Rooftops of Tehran

Axing the Horses

105 Axing the Horses Faith is a fire my parents fuel and fan to keep us warm against the fanaticism that has brought on the winter outside our walls.It is a sharp-dry warmth that chaps our lips, and makes us itch all over.We are told for everything good one must suffer. The sky outside our triple-paned windows is smoky grey. I don’t know if the glass is tinted and I know no other windows to compare them to. Hawks whirl in the sky’s belly looking for prey, and below in the streets, crows hop about crapping, gossiping, looking for sinners to peck. I am told I must fear these crows and hawks,their beady eyes,tiny brains,their sharp beaks and claws. Each time I go out I must bow in prayer three times then armor myself with a shield of lead, and a kind smile just to show the goodness of my heart, the brightness of my soul. Yet, I am allowed no friends from the dusty, grimy world outside. I sometimes sneak out, but guilt is a barbed chain that always pulls me back in. I begin to obediently stay within the confines of our walls and soon I only see crows and hawks. The nightingales and their uninhibited songs, the delicate bodies of the hummingbirds, the swish of their wings, their incessant search for nectar, all begin to disappear from my memory like the sweetness of candy that slowly dissolves on the tongue and imperceptibly vanishes from the senses. One day, quite accidentally, when I go up to the flat rooftop of our house to fetch sour cherry syrup to sweeten my aunt’s water, I see a shooting star.Why is it running so fast?Who and what is it running from? I look at the other stars and see that they are as still as they have always been, firmly planted on the blue-black face of the sky.That night my sleep fills with shooting stars. Where are you going? They do not stop to answer.They vanish and the suddenly starless sky begins to weep snow. 106 I continue, every night, to chase the shooting stars, those fisted balls of fire, asking, asking, asking . . . but no answers. My skin turns blue. Dark circles hang under my eyes. No one notices. Only I can see my gradual decay in the mirror that occupies my room. I am the sky and I’m losing my stars, I murmur to my fading image. One evening it snows and snows and I mumble something about no stars in the sky. Father says it is because they are obscured by the clouds. But I know better. The sky is weeping and that means something strange is about to happen . . . and something strange does happen, in the form of an invitation to an amusement park. The park is lit up and loud. Father and mother hold my hands tighter than usual lest I slip away and be carried off by the river of men andwomenwhosebloodisnotred.We,family,walkabout,allsensesalert.Then I see it—the merry-go-round, its large wooden horses, their heads held high as if ecstatic, the way my girlfriend and I sometimes do when we dial random numbers—casting a line into the waters outside our walls to see if we’d catch a fish. If we do, our voices drowning, we quickly hang up the phone—that is, throw him back into the water. No harm done. No sin committed. Ipullonmyparentshandsandleadthemtowardtheglitteringmerry-go-round alivewithmusic.Mybrothersfollowaswestepontotheplatform.Fathersitson a large black steed, the whites of its eyes larger than its painted irises. Mother chooses a pony . . . one she imagines she can manage. Brothers each hop on silver horses, as if they are TV cowboys. I stand on the platform, hold on to a brass pole. I laugh because the horses are made of wood. I’m not interested in their painted hooves,their stiff mains,their veneered bodies.No,I’m interested in the ride, the spin, the whirling. I want to see the park, the world as we spin. I want to feel the movement, the going. As the organ music starts to play and the platform begins to spin, slowly, then fast, faster, I watch the landscape go around and around until everything is a shooting star—the men, women, the fences, dogs, the lights . . . 107 How...