Descendants of Cyrus

by Thornton, Christopher;

  There was still half a dome of rice on the plate, but even Hamid had had his fill. The bill came, and he insisted on paying it, which was expected, and any squabble over it would have been useless. Back out on the street, Hamid continued to plead his case for Iran.

  “There are so many talented people in this country,” he said. “But look at the condition it is in. We could be as strong as any country in Europe, even as strong as the U.S., if we didn’t have this system that holds us back. It doesn’t look to the future. It doesn’t care about the people. All it cares about is holding on to power.”

  I agreed, not to be gracious, but because I also believed him. So much of the country’s wealth had been diverted to support its sprawling and intrusive security services, so much of the attention of its leaders was focused on suppressing dissent rather than economic development, so many of the educated youth had left the country or were aiming to leave as soon as an opportunity arrived. Did this cause the leaders any loss of sleep? Hardly. Educational standards in Iran were so high that the emigrants—potential troublemakers, in the regime’s view—could always be replaced. Any brain drain did not seem to concern them at all. But the way things were going, without any change in sight, it was likely that many of the next generation would follow the example of the present one. The brains would continue to drain from Iran.

  It was nearing midnight, but lights still burned in the windows of the sweetshops, and a few late-night customers were on their way home, clutching gift-wrapped boxes of saffron cookies and gaz, a toffee-like candy filled with nuts. Hamid and I parted, and like Javad, and Mohsen and Nasrin, he wished me a very pleasant stay in Iran.

  I crossed the roundabout and was heading in the direction of the hotel when something felt odd. I looked back and saw that the lights illuminating the grim face of Khomeini on the metal relief had finally gone dark. But still he would not disappear. When cars circled the roundabout their headlights illuminated him, but only for a moment. Then he would retreat into the darkness, only to reemerge, like a persistent flame that refused to be snuffed out. He was still watching, and he would not let me or any of the residents of Hamedan forget it.

  7

  Kashan

  Court of the Qajars

  We need food to maintain life, but exceeding what we need destroys us.

  Rose-water pastry when you’re not hungry will torture your belly,

  but the driest bread after fasting tastes like rose-water pastry.

  —Saadi, Gulistan

  It felt like a game of peek-a-boo. I was about to take a picture of the entrance of the Borujerdiha, a restored nineteenth-century house tucked into one of the backstreets of Kashan, when a young woman stuck her head out of a doorway halfway down the street. She saw that she had caught my eye, and instantly she knew what I knew—that I had become an object of curiosity, and this so spooked her that she quickly retreated to the protection of the doorway. I turned away, pretended to take a photo, and another, and then she was back again. I faked another photo, lazily turned to look down the street, and aimed my camera in her direction—but not discreetly enough. Again she disappeared. I turned back to the Borujerdiha, faked a few more photos, and again she appeared, but this time with another woman about the same age. Her sister? A cousin? Friend? It didn’t matter. They were all smiles and giggles, struggling to straighten their slipping headscarves as they giggled and ogled from halfway down the street.

  After a couple of months in Iran I was used to being the object of attention in regional cities and highway stops all over the country, but I had never experienced anything like this. It was all the more unusual because of Kashan’s reputation as a bastion of social, religious, and, of course, political conservatism. Kashan was not Qom or the southern, working-class neighborhoods of Tehran, where the sight of women donning full chadors is not unusual, but nor do the women of Kashan seek out the most form-fitting manteaux and purposely allow their scarves to slip off the backs of their heads, like the “liberal elites” of North Tehran.

  The game of peek-a-boo continued. The women emerged from the doorway, each time more boldly, smiles and giggles bubbling from their faces, but after a while it was clear that they had had their fun or were too bashful to take it a step further. And so they disappeared. It was disappointing, but I was also relieved. It was fascinating to imagine how long this could go on and what it might lead to—an invitation for coffee? But the street was blazing hot and the interior of the Borujerdiha awaited.

  This was my introduction to Kashan, where an air of modest traditionalism is de rigueur. It might be argued that Kashan’s strain of traditionalism is linked to its reputation as a center for the production of high-quality arts and crafts. From 1796 to 1925, which marks the reign of the Qajar dynasty, high-quality pottery and enamelwork, textiles and carpets, metal products and other handicrafts were churned out of workshops that filled backstreets like the one I was standing in. This brought enormous wealth to the city’s merchants, who rewarded themselves by constructing grand, spacious homes like the Borujerdiha. So voluminous was their production that much of it traveled along the trade routes that passed through central Iran, linking Kashan with Afghanistan and Asia to the east, and Turkey and Europe to the west. The name Kashan became synonymous with the highest-quality craftwork produced not only in Iran but the greater Middle East. Enter the Middle Eastern gallery of almost any art museum in the world, read the name cards identifying the origins of the items in the display cases, and you will find that many of them read, “Kashan, Iran.”

  The neighborhood of the Borujerdi was the gentrified quarter of nineteenth-century Kashan. Four more merchant houses were a stone’s throw away—the Manouchehri, the Attarha, the Tabatabaei, and the Ameri. Eclecticism was not a feature of Qajar-era Kashan. All the houses had been built according to the same plan, making the architect’s job easy but shutting down any imaginative flights of fancy. Houses from the Qajar era were not the single-block units one expects today, but quadrangles of rooms circling a central courtyard, where the main feature is a rectangular pool lined with flower beds. This way there would be no squabbling over choice space—every room could boast a poolside view. A salon and reception area lay at one end of the courtyard.

  The Qajar house was actually two—a duplex in modern terms. There is the andaruni, the inner, private quarters for members of the immediate family, and next to it the more lavish biruni, intended to impress visitors and guests. Passageways connect the two, so servants can zip back and forth when needed, and family members can easily move from one side of the complex to the other.

  I passed through the entrance of the Borujerdiha, imagining what it would have been like to have visited here 150 or 200 years ago, when Kashan was a buzzing trade center and merchants like Hajj Seyed Jafar Natanzi, who built the Borujerdiha, spent their time schmoozing with business partners and totaling the day’s transactions. But I would not have been a potential business partner, client, or supplier. I would have been a visitor from abroad, and in nineteenth-century Qajar Iran, this meant Hajj Natanzi would have pulled out all the stops.

  In Iran, hospitality is not a virtue, nor an obligation. It is a first cousin of religious belief, and many Persians would argue that its protocols are far more important than the fatwas read out by high-minded mullahs. And so, in Qajar-era Iran, as I entered the Borujerdiha, a servant would have greeted me in the anteroom with “Ghodem ru cheshem,” which loosely translates as “You may step on my eye,” which means that the host is so pleased with my visit that I may do the unthinkable. The imagery may not be appealing, but it is the sentiment that is intended to touch the visitor.

  Not being a member of the family, I would not have been invited to see the andaruni, but it would not have been a great disappointment, for the living spaces were near mirror images of one another, differing only in extravagance of décor. As a guest, I would see the best of what Hajj Natanzi has to offer. One end of the courtyard is dominated by an iwan, or arched portal, which
resembles the proscenium of a theater stage. It is colorful and intricately painted, and on the other side lies the talar, or main salon of the entire compound.

  This is where the man who greeted me at the door would lead me and where my host would await. Hajj Natanzi welcomes me with an odd combination of formality and warmth, sprinkled with inquiries about my trip to Kashan and how I have enjoyed the city and endless other pleasantries that might seem a bit overdone to a foreigner but all-too-apropos for a fellow Persian, for they are as inherent to the meet-and-greet as a handshake is in the West. Still today a greeting between Iranians may take a few minutes as all the formalities are exchanged.

  I have done my homework and have prepared for my arrival with two gifts for Hajj Natanzi—a bouquet of flowers and a box of sweets. They have been carefully chosen, but I remark that they are woefully inadequate and ask my host to accept them nonetheless. As expected, he replies that he is honored, and goes on to excuse the appearance of his house, and hopes that I will find it comfortable enough for as long as I will honor him with a visit. As expected, I reply that it is beautiful and had never set my expectations so high. This is the practice of taarof, far more central to Persian social protocol than any smile or handshake. It is self-effacing humility doubling as a form of flattery. When Hajj Natanzi offers me tea, of course I must refuse. It is the appropriate taarof reply, not because I wouldn’t prefer a cup of tea, but I don’t want to put him through the trouble. Of course Hajj Natanzi insists, claiming that serving it will bring him great pleasure. Only then will I accept, not because I am eager for a cup of tea, which really makes no difference. What matters is that I do not want to deny him the pleasure of looking after me—another lesson in taarof.

  Since I am a guest, and a guest from far away, I am given a place of honor, with the best view of the talar and the five stained-glass windows facing the courtyard. Paintings on the walls of royal princes and sinewy women in swirling white gowns illustrate the influence of European Romanticism that passed into Iran during the Qajar era. There are also hunting scenes, with deer and foxes prancing through forests, birds in full plumage in flight, and perched on tree limbs. In many parts of the Islamic world these paintings would be considered haram, or forbidden, because they violate a central tenet of Islam that prohibits the representation of living creatures. But when Islam was brought to Iran, many of its strictures were put aside, or simply ignored, to accommodate Islam into Persian culture, and this more casual approach to visual depiction was one of them.

  For commentators on Persian history the Qajar era generally receives mixed reviews. On the one hand, the Qajar rulers were not in any way cultural isolates, and this led to increasing modernization of Iranian society. Throughout the nineteenth century, traders, military experts, and even missionaries were drawn to Iran, bringing with them new technologies, such as the telegraph and railroad service, as well as cultural influences from the European Romantic movement. Landscapes and floral designs became popular subjects for Persian artists, and portrait painting featured commoners rather than royalty, along with women clothed in Western dress. On the downside, spats with Russia led to a series of humiliating wars that began in 1804 and ended in 1820, with Qajar rulers yielding their Caucasian territories—present-day Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan—to the Russian Empire.

  Despite the European influence on Qajar art, the interior of the Borujerdiha is quintessentially Persian. The décor of the talar is tasteful but restrained. What is most noticeable is the absence of large pieces of furniture. There are no tables, padded armchairs, crystal lamps, or massive armoires. The room is lined with sofas and cushions for relaxing, and a few low tables to place odds and ends. When the food comes, and it will, in keeping with the requirements of Qajar hospitality, it is laid on a cloth spread over a hand-woven carpet in the middle of the room, and we will sit on the floor around the serving trays. And come it does, and when it does it is enough to feed a caravan. Hajj Natanzi makes a half-hearted apology, expressing the wish that I will find both the quality and quantity sufficient—more taarof. The only utensils we use are a spoon and fork. No knives are needed because—in Persian fashion—the chunks of lamb and chicken have been stewed to a degree of tenderness that they can be pulled apart without being cut.

  Today’s Iranians may dine at tables and use the occasional knife; men and women will socialize together, comfortably, in public and private; and rare is the house that is home to all the members of an extended family, but it is still surprising the extent to which many of the age-old social habits live on in the present. No Iranian would think of accepting an invitation without bringing a gift to the host. And in any social encounter, the formalities of conversation, which usually include scripted questions and equally scripted responses, can be endless, and expressions of taarof come in ever handy to smooth over the rough spots.

  With food still left on my plate, and barely a dent made in the piles on the serving trays, I inform Hajj Natanzi, respectfully, that it is time to leave, but not without an expression of regret that I could not stay longer—more and more taarof. Hajj Natanzi assures me that he will be a much better host the next time, and after a few more expressions of taarof—“I did not even expect this much”—“You are too kind”—one of the servants shows me to the door, but before leaving I make sure to offer Hajj Natanzi a final “Khoda hafez” (“May God be with you”).

  Back on the street in present-day Kashan, the punishing sun burned away the inner cool and hospitality of the Borujerdiha. Sohrab knew of a place to beat the heat, so we piled into the car and headed to Fin Garden, built by Shah Abbas I on the outskirts of Kashan at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Later, a fortress-like wall, complete with watchtowers, was added to further isolate the green preserve from the edge of the city. The garden also had a theological purpose. Still today, traditional Iranian gardens are divided into quadrants to represent the four gardens of Paradise, referred to in the Quran. But when Islam arrived in Iran in the seventh century, certain elements of the new faith were added to the much older Zoroastrian beliefs, and if we were to follow the origins of the Persian garden all the way back to Cyrus the Great, we’d find that the same four quadrants stood for the holy elements of earth, wind, water, and fire.

  All this is moot to any visitor to Fin Garden today. Any past quibbles are dissolved by the beauty of the setting. Tall cypress trees rise high above the garden floor, where flowering plants are bisected by canals (qanats) lined with turquoise tiles that both reflect the color of the sky and accent the hue of the water that flows through them. In midsummer the color palette is dominated by deep green, but depending on the time of year the garden may be bursting with the colors of jasmine, violets, tulips, and lilies, irises and roses, persimmons and eglantine. In autumn, apple and cherry trees are heavy with fruit. In every season the aromas of the flowers spill into the air and the cypress boughs sway in the afternoon breeze.

  Its history aside, the Fin Garden is the best place in Kashan to escape on a hot summer day. Young women in form-fitting manteaux remove their shoes to bathe their feet in the cool, clear mountain water that enters the qanats from a fountain in the middle of the garden—the final leg of a journey that begins far outside Kashan in the Karkas Mountains. Children barely out of diapers splash and cavort in the qanats and the small pool around the fountain, their laughter mingling with the bubbling of the water.

  I walked around the grounds and had a look at the central pavilion and its beautifully painted dome. Then I sat beside one of the qanats, took off my shoes, and plopped my feet in the water. Almost at once my toes were numb. I let them absorb the shock of the cold as I took in the peace of the setting. It didn’t take long to realize that the purpose of the garden, with its beauty and geometric harmony, was to fuse the two—artistic beauty and mathematical perfection—and this is what the mind and spirit were meant to find when removed from the cares of the day. The fragility of this private state was reflected in the walls that surrounded the
garden and the towers that protected it.

  I took a few petals from a nearby rosebush, crumbled them between my fingers, and dropped them in the water. Some rode the mini-rivulet as it ambled along the qanat; others were caught between my toes. I didn’t know if the bush I had plucked them from was the special Mohammadi Rose, but if it was, the qanat was now carrying the rose water that has long been a special product of Kashan, continuing a Persian tradition dating back 2,500 years.

  Along with its sensory appeal, the medicinal benefits of rose water have been celebrated not only in Persian culture but in India, Pakistan, Malaysia, and the Arab Middle East. For example, if I were having trouble sleeping I could take rose water to ease me into the land of dreams. If my insomnia produced headaches, rose water would help relieve them. If anxiety over headaches and my insomnia gave me heart palpitations, rose water could restore me to a more even keel. In old age, rose water could soothe my rheumatism as well as any depression that rheumatism or old age might bring on. And if my eating habits gave me diarrhea, a regular intake of rose water could restore me to gastro-intestinal health. If that weren’t enough, a touch of sugar added to rose water would yield rosewater syrup, to sweeten desserts such as rice pudding, nougat cakes, and the Indian favorite, gulab jamun.

  At the moment I wasn’t suffering from any of those ailments, so I had no use for the impromptu rose water running over my feet except to enjoy its cooling effect, which was more than enough. But as I watched it rippling along the qanat, I wondered if I might have grasped some of the essence of Zoroastrianism. The holy elements that Zoroastrianism singles out are all really one, or various manifestations of a Single One. Similarly, the senses of sight and hearing, touch, taste, and smell are different but equal ways of perceiving the world. And to carry this a bit further, both the natural and spiritual worlds are complementary manifestations of a Single One. I pondered this as my toes turned white and concluded that, even if none of these thoughts had anything to do with Zoroastrianism, they were, at the very least, a soothing way to escape the heat, and if some of their soothing effect made it from the mind to the body it was all for the good.