The Leave

Mr. Bidar watered the plants and sprayed more water on the stone surface of the courtyard and the leaves of the trees until all the grounds smelled of the freshness and fragrance of the years gone by: the smell of the years when his son was alive and his daughter was right here. She would come by in the afternoons to sit on the porch and read books, or to stand watching him from the shade of the trees as he watered the flowerbeds or touched up the flowers. Every afternoon, Mr. Bidar would enter the courtyard to lightly groom his flowers and trees, and putter about the planters arranged near the flowerbeds. All his passion was for these things; it was how he kept himself busy and idled away his time. He knew that his children made fun of him and didn’t take his pastime seriously. His love for the flowerbeds, for crossbreeding, spading, fertilizing and such commonplace activities, seemed ridiculous to them. Both his children had far more important demands on their time, and for this very reason, one had been executed and the other imprisoned for four and a half years—four and a half years with no one there to watch him as he watered his flowers. His wife never came into the courtyard, or even out onto the porch—at least, not in the afternoon while he watered the flowerbeds. She didn’t show the slightest interest in his pastime, and she didn’t bother to pretend she cared. Not even by force could he show her a fresh flower bud or a newly developing fruit. The fruits would remain on the trees so long that they rotted there, the flowers would wither, and there was no one to cut them or arrange them in the empty enameled vase on the cupboard in their sitting room.

Today, however, someone was on her way who would see the blossoming buds on the trees, and who would enjoy cutting them bunch by bunch and placing them in the empty vases on the cupboard—someone whom Mr. and Mrs. Bidar had awaited for four and a half years. Prison officials had called this morning to say that they had given Farangis a leave and she would be arriving home this afternoon. They didn’t say at exactly what time, but they did say that they would drop her at the front gate themselves.

Mrs. Bidar had nearly fainted at the other end of the line. She had been struck speechless and unable to ask anything, but there had been no time for questions in any case. They had hung up the phone immediately after, and she had kept screaming and crying: “Hello? Hello!” but no one had replied.

Mr. Bidar had asked, “Who is it?”

“It was from the prison,” Mrs. Bidar had replied. “Farangis is coming home.”

“Has she been freed?”

“No. They’ve given her a leave.”

“How many days?”

“I didn’t ask. He didn’t say.”

This news was unexpected and exceedingly strange to both of them. It was four months ago that Mrs. Bidar had gone to visit her daughter, and after that no other visits had been permitted. That day, like all the other visitations, Farangis had stood behind a closed glass portal and had responded to her mother’s inquiries about her health by nodding her head, saying “I’m well, I’m well, I’m not bad,” and “No, I don’t want anything.” She looked pale, and as usual it seemed to her mother that she was more thin and pale each time than on previous visits. When she returned from the prison, Mrs. Bidar told her husband, “I swear there’s something wrong with her. She’s ill. My child is ill.” And she had burst into tears.

Two years ago they had tried Farangis and sentenced her to seven years in prison. The first two and a half years, before the trial, she was in Tehran, and after her conviction they transferred her to the prison in their own town...