Isfahan. Qoph (ק)

The Last Friday

8 Ordibehesht 1402 (April 28, 2023)

The April sun poured over Isfahan in honeyed streams, and the streets, weary from the grayness of winter, greedily drank in the warmth.

That Friday, they went out into the city as a whole family—a rare, almost forgotten ritual. First, a café in the Armenian quarter of Jolfa, with its cool inner courtyards and the smell of strong coffee. Then, a walk along the embankment of the Zayandeh River, which this year, surprisingly, was full, its murky, sleepy waters reflecting the ancient arches of the Khaju Bridge.

They walked down an avenue, and Zahra looked at her daughters, and in her heart, tenderness mixed with a sharp, almost physical pain. Zeynab, still a child, walked holding her father’s hand, laughingly telling him something about a school play. And Nasrin… Nasrin was already on the other side of the invisible line that separates childhood from adulthood. She walked beside them, but her thoughts were far away.

And, of course, he appeared. Adil. As if by chance, in the same park at the same time. Their «accidental» meeting was as predictable as the motion of the planets. He said hello, smiling shyly, and Nasrin, blushing like a poppy flower, immediately found a pretext to break away from the family. “We’re going to get ice cream.”

Zahra and Amirkhan were left alone, watching the two young figures recede down the avenue. They walked without touching, but between them hung that same electricity, that same awkward, agonizing, and beautiful gravity of first love that makes entire universes revolve around two people who have met by chance.

“Look at them,” Amirkhan said quietly. “It seems like only yesterday we were carrying Nasrin in our arms down this very avenue. And now… she’s already taller than you. Time is a strange substance. It flows by unnoticed, and then suddenly you look, and a whole era has passed.”
“She looks like you at her age,” Zahra said, and the memory of a young, dark-eyed Amirkhan reciting poetry to her by this very bridge washed over her with unexpected force. “Just as stubborn. And just as… convinced that the world can be changed.”
“God grant that the world doesn’t change her,” Amirkhan sighed. “Do you remember how Nasrin was afraid of the swans?”
“And now she’s only afraid of our disapproval,” Zahra replied, watching her older daughter now strolling with Adil at a respectable distance.
“Don’t pretend you didn’t notice their ‘accidental’ meeting,” Amirkhan shook his head. “She’s your spitting image at her age. Just as stubborn and inventive.”

Zeynab ran ahead, her dress fluttering like a butterfly’s wings. At twelve, she still lived in a world where miracles were possible, and adult problems were just strange conversations behind closed doors.

They sat on a bench. In silence. And in that silence, there was more intimacy than in all the conversations of the past months. For a moment, just one fragile moment, they were once again just a husband and wife, sitting in a park and watching their children. Not a security officer and a spy. Just people.

And in that moment, her phone, lying in her bag, vibrated.

She took it out. The screen lit up with a name: «Rustam Yazdi.» She pressed the decline button.

“Who is it?” Amirkhan asked.
“Rustam.”

The phone vibrated again. The same insistent, demanding call. She declined it again, feeling a chill run down her spine. Friday. A day off. Rustam never called on a day off.

“Why aren’t you answering?” The familiar notes appeared in Amirkhan’s voice. “What if it’s something urgent from work?”
“If it were urgent, Rezai would have called,” she replied, trying to keep her voice even. “Rustam knows that Friday is for family. It’s probably just some technical question. I don’t want to think about centrifuges right now.”

She put the phone away. But the illusion of peace was shattered. The call was like a stone thrown into the viscous surface of the water. It was a harbinger, an intrusion from that other world she was so desperately trying to hide from on this sunny day.

The phone vibrated a third time. Now it was no longer just a concern. It was alarm. Something had happened. Something Rustam wanted to warn her about personally, bypassing Rezai, bypassing official channels.

She declined the call again. She had made her choice. She had chosen this fragile hour of peace with her family, stolen from fate.

“Come on, let’s find our children,” she said, standing up. “The ice cream has probably melted by now.”

They walked down the avenue. The sun was setting, painting the sky in soft, pastel tones. Nasrin and Adil were walking toward them. They were laughing, and in their laughter was a carelessness that Zahra, as she now understood, had lost forever.

The phone in her bag did not ring again. It fell silent. And that silence was more terrifying than any call. It was the silence of a broken connection. The silence that comes after.

She didn’t know that this was the last day of peace. She didn’t know that Rustam Yazdi was calling her to say goodbye. Or to warn her.

They returned home at dusk. Nasrin walked with them—Adil had bowed out at the intersection, gallant and old-fashioned. Zeynab was dozing on her father’s shoulder. The city was sinking into evening prayer.

That night, she dreamed of the park, flooded with sunlight. A baby Nasrin was taking her first steps. Zeynab was catching her own reflection. And off to the side, under a plane tree, stood Rustam, shouting something, but she couldn’t hear the words. She could only see him waving his arms, warning of a danger she couldn’t discern in the blinding spring light.

She woke up from her own scream. Amirkhan was asleep. Outside, a pre-dawn silence. On the nightstand lay the silent phone, holding the last calls from a man who would disappear in a few hours, without ever getting an answer.