“He obviously doesn’t approve of a woman drinking,” I said, wondering to what extent Mahmood Majid himself approved.

“Oh, what does it matter?” he said. “You’re here to have a good time.”

He drank and I took some sips. The sun began to set, spreading pink, blue, and lavender across the sky. Then the colors disappeared quickly and the moon came out, standing behind a tall cypress.

A melancholy expression came over Mahmood Majid’s face as he drank. I imagined him sighing a lot, listening to romantic songs as he grieved over the loss of someone he loved. I pictured him sitting and staring at the dark waters of a river with lines of poetry filling his mind. Suddenly the barrier I had felt between us was lifted and I wanted to be held by him, to touch him.

I looked into his eyes. I saw them melt into mine. I turned to the window and back to him. “Do you feel like taking a walk?” I asked.

He suggested going into the garden. The garden was wild and overgrown and full of a strong scent of unfamiliar flowers. Many of the plants were brownish from underwatering and heat.

We walked along a narrow path, in part covered by trees. The garden seemed to be built on the ruins of something. Through the trees I could see remains of a dome stuck to a wall, half of a stairway leading to nothing.

The path ended at a low wall. We stood there, side by side, and looked beyond it. Some huts were built randomly on a flat plane. Water flowed heavily in a gutter running among the huts. Except for the ripples of water and the occasional barks of a dog it was very quiet.

I turned my head slightly towards Mahmood Majid. He had been waiting for a signal. He put his hand on my back, caressing it.

We kissed for a long time, letting go and starting again. To be held tighter, closer, more intimately by this extremely nice man, to lie with him in his room, strewn with silk cushions, its walls decorated with Persian miniatures. Swimming with him in a secluded corner, like the boys we had seen on the road.

There were sounds of footsteps and simultaneously a voice saying, “Excuse me, Dr. Majid …”

We turned around. A man was standing there.

“We have to shut the gates. The restaurant closes at ten o’clock. I’m very sorry,” he said.

I noticed for the first time that I had had the chador on all the time. Mahmood Majid’s face seemed sheepish. All I wanted to do was to leave the garden as soon as possible.

“You saw us coming here?” Mahmood Majid asked in a daze.

“The waiter was looking for you and then he saw you walking this way.”

“That’s right, we didn’t pay the bill,” Mahmood Majid said.

In the car he was quiet. I became tense. The attraction I had felt towards him was destroyed. We talked very little all the way back. He took me to my mother’s house without any hints of going to his house for a while. Perhaps he did have another woman—or maybe the fact that I was married inhibited him. He parked on the wider street near my mother’s house and walked with me. At the door we stopped and faced each other.