Song of a Captive Bird Page 12

  A strange force was gathering inside me. I’d expected motherhood to temper my desire to write, but the less time I had to devote to it, the more the idea of writing consumed me. When summer finally came and the afternoon heat became unbearable, I would take Kami to my bedroom, pull him to my chest with his face toward me, and close my eyes, falling into sleep with the curtains fluttering and the wind whispering through the trees outside. Sometimes I was too restless to nap and would place Kami in his crib and putter about the room. Once, I caught sight of myself in the mirror and wondered at how much I’d changed. When I was a girl, Sanam was forever trying to fatten me with sweets and oily stews. I’d been knobby-kneed and flat-chested. Well into my pregnancy, even as my belly grew round and high, the rest of my body stayed thin. It was only now, as a mother, that I’d at last acquired a woman’s body. I stood in my pale silk slip before the mirror and traced the slight swell of my hips and belly, of my newly full breasts. When Kami stirred, I lifted him into my arms and pressed my lips to the top of his black-haired head, humming some half-remembered song.

  It was the only peace I would ever know in that house, and it was in these hours that I again began to plan my escape.

  12.

  I am the progeny of trees.

  Breathing stagnant air wearies me.

  A dead bird advised me to

  bear the flight in mind.

  The ultimate end of all forces is connection,

  connection with the luminous source of the sun,

  and flowing into the intelligence of light…

  Why should I stop?

  —from “Only Voice Remains”

  I told no one where I was going or whom I planned to meet. It was a Monday, and Kami had just settled down for a nap and my mother-in-law retreated to her room as she did each afternoon for her prayers and siesta. I set Kami’s bassinet in the living room, where his cries could easily be heard when he woke. I smoothed his blanket and kissed his forehead. I’d been planning this day for months, but all of a sudden I felt panicky. It was wrong to leave Kami. I shouldn’t go.

  The light through the curtained windows seemed thin and stifled. I think if Kami had stirred at that moment, I would have abandoned my plans, but he was fast asleep. I checked my wristwatch. A quarter past noon. There was only a sliver of time before Parviz would return from town to take his lunch. I’d have to go now or stay trapped in the house with no way of leaving. “I’ve gone to visit my mother,” I’d scribbled in my note to Parviz. “I’ll be back Friday.” There’d be arguments when I returned, that and days of Parviz’s dark, silent moods, but I forced these thoughts from my mind as I grabbed my pocketbook and trench coat and stepped into the streets.

  Once at the train station, I paced the platform, looking constantly about me for fear that someone would recognize me and ruin my plan. Any minute now my mother-in-law would wake up and find me gone. I was the only woman at the station and also seemingly the only person to board the train, but there were few passengers that day and thankfully I didn’t encounter anyone I knew.

  The trip to Tehran would take twenty hours. I’d purchased a third-class railway ticket—the best I could afford even after weeks of putting aside money from my household allowance. The seat was hard and did not recline. With my forehead pressed to the cold rattling glass and my chin cupped in my hand, I watched the low, wide buildings of Ahwaz, the marketplace with its tented roof, and the mosque’s blue dome gradually disappear. All at once the desert was everywhere, and I was overcome with a feeling of relief. Sand, rocks, hills—the whole landscape was tinted the same shade of orange as the sky. A soft glow encircled the distant mountains, and slowly I felt myself breathe again.

  I unclasped my purse and pulled out a folded notepaper on which I’d written an address: “Zand Alley, Number 22.” I didn’t recognize the street name and I had only the vaguest idea how to find my way to it. I slipped the note back into my purse and checked again for my poems. I didn’t dare to look at them just then, and they stayed sealed in the envelope inside my purse.

  The uncertainty, the heedlessness, and, most of all, the excitement with which I left Ahwaz for Tehran the first time—later it would all seem to me the mark of true innocence: the innocence of throwing myself headlong into the future and thinking I might escape without consequences or regrets.

  I woke in a panic several times that night. Was Kami all right? Did he cry out for me when he woke from his nap, had he taken his bottle, was he fussing and whimpering in his sleep? It was wrong of me to have left him. Selfish and wrong. I nearly didn’t disembark when the train pulled into the Tehran station at eight o’clock the next morning, and I might have turned back right then, except there’d be no train back to Ahwaz until the next day.

  But then, as soon as I stepped into the streets of Tehran, I felt it, that unshakable sense of having returned home. It was autumn, the season of pomegranate and quince. The scent of roasted nuts and barbecued corn from the street vendors, of mud-packed alleyways, gasoline fumes, and concrete roads—I hadn’t known, until I encountered them again, how much I’d missed the city. I drew a deep breath and steeled my nerves. Outside the train station, a man with a black fedora pulled low over his face pointed me out to his companion, and the two men exchanged a look and then turned to stare at me. The area down by the railway was notoriously rough, and the only women I saw were old, kerchiefed street peddlers. As I approached, the man in the fedora told his companion something that made them both laugh, and then he raised his hand in a slight wave. I wrapped my shawl around my neck, dug my hands deep into the pockets of my coat, and walked on.

  I crossed from the railway station and onto Avenue Pahlavi. Farther uptown, the streets grew more crowded. Vendors were setting up their trestles for the day’s work, their carts laden with fruit and long loaves of freshly baked sesame flatbread. I realized I was famished, so I stopped and bought myself a paper cone of hot chestnuts, the first of the season, and ate them as I walked.

  In the distance, just beyond the city, I saw the ring of the Alborz Mountains. The snowy peaks glowed faintly pink with the morning sun. When I was a girl I’d climb up to the roof just to stare out at these same mountains. I’d look clear across the rooftops to the highest one, the volcano called Mount Damavand. Sanam had told me the story of the Simorgh, the magical bird that made its home there. Damavand seemed as distant to me then as another country, but even as a small child I didn’t doubt I would one day make my way to it, and farther even than that.

  Now I was a woman, a wife, and also a mother. I’d only come as far as Tehran, the city of my girlhood, but no distance seemed greater than the one I was traveling today.

  I continued to draw looks as I walked, but it eventually occurred to me that here—in this district, at least—no one knew me and I myself knew no one. I held my head higher, walking faster and with longer strides. The buildings were taller than I remembered, but two years had passed since I’d moved away, and in that time Tehran had been busy making itself over into a Western-style metropolis. Here was a boulevard crowded with buses and automobiles, an alleyway thick with exhaust plumes; there was a street with boutiques, cafés, and restaurants. Eventually, the city and its bustling streets absorbed me, and as I walked I ceased to think or to care about what people thought of me. I walked on, exhilarated and wide awake, despite the sleepless night I’d spent on the train, and it wasn’t long before I found myself on Zand Alley.

  Halfway down the street I stopped in front of a worn wooden door and studied the small glazed tile toward the top. It was painted with the number 22. I’d expected something grander for a publishing house, but the building was run-down—nearly derelict. I riffled through my pocketbook and again checked the note. The tile was a faded blue, and the black numbering had cracked with age, but this seemed to be the correct address.

  The door opened onto a narrow stairwell. After checking over my shoulder to see if anyone was watching me, I climbed the stairs and proceeded down a dark, dim
hallway. The building seemed deserted, and I again worried I’d come to the wrong place, but gradually I heard the sound of voices at the end of the hall, and then I came to a door with a small metal placard inscribed PAYAM MAGAZINE.

  I sucked in my breath, pushed the door open, and found myself in a large room with several desks, all but one of them unoccupied. A wiry man in shirtsleeves and a loosened collar sat pounding on a typewriter. When the door swung open, he looked up at me, and then for a moment his hands rested in the air. His expression was not so much one of annoyance as of confusion.

  “Kh-Khanoom…” he stammered, rising from his chair. “Have you lost your way?”

  I shook my head and asked, “This is the headquarters of Payam, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “And the office of Mr. Pakyar,” I continued, “the editor in chief of Payam, is also here?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Well, I’ve come to see Mr. Pakyar.”

  At this he looked more puzzled, but he said nothing more, only led me to a chair in the foyer and directed me to wait there. I thanked him, then sat down with my pocketbook on my lap.

  After some minutes, two men appeared from a room toward the back of the office. The older of the two was bald and portly and wore no jacket. So that’s Mr. Pakyar, I thought, and sat up straighter in the chair. The second man was perhaps thirty, with a charcoal-gray coat draped on his arm and a hat in his other hand. The two men exchanged goodbyes, the older man clapping the younger one on the back as they made their way toward the entrance.

  I stood up. I felt the weight of the younger man’s eyes as he approached—and then he gave me an appraising look that ran the length of my body. He raked a hand through his hair. If it surprised him to see a young woman in such a place, however, he gave no show of it—only placed his fedora on his head and tipped it to me as he passed.

  The men exchanged a few more words and then the door creaked shut. The visitor was gone, whoever he was.

  “And who is this?” Mr. Pakyar asked the assistant.

  He hadn’t addressed me, but I stepped forward anyway. “Mr. Pakyar, I’ve come to speak with you about—”

  He looked at me, face to feet and back again, then said, “If you’ve come for work, miss, I’m afraid we don’t need a receptionist just now.”

  I shook my head. “I haven’t come for a job. I’m here to give you these.” I pulled the envelope from my pocketbook and held it out to him. “They’re poems. My poems.”

  “Ah,” he said slowly, glancing at the envelope, “a poetess.”

  “Poetess”! My dislike for the word was instant and irreversible. Whenever I heard it afterward, I returned to that moment and saw myself as that editor saw me that day: a simple housewife from the provinces who carried handwritten poems in her pocketbook. Not a poet but a mere “poetess.”

  “Have you published anything?” he asked.

  When I confessed I hadn’t, he smirked.

  I lifted my chin and crossed my arms over my chest. “Read one poem, sir. Just one.”

  Mr. Pakyar opened and then closed his mouth. With his eyes still on me, he slit the envelope open with his index finger, and the seal tore in a long, ugly rip. He pulled the pages from the envelope, and I watched as he glanced at the first poem. This he did so quickly that he couldn’t possibly have read anything more than the title. “Your interest here is misplaced,” he said, lifting his eyes. “You’re better off going back home,” he said, his eyes drifting to my wedding band. “Back to your husband, khanoom.”

  * * *

  —

  Tears pricked my eyes and I moved as if in a daze, following the crowds toward an open-air market. A group of boys careened past me on bicycles, nearly knocking me over. Women gripped their veils between their teeth so as to leave their arms free for their bundles and packages and the children who tripped alongside them as they made their rounds. I sat by the side of an old stone fountain, watching the crowds. The pungent fragrance of roasted meat wafted from a kabob shop. I felt sick in the pit of my stomach.

  After all the trouble of traveling to Tehran, leaving my Kami behind, I’d been dismissed in the space of five minutes. I’d been so upset I’d left without retrieving my poems from Mr. Pakyar. He’ll toss my poems in the trash, I thought; he’s probably thrown them away already. Suddenly I wished I hadn’t come to the city at all, and I buried my face in my hands.

  “Miss?” came a man’s voice.

  When I looked up, he was there. The man from the office, the one with the gray coat draped over his arm. He wore it now with the collar turned up to the cold, and the fedora was pulled low over his brow. He was smoking a cigarette and watching me.

  I could have refused to answer him. I could have cast my eyes down, squared my shoulders, and walked down the street and clear away from him. I knew equally well how to repel a man’s gaze or to encourage it. That’s the sort of cunning a girl learns early.

  So, I might well have looked away. Instead, I met his gaze. “Yes?” I said, wiping my eyes quickly with the back of my hand.

  “You were just in the office in Zand Alley, weren’t you?”

  “I was.”

  “Forgive me, but you look a bit lost here,” he said.

  I raised my chin. “I’m not.”

  He was silent, drawing a thoughtful drag on his cigarette. “Nasser Khodayar,” he said, and extended his hand.

  It took a moment for me to react. For all my attempts at sophistication, I’d never before shaken a man’s hand, but then I quickly held out my hand and let him clasp it between his.

  “Forugh,” I said.

  “So, Forugh,” he said, letting go of my hand and sliding beside me by the fountain. “No luck with Mr. Pakyar?”

  He’d made the connection between my hurried meeting and my distraught state—a further humiliation. I was quiet, and then said, “He barely looked at my poems. He’ll throw them away. I bet he’s done it already.”

  “That’s probably true.”

  I stared at him. “You think I’m silly and stupid.”

  “Not at all.”

  “But you agree it’s useless. He won’t publish my poems.”

  “Look, Forugh,” he said, “twenty new journals spring up in this city every day.” He flicked the ash from his cigarette and continued. “Tehran’s full of poets, and when they can’t find someone to publish their work, they set up their own presses, throw in a few of their friends’ poems, and congratulate themselves for their bold new contributions to Persian literature.”

  I tilted my head and narrowed my eyes. “How do you know so much about all this?”

  He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a card. NASSER KHODAYAR, it read, EDITOR IN CHIEF, ROSHANFEKR.

  I looked from the card in my hand back to him. Roshanfekr—The Intellectual—was a popular magazine, one I knew well. This man in a fedora was its editor. For a moment I couldn’t think what to say.

  He took another drag of his cigarette and then said, “Why don’t you show me some of your poems? That way I could get a sense of your style and tell you what I think.”

  “You’d really do that?”

  One corner of his mouth lifted in a smile. “Why not?”

  “But I don’t have any more copies with me.” I thought for a moment. “I could send you some if you give me an address?”

  He looked quickly at his watch and then back at me. “Tell you what,” he said, grinding his cigarette with his shoe. “Why don’t you meet me here Thursday morning? You can bring your poems and I’ll let you know what I think of your writing.”

  “Thursday? I don’t know if—”

  He touched his tie and tightened the knot. “Come if you like, and if you don’t, well, then that will be your choice entirely.” He gestured across the street, nodding toward a small teahouse at the corner. “Half past ten. I’ll meet you there. If I had to guess, I’d say our literature will be all the poorer if you don’t come,” he said, “and
so, maybe, will I.”

  With that he flashed me a smile, cut across the street, and was gone.

  * * *

  —

  That night I made my way to Amiriyeh, back to a house to which I would never have imagined I’d return. Not alone, in any case. After the encounter with Nasser Khodayar, I walked for hours with little sense of where I was going. Even if I could spare the money, no hotel would rent a room to a woman traveling on her own, so I had no choice but to spend the night at my mother’s house. Truly, there was nowhere else to go.

  “You’ve come by yourself, Forugh?” my mother asked as soon as she saw me at her door. She looked at my unbuttoned coat and my messy hair. It was past eight o’clock and my arrival had clearly startled her. She bit her lip nervously and peered over my shoulder. Then she placed her hand on my shoulder and hustled me inside.

  “Did Parviz send you away?” she asked as soon as we were in the house.

  “No,” I said, setting down my purse and shrugging off my coat.

  “Thanks be to God,” she sighed. “But he allowed you to come all the way to Tehran on your own?”

  When I didn’t answer, she asked me something I’d never heard from her before: “Are you all right, Forugh?”

  The worry in her voice gave me pause. Did she think he’d cast me out? Or hurt me in some way?

  “I missed home,” I said. It was, I realized in that moment, the truth.

  “I see,” she said quietly. “It’s sometimes that way. In the beginning especially.” As she said this I watched her hands, twisting and untwisting one corner of her apron. She seemed to want to tell me something more, something of her loneliness as a young bride, perhaps even of her loneliness now, but instead she drew her shawl tightly about her shoulders.