Najma Behzadi’s First Date

Najma Behzadi's First Date 22 MINUTE READ

Anush Saraswati decided his crush on Najma Behzadi began the night she kicked Mohsen’s butt at the old disco. That meant, according to his calculations, that he had completely failed to make any romantic overture towards her for five years, two months, and sixteen days. He was deeply concerned about this.

“Well, do you want to do something?” Shahab asked, looking up at Anush from the floor next to Mohsen, where he lay on his stomach with his feet kicking in the air and chin propped on his hands. Mohsen rolled around in the fetal position next to him. “Us hanging out together isn’t allowed in the first place. If Agent Jourdan found out you went on a date, or something, he would probably hang us all in Azadi Square.”

“I don’t want to go on a date!” Anush insisted. Then he paused. “Do I want to go on a date?”

“Does she?” Shahab countered. “That’s the real question. Hamshira doesn’t do anything she doesn’t want to do.”

“This is true,” Anush mused, rubbing his chin and, by extension, his one chin hair, very seriously. “I remember the incident at Eid last year. She is as likely to politely say ‘no, thank you’ as she is to destroy me in close combat if I ask.”

Shahab rolled over onto his back and folded his arms behind his head, pushing Mohsen aside with a groan. “Well, do you have to ask?”

“If I don’t, I will definitely die,” Anush said, incredulous. Shahab made an aggravated sound and jumped to his feet.

“No, I mean,” he began, going to his desk, which was neatly organized, and searching his papers. He frowned and moved to Mohsen’s desk, which was covered in more candy wrappers than homework, and extracted a slightly soggy pamphlet printed in Arabic. He held it out for Anush. “What if you just plan it like a hangout? Go somewhere cool, eat some food— don’t freak out about it being a date. Just have fun. And then you can tell her you like her.”

Mohsen snickered at the word “like” from his position on the floor. Shahab spat on him, provoking a squawk of outrage.

“Shut up, Mohs,” Anush said, opening the pamphlet, “the last girl you talked to punched you in the face and she wasn’t even Najma.”

“Why do I tell you guys anything?” Mohsen groaned.

“Anyway,” Shahab continued, in a put-upon tone, “this way, you can have fun with her all day, and, even if she says no, you had a good time before.”

“If she says ‘no,’ I will definitely, definitely die,” Anush muttered, frowning down at the little carnivals and markets advertised in the brochure. He closed it and tossed it away. “Najma doesn’t like carnivals and stuff any more than we do. What does Najma like?”

“Violence,” Mohsen moaned.

“Making that face so you know she knows something you don’t, but she doesn’t tell you?” Shahab suggested. “You know the one. It’s like—”

“This is not helpful,” Anush said.

“She likes watching the city,” Mohsen added. Anush looked up, eyes widening.

“History!” he said, jumping to his feet and nearly tripping over Mohsen. “She loves history! What’s historical?”

Shahab took Anush’s seat on the bed and frowned as he thought. “Really? Most of Tehran. This used to be Persia, long ago. You cannot trip and fall over without pushing yourself back up on an old throne or temple.”

Mohsen pulled himself onto the bed and waved his hand. “What’s that big ugly tower? In Rey? You know the one. It’s historical and tall, to see the city from.”

“Mohs, I will never say this again, so enjoy it,” Anush said, grabbing him by the shoulders. “You are a genius.”

“Don’t make it gay, man,” Mohsen grumbled, but he looked pleased. Shahab slapped him on the back.

“There is only one problem,” Shahab pointed out. “You will need to take the Metro to reach Rey without being gone for so long the agents care.”

“Two problems,” Anush corrected. “Since the incident last month at ______, police are everywhere, especially around historical stuff. There were fifty at the museum when I passed by the other day.”

Shahab grinned, teeth almost blindingly white in his dark face, and rubbed his hands together. “I think this is what is called ‘practical field training,’ my friends. Do not worry about guards.”

“Don’t worry about the Metro, either!” Mohsen said. He jumped up, apparently feeling better, and ran to his desk. He cleared his throat and affected a bow as he pulled out the long, thin drawer meant for a computer keyboard. Anush walked over to find row upon row of stolen and scavenged Metro tickets, passes, and identification cards.

“Mohs,” Anush said, in awe, “you have to teach me how to pick-pocket.”

“You’re not cute enough to get away with it,” Mohsen said. Then he put on the deferent, blustering accent of a shop keeper, waved his hand over the passes, and asked, “So, esteemed sir, are you finding something to your liking among my fine wares?”

“Er, one last thing,” Shahab cut in. The other two boys looked at him. “We have to tell Ahmad.”

Simultaneous groans went up.

“No, he’s gonna tell us we can’t,” Mohsen protested.

“Ahmad’s been lame since he turned seventeen,” Anush grumbled. “He won’t practice Punjabi with me anymore and doesn’t want to hang out but once a month, maybe.”

“Yes, yes,” Shahab agreed, “but! He has a car.”

“Ohhh,” Mohsen said. “Yeah, we should tell him, because this is probably gonna go badly.”

“Yeah, true,” Anush said. “Okay, Mohsen, you said you’re the cute one, that’s your job. Once everything’s in motion and he can’t ruin it, let him know we’ll be at the tower. He’ll be delayed by traffic for, like, eight hours, but he can be the getaway driver when he does show up.”

The boys nodded to each other. Then, as one, they pulled their star pendants from their shirts, touched two fingers to them, and saluted.

“Operation, uh…” Anush started, thinking quickly, “Operation Tower Defense is go!”

Anush approached Najma’s house around dusk. He peeked through a gap in the fence with his good eye and found her and her family’s maid working in the garden, pulling weeds and planting stakes to support flowers with weaker stems. He pursed his lips and let out a low, quiet whistle. Najma’s head slowly rose to peer at the fence. Their eyes met.

“Maryam, I think I heard amu calling for you,” she said, the picture of innocence. The maid stood from her crouch and slapped dirt from her hands off on her apron.

“Ugh, him,” she grumbled. “Alright, Najma, just keep working with the dahlias. They will bloom correctly this season, Inshallah.”

“Of course,” Najma agreed as the maid climbed the slight slope back towards the house. Only then did she whistle back. Anush pushed aside the three loose boards of the fence and climbed through. Najma smiled when she saw him. “Hello, Anush. What are you getting into now?”

“Too much,” he said. Then, all in one breath, he asked, “Najma-do-you-want-to-go-somewhere-with-me-tomorrow-evening?”

Najma frowned at him. “Are you speaking Persian? I haven’t been able to practice my Punjabi since Ahmad got all lame.”

Anush forced himself to take a breath and repeat his question as a coherent sentence. Najma blinked at him before smiling again.

“Yeah!” she agreed. “The agents are having another big meeting. I’ll just say I’m feeling sick and going to bed early, and I can sneak out around six-thirty. Will that work?”

“Yes, yeah, that’s good,” Anush sputtered. Najma’s eyes narrowed and she studied him. Anush felt his heart stop as she slowly assumed the knowing look Shahab had talked about.

“If you are here on behalf of Mohsen,” she said, with a sly smile, “you can tell him he has already lost our rematch by not being confident enough to issue the challenge himself.”

Anush deflated with relief. “No, I’m really not.”

“Oh, okay,” Najma said, losing her superior look and relaxing into a smile. “See you tomorrow, ‘Nush.”

Anush darted back for the fence. “Later, hamshi— Naj. Najma. See you, uh. Later.”

Anush could practically feel her confused look on his back as he settled the boards back into place and crept away before the maid returned. He ran a block down before meeting up with Shahab again.

“Well?” Shahab demanded. Anush stopped to catch his breath with his hands on his knees.

“Six-thirty tomorrow,” he gasped. “Let Mohsen know so he can grab the right tickets for us. What are you going to do about the guards?”

“Practical application of chemistry,” Shahab said, cryptically. Anush let it go. He suddenly had bigger concerns.

“Shahab, what do you wear on a date?” he demanded. His good eye was wild with panic. “Also, what do you bring? What’s good food? Shahab!”

“To the internet café?” Shahab suggested.

“Run!” Anush shouted as he sprinted down the hill back towards the heart of Tehran.

Anush crouched on the roof wrapping around the building under Najma’s window. His backpack was heavy and clinked. He rubbed his chin, still a little sore from a tearful decision by all parties assembled that his one chin hair did not, in fact, look good enough to stay for his date. Anush had to give it to Shahab, though— he was very accurate and quick in plucking it with his fingernails. Anush’s hair was combed back, for once, and he had on the black eyepatch his agents had given him shortly after his blinding, which he never usually wore.

“You look like a pirate,” Mohsen had said. When Shahab elbowed him, he added, “A handsome pirate.”

He waited in shaky anticipation as he heard the door open and close to Najma’s room and rustling begin. He knew Najma always kept a bag packed for trips into the city, but he hoped it wouldn’t take her long to change into something suitable for running. Mohsen’s stolen passes were best used when Metro security was about to change shifts, when the station workers were tired.

The window slid open above. Anush nearly jumped out of his skin. Najma dropped down silently and shut it after her. She wore a tightly-wrapped black hijab, the navy blue salwar-kameez with the silver embroidery Anush stole for her last birthday, and crouched on the tile in soft black boots. She looked good. Anush gulped as she studied him, in particular the eyepatch. But she didn’t comment. Just gave him a coy smile and said, “Shall we?”

They ran. It never got old. Najma seemed to love it, getting to stretch her legs on long, downhill races from the rich neighborhoods in the hills to the city. The loose end of her hijab and the back of the salwar-kameez caught the wind and flowed behind her as she challenged Anush in speed. His nerves began to fall away as they dodged obstacles and cut down back alleys as they had together for years. They reached the Metro station in plenty of time. Najma drew some looks in the foreign, Punjabi cut of the kameez, but she didn’t seem to care. It actually worked for them when they handed in their passes and made to board the train. The station worker was too busy frowning at her to check them closely.

“A young lady should not go around at night in little more than trousers,” the worker grumbled. Anush gave him a nasty look with his good eye and puffed himself up to his full height.

“Is there a problem here you would like to discuss with me?” Anush asked. The station worker snorted and looked away, handing back the torn stubs of their tickets.

“No, sir,” he said. “Next!”

Najma rolled her eyes at Anush as they took their seats. “That would’ve been a fun development, no? Get your tickets for a scrap between trainee members of the Foundation and the Iranian Morality Police.”

“You would beat them all,” Anush teased. “It would be shameful for the nation.”

“We can’t have that,” Najma said, tugging the loose end of her hijab up to cover a pleased grin.

The ride out to Rey was long, if otherwise uneventful. Najma and Anush made easy conversation about a number of topics other than where they were headed. That itched at the back of Anush’s mind. He was too relieved about everything going smoothly so far to pull on the thread, however, so he refocused on fervently arguing why a women’s soccer league wearing hijabs would be a terrible idea, while Najma illustrated increasingly violent uses for the extra fabric. Getting back out into the night air was a welcome relief from thoughts of being strangled, even with the lingering city smog. Anush scanned the street for a familiar face and found it hidden under a plain taqiyah and above the modest clothing of an Imam. Shahab gave the knowing but humble nod of a religious apprentice as Anush rolled his eyes.

“Shahab, you are going to hell,” he muttered.

“What was that?” Najma asked, glancing away from watching the crowds milling around the station for a moment. Anush shook his head. He pointed up the street where, just visible due to distance and the dark of the night, a tower could be made out.

“This way,” he said. Najma laughed and punched him in the arm.

“Tughrul Tower?” she asked, overjoyed. “I’ve wanted to see it for so long! Come on, ‘Nush!”

She cut through the crowd and headed for an alley. Anush was helpless to do anything but follow. They picked up speed away from the crowds and watching eyes and pushed themselves to carve a new path through unknown territory up the hill to the old tower. Najma laughed as she bounced over trashbags and drunkards hiding from the authorities, and Anush joined her as he playfully tried to snatch at the end of her headscarf while they ran. They came out a few streets below the tower and crouched behind a low wall to scout the entrance.

“Just two guards on the gate to the grounds, but that’s two more than I want to deal with,” Najma observed. She glanced at Anush. “Do you have a plan?”

Anush grinned and winked his uncovered eye. “When do I not have some scheme?”

Whatever Najma was about to say to that was cut off by a sudden and incredibly loud explosion.

Getting everyone away from the area had been the most frustrating part. Shahab scouted the car hours earlier, tires flat and obviously abandoned, and set up a crate next to it. He settled into the most fervent preaching he could summon from his studies of the Qur’an, given additional authenticity by the clothing he’d “borrowed” from a mosque two blocks away. People found other places to be once he started singling them out specifically with a pointing finger. Once he had cleared almost a whole block with his shouting, he shook his head in disgust and feigned stomping away angrily. He actually stomped away to the minimum safe distance, retrieved the cheap pager he’d modified to act as a remote detonator, and checked his watch. The device he’d attached to the undercarriage of the car, after siphoning the gasoline but before getting up on his soapbox, was ready to go whenever.

He gave Najma and Anush another two minutes, keeping an eye out to make sure the area remained clear. Then he sent the code.

Poetry. Pure poetry. Reading about chemical reactions and explosive force in the manuals given to him by the agents of Delta-5 was one thing. Actually watching a vehicle spring into the air and do a full turn, like an unwieldy dancer, fire engulfing it as it slammed back down onto the pavement… that was something else.

Shahab watched the explosion he’d so carefully orchestrated play out, hands clasped in front of his mouth, eyes wet and wide with awe. Several things in his head clicked into place. A long and illustrious career opened before him.

Then the police came running and he made himself scarce.

“A car bomb?” Najma hissed as they sprinted for the gate the guards had abandoned on hearing the explosion. Anush threw his hands up as they ran through and ducked for cover at the base of the twenty-meter-high Tughrul Tower.

“He said he was handling it,” Anush protested. “I didn’t ask!”

Najma clicked her tongue against her teeth. “If anyone got hurt—”

“Shahab is too pious to have let that happened,” Anush cut in. He waved for her to follow him as he crept up to a side of the tower covered in scaffolding. “‘He who kills one person, it is as if he had killed the whole world,’ remember? I think they’re doing restoration. We can go up this way.”

Najma shook her head but let the subject drop as they began climbing up the scaffolding. With every meter they covered, her excitement grew. She pointed at architectural elements and different sections of the tower’s stone.

“This was built in the twelfth century as a tomb,” she explained as they paused to rest halfway up. “It was for a great king, Tughrul Beg, who died in Rey.”

“Not a place I’d want to die,” Anush observed, looking out over the streets below, clogged with late evening traffic. Najma elbowed him.

“Come on,” she said, pointing up towards the top where decorations resembling honeycomb terminated in a flat roof. “It used to have a dome, but that fell in long ago. We should be able to sit right on the top.”

They could. The stone crumbled slightly under their hands as they eased from the scaffolding onto the tower itself, and Anush felt the pounding of his pulse in his ears at the sight of the drop. It was all worth it for the look on Najma’s face as she settled in and turned to look back out over Tehran.

“Oh,” she breathed. The hundred thousand sparkling lights of the city reflected in her eyes. Anush sort of stopped breathing. “Oh, Anush. It’s so beautiful.”

“Yeah,” he whispered. He shifted and the bottle in his backpack clinked against the other things he’d brought. “Oh, hold on.”

He took off the pack and set it on the scaffolding. He unzipped it and pulled out a tall glass bottle. He grinned as he handed it to Najma for her inspection. Her eyebrows rose towards her hairline.

“Wine?” she asked, quietly, as if she might be overheard by a disapproving maid even where they were. She looked at Anush and bit her lip as she shook the bottle, sloshing the contents. “Ooh, this is bad. We’re not just going to drink, though, are we?”

“Nah,” Anush said as he dug around in the bag. Over the next few minutes he laid out dates, goat cheese, heart of palm, and jars of cold cream and honey on the comb. Pretty much every delicacy he’d been able to scrounge from his home, he had. Najma took the wooden charger he handed her and began making them plates, scooping sticky foods with her fingers for lack of utensils, laughing.

“There’s always something you forget,” she teased, sucking honey from the side of her hand. “Are we going to drink straight from the bottle, too?”

Anush produced a bundled t-shirt and unwrapped two glass coffee cups from within. Najma laughed and worked the cork out of the already half-empty bottle of wine he’d stolen and poured them both a little. She lifted hers and tapped the side with a fingernail to call a toast. Anush grinned and lifted his own cup.

“To the past,” she suggested, waving at the tower they sat on. Then she inclined her head towards the city. “And the future.”

“To not falling off,” Anush added. She giggled as he clinked their glasses together. They watched each other, hesitating, as they each made to sip. Anush went first and grimaced. Najma followed and actually choked a little.

“Yallah, that’s terrible!” Najma coughed, setting the cup aside and wiping at her mouth. Anush spat his mouthful over the side of the tower and she smacked him on the arm for it.

“Ugh, shit,” Anush said. He picked up the bottle and shook it angrily. “Why do adults drink this stuff? Why did the internet betray me?”

Najma laughed at him and took the bottle before he threw that over the side too. “Eat some cheese, I think it will help. Pass me some too, Anush, you’re trying to poison me.”

They hurriedly ate some of their picnic and made grateful sounds as new flavors washed away the taste of the bitter wine. Anush chewed a date and watched Najma delicately dab up some cream with a broken-off piece of the honey comb.

“I would never try to poison you,” Anush said. He mulled over his thoughts as he added, “I did try to poison myself, once, though. Still probably would’ve tasted better than that, I think.”

Najma looked up in surprise. “You tried to poison yourself?”

“I was six,” Anush explained, shaking his head at his own silliness. “I was upset about something and decided the best way to get back at the agents would be to just die. Just drop dead, in the kitchen. I had grand visions of all the sad agents, crying and crying, as they carried my little coffin to their bosses.

“Like I said before,” he added, “I’ve always got some scheme.”

“How did you try to do it?” Najma asked, in a hushed voice. Anush laughed.

“A capful of drain cleaner,” he said, miming pouring the smallest possible amount of something into the pinched fingers of his other hand. “I was going to swallow it, except Agent Jourdan came into the kitchen and surprised me. I jumped, the drain cleaner splashed up, and all of a sudden the world got a lot darker on one side.”

Anush flicked at his eyepatch. “Oops.”

“‘Oops,’” Najma echoed, incredulous. She reached out towards the patch. Anush jerked back at first, but then let her gently pull it off and set it on the scaffolding. He blinked the eye, which was a little moist from being trapped under the patch, and Najma studied his face. “I’d always wondered. I… Thank you, Anush, for telling me.”

Najma set her wooden plate aside and wiped her other hand on the shirt he’d used to pack the cups. She shot him a look that was only partially apologetic. His throat clicked. He pushed his own plate aside and wiped his sweating palms on his pants. A sliver of moon, obscured by clouds and smog, cast weak light over where they sat.

“Najma,” he began, “I wanted to…”

And then she kissed him.

It only lasted a few moments. He was too shocked to try to apply any of the kissing tips he’d shamefully searched with Shahab laughing at him over his shoulder in the internet café, so when she pulled back he was still sitting, dumbfounded, with his eyes wide and his mouth agape.

“I...” he stuttered. “What?”

Najma grinned at him. “I asked Ahmad if we were all hanging out tonight. He said he hadn’t heard anything and put the pressure on Mohsen. He cracked like the baby he is and told all.”

“Dammit, Ahmad!” Anush grumbled. “Dammit, Mohsen! Shahab is truly the only one worthwhile.”

“Oh, so now that you’ve got a kiss, I’m the dirt under your shoes?” Najma teased. Anush choked and sputtered to recover and she laughed.

“No, I’m…”

“Anush,” she said, covering his sticky hand with hers, “I’ve been looking forward to this all day.”

Anush looked at her, really looked. Took in her smile, her hand on his, the glittering of the silver embroidery on the salwar-kameez she had worn for this. He looked back out over the city and exhaled all of his stress in one, deep sigh. He leaned into her and she leaned into him.

“So,” he ventured, “nailed it?”

“I’m still going to yell Shahab into a jelly for the car bomb,” Najma said, “but, otherwise, yes.”

Anush pointed down at the gate far below, where the guards had resumed their posts. “If you have a better idea of how to handle them, now is the time to try it.”

“Is that a challenge?” she asked, looking at him with her sly, knowing expression.

Far below, the two guards shouted and crumpled with spasmodic jerks of their bodies. A figure stepped out of the shadow of the fence and waved up at them.

“Are you two done?” Ahmad shouted, hands cupped around his mouth. “They’re going to be angry when they wake up.”

“Cheating,” Anush chided, but he was smiling. “Using Ahmad is cheating.”

“And using Shahab was…?” Najma asked. She shimmied off the tower stone and Anush looked away, flushed, as she brushed dust from her bottom. “Besides, it’s not cheating, it’s an exit strategy. Ahmad has a car.”

“Someday I’ll have a car,” Anush said. He knocked his feet against Najma’s where she stood on the scaffolding. She grinned and held her hand out to him.

“Oh, pity the world then,” she said. “We will be unstoppable.”

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED JAN 2015 | REHOSTED 2/27/2024