I woke, shivering.

Then I fell into a heavy sleep with no dreams and next time I woke it was dawn. Tony would be back in Lexington by now. I wondered what action he would take about getting us back together or if he would wait for me to do so. He might not take me back if I went to him. The thought gave me no real pain.

There were the obvious reasons for my wanting to stay on—dissatisfaction with Tony, my job, a yearning to spend more time with my mother and make up for what was already lost, a need to delve deeper and deeper into my past. But as I lay there in early dawn, I realized there was another reason. As the days went by I had begun to learn not to panic about unplanned time. How nice it would be to wake in the morning and know that time was my own, and be able to enjoy it.

A rooster crowed. A muezzin began to call people to prayer. I used to love waking at dawn to those sounds and watching my mother rising and bending in prayers. Her face, surrounded by her chador, seemed infinitely peaceful and benevolent. I would lie in bed, my eyes half-closed, and follow the rhythm of her movements. My father prayed earlier so that he could leave for the bazaar. I never saw him pray at that hour.

Later in the day I wrote a letter to my director, telling him I was taking an indefinite leave and therefore did not expect to be hired back if I returned. He was a tall, gray-haired man who always looked distracted behind his glasses. He had become famous while he was still a graduate student for synthesizing simple enzymes, and was now working on more complex hormones.

I tried to picture his reaction to my resignation. He would be disconcerted and surprised at first and then would say women are risks.

After sealing the letter I began to pace the room. Ironically my head was suddenly full of ideas for experiments.

21

“You think I haven’t suffered?” my father asked, going to the edge of the roof, sulking.

Before us stretched an expanse of other rooftops, mosquito nets, beddings, clothes hanging on ropes, ornate chimneys and parapets.

“I know you have. But I have to spend some time with my mother.” I went over to him and looked down into a courtyard across the street. A young, paralyzed girl used to live there. Her mother and brother would lift her by her legs and shoulders every evening and carry her into a room to bring her out again the next morning. Sometimes she would wail and rapidly move her head. Her brother was a heroin addict, a gaunt, middle-aged man who sat for long hours by his sister’s bed, his back stooped, his head lowered.

“Go then, if that’s what you want,” my father said, and began to cough, his face growing red. When the coughing subsided he said, “I have hopes of your marrying a nice Iranian man, having children. Of your becoming the head of a school. That would please all of us.”