Rooftops of Tehran Read Online Free PDF Page B

1917 Bolshevik Revolution, Doctor asked, “What do you think about the condition of the people in our villages?” His question did not surprise me, given my conversation with Ahmed earlier. Before I had a chance to respond, he said, “Their living conditions are deplorable. Have you ever been on a farm?”
    I nodded yes.
    “You know, some people think I’m too idealistic, but I wish for a day when no one goes to bed on an empty stomach. I want to find a way to educate every human being so that they can achieve their fullest potential. I want equality and justice for all regardless of social status and class.”
    I sensed the heat of Doctor’s enthusiasm along with his sincerity. Soon I was overtaken by a startling surge of goodwill toward him.
    “I don’t know about you,” he continued, “but I can see myself as a missionary in the villages helping people dig wells, teaching them new irrigation techniques, harvesting crops and filtering drinking water. Do you know how many people die annually from drinking polluted water?” I shook my head no. He shook his head, too, naked sorrow in his expression, before continuing. “I want to help them take control of their lives instead of waiting for some God to deliver them from their troubles. Do you understand?”
    “Of course,” I said with a smile, deciding right then and there that I wanted to be just like him when I grew up: kind, smart, visionary, and yes, idealistic, too. At that moment Zari walked up to us with a tray of cool drinks. “You must be thirsty,” she said to me, her voice a sweet sound that hummed in my ears. “I’ve been watching you. You haven’t had anything since you walked in the door.”
    She has been watching me? Wow! Then I heard Doctor’s voice telling me to drink up. It seemed as if his words suffered a delay between his lips and my ears because my heart had stumbled and was caught so completely by the sound of Zari’s voice. Looking at Doctor, I wondered how I could so faithfully and simultaneously admire and envy him.
    Doctor has had to work to help support his family since he was twelve years old, when his father suffered a debilitating accident in the machine shop where he was in charge of heating metal for processing purposes.
    “One day, at the end of a double shift, my father was so tired that he fell asleep for a few seconds,” Doctor told me once, his eyes filling. “His right hand was burned so severely that it had to be amputated the second he arrived at the hospital. Years before that day, when I was just a kid, he used to get severe migraines. When I’d ask him what I could do to make his pain go away, he’d smile and ask me to kiss his forehead. As soon as my kiss had landed, he’d jump up and down and say that the headache had disappeared.” Doctor shook his head with a sad smile. “He’d thank me and give me a coin. That’s when he started calling me Doctor. For a long time I thought my kisses could cure him, so every night he was in the hospital after the amputation I sat by his bed and kissed his heavily bandaged arm while he slept.” Doctor massaged his forehead, as if to work the worry from his skin, then added, “They fired him for being careless, after twenty-five years of loyal labor. That’s capitalism for you.”
     
    Watching Doctor argue politics and religion—the only two topics he gets passionate about—is like imagining the majestic and serene Mount Damavand belching smoke into the sky. He hates the Shah and the mullahs , the educated religious officials. “The Shah is a dictator and a puppet of the West,” he says, “and I’d rather kiss a rattlesnake on the lips than shake hands with a mullah.”
    Doctor’s hatred for the mullahs is so deep that he was reluctant to summon our local clergyman to carry out his grandfather’s funeral ceremonies. “Why do we need him?” he kept arguing with his father. Eventually, however, he had to give in to his parents’ desire for a traditional