Tehran at Twilight by Salar Abdoh

Author:Salar Abdoh
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Akashic Books
Published: 2014-08-10T16:00:00+00:00

NEW YORK CITY

Soaad called almost every day. He had instructed her not to say anything of substance over the phone, so she mostly talked about missing him. They had settled into a familiar mother-son relationship that revolved around her asking if he ate well and got enough sleep. There was something both ridiculous in this and also reassuring. His last day in Tehran, she had insisted on coming to the airport with him. After seeing off his luggage, they had stood on opposite sides of the departures hall glass divider and looked at each other like they were each being sent into exile. As if this was it and there would never be another chance to be together again. It made him think of borders that could never be recrossed and, in turn, of Anna. One day Soaad had asked him, “Where was that town Anna was born in?”

“Does it really matter now where she was born?”

Yes, it did. She wanted to go there. She wanted to see what Anna had left behind.

“You really wish to do that?”

He had to understand, Soaad explained, Anna was all she had for so many years. “What if I lost you tomorrow, Rez? It would be the same. Anna and I, it was like we were two people stranded on some island. I owe her something.”

So he’d promised her Poland. Of all the places in the world, he had pledged to take her to Poland to “experience” Anna, and then to Fresno, California, so she could visit Malek’s father’s grave too.

Meanwhile, he put off the two tasks he’d been charged with back in Tehran. He avoided James and didn’t call Clara. Then, in the third week of February, there was a bombshell. James had written something online about his misadventures as a former Marine trying to work in academia. He wrote of carefree incompetence in the civilian world and contrasted it with the hard, crystal-clear reality of military life. In no time Malek got a call from the department head to come see him.

It was a planned attack. At the university, Malek walked quietly next to the department head into the office of one of the higher-ups where two men and one woman, none of whom he’d ever seen before, were waiting for him. The two men had almost identical ponytails and were both stocky, their expensive suits seemingly ready to pop open on them. And in their eyes, behind the reflections of their glasses, Malek could sense that they had been discussing him until the moment he walked through that door. The woman sat a little farther to the side. She had a small round head and was carefully dressed, an aging and precise administrator. It was the world of bureaucrats in this room, not professors. But they appeared friendly enough. Offered him coffee and asked him to sit in a comfortable chair.

Still, something about the setup reminded Malek of the times he had been “invited” to the Intelligence Ministry in Tehran to see if he would cooperate with them.

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