Daroga and Azadeh

by ~technicolor-werewolf

I took my hat off the table, put it on my head, and then placed it on the table again, my hands beginning to shake rather badly. I put my hand on the cap’s flat top to calm myself before picking up the far less familiar black hat that I had bought for Azadeh’s sake. I refused, as I had done in the line of duty many times before, to let myself be nervous. Ghosts shouldn’t fall in love with the living, I remembered saying. Well, I wasn’t in love; love takes time, takes connections, takes more conversation, at least, than Azadeh and I had yet shared...

Some instinct or habit acquired in my previous life led me to brush my hand over my hair, which I noticed had a little more gray in it than I would have liked. I’m not that old, surely... I thought nervously. Stress and illness had aged me early, I told myself. Besides, it didn’t matter whether Erik and I, Raoul and Christine lingered another week or another decade; we would never age again from the years to which we had been returned...I might not always be so much older than beautiful young Azadeh. For at least a few hours, I was prepared to set aside every impossibility connected with my attraction to her and focus on this point alone. Believing the impossible came naturally after so many years with Erik.

I heard Raoul snickering behind me and quickly put the hat on. I refrained from making some comment about his early behavior toward Christine, though I admit I was sorely tempted by the quality of that snicker. Instead, I turned and glared at him until he gave me a sheepish grin and shut the door connecting our rooms. Locking my door out of sheer habit – I had no valuables to protect – I strode off down the hallway and tried to imagine myself in one of my adventures from life. I was the daroga again, and the shah had set me on the track of “Erik”, that mysterious magician and conjurer...Unfortunately, my fun was spoiled by the rattling of the hotel’s ailing elevator. Ever since my experience in the torture-chamber, I have held a distrust of enclosed spaces, and it didn’t help that I know enough about elevators to hold the integrity of their cables in high regard.

As arranged, Heather and Thanh were waiting for me in the lobby. Thanh was seated in an armchair facing the wall while Heather stood facing me, and I discovered why when Thanh stood up.

“She’s been in the hotel bar,” Heather whispered to me, pushing her friend back down into the chair.

“I see,” I whispered back, blinking a little owlishly; the sequins on Thanh’s rainbow-colored overalls had left bright spots across my field of vision like sheep in a shipwreck. “Is that supposed to explain her attire?”

“Kind of,” Heather said. “She’s been testing her own fashion designs for a while now, and I think she had a few drinks while she was working on this one.”

“Heaaaaaaaatheeeeeeer,” Thanh said from her seat, “why’re you hiding him?”

“I’m not,” Heather said firmly. “I’m hiding you.”

Near-maniacal and definitely tipsy laughter issued from behind the chair back. “Whatcha wanna do that for? I’m a good girl, I am!”

Heather ignored Thanh and turned back to me. “I’ve called Chelsey, and she’s promised to look after Thanh while I go on my date.”

“You have a date?” I inquired politely.

“From a dating site,” she said. “I’m really thinking of canceling my membership, though – it’s been three years and they still keep setting me up with guys I can’t stand.”

“Well, good luck,” I said vaguely, trying to disguise my complete ignorance on the matter. Suddenly, I felt someone tap my shoulder, and the feeling of ice-over-a-flame in my stomach told me immediately that that someone was Azadeh.

“You’re early,” she said as I turned to face her.

“That’s a good one!” Thanh screamed from her chair. “Early! Isn’t it hilarious, Heather?”

“How much exactly did you let her drink?” Chelsey said, appearing suddenly over Azadeh’s exposed brown shoulder – exposed by a filmy purple off-the-shoulder top that she must have known complemented her lovely skin tone.

“I don’t know,” Heather confessed. “I wasn’t really paying attention.”

“Heather!” Chelsey scolded her. Heather looked appropriately remorseful. “Whatever,” Chelsey continued. “Thanh, you’re coming home now.”

“Aw, Mom!” Thanh whined as Chelsey pulled her out of her chair. “You’re no fun!”

“Good luck,” Chelsey mouthed as she half dragged, half carried the still-complaining Thanh out the door. Heather now appeared to have spotted her date, a heavily tattooed young man who was leaning against the column and who had not taken his eyes off Azadeh during this whole exchange. I surprised myself by feeling more than a little jealous.

“lovin_man_96?” I heard Heather say reluctantly.

“Only if you’re green_lacewing_101,” he replied, still looking over Heather’s shoulder at Azadeh. Turning her head slightly, she acknowledged his attentions with that twist of her lips signifying disgust.

“Time to go,” she said. I nodded my agreement and together – together! – we walked from the lobby and out to the nearby bus stop. I would have sat next to Azadeh on the bench, but the other seat was taken by a middle-aged man with overgrown hair. I didn’t blame her for quickly moving as far away from him as she could, especially since the basket in his lap smelled rather strange.

“Nice to meet you,” he said, turning to Azadeh with a lopsided grin. “Bruce Willis, at your service.”

Azadeh’s brown eyes widened, and she said in our language, “Daroga, I think he’s crazy.”

“Probably harmless,” I said, trying to reassure her.

“What’s that?” the man said, though I saw he hadn’t understood a word. “Some kind of demon language?” His eyes narrowed to slits. “Well you’re out of luck, demons – I just fed my last pickle to Captain Blood, here!” He opened the basket and the source of the smell, a runty little mongoose, poked its head forth. Azadeh and I just stared, stunned. “That’s right! What are you demons going to do without those pickles you love so dearly?”

“Are you really sure he’s harmless?” Azadeh hissed.

“No,” I admitted.

“Stop it!” the man screamed. “Stop, or I’ll set my pirate mongoose on you!” Luckily, our bus drove up before he could carry out his threat.

“Are things always this strange when you’re around?” Azadeh asked as I helped her onto the bus seat.

“Most of the time,” I replied. The girl beside me glanced at us suspiciously, and I realized we were still speaking Persian. She pushed her glasses up, giving an audible sniff, and returned to the sweater she was knitting. I decided to ignore her obvious censure and continued in Persian. “But it doesn’t seem like your life could exactly be boring.”

“It’s not,” Azadeh said. “However, it’s usually a lot less eventful than tonight’s been so far.” I began fidgeting with my coat hem: if I really did have a tendency to draw trouble, this date had the potential to get a lot worse.

When the bus drew up to our stop, Azadeh jolted me from my thoughts and pulled me along, brushing past the knitting girl and her giggling brunette friend. Though we hadn’t done much planning, we had made reservations at a “nice little Middle-Eastern” restaurant recommended by Alex. Neither of us had especially high hopes for the food quality or authenticity, but the prices appeared to be within our means.

We hadn’t been seated long when a man walked out on the stage, which dominated one end of the cramped restaurant, and made the announcement that the Ankara Girls would be performing an encore of the last night’s entertainment. A loud round of applause accompanied a group of women – wearing scarves and not much else – onto the stage as he walked off and someone started a recording of overly twangy Egyptian music offstage.

I felt a bead of sweat roll down my temple and started poking at the dish in front of me. It was even worse than I had feared, bearing absolutely no resemblance to what I thought I had ordered – my favorite dish of lamb kabobs. Azadeh’s food looked worse yet and reminded me of nothing as much as ground meat molded into the shape of a banana.

For her part, Azadeh was viewing the scene with a critical eye. “Someone tell that girl to get another job,” she said scathingly. “She can’t belly-dance worth a flip. And, ugh, who designed those costumes? No one looks attractive with their stomach hanging out like that – and they’re not one bit authentic. I really think they’re just trying to get male attention…” She looked over at me, satisfied herself that I was paying attention to her and not the dancers, and returned to her critique with an impatient sigh. “Ditch the bangles, girl, you’re not supposed to look Indian.” She took a sip of her tea and suddenly choked, but recovered before I could try to help her. “Don’t they have age limits? She looks like she should have grandkids.”

I cautiously raised my eyes and spotted the older woman to whom Azadeh was referring. She was actually the best dancer on the stage, but I silently agreed that she might be getting a little old to show that much skin.

Azadeh turned back to the table and prodded her meat-banana with her fork. “Doesn’t look very appetizing, does it?”

“It doesn’t,” I said as I did the same. “I thought it came highly recommended.”

Azadeh leaned in. “Between you and me,” she said in Persian, “Alex has no taste in ethnic restaurants.”

“I completely agree.”

We picked around at the food for a few minutes until the music stopped. Finally Azadeh just pushed her plate aside and leaned in close again, her elbows resting on the yellowed tablecloth, looking up at me through her long, thick eyelashes. “I’ve still got a few euros left,” she said quietly. “What do you say we ditch this place and find a McDonald’s or something?”

“I saw one between here and the bus stop,” I whispered back, the conspiratorial bent of her eyebrow extremely distracting to my power of recall. Luckily, years of police training did the job for me, though I’d only noticed the sign from the corner of my eye as I’d watched Azadeh’s pretty lips moving.

She smiled at me, making my heart skip, and motioned for the bill. The disdain on the waiter’s face, presumably at our untouched plates, was matched by the haughty look Azadeh gave him along with our payment. Even in coldness, she was radiant.

As we walked together along the sidewalk on our way to the McDonald’s, I became more and more suspicious that something was wrong besides Alex’s tastes. The pavement beneath my feet was full of cracks – as I noticed when Azadeh’s heel caught in one and she fell practically into my arms – and several of the streetlamps were out. A side alley my normally keen eye had missed on the well-lighted first trip sported numerous graffiti, including a rendition of a man with corn growing out of his head where hair should be. Luckily, the fast-food restaurant we soon entered was not only bright but also relatively clean and empty.

“May I take your orders?” the teenager behind the counter asked in extraordinarily bad French.

“Combo number three,” Azadeh told him.

“What?”

“Combo number three.”

“What?”

Azadeh glared. “Number three. Combo number three.” The boy looked at us helplessly, then went to the back to fetch his associate, who seemed to be sleeping on kitchen duty. They consulted for a few moments in rapid English before the associate came to the counter and apologized profusely.

“Mademoiselle’s order?” he finally asked.

“Combo number three.”

“And monsieur?”

“Number five.”

“One moment,” he said with another gratuitous smile, and returned to the kitchen area. We sat down at one of the plastic tables, getting as far away as we could from the restaurant’s other occupant, a heavyset young woman wearing a backpack shaped like a polka-dotted raccoon.

“Think we’ll have any better luck with the food here?” I asked Azadeh quietly in Persian.

“They’re supposed to have standards,” she told me. “Whether they adhere to them in this case or not...” She again adopted that disconcerting conspiratorial pose, leaning forward and gazing up through her eyelashes. “That’s yet to be ascertained,” she finished.

“There’s only one way to find out,” I said, leaning forward in spite of myse –

“Hork and a half wax!” the teenage cashier yelled, making both of us jump. The associate slapped his forehead with his palm and corrected his coworker, “Order number six!”

“Come on, learn the freaking French already,” I heard Azadeh say under her breath as I got up to fetch the trays.

The food was as good as any fast-food chain could supply, certainly no different than the first meal I had eaten with Chelsey and the others.

“This has probably been the strangest date I’ve ever been on,” Azadeh said as we walked out of the restaurant. She had, at some point I had forgotten, taken my arm, and was still holding it. “But...it was very interesting.”

“Is that a good thing?” I said – I’d like to think I said it smoothly.

Azadeh moved her arm to my waist, and I found mine dropping around her shoulder. “For you...” She looked at me and grinned. “Yes.”


Epilogue – Azadeh


The “Middle-Eastern” restaurant episode had ended up putting us past the hour when the buses ran in that quarter of Paris, and we had to walk all the way back to the hotel. Luckily, the night was warm, and we didn’t run out of things to talk about.

I ended up crashing in Chelsey, Thanh’s, and Heather’s apartment, so I was there the next morning when all hell broke loose...

Thanh was the only one awake when the phone rang. Since the reason she was up was the pounding headache from her hotel-bar carousing, we were all woken up by her screams: “CHELSEY!!! IT’S YOUR #@**!$% BOYFRIEND!!!”

...All of us except...of course...Chelsey.

Reasoning that the best way to shut Thanh up was to get Chelsey on the phone with Alex, Heather and I started hitting her with pillows until she groggily took the phone from Thanh.

“...Hello?...oh hi Alex...uh-huh...okay, I – what?...You did NOT...*yawn* I’m going to...you’d better be...okay, see you later. Mm-hm. Love you. Bye.”

Chelsey’s arm thrust upward from the tangle of sheets and pillows and Heather took the phone. “What was that about?” she mumbled, still half-asleep herself.

Chelsey flopped over to look at me and raised a sleepy finger. “Alex says he’s very sorry, but when he was looking up that restaurant in the phone book, he wrote down the wrong address...he hopes it didn’t mess up your date too badly.”

I exchanged exasperated looks with Heather, who had heard the whole story on the way back from the hotel.

“Men, I swear,” Heather muttered, tumbling back onto her bed.

“Tattoo-boy didn’t turn out so well?” I asked.

“It was awful,” Heather mumbled from under her pillow. “Unlike yours. Only you, Azadeh, could have everything go wrong and still have a good time.”

“Shut up,” Thanh moaned. Heather said something angry in reply, but I didn’t hear her; I was already falling back asleep. In my mind, I reached out until I found the frayed edges of the dream I’d had, and by the time Thanh jumped up to hit Heather with a pillow, I was walking down that sidewalk again with Daroga...