The room was cool with the breeze coming through a wind tower on the roof but the chill I felt seemed to go beyond that. She gave me a comforter and I lay under it. Then she left the room. I fell in and out of sleep.

I could hear footsteps of people coming into the room and leaving, voices in the courtyard. I heard my uncle saying to someone. “Do you know how important it is for my sister to have her daughter here? Actually have her right in this house?”

“Important,” I said the word to myself. “Important.”

Then it was dark and the pain convulsed the muscles of my back, stomach, and chest. I sat up and looked around. There was no one in the room. I got out of the bed and stood by the doorway. My mother and uncle were sleeping in the courtyard on mattresses spread on rugs. The sky was bright with masses of stars and a crescent moon. Every flower, every leaf was sharply delineated. I began to pace the room. Finally I went out and kneeled beside my mother.

“Mother,” I called.

She woke instantly and sat up. “What’s the matter?”

“I don’t feel well. I’m in pain all over.”

“What? Where does it hurt exactly?”

I tried to put my hand on the places but the pain was elusive.

My uncle sat up, awakened by our voices. “Is something wrong?”

“She says she’s in pain. We’d better get the doctor.”

“Would a doctor come here in the middle of the night?” I asked.

“Of course,” my mother said. “He’s a very good doctor. He was in the United States, became a doctor there.”

“Oh,” I said, somewhat relieved.

“I’ll walk over and get him,” my uncle said. “Let me get dressed first.”

He walked to the room, his motions fluid in the moonlight. He came out dressed and carrying his cane. “I’ll be back soon. The doctor lives about ten streets away.”

“Go back inside and rest now until the doctor comes,” my mother said to me.

9

I opened my eyes to the flicker of an oil lamp. My mother and uncle and a young man were sitting beside me.

“This is Dr. Mahmood Majid,” my uncle said.

The doctor and I nodded at each other.

He was thin and dark, with lively black eyes and a full beard. He looked at once alert and ascetic. He reminded me of students on Harvard Square trying to look Eastern. I stared at him, unprepared for his appearance. I had expected him to be stuffy-looking.

“I’m sorry you had to come in the middle of the night.”

“Never mind.” He sounded rather brusque. “Tell me, where does it hurt?”

I described the pain.

“How long have you had it?”

“Since I came to Iran—over a week ago—but it has gotten worse.”

“You waited that long to see a doctor?”

“I had no fever so I thought it couldn’t be serious. I kept taking aspirins.”