Eshgham

i

The man of my life is a visitor. He makes aush in the morning with the soft crooning of aunt Googoosh in the background, and I'm convinced he's going to leave while I'm still brushing my teeth. Some days he's present. Most of the year, in fact. It's just in the spring. Something about the burgeoning warmth and the bursting of life that makes his eyes a bit glazed; makes him unpack the little box, revive Googoosh and Aref, and reacquaint himself with Hafez and Sufi dhikr while in Downward Dog.

It's mornings like these I'm reminded that he's from a place not quite real enough to speak about. That he's lived many lives, some which still entice foreign words from his lips while he's asleep. Which make him harder to reach even when he's physically here, standing in the kitchen, humming along to his mother's favourite record.

"No cereal this morning?"

He stirs a pot of simmering soup which should overpower the smell of everything else around him, yet doesn't. Not the laundry softener which mixes with the dill, and the cumin, and his body-wash. I inhale deeper, digging my nose into his back to extract and file all the traces of him that were missing when I woke up.

"It's for later," he says, turning in my embrace, "I thought it might be nice not having to worry about making food when we get there. Just heat up the soup, maybe buy some bread on the way, et voilà." His lower eyelids are smudged with kohl from last night's performance, and he smiles—not entirely tiredly, but with enough emotion akin to it that I slowly untangle myself from the embrace.

"We would've eaten out. We always do." It's not the concern I want to show, but I can never quite bring myself to point directly to the signs even when, in the moment, it always feels like my thoughts have made themselves known. And maybe they have, in my voice or on my expression because there he goes, sighing again.

"Already made it, Frans. Meat-free. Just like you like it."

I reach for his phone on the counter and lower the volume. With Googoosh now climbing to the chorus with less pop-diva intensity, the outstretched ladle in his hand feels like a de-escalation of sorts. I slurp up the soup, letting the sourness of the lemon and the starchiness of the potatoes wash away my most pressing worries.

"Delicious." I flash him a convincing smile and squeeze his shoulder. "Thanks. It's lovely."

I always choose peace. That's why he stays. I'm good like that. I don't interrogate; don't mention the time of night he tiptoed into bed or bring to light my suspicion that he's only awake at this hour so that he can fall asleep in the car later to avoid talking about the things that matter. Like his mother. Like why he only ever plays that song—Googoosh's Harf—this time a year, and whether it's to her his thoughts wander to when he gets that glazed-over look in his eyes. How did she die, I don't ask. Tell me why you never talk about her.

He's just a visitor, my Yashar, but I want him to stay and unpack his luggage. Make a home in my scents as I have in the faded jasmine on his pillow and the wisps of frankincense and rosemary enveloped so thickly and evenly around all his belongings. I press my cheek to his collarbone and count down the seconds till he pulls away. One Mississippi. His hand is in my hair, trailing—two Mississippi—down. My eyes flutter shut. Three Mississippi. He grabs my shoulders. "Frans?" Four Mississippi.

"Want some coffee?"

Five Mississippi.

It's raining in east London. The old converted warehouse with its large, multi-pane windows is accumulating droplets at the same speed it's losing them to gravity. Inside, the beat of Kamasi Washington's The Magnificent 7 is inappropriately timed to our meanderings around the flat. If Yashar has anywhere he needs to be, it's the sort of arrangement that can wait while he tries on an ever-evolving selection of clothes. Usually, I'm the better out of the two of us, but today I'm trying to dress a day that would've otherwise fused with the 360-something uneventful days of the year and disappeared off the highlight reel. I want to feel powerful—a process that's stalling the longer I keep looking at the knitted sweaters I've brought from home.