It was December 31, 1999, and in honor of the new millennium, and probably according to the pessimists, our last moments of life, we decided to have a big party that will serve as a “reunion” of old college friends, there, I reconnect it, with some of my Iranian friends, and told them about my misfortune, and my husband passing, one of them asked me for my phone number and permission to call my ex-boyfriend, now back in Iran, and give it to him, I accepted. It was an unusually cold morning in January 2000, (we had survived the turn of the century, lol) when my phone rang, and a familiar voice said my name, I was speechless for what seemed a long time, and then I could only murmur words, my ex-boyfriend was at the other end of the phone, at the other end of the world, telling me, that he was going to be visiting Miami in a week or so, and that he will call me, to see if we could see each other, it felt surreal, I was able to recognize his voice after well over 20 years, and my knees were shaking, exactly the same way they always did, when I heard his deep voice and his lovely accent. Another cold morning later, another phone call, this time he was here, we were feeling the same weather, we were in the same geographical point, once again, in this lifetime. We talked on the phone, almost every day for hours at a time, we had a lot of information to exchange, it had been over 20 years, and a lot of things had happened, to us personally and to the world we lived in, it was a totally different era, individually and collectively for all of us. He had never married, he was back in Iran, he first went back to care for his dying mother, and now he had taken on a lot of family responsibilities, too deep and heavy to avoid, he was feeling the passing of the years, and was thinking about getting a wife, the old Iranian way, the same way that he had thought to be so totally backwards in the past, when he was young, living in Miami, and with so many different choices available to him. We finally agreed to meet, it was going to be another gathering of old college friends and he promised to be there. That afternoon came and I went to the gathering, at a mutual friend’s house, I was totally incapable to know what I was feeling. When I got to the house, well over 20 people were already there, all of them, familiar faces, since we were all old acquaintances or friends, but I was unable to pick him up from the crowd, he stood up besides me for awhile, and realizing that I had not recognized him, he said my name, and immediately my knees began to shake and I knew it was him, it was like if I had just seen him for the last time, the day before ,and not over 20 years ago. He was bald now, and somehow I had remembered him taller, but still he was the most handsome man I had ever seen, his lips were the same, and his hands, oh his hands, the hands I could never forget, were also the same, he showed me his mother’s ring, the ring he had always wore, as proof that it was him, he asked me, “Do you remember my ring? How could I ever forget it, only the day I am out of my mind, I will forget that ring. I might forget my name, but I do no think I will ever forget his hands or his ring. That was the first of many meetings during the 3 weeks he stayed here, we reconnected again, this time as adults, we did not have much in common now, I think we never did, but we did have in common, a story, the mutual memories of our younger selves, a profound care for each other, that had remain steady thru distance and time, the same chemistry that had kept us yearning for each other when we were young, and thought it was only “hormonal”, we found out now, it was deeper than that, our bodies recognized each other, remembered the familiarity, the feeling of the other’s touch, the special connection of the skins, the knowledge of the best “routes” thru our bodies’ secret places, the feeling of “belonging” to the other. But, when we had time to talk, we realized how big the breach was between us, how big the “issues” we both had, about how it ended, the mutual recriminations about how we had affected each other’s life, the blames for all the dreams lost, and all those never dreamt, and the ultimate blame for the other people we both had allowed in our lives, when in our hearts, there should not have been any other people, other than the two of us, it was now too late, and we both knew it, we were from worlds apart and we knew we were both going to stay in our own, maybe allowing only a thought once in a while for the other one. He told me in our last meeting, that if it was not because of my son, he will marry me and take me to Iran with him, how dared him? as I was hearing the words I knew this was over forever now, he had step over the line, no one is allow to over step with me, that line that belongs, to my only true love, my son, my flesh and blood, my redeemer. And how could he assume I will marry him? And who was him to think I will leave my world to follow him to Iran? We kissed each other one last time, we hugged, I had one last looked at his hands, his beloved hands, and we both drove away, the last sight I had of him was thru my rear end mirror. He is probably married now, or maybe not, I have his number as he has mine, but we are saving that phone call for when we have something really important to say, in the mean time, we both go on living our lives, according to the choices we made, but neither his history, nor mine could ever be written without the mentioning of the other, I know that always, as it was from the beginning, I will pay attention, anytime Iran or anything relating to it, is mentioned, and like I have done for decades, I will pray for him and his, before I fall asleep, I will still crave the tea and the food, I will keep up with all the news related to the Iranians, I will continue to read “the Iranian” faithfully, and that, he still had a big part with the last time I gave myself another chance at love, and he will also have a part in it, if and when I decide to try it again, and most of all, I am afraid he will always have a rented space in my brain, until the day I die or loose my memory, even though he is overdue on that rent, for a life time now.
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PART 1
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PART 1
