But she didn’t. I sensed that she was crying. For whom? Herself? Our daughter? She had the right to a normal life. And yet I knew my wife was also crying for me, since she was the only witness to my dreams.
My wife was a normal woman who embraced life and wanted a peaceful existence. I couldn’t give her that. Not then, at any rate. Later on I did, when she moved to Holland, but by that time she’d paid a high price: she would never be able to go home again.
• • •
I drove out of town to pick up the stencil machine. After about an hour I arrived at the salvage yard, where various people were poking through wrecked cars in search of parts. Since I had no reason to go into the office, I walked directly to the shed at the far end and pushed open the door. It was dark inside. I lit a match and turned on the light.
The stencil machine was in the corner, covered with a thick layer of dust and grime. I wrapped it in an old blanket. It was too heavy to lift, so I dragged it across the ground to my car.
What were we doing? What was I doing? This wasn’t an act of resistance—it was a suicide mission. At any moment, a couple of men from the secret police might stop me and yell, “Hands up!”
I was reminded of Don Quixote. He tilted at windmills; I wrestled with my stencil machine.
When I reached the car, I looked around for help. A young man happened to be passing by.
Together we lifted the machine and put it in the trunk. Then I locked the car and walked to a teahouse at the edge of the village. After all, I couldn’t carry the thing up to my flat in broad daylight.
Late that night, when everyone was in bed, I hoisted the heavy machine onto my back and staggered up to our apartment, one step at a time. It was risky. I was terrified that one of our neighbours would open a door and see me on the stairs, but no one did.
In the bedroom, I eased the machine off my back and set it down on the bed. I tried to straighten up again, but couldn’t. Movement of any kind was out of the question, so I spent the next quarter of an hour bent over, on my knees, until the pain subsided.
To this day I’m still plagued by backache. Sometimes, when I’ve been sitting at my computer for too long, I feel a jab of pain when I try to stand up. I have to hunch my shoulders, then slowly straighten my back.
I put the stencil machine in the wardrobe and tried to insulate it so the noise couldn’t be heard outside. It didn’t help. The entire wardrobe jiggled and bounced, and the din echoed around the room.
The whole thing was a disaster. The machine hadn’t been designed to run off so many copies. It might do for a country schoolhouse that needed only twenty or thirty copies a week, but not for me.
The paper got stuck, the ink leaked and the roller squirted ink all over the place. The stencil tore easily, and whenever that happened, I had to type up a new one.
I could put up with all of this, but not with the racket. It was the kind of noise that would make people ask, “What’s that man doing in there?”
How long could I turn on the radio or the vacuum cleaner to mask the noise? I’d print a couple of hundred pages, then run out to see if the neighbours had noticed anything. Day after day I hid behind the curtains, watching until our next-door neighbour had left for work and his wife and their two children had gone off for their daily visit to her mother. As soon as they were gone, I’d race to the wardrobe and begin stencilling like mad in an attempt to catch up on the backlog.
Safa and I had deliberately kept our contact with the neighbours to a minimum. Still, they might wonder where she was: “Hey, we haven’t seen the wife for ages,” or “What’s our neighbour up to, he’s at home alone a lot of the time.”
During the day, I closed the curtains and pretended I wasn’t at home. Sometimes I didn’t leave the flat for days.
If I knew the neighbours were away, I ran the machine on electricity, but in the evenings I had to work it manually. I switched on the nightlight and churned out copies until morning. Then I delivered the news sheets to my contact person and received the next assignment.
Buying paper and ink was also a dangerous undertaking. Paper had become scarce during the war and the mullahs had seized control of printing supplies. You could only buy them in a special store in the mosque, which also sold vital foodstuffs, such as rice, sugar, cooking oil and tea. Not only did your request have to be approved by your local imam, but your purchase was supervised by a couple of bearded fundamentalists.
So, I bought paper and ink on the black market, where you often paid ten times the going rate.
The first two months, the printing went well and I finished the news sheets on time. Fear, however, gradually took hold of me. I slept badly. I had terrible nightmares and woke up every morning with a headache.
We were banging our heads against the walls of the mullahs, presumably to let them know that we were still alive and not afraid of them. And yet I was afraid. Not of being killed, but of having them break my spirit so much that I’d be prepared to kneel before them.
In reality, our resistance was having little effect. I no longer believed in what I was doing, and that scared me, too.
I kept going, but reality was stronger than I was. Every time I went out of the door, I was hoping, deep in my heart, that I’d never have to return. I didn’t even care if I had a car accident and ended up in the hospital.
I did my best, though. I cranked out the news sheets and delivered them on schedule every time. Then one night I ground to a halt, just like the stencil machine. I just couldn’t take it any more.
• • •
I explained the situation to my contact person. He didn’t understand. I had the feeling that he was looking at me with contempt. He must have thought I was trying to save my own skin, now that things had got dangerous.
I told him that our resistance was ineffective, that we should accept the fact that the mullahs had won and save our strength for later. As much as I believed in the party and was prepared to sacrifice myself, I had to conclude that our current methods weren’t working.
He said he would pass my advice on to the central committee.
A week later I heard what I expected to hear: the committee didn’t agree. If I wanted to quit, my name would be put on the non-active list and I would have to sever all ties with the party.
Sever all ties? That wasn’t what I wanted. I couldn’t opt for a safe life while my comrades continued to battle the mullahs. How could I just sit there, comfortably watching TV with my wife and child, while an imam announced that “The police have arrested the last of God’s enemies. A stencil machine was found in their hiding place.”
It was too late for me to lead an ordinary, bourgeois life. My comrades were right: we had to say no to the mullahs who had brought the Iranian people to their knees. We had to say no, to shout no! Even if no one heard us now, because sooner or later we would be heard.
Now that I had made my opinion known to the party, I felt better. I went back to work.
Six weeks later, I drove to the usual place to deliver the news sheets to my contact person, but he didn’t turn up. He was supposed to be waiting for me by the phone box in the loading zone behind the Tehran bazaar.
Normally, when I saw him, I parked my car in the lorry-loading area, got out and opened the boot, as if I were an ordinary businessman. My contact person then wheeled a cart over to the car and took the boxes from me.
This time, however, he wasn’t there. I drove around the car park for a second time, just to make sure. There was still no sign of him.
Yesterday afternoon, everything had been OK. The word salaam had been written on the fence. If something had happened, it must have happened after that.
There was no reason to panic. My instructions were to come back in an hour and try again. If he failed to turn up this time, something was definitely wrong.
I parked the car and went into a teahouse. Time seemed to stand still, so I tried walking around a nearby park. After fifteen minutes, I’d had enough, so I joined th
e crowds in the bazaar and did my best to work up an enthusiasm for the jewellery. This didn’t make the minute hand on my watch move any faster, so I sat down in another teahouse, drank a few more glasses of tea and skimmed through the old newspapers on the table.
At last an hour was up. I left the teahouse, got in my car, drove past the phone box and looked to see if he was there. No, still no one. I drove a couple of hundred yards farther, turned around and checked again. No, not a soul.
My instructions were to leave the vicinity immediately and go to an emergency meeting place. If my contact person hadn’t been arrested, I’d find him there.
I drove to a café outside of town. If all was well, he’d be sitting by the window, and when he saw me, he’d come out and get in the car.
I drove slowly past the café. There was no one at the window. I turned around and drove past again.
Was I scared? Not then. I had a strange, mixed-up feeling. Like a person who’d shouldered a heavy burden for a long time and suddenly had the weight lifted. Even though it was gone, he still couldn’t stand up straight.
I felt anxious, but fear hadn’t gained the upper hand. Something had definitely gone wrong: either the police were on his tail or he’d been arrested.
What was the next step?
I drove away quickly, because when the police arrested someone, they tortured him until he divulged the names of his contacts.
There was one last ray of hope. I had to wait until the next morning, then make my way to one final meeting with a woman I didn’t know, who would re-establish my contacts with the party.
For security reasons, I couldn’t go home that night. I left the car in a car park and spent the night in a hotel. If this last contact person failed to show, I would have reached the end of the road.
The designated place was a nursery school in the middle of Tehran. At eleven-thirty in the morning, a woman was supposed to be sitting in a car out front reading a newspaper. If I saw her car, I was to park a few streets away, walk back to the school and wait along with the parents until the doors opened and they went in to collect their children. When everyone had left, I was supposed to ask, “Are you waiting for someone, too?”
If she answered, “Yes, I’m waiting for someone, too,” I was supposed to get in the car and she would drive off.
I drove past the school. A few cars were parked outside. There was even a woman at the wheel of a car, though she wasn’t reading a newspaper. I parked and walked back to the group of parents waiting on the sidewalk. I checked out the woman in the car. She looked more like a mother than a political activist. It’s not her, I decided. Or was it? Maybe she wouldn’t take out her newspaper until everyone had left. The school doors opened and the parents streamed in. To my dismay, she got out of the car and went in, too. Five minutes later, all the cars had driven away.
Five minutes after that, the janitor locked the heavy iron gates.
I didn’t want to believe it, but I knew we were finished. The clerics had caught up with us.
I had reached the end of the road.
From then on I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do.
Had I walked into a trap? Were the secret police watching me this very moment? Were they following me so they could nab the others?
In any case, I had to move fast. The most important thing was to get rid of the boxes in the boot as quickly as possible. Then I’d think about the next move.
I jumped in my car and drove off. Oddly enough, though the police could have been on my tail, I was suddenly less scared. My first priority would be to dump the boxes. After that, I’d have to get rid of the stencil machine in my flat.
I looked in the rear-view mirror to see if I was being followed, then drove down a couple of streets and doubled back so I could check the cars behind me. No one seemed to be following me. I got on the motorway, drove as fast as I could, got off a few exits later and waited by the side of the road. Not a car in sight. It would be safe to get rid of the news sheets. The only question was how. Should I toss them in a rubbish bin? I couldn’t bring myself to do it. A rubbish bin was no place for something I’d risked my life to produce.
I saw a bridge. A river would be a good place for my news sheets. I drove under the bridge and waited until there weren’t any cars. Then I opened the boot, took out the boxes and threw them into the river.
I stared at them as the current carried them downstream. Where did the river go? It flowed into a large salt lake near the holy city of Qom.
There was no time to waste. I drove straight home. If the police had arrested my contact person yesterday, I had precious little time. Only the greatest of heroes could hold out for more than a couple of days in the torture chambers of the mullahs. A few of my comrades had chosen to die rather than name names.
My instructions were simple: clean up and get out.
First the stencil machine, then the car.
There was no sign of any suspicious activity near my flat. No strange cars were parked nearby.
I parked, lingered deliberately by the door, then went up the stairs. It was hard for me to accept that my printing operation had come to an end. I gathered up the documents and the ink, stuffed them in a bag and put them in the car, leaving the boot open. Then I hurried back upstairs.
I dragged the machine out of the wardrobe, wrapped it in a blanket and tipped it onto the bed.
I was afraid that if I bent down and lifted it on my back from the bed, I’d never be able to straighten up again. What if my back muscles seized up like they had the last time and the pain was so intense that I couldn’t move? There had to be a better way.
I shoved the table next to the bed, then stood on the bed and manoeuvred the machine onto the table. That was better.
I remembered reading about a mother in France who, when she saw her child trapped beneath the wheels of a lorry, lifted up the lorry and pulled her child to safety.
I bent down and lifted the stencil machine onto my back, then staggered to the door and the stairway. It didn’t matter if anyone saw me now. Holding the machine tightly with one hand and gripping the banister with the other, I started carefully down the stairs.
A flat door opened. I heard a man’s footsteps. Don’t panic,
I said to myself.
“What are you doing, neighbour?”
“Just carrying something to the car,” I calmly replied.
“What on earth is it?”
“Would you mind giving me a hand? I don’t want to ruin my back.”
I sat down on one of the steps and lowered the machine.
“Why didn’t you ask me for help?” he said.
“I didn’t want to disturb you. Besides, I didn’t know if you were home.”
The two of us carried the machine down the stairs.
“Whew, it’s heavy,” he moaned. “What the hell is it?”
“Just … uh, er … a piece of junk,” I said as casually as possible. “A kind of hobby of mine. You know … uh, er… repairing old machines. Life’s expensive and the extra cash comes in handy. But there’s not much room in my flat, so I’m … uh, er … getting rid of the junk. Here we are, the boot’s open. Thanks, I appreciate your help!”
We lowered the machine into the trunk. My neighbour went back upstairs. I slammed the boot shut and drove off.
A Christmas Tree
in Akbar’s Notebook
Take my coat. It’s cold on the other side of the
mountain.
After I’d written about stowing the stencil machine in the boot of my car, I put down my pen and went to my local shopping centre. It dawned on me that it was December. The last December of the century.
There was a man selling Christmas trees in the square. I watched as he unloaded his trees, and a couple of children, with a nod from their mother, picked one out. The shop windows were all decorated. I hadn’t really noticed them before. Somehow Christmas seemed different this year, as if this were the first Christmas I’d ever spent in H
olland. Why had I paid so little attention in the past?
I bought a tree—a light green fir. My wife usually took care of such things. Why did I suddenly become aware of the holiday preparations and why did I buy a tree?
When I took it home, my wife exclaimed, “Look, Ishmael bought a Christmas tree!”
Was it just a coincidence?
Maybe I was relieved to be nearing the end of my father’s notes. Now that the Dutch version of Aga Akbar’s notebook was almost finished, I wanted the book to have a Christmas tree—one decorated with coloured lights, angels, hearts … and golden bells.
These last few weeks had been so tiring that I needed to get away. In past years we’d packed our bags and gone off to visit friends in Germany, Belgium, England or Sweden. This year I wanted to stay in Holland. We went from one travel agency to the next, hoping to book a cabin for the Christmas holidays, but the travel agents stared at us in disbelief. At this late date?
I’d read all kinds of maths books when I was studying physics, so I knew that, according to the laws of statistical probability, there had to be at least one cancellation among the thousands of bookings.
Sure enough, there was. Somebody had just called. The cabin was expensive and too big for the three of us, but luckily my wife was good at resolving problems like this. She immediately phoned a friend of hers, who said that she and her daughter would be delighted to spend the holidays away from home. We were all set.
We left and I took my father’s notebook along, hoping to finish the story.
The cabin was located on a campground in Friesland, somewhere between Drachten and Leeuwarden. When we got there, the fog was so thick we couldn’t see the surrounding countryside. For the rest of the afternoon and evening, we looked out on grey fields.
My Father's Notebook Page 22