I followed the child into a small courtyard. In some spots the cement had cracked. Simin and two young girls sat on a rug eating watermelon. An old man leaned against the wall, puffing at a water pipe. They all looked sallow under a shadeless bulb hanging on the wall. There was a commotion as I walked in.

“What a nice surprise,” Simin said, getting up and embracing me. Then we sat on the rug. She introduced the girl who had opened the door to me as Zizi and the other two as Maryam and Ziba. She said her two sons were not home at the moment. Zizi smiled, blushed at the introduction, and her body jerked slightly. The other two were docile and quiet, and soon they got up and went inside.

Simin’s husband stared at me, dipped his head imperceptibly, and said, “It’s nice of you to pay us a visit.” Then he sank back into himself, puffing at the water pipe. I pictured him as he was years before when he sat on his wedding chair beside Simin. He had been old then too with all his thoughts submerged in the back of his eyes. Only now his eyes were more vacant.

“Maryam will be getting married soon,” Simin said.

“But she’s so young,” I protested.

“How can I refuse a husband for her? Anyway, fifteen is not that young. I was about that age when I got married.”

I could hear a radio playing soft, mournful Persian music. Simin filled a plate with slices of watermelon and put it before me. Zizi sat beside her father, leaning her head on his arm.

“Zizi can read and write. She’s very smart. She went to school for a few years,” Simin said.

“I like school,” Zizi said.

“Why haven’t you had any children?” Simin asked me. “It’s not natural to be married and have no children.”

“I had a miscarriage and after that I didn’t want to have a child. The desire disappeared.”

“I couldn’t conceive of living without my children. I’d feel dead, useless without them. Tell me, how do you spend your time every day?”

“I work. That takes most of my time.”

“Do you have someone to help you with the housework?”

“No, but I don’t have much housework. A lot of things are automatic in America, easier to do than here.”

“How nice that must be. But how do you feel living in a foreign land, without your family?” She assessed me carefully for the first time. “You’ve changed—you’ve become Western.”

“How have I changed?”

She looked thoughtful, not quite listening to me. “It must have been like hermits who go into a cave to try to forget their other lives …. Remember how close you and I were?”

“Yes, we were together all the time.” Simin had been bouncy and robust and I helplessly shy. We would play hide-and-seek and later, when older, we would talk and talk in the darkened courtyard, lit only by the flicker of a pressure lamp, or on a roof beneath stars. Then Simin was suddenly grown, about to get married.