Reading Lolita In Tehran Part 16

"What?" said Negar, who'd enjoyed not so much the music as the excitement of a night out.

"Poshl.u.s.t," Na.s.srin repeated and, uncharacteristically, left it at that.

13.

I was grumbling to myself as I put the plates on the table absentmindedly for dinner. Bijan turned to me and said, What are you mumbling about? You wouldn't be interested, I said unnecessarily sharply. Try me, he said. Okay, I was thinking about menopause. He turned back to the BBC. You're right-I'm not interested, he said. Why shouldn't he be interested? Shouldn't he want to know about something that has happened to his mother, that will happen to his wife, his sisters, his daughter and, I went on morosely, if ever he has an affair, even to his mistress? I knew I was being unfair to him. He was not insensitive to the hards.h.i.+ps of life in the Islamic Republic, but he was on the defensive these days whenever I complained. I protested as if he were responsible for all the woes brought upon us by the regime, and this in turn made him withdraw into himself and act as if he were indifferent about things he actually felt very strongly about.

Our last cla.s.s meeting had ended on a strange note: we were discussing my girls' mothers-their trials and tribulations and the fact that they really knew nothing about menopause. The discussion had begun with Manna. The night before, she and Nima had seen for the third time Vincente Minnelli's Designing Woman, Designing Woman, which they'd picked up on their satellite dish. Watching the film had made Manna very sad. It occurred to her that she had never imaginatively experienced love in a Persian context. Love is love, but there are so many ways of articulating it. When she read which they'd picked up on their satellite dish. Watching the film had made Manna very sad. It occurred to her that she had never imaginatively experienced love in a Persian context. Love is love, but there are so many ways of articulating it. When she read Madame Bovary, Madame Bovary, or saw or saw Casablanca, Casablanca, she could experience the sensual texture of the work; she could hear, touch, smell, see. She had never heard a love song, read a novel or seen a film that made her think that this could be her experience. Even in Persian films, when two people are supposed to be in love, you didn't really feel it in their looks and gestures. Love was forbidden, banished from the public sphere. How could it be experienced if its expression was illegal? she could experience the sensual texture of the work; she could hear, touch, smell, see. She had never heard a love song, read a novel or seen a film that made her think that this could be her experience. Even in Persian films, when two people are supposed to be in love, you didn't really feel it in their looks and gestures. Love was forbidden, banished from the public sphere. How could it be experienced if its expression was illegal?

That discussion had been an eye-opener. I had discovered that almost all of my girls separated what they described as intellectual or spiritual love (good) from s.e.x (not good). What mattered, apparently, was the more exalted realm of spiritual affinity. Even Mitra had dimpled her way through the argument that s.e.x was not important in a relations.h.i.+p, that s.e.xual satisfaction had never mattered to her. The worst blow, I felt, came from Azin. With a flirtatious tone that implied she was back to normal-this was a period of semi-truce with her husband-Azin had said that the most important thing in life was the mystical union one felt with the universe. She added, philosophically, that men were just vessels for that higher spiritual love. Vessels? There went all her claims to s.e.xual pleasure and physical compatibility. Even Mahs.h.i.+d, who exchanged a quick glance with Manna, was surprised.

"So," said Na.s.srin, who had been quiet until then, "when your husband beats you, you can pretend it's all in your mind, since he's just an empty vessel to fill up your fantasies. And it's not just Azin," she said. "The rest of you are basically saying the same thing."

"What about you and Nima?" Mitra asked Manna. "You seem to have a balanced relations.h.i.+p."

"I like him because there is no one in the world I can talk to like Nima," Manna said with a shrug.

"Poor Nima," said Ya.s.si.

"He's not so poor." Manna was feeling savage that day. "He too has no one else to talk to. Misery loves company-and can be as strong a force as love."

"You all disappoint me," Ya.s.si said. "I was hoping you'd tell me how physical attraction does matter, how love isn't just spiritual and intellectual. I was hoping you'd tell me that I'd learn to love physically and see that I was wrong. I'm utterly flabbergasted," she said, sinking deeper into the couch. "In fact, I'm dis...o...b..bulated," she concluded with a triumphant smile.

Ouch! I shouted. Bijan glanced up from the TV and said, "Nothing wrong, is there?" No, I just cut myself. I was slicing cuc.u.mbers to go with Bijan's famous chicken kebab. He went to the bathroom and returned with a Band-Aid, which he carefully put on my finger. Without saying a word, smiling indulgently, he then went to the cabinet, poured a measure of homemade vodka into the small gla.s.s, put it on the side table beside a dish of pistachio nuts and settled back in front of the BBC. I went in and out of the kitchen, grumbling to myself. No wonder he enjoys life; this is what he'd do if we lived in the States. It's hard on me, I grumbled, pleading with some unknown interlocutor, who always questioned and mocked my every complaint. It's really hard on me, I repeated one more time, ignoring the guilty knowledge that Bijan bore his hards.h.i.+ps without much complaint and should not be begrudged his vodka and his BBC. I shouted. Bijan glanced up from the TV and said, "Nothing wrong, is there?" No, I just cut myself. I was slicing cuc.u.mbers to go with Bijan's famous chicken kebab. He went to the bathroom and returned with a Band-Aid, which he carefully put on my finger. Without saying a word, smiling indulgently, he then went to the cabinet, poured a measure of homemade vodka into the small gla.s.s, put it on the side table beside a dish of pistachio nuts and settled back in front of the BBC. I went in and out of the kitchen, grumbling to myself. No wonder he enjoys life; this is what he'd do if we lived in the States. It's hard on me, I grumbled, pleading with some unknown interlocutor, who always questioned and mocked my every complaint. It's really hard on me, I repeated one more time, ignoring the guilty knowledge that Bijan bore his hards.h.i.+ps without much complaint and should not be begrudged his vodka and his BBC.

By the time I had chopped the cuc.u.mbers and the herbs, adding them to the yogurt, I had come to a conclusion: our culture shunned s.e.x because it was too involved with it. It had to suppress s.e.x violently, for the same reason that an impotent man will put his beautiful wife under lock and key. We had always segregated s.e.x from feeling and from intellectual love, so you were either pure and virtuous, as Na.s.srin's uncle had said, or dirty and fun. What was alien to us was eros, true sensuality. These girls, my girls, knew a great deal about Jane Austen, they could discuss Joyce and Woolf intelligently, but they knew next to nothing about their own bodies, about what they should expect of these bodies which, they had been told, were the source of all temptation.

How do you tell someone she has to learn to love herself and her own body before she can be loved or love? By the time I added the salt and pepper to my dish, I had come up with an answer to this question. I went to the next session armed with a copy of Pride and Prejudice Pride and Prejudice in one hand and in one hand and Our Bodies, Ourselves- Our Bodies, Ourselves-the only book I had available on s.e.xuality-in the other.

14.

Charlotte Bronte did not like Jane Austen. "The Pa.s.sions are perfectly unknown to her," she complained to a friend, " . . . even to the Feelings she vouchsafes no more than an occasional graceful but distant recognition; too frequent converse with them would but ruffle the elegance of her progress." Knowing Charlotte Bronte and her proclivities, one can understand how one perfectly good novelist could dislike another as much as Bronte disliked Austen. She was fierce and insistent in her dismissal, and had written to G. H. Lewes in 1848: "Why do you like Miss Austen so very much? I am puzzled on that point. . . . I had not seen Pride and Prejudice Pride and Prejudice till I read that sentence of yours, and then I got the book. And what did I find? An accurate, daguerreotyped portrait of a commonplace face; a carefully-fenced, highly-cultivated garden, with neat borders and delicate flowers; but no glance of a bright, vivid physiognomy, no open country, no fresh air, no blue hill, no bonny beck. I should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen, in their elegant but confined houses." till I read that sentence of yours, and then I got the book. And what did I find? An accurate, daguerreotyped portrait of a commonplace face; a carefully-fenced, highly-cultivated garden, with neat borders and delicate flowers; but no glance of a bright, vivid physiognomy, no open country, no fresh air, no blue hill, no bonny beck. I should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen, in their elegant but confined houses."

There is something to this perhaps, yet Bronte's indictment is not entirely fair. One cannot say that Austen's novels lack pa.s.sion. They lack a certain kind of overripe sensuousness, an appet.i.te for the more unfiltered romantic abandon of Jane Eyre and Rochester. Theirs is a more muted sensuality, desire by indirection.

Please turn to page 148, and try to visualize the scene as you read the pa.s.sage. Darcy and Elizabeth are alone in Mr. Collins's house. Darcy is gradually coming to the realization that he cannot live without Elizabeth. They are talking about the significance of the distance between a woman's married home and her parents' home.

Mr. Darcy drew his chair a little towards her, and said, "You cannot have a right to such very strong local attachment. cannot have a right to such very strong local attachment. You You cannot have been always at Longbourn." cannot have been always at Longbourn."Elizabeth looked surprised. The gentleman experienced some change of feeling; he drew back his chair, took a newspaper from the table, and, glancing over it, said, in a colder voice,-"Are you pleased with Kent?"

Let us return to the aforementioned scene. The insistence in Darcy's voice is a symptom of his pa.s.sion for Elizabeth; it emerges even in their most mundane interactions. We can trace the development of Darcy's feelings for Elizabeth in the tone of his voice. This reaches its climax in the scene in which he proposes to her. His negative persistence, beginning his speech with "In vain have I struggled. It will not do," becomes almost violent, in part because the novel itself is so restrained and Darcy is the most restrained of all the characters.

Now, please listen carefully to that "you." Darcy seldom if ever addresses Elizabeth by her name, but he has a special way of saying "you" when he addresses her a few times that makes the impersonal p.r.o.noun a term of ultimate intimacy. One should appreciate such nuances in a culture such as ours, where everyone is encouraged to demonstrate in the most exaggerated manner his love for the Imam and yet forbidden from any public articulation of private feelings, especially love.

There is seldom a physical description of a character or scene in Pride and Prejudice Pride and Prejudice and yet we feel that we have seen each of these characters and their intimate worlds; we feel we know them, and sense their surroundings. We can see Elizabeth's reaction to Darcy's denunciation of her beauty, Mrs. Bennet chattering at the dinner table or Elizabeth and Darcy walking in and out of the shadows of the Pemberley estate. The amazing thing is that all of this is created mainly through tone-different tones of voice, words that become haughty and naughty, soft, harsh, coaxing, insinuating, insensible, vain. and yet we feel that we have seen each of these characters and their intimate worlds; we feel we know them, and sense their surroundings. We can see Elizabeth's reaction to Darcy's denunciation of her beauty, Mrs. Bennet chattering at the dinner table or Elizabeth and Darcy walking in and out of the shadows of the Pemberley estate. The amazing thing is that all of this is created mainly through tone-different tones of voice, words that become haughty and naughty, soft, harsh, coaxing, insinuating, insensible, vain.

The sense of touch that is missing from Austen's novels is replaced by a tension, an erotic texture of sounds and silences. She manages to create a feeling of longing by setting characters who want each other at odds. Elizabeth and Darcy are placed near each other in several scenes, but in public places where they cannot communicate privately. Austen creates a great deal of frustrated tension by putting them in the same room yet out of reach. The tension is deepened by the fact that while everyone expects Jane and Bingley to be in love, the exact reverse is expected of Elizabeth and Darcy.

Take, for instance, the party scene at Elizabeth's house towards the end of the novel, when she is desperate to find private time to talk with him. The whole event is spent in a state of anxiety. She stands by her sister, helping her pour the tea and coffee, and she tells herself, "If he does not come to me, then, then, I shall give him up for ever." He does approach her, but one of the girls attaches herself to Elizabeth and says in a whisper, "The men shan't come and part us, I am determined. We want none of them; do we?" Darcy moves away, forcing her to follow him with her eyes. She "envied every one to whom he spoke, had scarcely patience enough to help anybody to coffee, and then was enraged against herself for being so silly!" This game continues all night. Darcy approaches her table again, bringing back his cup, lingers for a while, they exchange a few pleasantries and again he has to leave. I shall give him up for ever." He does approach her, but one of the girls attaches herself to Elizabeth and says in a whisper, "The men shan't come and part us, I am determined. We want none of them; do we?" Darcy moves away, forcing her to follow him with her eyes. She "envied every one to whom he spoke, had scarcely patience enough to help anybody to coffee, and then was enraged against herself for being so silly!" This game continues all night. Darcy approaches her table again, bringing back his cup, lingers for a while, they exchange a few pleasantries and again he has to leave.

Austen manages to make us aware of the most intriguing aspect of a relations.h.i.+p: the urge, the longing for the object of desire that is so near and so far. It is a longing that will be gratified, a suspense that will end in unity and happiness. The scenes of actual lovemaking are almost nonexistent in Austen's novels, but her tales are all one long and complicated process of courts.h.i.+p. It is obvious that she is more interested in happiness than in the inst.i.tution of marriage, in love and understanding than matrimony. This is apparent from all of the mismatched marriages in her novels-Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram, Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, Mary and Charles Musgrove. Like Scheherazade in her tales, one finds an infinite variety of good and bad marriages, good and bad men and women.

Nor is Bronte's claim about boundaries completely true. Boundaries are constantly threatened by the women in Austen's novels, who feel more at home in the private than the public domain, the domain of heart and of intricate individual relations. The nineteenth-century novel placed the individual, her happiness, her ordeals and her rights at the center of the story. Thus, marriage was its most important theme. From Richardson's hapless Clarissa to Fielding's shy and obedient Sophia to Elizabeth Bennet, women created the complications and tensions that moved the plots forward. They put at the center of our attention what Austen's novels formulate: not the importance of marriage but the importance of heart and understanding in marriage; not the primacy of conventions but the breaking of conventions. These women, genteel and beautiful, are the rebels who say no to the choices made by silly mothers, incompetent fathers (there are seldom any wise fathers in Austen's novels) and the rigidly orthodox society. They risk ostracism and poverty to gain love and companions.h.i.+p, and to embrace that elusive goal at the heart of democracy: the right to choose.

15.

Imagine a summer night. We are at a party, sitting outdoors in a fragrant garden. On a large terrace overlooking the swimming pool, our tasteful host has set up small tables with fragile candles. In one corner, against the wall, colorful cus.h.i.+ons have been spread out over a Persian carpet. Some of us are sitting propped up against the cus.h.i.+ons. The wine and vodka are homemade, but you can't tell by the color. The sound of laughter and small talk wafts among the tables. The company is as good as any you might find anywhere in the world-cultured, witty, sophisticated, full of stories.

What are we all listening to, those of us sitting on the carpet, playing with our winegla.s.ses, leaning back against the cus.h.i.+ons? Our host is recounting the bus story. It is fresh from the oven. Many of us have heard bits and pieces of it in the past two days, but the story is too incredible even for us, with our seasoned knowledge of so many stories unbelievable to believe. Our host is a reliable source, and what is more, he has heard it from the horse's mouth, or at least from the mouth of one of the horses involved in the incident.

About two months earlier, the board of the writers' a.s.sociation received an invitation to partic.i.p.ate in a conference in Armenia. The invitation was extended to all the members. At first, many received phone calls from the intelligence service threatening them and instructing them not to go, but later on, the regime seemed to relent, and even to encourage the trip. In the end, twenty-odd members accepted the invitation. They decided to hire a bus for their journey. Accounts differ here as to the details-some claim to have suspected something fishy was going on from the start; others accuse one another of being complicit in the plot. But what all agree is that on the morning of the trip, twenty-one writers made their way to the bus station. Some found it a little odd that the bus was not on time and that the driver had been changed. Others noticed that certain colleagues had reneged and decided not to go, on the very morning of the trip.

Finally, they were on their way. The journey went smoothly until after midnight, or some say until around two in the morning, when all of the pa.s.sengers were asleep-all but one single insomniac, who noticed that the bus had stopped and the driver had disappeared. He glanced out the window and saw that the bus had stopped at the tip of a very high precipice. At this point, he ran-all the time shouting to wake up the others-to the front of the bus, got behind the wheel and turned the bus around. The other pa.s.sengers, waking startled from their sleep, filed off the bus in a certain commotion, only to be met by members of security, who were there with their Mercedes-Benzes and helicopters. The pa.s.sengers were taken to different interrogation outposts, and after being detained and expressly advised not to say a word, they were released. The next day, the whole of Tehran had heard the news. Apparently there had been a plot to push the bus over the cliff and claim it was an accident.

There were many jokes about this incident, as there were about similar events. Later that night, on our way home, Bijan and I discussed the writers' terrible ordeal. It's so strange, he said. Usually when you talk about most of these writers, it's because of your frustrations with their ideological stance towards literature, but something like this makes all that irrelevant. No matter how much you might disagree with some of these people or think of them as bad writers, compa.s.sion will ultimately overtake all other considerations.

Not long after that, we were awoken early one morning by a friend who was married to one of the founders of the writers' a.s.sociation. Her voice was frightened. She wanted to know if we could call the BBC and let them know what was going on. She and her husband had been forced to leave Tehran for a while until things cooled down, and she wanted to know if their son could stay with us for a few days.

This incident was preceded by many others: the attack on a small party given by a German consul at his house for intellectuals and writers, and their arrest; the disappearance of a well-known leftist journalist, the editor of a popular magazine who had been arrested with others and kept after they were released. Later it was said that he had left for Germany, where his wife and family lived, but he never arrived there. The Iranian government claimed he had left Iran and that the Germans were keeping him. The German government denied the allegations. The international hue and cry surrounding his disappearance helped keep the matter in the public eye. Then one day he appeared in the Tehran airport with a strange story about having gone to Germany and from there to a third country. A few days later, he wrote an open letter in which he described his tortures at the hands of the regime and he was promptly rearrested. Finally, he was released after much international pressure. Shortly afterward, an Iranian publisher who had helped him and other dissident writers left his home and never returned. His body was dumped in a deserted place on the outskirts of Tehran, like those of so many other dissidents.

In the mid-nineties, in an effort to reach out to Europe, a number of Western intellectuals were invited to Iran. Paul Ricoeur came for a series of lectures. He gave three talks; for every one of them, audiences spilled out into the hall and stairs. Some time afterward, V. S. Naipaul came to Iran. In Isfahan, he was taken around by a well-known translator and publisher, Ahmad Mir Alai. I can still see Mir Alai in his bookshop in Isfahan, which had become a place for intellectuals and writers to gather and talk. He was a pale man; his skin seemed oddly faded. He was pudgy and wore round-rimmed brown gla.s.ses. Somehow, the combination of paleness and pudginess made you trust him and want to share your stories with him. He had a sharp wit and was the kind of man who seemed to listen and empathize. This came partly from the fact that, unlike his more militant friends, he was not a confrontational person. I could call him a victim because he was not political-he was caught in the cross fire and at times had to take radical political stances despite his nature. He had excellent taste in his translations, choosing Naipaul and Kundera and a host of other writers.

A few months after Naipaul left Iran, Mir Alai's body was found in a street, near a stream. He had left the house in the morning and had not returned. Late that night, his family was informed of his death. A small bottle of vodka was found in his pocket. Vodka had been spilled all over his s.h.i.+rtfront in an attempt to make it look as if Mir Alai, in the middle of the day, had gone off on a drunken binge and had a heart attack in the middle of the street. No one believed the story. A big bruise had been found on his chest and the mark of an injection on his arm. He had been interrogated and either accidentally or deliberately killed by his interrogators.

Shortly afterward, Jahangir Tafazoli, the best-known expert on ancient Iran, was found murdered. I knew him well. He was very shy and slight and had a shock of black hair and large eyes that looked huge under his gla.s.ses. Tafazoli was not politically involved, although he had written for the Encyclopedia Iranica, a project that was overseen by a prominent Iranian scholar at Columbia who was greatly denounced by the Iranian government. His area of expertise-pre-Islamic Iran-was hated by the Islamic regime. He had left the University of Tehran to go home and had made a suspicious phone call en route from a car to his daughter at home. His body was found alongside a road far from his home and from the university. It was claimed that he had been trying to change a tire and was. .h.i.t by a car.

Time and again in memorial services, in parties and gatherings, I went over these deaths with friends and colleagues. We obsessively resurrected and evoked the manner of death as reported by the officials and then we remurdered them, trying to envision the way they had really died. I still imagine Tafazoli sitting in a car between two thugs, forced to make a call home to his daughter, and then I draw a blank and ask myself, When and where did they kill him? Was it with a blow inside the car? Or did they take him to one of their safe houses, kill him there and then throw him on the deserted road?

16.

If you promise you'll behave, my magician said on the phone, I have a nice surprise for you. We arranged to meet at a popular coffee shop that opened into a restaurant and had its own pastry shop in the front. The name eludes me, although I am sure, like so many other places, it must have been changed after the revolution.

When I arrived with my bag of books, I found my magician sitting at a corner table, surveying a stack of his own. You were looking for an English edition of A Thousand and One Nights, A Thousand and One Nights, he said. I've found you an Oxford edition. We ordered a cappuccino for me, an espresso for him and two napoleons, the pastry for which the cafe was famous. I also brought you that Auden poem you were looking for, though I'm not sure why you want it, he said, handing me a typed sheet of paper with Auden's "Letter to Lord Byron." he said. I've found you an Oxford edition. We ordered a cappuccino for me, an espresso for him and two napoleons, the pastry for which the cafe was famous. I also brought you that Auden poem you were looking for, though I'm not sure why you want it, he said, handing me a typed sheet of paper with Auden's "Letter to Lord Byron."

We had a really interesting discussion in cla.s.s the other day, I said. We were talking about The Dean's December The Dean's December and and Lolita Lolita and other books we'd covered in cla.s.s. One of my girls, Manna-you remember my Manna? Yes, I remember Manna, he said, your poet. Yes, well, Manna asked how we could relate these other authors to Jane Austen, who is so much more optimistic about the world and its people. and other books we'd covered in cla.s.s. One of my girls, Manna-you remember my Manna? Yes, I remember Manna, he said, your poet. Yes, well, Manna asked how we could relate these other authors to Jane Austen, who is so much more optimistic about the world and its people.

Most people make that mistake about Austen, he said. They should read her more carefully.

Yes, that's what I told her-Austen's theme is cruelty not under extraordinary circ.u.mstances but ordinary ones, committed by people like us. Surely that's more frightening? And that's why I like Bellow, I said with a flourish, thinking of my new flame.

How fickle you are, he said. What happened to Nabokov? One book and he's old news! No, but really, I said, trying to ignore his mocking tone. Bellow's novels are about private cruelties, about the ordeal of freedom, the burden of choice-so are James's, for that matter. It's frightening to be free, to have to take responsibility for your decisions. Yes, he said, to have no Islamic Republic to blame. And I'm not saying they're blameless, he added after a brief pause-far from it.

Look here, I said, rummaging through More Die of Heartbreak, More Die of Heartbreak, which I had brought along for the sole purpose of quoting my favorite pa.s.sages to him: "The meaning of the Revolution was that Russia had attempted to isolate itself from the ordeal of modern consciousness. It was a sealing off. Inside the sealed country, Stalin poured on the which I had brought along for the sole purpose of quoting my favorite pa.s.sages to him: "The meaning of the Revolution was that Russia had attempted to isolate itself from the ordeal of modern consciousness. It was a sealing off. Inside the sealed country, Stalin poured on the old old death. In the West, the ordeal is of a death. In the West, the ordeal is of a new new death. There aren't any words for what happens to the soul in the free world. Never mind 'rising ent.i.tlements,' never mind the luxury 'life-style.' Our buried judgment knows better. All this is seen by remote centers of consciousness, which struggle against full wakefulness. Full wakefulness would make us face up to the death. There aren't any words for what happens to the soul in the free world. Never mind 'rising ent.i.tlements,' never mind the luxury 'life-style.' Our buried judgment knows better. All this is seen by remote centers of consciousness, which struggle against full wakefulness. Full wakefulness would make us face up to the new new death, the peculiar ordeal of death, the peculiar ordeal of our our side of the world. The opening of a true consciousness to what is side of the world. The opening of a true consciousness to what is actually actually occurring would be a purgatory." occurring would be a purgatory."

I love this "poured on the old old death," I told him. He talks somewhere about the "atrophy of feeling"-the West is gripped by an "atrophy of feeling . . ." death," I told him. He talks somewhere about the "atrophy of feeling"-the West is gripped by an "atrophy of feeling . . ."

Yes, he said. Mr. Bellow, Saul as your students call him, is highly quotable. I don't know if that's a virtue or a fault.

Who started me on this? Who gave me The Bellarosa Connection The Bellarosa Connection? I asked him accusingly. I think this is important for my cla.s.s. They tend to look at the West too uncritically; they have a rosy picture of the West, thanks to the Islamic Republic. All that is good in their eyes comes from America or Europe, from chocolates and chewing gum to Austen and the Declaration of Independence. Bellow gives them a truer experience of this other place. He allows them to see its problems and its fears.

Look here, I said. This is the whole point. This is what we're going through. . . . He was not looking at me. You're not listening, I said impatiently. He was looking behind me and making motions to the waiter, who was soon at our table. What's going on? he asked. What's all the commotion about? For there was a commotion behind us, which I had missed in my eagerness to propound the virtues of Mr. Bellow.

The waiter explained that this was a raid. Guards were standing at the entrance door, monitoring those who had started to leave. He delicately suggested that if we were not related, my magician should move to another table and I could explain, were I asked what I was doing there, that I was waiting for my order from the pastry shop.

I said, We are not doing anything wrong-I am not going to move-and, turning to my magician, added, Nor are you. Don't be stupid, he said. You don't want to create a scandal. I'll call Bijan right now, I said. What good will that do? he shot back. Do you really think they will listen to him, since he has no control over his wife? He rose with his coffee cup in his hands. You forgot something, I said, handing him the copy of A Thousand and One Nights. A Thousand and One Nights. He said, in English, Now you're being childish. I think you need something to keep you busy, I said, and besides, I already photocopied the other one you gave me. He walked to a distant table with his coffee and the books, and I sat alone, trying to eat my napoleon, ferociously leafing through He said, in English, Now you're being childish. I think you need something to keep you busy, I said, and besides, I already photocopied the other one you gave me. He walked to a distant table with his coffee and the books, and I sat alone, trying to eat my napoleon, ferociously leafing through More Die of Heartbreak, More Die of Heartbreak, as if cramming for the next day's exams. as if cramming for the next day's exams.

When the Revolutionary Guards entered the coffee shop, they started going from table to table. A few young people had slipped away in time; others were not so lucky. A family of four, my magician, two middle-aged women and three young men were left behind. When my order was ready, I rose, tipped the waiter extravagantly, dropped my parcel of books, which broke open and spread all over the floor, waited for the waiter to fetch me a bag and left without looking at my magician.

In the taxi, I felt confused and angry and a little repentant. I am going to leave, I told myself. I can't live like this anymore. Every time something like this happened, I, like many others, would think of leaving, of going to a place where everyday life was not such a battleground. Recently, the thought of leaving Iran had become more than a defense mechanism and incidents like this were slowly tipping the scales. Among friends and colleagues some had tried to adjust to the situation. We are not with the regime in our hearts and minds, one had said, but what can we do but comply? Should I go to jail and lose my job for the sake of two loose strands of hair? Once Mrs. Rezvan had said, By now we should be used to all of this; these young girls are a little spoiled-they expect too much. Look at Somalia or Afghanistan. Compared to them, we live like queens.

"I can't get used to it," Manna had said one day in cla.s.s. And I couldn't blame her. We were unhappy. We compared our situation to our own potentials, to what we could have had, and somehow there was little consolation in the fact that millions of people were unhappier than we were. Why should other people's misery make us happier or more content?

When I arrived home, Bijan and the children were downstairs in my mother's apartment. I put the napoleons I had brought for them in the refrigerator and left the carrot cake out to take to my mother. Then I went straight to the freezer, made myself a big bowl of ice cream, poured coffee and walnuts over it, and by the time the kids and Bijan had come upstairs, I was already in the bathroom throwing up. All evening and all night, I threw up. My magician called at some point. I am very sorry, he said. One feels so tainted. I'm sorry, too, I said back. We're all sorry-don't forget to date and autograph my book.

I could not keep anything in my stomach that night, not even water, and in the morning when I opened my eyes, the room started to rotate; tiny specks of light formed brightly spiked coronets, dancing in the dizzying air. I closed my eyes, opened them again and the deadly coronets reappeared. I held on to my stomach, went to the bathroom and vomited nothing but bile. All day I stayed in the luxury of my bed, my skin sensitive to the touch of the sheets.

17.

You could not shock her more than she shocks me;Beside her Joyce seems innocent as gra.s.s.It makes me most uncomfortable to seeAn English spinster of the middle cla.s.sDescribe the amorous effect of "bra.s.s",Reveal so frankly and with such sobrietyThe economic basis of society.

A girl is raped, carried in the trunk of a car and murdered. A young student is killed and has his ears cut off. There are discussions of prison camps, of death and destruction in Bellow, in Nabokov we have monsters like Humbert, who rape twelve-year-old girls, even in Flaubert there is so much hurt and betrayal-What about Austen? Manna had asked one day.

Indeed, what about Austen? Austen's comedies and her generosity of spirit sometimes led my students to share the common belief that she was a prim spinster, at peace with the world and unaware of its brutality. I had to remind them of Auden's "Letter to Lord Byron," in which he asks Byron to tell Jane Austen "How much her novels are beloved down here."

Austen's heroines are unforgiving, after their own fas.h.i.+on. There is much betrayal in her novels, much greed and falsehood, so many disloyal friends, selfish mothers, tyrannical fathers, so much vanity, cruelty and hurt. Austen is generous towards her villains, but this does not mean that she lets anyone, even her heroines, off easy. Her favorite and least likable heroine, f.a.n.n.y Price, is in fact the one who also suffers the most.

Modern fiction brings out the evil in domestic lives, ordinary relations, people like you and me-Reader! Bruder! Bruder! as Humbert said. Evil in Austen, as in most great fiction, lies in the inability to "see" others, hence to empathize with them. What is frightening is that this blindness can exist in the best of us (Eliza Bennet) as well as the worst (Humbert). We are all capable of becoming the blind censor, of imposing our visions and desires on others. as Humbert said. Evil in Austen, as in most great fiction, lies in the inability to "see" others, hence to empathize with them. What is frightening is that this blindness can exist in the best of us (Eliza Bennet) as well as the worst (Humbert). We are all capable of becoming the blind censor, of imposing our visions and desires on others.

Once evil is individualized, becoming part of everyday life, the way of resisting it also becomes individual. How does the soul survive? is the essential question. And the response is: through love and imagination. Stalin emptied Russia of its soul by pouring on the old death. Mandelstam and Sinyavsky restored that soul by reciting poetry to fellow convicts and by writing about it in their journals. "Perhaps to remain a poet in such circ.u.mstances," Bellow wrote, "is also to reach the heart of politics. The human feelings, human experiences, the human form and face, recover their proper place-the foreground."

18.

Our decision to leave Iran came about casually-at least that is how it appeared. Such decisions, no matter how momentous, are seldom well planned. Like bad marriages, they are the result of years of resentment and anger suddenly exploding into suicidal resolutions. The idea of departure, like the possibility of divorce, lurked somewhere in our minds, shadowy and sinister, ready to surface at the slightest provocation. If anyone asked, I would recount the usual reasons for our departure: my job and my feelings as a woman, our children's future and my trips to the U.S., which had once more made us aware of our choices and possibilities.

For the first time, Bijan and I had serious fights, and for a while we talked about nothing but leaving or staying. When Bijan discovered that this time I was determined to leave, he went into a period of mortified silence; then a phase began when we had long, torturous arguments, in which family and friends partic.i.p.ated as well. Bijan said it wasn't a good idea, we should at least wait until the children were older, ready for college; my magician said it was the only thing to do; my friends were divided. My girls didn't want me to leave, but then so many of them had themselves decided to go. My parents wanted us to leave, despite the fact that our departure would mean their loneliness. The offer of a better life for their children-even if it is an illusion-is so attractive to most parents.

In the end, Bijan, always judicious and far too reasonable, had agreed that we should leave-for a few years at least. His acceptance of our new fate had set him in motion. His way of dealing with our impeding departure was practical; he kept himself busy with dismantling eighteen years of life and work and fitting them into the eight suitcases we were allowed to take with us. Mine had been to evade the situation to the point of denial. The fact that he was taking it so graciously made me feel guilty and hesitant. I deferred packing, and refused to talk about it seriously. In cla.s.s, the light and flippant att.i.tude I espoused made it difficult for my girls to know how to react.

We had never properly discussed in cla.s.s my decision to leave. It was understood that the cla.s.s could not continue indefinitely, and I had voiced the hope that my girls would form their own cla.s.ses, to bring more friends into the fold. I had felt the tension in Manna's silences and Mahs.h.i.+d's oblique allusions to duty towards home and country. The others showed a certain anxiety and sadness at the thought of the cla.s.s coming to an end. Your place will be so empty, Ya.s.si had said, using a Persian expression-but they too began to nurture their own plans to leave.

As soon as our decision was final, everyone stopped talking about it. My father's eyes became more withdrawn, as if he were looking at a point beyond which we had already vanished into the horizon. My mother was suddenly angry and resentful, implying that my decision had once more proven her worst suspicions about my loyalty. My best friend energetically took me shopping for presents and talked about everything but my journey, and my girls barely registered the change; only my children mentioned our impending departure with a mixture of excitement and sadness.

19.

There is a term in Persian, "the patient stone," which is often used in times of anxiety and turbulence. Supposedly, a person pours out all his troubles and woes into the stone. It will listen and absorb his pains and secrets, and this way he will be cured. Sometimes the stone can no longer endure its burden and then it bursts. My magician was not my "patient stone," although he never told his own story-he claimed people were not interested in that. Yet he spent sleepless nights listening to and absorbing others' troubles and woes, and to me his advice was that I should leave: leave and write my own story and teach my own cla.s.s.

Perhaps he saw what was happening to me more clearly than I did. What I now realize is that, ironically, the more attached I became to my cla.s.s and to my students, the more detached I became from Iran. The more I discovered the lyrical quality of our lives, the more my own life became a web of fiction. All of this I can now formulate and talk about with some degree of clarity, but it was not at all clear then. It was much more complicated.

As I trace the route to his apartment, the twists and turns, and pa.s.s once more the old tree opposite his house, I am struck by a sudden thought: memories have ways of becoming independent of the reality they evoke. They can soften us against those we were deeply hurt by or they can make us resent those we once accepted and loved unconditionally.

We sit again with Reza around the same round dining table, under the painting of green trees, talking and eating lunch, the forbidden ham-and-cheese sandwiches. Our magician does not drink. He refuses to compromise with the counterfeits: the bootleg videos and wine, censored novels and films. He does not watch television, nor does he go to the movies. To watch a beloved film on video is anathema to him, although he obtains tapes of his favorite movies for us. Today he has brought us homemade wine, its color a sinful pale pink, poured into five vinegar bottles. Later, I take the wine home and drink it. Something has gone wrong and the wine tastes like vinegar, though I do not tell him.

The hot subject of the day was Mohammad Khatami and his recent candidacy. Khatami, mainly known to intellectuals for his brief stint as minister of Islamic Culture and Guidance, had within a few weeks become a household name. In buses and taxis, at parties and at work, everyone talked about Khatami, whom it was our moral duty to vote for. It was not enough that for over seventeen years the clerics had announced that voting was not just a duty but a religious duty; we ourselves had now adopted the same stance. There were fights and ruptures in friends.h.i.+ps over this matter.

That day as I was walking to my magician's house, struggling with my scarf and trying to keep it around my neck, I noticed a campaign poster for Khatami on the opposite wall. There was a big picture of the candidate ornamented in huge letters: IRAN HAS FALLEN IN LOVE AGAIN. IRAN HAS FALLEN IN LOVE AGAIN. Oh no, I said to myself despondently-not again. Oh no, I said to myself despondently-not again.

As we sat around my magician's table, the site of so many stories we told or created, I was telling them about the posters. We love our family, our lovers, our friends, but do we have to fall in love with our politicians? Even in my cla.s.s we're fighting over him. Manna can't see how anyone could vote for him; she says it doesn't make much difference to her if she can wear a lighter-color scarf or let a bit more hair show. Sanaz says that given a choice between bad and worse, you choose the bad, and Manna shoots back that she doesn't want a nicer jail warden-she wants to be out of jail. Azin says, This guy wants the rule of law? Isn't this the same law that allows my husband to beat me and take my daughter away? Ya.s.si is confused, and Mitra says, Even in these elections there are rumors that they'll check your pa.s.sports and won't let you leave if you don't vote. Another rumor, Mahs.h.i.+d says tartly, that you don't need to listen to.