a prayer he directed to the heavens. Lalah was scared by how her heart raced at the sincerity in Reza’s words. She decided not to see him when he came to tend to the elevator the next week. She stayed in her room and spied from behind her lace curtains as he installed a motor on the parapet.
She called Ebi from the booth more often and held his hand tighter when they were together. “Are you not going to the demonstrations with me anymore?” Ebi asked her one day.
“Of course I am. Why?”
“Your hair.”
Lalah touched her bangs. “Of course I am,” she replied. “I’ll cut them off as soon as something big turns up. I thought I’d make myself pretty in between.”
Ebi smiled but did not believe her. Change was what he feared most, although it was also what he was fighting for. To him, a change on the outside was, without an exception, a manifestation of a change within. He himself had let his hair grow out after high school, once there was no longer a principal to check that the students’ hair was not long enough to be pinched between a thumb and forefinger. Ebi’s curly hair had become as big as a football, and he had kept it that way ever since, for the past four years. Impatiently, he looked forward to the next rally to see if he would find the old Lalah by his side, chanting the slogans, mimicking a deep, man’s voice. The opportunity arose when a university professor passed away of old age, peacefully in his bed. As his body was carried over the shoulders of his admirers out the gates of the University of Tehran, the gendarmes arrived and tried to disperse the crowd. In response, antigovernment slogans were chanted and soon two of the mourners lay lifeless on the street, not too far from the body of the professor. Word got around and the Seventh-night service was announced as the day of the next march, in front of the university gates.
Without too much of a surprise for Ebi, Lalah decided not to go to that one. Afraid of what this change in her meant, Ebi delegated his coordinating responsibilities to a friend and suggested to Lalah that they go out instead. As time went on, he offered her more and more anxious dates. They ate at restaurants and cafés, looked at art in museums, and walked the streets and neighborhoods which were so close to where people demonstrated and yet so far. Lalah saw how Ebi grew ever more eager about going places, how he talked about the movie they just walked out of, or a painting they were standing before. He told her about the books he read. He took her to one expensive restaurant after another. Lalah tried to engage, but felt unable to pass an invisible barrier. She knew she was not a good actor, that Ebi saw her hesitation. How easy things would have been if she did not love that football-haired boy.
At the end of spring, Lalah graduated from high school. With her mornings suddenly free, Ebi thought they would have more time to be together. But she did not call him for a whole week. He took the phone to his bed and waited all afternoon and evening. He picked up the receiver and even called her number a few times, but hung up before Pooran answered.
“I’m sorry, I was very ill,” Lalah lied when she called at last.
“Can we meet?” he asked.
“I’m still weak.”
That afternoon, Ebi walked up to his parents in the kitchen. They turned their heads to look at their son standing in the door.
“There’s a girl,” Ebi said, trying to hold his hands still by his side. “I’m going to ask for her hand. With or without you.” His father glanced at his son’s feet and saw that he kept shifting his weight from heel to toe, rocking ever so slightly, as he did when he was nervous.
Lalah did not call him for another week. She could find no resolution in her soul. If she was at first only doubtful, her heart now held two loves in equal proportion. She could not understand why the more Ebi approached her, the farther her heart wandered away from him. She felt guilty for not having told him about the suitors her grandmother had brought home from the beginning, while he had nearly abandoned his political activities in the past months to be with