“I like it.”

“Don’t you find Kashan a little depressing?”

“Depressing? Not at all. When you’re better, take a walk around and see how much variety there is to the architecture, for instance. Those houses left from hundreds of years ago, along with the shabbiest huts, and then there are these modern houses.”

I was silent, acutely homesick again for the almost uniform houses in Lexington with their open green lawns and white shingles. The liveliness I had felt while talking to the doctor began to waver.

He listened to my silence and said, “Maybe you don’t see my point. Everything might seem haphazard and artless to you.”

“I can see getting used to it,” I said. Then unable to help myself, I said, “But what do you do in your free time? There is nothing to do here.”

“I have close friends here and that’s important. There are a lot of places to take excursions to on the weekends, and in the evenings you can always find a good restaurant and an occasional good movie.”

We passed a rivulet, not much wider than the gutters running along every street. Two young boys were swimming there, splashing water around and at each other. The moon flooded their bodies. Dr. Majid looked at them wistfully.

“Look, doesn’t that seem like fun to you?”

“What made you choose Kashan?” I asked.

“I knew I wanted to practice in Iran. When I came back I visited a lot of places and I liked Kashan the best. It’s so peaceful here.”

“But maybe not very exciting,” I persisted.

“Depends on what you mean by exciting.”

We had reached the hospital—an old grayish building. I almost choked with anxiety at the sight of it.

Dr. Majid drove into the parking lot and, perhaps sensing my fear, he said, “The hospital isn’t as bad as it looks. We just got some new equipment and we have some very good doctors and nurses.”

“You’ll be seeing me, right? Not another doctor?”

“Yes, don’t worry about it.”

He got out of the car and I followed.

Inside, he disappeared into a dim, long corridor. I gave the woman behind the reception desk the necessary information and waited. The walls were full of stains—of medicine, blood?—and flies settled on them freely. Three women, wearing black chadors, huddled together on a bench across from me, occasionally swaying together as though they were glued to one another.

Two men came in, carrying a stretcher with a body wrapped up in a sheet and everyone perked up, looking at them. The men stood there, motionless, still holding the stretcher while the woman behind the desk rang a bell. A nurse came and led them in.

“Heart attack,” one of the women said.

“There was blood on the sheet,” said the one sitting next to her.

“I heard some people have died of typhoid in Khasvin,” the third woman said.

“We have only one life; we all die one way or the other.”