1 K ID D EMIURGE ( جوان ِ ع مطا ), T HE FIRST EPISODE OF “A N A NON ’ S R OMANCE ” ( نامه انون ), A PERSIABOO ’ S TRIPTYCH REVERIE ; To the deplatformed, the dispossessed of discourse and dialogue. الرحيم الرحمن الله بسم “‘ In the Name of God, the Lord of Mercy, the Giver of Mercy! ’ F ORWARD FROM THE T ESTATOR ... Th us does this Phrase append the Subject from Itself; surely shall this Movement ordain to elaborate its Attributes... So unfurls the Word from the Tip of its fi rst Tittle, the Tome of the Preserved Tablet. From its mysterious Predicate issues forth the Named, the Writ of which resounds forever in twofold Mercy—an Accommodation for His Action, a Sanctuary for His Substantiation. As this Phrase prefaces that unseen Chronicle, so also does it presuppose the Subsections of its every inked Entry... Its Other, the Worshipper of the Worshipped, has its Jugular tautly twined around the Lifeline of the Prime Cause; sonorously verberates its duly-proportioned Th anks, a Liturgy recited from the Catechism of Remembrance, conducted to the Music of the Angels treading the Stars and Spheres into the Circuits of the seven Heavens. Th us does this Gnosis extol the Nature of its manifold Worlds, of the Vegetation which subsists on the Sunlight from the Skies and the Soil worn o ff the Stones, of the Beasts of the Earth which consume them and one another, of the Jinn which haunt the depressions of the lowest Deserts and the crests of the highest Mountains, and of the Men fashioned from moistened Mud who were chosen to be Stewards over all of them, their various Nations being stewarded in turn by their own Vicegerents... And so Action delivers its Consequences out of their threefold Darkness, exciting an interminably-spectrum’d Spark from its fl agrant Flint, the slaten Sapphire afront the Diadem of myriad-faceted Malakut, all agleam with Allusion under the Weft and Warp of seventy thousand Veils, and Substantiation brings their Potentials into perennial Bloom, a Calyx guiding its Corolla through its Period of Blossoming from Afore to Hereafter; on the Day of Reckoning, the purest of its Pith shall forsake Dominion for Reunion—not the Ulterior of a rightful Reward, the green Gardens lush with dissimilarly- fl avored Fruit, nor the Sarays sta ff ed with suprafair Concubines... We beseech Th ee for some Signs, by which to conduct our proper Passage over Th y blade-breadth Isthmus—we are Th ine Object above All, are we not? Haughty Iblis was 2 condemned to ceaseless Banishment on our Account, didst Th ou not dispel him? We implore Th ee, by the Glint of Sunray illumining the Shard of Spirit Th ou set into our Hearts, not to beset our Day’s End with a moonless Night. * * * As Th anks is Th ine, so do I, Gházy Loon, a feckless, dawdling dandy, unreliably recount this day’s rhapsody—may the plot for my tale be circumscribed within Th ine Opening’s twin Conjunctions of Supplication and Wayfare, may their Epitaph inscribe the blade by which I seize the Orient from out of its imperiled Occident, and may my pitiful divan elaborate ever fainter between Th y w ā wayn until the Pen exhausts its Ink! Y ā Ban ī Ā dam , may my Submission, my Divestiture to the Most-Entrusted, fi nd a model in the Seers and Prophets of Old. May God’s Hand deliver everyone He calls to safety, and may His parables be heeded by all men willing to listen: of Idris, the fi rst scribe and father of wisdom, for his sincerity earned him the revelation of thirty godly scriptures and mastery over seventy-two tongues of men... it was he who met his demise by being carried up to Heaven on the back of an angel; of Hud, for he warned the gargantuans of ‘Ad about the consequences of their arrogance for seven hundred and sixty years to no avail... it was he who was spared the windstorm which toppled their palaces o ff the mountainsides of once-felicitous Arabia, and abraded their partied-out ruins to eternal obscurity; of Yusuf, for he was gifted a cloak of magni fi cent colors and lovingly praised by all manner of poets and kings... it was he who rebu ff ed the propositions of a vindictive lecheress to preserve his fi st-biting beauty all the more, to earn the legitimacy by which he summoned his bitter brothers back home; of Khidr, for he served as the seer to a runaway prince of Egypt and as a vizier to the conqueror of the world, during his lonely circuit to and fro the Fountain of Life... it was he who taught them to emulate his mastery before presuming knowledge they knew not before, from wisdom wrought on mysterious emerald tablets; of Suleyman, for he subjugated the devils taught by fallen angels to serve their alluring mistress, the Morning and Evening Star, and put their magic to work for virtuous purposes... it was he who dispatched a hoopoe from his squadron of birds to exhort the queen of a distant sun-worshipping nation to follow the true God, refusing her gifts and thereby charming her into becoming his consort; and of perchance another unattested Warner, perhaps several or many, having descended from the steppes of the noble Aryans betwixt Th y Signet-Ring and its Sealing- Place... listen attentively, dear Reader, how their ballads ripple through the reedbeds along the shores of the good Daitya, laden with tales of the wars of light they waged against the 3 chthonic darkness within all creatures great and small—may proper peace and blessings be upon all aforementioned. * * * Ey Ī r ā n , as our fate as men is inscribed within entreaty to God Almighty and avoidance of His wrath, so is my fate as a lover framed within the romances of your East and West: Hail Zal, for as that sage-haired child fl ew the roost of his adoptive caretaker, so too have I descended upon a fi re-fed phoenix with steel feathers into the land of the legendary shahs and their champions. It was he who found his life’s jewel in fair Rudabeh—while journeying eastward to collect tribute from the king of Kabul, the grandson of serpent- shouldered Zahhak, he heard a secondhand account of his daughter’s attributes and fell in love with her. He stormed her sandstone ramparts on tiptoe, and climbed her long plait of hair to secure their unsanctioned rendezvous; for his indiscretions, he was made a great magnate in his own right. Th eir son Rustam drudged though seven labors to become the hero of his nation, and he fought many campaigns for his lieges—at the cost of an unknown son conceived during his travels, whom he later mistakenly vanquished in battle. Hail Khosrow, for as that disgraced prince quit his realm due to his father’s censure, so too have I banished myself from mine own, until I prove myself worthy of the same four greater things of which he was foretold. It was he who regarded raven-haired Shirin as the dearest of his three favorite queens—while fl eeing westward through Armenia from a usurper, he recognized her by chance from a portrait painted by his court-artist. He fl it earnestly to her side, but she refused to marry him until he regained his kingdom; he sought aid from the Qaysar of Rûm , who obliged him on the condition he marry his own daughter. Th eir arranged union spawned the patricidal changeling Shiroye, spoiled rotten by Ctesiphon’s strange customs and self-condemned to earthly perdition, whose oedipal concupiscence set his father’s true love a fl ight—she poisoned herself at the foot of her beau’s tombstone, thereby abetting the ruination of her land. * * * Th y paradise-promised conqueror Sa’d ibn Abi Waqqas and his virtuous soldiers sundered the bu ff er between the world’s two degraded great powers, rupturing the n ū r of the All-Knower—from neither East nor West—upon His entire creation. His son Umar, the chief general of Yazid’s governor in Kufa and Khorasan, was awarded the governorship of Rey for a most unsavory service, to fi re the fi rst of many murderous arrows toward the camp of Imam Hussein in Karbala; but on account of its menfolk, its tender youths and lovers slain in sweet sacri fi ce, he would never enjoy this prestigious position—his severed head would soon be brought to the son of his victim’s beloved sh ā hdokht , the next imam, as revenge for his father’s unjust decapitation, drawing a fl eeting smile from his ever- sorrowful countenance. A Persian mawl ā of obscure origins would overthrow his lord Yazid’s dynasty, and would be slain in turn by the very caliph he helped instate—and on goes the sordid saga, as yield the designs of men. 4 * * * O Beloved, may you execute an overture that’s sound— A vasíyyat not of vellum, but of brined cheek to be bound: Say this ancient place subdues me, Akvan’s onager beguiles, Yet caprice’s wanton torrents ‘cross our aisle deign not hound; Prithee bring my body homeward, early one-third’s span a day Rent a hearse, then pour the shots of Irish cream to pass around; ’Tis the toast to forlorn soldiers, ‘fore my soul be lowered down— Once they drape me in their banner, per their articles’ expound: A chrysanth, a boutonniere more, could you pelt my casket, ‘Til the petal-laden vessel breaks its straps and cleaves the ground? Dewdrops’ seep’ll leach the war fl ag, that palimpsest of paeans, Of vain lyric writ in bloodshed, rapt-renditioned solemn-frowned, Drink thy spirits, drown thy grief in mirthful tears dyed tannin-brown! Gházil’s left to pick blanched asphodels, in Hades dread-renowned... ” I Sunset over great Araxes’ every canyon’s yonder chasm Lavished too its regal spectrum ‘pon a terrace west Khwarazm Hexafoliate nacre daisies inlaid ‘top a borrowed bureau Glimmered sprays of gilt ’n’ turquoise through some musk in glassy limbo— Irids twain of anise-bay roused, a lone basker their possessor; Eschèwed he salvi fi c Heaven for its written intercessor * * * Like a vial of perfume shattered on the ground, a sumptuous series of stimuli overcame Gházy’s senses. Swashes penned in his fl orid hand lay drying on the parchment in front of him, their India ink bleeding into its coarse fi bers; with those very strokes, he had just signed his last will and testament. He returned his quill into its inkwell, never to take it out again—it had been written at last, the proper way! But it still lacked a proper ending... From where did I get this stationery , the young man wondered. Th e answer had slipped his mind, save the vague idea that a word processor was not the right tool for 5 composing such a life-de fi ning document; a nib’s friction felt much more appropriate than the clack of a keyboard. “—and from a far-a fi eld Anon to all fellow Frens, my fondest Regards,” read the valediction appended beneath its paragraphs of provisions. How he missed those countless companions he would never meet, who had been closer to him through a computer screen than anyone in real life—alas, their opportunity had not yet come to confront their oppressors, if ever it hopefully would. How had he not been hounded through the four corners of the earth for what he had secretly archived, even directly witnessed of their inglorious e ff orts—in particular, a still-undetected guild of fl etchers from among them, and the technological tour de force they had very recently achieved... he stopped himself from recalling anything more about them, in case the very thoughts in his head could somehow be tracked from afar. While those unknown comrades on the other side of the world patiently waited to strike their blow, he would strike his own that very night, by thwarting whatever larger subterfuge the powers that be were hatching in his midst... A petal had fallen onto the fall-front desktop upon which his will rested, from the rose in the cobalt Murano decanter sitting atop his escritoire. He focused on the many rings whorling across its elm-burl veneer, how they melded into the thin vellus-hair growing on his wrists—he had taken his parchment from one of its drawers. If only his body could be the unworked wood of some masterpiece for the ages... Th e desk’s original owner left behind other nicknacks as well: a magnifying glass in the shape of a brass crab in its center door’s left pull-out column, an onyx letter opener in the right pull-out column, a wooden fairy- fl anked desk plaque under its sorting-shelves, and a collection of dusty ledgers in its bottom drawers. Th e name on the plaque was that of the dearly-departed Dr. Omid Dehqanfar, an esteemed expert in international a ff airs and a scribe to the minister of the Qajar exchequer. Over the past few weeks, his great- great-grandchildren Morteza and Nurah regaled Gházy with stories of his illustrious career: his outmaneuvering of covetous princes to keep his position, his covert benefaction toward his servants and the shopkeepers of his favorite stalls in the nearby Tajrish Bazaar, and most proudly of all, the shrewd balancing act he struck between the British and Russian diplomats of his day, in order to best protect his country from them. Gházy had also been fl ipping through his old ledgers, with their balance sheets of precious articles tabulated for audits conducted long before his own grandfather’s birth. What had they to report of Iran’s scattered treasures, he wondered—what heritage from past dynasties had been accounted for, and what had been lost forever... “... wow, they went all out with this party. Where’s the talent from, do you know?” “You mean the main headliner for tonight?” “Yeah, him and the people performing right now. ” “Well, the main act’s the guy who’s been staying upstairs, no one really knows him except the family. And the guys playing downstairs—you know where the art gallery is on Sepand Alley, the one close to Payam-e-Noor’s campus on Nejatoll ā hi Street?” “Next to that little theater, right?” “Yeah, between the university and the national gas company building—” “I remember where that is now, go on. ” “If I remember correctly, the gallery was doing an exhibition of fi gurative sculpture a few weeks ago, and that’s where they met—some artsy friends introduced them, I think. Th ere’s 6 a really good café next door—go get a chocolate croissant if you’re in the area, they bake ‘em fresh every day. ” “Awesome. I’ll stop by next time I’m over there. ” “And the group in charge of the lights is called Nullsight, I think they come from Toronto or somewhere. My girl’s bestie promoted some concerts they’ve been in. ” “Wait, that’s their light show going on inside?” “Yep. She says one of them’s doing a doctorate in optical engineering, so they must really know how to use their equipment. ” “Far out! It looks pretty damn intense. Is there a chance I could reach out to her? My cousins are spinning some tracks at their place soon, and they want something more exciting to light up the living room than strobelights and tacky disco balls. ” “I’ll give you her info after we leave for the rave—when we get our phones back, drop her a DM and say you talked to me, she should be able to ask them. I don’t know how exclusive they keep their clientele, but she can put in a good word in for you. ” “I appreciate that. Th anks, man. ” “While we’re doling out favors, do you know if anyone’s holding bona fi de molly? Finals really did me in this year. All I want’s a little pick-me-up, I don’t trust the bath salts going around at all these parties lately. Th e last thing I need’s for the morality police to throw me in a jail cell, or to end up in the hospital from an overdose or worse... ” Just some pointless chatter from the patio below... Gházy could not think with these voices droning on near him. He rose from his chair and walked to the railing of the balcony; from its vantage on the foothills of the towering Alborz mountain range, he looked down over the rooftops of Darabad, an a ffl uent neighborhood in the north of Tehran, where the two Dehqanfar siblings were lodging him while their parents vacationed abroad. Multiple countries kept their embassies near there, a few of which he spotted to the south. A century ago, when it was still a complex of royal gardens, viziers undeserving of their vaunty titles guided their ambassadors on nature-walks through its footpaths, and negotiated Iran’s most humiliating concessions in the shade of its pavilions. Some ways to the west, Gházy could discern the manicured grounds of Niavaran Palace from the urban sprawl, now a public museum after the shahs fl ed for good. Th e Dehqanfars’ villa was itself among the last single-family residences remaining in Darabad; real estate developers bought up the rest of the neighborhood during the city’s meteoric growth in the seventies, and built high-rise apartments which smothered its former rusticity ever after. Gházy watched the customers sitting outside the ice cream parlors, too busy talking on their cellphones to savor their spoonfuls of sherbet; construction workers delivered stillborn structures out of the eddies of rubbish and sand blowing through the worksites, their faux-sleek stonework and alloy siding vying with the passé egalitarianism of Le Corbusier’s concrete for aesthetic supremacy over the streets; the menial laborers were returning to their slums after toiling all day for their wages, waiting somberly for the next packed bus or inching homeward in the rush-hour tra ffi c, while Ferraris, Bentleys, and other marques of cabriolets and convertibles cruised the side alleys where no ramshackle Paykan dared rattle. Ghazy’s back was beginning to ache from sitting in his chair for too long. He knelt down to stroke the thick pile of the luxurious Kashan carpet underneath him, suppressing the urge to lie down on it. Tracing his fi nger around its teardrop medallion, he envisioned 7 its fl oral motifs unraveling and mending back together, like a tray of marbling dye yielding to the teeth of a comb—much like the nations of the world had allowed his passage through their territory into this faraway place. Th e carpet’s madder fi eld would soon be reddened with real blood, he was certain of it... Still more noise was accosting Gházy’s ears. Th rough the tangle of the wisteria- enmeshed pergola serving as a canopy for his bed, behind the Moroccan screen he had put up for privacy, he sighted a pair of cast-iron simurghs , glaring out from their posts fl anking the balcony’s sliding doors—were their gaping beaks screeching at him? No—while he was lost in contemplation, an unseen hand had cracked open a window without shutting it, and he could again hear voices from inside the villa. For the entire summer, no illegal parties had been shut down in Darabad, and the Dehqanfars were using this opportunity to throw a grand rave which had been months in the making; if successful, it would be the pinnacle of the social season. Its reception party was taking place in the great room downstairs, after which the guests would set o ff for its as-of-yet undisclosed location. As was his idiosyncrasy when restless, Gházy stood and paced around the balcony, peering out over the high gates guarding the villa’s perimeter. “... did you see that picture our favorite diva posted on her feed?” “I was up to my eyeballs in work until early this morning. ” “Girl, she bleached her whole hair platinum blond, can you believe it? She’s basically cosplaying as a khaleesi from Game of Th rones , I’ll pull her latest post up so you can see. ” “Ugh, what a travesty. She became a real stan of that show after she binge-watched all the seasons. Now she never stops going on about how everyone in her life abandoned her—show it to me. ” “Wait a minute... scrolling through... here it is. Oh, and she put a caption on it, too: ‘I said my last goodbye to a boy who said he loved me. A man I wished to care for. And I didn’t feel a thing for him anymore. Just impatient to make something of my life. Time to make my own destiny. ’—eh, not the worst post I’ve seen. ” “At least she made her hair wavy enough to look the part. Her face needs a little less foundation, though, she looks like she’s going to a cocktail party instead of camping in a fi eld with her dragons. ” “Her ex was an absolute tool to her when they were together, I’ll give her that much sympathy. ” “She only talks to people who enable her codependencies, that’s how she got where she is. You think she’ll take it further than that, start wearing blue-colored contacts or something? I know we gotta support her as a friend and all, but if that happens, I’m just done with her antics, goodness gracious... ” More gossip from below, this time from one of the verandas— no more eavesdropping , Gházy admonished himself. What convictions the guests downstairs had left to share were exhaled away in insipid conversation, in careless pu ff s o ff their water-pipes. He watched the vestiges of their ine ff ectual rebellion waft downhill, accreting into the streetlit shroud of smog pooling along the distant freeways—oh, how he loathed the smoke more than hell fi re, that tepid, strawberry-and-saliva-scented smoke, for depositing apathy’s grimy fi lm over all that tried to live afresh! It permeated everything in its path, blackened the out-of-code buildings haphazardly clustered under the villa, brittled the outdated taxidermies on 8 exhibit in the neighborhood’s wildlife museum, set the crows’ feet deeper into those beautiful ones’ aging faces—the sooty stu ff settled over them all, ashes from a snu ff ed-out fi re. Would the coming blaze be a full-on inferno, or mere self-immolation? Gházy could bear the sight no more; he looked upward to no avail. Sky above city, with its adornment of scrapers and satellites, chock-full of idly-sent transmissions to be collected for analysis back on earth—it was no mystery why those cursed by youth described themselves as ‘burned out’. Under the guise of the nihilism in vogue with their generation, they were in fact resigning themselves to an all-permissive god, pantheistic in both being and non-being, all the world’s information harped on until tiresome and a convenient, shrugged-o ff nothing—but none of their absent mentors, neither their holy men nor the academics who supplied their curricula, bothered to remind them that somewhere above those heavens, some mover between mortal and deity still commanded the faithful and unfaithful alike. From an adjoining bedroom in the upper story, a laptop played a bandari song from an old Caltex album, recorded half the world away o ff that other Gulf of Catalina in California. Th e villa’s inhabitants grasped for any respite they could fi nd in this land of deconstructed lions; their constellations were the ever-lit LED strips lining their ceilings, their cellphones the ever-orbiting moon nestled in their pockets—alas, the sky made all of them its unwitting operatives. For each distraction pinging those chatty girls’ noti fi cations, for every passing moment Gházy kept the secrets of those whom he had once sworn to serve, were they not both just as complicit in stoking the electronic chandelier encaging the globe, which barred mankind from observing the stellar mansions beyond? How closely would this contraption track him through the coming hours, had it actually regarded him in any way? Had he been made the whole time, or was it all just a fi gment of an overactive imagination? A rare pang of empathy, sudden as a far-o ff pulsar waxing toward the earth, rapped on Gházy’s ribcage. Before it waned back into the lee of the universe beyond, he vowed to himself, he would try what he could to save these people, to rupture the cauldron roiling them round its doldrums— “ —we should go downstairs, azizam ,” tinkled a most pleasant sound from behind the screen. “ Th e guests are wondering why we haven’t joined them yet.” Gházy’s heart suddenly pumped faster. He was in the presence of his darling—but she was not yet supposed to be alone with him... “I was about to start my prayers, Parisa,” Gházy responded, anticipating another of her ploys to get closer to him. “Stay out of sight if you’re not being chaperoned—the Accursed becomes our third the moment we’re alone.” “I saw them around here somewhere,” she promised, with a reedier voice than normal. “I’ll stay behind the screen.” “ Qashangam , you sound groggy again,” Gházy observed. “You should’ve gone straight to bed after we fi nished our phone call last night. I thought you were done grading assignments for the summer, why are you still depriving yourself of sleep like this?” Th rough the open door, Gházy saw Parisa’s coworkers listening in, sitting two to a cushion on a settee in the upstairs hallway. Th ey had o ff ered to help her dress for the reception party, curious as to why this odd visitor, who had come downstairs only a few times during his entire stay, had speci fi cally sought her out as his love interest. 9 It was then that Gházy deemed it safe to behold the secret behind the screen, a tall, slender fi r-cone from the southwest. Her Lurish descent was evident in the narrow elliptic of her almond-half face, its kernel’s pale fl esh done up in makeup more skillfully applied than any fi lter could faithfully render; cheekbones sharpened with bronzer, darting eyelids emboldened with shadow, Parisa left her lover as smitten as any courting woman could desire. “What ails you, my poor soul?” “It’s just my anxiety kicking up again, nothing more...” she started, trailing o ff in accordance with her way of speaking. “I came up here to check on you. You must be exhausted, because of all the goings-on these last few days... perhaps, perhaps you want to chat with me for a bit, while you get ready...” Someone fl ipped a wrong switch and turned o ff the balcony light. Th e teeth in her overbitten jaw quivered with apprehension in the darkening night, against a silhouette of long, wispy hair as much a part of her veil as the fabric itself. “You look lovely, my dear!” Gházy complimented her. “I’ve been busy rehearsing my songs; we’ll have plenty of alone-time after the reception, I won’t be too much longer.” Her lepidopteran lashes, pro fi led by the hallway lights, swooshed fl oorward in endearing timidity; she moved to fl ank the obstacle between them, but Gházy drew back. “You’ll get the release you desire, both of us shall, just be patient and have faith in fate.” Parisa’s sigh dispersed like rueseed through his side of the screen. As much as she tried to free him from his formalities, something was holding him back. “Very well,” she relented. “You should enjoy yourself more... not many people get to live out a night like this. Do you hear how they’re playing the same song twice? Th e DJs are repeating their setlist until we come down, we’re late...” At that moment, Gházy pitied Parisa as she pitied him, for tonight was no happy accident. Once their brief story was ful fi lled, he knew, their lives would almost certainly diverge from each other for good. “Come closer to the screen, so your friends can’t hear us,” he said to her, a quaver marring his ordinarily steady speech. “It’s all just a backdrop, Parisa,” he reminded her once she drew near. “You and I have stepped into a completely di ff erent reality, more perennial and sublime than what those partiers downstairs conceive of as ‘the present’—don’t worry, you’ll have all the time in the world to fl aunt in the limelight.” “But that’s not what I want—” “ Th ere’s no shame in seeking adoration,” Gházy assured her. “Did you not agree with me during our talk last night, when I said our rightful destiny has been denied to both of us? You’re a bigger part of the festivities than you presently know—follow my lead, be smart about it as I know you will, and believe you me, you’ll be the empress of all today’s lovers.” In this closest moment they had shared together, Parisa could better look into Gházy’s pupils, and perceive their unwavering intent which had fi rst drawn her to him. “Finish your thought, my Most-High Cradle, go on,” he encouraged her, as if awaiting an expected answer. 10 Parisa’s entrails iced over at being referred to by that archaic title—or rather thawed into a great arctic river, fi t to breach its banks after being frozen inside the impenetrable taiga for so long... she regained her reply and spoke again. “Drink deeply from my sweet waters, my thirsty traveler, don’t delay,” she incanted from she knew not where within her. “Our messages have taken me through realms I’d never thought of ruling over before... like that meadow of sa ff ron-frilled da ff odils you saw sprouting from the mountains to pay my visit homage, before I even told you that yellow’s my color... or that vast plain I dreamt about wandering through, where the royal tent used to be pitched, when I rested on one of its ruined plinths and that fl ock of turtle-doves fl ew under my petticoats for shelter. We discussed you staying in Tehran after the rave’s over... but before we rule together, prove yourself worthy of the title I’ve bestowed upon no one else—assure me there are no other pretenders to your a ff ections!” A fervid tear run down the crescent of her cheek. Th is was the most amount of words Gházy had ever heard her speak in a single sitting, and with a far greater intensity than he had expected—God be praised for gifting him such an imaginative woman! What a fabulous fantasy they would weave, now that things were fi nally coming together... “Why belie your dignity with petulance, my dearest, when your dainty foot treads the pomace of a thousand dalliances into the same fi ne wine? Proof enough will come tonight, and during the following days—this is more than a party, do you understand?” Parisa meekly nodded her head. “So you see, then—you shall be the object of my a ff ections for the rest of my days. But we must be apart for just a little bit longer, as my duties require my sobriety.” Parisa, the prospects of their future together possessing her thoughts, was too enchanted to wonder what those duties might be. “Splendid—then we can be in each other’s arms, and never part again...” Gházy , realizing how close he was to attaining the proper complement he had sought his entire life, grasped the rickety barrier which was separating them, and each lover swooned closer toward the other—their restraint was disappearing fast. “Our hour is coming, be patient,” he reminded her for the last time. “Now that I’ve proven myself to you, do you place yourself completely in my hands?” “Yes,” she cooed in a daze. “Good, and I shall place myself in your hands before long,” he promised her. “Now return to your friends, I’ll be a just few more minutes more—but wait—” Th e black fern-fronds creeping over her fi ngers dredged up an inkling from his subconscious—in her haste to come speak with him, she had left henna setting on them. Th e evidence, the evidence! Gházy remembered what he had forgotten: an incontrovertible stamp to conclude his fi nal testament, in the likely event of its discovery. It would not come from his own handwriting, which could easily be falsi fi ed—no, it needed a biometric seal, in a medium lifted right from his beloved’s hands! His fi ngers grazed Parisa’s knuckles—the extent of their impropriety during their brief courtship—and he sent her back inside. Rubbing the inky paste over his fi ngertips, he returned to his will, and he rolled his right index fi nger across its bottom margin; middle fi nger followed index, then ring, pinky, and thumb, and the same for the other hand—the same procedure he performed to be inducted into his previous life, which had taken him to that night. 11 * * * In a fi nal minute of solitude following evening prayers, Gházy knelt on the carpet, thumbing the dual w ā ws engraved on his carnelian ring. In view of the plate-glass fl oor mirror next to the chaise lounge, he wet his hands in a basin of water and ran them down his alpinid jaw, ensuring that no stubble was left over from when he shaved earlier that day, and dried o ff with a towel; he then applied a jade- green paint over his entire face, hairline to dimpled chin, cheek to full-moon cheek save his jasper lips. He changed into a cerulean bishop-sleeved shirt and black breeches, his overwear a damask cloak with swirling panicles of goldenrod warped into its black weft. To top o ff his costume, he put on a pair of bull’s horns he had kept in his desk’s top-left drawer, and hid their headband under the tangle of his long curly hair. Right before entering the villa, he took out a crudely-made necklace from under his pillow and tied it beneath his shirt. He had strung a piece of twine through a small laminated picture, slightly larger than a postage stamp, of a martyr who had also taken her fate in her own hands; if his actions earned him notoriety, it would be a signal to his anonymous friends, for they observed the same peculiar veneration for its subject that he did. * * * Inside one of the upstairs rooms, Parisa’s ladies-in-waiting were attending to her dress, a ballgown with a high collar borrowed from the Dehqanfars’ own closets; they had also loaned her the diaphanous linen veil being pinned round her head, as well as the heirloom jewels hanging from her neck. Th e girls accosted their friend with unrelenting questions about her suitor: what of that anachronistic chameleon, who was dropped o ff there by a gypsy cab less than a month ago, and had solicited their services as if some formal ceremony was to be performed? Was he actually going to propose, after only twice laying eyes on her? Whatever the nature of their compact, Parisa gave them no answer— And there he knocked now! Swiping a bouquet of mottled marigolds out of its vase on the dresser, they thrust it into Parisa’s hands and pushed her into the hallway. * * * To boisterous fanfare, the couple descended the crepe-festooned grand staircase into the great room To think of it—with a few sweetly-sung ballads, this errant zephyr had blown open the gates of the wealthy! Th e reception seemed more like a fairy tale than a party; had the exorbitant dowries demanded by Iran’s parents become that ludicrously high, as to bring on this novel sort of white wedding? “ And here come the guests of the hour now!” announced an ampli fi ed voice over the speaker system. 12 Morteza Dehqanfar tapped his champagne fl ute with his salad-knife, bringing everyone to silent attention. “Welcome!” he greeted the partygoers. “Please help yourselves to some bubbly, but don’t drink it just yet!” Once every guest had taken a glass of champagne from the servants, their debonair master of ceremonies, accompanied by his equally glamorous sister, led them in a toast. “Look how these two stars sparkle for our show! A delightful romance has blossomed between them these past couple weeks; fi rst, an acquaintance of mine gave him her contact information, and they started messaging each other. Th ey fi rst met in person last week, and they promised to only meet again on the night of the rave—it truly doesn’t happen like this anymore, folks. Here’s to the happiness of Gházy Loon and his lovely lady, Parisa Lati fi an — beh sal ā mati !” Th e sole camera permitted to photograph the event fl ashed the room, the glass bottles stocked in the wet bar dappling the ceiling and walls in crystal-light. “Nurah and I had the fortune of sighting this bulbul by total accident. I won’t bore you with the details of our vacation—you can check out our latest Instagram stories for that—but just know that Gházy improvised a concert that melted the hearts of everyone in the restaurant. So we thought, then: our last rave went so well, and what we saw of his performing abilities took us by such pleasant surprise, why not make him our fi rst-ever live vocalist for our next one?” Morteza stopped speaking, so Nurah could break down the schedule for the rest of the night. “Anyone who’s been to our parties knows that we don’t just replay the popular songs,” she went on. “We like to give artists from underrepresented communities a platform whenever we can. Now, because of the police brutality that happened last week in Marivan, some of you might’ve heard we were featuring a Kurdish musician, like other parties are doing tonight. We do know one—he’s a very talented tembur player who performs traditional songs from his native village—but after some thinking, we felt that an unplugged repertoire like his deserves a chiller venue than the large outdoor rave we’d already planned. He’ll have his own concert soon, so stay tuned for more announcements on that. Now let’s talk about what happens after the reception. Everyone who signed up for our carpool will meet up at the parking garage two blocks down; the people who came in their own cars need to be there by ten, then we’ll all leave together by ten-thirty, it’ll be about a forty-minute drive. We’ll meet up at the parking lot in Pardis, and our guides will lead you up to the spot. If you still don’t have the scan-code for the group chat, let our doormen know after you get your things back from them—and remember, don’t take your phones with you, leave them in the car.” Th e partygoers re fl exively felt their pockets; they were not used to being deprived of their cellphones, which had been con fi scated upon entry to prevent unwanted disclosure of the event. “Make sure you stay hydrated out there. Let a sta ff member know if you need any help, and if they say we need to evacuate, listen to their instructions. Let’s hear it for another magical Tehran night!” Applause tinkled through the great room, quietly at fi rst as a courtesy to the hosts, then swelling in earnest when a beaming Parisa waved to them from her chair. Not a single 13 socialite in the city would be a stranger to their story once the morning came, that much was for certain! II After Darabad’s warm welcome to its new debutants, the two resident DJs continued their deep-house set; one would cue a track on his Pioneer mixer, and the other used a neon-padded sampler to build a ri ff over its soundscape. Some preening young ibises, their fresh fades crisply delineated from their sweat-beaded skin, fl ocked around the turntables, attempting to infect the other partygoers with their pent-up energy. But the fl ashing strips of white strobelights stole the color right out from them, casting the crowd into a chiaroscuro of faces and fabric. An ethereal choir e ff ect faded into the rhythm; as their combined requiem took hold over the overexposed space, the boys gave up their spontaneity and joined the others in stolidly swaying together. * * * Pirouz, his eardrums atremor from the clang of the cymbal tracks, retreated into the adjoining parlor with Farhad, his close-enough friend from university. At the prospect of sleeping over in some fl oozy’s dorm room, he had missed an evening of sparring-practice to keep Farhad company, but the night felt too gloomy to go on the prowl. One taste was enough of that easy-yet-boring prey, let alone the many he had already sampled from his conquests throughout the city; like many other supposedly tempting vices, the bedding of blasé brats held little allure for him anymore, except to prove his potency in a society he largely despised—but he did not want to appear ungrateful of his friend’s invitation, so he kept his dissatisfaction to himself. Farhad intuited his true feelings anyway. He himself knew hardly any of the guests; he had only come there out of boredom, having chanced upon an announcement for the rave on one of his group chats. “Get a load of these chucklefucks,” Pirouz muttered. “Have you seen the videos they make in those Berlin techno clubs, where everyone stands near the DJ so they can be on camera? Th at’s exactly what they’re trying to do—look at their eyes all half-shut, like they’re listening the most profound thing they’ve ever heard.” Th e two had fi rst met when Pirouz approached Farhad to be his math tutor. Although his scholarship covered the tuition and basic room-and-board for his engineering degree, he could not a ff ord Farhad’s normal rate, but after working out an arrangement where Pirouz would clean his apartment