“Yes, Mother.”
“No funny business.”
“Yes, Mother.”
“You will do exactly as Bibi-Khanoom tells you.”
“Of course, Mother.”
Bibi-Khanoom started for the door. “Don’t worry, my dear,” she said. “I’ll look after her. Akbar-Agha is sharing a suite with Shazdehpoor and Madjid, and I will be in a room with Nasreen. Everything will be fine.”
Nasreen could hardly contain her euphoria. There would be no sleep for her that night. She would bathe and fix her hair and nails. She would pick out all the shows to see.
“Bibi-Khanoom, do you have the festival brochure?”
“Yes, we can look at it. There’s a very nice restaurant at the festival, right in the hotel lobby. All the performers go there. You will like it very much.”
Nasreen was so excited that she started skipping as they approached the orchard door. Bibi-Khanoom knocked and they waited for Mirza to open it. Nasreen turned to her and said, “Did my mother just trade me for a silver platter?”
“My darling,” said her great aunt, “we have often been traded for less.”
The trip to Shiraz was nearly thirty hours, but flew by. For the first leg of the trip, Bibi-Khanoom, Akbar-Agha, Shazdehpoor, Madjid, and Nasreen shared a train car to Tehran and spent the whole time talking, laughing, eating, joking, and napping. Nasreen was especially animated. Without Ghamar there, she sang songs made famous by cabaret singers, joked about her mother’s demanding ways, and acted out scenes from movies and television shows, especially the variety television series The Kaaf Show.
Her audience was entranced, no one more so than Madjid. During the lulls in the journey, when the car fell quiet, Nasreen stared out at the passing world, the rhythmic heaving of the train wheels sinking her into the melancholic state that often follows the euphoria of performing for an audience. She wondered if it was possible to live life as it were theater—with the same excitement and freedom. She felt Madjid’s hand taking hold of hers. Everyone had fallen asleep except for him. She looked into his warm, admiring eyes and thought that perhaps it was.
By the time they reached the train station in Tehran, it was night. They slept at a hotel and the next morning they rented a car for the fifteen-hour drive, stopping for lunch in Isfahan. They arrived in Shiraz in the middle of the night. Nasreen walked into the opulent lobby of the Kourosh Hotel, staring at the domed atrium with its intricate carvings and massive chandelier with the awestruck expression of a child. Guests meandered into the hotel lobby bar, women and men commingling, smoking, laughing, and clinking glasses of wine. It was hard for her to even distinguish the foreigners from the city residents. One particular woman dressed in the latest urban fashion, coiffed and manicured, might have been an Iranian who lived somewhere in Europe or might have been a European on an adventure to Iran.
Bibi-Khanoom perched on the lobby sofa in a maroon skirt suit and tan monteau with a silk scarf draped over her head and loosely tied around her neck, waiting for her husband to check them in. In this place, her colorful chadors would read as downright provincial and she did not want to be a spectacle for city sophisticates or foreigners.
The following day, they all headed to Takyeh Mosheer to see a Ta’ziyeh performance. Inside the traditional open-air congregation hall there was a raised stage encircled by bleachers. The chadored and head-scarfed women sat on one side and the men with worry beads in hand on the other. A few foreigners, scholars, and handfuls of students were strewn among them.
Ta’ziyeh theater was difficult for Shazdehpoor. The passion plays enacted the Battle of Karbala and the death of Imam Hussein and were usually performed on Ashura, the day that Imam Hussein was killed. He was impressed by the horseback riding and sword-fighting skills of the performers, their singing and acting abilities. He was aware of the centuries of sophistry practiced by the performers who preserved Persian classical music in the face of intense periods of religious oppression when music and human representation were forbidden. It was the story lines of the plays that he objected to. They were the stories of a religion that he did not believe in.
Madjid sat between Shazdehpoor and Akbar-Agha, looking across the stage at Nasreen, who sat with Bibi-Khanoom and the other women. He caught her eye and winked, mouthing the words “San Francisco.”
“Stop it!” she mouthed back and giggled. He smiled at her then turned his attention to the program. Madjid had always loved the Ta’ziyeh. As a child, he was mesmerized by the horseback riding and sword fighting, and as he grew older, he found himself moved by the music and the tragic nature of the stories. “The actors were handpicked from troupes from all over the country,” he said as he read the program. “Many different fighting styles. They are doing the Ta’ziyeh of Imam Hussein.”
Shazdehpoor sighed. He had not traveled all this way to see religious folk theater. It was bad enough that he had to endure it in his hometown. He complained of an upset stomach and left the hall. His beloved orchestra was not performing until that evening in Persepolis, so he had a few hours to kill. He walked leisurely along the strip. The street was crowded with people from all over the world—a sight he had never seen. Two tall blond women strode along arm in arm, disappearing into the bazaar that veered off into the alley. Street performers worked the sidewalk, each with a cluster of spectators. Food sellers called out next to their snack stands. Packs of students rushed by. He looked up at an apartment building and saw an old woman sitting in the window with her chador over her face. She stared with a furrowed brow at something across the street. Shazdehpoor followed her gaze. Multiple television monitors had been set up in a storefront. On the screens there was a naked man with his back turned. The man suddenly brandished a gun in his hand and pushed its muzzle up his behind. The few people who had gathered around gasped in horror. Shazdehpoor immediately looked up at the window but the old woman had slammed it shut. He continued his walk back to the hotel. He vaguely recalled reading about this performance group from somewhere in Eastern Europe. It was some kind of avant-garde theater, which in his mind was nonsensical.
Near the hotel, Shazdehpoor took the bus to Persepolis. He climbed the double stairs toward the 125,000-square-meter terrace, passing by homes, hammams, military quarters, and reception halls from the Achaemenid Empire, running his hands over the bas-reliefs of royal subjects, trees, lotus flowers, and animals. A few remaining marble columns stretched up to the blue sky, one topped by a double-sided griffin. Inside the Persepolis Museum, he studied what had once been the royal harem and perused the artifacts inside: fragments of vessels, wood remnants, and burned pieces of fabric that had survived the fire set by Iskandar in 330 B.C. It made him angry. As angry as he felt about the Muslim conquest of his country nine centuries later. As though both were attempts to erase him personally.
Akbar-Agha had once told him that his anger was misplaced. “Any country that has survived as long as ours will inevitably measure its history in loss,” he said. “The only thing to blame is time.”
The evening’s chamber orchestra performance took place in front of the wall of the double stairs. The orchestra was situated against a backdrop of a massive bas-relief of a lion hunting a bull as it sinks its teeth into the prey’s rump. Rows of chairs were lined up before them for the audience members. The sun was beginning to set as people arrived, casting the ruins in an amber glow.
To the applause of the audience, the musicians entered the stage single file and seated themselves next to their instruments and immediately started tuning. A distinguished conductor in tails walked across the stage to more applause and situated himself before his musicians. Music sheets were shuffled. Shazdehpoor could hardly contain himself. He had heard this piece on the radio and seen it on a television screen, but to experience it firsthand was an entirely different experience, especially in such a place of pride.
The sound of the opening strings of the Adagio started quietly, weaving the melody through the ruins, the yearning in the musi
c so expressive. Then the resignation. The yearning again. Back and forth it went, on and on, until without warning it arrived at the crescendo—a loud, primal sound that echoed through the vast wreckage of an ancient empire. Shazdehpoor closed his eyes. A tear ran down his cheek. If only he could stay forever in this moment of musical grace.
After the Ta’ziyeh performance, Nasreen wanted to go see an American troupe that was staging Alice in Wonderland in a fruit warehouse. Bibi-Khanoom and the judge decided to return to the hotel for an early dinner and bed. Bibi-Khanoom discreetly slipped money into Madjid’s hand. “Madjid, why don’t you both go together?” she said. “You can have something to eat afterward. That way we won’t worry.”
To be cut loose in the heart of a city in the throes of a celebration was almost overwhelming to the two young lovers. Without a word they ran together down the street as though they were physically testing the boundaries of their new freedom. As the crowds swelled Madjid slowed his pace and took Nasreen’s hand. They walked side by side. The sounds of actors and singers wove through the murmur of conversation, the calling of vendors.
They sat together on a crate inside the fruit warehouse watching the barefoot American troupe create a magical world of rabbits and mushrooms and disappearing cats. Drinks that made Alice shrink and cakes that made her grow. Alice was dressed in nothing more than patchwork rags—and yet she was fussy, spoiled, lost, the real Alice. They were mesmerized. Was it the play alone? Or their being together in public?
Perhaps both. They held hands for every minute of the show.
After the curtain call, they erupted into applause, clapping until their hands stung, Madjid blowing whistles between claps. It was a cool night and the scent of coals and kebab wafted through the air on the street. They sat at a plastic table outside a shack and ordered a platter to share, then washed it down with Coca-Colas. Nasreen was still electrified by the play they had seen. “Have you ever seen such a thing?” she said. “They were all so good. It was just, so, oh, Madjid, wasn’t it magic? Didn’t you see the place, the animals, really see it?”
“I did. I really did.”
“They did it with nothing more than their bodies and voices. Pure magic.”
“I liked how they stepped into each role then stepped out.”
“Yes! And how they didn’t use lighting tricks or costumes to transform themselves. This is what I long to do, Madjid.”
Madjid watched her face so full of passion. He thought of the train ride and the way in which she was able to sing a song, tell a story, or act out a scene, moving effortlessly from one character to the next with her whole body and voice. “You will do it. You already do.”
They finished their meal and headed back onto the main street, walking slowly now with Madjid’s arm around her shoulder. Nobody paid them any mind. Nobody cared that an unmarried couple so brazenly walked the streets, their bodies touching. It was nearing midnight when they arrived, and they made their way to the Hafezieh to listen to Persian music.
The Hafezieh was the tomb of the poet Hafez, and was surrounded by an open-air marble pavilion and lawns. A makeshift stage was set up in front of the tomb for a performance by four musicians, a setar player, a dombak player, a kamancheh player, and a singer, who played the daf drum. People were scattered on the grass quietly conversing, and hushed as soon as the music began. Madjid lay on his side resting his head on his hand looking up at the moon. “There is a full solar eclipse coming next month,” he said. “The moon will completely block out the sun.” Nasreen brought her face over Madjid’s, blocking his view of the sky, and said, “Like this?” They laughed then held still for a moment, to mark the anticipation before a kiss.
The music went on and on. People came and left. Shopkeepers pulled in their wares. Porters folded chairs and swept the stairs. Actors, directors, dancers, and singers dressed for a night out gathered at restaurants and bars. Hotel lobbies hummed with guests. Street sweepers collected garbage and street performers strapped their props to their backs. The show, at last, was over for the night.
And just beyond, just out of sight of the newsstands and hospitality kiosks, the makeshift stages, the concession stands, the restaurants, bars, and nightclubs, the journalists, paparazzi, press conferences, scholars, intellectuals, theater troupes, musicians, dancers, filmmakers, tourists, beyond the floodlights and the streetlights, in the vast darkness that spread across the plains stood a nation on the brink of revolution.
AN OPIUM DREAM
There is nothing more terrifying than poverty, yet nothing more liberating than possessing nothing—not a meter of land, not a single banknote, not the affections of a human being. When all is removed from your possession, you are truly free.” So said a wandering dervish, his mouth filled with smoke. Jamsheed was seated next to him in the ruins of Old Naishapur, smoking opium. “Truly?” he said.
“Truly,” said the dervish.
“So he who has nothing to lose cannot have anything taken from him.”
“He who has nothing is nothing.”
“He who has nothing has life. And that can be taken from him.”
“He who has nothing and is nothing is truth. And truth cannot be taken away.”
“So he does have something!”
“No. It is he. It fixes him to the ground and moves him with the elements.”
Jamsheed stared at the dervish, who was now quietly humming to himself. “Who are you?” he said.
“I am a rock. Shaped out of detritus and sediment, unbreakable and impenetrable, formed from centuries of life. Indecipherable, even unto myself. I move with the elements. I dance through time and space. And yet I am ever fixed.”
“You are high, my friend. It is the opium talking.”
The dervish laughed and took hold of his setar.
Jamsheed asked him, “Will you play a dirge or jubilee?”
“There is no ‘or,’ only ‘and.’”
The dervish broke into a short song in the mode of Shur.
Jamsheed leaned into a rock and looked to the bright sky, letting the music wash over him. He had always felt in tune with Persian classical music; the subtleties of the modes, the struggle between emotion and control, held in place until it exploded into full expression. The tension and release comforted him. It was the recognition of what ailed him.
The dervish hopped to his feet, fastening his setar to his back with a tattered lanyard. “A token for the road?”
Jamsheed flicked a coin and the dervish caught it in midair. “Where will you go?”
The dervish looked across the horizon. “Anywhere and everywhere.”
“You should take care. Things are getting heated in the streets.”
“Things will always be heated in the streets.”
“And how will you get by?”
“I will shave my head and shave my beard and act the fool. No one ever suspects the fool.”
The dervish laughed and set off through the sand dunes. Jamsheed watched him until he disappeared.
Old Naishapur was a ghost town on the outskirts of the newer city. In the ninth century, it had been the bustling metropolis of Persia, later laid waste by Genghis Khan and his Mongolian army. All that remained was a collection of sand structures that had once been homes, schools, universities, caravansaries, now worn down to prehistoric mounds by time, the elements, and neglect. Under cover of night, thieves had dug out the artifacts of the golden era and sold them on the black market, leaving behind open ditches and holes. Nothing else remained, save an empty Coca-Cola can or candy wrapper here and there. From a distance, in a particular light, one can almost see the city that once stood.
This is where Jamsheed came to smoke his opium and dream his opium dreams.
He was startled awake by a cold breeze that swept into the dunes after sunset. He looked about him. No one was there. His opium pipe had gone out and he could not, for the life of him, remember what day it was, how long he had been asleep, who had been there, or how he fell asleep to
begin with. This was how most of his days ended, and began.
The light was sinking fast. A film of dust coated his tongue, but he had no water. A chill ran through his body, not from the cold, but from the sobriety that shook him in tiny fits as he scurried to his motorbike.
The cool air blew into his face, making his nose run. He cut straight down Orchard Road in the dark, the street lit only by the moon that glistened off the melting frost on the trees. His mind went numb. Moving on his motorbike and lying on the ground in an opium haze were the only two states in which he felt himself at ease.
As he neared the town square, he saw a large group gathered near the fountain. He parked his motorbike by one of the entrances. Word had spread through the town that the young man who had killed the merchant’s son had turned himself in. People spoke in hushed, secretive tones, describing to one another how he had been accompanied to the police station by the mullah and some followers. The cleric had spoken on his behalf, they said, and explained what had happened. He had not asked the police for leniency on the young man’s behalf. He simply asked that he be allowed to wash and pray before his hanging, that he be allowed to wear a white shift, and, most important, that the hanging be public. The young man himself calmly asked that his body be taken to the morgue to be washed and wrapped in linen for a proper Shi’ite burial.
Jamsheed sat on a bench. No one seemed to mention that the young man was so actively participating in the design of his own death. Jamsheed was struck by such faith, a faith so profound that a man was willing to give up his life. Why had he never known such purpose?
That afternoon, the mullah had gathered his most devout followers and escorted the young man to the police station. They all had filed into the police chief’s office. The police chief sat at his desk in silence and wrote down the terms and nodded in agreement except for the public hanging. Public execution he would not allow. He asked the young man if he wished to have representation for his court appearance but the young man refused. He had confessed and that was all there was to it. He asked only that his execution be public. The chief looked at the boy for a while before he said, “Why do you wish this?”
To Keep the Sun Alive Page 8