VEILS <i> by Nahid Rachlin (City Lights Books: $8.95).</i>

Rachlin’s short stories describe the loves and fears of the women who dwell in an old-fashioned enclave of Tehran, where often-oppressive customs linger like shadows in the peeling doorways. Ghanat Abad Avenue runs through a run-down, shabby-genteel neighborhood caught between the skyscrapers, petrodollars and mass communications of the modern central city and the old, religiously-oriented life of the countryside. “The Son” reveals how the women in the quarter cope with lives that resemble perpetual balancing acts. Islamic tradition limits the actions Parvin can take to check the behavior of her son, Bahman--then condemns her to watch helplessly as the secret police, armed with 20th-Century weapons, drag him off for allegedly seditious beliefs.