Reading Lolita In Tehran Part 12

I went to the library and scanned the rows of books, all organized by subject and t.i.tle. I picked up a novel, put it back. I picked up a book of criticism and then I noticed Eliot's Four Quartets. Four Quartets. Yes, not a bad idea. I opened it the way we used to open Hafez, closing our eyes, asking our question and letting our finger rest somewhere at random. It opened to the page in the middle of "Burnt Norton," beginning with the lines "At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor/fleshless;/Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance/is." Yes, not a bad idea. I opened it the way we used to open Hafez, closing our eyes, asking our question and letting our finger rest somewhere at random. It opened to the page in the middle of "Burnt Norton," beginning with the lines "At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor/fleshless;/Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance/is."

I closed the book, moved back to the couch and felt exhausted.

The phone rang. If it's a friend, he'll hang up after the third ring. And if not? What if it's him? He left the door open, he called my home and found no one there, he's calling me here. But then why no note? If it had been me, I probably would have forgotten to leave a note, I with my untidy mind, but not him-he'd remember. But what if he didn't have time to write, or couldn't couldn't write? If they had come to take him away, would he say, Wait, let me write a note to this friend, whom you can come and pick up later: Dear Azar, Sorry, couldn't wait for you. Stay where you are; they'll be back for you soon. write? If they had come to take him away, would he say, Wait, let me write a note to this friend, whom you can come and pick up later: Dear Azar, Sorry, couldn't wait for you. Stay where you are; they'll be back for you soon.

Suddenly I panicked. I have to call Reza, I thought. Better call him than die of anxiety. Two heads are better than one and all that. I called Reza and explained the situation. His voice was soothing, but did I sense a sudden panic rimmed around his soothing words? He said, Give me a half hour and I'll be there.

As soon as I put the receiver down, I regretted having called him. If something bad is going to happen, why involve someone else, and if he is okay. . . . I went back to Four Quartets, Four Quartets, and this time turned to the beginning, the lines I used to read aloud to myself when I first studied Eliot in college: and this time turned to the beginning, the lines I used to read aloud to myself when I first studied Eliot in college: Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future, And time future contained in time past.

If all time is eternally present All time is unredeemable.

How had I missed that point about the unredeemability of the present when I had read it so many times before? I started to read aloud, walking in circles around the room: What might have been is an abstraction Remaining a perpetual possibility Only in a world of speculation.

What might have been and what has been Point to one end, which is always present.

Now I came to a favorite part, and felt myself on the edge of tears: Footfalls echo in the memory Down the pa.s.sage which we did not take Towards the door we never opened Into the rose-garden. My words echo Thus, in your mind.

But to what purpose Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves I do not know.

I repeated the last two lines, feeling tears, to my dismay, running down my cheeks. His friend finally arrived. I let him in, and immediately received his comfort and transferred to him my anxiety and fear. He held my hand and patted me on the back. Don't worry, he said. He's nuts-maybe he had to go to an emergency editing session. He's been known to disappear on one of those a.s.signments for days. But when he makes an appointment the day before? Couldn't he have left a note? After a while we both sat down on the couch, holding hands, feeling forsaken and intimate with our doubts and fears.

We didn't notice the door open, we heard a key in the lock. He had forgotten he'd left the door unlocked. He came in and his first words were, I'm so sorry. I was out with the Kid. He looked very pale and, if arched eyebrows could sag, I would say that his had sagged. Fatigue fought with regret, with his realization of the anxiety he had put us through. Well, the least you could have done is get yourself arrested or come in with your interrogators, I said feebly. You say you were out with the Kid?

The Kid was his name for a grown-up man, eighteen and a high school senior when he first met him in one of his cla.s.ses that year of the revolution. My magician had a special affection for the Kid, who wanted to go to medical school but was fascinated by his talk of Aeschylus and Chaplin. He pa.s.sed the entrance exam with a first, only to be denied a place because he admitted to being a Baha'i. During the Shah's reign, the Baha'is were protected and flourished-one sin for which the Shah was never forgiven. After the revolution, their property was confiscated and their leaders murdered. Baha'is had no civic rights under the new Islamic const.i.tution and were barred from schools, universities and workplaces.

The Kid could easily have taken an ad in the paper, like so many others did, denying that he belonged to the decadent and imperialist sect, disowning his parents-who, luckily, were out of harm's way in Europe-and claiming to have been converted by some ayatollah. That's all it would have taken and the doors would have been opened to him. Instead, he had admitted to being a Baha'i, although he was not even a practicing Baha'i and had no religious inclinations, denying himself in the process a brilliant career in medicine, for there was no doubt that he would have been a brilliant doctor.

Now he lived with his old grandmother and did odd jobs-he couldn't hold any one of them for long. He was currently working at a pharmacy, the nearest he would ever come to being a doctor. I had never met him, but I'd heard of him, of his devastating good looks, his love for a Muslim girl, who would soon forsake him to marry a rich older man and would later try to make up with him as a married woman.

The Kid had called just before lunch. His grandmother, who had been ill for a long time, had died and he was calling from the hospital, half-choked. He kept repeating he didn't know what to do. So my magician had left in a hurry. He thought he'd be back soon, long before my visit.

He'd found him standing in front of the hospital, beside a soft and boneless woman: the aunt. The Kid had almost cried, but crying in front of a G.o.dlike mentor was impossible, so he had been grown-up, his dry eyes worse than tears. There were no burial places for Baha'is; the regime had destroyed the Baha'i cemetery in the first years of the revolution, demolis.h.i.+ng the graves with a bulldozer. There were rumors that the cemetery had been turned into a park or a playground. Later, I found out it had become a cultural center, called Bakhtaran. What were you supposed to do when your grandmother died if there was no cemetery?

I got up and started pacing around the room. You sit down, he said, pointing to a spot on the couch beside him. Sit here and be quiet. Don't fidget-that's a good girl. I said, Before you start up again, let me make a phone call. I rang up Bijan and told him to go to the party without me, I would join him later. When I returned, I heard Reza saying, It's amazing, this obsession with taking possession not just of the living but also of the dead. At the start of the revolution, the revolutionary prosecutor bulldozed Reza Shah's grave, destroying the monument and creating a public toilet in its place-which he inaugurated by p.i.s.sing in it. I interrupted their conversation and asked if they wanted coffee. I brought out three mismatched mugs and set them on the table with a pot of boiling water and some instant coffee. He got up, went to the refrigerator and brought us a box of chocolates; always the perfect gentleman.

So the Kid had borrowed a car from a friend and was standing there with his sniffling aunt. He couldn't imagine leaving him with the aunt to take care of the corpse and decided to go with them, despite the Kid's strong protestations. He had thought of me and called my house, but there was no answer. No, he had not thought of calling Reza or any other friend. He had gotten into the car with the Kid.

They drove to the back of the hospital, and there, the corpse, already wrapped in a white shroud, was given to them. They each took hold of one end and put the corpse in the trunk of the car. They then proceeded to drive to a garden he had heard of outside Tehran for the burial. They worried they might be stopped-what would they tell the militia? How would they prevent them from opening the trunk? The Kid worried about the car. After all, it belonged to his friend and he didn't want to drag innocent people into this. Innocent people! my magician cried out. Can you imagine feeling guilty about trying to bury your grandmother, to give her any kind of burial, never mind a decent one?

I wanted to touch him, but the experience had put him outside of our reach: he was still there in that car, driving towards the garden. There were many such instances, when expressions of sympathy could not be exchanged. What do you say to someone who is telling you about the rape and murder of virgins-I'm sorry, I feel your pain? My magician and Na.s.srin were of the type who did not want sympathy; they expected us to understand and to tailor our empathy to the shape of their grief. Of course, with him it was worse: he felt guilt and anger.

They drove down the same highway they had taken so many times, towards the Caspian Sea. The land, the trees, the mountains, slipped by and the aunt did not say a word; she just sat in the back, and from time to time they heard her sniffles and snorts. The men could not talk about anything real; they made halfhearted small talk about last year's Oscars.

The garden looked like any other garden; behind the mud-brick walls, he could see the tall trees inside. They honked. An old man opened the gate and they were led inside. They were shown a few plots with headstones; two freshly dug plots were ready. Families of the dead had to perform the final ritual of was.h.i.+ng the corpse and putting it in the shroud. The Kid and his aunt went into a small building, and my magician sat there holding a small bouquet of daffodils and narcissus he had bought along the way. The rest went by quickly, like a dream: placing the body in the ground, throwing earth over it, standing by the freshly dug grave for a few moments and leaving the flowers behind. The Kid paid the old man. They got back into the car and drove straight to his apartment, and now here I am, at your service. Looking at me, a sudden kindness blossomed in his eyes. And I apologize, he said. How thoughtless of me not to have thought of what you would feel.

We sat there for a little while longer. If we talked, I don't remember. Then I got up and said, Could you call me a taxi please, and he did. When the doorbell rang, it took me a while to put on my robe and then the scarf and to find my bag and say good-bye. We had not talked about the object of my visit-it all seemed rather pointless. Of course, there would be tomorrow and I would call again and arrange another visit and we would talk. For now, I kissed both of them on the cheek, thanked Reza and hurried down the stairs to the waiting car.

28.

Two nights before the announcement of the first cease-fire in the war of cities, a few friends came over to watch John Ford's Mogambo. Mogambo. Mr. Forsati by now was in the habit of bringing me videos. One day, out of the blue, he followed me to my office, carrying a small parcel in his hands. It turned out to be a video of Mr. Forsati by now was in the habit of bringing me videos. One day, out of the blue, he followed me to my office, carrying a small parcel in his hands. It turned out to be a video of Big. Big. From then on, he brought me films, mostly second- or third-rate American releases. It was said that the Islamists procured them from the sailors on duty in the Gulf, who were allowed to watch forbidden films, and smuggled them onsh.o.r.e. After a while, I began to make requests. I asked for cla.s.sics, like From then on, he brought me films, mostly second- or third-rate American releases. It was said that the Islamists procured them from the sailors on duty in the Gulf, who were allowed to watch forbidden films, and smuggled them onsh.o.r.e. After a while, I began to make requests. I asked for cla.s.sics, like Jules and Jim Jules and Jim and and Modern Times, Modern Times, or films by Howard Hawks, John Ford, Bunuel or Fellini. These names were new to him, and at first it was more difficult for him to find them, perhaps because they were of little interest to sailors. One day he brought me or films by Howard Hawks, John Ford, Bunuel or Fellini. These names were new to him, and at first it was more difficult for him to find them, perhaps because they were of little interest to sailors. One day he brought me Mogambo. Mogambo. He said it was a gift. He never thought he'd fall in love with an old film, but there it was: he had, and he had a hunch I'd like it. He said it was a gift. He never thought he'd fall in love with an old film, but there it was: he had, and he had a hunch I'd like it.

That night there was a blackout for several hours, obliterating the whole city. We sat by candlelight and talked and drank Vishnovka, a homemade cherry vodka, a few fairly distant explosions interrupting the otherwise calm flow of conversation. The next night it was announced that Iraq would accept a cease-fire if it could fire the last missile. It was like a game played between two children-what mattered most was who would get the last word.

The cease-fire lasted only two days. Many people, believing it would hold, had returned to Tehran. The shops were open late and the streets were overcrowded with people catching up on their New Year's shopping. A few hours before the cease-fire was broken, I made a bet with a friend about how long it would last. These wagers had become a regular habit. We would bet on when, where and how many missiles would hit the city. It helped reduce the tension, however lugubrious some of our victories may have seemed.

The attacks were resumed on Monday at 10:30 P.M. P.M. By early Tuesday morning, six missiles had hit Tehran. Many who had just arrived back began almost immediately to leave again. The sudden hush that fell over the city was intermittently broken by military marches blasting out into the streets from mosques, government offices, Revolutionary Committee buildings and private houses. They were interrupted by "important announcements" about missile attacks on Baghdad and new victories over the "imperialist-Zionist enemy." We were to rejoice over these victories of "light over darkness" and console ourselves with the thought that the Iraqis were suffering the same fate. By early Tuesday morning, six missiles had hit Tehran. Many who had just arrived back began almost immediately to leave again. The sudden hush that fell over the city was intermittently broken by military marches blasting out into the streets from mosques, government offices, Revolutionary Committee buildings and private houses. They were interrupted by "important announcements" about missile attacks on Baghdad and new victories over the "imperialist-Zionist enemy." We were to rejoice over these victories of "light over darkness" and console ourselves with the thought that the Iraqis were suffering the same fate.

29.

The universities were closed down before the Iranian New Year on March 21, 1988, and remained closed until the cease-fire. People were tired and seemed not to care about the government's edicts anymore. Weddings and parties went on, heedless of the militia and the Revolutionary Guards. The black-clad men on motorcycles-death's cupbearers, as they were called by some-disappeared from the scenes of bombings, where people increasingly shouted out their despair and anger, cursing both Saddam and our own regime. Much of daily life came to a standstill in those days, and we sought ever more active means of escape. Going on climbs in the mountains circling Tehran or taking long walks became a daily fixture, through which we struck many new, if rarely lasting, friends.h.i.+ps.

The Iraqi dictator was by now a household name, almost as familiar as Khomeini, for he had nearly as much control over our lives. His tremendous power over our destiny had turned him into an intrusive presence. No key decision could be arrived at without taking him and his future moves into consideration. His name was mentioned frequently and casually. A major character in children's games, his every move, past, present and future, was a favorite topic of conversation.

Because of Iraq's continual and concentrated bombing of major cities, especially Tehran, the regime was forced to relax its reign. For the first time, the Revolutionary Guards and Committees became less visible; the vice squads were almost totally withdrawn from the streets. At a time when Tehran was in deepest mourning, it was able to put on its gayest face. Women, in growing numbers, shunned the prescribed dark colors to put on their brightest scarves; many wore makeup, and their nylon stockings became more visible under their robes. Parties featuring music and alcohol were thrown without much concern for the raiding squads, without having to bribe the local committees.

The place where the regime tried to keep its hold, ironically, was in the realm of our imagination. Television was saturated with doc.u.mentaries on the two world wars. As the now almost empty streets of Tehran became livelier and more colorful, on television we saw Londoners searching for food in garbage cans or huddled together in underground shelters. We were told about how the people of Stalingrad and Leningrad had survived the harsh siege of their cities on a diet of their comrades' flesh. This was not only to justify an increasingly unpopular and desperate war, whose end the regime had refused to contemplate until it had "liberated" the whole of Iraq. It was also aimed at intimidating and controlling a restive population, by holding up the prospect of even greater misfortune, and by reminding us that all had once not been so well on the Western front.

We had come to believe in rumors. A new one began to spread that spring: Iraq had in its possession new and far more powerful missiles that could land on any part of the city without any prior warning whatsoever. So we told ourselves to be content with the ordinary bombs, and prayed to be spared the missiles. Finally, in April, we were attacked by the dreaded missiles. Soon after that, the Iraqi chemical bombing of a Kurdish town inside Iraq heralded an even more horrifying prospect. The newest rumors were that Iraq planned to use chemical bombs against Tehran and other major cities. The regime used the news to create a ma.s.sive panic. The daily papers came out with extras on how to combat a chemical attack; a new alarm signal-green this time-was introduced. A few green-signal practices, apart from causing general panic, also convinced us that n.o.body would escape the paralyzing effects of the new threat. A special "Combat the Chemical Bomb Day" was announced, during which the Revolutionary Guards paraded up and down the streets with their own gas masks and vehicles, bringing the traffic in much of the city to a standstill.

Soon after this, a missile hit a bakery in a crowded section of Tehran. People who were gathered at the scene began to see clouds of flour rising in the air. Someone shouted, "Chemical bomb!" In the ensuing scramble, many were injured as people and cars crashed into each other. And to be sure, the Revolutionary Guards, with their gas masks, arrived sometime later, to the rescue.

By now, most districts carried some inescapable sign of having been hit by missile attacks, which continued unabated. Rows of ordinary houses and shops gave way to broken windows; then a few houses where the damage was more extensive; then the ruins of a house or two, where only the barest structure could be discerned in the rubble. Going to visit a friend or a shop or supermarket, we drove past these sights as if moving along a symmetrical curve. We would begin our ride on the rising side of the curve of devastation until we reach the ruined peak, followed by a gradual return to familiar sites and, finally, our intended destination.

30.

I had not seen Mina for a long time, and the festivities surrounding the Iranian New Year offered a good excuse to renew our relations. I remember the day I went to her house well, because it coincided with two important events: a former colleague was getting married, and Tehran was. .h.i.t with seven missiles. The first explosion sounded as I came out of a flower shop. A worker from the shop, some pa.s.sersby and I stood to watch the cloud rising on the western horizon of the city. It looked white and innocent enough, like a child who has just committed a murder.

Mina was happy to see me. In many ways, I was by then her only contact with academia. Her family had sold their mansion and moved to a new house, a smaller, ghostly version of their old home. Mina was still dressed in black. She seemed faded and unhappy. She told me she kept going through bouts of depression and was on medication.

I asked her, with a certain persistence, about her unfinished book on James. I had the simplistic and wishful notion that once she started to work on the book, everything would fall into place. She said she would never resume her work. She needed time to breathe, she added later, to enable her to concentrate on her work again. In the meantime, she had translated Leon Edel's The Modern Psychological Novel The Modern Psychological Novel and was in the process of translating Ian Watt's and was in the process of translating Ian Watt's The Rise of the Novel. The Rise of the Novel. She said, Of course, these books aren't so fas.h.i.+onable these days. Everyone has gone postmodern. They can't even read the text in the original-they're so dependent on some pseudo-philosopher to tell them what it says. I told her not to worry, that n.o.body taught James anymore either, that he too was unfas.h.i.+onable, which was a sign that we must be doing something right. She said, Of course, these books aren't so fas.h.i.+onable these days. Everyone has gone postmodern. They can't even read the text in the original-they're so dependent on some pseudo-philosopher to tell them what it says. I told her not to worry, that n.o.body taught James anymore either, that he too was unfas.h.i.+onable, which was a sign that we must be doing something right.

Mina was a meticulous and literal translator. This created difficulties with her publisher, who wanted her to make the text "accessible" to the public. She was contemptuous of the existing translations of Virginia Woolf. She refused to use the Iranian translation of Mrs. Dalloway Mrs. Dalloway for the quotations in the Edel book, and this had caused her more trouble. for the quotations in the Edel book, and this had caused her more trouble.

She asked me about my cla.s.ses. I told her my students and I were having a hard time with James, especially with his prose. She smiled. Then your students are in good company, she said. Some of the best-known critics and writers have complained about it. Yes, but here our problem is different, you know. I a.s.signed them more obviously difficult novelists-Nabokov and Joyce-but somehow they're having a harder time with James. The surface realism gives them the illusion that he should be easier to understand, and baffles them all the more. Look here, I said. What's the deal with this word fuliginous fuliginous? He uses it in The Bostonians- The Bostonians-"fuliginous eyes"-and in The Amba.s.sadors, The Amba.s.sadors, to describe Waymarsh's face. What does the blasted word mean? You know it cannot be found in the American Heritage Dictionary? to describe Waymarsh's face. What does the blasted word mean? You know it cannot be found in the American Heritage Dictionary?

Mina could not let me continue; her loyalties would not allow it. She, like Catherine Sloper, had an "undiverted heart" and, despite her brilliant mind, sometimes took things awfully literally. She said, with evident emotion, How else but by giving volume to his words could he create the illusion of life? Are you thinking of dropping him?

She had asked me this question a long time ago, and every once in a while that anxiety returned to her. I said, No, of course not. How could I drop a novelist who in describing a brilliant woman says not dazzling or incandescent but "un.o.bscured Miss B"? I wish I could steal his intricacies of language. But give my kids a break-remember, most of them were fed on Steinbeck's The Pearl. The Pearl.

I told her what fun we had the day we chose our best and worst pa.s.sages. Mahs.h.i.+d pointed to the "bird haunted trees," and Na.s.srin read a pa.s.sage from The Amba.s.sadors The Amba.s.sadors describing a lunch by the waterside: "-the mere way Madame de Vionnet, opposite him over their intensely white table-linen, their omelette aux tomates, their bottle of straw-coloured Chablis, thanked him for everything almost with the smile of a child, while her grey eyes moved in and out of their talk, back to the quarter of the warm spring air, in which early summer had already begun to throb, and then back again to his face and their human questions." describing a lunch by the waterside: "-the mere way Madame de Vionnet, opposite him over their intensely white table-linen, their omelette aux tomates, their bottle of straw-coloured Chablis, thanked him for everything almost with the smile of a child, while her grey eyes moved in and out of their talk, back to the quarter of the warm spring air, in which early summer had already begun to throb, and then back again to his face and their human questions."

These talks with Mina, seemingly so irrelevant to the events around us, were a great source of satisfaction to us both. It is only now, when I try to gather up the morsels of those days, that I discover how little, if ever, we talked about our personal lives-about love and marriage and how it felt to have children, or not to. It seemed as if, apart from literature, the political had devoured us, eliminating the personal or private.

31.

One of the last missiles to land before the cease-fire hit a nearby house, in an alley where two of our friends, a couple and their youngest daughter, lived. They had a publis.h.i.+ng house and bookstore not far from their home, where many Iranian writers and intellectuals gathered and where debates raged late into the evening. The night before, a few of my friends, including Laleh, had stayed with us watching films until almost dawn. In the cozy confusion of a sleepover, we fixed a breakfast of bread, fresh cream, homemade jam and coffee. I was in the kitchen when I felt the house go down with a shudder. It had been too close. Soon we discovered just how close.

After the bomb, many people ran towards the site, while dozens, mostly women and children, bleeding, shouting, crying and cursing, were running in the opposite direction. When the Revolutionary Guards and the ambulances arrived, the cries became louder. Timidly, the guards set out to inspect the area. In the yard of the house where the missile had landed, two children were lying senseless. The guards dragged out two dead women from under the rubble; one was very young, wearing a colorful housedress. The other was middle-aged and fat; her skirt clung to her thighs.

The next evening, we went over to console our friends. It was raining gently; the air scattered the smell of fresh earth and spring blossoms. A small crowd had gathered near the devastated houses. Our hostess led us inside and, gracious as ever, served us fragrant tea and small, delicious pastries. She had somehow managed to fill the kitchen with big bowls of lilacs.

The windows were shattered. Shards of gla.s.s had pierced their valuable paintings, and they had spent the previous night removing gla.s.s from various parts of the house. Smiling, she took us to the rooftop. Behind us rose my beloved mountains and in front of us were the three demolished houses. In the least damaged one, a man and a woman seemed to be searching for things to salvage from what must have been the second floor of the building. The house in the middle was now mostly rubble.

32.

The war ended the way it had started, suddenly and quietly. At least that is how it seemed to us. The effects of the war would stay with us for a long time, perhaps forever. At first we felt bewildered, and wondered how to go back to what had pa.s.sed for ordinary life before the war. The Islamic regime had reluctantly accepted peace because of its inability to ward off Iraq's attacks. Constant defeats on the battleground had left many within the militia and Revolutionary Guards in a disposition of despair and disillusion. The mood among the regime's adherents was low. Ayatollah Khomeini declared that peace, for him, had meant "drinking the cup of poison." This mood was reflected in the universities, especially among the militia, the veterans of the war and their affiliates: for them, peace meant defeat.

The war with the external enemy was over, but the war with the domestic one was not. Shortly after the signing of the peace agreement, Ayatollah Khomeini set up a three-man commission in the Iranian jails to decide on the political prisoners' loyalty to the regime. Several thousand, including some who were in jail for years waiting for a trial and some who had served their terms and were to be freed, were executed summarily and in secret. The victims of this ma.s.s execution were murdered twice, the second time by the silence and anonymity surrounding their executions, which robbed them of a meaningful and acknowledged death and thus, to paraphrase Hannah Arendt, set a seal on the fact that they had never really existed.

When cla.s.ses resumed at last, we picked up almost exactly where we had left off. A few of the desks had been moved and there were several mysterious absences and curious new recruits, but otherwise there was almost no indication that the university had been closed for over two months. There was no air of jubilation, only a general sense of weary relief.

This was the beginning of disillusion and disenchantment. The war was lost, the economy was in shambles and there were few jobs to be had. Those who had gone to the front with no real skills had to depend on the compensations promised to them as war veterans. But even those were not handed out evenly. Most of the Islamic foundations created in the name of martyrs of the war had degenerated into sources of wealth for their corrupt leaders. Later, these children of the revolution would expose the degree of this corruption and revolt against it. Those in the Islamic a.s.sociations had tasted power and things Western; they used their power princ.i.p.ally to gain privileges denied to others.

After the war, Islamic Jihad, the student a.s.sociation that Mr. Forsati belonged to, became more open, and also came into more open conflict with the members of the more conservative Muslim Students' a.s.sociation. Once the cla.s.ses resumed, I began to see Mr. Forsati more often. Films were his pa.s.sion, and he wanted to start a company related to videos and films. It was with his help that I managed to organize a series of cultural programs for the university at large. He was not very creative himself; his creativity went into a benign form of self-promotion and self-improvement.

At first it seemed to me as if gradually, like an old film's fade-out, Mr. Ghomi disappeared from my life. He had not disappeared: he continued to come to cla.s.s, and was no less virulent in his a.s.saults against James and other novelists I taught. If anything, his resentment and anger grew, degenerating into almost childish outbursts. The difference was in the rest of us. Somehow we did not pay much attention to him anymore; when he talked, others answered back. He and his friends had to remind us daily that although Saddam was gone, the threat of the West, of imperialism, of the Zionists and their internal agents, had not vanished. Most of us were too tired even to respond.

In the next-to-last row on the window side, where Mr. Ghomi and Mr. Nahvi would sit, I find a quiet young man, an elementary school teacher. Let us call him Mr. Dori and move on. My glance hovers over Mr. Forsati, and Hamid, and then moves to the other side of the room, the girls' side, past Mahs.h.i.+d, Na.s.srin and Sanaz. In the middle row, the seat on the aisle is occupied by Manna. I pause for a moment on Manna's laughing face and then glance sideways towards the aisle-it is Nima that I seek.

As I s.h.i.+ft from Manna to Nima and back, I remember the first time I saw them in my cla.s.s. Their eyes were s.h.i.+ning in unison, reminding me of my two children whenever they entered a conspiracy to make me happy. By now, more than a few interested outsiders audited my cla.s.ses. They were former students who continued to come to cla.s.ses long after they had graduated, students from other universities, young writers and strangers who simply drifted in. They had little access to discussions about English literature and were prepared to spend extra time for no academic credit to attend these cla.s.ses. My only condition was that they should respect the rights of the regular students and refrain from discussion during cla.s.s hours. When one morning I found Manna and Nima standing by my office door, both smiling and eager to audit my seminar on the novel, I agreed without much hesitation.

Gradually, the real protagonists in cla.s.s came to be not my regular students, although I had no serious complaints against them, but these others, the outsiders, who came because of their commitment to the books we read.

Nima wanted me to be his dissertation adviser, because no one in the faculty at the University of Tehran knew Henry James. I had promised myself never to set foot again at the University of Tehran, a place filled with bitter and painful memories. Nima coaxed me in many different ways, and in the end he convinced me. After cla.s.s, the three of us usually walked out together. Manna was the quiet one and Nima would weave me stories about the absurdities of our everyday life in the Islamic Republic.

Usually, he would walk beside me, and Manna would trail at a slightly slower pace by his side. He was tall and boyishly good-looking; not overweight but bulky, as if he had not yet lost his baby fat. His eyes were both kind and naughty. He had a surprisingly soft voice; not feminine, but soft and low, as if he could not raise it above a certain level.

It had become a habit with us, a permanent aspect of our relations.h.i.+p, to exchange stories. I told them that listening to their stories, and through living some of my own, I had a feeling that we were living a series of fairy tales in which all the good fairies had gone on strike, leaving us stranded in the middle of a forest not far from the wicked witch's candy house. Sometimes we told these stories to one another to convince ourselves that they had really happened. Because only then did they become true.

In his lecture on Madame Bovary Madame Bovary Nabokov claimed that all great novels were great fairy tales. So, Nima asked, do you mean to say that both our lives and our imaginative lives are fairy tales? I smiled. Indeed, it seemed to me that at times our lives were more fictional than fiction itself. Nabokov claimed that all great novels were great fairy tales. So, Nima asked, do you mean to say that both our lives and our imaginative lives are fairy tales? I smiled. Indeed, it seemed to me that at times our lives were more fictional than fiction itself.

33.

Less than a year after the peace agreement, on Sat.u.r.day, June 3, 1989, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini died. His death was not officially announced until the next morning at seven A.M., A.M., although many Iranians, in fact the majority, already knew or suspected it by then, and thousands had gathered outside his house on the outskirts of Tehran waiting to hear the news. Before the announcement, the government had taken the precaution of shutting down the airports, the borders and the international telephone lines. although many Iranians, in fact the majority, already knew or suspected it by then, and thousands had gathered outside his house on the outskirts of Tehran waiting to hear the news. Before the announcement, the government had taken the precaution of shutting down the airports, the borders and the international telephone lines.

I remember the morning we heard the news of Khomeini's death. Our whole family had gathered in the living room, lingering in that state of dull shock and bewilderment that death always brings with it. And this was no ordinary death. The radio announcer had broken down and sobbed. This would be the way with every public figure from then on, whether they appeared in mourning ceremonies or were interviewed individually; weeping seemed to be a requirement, as if there was no other way of expressing the magnitude of our grief.

It gave us all a feeling of unity and closeness to be sitting in the living room, with the inevitable smell of coffee and tea, speculating about that death: desired by many, feared by many, expected by many and, now that it had occurred, oddly anticlimactic to both friends and foes. Ever since Khomeini's first heart attack and hospitalization in the early eighties, rumors of his impending death would crop up like persistent weeds, only to be rooted out again. Now the event itself was less stupendous than the anxious expectations its possibility had created. The overwhelming mourning ceremonies that swept the country could not make up for this sense of disappointment.

The event had brought together a strange mix of people in our living room. My father, who had been separated from my mother for a few years but was living temporarily, after an accident, in my brother's vacant apartment, was present and so was my brother's ex-mother-in-law, who had also taken up temporary lodging in his apartment. She and my mother did not get along and had not been on speaking terms for several days now. But on this day a provisional truce was called due to the extraordinary nature of the occasion.

My son was in my lap, sprawled in a posture that is peculiar to very young children. His utter comfort in my lap transferred his sense of ease to me as I unconsciously stroked his fine, still-curly hair and every once in a while touched his soft skin. As we grown-ups talked and speculated, my five-year-old daughter looked intently out of the window. Suddenly, she turned around and shouted, "Mommy, Mommy, he is not dead! Women are still wearing their scarves." I always a.s.sociate Khomeini's death with Negar's simple p.r.o.nouncement-for she was right: the day women did not wear the scarf in public would be the real day of his death and the end of his revolution. Until then, we would continue to live with him.

The government announced five days of national mourning and forty days of official mourning. Cla.s.ses were canceled and universities shut. But I felt restless sitting in the living room and ruminating, so I decided to go to the university anyway. Everything felt blurry, like a mirage in the intense heat. The blur remained with me throughout that day and all those days of mourning, when we spent most of our time by the television watching the funeral and the endless ceremonies.

When I arrived on campus, only a few people were inside the building. The silence was so deep that it drowned the mourning chants and marches from the loudspeakers. I climbed up to my office and picked up some books, and as I was coming down the hallway, I met Mr. Forsati and a friend of his from the Persian Department. They both looked solemn; their eyes were moist. I looked at them with an awkward sympathy, at a loss for the appropriate words. They had some leaflets with Khomeini's picture that they were about to post on the walls. I took two and left.

Later, Khomeini's book of Sufi poems, which he had dedicated to his daughter-in-law, would be published. In death there was a need to humanize him, an act he had opposed during his life. And there was, in fact, a human side to him, one that we seldom saw, in his regard for his beautiful young daughter-in-law, in whose notebooks he had written his last poems. In an introduction to this book of poems, she described how he had devoted time to talking to her and teaching her philosophy and mysticism and how she had given him the notebook in which he had composed the poems. It was reported that she had long blond hair and I imagined her walking with the old man in the garden, making circles around the flowers and bushes, and talking philosophy. Did she wear a scarf in his presence? Did he perhaps lean on her as they walked around and around those flower beds? I bought a copy of the slim volume and carried it with me to America, along with the leaflets, relics from a time whose reality seems so fragile at times that I need such hard evidence to prove its fugitive existence.

I am not good with dates and figures-I had to double-check the date of Khomeini's death-but I remember feelings and images. Like bothersome dreams, images from those days mix with sounds in my memory as they did in reality: the announcer's shrill and exaggerated voice, always on the verge of breaking, the mourning marches, the prayers, the messages from high-ranking officials and the chanting mourners, drowning all other sounds: "Today is the day of mourning! Khomeini, the breaker of idols, is with G.o.d."

At dawn on Monday, Ayatollah Khomeini's body was transferred from his residence in Jamaran, in Tehran, to a vast wasteland in the hills to the north, an area known as Mosalla, designated as a place of prayer. The body was set up on a temporary podium made of containers. Khomeini lay in an air-conditioned gla.s.s case covered in a white shroud, his feet pointing towards Mecca. His black turban, indicating his religious status as a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, rested on his chest.

The events of that frenetic day come to me in fragments. The gla.s.s coffin I remember well, and the flowers arranged around the container were gaudy gladiolas. I also remember the swarms of mourners-it was reported that hundreds of thousands had started to pour into Tehran, a black-clad army waving black flags, the men tearing their s.h.i.+rts, beating their chests, the women in their black chadors wailing and moaning, their bodies writhing in ecstatic grief.

Now I remember the hoses: because of the heat and the size of the crowd, the fire department had brought out hoses, which they aimed at people, spraying them at intervals with water to cool them off, but the effect made the scene oddly s.e.xual. As I re-enact it in my mind, I can hear the swish of water, each spray silhouetted against the sky. Every once in a while someone would faint and in the midst of that frenzy, with a shocking sense of order, as if it were all rehea.r.s.ed, the mourners would lift the person over their heads and pa.s.s him along until he reached a point of safety.

When I heard that many had died that day and that tens of thousands were injured, I asked myself stupidly what sort of status these dead would be given. We gave people more rank and s.p.a.ce in death than in life. Opponents of the regime and the Baha'is had no status; they were denied headstones and were thrown into common graves. Then there were the martyrs of war and revolution, each of whom had his own special s.p.a.ce at the graveyard, with artificial flowers and photographs to mark the grave. Could these people be ranked as martyrs? Would they be granted a place in heaven?

The government had set aside huge supplies of food and drink for the mourners. Alongside the frenzy of beating chests and fainting and chanting, rows upon rows of mourners were to be seen on the roadside, eating their sandwiches and drinking their soft drinks as if they were out on a holiday picnic. Many who actively disliked Khomeini in his lifetime attended the funeral. Dissatisfaction at the time of Khomeini's death was so high that at first, the officials had thought of burying him in the night so as to cover the spa.r.s.e attendance. But millions had come from all around the country. I remember talking to a middle-aged man on the staff at the university, who lived in the poorer, more traditional part of town. He described the busloads of neighbors, disenchanted with Khomeini and his revolution, who had gone nonetheless, like him, to the funeral. I asked him why he went. Was he forced to go? No, but it seemed the thing to do. Everyone was going-how would it look if he didn't? He paused and then added, After all, an event like this happens only once in a lifetime, doesn't it?

As the procession began to take Khomeini's body through the streets to the cemetery on the outskirts of Tehran, the pressure of the crowd was so enormous that the officials changed their minds and decided to transport the body by helicopter. The crowd surged towards the helicopter, and as it took off, a golden dust rose up from the ground, like a flying skirt, and gradually all that remained were particles of dancing dust, whirling like minuscule dervishes in a bizarre dream.