The Stationery Shop Read online

  Suddenly someone grabbed her shoulder. “Roya!”

  She turned to see who had called her name. His hair was stuck to his head with sweat. He panted and was wrung out with anxiety. Her vision blurred, but when it cleared, she realized it was Mr. Fakhri. His eyes were raw with a desperation Roya had never seen before.

  “Oh, thank God! Mr. Fakhri! Have you seen—”

  “Roya Khanom, please listen to me. . . .” He clutched her shoulders with both hands now, wild with an urgency that frightened her. She had never seen him outside of his cool, clean shop except for the night of their engagement party, when they’d both witnessed Mrs. Aslan’s sad meltdown. Here, under the burning sun and amidst the crowd, he seemed almost feral, a mad version of the quiet man who had handed her poetry books and abetted her correspondence with the lover whom she sorely needed to see right now.

  “I just need to find Bahman,” she shouted above the noise.

  “Roya Khanom, I need for you to please know something—”

  His voice was drowned out by gunshots. Shouts filled the air. The smell of sulfur stung her nostrils. From her peripheral vision, she saw two tanks at the edge of the square. It couldn’t be. She shook off Mr. Fakhri and swerved to see better. The bastards. Soldiers stood on the tanks aiming rifles. And a few people stood with them on the tanks waving pieces of paper that looked like money.

  Did her body swivel slowly? Or swiftly? Did she stare at the soldiers just one second too long? What made her shake him off and twist around to see the young, uniformed soldiers on top of their tanks surrounded by men and women waving money? Why did she loosen herself from Mr. Fakhri’s hold? Why did she turn? Why did she let go of him?

  Why did she get away?

  Next to her she felt something shift, slump, sink to the ground.

  “Mr. Fakhri!” He lay on the ground, writhing. Blood spread across his chest. She squatted down and grabbed his arms and screamed, “He’s been shot, he’s been shot!”

  A few people formed a circle around her and Mr. Fakhri. She was watching a girl kneel by a man shot in the crowd. It was happening to someone else. It couldn’t be happening to them.

  Shouts and warnings and noise all around. Two rivulets of blood streamed from Mr. Fakhri’s eyes and ran down his face. She touched his soaked shirt, his bloody torso.

  Suddenly she was shoved aside. A man straddled Mr. Fakhri’s body and pumped his heart with both hands while other men and women hovered and bustled and tried to help. In the midst of the din—so loud it swallowed all noise and grew into a kind of silence—she heard only one sound clearly, crisply. The tear of cloth. A melon-colored piece of someone’s clothing was wrapped around Mr. Fakhri’s upper chest, around his heart. Soon it was soaked red.

  Only Mr. Fakhri’s eyes moved. Even with blood streaming, he looked over. Not at her, not at the man bent over him trying to save his life, not at the group of people holding on to him, chanting prayers for him. Mr. Fakhri’s eyes looked to the left of the square, toward the embassies, toward the street that held his shop.

  Roya followed his gaze. Maybe it was gunpowder or her own blurred vision from tears, but she thought she saw a cloud of smoke rise from that direction. Before she could be sure, the man pumping Mr. Fakhri’s chest collapsed over him. “He’s gone!” he cried. An older man near them rocked back and forth and chanted prayers.

  After several minutes, a few men quietly lifted Mr. Fakhri, hoisted him up into the air, and carried him above their heads.

  In this way, Roya and a small group carrying Mr. Fakhri with his heart wrapped in melon-colored cloth left the crowd. In shock and silence, people made way for them. At other spots in the square, the mob was parting for others who were carried out in the same way. What had started as something of a joke, a game, a boisterous show, a performance with jugglers, had ended in this: a demonstration, a riot. It had brought out police and soldiers. And it had killed the stationer.

  “Take him to the hospital!” a woman yelled as Roya followed the small procession out of the crowd. “Every single one of these unjust deaths needs to be recorded.”

  To be recorded. With a pencil and a pad. On clean sheets of paper.

  She tried not to throw up.

  Sirens wailed and police shoved their way through. The core of the crowd moved northward despite the chaos.

  When their small group exited the square and turned right to head toward the hospital, Roya stopped. She had already given Mr. Fakhri’s name and occupation to the man who’d tried to save his life. The others had insisted that she go home. They had told her this was no place for a young girl. Thank you for the information, we will make sure to have it rightfully recorded. The family will be notified. We’ll make sure of it. Now, you, young girl, go home. This is no place for a young lady. You’ve seen enough.

  Trash cans set on fire dotted the side streets as she made her way to the corner of Churchill Street and Hafez Avenue. Broken windows in office buildings, shards of glass on the ground were a kaleidoscopic horror. Nauseated, Roya forced herself to go in the direction of Mr. Fakhri’s gaze during those last minutes of his life.

  When she got to the street that held the Stationery Shop, the windows of the small market nearby—near where the beet seller would sometimes drop his mat to pray at noon—were black holes. The roof of a newspaper kiosk near the shop was bathed in smoke. And the building that housed the shop itself danced in flames so high that they looked like they could swallow the sky.

  Roya stood in front of the shop, numbed by fire. The licking flames danced and soared. She was drained of movement, energy, feeling. It was too late. They could do nothing. From a distance she heard the wail of a firetruck. They’d come. They’d try.

  But flames consumed the walls, the windows, the roof, the beams of support.

  Crinkled, blackened pages of books fluttered out of the flames. They floated in the air, suspended for a minute, and then dissolved as black ash when they hit the ground.

  One day she might forget the helplessness of standing there while words burned. One day she might be far away from this terror. But the smell of charred paper would always be part of her, embedded in her skin. As she stood in front of the burning shop, she remembered the traditional bonfires lit before Persian New Year, how she and Zari jumped over the flames squealing with joy, their faces flushed from the heat, their hearts soaring.

  Soon there would be nothing.

  The words she had loved, the poetry books in which her letters had been exchanged, the tablets of notepaper and bottles of ink and fountain pens and pencil sharpeners, scorched to nothing. The hidden political pamphlets in the back storage room, the colored pencils tied into bouquets with ribbon, the sanctuary and the secrets inside—Mr. Fakhri’s life sizzled into nothing.

  She wondered if the bell above the door would withstand the fire. If she were to find it, lift it, shake it, would it still ring?

  Through the gate into the courtyard, past the koi pond, and into the cool sanctuary of her house she went.

  Inside, her family was still deep in their afternoon nap. Maman’s big bowl lay in the kitchen sink, the one in which she always served the chicken and prune khoresh stew. Zari lay wrapped in her shamad cotton sheet in bed. In the next room, Baba snored and Maman lay next to him. Her slippers were lined up neatly on the floor. Everyone was accounted for, safe. Her family had no idea what was happening in the squares of Tehran, the force making its way north, the danger of the crowd. They did not know Mr. Fakhri’s fate; they could not smell the smoke from the Stationery Shop. They had had their chicken and prune stew with rice and taken their afternoon nap as if it were any other day. And Bahman was nowhere to be found. Had she really gone to the square expecting to see him, with a rose in his hand, wearing his crisp white shirt, ready to whisk her away so they could get their marriage papers? It seemed vaguely amusing now to think she could have had those expectations.

  When her family woke and turned on the radio, they would learn that the mob had made
its way all the way to the home of Prime Minister Mossadegh. People had scaled the walls and entered his house. Mossadegh had managed to escape through a window and climb a ladder to his neighbor’s. When her family woke up from their afternoon nap, when Zari popped open her eyes and stretched, when Maman went into the kitchen to put the tea on the samovar, when Baba turned on the radio at 2 p.m., they would learn that the coup conspirators had overtaken the broadcasting station in Shemiran Avenue and that the crowd had attacked the prime minister’s house, looted it, burned some of its contents, run off with the rest. Destroyed it.

  This time the coup had succeeded. This time the world had changed forever.

  But first, while her family still slept, Roya padded around the house in her ankle socks. Alone, she wept for Mr. Fakhri, for Bahman, for her new country. She did not even notice, nor would she have cared, that the white ankle socks, the ones she had bought to meet Bahman again so they could get their marriage papers and be husband and wife, were now splattered red and blackened by smoke—stained with the blood of a man who had died at her feet as she tried to find the man she loved.

  Chapter Thirteen

  1953

  * * *

  Dream Destiny

  Zari brought her hot tea mixed with nabat, the rock sugar that was supposed to cure most ailments: an upset stomach, the flu, menstrual cramps, possibly heartbreak, never grief. She sat at the edge of the bed and pressed the glass into Roya’s hand. “Drink.”

  Roya lifted her chin to indicate “no.” She did not want tea, she did not need Zari. But even the small movement of her chin made her head feel like it would burst.

  “Come on. Sit up. You’ve been in bed all day. Look, yesterday was the worst day in the history of time to meet at a square in the middle of Tehran. He’s probably just derailed. I’m sure he’s fine. And Mr. Fakhri—” Zari stopped. Then she whispered, “God bless his soul. He was . . . in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  They sat in silence for what felt like hours. Roya couldn’t tell or feel time anymore.

  “Now drink,” Zari finally said.

  Roya reluctantly took the glass and sipped. A nerve throbbed above her right eye. Did Bahman even know Mr. Fakhri had died? Had he been involved in trying to stop the coup? Was he with a bunch of pro-Mossadegh activists in prison now?

  “Bahman’s probably been arrested. Maybe killed too,” Roya said.

  “You have no idea if that’s true.”

  Roya had called and called—again—but there was still no answer at his house.

  “Not to be a pest, but, Sister, he probably never planned on meeting you. I mean, where the hell has he been for the past few weeks anyway? And who writes a letter saying ‘meet me at a square in the center of the city’ when all this ridiculous political stuff is going on? I knew it was a bad idea, I told you.”

  “He couldn’t have known there’d be another coup attempt when he wrote the letter. He just wanted to see me,” was all Roya could manage to say.

  “If he’s such an activist, such a protective gentleman—he was supposed to have enough brains not to ask a seventeen-year-old girl to stand in the middle of the square at times like this, for God’s sake! With people being shot! I cannot believe Baba even let you go!” Zari looked down at her hands. “Sometimes Baba tries too hard to be all modern and progressive, if you ask me. Sometimes women do need protection.”

  Even in her heightened state, Roya could see that Zari was speaking out of worry and a grief for Mr. Fakhri that she wasn’t even equipped to express. Roya let her sister fume and vent about Bahman and say that the worst thing in the world was to fall in love with someone who was in love with politics.

  Roya waited all that day to hear from him. Hours stretched out, and still nothing. Everyone she asked was shell-shocked from the coup. When she got in touch with Bahman’s friends, each one said something different. His old classmates told her they still hadn’t heard from him, but they insisted that Bahman would not have been involved in anything on the streets. Another friend said that maybe Bahman had gone to a square during the coup and was actually arrested and that they should contact every prison to find him. When asked, Jahangir only cursed and said that a man nobler than Mr. Fakhri did not exist, for God’s sake, and how could the soldiers just randomly shoot into the crowd, and he hoped Bahman was fighting every day to bring Prime Minister Mossadegh back to power. Roya had no idea whom she could trust. She had always assumed that Bahman’s friends were on his side, that they had his back. But when Jahangir ranted about the Shah, Roya began to feel a seed of doubt. Could Jahangir be egging her on so she’d reveal something anti-Shah to him? Maybe he was a spy. It revolted her to think that she was now suspicious of everyone. She couldn’t even fully trust Jahangir.

  The rumor of foreign agents being involved in displacing the prime minister was already being discussed in bazaar stalls and in cafés over espressos and in living rooms everywhere. Zari countered every conspiracy theory with: Okay, what if they did pay them with foreign money? What about our own people? We have spineless thugs who are only too happy to take to the streets to repeat whatever the slogan of the day is. And to take money from the Americans to do their bidding!

  Roya couldn’t sleep. When she did, it was in fits and spurts but with vivid, detailed dreams.

  In the dream that haunted her the most, she entered Mr. Fakhri’s shop, the bell above the door ringing like always. Inside, it smelled of ink and books; the familiar comforting coolness enveloped her. At first she didn’t see Mr. Fakhri, but then there he was, behind the counter, writing in his inventory book, the fountain pen gliding across the page. He looked like himself again: clean and calm, his glasses on straight. He had nothing of the wild look that she remembered from that fateful day in the square.

  He looked up and for just a second panic crossed his face. Then he broke into his usual smile. In the polite voice to which Roya was accustomed, he asked how her parents were doing, how her sister, Zari Khanom, was, how all of the extended family fared, if all was going well in their neighborhood, may they all be healthy and live long lives. He added extra heapings of Persian tarof—the formal niceties required in every social interaction.

  “Have you heard from Bahman?” she asked.

  “Roya Khanom, no.”

  “Nothing at all?”

  “Not one word.”

  “But he was delivering his letters to you till just a few days ago. Right?”

  Mr. Fakhri sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “My advice to you, young lady, is to forget about that young man. Move on with your life. Get married. Have children. Be good.”

  “I’m sorry?” Roya’s heart banged against her chest. “Get married is exactly what I am going to do. I’m engaged to him.”

  “Yes, well, sometimes engagements don’t work out. Did you know that?” He said the words delicately, as if they could break her if he said them carelessly.

  “I want to know if he’s all right. No one has heard from him. I just thought maybe you had, since—”

  Mr. Fakhri held up his hand. “We do not always get what we want, Roya Khanom. Things do not always work out the way we planned. Those who are young tend to think that life’s tragedies and miseries and its bullets will somehow miss them. That they can buoy themselves with naïve hope and energy. They think, wrongly, that somehow youth or desire or even love can outmatch the hand of fate.” He took a breath. “The truth is, my young lady, that fate has written the script for your destiny on your forehead from the very beginning. We can’t see it. But it’s there. And the young, who love so passionately, have no idea how ugly this world is.” He rested both hands on the counter. “This world is without compassion.”

  Roya felt like she had suddenly been soaked in ice.

  “You would do well to remember that,” Mr. Fakhri said. A low, grating whistle passed between his teeth. He took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes, and finally said, “It seems to me that he never loved you. It was all a game for him.”r />
  Roya would wake up with a start then, soaked with cold sweat.

  Even awake, she could feel Mr. Fakhri in the Stationery Shop as it used to be, taking inventory of his stock, organizing the translations of authors from all over the world. She could see him dust the table that carried volumes of poetry, including the ones in which she and Bahman had passed their notes. He had opened up a world of possibilities for her, offering a place where her dreams had formed into a viable path, where she had escaped the tumult of politics and found refuge. Where she had fallen in love.

  She could still feel the shelves digging against her back where she had leaned as Bahman pressed into her, whispering to her.

  But in her dream, Mr. Fakhri always said that Bahman had never loved her. He told her to start a new chapter of her life. Even if so many unanswered questions remained in this one.

  He had been their ally, their encouraging chaperone. A middle-aged man dusting books and arranging school stationery in a shop, talking to the young and helping them secretly get access to political material and exchange love notes.

  He was gone. He was gone, and but for the grace of God, it could have been her. Quite possibly should have been her. It was something she would always carry, like a scar, like a cold truth, like the sizzling embers of the shop’s remains embedded in her skin, like the body of Mr. Fakhri carried invisible above her extended arms forever.

  Now that Mr. Fakhri was gone, she thought about him more than ever. What personal pain he had carried inside, she did not know.

  Part Two