“As I told you, to get a famous dame like you across the border costs two million Tomans, but I'm charging you only fifty thousand,” he said fondling her motionless body.
“So you can go on using me for your masturbation as much as you want! Is that what you mean?”
“Look, if I sleep with you the rest of my life, you would still owe me money, that’s all it means, baby.”
She felt sadder and angrier, and before he could finish, she pushed him away forcefully and said in a flat bitter voice, “Get away from me, sick bastard! There were men ready to give their right arms to get into bed with me. ... I mean rich and influential men, who wouldn’t have hired you to be even their servant!” Her voice fragmented. Her sadness overwhelmed he anger She started to cry silently. It was a cry demanding simple recognition that, regardless of all her wounds, she required, no different from others. Suddenly, she exploded with rage, “Do you know who made me this way; this trash I am now?” She didn't wait for his reply and answered her own question, loudly, “You bastard, look at me! I'm a human being! Look at this body! Am I any different from your sister or your goddamn mother? You've taken everything that was me! You got what you were after! You went to bed and fucked a celebrity! Go tell all your friends about it! No! Go to hell now, and leave me alone!”
Stunned by her reaction, Reza quickly put on his clothes. The best conceivable explanation he could muster in his mind for her hurt and pain made him feel sorry for her. He leaned toward her and wiped her tears with his hand. He kissed her on the head, not a kiss of passion, but one of pity and an expression of sympathy. She could not have known that, for she had never been the recipient of any form of genuine kindness or love from any man in her entire life.
“I'm sorry,” Reza whispered gently. “I didn't mean it. Don't cry. It's this goddamn revolution. Do you think all the money I charge goes into my pocket? No, it doesn't. It goes to people you wouldn't believe even if I told you. See, Zee-Zee ...”
“Don't ever call me by that name,” she said protesting. “I'm beginning to hate that name. My real name is Fatemeh.”
“Okay, Fatemeh, I like Fatemeh better myself. It is my sister's name. It makes you one of us.”
“Don’t say that either!” she snapped at him. “I don’t want to become one of your kind ... never. I’d rather be the person that I am than be like you!”
“Okay, Fatemeh. See. I wasn't in this kind of business before the revolution. I was a simple workingman. What do you think we felt watching women like you shaking their beautiful bodies on TV every night?” He paused for a few seconds, as though searching for better words to describe his feelings, while his eyes shifted more intensely. He continued, “Forget it. I promise I shall never touch you again and if I do, it’ll be like I’m touching my own sister. I swear on my mother’s grave. I will get you across the border if it’s the last thing I do. You don't have to worry.”
Touched by Reza's kind words, more tears rained down her tired face.
“Please don't cry!” he gently begged. Forgiveness being a strong feature of her character, she reached for his face with her hand and touched it tenderly. Her soft touch was like a sponge with soap and water, to wipe him clean, exonerate him and set him free from all his vile committed sins – to free him from himself. She couldn't remember ever having extended such a touch to anyone in her entire life.
It's only this caring, she thought, that's going to make you feel all right, save you, save us all, save us from ourselves.
“Please forgive me,” he begged.
“That's okay. I'm all right now,” she said with sweetness in her voice.
“I gotta go now,” he said. “There are gonna be more people arriving. I've got to take care of them.”
“That’s all right.”
“Please let me know if there's anything you need. I'll be downstairs in the lobby if you need me. Otherwise I'll see you tonight before you go to bed.”
“Take the bottle with you before they find it in this room,” she said.
He took the half-emptied bottle and left, and she lost control of her tears completely. She cried for her wasted life. She couldn't remember whether she had ever cried for anyone or anything – even the death of her mother, her youthful love that withered before blooming, or her two divorces. In her past hectic life, she’d had no time to pause and reflect, to put it in the right perspective. She cried to empty all the misery piled up in her tender and lonely soul over all the years of fast living.
She felt drowsy again and soon fell asleep.
The sound of the door opening woke her. Reza was coming in.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you need anything?”
“No. I'm tired. I just wanna sleep,” said Fatemeh drowsily.
“I'll ten wake you up tomorrow.” And he bent over the bed and kissed her cheek gently.
As he was about to leave the room she said, “Thank you, Reza.” Although she was convinced that she had nothing else to give, she was unselfishly offering more forgiveness to him than he deserved.
He left with a smile.
What mattered the most to her was that someone like him was there. She was leaving a home that not long ago was like a paradise to her, but was now subverted to a hell that could offer her only sorrow and pain.
Chapter Nine
The driver drew the maximum power out of the bus’s aged clunking engine and kept a steady speed of 75 miles per hour on the newly asphalted, rain-washed four-lane highway going towards the city of Marand. Halfway to Marand, he down shifted the gear to second and then to first, reduced the speed almost to a crawl, and took a sharp turn to the east. Once he was on an old two-lane road covered with cracked asphalt, he accelerated his speed and maintained 60 miles per hour, heading straight toward the city of Shabestar.
The passengers were all quiet, bewildered, engaged with their own thoughts. They were concerned about the uncertainties of their lives awaiting them beyond the border and were in no mood to pay any attention to the outside world, the splendor of spring so majestically spreading its rainbow colors all over the plains and foothills.
The winding road twisted and snaked like a large boa through the hills’ highs and lows, surrounded by cotton-white snow-covered peaks brilliantly shining under the generous glare of the April sun. The twisted fluffy patches of white clouds suspended in the sky, plump but not threatening, appeared weightless. Some large patches, daringly low, rolled over the earth, with the dubious intention to embrace and blanket the hills, to conceal the abundance of all their splendors from the heavens above. On the other side, the sky tilted downward to arrive at the mountains. The yellow sun was higher, like a large fully bloomed sunflower, glittering in the east. A soft April breeze was the sure messenger of spring. Except for the considerable anxiety reflected in the people’s faces riding the bus, it was a splendid day.
During the more than two hours of an agonizing ride that felt much longer to the passengers, they all remained quiet, keeping every distressing thought that crossed their minds to themselves. The engine moaned and groaned over the fifteen-degree upward slope of the