A shadow appeared behind the translucent window on the shower door, covering it for an instant and disappearing. It was a featureless silhouette but I thought I recognized Darius’s face. I jumped against the wall and crossed my hands on my chest protectively. I was shaking with anger and shock. Then the incident seemed like a hallucination, the way the shape spread over the window, becoming larger and denser and then dissolving altogether.

3

Ziba sat behind a manual sewing machine in the living room, making seams on the dress I had brought for her. It was too large, she said, and she was determined to alter it before the relatives came. Around her lay a pile of other presents I had brought. She had examined them and tried some on to decide which relative should get what. The activity had made her cheerful—for the first time since I had come.

The room was covered with elaborately designed rugs and cushions. It had no windows. Rose-colored curtains hung on the doors opening into the courtyard. I leaned against the cushion near a half-opened door and looked at the goldfish in the pool outside. A mourning dove perched on the parapet, cooing. The smell of spicy food wafted in from the kitchen. My back and chest still hurt. I watched for signs of fever but the pain remained in the muscles. It could be from the long trip, I thought.

I regretted not having brought work to do—I had already read the biology journals I had brought with me. Time stretched ahead of me, dead-centered and nightmarish. I kept looking at my watch, amazed that only ten minutes or half an hour had passed, thinking how Tony and I would go into a state of frenzy if one of us or someone else was ten minutes late. At the beginning, when we planned to meet, I was usually at fault. Once Tony was so angry that he would not speak to me while I followed him for the fifteen-block walk to his university. I had fallen far behind and stood laughing in exasperation.

Now I picked up a magazine and tried to read it. I realized my reading of Persian had grown rusty. It was a gossip magazine—belonging to Darius probably—with articles about Elizabeth Taylor or Omar Sharif. The advertisements showed Western-looking models.

Ziba bit off the thread and stood up to try on the dress. “I wonder if I should wear such a bright color. I’m an old woman. I haven’t worn colors for so long.” She held the bottom of her dress and turned around like a little girl, looking at herself in the mirror behind a door.

“It’s good with your dark eyes and hair,” I said. She looked younger in the reddish dress.

She picked up a perfume bottle from the mantel and dabbed her chest with it. Patches of brown stained her dress and the air became full of the strong scent of jasmin.