“Sister, you have to cheer up. Come on. It’s been weeks since he left, and you just have the long face all the time. You have his letters, right? I thought that made you feel better.”
Roya didn’t know how much she could confide in Zari, but her sister was all she had. “His last letter was a bit strange,” she finally confessed.
“Oh?” Zari picked up a green plum and bit into it.
“It was all about his worry that Prime Minister Mossadegh would be overthrown in a coup.”
“How very romantic.”
Roya lay down on the rug and put her hands behind her head. The sun felt good on her face, though Maman would hate that she was exposing her skin to the rays. Maman’s nemesis was the sun: she worried about freckles and a tan. She believed her daughters should remain as light-skinned as possible. It drove Roya crazy that Iranians were considered more beautiful if their skin was lighter. Tears crammed her eyes. She wanted to be with Bahman. Whether it was biology or foolishness or youth that was at the root of it, nothing could make this all-encompassing desire go away.
Suddenly Zari’s plum-juice soaked fingers were stroking her cheek, wiping the tears. “Come on. Enough. I’m sure he’s fine. He’s probably just away for . . . a good reason. I bet they are up north by the sea, that’s all. Lord knows his mother couldn’t stop showing off about their villa there, rubbing our faces in it. Come on, Sister. I’m sure he is fine.”
“He would have told me,” Roya said, as Zari’s sticky, plummy fingers continued to wipe her face. “He’s probably arrested. Or else in hiding for a bad reason. He would have told me if he was just going up north to the villa.”
The shouts of the melon seller pushing his cart in the streets below sounded like a voice of mourning, almost like a call to prayer. In the hot, relentless summer heat, it sounded like grief.
“Get yourself up, Sister. Pull it together. Go to the shop. I bet there’s a letter waiting for you.”
When Roya arrived at the Stationery Shop, Mr. Fakhri was attending to other customers. She waited patiently for him to be done with the transactions and eyed the other customers warily. No one knew anymore who could be an anti-Mossadegh spy.
“I apologize, Roya Khanom, but I have orders to fill. It’s inventory time. I have calculations to make,” Mr. Fakhri said after the last customer left.
“Of course.” She was taken aback by how direct he was, but maybe he was just busy. “I just wondered if you have . . . anything for me?”
The bell rang and they both looked at the door. A woman swiftly turned around so her back was to them. Roya couldn’t make out her face.
Mr. Fakhri looked dumbstruck. “Give me a minute,” he said distractedly to Roya.
He disappeared into the back for longer than usual and returned with an envelope. She was alarmed that he hadn’t tucked it away between the pages of a book. The envelope looked vulnerable and dangerous in Mr. Fakhri’s hands. She wished he would hide it.
As though he’d read her mind, he said, “When there’s no one around, of course I can just give you the letter. No need to hide it right now.”
Roya looked around. The woman was nowhere to be seen.
“Oh,” she said. “I just thought that . . . well, never mind. Thank you.”
She reached for the envelope, but Mr. Fakhri held on to it. For a second, it looked like he’d changed his mind, and Roya wondered if a policeman, or perhaps the woman she’d seen moments earlier, had entered the shop again without her hearing the bell, or if someone suspect had suddenly emerged from the shelves.
“Mr. Fakhri?”
He looked at her with great worry. Then he loosened his grasp on the envelope. “There you go, young lady. There you go. Just . . .” He sucked in his breath. “Please be careful.”
“Of course,” Roya said, puzzled at his tone.
The letter was short, but it was everything.
I can’t bear this any longer. I’m coming back. I will explain everything. Please forgive me, Roya Joon. I know this can’t have been easy on you. I don’t ever want us to have to go through being apart again. I can’t wait to be with you, to really be with you. I know the wedding is planned for the end of summer; I know your mother has her preparations. But I have an idea. Will you come with me to the Office of Marriage and Divorce? We can participate in a short official ceremony there, we can be legally wed. It would mean the world to me. If you agree, please write back, and give your letter to Mr. F. as soon as possible, and we can do it. I promise you, my love. Meet me at Sepah Square, at the center, a week from today. Wednesday, the 28th of Mordad. 12 noon. Or a little later, if I can’t help it. Meet me there, and once and for all we will be one. The excitement of seeing you will keep me going through these next few days.
In the hopes of seeing you again—soon!
You are my love.
Bahman
Chapter Twelve
August 19, 1953
* * *
Coup d’État
On the night of August 15, 1953, a Colonel Nassiri and his men went to Prime Minister Mossadegh’s house with a decree from the Shah demanding that the prime minister step down. But, as Roya later learned, Mossadegh had caught wind of the attempted coup and was ready when Colonel Nassiri’s forces arrived. Colonel Nassiri was arrested and declared a traitor. The next morning, Baba, who always listened to Radio Tehran at exactly 6 a.m., slapped the radio repeatedly because it was stunningly silent. Finally, about an hour later, military music exploded into the house. Baba must have turned up the volume to its highest hoping to get any news. The announcer updated the country on the treasonous ousting attempt. Prime Minister Mossadegh came on the air; the Shah and foreign forces had attempted a coup, he explained, but it had been averted. All was fine. Baba couldn’t move for a good fifteen minutes.
“It’s all right, Baba. They failed,” Roya reassured him.
“I cannot believe they actually tried,” Baba said. His face was drained.
“But they didn’t succeed. Mossadegh is safe. Everything will go back to normal,” Roya said. She wanted to reassure him as well as herself. She was to meet Bahman in just a few days and nothing could go wrong.
They listened to the news that the Shah had grabbed his wife and a few belongings and flown a plane himself to escape to Baghdad in the middle of the night.
Baba was livid. “Shame on him,” he said. “To try to oust the good prime minister and then to flee when it didn’t work out! That’s what happens when you allow greedy imperialist countries to influence you. The British are behind it all, mark my words. And quite possibly the Americans.”
“The Americans? They’d never do such a thing. They’re not crafty like that,” Maman said.
Roya was filled both with relief and fear. Bahman had been right: people had plotted against Mossadegh, and the Shah’s decree had even chosen a General Zahedi as a replacement for the prime minister. But thank goodness Mossadegh had stopped it. Over the next few days, as more and more coup conspirators were arrested, Roya counted the days and then the hours. She could hardly wait for Wednesday to arrive. She wanted to see Bahman again more than anything. Was he still safe? Had he had anything to do with all of this? If not and he was simply in hiding, what must he be thinking about these crazy events?