We decide to take Iraj with us because we don’t want to leave him unsupervised in the alley, where he could have a field day looking at Ahmed’s sister.
Most of the theaters in our neighborhood only show Persian movies, which don’t look anything like their American counterparts. Doctor told me once that Persian movies are made to legitimize class differences in our country. He also said that all Persian movies follow the same generic plot in which the conflict is always between the poor and the rich, with the rich winning the battles, but losing the war. The rich are always portrayed as powerful, but not evil, and certainly not the type against whom you should organize a violent uprising. In fact, Iranian movies go out of their way to establish an emotional link between the hero and the rich villain—a lost son, a displaced relative, or the victim of bizarre circumstances. These movies discourage the masses from confronting the rich, and encourage the poor to stick to their high principles, according to Doctor.
“This is why a revolution in this country would be against the Shah, and not the rich,” Doctor told me once, a philosophical ring to his voice. Doctor believes we might rebel for cultural, religious, or political reasons, but never to destroy the wealthy.
God, I miss Doctor.
The best-known actor of this genre is a man called Fardeen. Most critics don’t think that he is a very good actor, but I like him a lot, although I would never admit it.
Before getting to the theater, Iraj says that he wants to sit between Ahmed and me. He explains that a couple of weeks earlier he came to see a movie by himself and ended up sitting next to a child molester. A few minutes after the movie started, he noticed that the man was looking at him. He didn’t think much of it until he felt the man’s hand on his knee. He got up and ran away. He was so traumatized that he ran all the way home without ever looking back to see if the man was following him.
Ahmed says his sister runs home the same way every time she sees Iraj in the alley. I bend over, laughing.
The movie theater is packed with people of all ages eating sunflower seeds, a customary snack in Iranian theaters. In one of the scenes halfway through the movie, a group of hoodlums attack Fardeen and start beating him up. Suddenly, we hear an old woman in the audience scream, “Stop beating him up, you bastards! What’s he done to you? Leave him alone! If my husband were here, he would kick the teeth out of your filthy mouths.”
Ahmed looks at me with panic in his face. “It’s my grandma!” he says.
“They’re killing him! Help, help!” his grandma yells as Fardeen falls on the ground and his enemies start to kick his body and face. People start yelling profanities at her.
“Shut your babbling mouth, lady.”
“Throw this fool out.”
Within seconds, the usher, flashlight in hand, runs into the theater looking for the rowdy old lady. Iraj points to the first row and says, “There she is.”
We see Ahmed’s grandma waving her hands and shaking her fist, yelling, “Somebody call my husband. He’s a good friend of Fardeen. Help! Somebody get my husband!” Ahmed, Iraj, and I run to the front of the theater. Grandma sees us and screams, “Thank God you’re here. Help him out! Help him out!”
We try to coax her out of her seat, but she refuses to leave. The usher shouts that we’d better take Grandma out, or he’s going to have to do it himself. People whistle and laugh. Iraj grabs Grandma’s left arm and Ahmed grabs hold of her right arm. They start to pull, but Grandma starts to kick and throw her body back at the same time. The usher and I try to grab her legs, but Grandma gets a good one in and kicks the flashlight out of the usher’s hand, while screaming for her husband.
They stop the movie and turn the lights on in the theater. The whistles and boos get louder, and so do Grandma’s screams. Grandma escapes from Iraj’s grip, takes her shoes off, picks them up, and starts beating on anything within her reach. Some people encourage her to hit harder. The usher is furious, but doesn’t dare get too close to her. Finally, Ahmed and I rush her, pulling her to the ground. With the help of Iraj and three other people, we carry Grandma out of the theater. The fresh air calms her down immediately.
Ahmed is quiet on the way home. He and Grandma walk a couple of steps in front of Iraj and me. “Those guys were lucky that your grandpa wasn’t around, or they would’ve gotten the worst beating of their lives,” Grandma explains to Ahmed. “Grandpa was a wrestler, and everyone in Tehran was scared to death of him.”
Ahmed’s grandpa was a tiny, peaceful man who was never in a fistfight in his life.
I’m on the roof that night when Ahmed comes up. “She says Grandpa took her to the movie,” he says. “I wonder how she got in. She never has any money.”
“Her devotion to your grandpa is really touching,” I say, not sure what else to say. “He must’ve been the biggest star in her life.”
Ahmed doesn’t respond.
“Can you believe how she was fighting us?” I marvel. “What is she, sixty-five?”
Ahmed thinks for a while, and then he grins. “Hey, do you think my grandma could beat up Fardeen in a real fight?”
My mother tells me to clean up because we have special guests coming to our house. She mentions a name that I don’t recognize. “He used to be your dad’s best friend,” Mom says.
As I’m taking a shower, I remember Iraj’s story about Americans and their sophisticated radar equipment, and wonder if they can really see through the walls. I look down and momentarily cover myself, then shake my head and laugh.
The special guests are Mr. and Mrs. Mehrbaan. When I open the door, Mr. Mehrbaan hugs me as if he has known me all his life, although we’ve never met. My father runs up to him and they embrace for a long time, as they whisper in each other’s ears. I can’t see their faces, but I can tell that they’re crying. Mrs. Mehrbaan and my mother look at their husbands with teary eyes. They finally come in and sit in the living room. My father and Mr. Mehrbaan look at each other, and continue to cry. They occasionally caress each other’s faces and hair. Mr. Mehrbaan says, “It’s been eighteen years.”
My father says, “Eighteen years, four months, and three days.”
I’m curious to know why they let so much time pass without seeing each other. “I hope it’s not eighteen years before I see Doctor,” I whisper to my mother.
“I hope not, too,” she says as she bites the space between her thumb and index finger.
Mr. Mehrbaan is a tall, dark man who walks with a slight limp. His thick black mustache makes his face look manly and harsh. His wife is tall, thin, and pretty. “Mehrbaan” means “kind” in Persian, and both the husband and wife are very mehrbaan.
My father and Mr. Mehrbaan drink vodka with a mixture of yogurt, cucumber, raisin, salt, and pepper as the chaser. They talk about the old days when my father was a heavyweight boxing champion and Mr. Mehrbaan was a wrestling star. They talk about old opponents and friends. A couple of their mutual friends have died in freak accidents, while another is disgustingly rich and lives in Europe. Someone else was discovered to be an agent of the secret police—a filthy dog. Mrs. Mehrbaan and my mother look at old pictures and talk about the time they were in high school together.
My father quietly tells Mr. Mehrbaan of another old childhood friend, Mr. Kasravi, who is now a very rich man up in the Caspian Sea area.
“I heard about it in prison,” he says. “He always had a good mind for money.”
Mr. Mehrbaan has gotten my attention now. Was he in prison for eighteen years? I wonder what for. Does he know Doctor? I think about asking him, but my parents have taught me that it’s not polite to get engaged in the conversation of adults, especially when the discussion is very serious.
They drink more vodka, and Mr. Mehrbaan smiles at me. He wants to know my age, what grade I’m in, and whether I read as much as my father did when he was seventeen. My father tells him that I’m a great student, am majoring in math, and plan to be an engineer like my uncle Mehrbaan; in Iran, your father’s good friends are re
ferred to as uncles. I feel as if I’m four years old. I want to say that I’m an average student, I hate math, and I don’t want to be an engineer, but I don’t. I look at Mom, remembering the number of times I have complained about this issue to her. She ignores my piercing glance and looks the other way.
At dinner, Mr. Mehrbaan confirms that he was a prisoner for eighteen years. He talks about his experiences there with a great sense of dignity and pride. I’m fascinated by the effortless way in which he expresses himself. Almost two decades of imprisonment have taught him to be patient with himself, his thoughts, and the articulation of his memories. They broke his right leg several times, which is why he limps. They burned him with cigarettes, and poured salt on his wounds. They beat him every day for information about men and women he never knew.
Mr. Mehrbaan talks about the night they took him away. It was his wedding night, and the guests had just left when the SAVAK raided his house. Mrs. Mehrbaan cried and begged for mercy. This was their wedding night. Could they not wait one day? What had he done to deserve such a cruel punishment?
The crime, she was told, was too serious to be discussed.
It was revealed later, however, that Mr. Mehrbaan was corresponding with some of his comrades in the Bolshevik party in Russia. He was also accused of distributing Marxist literature among university students in Tehran. Mr. Mehrbaan asked the judge at the trial to show him the law that prohibited communication with the Russians. He also asked for evidence that his distribution of the literature in question had caused anyone any harm. The military judge denied both requests and sentenced him to life in prison. His sentence was later reduced to eighteen years. No reason was ever given for the decision.
No one knew where he was or what was happening to him for three years. Everyone was convinced that he was dead, except his mother and his bride. Then one day they were granted permission to visit him in prison. He looked weak, tired, and subdued. He had not shaved in ages, his long hair looked dirty, as if he hadn’t showered for months, and he had lost at least fifteen kilos. He begged his wife to divorce him because he was never going to get out of prison. She cried and said that she was going to wait.
“Love is more faithful than an old dog,” says Mr. Mehrbaan.
His story, and the dignity with which he speaks while recalling the darkest moments of his life, touch me. He talks about a period of time when they injected him with drugs, such as morphine, three times a day, then stopped to watch him suffer the withdrawal. He wished he were dead.
The night goes on. The men talk and the women are in the kitchen. I go to the other room with my head full of thoughts about Mr. Mehrbaan. I turn on the TV and watch Bewitched. Is life in America really the way it’s portrayed on these television shows? Are people so superficial? Do men really walk around in their suits at home? Are there men like Doctor and Mr. Mehrbaan in the United States, men who sacrifice their lives for the cause they believe in? I Dream of Jeannie and The Six Million Dollar Man follow Bewitched. I think of the character of Jeannie, a woman from the Middle East played by Barbara Eden. I look at Mrs. Mehrbaan, also a woman from the Middle East, and wonder why Americans don’t make movies about Middle Eastern women like her. Eighteen years is a long time to wait for someone, especially when there’s no hope of his release. Of course, Jeannie waited in a bottle for two thousand years before Larry Hagman found her. Why do Middle Eastern women have to wait so long for their men? I wonder if I’ll be able to live in the United States. Doctor used to say that these shows are designed to keep people preoccupied with “the irrelevant.” Their ability to entertain keeps their viewers from questioning anything, slowly but surely eroding their intelligence. He complained that these shows have caused the Americans to slip into a political coma. “They are tragically uninformed of their government’s unfair and oppressive behavior in other countries,” he always disapproved bitterly.
12
The Devils That Broke the Windows
It’s been over two weeks since I’ve seen Zari, and I’m beginning to feel antsy. Something inside weighs me down, something I can’t control. Up until now, I used to think I was in command of my fate, but loving Zari has changed all that. She’s captured my heart like a ruthless invader, and I’m a slave to thoughts and feelings that don’t originate from my conscious self. My mind wanders to where I don’t direct it, and I have anxiety attacks that don’t seem to have an origin. I’m dying to see Zari, to talk to her, to stare into her eyes, to sit with her under the cherry tree, to hear her talk about Suvashun, and to watch her soak her feet in the hose. I’m desperately in love, and I feel desperately guilty about it.
A few nights after the Mehrbaans’ visit to our house, my father gets a call from Mrs. Mehrbaan. She informs him that Mr. Mehrbaan has been arrested again. Four SAVAK agents showed up at three in the morning and searched their home for hours. They didn’t say what they were looking for, but they kept telling Mr. Mehrbaan that he’d be finished if they found it. She is certain that Mr. Mehrbaan did not make any contact with his old friends since his release. “Why, why must it be like this?” she wants to know. She isn’t sure she can handle the pain of separation from her husband this time. Have they not already paid for whatever mistake Mehrbaan made as a young man?
“You should have seen the look on his face,” Mrs. Mehrbaan cries out. “He was so sad, so angry, desperate, helpless. Oh, God.” She begins to bawl.
My mother talks to Mrs. Mehrbaan, too. She cries on the phone while telling her old friend to stay calm. “This must be a mistake, or maybe they are trying to scare him. He’ll be released soon. You’ll see, they’ll let him go.”
My father looks utterly frustrated. Mr. Mehrbaan has been suffering from a heart condition, and the stress of jail could be dangerous to his health. Only yesterday Dad took Mr. Mehrbaan to the hospital for an angiogram. The doctor said that Mr. Mehrbaan needed to change his diet, start regular exercise, and stop smoking. “Of course, you can forget about all that when you’re in prison,” my father says bitterly.
Dad lights a cigarette and starts to think. I sit down next to him. “I wonder if he met Doctor while in prison,” I say quietly.
Dad looks up and stares at me for a little while. I think he suddenly realizes that we’re suffering the same pain. “You should have asked him,” he says, gently.
“I didn’t want to take away from the time you had together.”
Dad puts his arm around my shoulder and pulls me toward him. “You aren’t a child anymore. You can engage in adults’ discussions. You should’ve asked him about Doctor.”
I begin to roll my sleeves up and then down. Dad reaches over and stops me. “What’s wrong?” he asks.
“I’m sorry about Mr. Mehrbaan, Dad,” I say. “It must’ve been tough being away from him all those years. I know that not seeing Ahmed or Doctor for eighteen years would probably kill me.”
“It was tough,” Dad admits.
“How did you and Mr. Mehrbaan meet?” And before he has a chance to respond I add, “And, Dad, how come all these years you never said anything about him?”
Dad shakes his head. “I don’t know if I’ve got good answers for your questions. He just disappeared from our lives. He was supposed to be locked up forever, you know. Sometimes it’s easier not to think about things you can’t do anything about.”
Dad smokes his cigarette like it’s his last one. It makes me wish I could have one, too.
“Your friendship with Ahmed reminds me so much of what Mehrbaan and I meant to each other,” Dad says. “He was my best friend for a long time.” He takes a big puff on his cigarette. “He took a big risk for me once. You know, the kind of thing I suspect you and Ahmed would do for each other.”
I’m all ears and I think Dad can tell. He says that he and Mr. Mehrbaan have been friends since high school. Their families lived in a small town called Hashtpar in northwestern Iran. After high school, the two of them were drafted into the army and served two years together in a cold, mountaino
us area close to the Iraqi border. At the time, my father was in love with my mother, and the idea of being separated from her for two years did not suit him well. He craved her, dreamed about her, and wished they were together. Thank God Mehrbaan was there, or he would have lost his mind. Some days, he would go through the motions of living without remembering how the day had passed. Some nights, he would wake up to find himself sweating, angry and annoyed. Of course, all of this was unbeknownst to those around him, including Mr. Mehrbaan, who knew of his situation, but didn’t know the extent of his suffering.
They were housed in a huge barracks where the men slept in two-story dormitories. There were at least ten buildings in the barracks and a total of two hundred and fifty to three hundred soldiers. Once the soldiers were in bed, they were not allowed to leave the buildings until dawn. Each soldier had night duty at least twice a month, guarding the area from nameless “intruders” who, in the forty-year history of the barracks, had never bothered to show up. The guards normally slept while on night duty, except on the nights when they knew their old corporal, a serious military man, might be around to check up on them. The punishment for those in violation of the barracks rules, whether sleeping on duty or walking around after lights out, was severe, and involved spending days, if not weeks, in the slammer.
My father’s sleepless nights, combined with the frustration of being confined to his bed in those old damp buildings where he could hear the mice eating the columns supporting the roof, became too much for him. In addition, he didn’t have much in common with the men in his squad. One soldier used to carry a piece of green cloth in his pocket that his mother had rubbed against the grave of a religious figure to keep the demons away. This soldier knew a great deal about common superstitious beliefs, and spent considerable time teaching his comrades about them. “If you accidentally point a knife at someone, stab the earth three times, or that person’s blood may drip from the tip of that knife someday,” he would say. “If you ever pour water on a cat, wash your hands three times at the same time each day for three days, or you may get a cyst on the tip of your nose.”
Rooftops of Tehran Page 11