Proust looked positively ecstatic hearing Miss Homa’s words. The two of them were on the same page; they wanted to experience the rapture of being extinguished like two moths in a candle. They wanted to die together. It was their pact. It was serendipity. And poetry.

It was also madness.

“You both wish this because it is in fashion now. It’s not something you can take back, you know.”

“Don’t insult my intelligence, Saleh. Will you help me?”

“To die in Karbala?”

Miss Homa nodded.

Proust turned to her, beaming. “I am your servant, Miss Homa.”

“Think hard, young man. I can leave you something. Enough for you to live a sufficient life.”

“No, I want what you want. I’ve already tasted it. Even if what I tasted was not real. I want to make my martyrdom real now. I cannot go back to what I had.”

“But you can go forward.”

“What would Imam Husayn do?”

“He would think both of you are mad,” I cut in.

They looked at me as if bothered by my presence. I seemed to no longer speak their language. One of them wanted to die so she could smother her own late fame and be finished with it, and the other wanted to die because of a glitch in the apparatus of martyrdom that had made him a hero before he was ready.

I added, “Besides, neither of you would be considered martyrs that way.”

“Saleh,” Miss Homa said, “please stop talking out of your ass. Martyrdom is just a word I use. You can call it anything. Call it ‘aluminum’ if you wish. It doesn’t matter to me. It is the act that matters.”

“And I’m already a martyr,” Proust said brightly. “I don’t need to do anything but finish the job and earn my title.”

There was nothing more to say. Neither of them could take an AK and defend a sater, waiting until a Toyota filled to the brim with explosives came crashing in. Yet they wanted what all the martyrs of Syria and all the dead Hashd boys of the land between the two rivers wanted. They just had to do it a bit differently.

“I need another strong drink,” I said with resignation.

“Don’t worry, Saleh,” Miss Homa said, “I am leaving you something too.”

I stared at her, waiting for her to continue.

“My biggest canvas that I still own.”

“Your rendition of the Goharshad Mosque cupolas?”

“It’s worth a good amount of change.”

Proust was beaming again. I considered ringing his neck right then and not waiting till Karbala. He said, “Just think, Saleh, you’ll be like Charon the boatman in Hades, and Karbala will be your River Styx.”

“And we your passengers,” Miss Homa pitched in.

Both of them seemed thrilled with this sudden Western classical allusion that showed off their learning.

“What if I don’t do it?” I asked.