by Sara Jafari
“I was really looking forward to ‘beginning life,’ but I don’t think I realized how everything would change—and not for the better. I thought everyone would stay in London, that starting a career would be simple. That everyone would still see each other, as normal, but apart from Priya and Oliver, I haven’t seen anyone since graduation. I guess I just didn’t think it through, not that I really had a choice in the matter.”
“Yeah, it’s definitely not easy. Most of my friends have gone off somewhere else as well.”
“Let me guess, Australia or Thailand, or both?”
He gave her a wide smile. “Yes! And can I just ask how is everyone flying off to Australia and Thailand? Where did they even get the money? I swear the ones who left were the ones who were always going on about being skint. If that’s their version of skint…”
“It comes from the bank of Mummy and Daddy,” Soraya finished.
She wasn’t unaware of the privilege in her own life, that her family now lived comfortably, but her parents were not well off enough to pay her rent or give her money for flights to the other side of the world. It was interesting, she thought, how no matter how well you were doing in life, there was always something you didn’t have and longed for—and yet someone elsewhere would be wishing for exactly what you had.
“God, there were so many posh people at our uni. Like worse than just posh people—posh people pretending not to be posh—like they think it’s actually cooler to be poor,” Magnus said, shaking his head. They began walking again. He gave her a look then that made her both laugh out loud and also feel deeply offended.
“I’m not posh!”
“Yeah, yeah, ‘I’m not posh,’ ” he said, mimicking her Southern accent badly.
Her mouth hung wide open for a few seconds before she playfully shoved his shoulder. How was it possible for anyone’s shoulder to be rock solid? She knew her bingo wings were not quite the norm at twenty-one years old, but Magnus seemed to take things in the complete opposite direction.
He put his hand over hers before she could remove it, and then somehow they were holding hands, like it was the most normal thing in the world. What was worse was that she quite liked the feeling of his hand enclosing hers, liked the protectiveness of the gesture. This information would of course never be shared with Priya or Oliver.
“I’m not,” she protested again. “Like, I’m genuinely not. It’s just my accent.”
He narrowed his eyes, but there was a teasing edge to his otherwise detective-like expression.
“How many holidays do your family go on a year?”
The question was so specific it surprised her. “Um, I don’t know, we don’t always go on family holidays. Probably like once every five years and they’re always a bit of a fail.”
“What kind of school did you go to?”
“State school.” This question, however, she understood. She’d been so surprised entering student halls in first year to find most of the people there had been to a private school. Though she also felt a sense of pride that she had achieved the same grades without her parents having paid for a private education.
“How many bathrooms does your family home have?”
She laughed. “These questions…” She thought for a moment. “Three.”
He raised their clasped hands in the air as though celebrating a triumph. “See, I told you.”
She stopped walking and gave him a half-joking scowl. “You’re so annoying,” she said. “We’re genuinely not like loaded or anything. We have a nice house because my parents lucked out and bought one in Brighton years ago when it was cheaper, but they came to England with literally one suitcase each and a Persian carpet.” She’d heard the story many times, but saying it out loud sounded a bit too exact. Why did they need to bring a rug with them? Who did that?
She felt herself getting a bit too defensive. Why did she even care what he thought? Except, she knew she cared very much.
“To clarify,” she continued, “I’m not saying we’re in a bad position or anything, like I’m very lucky, I’m just saying that we’re not posh.”
He smiled down at her then. “You’re cute when you’re annoyed, you know,” he murmured.
She understood, then, why the girls at the house party lapped up Magnus’s words, because right now she was doing the same thing. One minute she was annoyed at him and the next she was putty in his hands—and it needed to stop. But not right now.
There was an uneasiness in the pit of her stomach. It took her a moment to locate the cause: she had come to really like Magnus. She liked his brain and the version of herself that she was around him. “You’re being mean,” she breathed. “And presumptuous.”
He came closer so their lips were almost touching. “I’m joking,” he said, before kissing her. The kiss was slow, romantic. “I quite like arguing with you,” he said after a moment.
She disentangled herself and narrowed her eyes.
“You know you said I see you in a way you don’t like? Well, you see me in a way I don’t like.”
In fact, perhaps part of the reason Soraya never quite integrated at university, she thought, was that she couldn’t connect with the other students there. Lack of sexual experience aside, every year friends of friends at university would return with stories about their summers abroad, and she could never understand how they lived as they did, always thought she was the one who was doing something wrong, like she had to keep up with them or be left behind.
“How would you like me to see you then?”
It was such a simple question, but one she struggled to answer. She shrugged her shoulders.
A niggling part of her wished she had brought up the subject of his dad. She imagined that his probing linked back to his family somehow. But the problem was, if she mentioned his dad, he might ask about hers, and that would lead them into territory she couldn’t face. It would only lead to more lies, or even worse: the truth.
It had become a given that Soraya and Magnus would see each other at least twice a week. As time passed they went for dinners in central London, crazy golf in Shoreditch, and long walks on Hampstead Heath.
They reached an invisible milestone when Magnus sent her his novel in progress. It was when they had been steadily dating for two months that she was finally given the opportunity to read it.
Despite repeatedly asking him to send it, when she got the email with the attachment and nothing in the body of the email, she began to fear opening it. What if it wasn’t good? Would she have to lie?
It was a worry she needn’t have had. She read his book in just one day; it exceeded her expectations. The prose was dreamlike and whimsical, while also managing to be very precise. It was full of contradictions in a pleasant way. It was a lot darker than she’d thought it would be, featuring a working-class, dysfunctional family on the verge of collapse. Magnus was always so positive when they met that the novel was an insight into a different side to him. One she could very much relate to.
He asked her to go with him to buy a new winter coat, something she relished doing because despite now finding him attractive, she still hated his clothes. As she picked out the perfect coat, part of her wondered if she was helping the next girl he would be with, one who would be dating a far more fashionable Magnus. She tried to dismiss such thoughts.
When he invited her to watch him play an important rugby game, she lied and said she already had plans. She was wary of integrating herself into his life because this was only meant to be temporary. It had already gone on for too long. She didn’t envisage them having a future together, and if they attempted to have one it would end badly, that much she knew. While on some levels they were alike, fundamentally their attitudes towards many aspects of life were completely different. They would never marry, ultimately, and that meant one day they’d break up. She didn’t want to put herself in a sit
uation in which she could get hurt, didn’t want to be one of the many women who were discarded by Magnus.
That he’d invited her into a public space was also worrying in another way: it hinted that he wasn’t seeing anyone else.
And yet, despite all of this, they continued seeing each other. After each date they’d go back to her flat or his house and put on a film, although they never got past the opening credits before they began kissing. Their clothes would come off, hastily. Each time it escalated more and more, but they still hadn’t had sex. On this point, Soraya was adamant. She got the sense he saw this waiting as a tactic, that by playing the long game he’d eventually win. But little did he know, in some way this was a game for her too. She’d stay with him until the issue of them not having had sex finally became too much, and then she knew they’d break up.
She wasn’t ready to have sex, didn’t know how to come to terms with everything she had been taught about the importance of preserving one’s virginity. Nor with how what she had been taught differed from what she believed, that virginity was a social construct.
It was when they went for a walk in Nunhead Cemetery that Soraya decided she needed to end things with Magnus. But not for the reasons she had originally believed would cause her to break up with him; rather because she realized she was developing very real feelings for him. She didn’t want to fall for him. Didn’t want the messiness that came with being emotionally involved with someone like him. She decided she would do it in the evening, via text message because she was a self-professed coward.
Autumn leaves crunched under their feet as they studied the Gothic tombstones.
“You should pursue writing and getting published, if that’s really what you want,” Soraya said.
Magnus scratched his head, looking away. He always looked away when they talked about his writing. She reached up to his face, pulling it towards her so he’d be forced to look at her.
“I mean it,” she said, more softly this time.
“I appreciate the sentiment,” he said slowly. “But it’s not something someone like me can seriously consider.”
She expected him to expand. But he didn’t.
“Someone like you?”
She resisted the urge to point out that for him as a white man, a career in writing was very much within his grasp.
“You know, my dad’s a plumber and my mum works in Matalan. It’s just not what we do where I’m from.” He let out a long breath. “There’s no job security in writing. God, I don’t even know if I’m any good.”
“You are,” she reassured him.
“Even if I was, I wouldn’t know where to begin. It feels wrong even to dream about it…God, I sound sappy, don’t I?”
She smiled. “No, you don’t.”
“And anyway, why don’t you take your drawing seriously?” he shot back at her.
“That’s different—”
“How? You’re talented, Soraya, but you’re scared. And you don’t need to be.”
“Like you?”
He sighed in frustration.
“I just feel like a bit of a loser lately,” she confessed.
He looked at her and frowned. “You’re not a loser.”
“I keep getting rejected from jobs,” she said. “Office jobs, retail jobs, everything.” She still had some savings left, buying herself extra time, but this could go on for only so long.
“They aren’t meant to be then. Things happen for a reason, you know. Something good will happen for you soon, I know it.”
They stopped walking to observe the architecture of one particularly stunning mausoleum. It was large and looked Victorian, reminding her of something otherworldly.
“Why did you want to come here?” she asked.
“I think there’s something really beautiful about old cemeteries. I sometimes come here to think. Or get inspiration. I thought you might like it.” He looked down self-consciously.
She did. Though she found it odd to enjoy being in a cemetery, the reminder of the fragility of life surrounding them. How short it was, really, in the grand scheme of things. And how we’d all end up in the same place, no matter who we were. No matter where we were from, what religion we were.
His hand found hers and he began stroking her palm slowly, absentmindedly. He was making this so hard for her.
“Have you brought other girls here?” she asked, unable to stop the words coming out of her mouth. She wished she could swallow them back, not wanting to hear the answer.
“No,” he said quickly.
“Why not?”
“It never felt right. I come here for quiet, for stillness. I don’t think I could bring just anyone here.”
He didn’t say more on the matter, and she didn’t press him, despite desperately wanting clarity on what that even meant.
She thought back to the party, when she was told Magnus had been dating a girl for four months before dumping her. She couldn’t imagine him doing that, but then the girl probably couldn’t either.
“You know what,” he said. “How about we make a deal? I’ll try and take my writing seriously if you take your art seriously too.”
She rolled her eyes. He put a hand in the air to stop her from speaking. “Come on, just say yes. It could be fun.” He flashed her a smile and her heart fluttered. How had she ever not found him attractive? Now all he had to do was smile at her and she melted, became putty in his hands.
“Fine, OK.”
He gave her hand a squeeze and they continued walking up the path. And she knew when they left the cemetery that she wouldn’t break up with him, that she had never truly planned to do so.
She was in too deep, and it would only end in disaster.
“What’s your favorite color?” Neda asked, her voice pitched too high, her hands firmly clasped together. They walked side by side through Park-e Shahr, stopping occasionally to observe the fanciful sculpted shrubbery, leafy trees, and pink roses.
Hossein laughed, running his fingers through his hair as he pondered the question.
The smell of roasted nuts lingered in the air from the vendor they walked past. Neda’s eyes closed briefly as she inhaled the scent, reminding herself that the nuts often smelt better than they tasted.
It was the first time they had been alone, albeit not quite on their own in such a public space. There were other families, friends, and couples all around them.
“I don’t have one,” he finally said.
“Really? You must!” She started to feel silly, childlike almost, for asking him. But she’d had no practice in talking to the opposite sex—apart from family members—and wasn’t quite sure what to say or how to act. So she feigned confidence.
The leaves crunched softly under their feet as they walked. Despite finding the noise satisfying, Neda longed to hold on to the last of summer, willing it to continue just a little while longer. She had gotten good grades and would begin working soon, perhaps continuing her studies the year after if she was granted a scholarship.
It was curious how quickly life changed. Numerous friends had become engaged to men from university. It was quite unlike the American movies they watched; in Iran it took only a few meetings to become engaged, and then married.
And Neda finally felt ready. The more she got to know Hossein, the more enchanted she became by him. She knew she would do anything to make him smile, to make him happy.
Children ran past them, playing tag, almost bumping into Hossein in the process.
“OK, well, I guess if I had to choose a color, I’d pick red.”
“Ah,” Neda said.
Hossein smiled. His arms swung as he walked, narrowly missing her. Part of her wanted to lean into him, and she had to scold herself for such thoughts. “Why just ‘ah’?”
“Well, you could pick any color in the whole world. Turqu
oise, silver, peach, magnolia—even plain old purple. But instead you picked red.”
“It’s a classic color.” Hossein folded his arms in mock offense. “Well, what’s yours?”
“Oh, there’re too many colors to choose from. I don’t really have a favorite.” Her lips were held in a small smile as she repressed laughter.
“Oh, you…” Hossein touched her hand and brought it to his chest. “You’re infuriating, but somehow I love it.”
Love.
Neda was breathless. Just the touch of his hand on hers was enough to make her whole body shiver in a way it never had before. Their eyes connected for only a second before he let go and they continued walking past a large lake. Despite being artificial it was still beautiful, the sight of the water calming.
“I’ve always wanted to ask you—why do you wear a hijab when so many of your friends don’t? Have you always worn it?”
She gave him her reasons, getting herself into knots when she tried to explain that while she was doing it to follow Islam as instructed in the Quran, she was also doing it for herself. When she said this he nodded, as though he understood perfectly.
“You’re so brave,” he said. “Unlike anyone I’ve ever known.”
At this Neda scoffed. “I know what people think—that I’m old-fashioned.”
Hossein stopped, so Neda did too. A couple behind weaved their way past, mildly irritated by the obstacle in their way, swinging their clasped hands as they walked.
“Well, I don’t think that. You’re taking action, standing up for what you believe in…it’s admirable. I wish I were like you. In fact, I have something I need to—”
A man selling single red roses cut him off. “Buy one for the beautiful khanum?”
Neda opened her mouth to refuse, though secretly she hoped he’d buy her one. Hossein gave the man money, his back to her. When he turned around, in his hands were a dozen or so roses.
