would be back at their bench-desks, unless another protest was underway.
By midspring, Ahmad had saved enough to pay back half of Lalah’s dowry savings. He wanted her to continue her studies and go to college before she got married and was bogged down with babies, but he saw that she had taken a liking to the last suitor. Remembering the painful days when he stood in front of Khan, tongue-tied and fearing the prospect of being sent to Paris—away from his mother, the Orchard, Agha, Sara—Ahmad promised himself not to impose anything on Lalah. Lalah had let her hair grow long again, and although she postponed giving a final answer, she had not said no yet. The suitor had shown an unconventional patience facing Lalah’s repeated deferrals, but every time the young man’s mother called Pooran to ask if there was an answer, Pooran became certain there would not be a next time.
“That’s it,” she scolded Lalah. “I don’t know what else you want. The boy is handsome. He has a good family. He has money. He can have any girl he wants and he’s been waiting for you, how long it is, God knows. When I was your age, I already had your aunt Maryam. And what do you do? Hide in Ahmad’s room playing with those cats. You’re on your own. Don’t come to me crying when he’s gone.”
She then opened the china cabinet in the hall and hauled the dishes, six at time, into the kitchen sink to wash. A few weeks later, the phone rang again. Lalah hoped time would solve everything, that by putting off making a decision, the dilemma she found herself in would vanish and she would not have to bear the responsibility of her future. If the suitor’s family stopped calling, she would content herself with the thought that the boy was not meant for her, that he had not persisted long and hard enough in wanting her. She wished Ebi would propose already. Every call from the suitor’s mother brought worry and pride. Someone wanted her and was waiting for her to want him back, and by that he was ripping her to pieces.
His name was Reza. He was twenty-five years old and he sold and repaired bicycles and motorbikes. He had started working in the summer of the year he turned twelve, first at a bus garage, then at a bicycle and motorbike repair shop, helping out the mechanics. Four summers later, he was working on his own. In an empty piece of land between two buildings in his neighborhood, he sat with a screwdriver and an adjustable wrench. The screwdriver he had stolen from the repair shop and the wrench from the bus garage. He fixed bikes for free for a month and when he had enough customers, by the end of the summer, not only had he returned the screwdriver and the wrench, but he had a full toolbox and a canopy over his head to keep the snow away. After he finished high school, Reza opened his own shop and before he turned twenty-three, he had three mechanics working for him. The day of the proposal ceremony, Reza had come in a blue Chevrolet Nova and smelled of good perfume. After her third equivocal reply, Lalah told Pooran she could not decide unless she spent some more time with him.
“That’s what engagement is for,” Pooran answered. Nonetheless she went ahead and invited the suitor’s family over for lunch. She had Lalah make the main stew, but did not leave the kitchen herself the whole time to ensure it was perfect, down to the last grain of salt. Pooran did not fail to laud Lalah’s cooking at the sofreh before everyone started. The little time that Reza and Lalah had to talk, Reza spent with polite gentility and genuine attention, his hands in his pockets. He cranked the two of them up to the roof and got excited explaining the principles of pulleys, taking his hands out to gesticulate. He gave the whole structure of the elevator a shake and said, “This needs a good fixing.” From up on the roof, the clouds looked so low that it seemed to Lalah Reza could reach them.
“I’m starting to forget the last time it wasn’t cloudy,” Reza said, looking at the sky. “I hope the winter ends someday.”
Lalah nodded.
“And I hope you will accept my hand.” He said that without taking his eyes from the sky, as if it was