“Go ahead, you know where the phone is,” my father said. “Don’t worry about reversing it—I’ll pay for it.”

“Thank you,” I said.

He shook his head. “I’m your father.”

“Do you want me to help you?” Darius asked.

“No, I can do it.” I looked at my watch. It was three o’clock. About midnight in Lexington. That was a good time to call. I would be certain to get Tony at home. I went into the living room, where the telephone was, and dialed the international operator. She spoke in English and for an instant I was at a loss for words. Finally I managed to tell her the number. There was a short wait, and then she put me through.

Instead of Tony, another man answered, in a sleepy voice.

“May I speak to Tony?” I said. “This is Feri, his wife.”

“Oh, hello. This is Jerry. Where are you?”

“I’m in Iran. Is Tony there?”

Jerry was a graduate student at the university where Tony taught.

“Sorry, Tony isn’t here. He went away.”

“Went away? Where to?”

“I’m not sure. I needed a place this week and he said I could stay here.”

“When is he coming back?”

“In about a week. Do you want me to leave a message for him?”

“No, it’s better if I call back.” My father, Darius, and Ziba did not know English. If Tony called when I was out, they would not be able to take his message.

I hung up and held my head in my hands. I wanted to cry but tears would not come. A sharp pain flashed through my chest and disappeared. The pain came every so often now but had not gotten worse.

Tony had gone away without telling me. Where, I wondered. Why? Was he with someone else? A woman? Some months before, on a fall evening, we had gone to visit our friends, Julie and Kenneth. We had spent most of the evening drinking wine and smoking marijuana.

I had suggested going for a walk. We passed from street to street, pausing now and then to look at the unusual shapes of windows or the designs shadows made on a tree trunk. The air was warm, the lights blinked fuzzily.

Tony and Julie had gotten far ahead of Kenneth and me and had disappeared into another street. I was beginning to feel uncomfortable.

“I think they went that way,” Kenneth said, looking uncomfortable too.

We began to walk faster, turning into a long side street and then the path off it.

I stopped for a fraction of a second before I resumed walking. Had Kenneth missed what I had seen? Had I seen anything? Later, when I went over it, turning it round and round in my head, it seemed unreal, imaginary. But at the time I thought I saw it with certainty. Underneath a large tree, near a hedge, Tony and Julie stood in an embrace, kissing. Then, as though within the same fraction of a second, they were merely standing side by side, staring at something beyond the hedge.