The Stationery Shop

“As Roya walked to school with Zari, remembering the incident of Jaleh and the water hose, she wished the polarization and constant political rivalry could end. Politics had seeped into every classroom. Her classmates at school were now divided, much like the country, into pro-king, pro-prime minister, and pro-communist. And she was tired of it.”

Roya’s perspective on her country’s conflict introduces The Challenges of Navigating Political Upheaval and Social Expectations as a theme. Although she’s just 17 years old, Roya feels pressured to engage with the conflict between the king and the prime minister. All her peers have specific loyalties, but Roya feels disengaged. She doesn’t want to feel torn between these political alliances because she wants to engage in her coming-of-age experiences instead. The political conflict disrupts her childhood innocence and hopeful dreams for the future.

“The unwanted boys appeared at every street corner, but the one Roya actually felt charged by was only to be seen on Tuesday afternoons at the Stationery Shop. He asked her things like what she thought about Saadi’s Golestan poems. […] Before long […] she was convinced that he was the most intelligent boy she had ever met and possibly the best looking.”

Roya’s immediate attraction to Bahman foreshadows the long-lasting nature of their love. Although she sees other boys as “unwanted,” Roya regards Bahman with curiosity and respect. Her superlative assertions that he’s “the most intelligent” and “the best looking” create a passionate narrative mood. At 17, Roya is readily swept up by Bahman’s charm and wit. This youthful attraction initiates the characters’ bond and keeps them connected for years to come.

“They all had to fight, to protest, to march. So Mossadegh could get his agenda through, so the country could have true freedom. As she leaned against the splintered wood of the barricade with Bahman, everything did seem possible. They were one with each other and with the whole billowing, unified crowd. They would fight. They would both change the world.”

Roya’s internal monologue during a Mossadegh demonstration conveys how Bahman’s political activism has changed her. Throughout the preceding chapters, Roya wants nothing to do with politics and is afraid for Bahman because of his affiliations. In this passage, however, she has adopted Bahman’s point of view and sees her future according to his. The moment thematically reiterates the challenges of navigating political upheaval and social expectations. Despite the risks, Roya is willing to throw herself into the conflict and betray expectations for love.

“When she spoke in Mrs. Aslan’s presence, Roya felt awkward and childish. It was obvious that Bahman’s mother did not like her. She had been against their engagement. But in the end, Bahman’s father, quiet and unassuming, had the last word because he was a man.”

Bahman’s mother, Badri Aslan, disapproves of his relationship with Roya, which complicates the couple’s otherwise idyllic romance. Badri is an antagonistic character who creates conflict between the protagonists and threatens their life together. She makes Roya feel “awkward and childish” and withholds her approval of their marriage.

“The scent of saffron rice wafted from the kitchen. They would eat soon. The guests would eventually leave. The engagement party would be over. She and Bahman would marry at the end of the summer. Mrs. Aslan would come around. She would get well. She had to get well.”

The use of the future tense in this passage indicates Roya’s hopes for a peaceful future with Bahman. Despite the unrest at her and Bahman’s engagement party, Roya comforts herself that soon the party will end, Badri will calm down, and the tension will dissipate. While the passage implies a future together for the lovers, it foreshadows the opposite. Badri doesn’t “come around” or “get well,” ultimately disrupting Roya’s plans and robbing her of her imagined future with Bahman.

“Until his next letter arrived, she was restless, distracted, preoccupied. She walked into walls, stared into space; nothing could shake her thoughts of him. Only when she received a reply was she temporarily at peace. To read his words, to see the strong script of his hand, the way he made his Farsi n so confident and intense, the way his lines sloped slightly upward at the end…It felt like hearing him, to hold that thin sheet of paper in her hand.”

Roya’s response to being without Bahman conveys her deep attachment to him. When they’re apart, and she’s waiting to hear from him, she can’t focus on her life. She’s disengaged, “walking into walls” and “staring into space.” When she receives his letters, she reawakens. Her love for Bahman is an intense force. His presence and absence have the power to either estrange or attach her to reality.

“We do not always get what we want, Roya Khanom. Things do not always work out the way we planned. Those who are young tend to think that life’s tragedies and miseries and its bullets will somehow miss them. That they can buoy themselves with naive hope and energy. They think, wrongly, that somehow youth or desire or even love can outmatch the hand of fate.”

Ali Fakhri’s words to Roya thematically reiterate The Persistent Power of Love. On the surface, Mr. Fakhri is talking to Roya about her and Bahman’s relationship. On a deeper level, Mr. Fakhri is referring to his own unrequited love affair with Badri. He wants to help Roya reunite with Bahman, but he also fears that “naive hope and energy” are as worthless as he once thought. Though Mr. Fakhri’s love for Badri remains, he struggles to reconcile it with Badri’s condition in the present and his inability to make amends.

“He will tell her again that he’s not here to hurt her. He will reassure her that he is simply…what exactly is he simply doing? Following her. Of course he cannot help but be attracted to her, but he’ll explain and reassure her. She needs to realize he’s a gentleman. Ali is confused, and angry that this girl can make him confused. She is nothing. She is below him.”

Mr. Fakhri’s internal monologue in this flashback section thematically contributes to the challenges of navigating political upheaval and social expectations. Mr. Fakhri is undeniably attracted to young Badri in this scene, but he knows his interest in her is forbidden. Because of class divides, Mr. Fakhri tries to convince himself that Badri is beneath him. He’s afraid of betraying social and cultural expectations to follow his own heart.

“‘In any case, darling, these things are difficult—don’t get me wrong. We’ve all been through the tunnels of young love, and I can attest, quite personally, I know well its twists and turns, its fickleness.’ She paused and then said, ‘Its losses. So, my apologies to you for this bad news, but he is happy now, Roya Jan, you understand. And you are young. Life is just this. Our destiny isn’t in our hands. We can’t change it.’”

Badri’s phone call to Roya after the engagement party alters Roya’s life forever. Badri informs her that Bahman no longer plans to marry her, as he’s now moving forward with his arranged marriage to Shahla. Hearing this news alters Roya’s sense of reality, forcing her to confront a life without Bahman. In addition, this passage foreshadows the later revelations about Badri and Ali Fakhri’s unrequited romance. One reason Badri is so furious with Roya and Bahman is that she’s still holding onto her bitterness against Mr. Fakhri for abandoning her.

“Roya hadn’t wanted to leave Tehran behind, even with all its pain and heartbreak and its political mess. Yet she had no choice but to create—stitch by stitch—a new life. She had to move forward.”

Roya’s internal monologue in this passage helps develop the novel’s theme of The Struggle to Shape Identity Across Cultures. Roya has immigrated to the US to escape her “pain,” “heartbreak,” and Iran’s “political mess.” Nonetheless, she longs for the life, family, home, and future she left behind. Roya struggles to reconcile these competing parts of her interiority, all the while convincing herself that she must fabricate a new sense of self unhindered by the past.

“Because they both married outside of their class, I always thought, albeit foolishly, that my mother would respect love. Marrying for love. I know it’s seen as romantic nonsense by some. The poets, our own, wrote so much of love, and the American films are obsessed with it. But of course there still stands the tradition of marriage as a contract to attain or maintain status.”

Bahman’s letters to Roya reflect how their affair continues to haunt Roya’s identity in the present. The epistolary segments are interspersed with the chapters describing Roya’s life in the US, infusing Roya’s life as an elderly woman and flashbacks to her past life with pieces of Bahman’s life and voice. In this moment, Bahman is reflecting on how Badri’s past may have impacted their relationship. Bahman is still thinking about these conflicts despite how much time has passed; his description implies that Roya, too, still ruminates on what happened years ago.

“When he asked for her hand, over extra-crispy tahdig rice served with ghormeh sabzi on a Saturday night about a year after the first cooking lesson, Roya felt again that dissociation, as if she was floating above the scene at hand, watching a girl in a movie play her role. She found it hard to breathe.”

Roya’s distanced emotional response to Walter Archer’s proposal captures the theme of the struggle to shape identity across cultures. Becoming involved with and getting engaged to Walter naturally reminds Roya of her first love, Bahman. She feels dissociated because she has intentionally tried to forget her past life in Iran in exchange for inventing a new life and identity in the US. She likens the proposal and her and Walter’s relationship to being “a girl in a movie play” because she feels like an imposter in her new American reality.

“But the lump in her throat wouldn’t go away. We are done with that boy for good. She’d take Walter’s lobster-roll life. A hundred times over. We are done with that boy for good. Roya held on to Mrs. Kishpaugh’s armchair with her oniony hands and waited for the lump in her throat to disappear and allow her to swallow. With time. With time, it would go away.”

In this passage, snatches of Roya’s past and present lives intersect, thematically intensifying the struggle to shape identity across cultures. Walter is proposing to Roya in the present, but her mind is caught in the past, recalling moments from her engagement to Bahman. Despite her efforts, Roya is incapable of forgetting Bahman or their life together. She continues telling herself that time will erase these memories, but her private mantra only reiterates the persistent nature of true love.

“This was what it was to be a woman, she knew. She was already pushing boundaries by even insisting on working. And in science there was always the assumption that she would be taking the job from a well-qualified man. And as a foreigner—well, shouldn’t she just be grateful to be in this country?”

After marrying Walter, Roya feels caught between the person she wants to be and the person others expect her to become. She knows this struggle to fight for what she wants is “what it is to be a woman,” but still finds it hard to reconcile her intellectual passions with her new family’s hopes for her. She tries convincing herself that she should “just be grateful to be in this country,” but she remains in conflict with her US life. This moment thematically reiterates the struggle to shape identity across cultures.

“It was 1963. They were twenty-seven. But their loss had removed them from the normal scheme of things—they were part of an elite club who’d experienced a coup of the natural order of life. Marigold had come in their fourth year of marriage, unannounced and unexpected but oh so welcome when she arrived. Only to then disappear and prove Roya’s every worst fear true.”

The death of Roya and Walter’s daughter, Marigold, inadvertently ties Roya to Badri. Roya doesn’t know that she’s experiencing the same grief that Bahman’s mother experienced on numerous occasions in years past. She’s lost in the personal nature of her pain, which tinges every aspect of her identity and life. The same is true for Badri: The novel later reveals that she never fully recovered from the babies she lost. This heartbreak (coupled with her sorrow over Ali Fakhri) dictated the course of her life and her experience of mental illness.

“The years had had the audacity to pass by. It had been decades since Marigold had died of the croup, and decades since Mossadegh was overthrown in the coup. The world was something else entirely. Iran had had its Islamic Revolution in 1979 […] The losses mounted, and Roya didn’t have time to mourn them all.”

Roya’s repeated encounters with grief complicate her ability to find happiness in the present. She struggles to engage with her native country’s ongoing political conflict. She struggles to heal from her sorrow over Bahman and to appreciate her marriage to Walter. She struggles to overcome her grief over losing Marigold, despite having a second child, Kyle. These dynamics imply that suffering and grief can tinge life if an individual doesn’t focus on the love and joy they’ve experienced.

“She’d stick to nature as long as she possibly could. As long as she was still able to move. And she had to move. Some things stay with you, haunt you. Some embers nestle into your skin. Shots cannot be forgotten. And neither can that force of love.”

The image of Roya walking endlessly in nature conveys her attempts to escape her past and her heartbreak. She believes that by physically moving, she’s metaphorically moving forward and leaving the past behind. At the same time, the latter four lines imply that walking is an ineffective coping mechanism. The images of “embers,” “hauntings,” and “shots” create an intense narrative mood that echoes the intensity of Roya’s love for Bahman.

“By the time Roya walked back to Walter to hear about how the molding of the inserts had gone, she was flushed and ready to collapse. You might think that the world is complicated and full of lost souls, that people who’ve touched your life and disappeared will never be found, but in the end all of that can change. One shop, one glass of tea, and all of that can simply flip.”

When Roya happens upon the stationery shop by chance, she’s thrust into the past. This physical location affects her so intensely that her body heats up (she’s “flushed”) and she feels weak (“ready to collapse”). For decades, she has convinced herself that her past has “disappeared” and “will never be found.” The stationery shop proves otherwise by immersing her in nostalgia and reminding her of the love she once had.

“It was him, and he still had power over her, she could barely believe it, but in his presence—it was quite astonishing—she was filled with love. To see him so old! Her Bahman. The boy who would change the world in this wheelchair, in this place.”

The diction in this passage conveys Roya’s emotional response to seeing Bahman after decades apart. The use of italics, comma splices, em dashes, exclamation points, and fragmentation convey how excited and surprised she is to reunite with her lost love. These stylistic choices capture Roya’s internal experience while thematically reiterating the persistent power of love.

“That day at the square? Roya, I stood there for hours waiting for you. I wanted to see you so badly. I had all the paperwork set so we could go to the Office of Marriage and Divorce and get everything stamped and official. I waited as the thugs came and took over. When they marched to the prime minister’s house. Pro-Mossadegh people in the crowd asked for my help, but I didn’t join the fight. I didn’t move. All I could think was what if you came and I wasn’t there.”

Bahman and Roya’s dialogue at the Duxton Senior Center alters her perception of the past. Bahman informs her that everything about that fateful “day at the square” was false. For most of her life, she has believed a story that didn’t even happen. Bahman’s side of the story challenges Roya to reconsider the events of 1953, while thematically reiterating the persistent power of love: Bahman never abandoned her because he never stopped loving her.

“And how did my mother get her hands on our letters? Oh, Roya. The answer to that question involves the history you don’t know. So here, as I sit in this assisted-living center in the twilight of life, let me tell you what happened that summer.”

Bahman’s final letter to Roya offers him the opportunity to clarify the past and to make amends. In addition, the letter provides insight into the preceding chapters by revealing new information about what really happened decades earlier. Bahman’s measured voice infuses Roya’s narrative once more, immersing her in the textures of her past and reconnecting her with her lover once more.

“What filled the space wasn’t the smell of books or my mother’s perfume or my own sour odor as I stood soaked in sweat. It was something different: something I couldn’t quite define, that would forever cloak that day and all the days that followed. It was, I think, the scent of grief.”

Bahman’s epistolary reflections on his mother’s experience and condition emphasize his good heart. Instead of musing about all his mother did to hurt him and sabotage his idyllic love affair, Bahman reflects on the pain his mother must have been feeling, too. He remembers her grief as well as he remembers his own fear and upset because he’s a feeling character who consistently prioritizes others’ needs.

“In a parallel universe, the boy who had first shown her what it meant to fall in love, who promised he would wait for her, would have always been hers. She was in the bed in the center and she was pressed against the bookshelves for stolen kisses. She was in both places all the time. He would always be right there.”

Roya’s final visit with Bahman offers her character resolution. She’s sad to see her lover’s weakened state and to let him go after just having found him again. Nevertheless, Roya feels immersed in the life and love she and Bahman shared years ago. Straddling the past and the present, Roya reconciles the girl she once was with the woman she has become, just as she reconciles the love she lost with the love she rediscovered.