "It would be nice to take a short break before I plunge into finals. Let's meet for one last tea before I go away."

  Go away? So he must have had some news.

  For the past few weeks, every morning I woke up hoping to see Kyan, but he and his study group stayed home and crammed for finals. This being his last year, his future depended on the outcome of these exams. Like many other students, Kyan aspired to be admitted to a residency program abroad. He had applied to several universities. I had pushed the idea of his imminent departure as far from my mind as possible.

  Lately, thoughts of him followed me everywhere. He showed up in my books, in my house and even in my glass of tea. Day after day, I went to the library without being able to accomplish much. I kept on watching the door, hoping for his tall form to walk through. I even debated if I should call him or not. I deciphered and analyzed his every word, trying to read more into them. What about those times when he held my hand a little too long? And that time when I caught him staring at me? But in the end, I came away with nothing more than friendship.

  At the coffee shop, Kyan pulled up a chair for me. "I'll get us some tea," he said. "Care for anything else?"

  I shook my head.

  As he walked over to the counter, I surveyed his stack of books on the table, as if that would tell me about his destination, but all I saw were textbooks and notes.

  Be strong, Roya. You can do this.

  Kyan returned with a bottle of yogurt drink and two glasses. "They're out of tea. Doogh was the best I could do," he said as he filled my glass.

  "Too hot for tea, anyway," I said.

  Kyan usually found a lot to talk about, but that morning he seemed too quiet.

  "So, how are the studies going?"

  "Fine," he said and gave an exaggerated nod.

  "So, I gathered from your call that you must have heard some good news."

  He nodded again.

  "Congratulations!" I forced a smile. "Where will you be going?"

  "America."

  I could not look at him for fear he would read my thoughts in my eyes. America? That sounded so far away, he might have just as well found himself a program on Mars!

  "How soon do you think you'll leave?"

  "In a week," he said. "I mean, I'll be done with the exams in a few days, go to Tehran in a week, and then fly abroad when all my documents are ready."

  I had no idea what I could say.

  He took a sip from his drink, then put his glass down quickly and held my hand. His fingers were cold from the glass, making me conscious of my own sweaty palms.

  "I don't know how to say this," he began.

  I tried to think of all I had ever learned in cardiology and couldn't remember if the walls of the human heart could cave in.

  "Marry me, Roya," he said in a hurried voice.

  I pulled my hand away, as if electrified.

  He studied my face and repeated, this time slower and with more affection. "Please say you'll marry me."

  The whole world must have heard me gasp, but no words came out of my mouth.

  "I should have thought of a more appropriate place, perhaps at a better time," he said. "But last night it dawned on me that the reason I couldn't concentrate on anything was the uncertainty. I can't go on like this, at least, not until I know where we stand."

  "Of all the things to say," I said at last, my voice shaking.

  "What do you mean?"

  "A clue. You never gave me a clue."

  He kept staring at me.

  "I had no idea," I said.

  "Oh?" He leaned back a bit. "I had hoped the feeling was mutual." And he sounded hurt.

  "It was," I said. "Is." My face felt hot as I repeated more to myself, "It most certainly is."

  With my secret now out, it was impossible not to look at him. The pumping in my chest was too loud. All I wanted was to stay in that moment, right there, and with Kyan.

  I held my tears back long enough to say, "I can't think of a better man to share my life with." And at that moment, I didn't care who saw us, or heard what we said.

  Auntie sat by her sewing machine in the dining room. Like all the other times when she had a big project, our dining table had been transformed into a tailor's workshop with scraps of fabric scattered everywhere. I sat next to her, and watched the seam she sewed, feeding the fabric to the machine with one hand, pulling it with the other.

  "Hello, Auntie," I said and kissed her cheek. "What are you making?"

  "Pajamas for Reza." "Lucky Reza."

  She looked at me from above her glasses. "Shouldn't you be studying?"

  "I'm just taking a break."

  She went back to her project. Her fingers, now curved from rheumatism, still maneuvered the fabric with reasonable skill.

  "When do you think Mitra will get married?"

  "Oh, I don't know," she said. "I suppose sometime after her studies are done." She sighed. "That girl's like a wild gazelle, hard to tame."

  "What happens to me if she never does?"

  Auntie stopped working and gave me an inquisitive look. "Why, Miss Roya!" She laughed before mocking me more. "Are we in a rush?"

  Choosing my words with care, I proceeded to tell her about Kyan. I had to make sure my story met with her approval because, even with a marriage proposal, a respectable girl wouldn't go out and pick her own man. In my aunt's world, by bringing the question first to me, Kyan had disregarded tradition. Besides, my relationship with Auntie was too formal to talk openly about love.

  After describing Kyan as my supportive friend and the true gentleman that he had been, I concluded he made a good candidate and that I thought she would approve of him. Conscious of the glass wall between us, I skipped the part about my own feelings.

  "He wanted to know if his parents could call you for an appointment."

  Auntie folded the fabric, put it aside and started to wind the long thread around a bobbin. "No," she said, sounding distant.

  I held my breath, and only exhaled when she added, "Not yet."

  Still too shocked to react, I waited for more.

  "I know your father better than you do." She placed the wooden hood over her sewing machine and arranged the spools of thread neatly in her sewing basket.

  Too much was at stake and I could no longer contain myself. "I won't let Pedar ruin this for me," I blurted out.

  Auntie gave my tearful eyes a surprised look and continued to tidy up. She gathered pieces of thread from the table and rolled them into a ball. "If you play your cards right, no one will ruin anything for you." For a minute or so, she continued to clean the table without a word. "Here's what I suggest," she said. "America is on the other side of the world. Let the young man go ahead with his study plans. If by the time you graduate you haven't changed your mind, I'll make sure we gain your father's approval."

  I was not thrilled with her suggestion, but said nothing.

  Her voice regained the affectionate tone of guidance as she said, "Two years is a long time. It's like throwing an apple into the air; who knows how many twists and turns it may take before it lands?"

  A week later, Kyan and I said our good-byes in the school cafeteria. Not many students were around and the young man in charge of the cafe had started to pile the chairs on top of the tables in preparation for closing.

  Kyan took a box of cigarettes out of his pocket.

  "You smoke?" I said in utter surprise.

  "Not really." He took out a cigarette. "They say it's good for the nerves." He lit his cigarette clumsily.

  "You'll write to me, won't you?"

  He gave me a sideway glance. "As if you had to ask."

  Reaching into my bag. I took out a piece of paper. "I signed up for a post box at school. Here's the number."

  He smiled. "Clever little lady."

  The young man in charge of the cafeteria had
finished with the chairs and circled our table, eager to close. Kyan didn't notice.

  "Promise me something," he said.

  I smiled. "Haven't I already?"

  "No. Not that." There was an alarming gravity in his voice. "I want you to promise you won't do anything foolish while I'm gone." He nodded to University Avenue. "Stay away from all that."

  I threw my head back in frustration. "Not you, too!"

  "I'm serious, Roya. At this point, they have a good grip on the opposition. The prisons are at full capacity." He stared far away. "Trust me, if I thought there was any hope, I'd stay right here and join them myself." He shook his head. "But there isn't."

  As I listened, I kept on shredding my paper napkin. Tiny white fragments covered the table like snowflakes on a bare roof.

  "When's your flight?" I asked.

  "Promise me!"

  "Oh, Kyan. Just what do you think I might do?"

  "I don't know, something heroic."

  "To be a hero takes a lot more than feelings and friendships," I said, sounding as old as my aunt. "Don't you see? I'm not good enough. I'm like a robot, programmed to do as I'm told."

  The frustration of a lifetime would not fit into simple words. All these years, I had been like a pebble, rolling down a steep hill without any power of my own.

  He reached over and wiped the tears off my cheek. "Just don't let the little robot do anything stupid," he said, and despite the smile that spread on his lips, he sounded as if he, too, could cry.

  "So. What time is your flight tomorrow?"

  "Early morning," he said. "Long before little ladies wake up."

  "I'll be up."

  He put his elbows on the table and leaned closer. I could feel his warm breath on my skin - it smelled of fresh tobacco and mint tooth paste. For a second I thought he was going to kiss me and it felt as if the earth were about to move from under me. But he pulled away, leaned back in his chair, and studied me with intent. He joined his hands to form a square and looked at me through it, as if to take a snapshot.

  "This is how I will remember you."

  The next morning at dawn, the roar of a plane shook me awake. I opened my window and searched the sky for it, but planes did not pass directly over our house. I watched the daylight grow and listened to the sound of the jet fading away until it became one with the silence around me.

  Falling back to sleep, the apple my aunt had spoken of rose in my mind's eye. A large, green apple, tossed into the air, it was now on its way down. Turning, turning...

  Fifteen

  MY ENTIRE FAMILY WENT TO TEHRAN to attend the wedding of a cousin. Two days into our trip, on a hot Monday afternoon, while everyone took a nap under the ceiling fan in my uncle's cool basement, I went upstairs to change. Having no idea what one should wear for a prison visit, I chose a simple blue suit. I grabbed my purse and left a note on my aunt's door. "Gone shopping. Will be back soon. R."

  Mrs. Payan and Eemon's mother were waiting in a taxi a block away. I climbed in and said hello, without looking at them.

  "Roya-joon, I'd like you to meet Mrs. Arfa," Shireen's mother said sweetly, "Eemon's mother, and she is also my second cousin."

  I nodded at the slender woman sitting next to Mrs. Payan. She did not have a chador on and her black headscarf gave her pale face an ethereal look. She nodded, but did not smile.

  Mrs. Payan turned to the driver. "Hotel Evin, please."

  I smiled at her pretense of going to a hotel that used to have the same name as the prison. Most locals had continued to call the existing hotel 'Evin' long after it had changed to a Hilton Hotel. Then again, maybe that was their attempt to avoid embarrassment.

  The driver glanced at us in his rearview mirror before zigzagging through the maze of Tehran's traffic. A stranger to this big, busy city, I had no idea where Evin, or any other prison, might be. Since the place housed mostly political prisoners, I had imagined it to be somewhere far away and isolated, maybe out of town. I pictured its tall gates and mysterious watchtowers, something similar to the Nazi prisons I had seen in movies. So when the taxi pulled into a side street in the northern section, and stopped by an ordinary brick wall, I was certain we were in the wrong place.

  Mrs. Payan extended her arm out of her chador and offered a crumpled bill to the driver. Her cousin adjusted her scarf before stepping out. I had brought along a scarf and a pair of sunglasses, just in case.

  I looked up and saw no towers, just a plain wall with a twisted mesh of barbed wire on top and a solid iron gate where two young soldiers stood guard. Their khaki uniforms were plain, a simple cap covered the top part of their faces, and despite summer heat, the legs of their pants were tucked into heavy boots.

  Mrs. Payan presented a paper to one, who motioned us to a window inside the entryway. That was our first checkpoint, but after three further guards had asked for our full name and date of birth, my disguise of a scarf and glasses seemed ridiculous. I continued to remind myself that we weren't doing anything wrong and this was just a casual visit.

  "Stay in the waiting area until your names are called," the guard at the last checkpoint said. Contrary to my expectation, the so-called "waiting area" proved to be nothing but an outdoor green with a few bushes and trees. Convinced that invisible eyes were watching, I sat in a shaded area close to Mrs. Payan.

  "When they call," she whispered, "we'll be searched before they let us through."

  "Searched, how?"

  "They have a metal rod they pass around you and it will beep if there's anything suspicious." She thought for a minute. "Of course, people smuggle food and things all the time, but they're looking for weapons." She smiled. "All Shireen ever wants is pen and paper." She motioned to a small notebook in her purse. "They don't mind those."

  I noticed Mrs. Arfa was holding a bag of candy and a carton of cigarettes and I felt bad for coming empty-handed.

  "Then we'll go to these little visiting cabins, where we are separated from the prisoner only by iron bars."

  I smiled sadly. Not just the bars, I thought. I couldn't begin to count the multiple layers that disconnected us from the world of the incarcerated.

  A few other visitors also waited, but no one made an effort to communicate. From time to time, a side door at the far end opened, a guard peeked his head out to call someone in, but each time only two names were called. People went in or out; no one spoke, and most faces were blank. I wondered if Pedar had informers in Tehran as well. Each time that squeaky door opened, fear of the unknown made me hesitate to look up.

  Mrs. Payan had told me they'd let the prisoner know before calling us in. It had been so long since my last visit with Shireen that I couldn't begin to guess how she might react. With summer at its peak, the tree leaves didn't move and the shade offered no relief. Apart from an occasional cough or muffled footsteps, the only sound was the buzz of bees circling, going in and out of the trees.

  The door opened again and a female guard called out. "Payaaan!" To which all three of us jumped.

  The woman walked over, and studied me head-to-toe; up, down, and back up again. Her expression lacked respect and she gave me a disdainful look. She turned to Mrs. Payan while wagging a finger at me. "This one can't go."

  "She has a permit," Mrs. Payan said.

  The woman checked her clipboard. "Permit's been cancelled."

  I took a step forward in protest, but like a mechanical gate, Mrs. Payan's arm rose against my chest. "That's okay," she said. "She doesn't mind."

  I leaned my back on the tree trunk, too humiliated to feel sad or disappointed. Why would Shireen's mother give up so quickly - why didn't she insist a little? I felt offended, as if their refusal meant that I wasn't good enough, that I was unworthy of admittance.

  Before leaving the yard, Mrs. Payan stopped and turned to me. "Please take a taxi home. You shouldn't wait here alone."

  I nodded, but sliding my back on the tree, I lowered myself to the ground and watched the people coming in and out of the door.
<
br />   In their silence, I could sense all kinds of moods in those people. A few seemed pleased, yet the look on most visitors' faces told me what a grim experience it was.

  The mere notion that Pedar may be behind this cancellation was enough to make me regret having gone there. I had no idea how long I had been sitting there when I heard Mrs. Payan's voice.

  "Dear child, have you been waiting here all this time?" she exclaimed, sounding both sorry and relieved. "I worried so much about you, wondering if you had enough money for a taxi, or if you knew your way around Tehran."

  "How is Shireen?" I asked her and stood. My behind was stiff from sitting on the dry, firm ground, and I was very thirsty.

  Mrs. Arfa' wiped her misty eyes with the corner of her scarf.

  "This visit was a quiet one," Mrs. Payan told me. "Let's go. I'll tell you more on the way."

  As the taxi drove us back to Niavaran, she told me the details. "Each time I see Shireen, she seems to have crawled deeper into her own shell." She tried to smile, but her lips only quivered. "She couldn't believe you had come, said to tell you that you are one sky crazy?" She shrugged. "Whatever that means."

  For a minute we were all silent. Then Mrs. Arfa' spoke for the first time since we had met. She sounded weak, as if just recovering from a sore throat, and the words she said had the sound of an unfinished previous conversation.

  "There's just no other way we could come up with that kind of money," she said to us both, as if I too, would understand her meaning.

  "I don't know," Mrs. Payan replied. "But now she's made me promise not to borrow for bail."

  "What bail?" I asked her.

  Mrs. Payan seemed reluctant to tell me as she turned to her side window.

  "Shireen's crime isn't exactly political," Mrs. Arfa said. "I mean, there's no evidence of her having done anything besides living in that house. That alone makes it possible for her prison term to be bought."

  "Bought? What do you mean, bought?"

  "It's done all the time. Not for political prisoners, mind you, but Shireen was only an accessory to a crime. Our lawyer has been working on a deal over her prison term."

  Mrs. Payan threw her hands in the air. "Are you joking? This is just another scam to fool the public. The amount they're asking for is ridiculous, they know we don't have it."