Read Online The Septembers of Shiraz by Dalia Sofer - Free Book Online Page B

say anything; he did not feel he had enough strength left in him for another argument. He decided that if she could convince him they should go, he would pack up. “Fine,” he said, half bluffing. “It’s not too late. We can still go. Travel may be restricted but we can run away through Turkey, or Pakistan. So many are doing it. I’ll start looking for smugglers.” She was startled, pulled her eyes away from him and looked at the floor. She sat quietly for some time like that, looking down, legs crossed, her slipper dangling from her right foot. Then she looked up and scanned the room—the sofa, the corner bar, the rugs, the miniatures. She took it all in before shaking her head no.
    â€œYou see?” he said. “You don’t want to go any more than I do. How can you part with your stuff—your paintings and your china and your carpets?”
    She looked up, fire in her eyes. “Whose fault is it that we didn’t ship my stuff when we could have? I may not be able to live without my stuff, but you can’t live without your status. That, more than anything, terrifies you.”
    â€œMy status ? Maybe so. But may I remind you, Madame Amin, that had you not believed that I would one day reach this status, you would never have married me?”
    She got up and locked herself in the bathroom, leaving behind her familiar trail of perfume, which gave him a sudden headache. He sat on the sofa and finished her drink. Since the beginning of the riots he had been living in limbo—liquidating assets and sending funds to his Swiss bank accounts on the one hand, but continuing to expand his business on the other. In truth, he had been unable to make a decision. Listening to the sound of running water coming from the bathroom, it occurred to him that his wife’s distress might be caused more by the deterioration of their love than that of their country. He promised himself that he would once again do the little things he once did for her—warming her side of the bed while she put on her face cream and brushed her hair, surprising her with a pastry, bringing her flowers. But each night, on his way home, exhaustion would prevent him from making the detour tothe flower shop and he would tell himself, “Tomorrow. The flowers can wait until tomorrow.”
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    L YING NOW ON his mattress he thinks of her perfume and wishes he could kiss her. How ridiculous they had both become. He wonders why they let distance grow between them. It wasn’t that he didn’t love her anymore, or that he no longer found her beautiful. He was still fond of her black hair, her almond-shaped brown eyes, her lips—always slightly parted, as if she was about to speak, but wouldn’t. But she had lost something, something that had made him fall in love with her the day he had met her at the teahouse in Shiraz—a certain warmth, gone now, leaving her face beautiful but flat, like one of her prized paintings.
    â€œI’m sorry,” he had said to her that morning, believing at first that he was apologizing for flinging her arm away, but realizing, afterward, that he was sorry for so much more. She had nodded. But he knew he was not forgiven. He had promised to come back for lunch. They needed to spend more time together. She had agreed.
    He looks up at the ceiling. The room reeks of soiled bandages and sweat. He pictures water streaming down his body, washing him clean.

NINE
    O f prisons, she knows little. The Tower of London, the Bastille, Alcatraz—these are places that Farnaz associates most readily with the word. Of course, she knows—has always known—that in her own time and her own city, prisons also exist. But does one ever really think about what goes on in them, these ugly edifices, crowned with barbed wire? She remembers helping Parviz with his history lesson on the storming of the Bastille, telling him about the mob that invaded the Hôtel des Invalides