He got off the Hakim Expressway at Pardisan Park, a collection of wooded trails and unfinished gravel pits that served as home to monkeys, rabbits, and strange, small-eared wildcats that Maryam called cute but Dovzhenko thought looked alien. They’d come here once before, never holding hands but walking side by side, thrilled and terrified at the notion of getting caught socializing as an unmarried couple. They spoke of her love for opera, of great books, and Rome, where he had spent time but she had not.
He drove around the park twice now, as if he were lost, then stopped to check his rear tire at the top of a gravel hill with a good 360-degree view.
Clean. Or as clean as one could be in a place where toxic air turned a white shirt yellow inside a month’s time.
Maryam’s apartment was on 2nd, a dead-end street. Dovzhenko parked the Tiba in a business parking lot on 5th, giving him more than one exit, and walked the block and a half. He enjoyed the walk. Recent rains and the near-constant breeze here in the north kept the air cleaner than in other parts of the city.
Dovzhenko let himself inside with his key. The apartment was well appointed like much on the hillside. Garbage washed downhill, so most things were nice here in the north of Tehran. Still in his damp leather jacket, he slumped in a living room chair and lit a cigarette. A driftwood sculpture dominated the center of a glass coffee table. Pictures of seascapes covered the freshly painted walls. He’d thought it odd at first. Maryam didn’t seem to care so much for the water, and then other inconsistencies cropped up over the course of his visits. It had once taken her several minutes to find the closet where she stored extra toilet paper. And then she could not locate the five spice. This rose petal — based seasoning was ubiquitous in Iranian kitchens, and misplacing it was akin to a Russian wife saying she couldn’t remember where she kept her tea.
Maryam had finally admitted that the apartment was not actually hers, but borrowed from a friend who was traveling. Recalling that conversation now made Dovzhenko feel guilty for smoking, and he stubbed out the cigarette in a clay ashtray beside the driftwood centerpiece. He slipped the extinguished cigarette butt into his jacket pocket, a habit drilled into him by his mother before he even went to training. She could have warned him not to smoke instead of teaching him to erase the clues of his presence, his saliva, his particular brand of cigarette — but such were the lessons of a mother who was also a spy.
A metallic rattle drew his attention to the door. His hand drifted to the 9x18 Makarov in his jacket pocket. He sometimes felt a little outgunned by the larger SIG Sauer .45s the IRGC carried, but the little Makarov had been around since the Cold War, was still issued — and he could shoot it with deadly effect.
He relaxed a notch when Maryam came through the door and pushed it shut with her lovely hip. She flipped the deadbolt while she juggled a briefcase and a canvas bag of bread and vegetables. At thirty-seven, she was a year younger than Dovzhenko. She wore a fashionable pantsuit of dark blue, loose enough to hide the swells and curves that he knew were underneath. With most of her body covered, he was immediately drawn to her eyes — and what eyes they were, wide and round and the color of mossy agate — not exactly brown, but not quite green. She reminded him of the American actress Natalia Wood. Dark hair, damp from the rain, peeked from the front of a compulsory headscarf that matched her blue slacks. Ya rusari ya tusari, she often said. A scarf or a beating.
He rose quickly, taking the bags.
“Any trouble?” he asked.
She’d not had to walk far, but the morality police often patrolled the areas around the metro stations and grocers at this time of the evening.
“None,” she said, voice husky, matching the earthy intensity of her eyes. “I used Gershad to get me past the idiots quite unmolested.”
Dovzhenko would have laughed had it not been so tragic. Gershad was an app used to avoid the Gashte Ershad, or morality police. Similar to mobile applications that warned of a radar trap, users of Gershad posted locations where they had seen the chador-clad women and uniformed officers. Icons of bald, bearded morality goons appeared on a map of the city. To Maryam and other women who wished to wear their scarves pushed back an extra inch or enjoy a cup of tea with a male acquaintance, the app was as normal as using a GPS to navigate to an unknown address.
“I found fresh cucumber and tomato — hothouse, this early in the year, but they looked nice.” She kissed him, grabbing him by the belt buckle when he turned for the kitchen.
“What a cold little hand,” he said, quoting her favorite opera.
She scoffed. “You are aware that Mimì dies in La Bohème?”
“I know,” he said. “But I do not feel like being happy today.”
She pulled him closer. “Do you feel like being hungry?”
“Not really.”
“Nor do I,” she said. “Not for hothouse tomatoes, anyway.”
She turned for the bathroom, as she always did when she got home. He joked that she was conditioned to pee as soon as she saw her own front door. When she came out a moment later, she was minus the rusari and her jacket.
“That is much better.” She sighed, tripping out of her shoes as she led him by the hand into the bedroom.
21
Later, much later, Dovzhenko lay with one hand behind his head, the other tracing the small bumps of Maryam’s spine. She sat hunched forward, arms hugging the tangle of sheets that was pulled over her knees. Shoulders bare, she was beautifully exposed down to the twin dimples at the small of her back. An engraved pendant was suspended on a silver chain against her breasts. Usually one for quiet banter, she was silent now, which meant she had something important on her mind. Dovzhenko continued to run his fingers along her skin, and gave her time to think.
At length, she leaned against the headboard and lifted the necklace over her head. She held up the pendant, letting it swing to and fro as if to hypnotize him. “Do you know what this is?”
“A flower,” he said, giving a little shrug. He let his hand slide down her side to touch her knee.
“It is an inverted tulip,” she said. “A lily, actually, that grows on the mountains above us. We call it ashk-e-Maryam—Maryam’s tears.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “I tell you this because I want you to know me.”
Dovzhenko sat up beside her and put a finger to her lips. “I know enough to be happy.”
“You Russians,” she said. “You are so fond of fairy tales that you shy away from real life.”
“I am being honest,” Dovzhenko said. “I know you well enough.”
“No,” she said, pulling away. “You do not. But I know you… what you do.” She rolled to reach for her cigarettes on the side table, flicked open the metal case, and then held out a trembling palm.
He gave her his lighter and then sat back again, eyeing her.
“Okay, then,” he said. “What do I do?”
“Do you think I am stupid?” She picked a fleck of tobacco from her lip and blew a cloud of smoke at his face, clicking the lighter open and shut, open and shut. “Any Russian who stays in Iran for as long as you have is either a scientist or a spy.” She gave him a wan smile. “And you are not quite boring enough to be a scientist.”
“Maryam—” Dovzhenko began to trace a circle on the hollow of her hip. “I am merely an adviser to your government science programs. I am telling you the—”