In the afternoon the office would be crowded with students and other faculty members who came to talk to my boss. I would sit quietly.

Then one afternoon Tony came in and took a seat. My boss was away and he sat there waiting, impatiently tapping the desk with his fingers.

“Do you know when he’s coming back?” he asked me after a while.

“He should be back any minute.”

“Are you a student here?” he asked in an offhand way.

“I will be next year. And you?”

“I’m in urban planning. I want to talk to your boss about crowding, about how many people can occupy a certain space without going berserk.”

“That would be interesting to know,” I said awkwardly.

“Where are you from?”

“Iran.”

“It used to be called Persia. I liked that name better. It fits with my image of the place.”

“What’s your image?”

“Gardens springing up in the midst of deserts, magic carpets, caravans jingling in the night, and dark-eyed girls behind veils.”

“Not too bad,” I said.

He got up abruptly and went towards the door. “I wonder if he’s coming back.”

“Sometimes he just disappears like that.”

He went out and returned in a moment. “I’ve a request to make.”

“What?”

“I’m invited to a party tonight. Would you like to go with me?”

I was surprised and I hesitated.

“We don’t have to go to the party if you don’t want to.”

“Yes,” I said quickly before he would change his mind. “I’ll go to the party.”

He left and I sat there, suddenly in a state of euphoria. His eyes were so blue.

It was the blueness of his eyes, changeable, glinting like glass held against light, his blond hair, that cool way about him. He was so different from me, from all the men I had known while I was growing up.

The night I slept with him for the first time, we went for a walk along the Charles River, where other men and women strolled or reclined on the grass. The air was warm, carrying the nostalgia of early autumn.

Holding hands, we walked away from the grassy bank of the river towards a darker section and then into a narrow street.

In the middle of the street Tony pointed to a gray building and said, “That’s where I live. I have a small apartment—one room and a bathroom.”

“It’s a nice building,” I said and added hesitantly, “I’d like to see it.”

We went inside. He poured wine into glasses and gave one to me. He took out slices of dark bread from the refrigerator, cut them into small squares, and put them on a plate. Then he took out some cheese and put it on another plate, doing all this carefully, shaping everything into designs, making sure nothing remained with jagged, imperfect edges.

The same neatness dominated the apartment with its well-arranged furniture. Books and records lined one of the walls from floor to ceiling. The other walls were covered with burlap. A partition separated an area from the rest of the room to form the kitchen.