Martin said, ‘What? Why can’t I be sure of that?’
‘It’s not just ads,’ Omar explained. ‘They put in Proxies for fun as well. With some of the games there aren’t enough real people playing, so they need to make up the numbers to keep it from getting boring. Or sometimes there are characters nobody wants to be – roles that are needed, but aren’t very interesting.’
‘Okay.’ It made sense that some role-playing games would be padded out with grunts and cannon fodder, but Martin had never imagined that half the exuberant children splashing water onto stone in the labyrinth’s courtyard could have been the same: software extras inserted to bolster the mood. ‘Won’t that get confusing, though? What if Javeed thinks he’s making a new friend?’
Omar shook his head impatiently. ‘You can always get Zendegi to tag the Proxies if you want to. But why spoil the fun? Maybe Javeed will play football in a stadium with twenty thousand people watching. Maybe you and twenty others will be real. Does he need to know which ones? When you take him to a movie, do you sit there pointing out which characters are real human extras and which ones are CGI?’
‘Hmm.’ Martin could see the logic of it, but he still wasn’t entirely happy.
Javeed had reached his third iteration of refinements and corrections in his story to Farshid. Martin put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Bas, pesaram. Say thanks to Uncle Omar, then come and help me make lunch.’
Martin drove into the city with Javeed guarding the meal they’d cooked. Mahnoosh closed the shop and they sat on the floor in the back room, eating. Or rather, Martin ate and Mahnoosh tried to as Javeed regaled her nonstop with stories of Zendegi. By the time Martin had to go and re-open the shop, Javeed’s plate had barely been touched.
‘Don’t worry,’ Mahnoosh said. ‘I’ll reheat it at home.’
Martin kissed them both good-bye. Javeed stood passively when Martin embraced him; if he’d been sulking he would have squirmed away, but this was his subtle freeze-out, where he declined to reciprocate affection, but also eschewed overt signs of hostility.
People of the Book was open until nine; Martin didn’t mind the first few hours, but the evenings dragged. He’d given up hoping that they’d ever be able to afford an assistant to take the night shifts; the rent on the shop kept going up, and while their sales weren’t falling, the numbers were flat. The only way to increase revenue would be to put up prices, and a cyber-ketab – with ten complimentary bestsellers pre-loaded – already cost less than five hardbacks.
Still, their customers weren’t deserting them yet. As Martin was getting ready to close, an elderly woman in a headscarf approached the counter.
‘Do you have The Moor’s Last Sigh?’ she asked.
‘In Farsi or English?’
‘Farsi.’
Martin checked on the computer. ‘That’s print-on-demand. I could run it off for you now, if you like.’
‘Please.’
Martin tapped the screen and the machine behind him started humming. ‘Good choice,’ he told the woman. ‘It’s my favourite of his. And it has the distinct advantage of never having been made into a song by U2.’
She smiled nervously and looked around, as if she was afraid someone might overhear them. But she could have bought an electronic version in the privacy of her home if she’d wanted to. Instead, she’d chosen to walk out into the night and come back with an aromatic bundle of permanently inked pages, adorned with the name of the infamous apostate.
Martin put the book into a plain brown bag; it was warm as a freshly baked loaf. The woman paid cash. When she’d left, he stepped out onto Enqelab Avenue and pulled down the security shutters.
By the time Martin arrived home he was ravenous. Mahnoosh had eaten earlier, with Javeed, but she joined him anyway.
‘How did things go at the school?’ she asked, scraping the last of the tadigh onto his plate.
Martin recounted the glitch with the enrolment form, and Javeed’s anxiety about her parents. ‘When I told him that your father had cut you off, he asked me if I’d ever do the same to him.’
Mahnoosh’s face crumpled in sympathy, but then her expression softened almost to a smile and she looked at Martin as if it all made perfect sense. ‘Zal and the Simorgh,’ she said.
‘Sorry?’
‘From the Shahnameh.’
Martin shook his head. He’d known that Mahnoosh was mining a children’s version of Ferdowsi’s epic for bedtime stories, but he’d done no more than glance at the book himself.
‘Zal is born with white hair, like an old man,’ she explained. ‘His father is so superstitious that he abandons him in the wilderness, but the Simorgh – a giant bird with a dog’s head – finds him and raises him. Later, his father has a dream that the boy is still alive, and he goes into the mountains to ask his son’s forgiveness and bring him back.’
Martin bit back a complaint about the suitability of the story; would he have protested over ‘Hansel and Gretel’? But he could see how it might have planted an idea in Javeed’s head that would have been rendered more real and threatening by a reminder of his grandparents’ behaviour.
‘Are you sure they’re never going to reconcile with you?’ Martin still struggled to comprehend how anyone could maintain a feud with their own daughter for so long. ‘They must want to see their grandson.’
‘They have other grandsons,’ Mahnoosh replied. ‘I’ve been dead to them for twenty-seven years; one more grandchild isn’t going to change that.’
‘What would?’
Mahnoosh pondered the question. ‘Maybe a pilgrimage to Karbala over broken glass, and a written renunciation of everything I believe in.’
‘If they’re that fanatical, I guess you’d have to divorce me as well.’
She shrugged. ‘They kicked me out twelve years before I’d even met you. And if you’d seen the band I was in back then, you’d know you just don’t rate on the burning-bridges-with-the-parents scale.’
‘I can’t believe you don’t have video.’ Martin had seen a few still photos, but Mahnoosh had been unrecognisable. In fact, she’d looked disturbingly like Robert Smith. He knew there’d been an underground music scene in Tehran, but an all-female Goth-metal band called Unquiet Grave must have been several kilometres beneath the pavement.
‘If your parents are a lost cause,’ he said, ‘there must be someone in your family who hasn’t disowned you.’
‘Don’t bet on it; my sisters are even worse!’ She thought for a while. ‘One of my mother’s cousins was okay, but I think she went to America, and anyway, I haven’t seen her since I was a kid.’ She sighed. ‘Look, let’s not make a big deal of this. Javeed has enough “aunties” and “uncles” and “cousins” to spoil any child. I’ve never met my sisters’ brats, but I bet he’s luckier having Farshid around than any of them.’
‘Yeah.’ Martin put his plate aside. ‘So, what do you think about Zendegi?’
‘Ah.’ Mahnoosh smiled. ‘I promised I’d go in with him next week, after school. To see for myself, before we sign up for a subscription.’
‘You’ll like it,’ Martin assured her. ‘It’s a lot of fun. Just… stay away from anyone who looks like some marketing software’s idea of your trusted next-door neighbour. There’s no danger that they’ll talk you into buying anything, but it still feels awkward when you have to call their bluff and walk away.’
After he’d washed the dishes and had a quick shower, Martin went to Javeed’s room and stood at the foot of his bed. ‘Shab bekheyr, pesaram,’ he whispered – softly, but not too softly to be heard. Javeed’s sleep was always disturbed by the sound of Martin coming home: voices and the clatter of plates from the kitchen, creaking floorboards, running water. If Martin failed to say goodnight before the house fell silent, Javeed would wake and call out for him.
Martin walked over to the bookcase beside the bed and picked up what he hoped was the right volume. Out in the light of the passageway he checked; it was the book of stories from the Shahnameh. He found ‘Zal and the Simorgh’, and stood leaning against the wall as he read.
Upon spotting the infant Zal, who’d been left to die of exposure at the foot of the Alborz Mountains – the same mountains you could see from half the streets of Tehran – the giant bird had brought him back to her nest
