Looking up at himself in the scratched shard of a mirror, he was momentarily taken aback by his own reflection. The face looked unfamiliar, somehow strange. He looked down at his hand, focusing on the thin blue veins that jutted through the translucent skin.
With several quick strokes of the razor, he shaved his stubble and splashed hot water over his face, then ran his wet hands through what remained of his hair. He patted himself dry, rolled down his sleeves, and slipped on his jacket, straightening out the wrinkles. He stood back and looked at himself. He looked crisp and clean, elegant, even.
The wheel of his handcart banged against a chair as he left the café. He hated dragging this cart back and forth from his studio apartment to the Place du Tertre. It was heavy and awkward, a clanking reminder of what he had to do to survive in his new life. The idea of Monsieur Trianant having to sit beside it at their lunch was too much to bear. As he did each Friday, Shazdehpoor left it behind the bar of the café with a promise to return later and fetch it. Then he took up his walking stick and strode out of La Divette a freed man.
Delivery trucks jammed the streets outside. Shazdehpoor dodged and weaved through the foot traffic. At the intersection of Rue de la Fontaine du But and Rue Caulaincourt he waited for the light to change as he headed to the metro station. As he stepped into the street he felt something soft and slick under his shoe—dog excrement. He stood there for a few seconds in disbelief, then stepped back onto the sidewalk, discreetly dragging his foot to remove the smear from his sole. The litter, the stench, the flashing lights, the car horns followed by the screeching brakes and human profanity, the bodies bumping up against him, pushing against him, was more than he could stand. “Barbarism,” he muttered.
He caught the next light and descended into the metro, taking the 12 train two stops to Pigalle and switching to the 2 train to Père Lachaise.
When he came up the steps at Père Lachaise, he was only a few blocks away from La Mère Lachaise. Monsieur Trianant was waiting for him at an outdoor table. Trianant was a Frenchman, both brusque and sophisticated, a friend who spoke mostly about ideas and never pried into Shazdehpoor’s history nor shared any of his own. On any other day, this comforted Shazdehpoor. As did the fact that Frenchmen in Paris were always stepping in dog shit. Trianant would think nothing of the smell. Shazdehpoor could not bear to face him. Not soiled and half-shaved. Not today. He felt the droves of people pushing past him, but it was as if he were invisible, a piece of litter blown backward in time.
THE TOWN SQUARE
Madjid stood in front of the bathroom mirror, shaving. He had been doing so for four years and it had become more habit than ritual. He had exchanged his father’s leather shaving kit for a plastic razor and a can of pressurized foam cream. As soon as he was done, he splashed some hot water on his face, wiped with a towel, and headed for the door.
His father was in his salon listening to the BBC. Almost a week had passed since the inaugural spring lunch at the orchard and the mullah’s warning about liquor, principles, the unwillingness of the masses to tolerate blatant hypocrisy and injustice. He ran to the doorway as Madjid began to leave. “You should stay home, son,” he said.
“Don’t worry, Father. I’m just going to the square. I’ll be back in a few hours.”
“Madjid, I have been listening to the news. Things are getting very heated. It’s not safe.”
“Father, you are listening to the British Broadcasting Corporation about what is happening in our own backyard.”
“They have accurate reporting.”
“They have their own agenda.”
“Madjid, please.”
“Father, I will be fine. I promise that if there is any sign of trouble I will walk away.”
Entering the maydan could stimulate the dead back to life. The collection of storefronts connected by four open archways functioned as a marketplace during the day, with shops for cheese, meat, tea, fabric, and lace; ghelyans and tobacco; a tanoor for bread making; a cobbler, a gold souk, a dressmaker. Here and there throughout the square stood farmers who had traveled into town to sell their fruits and vegetables. Everywhere you could hear a babel of voices buying and selling and haggling or calling out after the occasional thief, as smoke rose from snack stands that sold grilled beets and roasted nuts to noshing shoppers.
The square was also the town meeting spot. Old men gathered on a carpet in front of the ghelyan shop where they puffed away and took tea, while arguing politics in circles, falling silent at the mention of the recent passing of a friend or neighbor. Young seminary students stood around their teacher, flicking through their worry beads as they listened earnestly to the cleric speak about a hadith or sura from their daily lessons, most of them admiring their teacher’s beard, hoping their smooth, young chins would yield such bounty some day. Young girls huddled in front of the dress shop, giggling coyly at the group of hooligan boys who moved through the crowds like a school of angry fish, swindling trinkets they took to the prettiest girls in the group.
On his way through the square, Madjid stopped to say hello to those he knew and smiled and nodded at those he knew of. He loved the garish excitement of the square. As much as he loved the green isolation of the orchard.
In the orchard, it was easy to forget all other humans existed. He liked to stand at the threshold of the wooden doors before entering. The air inside was denser, the light more distilled. With his eyes closed, he listened to the throbbing of the insects, the breeze, so like an orchestra tuning its instruments before playing a movement of music. Just as the symphony was about to begin, he took a few short breaths and ran through the fruit trees. The path Madjid ran was never straight as no natural path ever can be. He cut right without any forewarning and wove through the trees with his arms stretched out, tapping them as he sped by. He then cut left and did the same. Symmetry was his only criterion. He darted out of the cluster of trees and leapt over the stream onto the path and ran as fast as he could toward the house. His lungs burned from the gulps of air he inhaled.
As the house came into view, he slowed to a trot, sticking his hands in the reflecting pool and frightening the fish and then running into the henhouse and chasing the chickens around, pelting them with water. He then entered the barn and greeted the goats and sheep. They looked at him with blank stares. The same look they had when led to slaughter.
The first slaughter he had witnessed was a fainting goat that had been brought to Naishapur from abroad. No one knew where she came from and no one wanted her due to this condition, but Bibi-Khanoom purchased her and brought her to the orchard. The sight of human beings moving toward her hastily made the goat stiffen and fall over. It gave her deeply human characteristics. The goat even learned to spread her limbs or lean against a wall at the start of a fainting spell. But after a few years, she became weary and there was something in her eyes, a knowing look uncommon in an animal. The human beings who goaded her to faint for their own amusement had diminished her somehow.
When Madjid visited her, he moved slowly and softly. He spoke to her in hushed tones and petted her gently. His own stillness was alien to him and he did not understand, at the time, that it was sadness, and a sadness that once felt always lingered.
The goat fell ill one spring day not too long after Mirza had begun work there, and he took her to the back of the barn. Madjid followed and watched as Mirza laid her down gently and held her limbs under his legs. He told Madjid to look away as he turned on the hose and poured water over her mouth. Madjid asked him why he was giving her water and he said it was a kindness. He took out his knife from the scabbard in his belt buckle, held her head back, and slit her throat. The only sound was the swishing from her severed windpipe. Madjid stared into her eyes and watched her blink several times and then she was not there.
What stayed with him from that day was not the look in the goat’s eyes but the look in Mirza’s eyes. As he picked up her limp body, he looked at the boy for a brief moment and Madjid saw in them something t
hat he would later come to know as grief.
If the orchard was a symphony, the town square was a brass band—in perpetual motion. A group of young men had gathered in the center, along with a few of Madjid’s friends from school. He walked over to see what was happening. As he got closer he saw it was an argument. Two young men were shouting at each other, their respective factions standing behind them. One was clean-shaven. The other’s face was covered in thick stubble. Madjid knew the unshaven one from the mosque.
“What are they going on about?” he asked a boy from his literature class.
“The usual,” said his friend.
“Any news about Professor Moeni?”
“I heard they let him go.”
“Do you know what happened?”
“All I know is we won’t be reading any Russian novels anytime soon.”
Madjid was familiar with all the factions working against the government. He had explored them, in an effort to find out what he believed. He sat in with the religious faction whose contempt was directed at Western decadence and the royal capitulation to it. He sat in with Communists, a group of intellectuals who disdained religiosity and superstition. He sat in with the nationalists, who were now a shell of their former strength—their once powerful leader dead for a decade. There were other groups, including a strange combination of communism and Islam led by a cultish figure. What made them all a threat was that, despite their differences, they were united against the establishment itself, which was supported by the well-off, well-heeled, well-to-do, well-traveled, well-connected, well-cared-for, who were left alone by the government. As long as they did not cross any lines. But, as Madjid saw with Professor Moeni, it had become increasingly difficult to know where that line had been drawn.
All of these groups had their own particular ideas of how the world should be. He found kernels of validity in all of them, some more than others. In his mind, they should all have the right to advocate and govern.
Jamsheed laughed about his idealism and his various excursions to meet in these groups—where the fear of a raid by the secret police was growing more real with each passing day. Street protests were summarily crushed and protesters were arrested. It seemed that the only places immune to the authorities’ reach were the mosques. “Find something to believe in and ask yourself, are you willing to die for this belief?” said Jamsheed. “And more important, are you willing to kill for it?”
The crowd began to push toward the argument, which was escalating. The two young men stopped fighting over political beliefs and were now hurling epithets. Accusations of Westoxification, zealotry, Arabization, communism, and elitism flew between them. The clean-shaven young man stepped into the other one’s face, jabbing his finger into his chest as he yelled. Shoved off balance, the stubble-faced young man took a swing. Both young men started throwing punches, their factions jumping into the row.
Madjid and his friend from school pulled themselves away from the fray. As they stood to the side, his friend looked around nervously. “I’m out of here,” he said. “I can’t afford to get into trouble. I’ve reached my quota this month.”
Madjid kept watching. “Sure,” he said. “See you in class.”
Several policemen swept into the square. The crowd dispersed as swiftly as a flock of feeding birds at the sight of a fox. Only the clean-shaven young man did not run away. He stood there, frozen, looking off to nowhere. The policemen walked past him, as though he were an apparition. They swept through the square looking for his adversary.
Madjid realized that all his friends were gone. He walked over to the fountain and sat on the ledge. The boys who had argued were his age, eighteen, and already so convinced of their beliefs they were willing to hate each other. Whatever the cruelty of nature, animals, fish and birds never sought revenge or redress. So why did all human cruelties and injustices have to be accounted for? Carried from generation to generation until someone was called upon to pay the note, setting the cycle in motion again?
He looked up and saw that the clean-shaven young man was now sitting on the ground with his legs sprawled out, as he held his left side with his hand. His hand was filled with blood. The ground around him was dark with it and he looked down in disbelief.
Madjid walked toward him but was pushed aside by the crowd. Various men tried to help him up but he screamed in agony. The disbelief in his eyes had given way to fear and helplessness. He looked about him at the strange faces, his mouth moving, no words coming out. Madjid pushed forward. The young man was now only staring and blinking.
By the time the police brought a stretcher to the scene, he had bled out and lay dead on the ground. They lifted him and took him away as the crowd dispersed. Madjid stood by the pool of blood left behind. He tried to imagine the mother of the young man as she was told her son was dead. He heard her scream out, “My child, my child, my child,” as she beat her own head.
He imagined the young man who had committed the murder and was now hiding in the mosque surrounded by fellow believers. The young man who would not sleep that night and would, the following morning, be praised for his courage and willingness to defend the faith.
THE MULLAH AND THE MURDERER
The mullah rose before the sun and went to the bathroom to do his ablutions. He studied his beard in the mirror, pleased with the abundance of white hairs. He then did his morning prayers before taking tea and breakfast. He lived in the house in which he was born, several streets away from the town square. Much to his humiliation, his father had left the house to his younger brother, but since the judge moved into his wife’s home in the orchard, it had passed to him.
The mullah, whose given name was Habib’ollah—his family called him Habib—was the oldest son in his family. The judge, whose given name was Akbar, was the youngest son. They had one sister between them, named Zahra, who was, for the most part, ignored because of her gender. Zahra was Shazdehpoor’s mother and had died giving birth to him. The mullah had once overheard Ghamar tell her aunt Bibi-Khanoom that the only thing remaining of Zahra’s miserable short life was a fokoli. As cruel as the comment was, the mullah was impressed by its accuracy.
When Habib was a boy, he did not have his own room and slept in his father’s study. Each night, he spread out blankets on the carpet in front of his father’s reading chair and gathered them up right after he awoke so as not to disturb his father’s morning tea and newspaper reading. He kept a small satchel by the study’s door. It held all his belongings, which he carried to school every day.
Even though the mullah had plenty of bedrooms, he still chose to sleep in the study. Only there was he comfortable and slept soundly.
In his youth he had loved a girl. She passed by his home every morning on her way to school, and when she did, he grabbed his satchel and hurtled out the front door without breakfast to walk beside her. At first, she did not acknowledge his presence. Then one morning, he overslept. She turned and waited for him in front of his house. He ran out, disheveled. She giggled as he clumsily tried to straighten out his clothes. This went on for months. They never spoke, not once. The girl came from a good family, and to engage in conversation with a boy unsupervised was unseemly.
One day his father instructed him to wash up and dress in his best clothes. The family had an important matter to attend. He was told to make sure he did not speak unless directly addressed and to be mindful of his pitch if he did speak, as his voice was nasal-sounding, shrill and unpleasant.
The family had walked together in silence, his younger brother, Akbar, walking ahead with his father and Habib relegated to walk behind with his sister, Zahra, despite his position in the family as the eldest son. The death of their mother had occurred years before but the event still caused Habib much loneliness and grief. His father didn’t allow him to speak of it.
As they walked down the path toward a house, he saw a girl in her living room window, sitting quietly in a jewel-colored dress with a lace scarf draped on her head. Her hands were clas
ped on her knees. It was the girl he walked to school with. His heart began to pound against his breastbone and beads of sweat trickled down his face. He thought perhaps the girl had mentioned something to her parents about him and they must have approved. He felt a smile cross his face and fought to control it from turning into a full grin as they neared the house.
The girl’s family all stood and greeted them as they entered. He sat next to his sister in the corner of the room and stared at the girl. She did not look at him but kept her eyes on her lap. He planned what he would say to her once they were told to go to the other room to sit and speak to each other in private. It would be the first time they had spoken, and he wanted to make sure he spoke well. He wondered if it would be too forward of him to tell her that he thought she was beautiful.
His father, who usually spoke directly and confidently, seemed to be acting strangely. The heavy silk carpets, gold embroidered ottomans and floor pillows, the intricately engraved silver trays overflowing with sweets, and a formidable tea service had turned him into an overeager child. He spoke quickly in fragmented thoughts, waving his hands around.
The girl’s family sat as still as stones yet humored him. Despite their lineage and show of wealth, they had no money. But he did. After a few minutes of tea service and light conversation, his father turned to the girl’s father and said, “We have come to ask for your daughter’s hand in marriage to our son Akbar. That is, if Bibi-Khanoom will have him.”
At that very moment, a door within Habib closed and bolted shut from the inside. From that day forth, he would never open that door and no person would ever cross its threshold again.
To Keep the Sun Alive Page 6