Place of Burial: Behesht-e Zahra Cemetery, Tehran
She, like the other youth, is concerned, restless.
The father is worried. The news they listened to last night was troubling. He asks the mother to tell their daughter not to go to campus that day. He fears that she will join the protests.
She has an exam. It is her last exam.
She wears a green headscarf.
She leaves.
After the exam, she joins the protesters in the street. She adjusts her scarf. Covering her nose. Against tear gas. Covering her face. Against recognition. Leaving only her eyes visible. Watching.
Hours later, she comes back home.
The father watches her. Silent, but happy as always, she combs her hair and applies makeup in front of the mirror.
She goes to her room.
3:00 a.m. The brother notices that her light is still on.
3:30 a.m. The brother decides to check on her on his way to the kitchen for water, but then he sees her light go off, and he is relieved.
The next morning the mother calls the father at work and summons him home.
She is dead. A corpse is lying in her bed, rigid and cold.
In the medical examiner’s office, a doctor tells them the cause of death was a hard blow to the head. The doctor does not write this down. The official document records it as death due to natural causes. The doctor thus gives the parents the gift of taking the corpse of their daughter for burial.
The father speaks of her thick black hair. Of her beautiful black eyes. She was tall. She was an athlete. She was hardworking. She danced beautifully. She danced whenever she saw her parents concerned. The father speaks of her love for the father. The father speaks of his love for her, his only daughter. The father did his studies in France. The family returned so they could raise their kids in their home country, among loved ones, despite concerns for their future.
The ceremony on the seventh night following her death is attended by many. Her friends from university.
Her friends tell the parents about the incident at the protest scene. Men ran after her. A man brought down a baton on her head. She fell down. She took her head in her hands and cried out in pain. Her friends wanted to take her to the hospital. Someone warned them that hospitals were not safe. She gathered herself. She assured them she was fine.
She went back home.
Security forces pay the parents a visit. Security forces ask if the parents have any complaints or questions. They order the parents to keep quiet.
The parents do not take the matter to court.
A year later, a friend writes a letter to the committee the defeated camp set up to identify victims of protest violence, which already has her on their list. She speaks of her friend’s case. Wants people to know about her.
The father speaks a few years later. Still broken. Crying.
The mother has aged. Her blue eyes don’t laugh anymore. She wonders if her daughter would’ve been happier if they had lived elsewhere.
The family is devastated. Their world has come to an end.
The father speaks of his daughter’s face in the tomb. As if she were a bride.
The father wonders about her right to life. The father asks why he should be alive.
The father misses her, wants her name and her memory to remain alive.
She is survived by her parents and two brothers.
I make her keep looking for the bronze bodies while these bodies of flesh and blood begin to become their own statues in the landscape of my soul.
They lost their lives on the same streets I was on, at the same time. Seeking their material now in the labyrinths of the virtual world,
I have resurrected them in words only to confine them anew within other tombstones, this time on the page, between the covers of a book, not even in their own language.
Survivor’s guilt.
The role of chance. In one’s life. In another’s death.
Why do they become important in death when in life they were just a few among millions, their lives and beliefs lost amid so many others? What do we hope to learn from them?
Do we want to exonerate ourselves? Of what? Because we are alive and they are dead? Because we are still here and they are gone?
Why do we feel guilty? Isn’t this the history of all uprisings? Some dying, some surviving?
How do the parents of those whose names are never mentioned feel?
Do they keep silent out of fear? Might some remain silent in order to keep their dead for themselves?
How do the parents who fear speaking feel? How do they bear the weight of the untold stories? How do they bear the dead loved ones inside them, who feel more alive than the living around them?
How do the parents whose children’s stories are told and retold feel?
Do we remember the same way that mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters and lovers remember their dead?
If what they do is remembrance, what should we call what we do?
An old friend calls. Asks her to join him at the restaurant if she feels like it. Tells her he is meeting a man she might be interested in. Doesn’t say more about him. 10:00 p.m. She gets there at 10:10. The curtains behind the windows are different than what she remembers. So is the sign. She brakes and looks for a parking spot. A valet approaches her. There was no valet the previous time. The door is closed. She rings the bell. She gives the server who opens the door the friend’s name. He told her to do so. The server nods, invites her in, closes the door once again, and asks her to follow him. The interior has changed too. The plants and the simple tables and chairs are gone. Instead, there’s a spectacle of black and gold and silver, classic wallpaper, ultramodern tableware, prints of pop art on the walls alongside heavy pleated curtains, uniforms embroidered with traditional paisley, low house music playing. Within this hodgepodge sit men and women who stare at her as if she has been dropped there from another planet, muscular men in expensive sportswear or stout men in suits who smoke hookah while fingering prayer beads, women who are thin and tan and have had nose jobs or cheek implants or lip injections, who wear high heels and tight pants under their manteaus and silk scarves, who look in their brand-name purses for cell phones or mirrors or lipstick. Men and women who stare at her intently but briefly, dismissing her quietly as if deciding she is not chic enough or made-up enough or sexy enough or woman enough for their party.
Mind the steps, says the server, pointing to the raised platform of the more private section, where the friend is sitting with two other men, one young and tall and fit, wearing casual clothes and lots of hair gel, the other middle-aged and tall and fit, wearing a suit and almost bald. On their table are tea and sweets, and a hookah sits on the floor next to each man. He sees her and stands up, and the other two follow, but only halfway. She sits down, and he orders another hookah just for her, the tobacco a special cocktail mix they import just for the restaurant, he says, and he introduces the younger man as the head chef and doesn’t introduce the older one, and the head chef simply smiles at her and tells him something about not forgetting to buy him the gold watch, the latest model, the one with the black hands, with the chronometer, before it’s out of stock, and he excuses himself, but not before telling her that she should try the special, the saffron rice and lamb stew, and if not, definitely the filet mignon with pomegranate sauce, and the friend orders iceberg-lettuce salad, which he knows she likes, and one of each of those dishes, and he asks the chef to choose one other and says they are going to share them all, and as the chef leaves, the friend introduces the other man, not by his name but by his job title, bank manager, and he then mentions that he’s in charge of the purchase of artwork for the bank’s private collection, and she understands why she is here tonight.
“[Pumla] Gobodo-Madikizela [who served on the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission] suggests that collecting stories not only of harm but also of context, and of the drawn-out effects of violence and unjust systems, may in some settings shed mo
re light on what the problems are and how they might be addressed and redressed than would a legal trial” (Stauffer 2015).
corpse (40)
identities forged
How important is this gesture of exposing and narrating?
Does it really reshape the power structures? Is it really dangerous to the status quo?
Are those who expose heroes, or are they traitors?
What is in the naming of those who expose: whistleblowers, spies, researchers, journalists, confessors, shamans, seers, witches, leaders, storytellers?
What are their stories?
How can we trust? The witness, the exposer, the words, the documents, the evidence, the freedom?
How can we trust when we can’t even trust the self and its memories?
corpse (41)
martyrs confiscated
The Iranian regime, which during the years of the Iran–Iraq War flourished by exploiting the culture of martyrdom, now refuses the dead of the Green Movement the same title. They are not to be called martyrs, officially or unofficially, by friends and family, or even on their tombstones.
What to do in the face of a regime that exploits and manipulates not just narratives of life but also narratives of death?
What to do when the dead of a movement become martyrs for various causes, used by different parties, governments, regimes, each to its own end?
What to do with a society that thrives on the culture of martyrdom? The word “martyr” comes from the Greek root “mártus,” meaning “witness.” Similarly, in Persian, both “testimony” and “martyrdom” are expressed with one word: شهادت (“shahaadat”). The word for “witness” is شاهد (“shaahed”), and the word for “martyr” is شهید (“shaheed”). Both words come from the same Arabic root and are variations of the three letters ش ه د : “shaahed” (“witness”) is in the Arabic subject form, meaning someone who does something, and “shaheed” (“martyr”) is in the Arabic exaggerated noun form, meaning someone who does something or possesses a quality to a great degree. Martyr as a mighty witness, even on a linguistic level.
Perhaps the regime refuses to name the dead as martyrs because they don’t want the lost women and men of the opposition associated with religious causes. Or perhaps it’s because they don’t want them to bear witness and testify, even on a linguistic level, to the atrocities inflicted upon them. The regime that has already erased them from the physicality of the present moment now wants to erase them from history as well.
The fate and responsibility of the dead/martyrs as witnesses are tightly woven to that of other witnesses, writers or poets, who give “strength of proof to what in itself lacks it and [grants] life to what could not live alone” (Agamben 2002). Testimony is “always an act of an ‘author’” and “the poetic word is the one that is always situated in the position of a remnant and that can, therefore, bear witness” (Agamben 2002). It is for these very reasons that, especially in sites of horror and erasure, the role of journalists, artists, and writers becomes of utmost significance, and for these very reasons that they are censored, threatened, and silenced, figuratively or literally.
The man doesn’t look at her but rather fumbles with his cell phone for a while, and she and the friend begin catching up and smoking their hookahs and sipping their green juices and picking at the salad before he finally looks at her, and when he does, she sees in his eyes a curiosity, a cupidity, a softness that’s not without violence, and a smile forms at their corners, and she puffs at her hookah and asks him about the bank’s latest acquisition, asks whose work they have purchased so far, asks what kind of work they are interested in, and he puffs at his hookah and tells her he can’t say, tells her he might later, tells her instead about the building that is being renovated to house the collection, about the ancient Quran that they’ve just received as a gift and that will be the centerpiece of the opening, though of course he can’t name the donor, explains that their mission is to support artists and the national art scene, and gives her numbers and prices and statistics without taking his eyes off her, as if he wants to observe the effect of his words.
The saffron rice and the lamb stew and the filet mignon with the pomegranate sauce and a vegetarian pasta dish arrive, and the waiter arranges the food on the table, and the chef comes back to say bon appétit, and she busies herself with the food, and the friend shows the man something on his phone, and she wonders what she can say to find out if he has any leads, and another waiter arrives with fresh coal for the hookahs, and the two men busy themselves with the food and with talk about last night’s UEFA Champions League soccer match, and she busies herself with her food and her cell phone, and the three of them exchange pleasantries from time to time, and the two men keep patting each other’s backs, and she smokes her hookah and drinks her black tea and looks at the man, who has been watching her as if he’s appraising another artwork he might buy, and she decides to simply ask him about the statues, but right then his phone blips, and he looks at it, and his face changes as he looks, and he gets closer to the friend and mumbles something in his ear, and the two of them laugh the laughter of men who think the world revolves around their masculinity, and she takes a long, deep puff at her hookah, and he gets up and grabs his prayer beads and his second cell phone and his wallet and looks at her, saying he hopes to see her soon, that maybe next time he can host her at his place, and she moves the coals on her hookah around and puffs out the smoke stuck inside and does no more than nod, and as he takes his leave the friend orders another round of tea for the two of them.
“The processes of expressing and making public the interpretations and meanings of those [traumatic] pasts are extremely dynamic, as these interpretations and meanings are never fixed once and for all. They change over time, following a complex logic that combines the temporality of the expression and of the working through and acting out of trauma …, the explicit political strategies of various actors, and the questions, answers, and conversations introduced in the public sphere” (Jelin 2003).
Corpse (5)
Age: 43
Gender: Male
Date of Death: 6 Dey 1388 / 27 December 2009
Place of Death: Tehran
Time of Death: Around 3:00 p.m.
Cause of Death: Assassination
Date of Burial: 9 Dey 1388 / 30 December 2009
Place of Burial: Behesht-e Zahra Cemetery, Tehran
Large crowds in the streets. The Day of Ashura. Mourners and protesters mingle. The sounds of religious chants and political slogans mingle.
Smiling, he tells his wife not to worry, that he’ll be back soon.
He is the nephew of the presidential candidate who later becomes the leader of the Green Movement.
He is not a politician. He supports his uncle’s presidential campaign and later takes part in the protests surrounding the election results.
Nephew and uncle have a close relationship.
He fought in Kurdistan, in the Shalamcheh area, during the Iran–Iraq war. He was only fifteen or sixteen years old at the time.
He walks to the main street close by to see how things are going. A black Nissan Patrol drives by fast. The sound of gunshots. The car hits people.
The driver and passengers in the Nissan Patrol all wear black.
A reporter later describes the driver: a man who appeared to be between thirty and thirty-five, fair-skinned, reddish hair, thick reddish beard. The two passengers wore beards as well.
Another witness later describes him as a man of twenty, fair-skinned.
Someone running tells the wife, who’s waiting worried at the door, that someone has been shot.
She knows it. She feels it. She immediately tells her daughter that her husband, their father, has been shot.
Someone later reports the bullet was fired from a Colt at very close range.
The police attack people in the alley. The wife and daughter run inside the house.
He comes back. Carried by people. Shot.
/> In the street, the car follows people around.
Pedestrians flee to the sidewalks.
Sounds of more bullets being fired.
The car runs people over. The car flees the scene.
The hallway of the house.
His voice. He says he is thirsty.
Voices of men and women. Uncertain. Unsure. Chaos.
Someone is filming the scene. A woman begs the person filming not to film. The man swears he won’t film faces.
Lying on the white tile floor by the staircase.
The film on YouTube shows only his legs and the legs of the people surrounding him, shows his body only up to his neck.
People around him trying to figure out what to do. Someone asks about the position of the bullet.
He breathes heavily.
Honey. Someone asks him to stick out his tongue, wants to put some honey on his tongue.
Women and men talking, asking questions, wondering, desperate.
Black pants and shirt. Black coat. White undershirt soaked in blood.
A bullet in his chest, close to his neck.
Heavy breathing. Moaning.
Someone mentions the presence of a nurse, a head nurse.
People around him trying to find a way to care for him.
Someone asks for the lights to be turned on.
Heavy breathing. Moaning.
Careful not to touch the area of the wound.
Someone mentions finding a car, taking him to the emergency room. A woman fears his arrest in the hospital.
Keeping people at a distance, giving him space.
People trying to move his legs, his body, his head to a better position.
Someone calls for a pillow.
Voices of protesters outside.
Someone asks for the door to the house to be shut.
Heavy breathing. Moaning.
Someone asks that something be put under his feet.
The Day of Ashura. No one expected bullets to be fired. Anger.
Someone mentions his relationship to the leader. A pillow.
trans(re)lating house one Page 7