Roya studied geometry and scribbled some poetry and smiled when Baba repeated that she’d be the next Madame Curie, by God she would, forget Helen Keller. But nowhere did she see the boy with the joyful eyes—the one who’d made Mr. Fakhri deliver a pile of papers with swiftness and importance as though he were delivering a weapon to a warrior.
In the Stationery Shop the following week, Roya picked up a metal pencil sharpener and ran her thumb against the tiny ridges on its sides. Again the wind blew pages of the piled books askew when the door exploded open and in he strode.
This time, he stopped whistling as soon as he saw her. He seemed a little less sure of himself and more shy. “Rumi,” he said to Mr. Fakhri, but glanced quickly at her as he said it. His dark mop of hair was combed carefully to the side. His white collared shirt was ironed. His eyes sparkled and he smiled politely.
With the same speed and desire to please, Mr. Fakhri retrieved a copy of the very book that he’d given to Roya the week before. He cleared his throat. “Here you go, Bahman Jan.”
This time Bahman thanked Mr. Fakhri, bowed slightly to Roya, then strode back into the street.
“What is his rush? Where is he going? What’s so important?” she said, once she’d gathered her wits. She would show Mr. Fakhri that this boy did not render her speechless.
“I told you, Roya Khanom. The boy wants to change the world. That requires rush.” Mr. Fakhri picked up a rag and dusted his countertop. “It requires vigilance.” He stopped rubbing the surface of the counter. “It requires”—he looked pointedly at her—“severe caution.”
Roya sniffed. She put down the sharpener. She straightened her back. “I don’t know how he intends on changing the world. He walks too fast. He’s not very polite. He whistles for no reason! He barely spoke to you the other time he came in here last Tuesday. He acts like he’s so important. His hair is funny. I’m not quite sure how a boy like that will change the world.”
“Severe”—Mr. Fakhri put both hands on the counter and leaned toward her—“caution.”
She had been warned. A few more times she saw Bahman in that shop—each time he came right after school on a Tuesday as though he knew she’d be there. Each time, Roya pretended to be busy browsing through books or examining new stationery or looking anywhere but at him. Each time, of course, she couldn’t help but steal a glance at him, until the fifth Tuesday when she couldn’t bear the silence between them any longer.
She pretended that she had a poetry question and addressed it to Mr. Fakhri, who for some reason didn’t respond, and so it had to be answered by the boy.
The boy who would change the world managed to say, “Fire,” in answer to her question about which word followed in the stanza she’d just quoted from one of Saadi’s ancient poems.
Her face grew hot.
“Fire,” the boy repeated.
Of course he was right, that was the word that came next in the Saadi stanza. He said it with such surety that Roya half hoped he’d be wrong and half wanted to sit and talk with him for hours. But she had to go; her sister was waiting.
Zari was extra moody when Roya met her across the street. She’d gone deaf listening to all the political demonstrators, she complained, while her sister lingered over pencils and books in that godforsaken shop. She said she needed to go home and lie down with a hot water bottle because she had excruciating menstrual cramps and was starving to death, she’d been waiting so long, and that Roya needed to learn to respect other people’s time maybe for a change? Roya listened to Zari grumble all the way home. But she kept looking around wondering when, if ever, she’d see that boy anywhere but in the Stationery Shop.
2013
Roya rested her head against the glass of the car window and watched New England pass by, stoic in its iciness.
She wanted to focus on Walter and how much they’d enjoy dinner together. She would make the fish sticks he loved. She wanted to forget that boy, the visit she’d just had at the center. But the words from his letter wouldn’t go away. She had unwittingly memorized them sixty years ago.
I promise you, my love. Meet me at Sepah Square, at the center . . . Wednesday . . . 12 noon. Or a little later, if I can’t help it. Meet me there, and once and for all we will be one. The excitement of seeing you will keep me going through these next few days.
“Oh, Walter,” she said. And she leaned her forehead against the window and wept.
Chapter Three
1953
* * *
Love: How It Tangles
Look at love
How it tangles
With the one fallen in love
Look at spirit
How it fuses with earth
Giving it new life
Roya read Rumi’s poem again and waited for Bahman to show up. He hadn’t missed a single Tuesday at the Stationery Shop since that first time when he’d burst in. It had made for a winter filled with anticipation, conversation, excitement. When did you fall in love, Sister? Tell me. He recited a word from a poem and that was it?
Of course not, Roya told Zari. It wasn’t one word, one moment. That kind of thing only happened in American films, didn’t she know?
Roya wanted wholeness, she wanted warmth, she wanted escape and comfort. The Stationery Shop and its books gave her that. Then Bahman filled it with his presence. But if she had to determine a day when she actually fell in love beyond repair, it was the seventh Tuesday. That day signaled winter’s end. It was the kind of day when the chill and frost and dispirit of the season gave way to the promise of blooms and greenery and new beginnings. It was a day ready to rupture. The whole country was gearing up to celebrate the first day of spring: Persian New Year.
Mr. Fakhri flitted about the shop on that seventh Tuesday with hyper-eagerness and nervous energy, helping mothers buy New Year’s gifts for their children, wrapping sets of pens, ringing up customers with an effusive and heartfelt “May you always feel joy and live long!”
“A present for my son,” a woman purred, “he did so well on his report card and he loves to read.” The pride on her face made Bahman smile—Roya caught him. Another man bought colored pencils that Mr. Fakhri bunched together like flowers in a bouquet and wrapped with green ribbon. Poetry collections were, of course, the hottest item—the thirst for Persian poetry was bottomless, as always. Roya and Bahman steered clear of each other as the crowd in the shop swelled after school. He focused on the political treatise being featured as a pamphlet near the counter; she stayed in the back, by the translations of foreign novels.
And then, as quickly as the crowd had descended, it dissipated. Books bought, presents selected, advice gotten—the customers scattered, and there they were, the two of them, engrossed in their own private browsing but of course each aware of the other, feeling nothing if not the presence of each other. Mr. Fakhri closed his cash register with a loud clang.
“My goodness, they are shopping lots for Nowruz these days. Did all the children in this town get such good report cards to deserve so many presents for the New Year?”
Roya and Bahman remained quiet in their safe parts of the shop.
“Now then!” Mr. Fakhri looked around as if he were speaking to a huge audience. “A shopkeeper can’t complain about the sales, but I should get this cash to the bank.”