Dear Shadi,

Le Havre was grey. Our ship seemed to laze into port, cutting through a fine mist that might have counted as rain. Tiny droplets rested over my cashmere coat, and when I breathed in, the cold and the damp and the grey rested in my lungs. I did not find my first look at France particularly inspiring. There were the neat wide boulevards just beyond the piers, the neat colonnaded buildings, the lampposts and shrubby trees at neat distances, too.

I did not know why were in Le Havre to begin with. We had been in Italy for the summer, and it would have seemed reasonable to me if we had sailed and then put ashore at Marseille. Instead, we had transversed three seas, a strait, a bay, and a channel to land in this dreary port. But I had come to realized that everything in my life was at the mercy of Politics, and therefore Bureaucracy—and there was no point in trying to make sense of bureaucracy. But I loved the other parts of my life—the new places, foods, languages, music, art, even peoples—enough that I suffered the insanity with only a handful of complaints.

Reza looked pleased with what he surveyed. He had grown out his moustache to magnificent proportions during the voyage to France, and it exaggerated his smile almost to the point of parody.

"I mean to look a fool when I arrive in Paris," he had told me, "so when I sack the whole lot of the counselors, they won't know if they should murder me or just laugh in my face."

Now he merely commented, "not too cold, ma belle, do you think?"

"I've been colder," I replied truthfully. But I still pulled the fox fur collar of my coat a little closer. Paris was a different sort of assignment than I had hitherto accompanied Reza on. He was usually the man to present the best of Persia to foreign powers, all genial conversation and hospitality. He made friends, entertained and was entertained in return by the powerful and influential. We were, in a word, socialites.

But this French Republic was of little interest to the Shah, who found himself more comfortable with the Empress of India. And so it was not Reza's directive to make himself charming to the French. He was coming to clean house.

We spent a night at Le Havre, where Reza conferred with a trusted aide he had sent ahead. All of the men in Reza's retinue were grim-faced when we set off for Paris the next morning. I was not neglected in these arrangements: I do not hesitate to say that Reza probably spent more time consulting with my seamstresses and dressers than I did. He selected my travel clothes with the utmost care.

"We," he declared, "are making a statement."

"We are always making a statement," I replied. And if there was one thing I did not care for in my new life, it was that feeling of being a walking advertisement first and a person second. Or, if not a person, perhaps a doll. I consoled myself knowing that we were Helping the Empire (a very cold comfort,) and that at least Reza had good taste. I couldn't even object to the Europeans fashions: a corset is a marvelous thing for a woman approaching forty.

Being married to Reza was like being married to Feridoon in one way, and one way only: it came with a role to play. Feridoon liked me quiet and watchful; Reza liked me engaging and provocative. Both men took pains to impress upon me how utterly vital it was that I stay in my assigned character.

Make sure they do not notice you, Feridoon said.

Make sure they see you, Reza said.

I took this as a simple matter of course. I had spent a life time being whatever the people around me needed me to be: a bookkeeper, a hostess, a refuge, a babysitter, a teacher, a representative. It was only as I approached middle age that I started to be troubled by the question: who am I, Mojgan, alone? Perhaps it was the immediacy of that state that loomed large in my mind. Childless, and with a husband twice my age, alone was my certain fate sooner or later.

Alone did not bother me. I knew that from experience. But by the time we drove into Paris, a nascent notion had taken root in my mind. It couldn't be the same alone.

That idea stayed suspended in its infancy for the time being. As Reza had so accurately declared, we had a statement to make. And make it we did. The stares I received from the embassy staff were infinitely more indecent than the laced and buttoned and gloved outfit I wore, which did not reveal a sliver of skin below my jawline. I kept my hand fastened on the crook of Reza's elbow as we walked the offices, greeted the staff, and even as we sat down to drink tea.

Reza's statement was, clearly, I do as I please. He was glittering and biting and charming, until the moment we crossed the threshold into our private leased house alone. He then forwent the glitter and bite, though I'm not sure he would have known how to turn off the charm even if he had wanted to.

"Magnificent, ma belle," he said, with a quick kiss on the cheek. "On their ears, the lot of them. Supper? Yes, supper." He kept up his usual stream of observations and analysis at the dinner table, only asking occasionally for my thought or opinion. "Incidentally, my dear—" which meant he was very deliberately bringing up a subject—"I stumbled across—" he had ferreted out—"a name that may—" certainly— "be of interest to you."

I was all attention, and that was how I learned Nadir was in Paris. Nadir was essentially a private citizen, though it was understood that he had come to Paris under orders from the Shah.

"I recognize genteel exile when I see it," Reza commented. "I don't think the man's imperial pension has been adjusted since 1850." In spite of that, Reza had no objection to me renewing my acquaintance with my ersatz cousin, and was surely already coming up with how the connection could be an asset instead of a liability. And so, in between society teas and state balls, I found time to slip away to a little apartment sandwiched in amongst far grander neighbors.

When I first saw Nadir after all of those years, with his noble face settled into heavy lines and his kind eyes into melancholy, an unexpected feeling assailed me.

I felt as if I had come home. I had never been in this city before, in these rooms, but when I stretched out my hand in greeting, I was almost overwhelmed by a sense of sweet familiarity. My return to Ghazvin all those years ago had come with no such comfort. I think Nadir felt it, as well—and perhaps even the faithful Darius, who had also been so good to me all those years ago. Within moments, we were speaking as if the intervening decades had been mere days.

I learned of his 'genteel exile.' Even his exasperation with Erik was a comfortable old thing. For my part, I had long abandoned the idea that I might see Erik again. Occasionally, over the years, I would picture him in some ingeniously snug seaside cottage, with his music to comfort him, the sunrise to greet him, new and clever friends to keep him company, and a little ruby ring to remind him of trials overcome.

To learn that my comfortable little daydream had not materialized for him was disappointing, though no great surprise. The surprise was that in just a few days, I would see my old friend again. And for all Nadir would scowl and chastise, I did think of Erik as a friend—and a good, loyal one at that.

It was convenient that Reza was willing to spin my kinship with Nadir to his advantage. But as I left Nadir that first day, with a promise of meetings to come, I knew that it did not matter to me that Reza continued to be supportive. If he told me the next day that I had to cut the erstwhile Daroga off completely, I would have publically submitted and privately worked a new way around. Not that I could ever see Reza doing so. He liked a challenge too much, and if Nadir became inconvenient, he would enjoy puzzling out a solution. But life had already dealt me so many surprises so as to make me wary of expectations. It was wise to decide how to play the game, howsoever the cards might fall.

I had lost Nadir and Erik once before. I was not willing to do so a second time.

I did not have a chance to confer with Reza immediately after my visit with Nadir. There were receptions aplenty to attend, even if Reza's attentions were turned internally. That particular one was hosted by the British ambassador, so extra finesse was required of us. I don't quite recall what I wore that night, though it was undoubtedly Parisian couture. But I recall my jewelry—it was a stunning turquoise and diamond parure that had come from my time with Feridoon. As each element of the set was put on, the earrings, the broach, the bracelets, the hair comb, the necklace, I felt the weight of the Shah's court bearing down on me once again. No one would have seen the difference in my face or comportment, but I was alert in a way I had not been for many years.

We took a carriage with one of the most senior aides and his French wife, and kept up an easy flow of conversation. At the reception, we circulated and I danced with a half dozen different men under Reza's wryly benevolent eye. And all the while, a small part of my brain was lingering on Nadir and Erik, and the determination to keep them safe from whatever phantom dangers lurked. When at last it was just Reza, fiddling with his watch chain, chatting in my dressing room, I found myself unusually reticent with him. Oh, I spoke of Nadir in cheerful tones, thanking my husband, and informing him of my forthcoming visit.

But Erik… I did not breathe a word of Erik.

There was no black mark attached to Nadir's name, beyond the caprices of a capricious monarch. We were far from Court, and no one knew of what he had done in those last days in Mazandaran. But there would be no way for anyone, not even so consummate a diplomat as Reza, to put the Angel of Death in a good light. After all these years, was in possible that I might bring danger and destruction on Erik's head? I could not do that, any more so than I could bear to give him up again.

So, wearing Feridoon's jewels, I put on Feridoon's wife once more. I used my discretion, and I did not speak. It was safer for everyone.

When Monday came, and I once again took a carriage to the Rue di Rivoli, I found myself wondering if I was being selfish. Perhaps by claiming Nadir as family, I was putting him in danger? Who knew how much Nadir had elected not to tell Tehran over the years? Would I bring unwanted attention to him now? And there was Erik to think of, as well. Who knew how many enemies still lurked in the shadows for him that I may now be shining a light for. And for what? Because I held them in affection? One does not knowingly put the people they care about in harm's way. I had half-way determined, as I stepped up to the apartment, that perhaps the best thing I could do was simply ask Reza to use his sway to improve on Nadir's financial situation—from a safe distance. Hello, my friends; goodbye, my dears. I had done so before.

I could hear raised voices as I walked up to the door, and that too was a familiar comfort. Darius let me in, and Nadir and Erik fell silent.

I smiled at Nadir, but then turned all my attention to Erik. I didn't think it possible, but something about his dark, conservative morning suit made him look even taller and leaner than he had in the old mishmash of western-and-eastern attire. His mask was not so fierce anymore, but rather a beautifully sculpted art piece that finished the story the sharp bones of his face began. But he still hunched his shoulders uncertainly, and tilted his head like a bird, and the light still caught his eye in a golden glint.

I reached out my hand to him, and, after a moment, he took it. At first he did not speak to me, but rather looked to Nadir.

"Strange days, Daroga, aren't these?"

Indeed they were. And they would grow stranger still.

Until next time,

Mojgan Khanum

And, yes, as some of you with quick eyes noticed, the chapters of this last section of the story are titled from Hafez's poem... 'Not all the sum of earthly happiness.' I can't claim to be clever about my titles (see: A Stroll on Sunday, which is about a stroll on Sunday) but poetry is there for the pirating.