Zendegi

‘Yeah, well, don’t be too full of yourself,’ Martin warned him. ‘Maybe you’re luckier than some kids. Your job is to help them catch up, not to make them feel bad.’

‘They should feel bad,’ Javeed retorted.

Martin scowled. ‘Shaitan nasho!’

Mahnoosh approached the car. She whispered to Martin, ‘I just phoned Omar about you-know-what, and he said he’d keep two ghal’eha free for us.’

‘Great.’

Martin drove, blocking out Javeed’s chatter and focusing on the road, leaving it to Mahnoosh to engage with him. The school wasn’t much more than a kilometre away, and they planned to get into a routine of walking there, but today this would save them going back for the car.

It took them ten minutes to find a parking spot, but Martin wasn’t going to drop the two of them off and circle back to pick up Mahnoosh, not today. When they finally reached the gate, the bell was ringing. They walked with Javeed across the playground, to the lines of boys and girls already forming outside his classroom.

Mahnoosh bent down and embraced Javeed tightly.

‘Have you got everything, azizam?’

‘Yes, Mama.’

‘I’ll be back in a few hours. You wait for me here.’

‘Okay.’ Javeed squirmed a little, and she released him. Martin squatted down and kissed him on the cheek. ‘Have fun. I’ll see you later.’

Javeed went to join the line. Standing beside Mahnoosh, Martin reached over and took her hand. They waited until the teacher appeared and marched the two lines into the classroom. Mahnoosh waved, but the teacher had instructed the children to keep their eyes straight ahead, so Javeed didn’t see her.

‘Are you okay?’ Martin asked her. The truth was he was feeling the tug of separation himself more keenly than he’d expected. For the first time in his life, Javeed would be going through something new without either of them beside him.

Mahnoosh scowled defensively. ‘Of course. Ah, we didn’t take a photo!’

‘Do it when you pick him up,’ Martin suggested. ‘That’ll be better, because he’ll have something to show you; he’ll probably be waving a big drawing.’

‘The butterfly maze, I expect.’ All the classes had been led into their rooms now, and the parents were drifting away across the playground.

Mahnoosh said, ‘I’ll drive you to the shop.’

‘Martin jan, are you awake?’

Martin opened his eyes. It was night-time; the unfamiliar room was lit by a lamp attached to the wall beside the bed. Omar was sitting on a chair, hunched towards him. Martin’s mouth was dry and his head felt heavy.

‘What?’ he replied stupidly.

‘You’re in hospital,’ Omar explained; it must have been the lamplight, but he looked impossibly haggard, as if he’d aged a decade since Martin had last seen him. ‘You had an accident.’

‘Really? I don’t remember.’ Visceral panic welled up in his chest. ‘Who else was in the car?’ Martin swung his legs towards the side of the bed, but the sheet was tucked in so far under the mattress that he couldn’t kick it free.

Omar reached out and restrained him. ‘Stay there, you’ve got a drip in your arm. I picked up Javeed from school. He’s at my home, he’s fine.’

‘Thank you.’ In the silence that followed Martin heard his own laboured breathing; the sound didn’t seem to belong to his body. ‘What about Mahnoosh?’

‘She was driving.’

‘Can I see her?’ Martin squinted at him, trying to read his face. ‘Get a wheelchair for me. We’ll go to the women’s wing.’

‘There was a truck,’ Omar said. ‘It went straight through the intersection.’

‘What does that mean?’

Omar’s hand was still resting on his shoulder. He lowered his gaze slightly. ‘She died straight away. Nobody could help her.’

‘No.’ Martin knew this was impossible; Omar wouldn’t lie to him knowingly, but the hospital bureaucrats could get anything wrong. ‘What if I was in the car alone? People just assume things. Did you ring the shop?’

‘Martin jan, I saw her,’ Omar confessed. ‘They didn’t know if you’d recover, and they needed someone to… say who she was.’

Martin felt his body shuddering; he struggled to keep control. ‘I’m sorry you had to do that.’

Omar made a dismissive gesture, muttering reflexively, ‘Khahesh mikonam.’ Don’t mention it.

‘You should go home,’ Martin pleaded. ‘It must be late.’

Omar didn’t argue. ‘I’ll come back in the morning.’

When Omar had left the room, Martin felt himself sobbing noiselessly. He closed his eyes and swam into the darkness of his skull, trying to catch up with her: looking for an afterimage of her face, a memory of her voice, any thread that he could follow. How could they have been torn apart when they’d been sitting just inches from each other?

He had touched her hand in the school yard, he remembered. He tried to grasp it more tightly, picturing the two of them together, trying to relive everything that had followed without being shaken free of her this time.

But the scene led nowhere, the blackness remained impenetrable. He didn’t even know the last words they’d exchanged.

In the morning, Martin asked to see Mahnoosh’s body. They removed his drip and catheter and an orderly took him in a wheelchair to the mortuary.