Letter XI

Niloofar, my precious friend, can you believe it’s been almost twenty years since our high school days? I don’t remember much from back then—maybe it’s because I never loved school, or because those tiresome math classes nearly burned me out. But there are certain memories I hold dear, and honestly, I keep asking myself why I recall them so vividly. Your colored rollerball pens, for instance—the ones you used to write your notes and homework with, in that beautiful handwriting of yours. There was one green pen and two blue ones: one light blue and one dark blue. You had a black watch that seemed as though it was made just for you. Your shoes, they never seemed to get dirty. You and I sat in the back row of the classroom. You were the top student, and I was the mischievous one who brought film magazines to school. How you laughed at me, yet how willingly you dreamed alongside me.

I left Iran during my pre-university year. Four years later, you left too. I was still homesick for Iran. At university, I would sit outside the library and talk to you on the phone. You weren’t happy with your new circumstances either. Those were hard years. But I don’t want to talk about the hardships—we’ve spent enough time on them already. I want to talk about my fears, and about how, every single time, you pulled me out of them. I was always afraid. Of new experiences, of failure, of success, meeting new people, losing, leaving, and staying... When I gave up on studying engineering and went to film school, you told me you were proud of me. I was full of doubt, hesitation, and fear, and your words gave me courage. When my first article was published in print, you sent me a message saying you absolutely had to buy the book and read my piece.

The first time you came to visit me in New York, I wasn’t in a good place. Something had turned my life upside down, and you didn’t know it yet. The day you arrived, the weather was a little cold. We walked together until we reached a wide river. We found a bench and sat down to talk. I think you had already realized I wasn’t doing well. I went around in circles for a while, trying to find my way to the heart of what had happened. I think I talked for an hour. I told you the whole story, from alef to ye, from beginning to end. You didn’t interrupt me once. You didn’t ask questions, reproach me, or judge me. After an hour, you told me I had every right to feel this awful, this sad. I think that was when something finally broke open inside me, and I cried the way one needs to cry after a long time of not crying. How good it felt—that lightness after months of sorrow and pain. How much it meant, that someone had told me I was allowed to feel that way. At the time, I was living in a dorm. I had a small room with a bed, a desk, and a bookshelf. We walked back to the dorm together and argued a little about who would get to sleep on the bed. Then, all of a sudden, you spread the sleeping bag out on the floor, dropped yourself onto it, and closed your eyes. I told you that you were the guest and the bed was yours. You told me to turn off the lights before sleep slipped away from you. Neither of us slept. We relived old memories and laughed out loud. How did you manage to make me laugh after that sad afternoon?

Later, we became neighbors. Not you and I specifically, but your mother’s house and my father’s house, back in Iran. Then the twelve-day war began, followed by the events of Dey, and finally the forty-day war. So much bitterness piled up, and one thing came right after the other—just remembering it all now makes my head feel heavy. During that whole terrible situation, there was no phone, no internet. My father and your mother managed to call us from Iran using expensive phone cards. In the mornings, your mother would call, and you would immediately let me know that the neighborhood was safe. In the afternoons, my father would call, and I would quickly let you know that the neighborhood was still calm and quiet. The night they struck near our homes, I sent you a message in a state of distress. I was careful not to alarm you. I tried to start with unrelated things and work my way toward the heart of the matter. But what was the heart of the matter, really? That everything would be all right? That we had to endure all this destruction so that better days could come? You sent me a message back saying everything was fine, and that I shouldn’t worry. In that moment, you took my hand again and pulled me out of the middle of my fears. Without any preamble, without any hesitation or buildup, you went straight to the heart of the matter: your mother was all right. My father was all right.

A few months ago, I was lying on the couch and decided to send you a long voice message. I told you that, for a few years now, certain things in my life had been bothering me. Certain things were out of place, and I didn’t have the energy or the will to change them. And because of that, I hated myself. That damned fear had crept back into me again. You were angry with me for talking about myself that way. Then you started listing everything I had done and accomplished, one thing after another, like a long line of train cars pulling out of a station. I laughed when I heard how much you still remembered. At the end of your message, you told me that maybe my capacity for change had simply filled up, and that I shouldn’t be so hard on myself. Maybe, you said, I needed to wait a little and start again. I got up off the couch, made myself a cup of tea, and sat down to watch a film. I did the things I loved, for myself, as a way of telling myself that I loved myself.

I said I wouldn’t talk about the hardships and the painful things, but honestly, our lives have been full of bitter moments, whether we wanted them to be or not. There are bright spots too. You’re one of them. In a time when friends leave and never return, you were there, you are here, and you will always be with me. I wrote all of this to tell you three words: I love you. I love you so much, my high school seatmate, my friend from my youth (and my middle age and my old age, and on, and on…)

Tania