Free Rooftops of Tehran by Mahbod Seraji

and teaches Keivan to take a picture of the four of us sitting around the hose . She says she will make a copy of the picture for each of us, so that we can remember this summer when we became the best of friends.
     
     
    That night in bed, I relive every moment of the day, including the part when I made an ass out of myself by comparing her to rivers and flowers. “What do you like about her, besides her looks?” she had asked. I wish I had not babbled on like a romantic idiot. I should have talked about her favorite colors, her favorite food, the kinds of movies she likes, and the books she enjoys reading.
    I suddenly realize that I don’t know much about Zari. In fact, I don’t really know anything about her. I don’t know how she chooses friends, what her hobbies are, or what kinds of people she likes. All I know is that I love her. Is this how everyone falls in love? I wonder how much Ahmed knows about Faheemeh—probably not much. I know that my father first saw my mother on her way home from school and followed her every day for a month before finding the courage to say something to her. A month after their first conversation, he sent his parents to her house to ask for her hand.
    God, I’m thoroughly confused. Love is an all-consuming affair; it brings life to a standstill. I can’t think of anything but Zari anymore. How do grown-ups fall in love and work at the same time?
    I look toward Ahmed’s roof. He’s fast asleep, and I can hear him snoring. I walk over to his bed and wake him up.
    “What’s going on?” he asks.
    “Zari asked me what I liked about the woman I love, and I couldn’t think of anything to tell her,” I say in a desperate voice.
    Ahmed stares at me with a confused look on his face
    “I read somewhere that people in the West, like in the U.S. and Europe, date for a long time before falling in love,” I say, restless with anxiety. “Did you know that?”
    Ahmed shakes his head no.
    “It’s true. I’ve seen it in the movies, too. They date for a long, long time. Sometimes for ten or even twenty years!”
    “Wow,” Ahmed whispers.
    “But here in Iran, we look at someone, and we fall in love. All the girl has to do is smile, and we’re swept off our feet. No dating, no getting to know each other, no real opportunity to get acquainted, do you know what I mean? Like, do you really know what Faheemeh is like? Do you know her favorite colors, favorite food, hobbies?”
    “No.”
    “Aren’t you worried?”
    Ahmed nods with a troubled look on his face.
    “What if she’s not the girl you think she is? What if Zari is incompatible with me? What if I married her and had kids with her and she turned out to be totally different from me? What could I do then?”
    Ahmed puts his hands on his mouth and gasps.
    “Don’t you worry about that?” I ask.
    “Yes, yes, I do now that you’ve mentioned it.” He lights a cigarette. “My God, this is a real problem.” He scratches the top of his head. “Let me think about it. I think you’re onto something really big. I can finally see how all that reading is making you smarter.”
    I begin to elaborate on my point, but he tells me to be quiet because he’s thinking. I sit there on the edge of his bed as he rocks back and forth and makes strange facial expressions, as if he’s concentrating, looking at things from different angles, forming hypotheses and then rejecting them as implausible. He mumbles to himself, emitting strange sounds, lifting his eyebrows, moving his hands, and covering his upper lip with his lower one while looking toward the sky. He puffs on his cigarette and then blows the smoke out while sighing, as if genuinely disappointed by his inability to solve a simple puzzle.
    When he finally finishes his cigarette, he walks up to the edge of the roof, puts it out, and throws the butt on the neighbor’s roof to make sure that his father doesn’t see it. Then he goes back under his covers and whispers, “I think I know