But when Paul showed up a few minutes later and she mentioned it to him in an undervoice with a look of concern, he looked surprised too. He went to tell his uncle about it immediately. All he said in response was that Kate did not need any of it during her stay with them, and he thought it was safer to keep them locked up. They didn’t intend to let her pay for anything so she didn’t need her credit card or traveler’s checks, and he pointed out that Katie didn’t need her passport until she left. Paul had no idea who had gone through the backpack and didn’t want to ask. His uncle was the authority here, and when he explained it to Katie a short time later, she still looked upset. Paul had gone to check his own room by then and found that both of his passports and money were gone too. Kate was grateful that she’d had her money and phone on her at lunch when Paul told her what his uncle had said about her passport and credit card being safer if locked up.
“Can you ask him to give them back? I’d feel better hanging on to them myself,” Kate asked Paul as they conferred about it in whispers in the upstairs hall. “I’m really not comfortable without my passport.” And she was glad she had made Xerox copies of his and her own, which were still in the bottom of the backpack.
“Neither am I,” he assured her. It was the first hiccup of the trip. “I’ll talk to my uncle about it again.” But when he did, his uncle told him that neither of them needed to have their passports. Paul didn’t want to argue with him and be disrespectful, and his uncle was very firm about keeping them in his possession for safekeeping. Kate looked like she was going to cry when Paul told her.
“That really makes me nervous,” she said, wishing she could hug him then. She needed the reassurance. Losing control of her passport was frightening for her. It made Kate feel completely helpless. She realized then that she hadn’t texted Annie when they arrived, and she wasn’t sure if it would work here. She decided to try, and sent a short text that said only, “Safely arrived. I love you,” and then she decided to turn it off to save her battery, in case they wouldn’t let her have that either.
She was sure they meant well in keeping her passport, but it still made her uncomfortable to have lost possession of it. She put the BlackBerry in a sock and hid it far under her mattress, where she knew it was safe. It was her only means of communication with the outside world, and she didn’t want it running down, or taken. She didn’t like being without her passport at all, nor the traveler’s checks and credit card, all of which were tangible signs of her freedom and independence. It was a shock to have them taken away, however benevolent their motives. It made her feel like a child instead of an adult. And Paul was unhappy as well. His uncle had pointed out to him that only his Iranian passport mattered here, and his American one was useless to him in Tehran anyway. But Paul didn’t want to lose possession of his passports, and Katie only had one. But there was nothing they could do about it. Paul’s uncle was the head of the family, and he made the decisions for all of them, even for Katie while she stayed with them.
After that, Paul and his male cousins went out to drive around old familiar places. The women stayed home, and Shirin and Soudabeh played cards with Kate. She would have liked to go out with Paul and the boys too, and see more of the city, but she didn’t want to be rude to the girls, who were so excited to have her there.
The boys came back three hours later in high spirits. Paul said he had seen his old school and visited one of his boyhood friends. He had been surprised to discover that his friend was the man betrothed to Soudabeh and would be marrying her that summer. It felt strange to think of his own friends getting married, but he knew that people got married younger here. As much as he loved Katie, he didn’t feel ready for that himself. He loved being back in Tehran, seeing family and friends and all the familiar sights and places, and enjoying the sounds and smells that he had missed for so long.
He went out with the men again that night. This time Paul’s uncle went with them, and they were meeting other friends on the way. Paul looked apologetically at Kate as they left. His uncle wanted her to stay home with Jelveh and the girls. The men wanted to go out on their own, which was customary here.
That evening, Kate, Shirin, and Soudabeh lay on her bed and talked about fashion again, and movie stars. They didn’t know them all, although they knew some, and were fascinated by everything Kate had to say. They treated her like a visiting dignitary in their midst. And Katie knew that Annie would have been relieved to see what a close-knit, wholesome family they were, and how well taken care of she was. And she didn’t mind Paul’s boys’ night out. She was understanding about it and wanted him to enjoy the company of his male relatives too after so long away.
The three girls laughed and giggled a lot that night, and Soudabeh asked Katie if she had a boyfriend. She gasped with excitement when Kate said she did. And Kate laughed out loud at the irony that it was their cousin, which she couldn’t tell them. The fact that she was not Muslim, at least not yet, made it unwise for her and Paul to admit to their relationship here.
The girls went to bed long before the boys came home, and Kate wondered what they were doing. In spite of herself and her good intentions, as it got late, she felt left out. And she didn’t see Paul again until breakfast the next morning, and he was very solicitous over breakfast. He apologized again for not taking her out the night before.
“Did you sleep okay?” Paul asked her, wishing he could put his arms around her, but certainly not here.
“Fine.” She smiled at him. “What time did you come in?”
“Around two,” he said, and a little while later his cousins all came downstairs, and they discussed their visit that day to the university. All three boys were going and Soudabeh and Kate. They were all in high spirits when they left in the van right after breakfast.
Kate was impressed by how enormous the university was, and they were there all day, while the boys showed them around. They stopped several times to chat with friends, and Paul’s cousins introduced him to several young women students.
The university was even bigger than NYU, where Ted went to law school, and way, way bigger than Pratt, where she and Paul studied design.
Excited by their visit to the university, Kate tried to suggest they go to a museum afterward, but no one wanted to go with her, and Paul promised he’d try to arrange it. And she was also anxious to see the bazaar that she had heard so much about.
She turned her BlackBerry on briefly when she went to bed that night and saw that she had a text from Annie. “Take care, I love you” was all it said, and after reading the message, she turned it off. It still had plenty of power, and she was glad it did, because the power cord and transformer she’d bought had both disappeared from her backpack. Neither Soudabeh nor Shirin had cell phones and said their father didn’t like them, but both had iPods they listened to constantly.
At breakfast with Kate the next day, both girls talked about their weddings. They were excited about them, and Shirin didn’t mind at all being betrothed to a man five years older than she was. She thought he was very good looking. And both girls wanted to have babies soon. It was a culture where everyone started young. Jelveh had told Kate that she had gotten married at fourteen and had her first son at fifteen, and her husband was considerably older than she was. Kate realized when she said it that Jelveh was three or four years younger than Annie, which seemed amazing to her, and had a twenty-three-year-old son. She explained to her then about her aunt raising them, and her parents dying when she was five. Jelveh was shocked to learn that Annie wasn’t married and didn’t have children of her own. “How sad,” she said, looking sympathetic, and Kate realized that maybe it was, but Annie didn’t seem to mind. She had them.