THAT EVENING AT THE RESTAURANT, I knew that the man who had tortured my lover was about to arrive. The owner was looking nervous, and the cook pulled out his long knife to cut the good kind of lamb, and the waiter waited at the window.
Suddenly I remembered how, after my sister’s death, I had avoided windows. I remembered sitting in the dark for days, stretching and measuring the length of my beard, inviting fleas and other little creatures to invade my hair and feed on my dirty skin. I found darkness in my bathroom and a cradle in my bathtub. I wept until I heard echoes in the drain, like the fluttering of sails, telling me to leave. I shaved and then I sailed away from that room, that house, that land, thinking that all was past, all was buried, all would come to an end.
Now I walked over to Sehar and asked her if she needed bubble gum and gave her a small wink. Yes, she said, go. I will tell my father that I sent you.
I walked across the street to the depanneur and called Shohreh.
It seems like the man is coming tonight, I said.
She asked me if the girl was there. Then she said, I will be there in half an hour.
Shaheed entered with his bodyguard, and the owner rushed to meet him. Everyone got busy. After half an hour I went to the basement, opened the back door to the alley, and put a piece of wood against the frame to keep the door from closing behind me. I opened the lid of the dumpster just outside the building and perched at the edge of the big green metal bin. I had never looked inside it before. I balanced my feet on the rim, and somehow the old smells, the gooey liquid that stained the bin inside and out, felt familiar, a déjà vu of old smells and dark landscapes, like the abstract pattern inside small coffee cups after the black liquid has been sucked down the abyss of tongue and throat. And I suddenly remembered every slice of vegetable that I had swept, that I had carried in garbage bags and thrown over the rim and inside that green metal bin. And when I looked behind me at the ground, the stained ground, I felt like I was high up, hanging from a tree or on the edge of a cliff, balancing with two extended arms. I almost forgot why I had come here in the first place.
Then I remembered. I searched for the bag that my lover had left me, and soon I found it. The gun was inside a white plastic bag, wrapped in many folds. I looked down towards the end of the alley and saw Majeed’s taxi across the street, its signal light blinking like fear.
I hopped down and took the gun and went inside. I found some rope, cut it with a knife, and went straight to the bathroom. I tied the gun behind the toilet seat, wrapped it against the pipe, and left the knife on top of the tank.
I went back up to the kitchen. The owner was looking for me, and now he asked me to clean the kitchen floor with water and soap. I filled the bucket and got the mop and started to swing it like a slave in a dry field. I hummed and sang an old song that I had half forgotten. The smell of cooking onion rose from the stove. The cook was happily sprinkling spices, wiping his bloodstained fingers against his apron, chopping things on the counter, pouring water, covering the rice, and humming like a shepherd in a distant land. Through the opening that looked over the dining room, I kept my eye on the entrance.
Then I heard Shohreh’s knock on the glass.
The bodyguard stood up and walked towards the door.
Shohreh asked for Sehar.
When Sehar saw Shohreh, she ran to the door, took Shohreh’s hand, and pulled her to her table. The bodyguard went back and sat at the bar in his usual seat. He looked bored. He moved his head occasionally, mostly to look at his boss. The owner talked to his daughter in Farsi, and the daughter answered back in English. She is my teacher, Sehar said to her father about Shohreh.
Shohreh had kept her sunglasses on. She was preoccupied and not attentive to the girl’s talk. She kept glancing over at the table where the bald man ate. The man was oblivious to my lover’s scent, to her long, covered thighs, her large, dark eyes. In the dungeon he had taken her from behind, on a metal desk that was cold in the winter and burned her skin in the summer. After he finished eating, he took a white napkin and wiped his dirty fingers, his wet mouth. He caught his breath, satisfied with the taste of the lamb.
I lifted my mop like a flag on a battlefield, and I heard the drums of Indians coming from the north. I bowed my head to the fire on the stove and circled around it. I said yes to the owner, and poured more water from my bucket onto the floor.
Shohreh released herself from Sehar’s grip and went downstairs. I did not hear her fluid cascading against porcelain. I did not hear her laugh, cry, sing, shake her hips. But I did hear the cutting of ropes, the swinging of arms, and I heard the gallop of Persian horses ascending the wooden stairs. I heard the clang of pots and swords, the long knives, the cries of slaughtered sheep. I heard nature’s stillness just before it sends its wind sweeping through the land.
Shohreh pointed the gun at the bodyguard and told him to stand still and to lift his hands in the air. It took a few seconds for the owner and the bald man to notice the gun, and in those moments Shohreh walked towards the table, calling the man by his name: Shaheed, she shouted. Shaheed! And she proceeded to talk to him in Farsi. She took off her sunglasses and laid them on the table and her eyes shone. Her hands stretched out and she pointed the gun at the man.
The owner mumbled and swung his head left and right, like a goat with its feet tied. Shaheed did not move. He did not look scared, or surprised. He was composed, calm, with an air of indifference. Arrogance showed on his face. He talked back to Shohreh and quickly glanced at his bodyguard.
Shohreh told the owner to move away from Shaheed, and the owner quickly hurtled towards the kitchen door, flying across carpets and tables. His daughter looked on, amused and unafraid, but her father grabbed her arm on the way out and she followed him. The cook dropped his big knife on the counter and peered through the kitchen opening.
Shohreh asked Shaheed to stand up. He hesitated, then stood up slowly. He picked up his napkin and wiped his mouth again, and then talked calmly to Shohreh. He extended his arm and took a little step towards her, asking her for the gun.
Shohreh moved back a few steps towards the kitchen door, shouted at him, and pressed the trigger on the gun. She missed. The bullet hit the wall and ricocheted onto the bar, breaking glasses. Everyone ducked except me and the bodyguard. Shohreh shook her head and screamed at the man. Shohreh! she shouted her own name, Shohreh Sherazy! She ordered the man to turn around and bend his upper body over the table, which he did.
I saw the bodyguard move towards the kitchen and slowly position himself closer to Shohreh. While Shaheed calmly talked to my lover, the bodyguard moved slowly into position behind her.
As I watched the bodyguard, I thought how he reminded me of a large man who once pushed me for no reason. I was in a bar drinking, and the man next to me wanted to talk about sports. When I told him that I did not give a damn about sports or chasing an invisible puck, he fell quiet. And then, for no apparent reason, he shoved me down from my stool. I fell on the floor and my drink spilled over me. The man looked back at the TV and continued watching his game. I left the bar and paced across the street. I hated the cold, and the wetness of the alcohol on my clothing made me feel even colder. When the man walked out of the bar and went down the street to his car, I picked up a large stone and flew at him with all four wings and hit him on the head. The man was so strong that it seemed as if he barely felt it. He turned and looked at me, smiling. I thought he was about to crush me, to step on me and twist his shoe sideways so that my cartilage would crack and pus would squeeze out of my entrails, but suddenly he collapsed. I took the stone again and threw it at the windshield of the man’s car. I thought: Now when the bastard goes on a long drive down the highway, he will have a taste of what the insect thrown at him by the wind can do.