“Yes. I was very surprised by it. People can be so frustrating. The choices they make. The things they don’t do. As if their privilege breeds inertia.”
A smile of pure delight crossed the judge’s face as he listened to him. For a man of barely eighteen years of age Madjid thought with gravity and nuance. It gave his presence a melancholic quality that was strangely comforting.
Madjid stopped speaking and half-closed his eyes. He could hear the clanking of silverware and the voices around him and the wind moving through the trees. He thought of the play, in which an orchard is chopped up into little pieces for maximum profit. He turned to the judge. “I can’t imagine this place not being here.”
The only person missing from lunch was Madjid’s brother, Jamsheed, who was older than him by two years. Like Madjid, he was tall, but with a stocky quality to his frame and an outsized personality. He was charming and witty, with a loud voice always on the verge of laughter. But he had been banished from family gatherings due to his addiction to opium. The addiction had caused a rift in the family, which everyone felt and no one mentioned. On many occasions the judge attempted to intervene on Jamsheed’s behalf. He tried to help him overcome his dependency, but it was to no avail. For Shazdehpoor, his son’s very public demise, coupled with what he saw as a crass personality, left him unable to feel anything but shame and contempt for Jamsheed. Pretending that he did not exist seemed like the most civilized solution.
As the meal was coming to an end Shazdehpoor watched the judge motion Mirza over and whisper to him. He knew exactly what was happening, because it happened every Friday. The judge quietly instructed Mirza to prepare a dish of food for Jamsheed, which Madjid would take to him.
Jamsheed was sitting against the wall outside the orchard. He had nodded off, waiting for his brother. He had no desire for food, or family for that matter. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he had wanted anything. He simply showed up out of habit. “That is the beauty of opium,” he once told his brother, “it takes away everything.”
Madjid had learned many things from Jamsheed. Jamsheed was the one who had taught him how to read. In fact, all of the books in Madjid’s bedroom once belonged to his brother. But Jamsheed was able to let himself go in a way that Madjid wasn’t. He had spent his entire youth in trouble with his father, his elders, the authorities, and women. Madjid admired this ability to be reckless and wished to emulate it, but he was plagued by thought and consequence.
Jamsheed drove fast, drank hard, and had a charisma that drew people in. Before their mother’s death, his boisterous demeanor would make the most mundane activities seem exciting. He could dissipate any tense situation with a wry remark and distill any argument to its most ridiculous ingredient, thereby ending it. Nothing was sacred to him. He took nothing seriously and therefore he couldn’t be touched.
His descent into an opium haze was the final disconnect. He began to disappear for days. When he returned, he brought armloads of gifts for the family, draping beautiful fabrics over his mother and holding up shiny gold earrings to her ears. He tossed contraband books into Madjid’s lap, whispering to him, “This one will really give you a few sleepless nights,” and handed his father fine cognacs, which Shazdehpoor accepted but never drank. He told bawdy jokes and outlandish stories of his adventures, one more unbelievable than the next.
One night, during the month of Muharram, on his way to a friend’s home for a gathering, he had been caught in an Ashura eve procession, commemorating the death of Imam Hussein in the desert plains of Karbala. He couldn’t get across the street so he began to march with people, beating his chest and chanting with them, even though he had a bottle of vodka hidden inside his coat. The fear of being caught with alcohol drove him to chant and march more fervently than the most devout believer. The moment he saw a chance to slip out of the procession he swiftly stepped into an alley and made his way to his friend’s house, rejuvenated by the unexpected trancelike experience. His mother was always taken in by his stories. Shazdehpoor was embarrassed by them. Madjid was delighted by them.
One evening, Jamsheed came barreling into the house, out of breath, a wild look in his eyes. By that point, his mother’s illness had broken her spirits and she was lying on the sofa, frail and despondent. Shazdehpoor and Madjid sat next to her in silence. Jamsheed walked straight over to her and swept her up into his arms. Much to his father’s protests, he took her outside. “You see that, Maman? It’s a motorbike.”
It was a Suzuki GT750 with royal-blue paneling and a black leather seat dusty from the road. She leaned against him and mustered a faint smile. He propped her up in front, then took off before his father could stop them. They rode through dirt roads and across the town square. People stopped and stared at his sickly, chadored mother. He cut over toward the sand dunes of Old Naishapur, abandoned since the time of Genghis Khan’s invasion. They sped along the stretch of the old city as the sun set. His mother pulled her chador down off her head, leaned back into Jamsheed, and let the wind blow through her hair.
She died two days later, cradled in her husband’s arms, her two boys holding on to her hands. As the water filled her lungs, forcing her to expel one final breath, the three men knew that whatever had held them together was broken. Nothing would ever be the same again.
Madjid sat against the wall next to his brother. He laid the plate of food in front of him and Jamsheed pushed the food around on the plate with a fork but did not take a bite. “How’s Monsieur Shazdehpoor?”
“He changed his cologne from Ravel to Aramis.”
“Is he still bathing in it?”
“I can smell him from my room.”
The two brothers laughed together, their shoulders bumping. Then the moment tapered off. They fell silent again. Madjid watched Jamsheed push his food around some more. Whenever he saw his brother he felt rejuvenated and restless. As though there was something he was missing out on. The idyllic torpor of his life at home kept him from things that were of real importance. He nudged Jamsheed. “Have you been to the capital?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“It’s coming to a head. You can feel it in the streets. In the dormitories. You should see the students huddled around in earnestness.” Jamsheed spent several weeks out of the month in the capital selling opium to the students. It was his way of keeping his own habit afloat. Once the money and drugs were quietly exchanged, he was invited to take tea, and as he faded into the background, the boys forgot him and resumed their discussions about the coming unrest. He found their passions quaint and utterly futile. He smiled as they spoke about injustice, poverty, political repression, and forced progress. He nodded as they spoke about illiteracy, lost lands, rampant corruption, and a government that had dragged its bewildered children into the Western century, a country that stood with a dead empire on its back.
“They are fools,” he said, shaking his head. “None of the factions are strong enough to replace the monarchy. They are at one another’s throats. Do you not see the futility?”
“The unrest is not about factions, Jamsheed. It is about social justice and economic equity.”
“Don’t be so sentimental, Madjid. There are only two established power structures in this country: the monarchy and the religious authority. And even those are pawns.”
“My God, Jamsheed. You are such a cynic.”
“No, brother. I’m a realist. We are nothing more than a nation held together by dead poets and living despots.”
The brothers fell silent. Jamsheed picked up a piece of tahdig and bit into it. The butter covered his tongue like film. He dropped the rest of it on his plate and pushed it away, taking his cigarettes out of his jean-jacket pocket. He offered one to Madjid and took one himself, lighting his brother’s first.
Madjid wasn’t a smoker but he always took a cigarette from Jamsheed. He liked to make rings by tapping his cheek, and like all nonsmokers, held the cigarette with his fingertips. Jamsheed held his between his index and middle fingers by the knuckles. Together, they leaned