In the Walled Gardens Read Online Free PDF Page A

gridlock and exhaust
     fumes and rotten tempers. Pedestrians jaywalked through the traffic, cab drivers swearing at the lot of them.
    We crossed past Starlight, the lingerie shop of the Armenian sisters, with garters and flimsy nightgowns and their own brand
     of stockings in the windows. We picked the Melli shoe store on Naderi, and I tried several styles and settled for a black
     leather pair; then three doors down Abbas selected cassettes. We parted at the bus stop.
    I walked on, jostled by pedestrians at dusk. Komiteh was a prison where they tortured answers out of prisoners. Things they
     did were told in whispers. Jalal’s coffee beans and poetry and literary jargon were a thin veneer. They would break him into
     pieces, disassemble him, body and soul.
    A T THE FRUIT MARKET on Estanbul Street, I stopped to buy two bags of bloodred pomegranates. A movie marquee loomed high above, advertising an
     Indian film with a doe-eyed girl, finger to the chin. In the Indian subcontinent they have to twirl around trees to declare
     their love. Hassan
agha,
the fruit seller, said he preferred any movie starring our very own sex bomb, Forouzan.
    “Mr. Nirvani!” he said. “One day you’ll be minister of education! When you are, don’t forget me, your humble servant!”
    His reverence for lofty posts and habit of self-abasement really annoys me. A ready recipe for breeding impetuous resentments.
    “I don’t want to be minister of education,” I said.
    He looked incredulous. “Why not? It’s a terrific thing to be!”
    I caught the bus near Baharestan Square to see Mother.
    Baharestan always reminds me of Father. He loved the square, the white-columned building of the parliament and its rose gardens
     and the mosque of Sepahsalar. This was the heart of the city for him.
    The bus was crowded, and by the time I got off half an hour later it was dusk. When I rang my sister’s doorbell, she opened
     the front door as if she’d crouched behind it, her three children tugging at her skirt. They yelled, “Uncle!” and jumped into
     my arms like monkeys. I set my shoes by the door and gave my little nephew, Ali, a bag of pomegranates, and he grabbed it
     and ran off, his two little sisters chasing after him. Zari said she’d bring tea. She’s forever changing her hairstyle and
     hair color these days and wears too much jewelry and cheap perfume to console herself for her washout of a husband. Mother
     came in from chatting with the neighbors, and I rose to greet her.
    “You’ve lost weight,” she said.
    She always says that when she feels I’m trying to hide something from her. We sat on the rug and sipped tea while Zari’s children
     hopped about.
    “You should get married,” Mother said.
    “He’s waiting for the perfect woman!” said Zari.
    “Let him wait,” said Mother. “In the meantime, there’s Mrs. Amanat’s daughter. I think you should consider her seriously.”
    “Reza wants a modern woman,” Zari said.
    They stared.
    Zari went to get more tea, and Mother picked up her sewing.
    “Jalal’s been arrested,” I said.
    She looked up, startled. “I think you’re mixed up in something yourself. I worry.”
    She resumed sewing, her needle and thread looping deftly to complete a seam. She bent over, cut the thread with scissors.
    “I’m going to see Nasrollah
mirza,
” I said. “To help Jalal.”
    “After all these years?” she said. “Go, in your father’s memory.”
    We sat quietly. Outside, a roving vendor’s singsong cry floated in the dusk. I remembered my father long ago buying a dark
     suit one day in the street.
    “Won’t you stay for dinner?” Mother asked.
    “I must be going.”
    “Your brother-in-law never comes home,” she said.
    Zari brought tea and date cakes and insisted I stay for dinner. She’s got wrinkles by her mouth and callused hands, and her
     eyes are vacant and her eyebrows so waxed there’s nothing left of them. The children wanted a ride on my back, so I took