Page 61 of The Mismatch

Tehran, 1978

It was on their first anniversary that Neda realised she was in love with Hossein. It was a peculiar feeling; a sort of bubbling, like a volcano, deep in the pit of her stomach. They were cuddling in bed, his strong arms gripping her midriff as he nuzzled his face into her hair. She relished this intimacy. They would hold each other for hours, with Neda rattling off any piece of information she could about her day while he would listen, commenting, asking for more. They would laugh about nothing for hours, until their neighbour hit a broomstick against the wall. This was what companionship truly was. She had tried to keep the words in, not say them, but human nature wouldn’t allow her that.

‘I love you,’ she said, in a small voice, partly hoping he wouldn’t hear, but she had to say it.

He curled his bad leg around hers and pulled her to him, impossibly close. ‘I’ve always loved you,’ he said, bashfully.

‘You often say these things,’ she said doubtfully. ‘But why? How is that possible?’

‘Azizam, you’re the smartest person I know, so caring, sogood. Just being with you, I can feel your goodness. You forgave me when you didn’t need to.’ He kissed the top of herhead. ‘The worst thing you do is gossip, and I can tell you feel so guilty even about that. It’s cute. You’re cute.’

‘I wish you and Baba got along.’

He sighed. ‘He doesn’t want to talk to me. He thinks he already knows me.’

His chest hair scratched against Neda’s neck and she moved away. ‘Maybe he just needs more time,’ she mused.

‘It’s a hard thing giving your daughter away … I could try again, I suppose?’

Hossein had rung Baba numerous times and shown up at her family home, but he was always met with the same icy silence, or if Baba had to talk it was monosyllabic, causing Maman to overcompensate.

The arrival of a letter in the post soon shook up their routine. Shook up their entire lives.

‘What do you think?’ Neda tentatively asked Hossein. They sat cross-legged on the sofreh. He had a piece of bread lathered in honey almost to his mouth, and he held it there contemplating her words. A drip of honey fell from the bread and left a trail on the sofreh.

‘What doyouthink?’ he asked, surprising her.

‘I don’t know … it’s a great opportunity but I only applied on a whim, I didn’t think anything of it. I was hoping I’d get a place at a university in Tehran. And also we have this.’ She gestured to their tiny one-bedroomed apartment. Her family had provided them with key pieces of furniture, and she knew they’d struggled to do that despite the place being so small. But tradition dictated that the man’s family pays for the wedding and the woman’s the furniture. ‘And, of course,you have your job, and you might not want to move,’ she added quickly. Whilst Hossein gave her free rein to speak her thoughts, she sometimes wondered if he was almost too good to be true. She didn’t want to overstep any unseen boundaries.

‘I can find another job.’ He broke into a grin. ‘It could be an adventure.’

‘And so many of our friends are moving abroad.’

‘If we can get away before things become even worse here …’

Was it treacherous, she wondered, to abandon one’s own country when times had gotten difficult? Neda and Hossein went to small demonstrations together in the streets, with hundreds of others, shouting for democracy, for a new leader, but it was dangerous, and despite always displaying outer strength, she didn’t want to have to fight anymore. There was talk of friends of friends being taken to prison, tortured for talking against the Shah.

Neda wanted out. But would she be able to leave her family behind?

Perhaps it would be easier if she left. Her baba’s profound dislike of Hossein sometimes got to her, though she tried to remain impartial. Every time she saw her family she was reminded of what Hossein did, and their opinions of him rubbed off on her. Try as she might, she would come home feeling colder towards her husband. She was easily thawed, but she hated the feeling, hated that it had to be like this.

And it wasn’t just that. Her own country’s universities didn’t give her a scholarship, but the one application she’dsent abroad, on a whim, to England did. Perhaps it was a sign? Allah telling her it was time to move on.

‘Let’s go,’ Hossein said. ‘Let’s see what freedom and democracy can really be like.’

‘Do you think?’ Excitement and fear stirred in the pit of her stomach.

‘Neda, this is an amazing opportunity for you. A university in England –England!– wants to pay you to study in their program. I’m so proud of you, and we need to take this – you’ll regret it if you don’t. It’s only a year after all, and it could be the best year of our lives. Not many people get this opportunity; we need to take it.’

Neda’s heart fluttered. He saw something could make her happy and he wanted her to do it.

‘Are we mad?’ she asked, laughing.

‘Aren’t we all a bit mad?’ He leant across the sofreh and held her face between his hands. ‘We’re going to England.’

CHAPTER 30

Soraya