Even after the revolution, when day by day Western values were coming under greater attack, Sinbad would go to work with a closely shaven face and a well-pressed suit. In those days, there were two different fashions at work. The young leftists who belonged to various guerrilla factions wore Chinese-collared shirts and green military overcoats made in Korea (the ones made in the United States were better, but they were expensive), and among the revolutionary Muslims, the women wore black chadors or headscarves and long black coveralls, and the men sported some sort of a pieced-together Islamic look.
Unlike his colleagues, Sinbad, who made every effort to perform his duties as diligently as he had in the past, did not give up wearing a necktie, that is until the day he heard it being referred to as “the noose of civilization” on a radio show. Then he thought this piece of fabric did not have enough value for him to tie it around his neck and in an evolving society to portray himself as having been lassoed. By now some of his colleagues, especially those who had religious leanings from before the revolution, no longer tucked their shirts in and instead let them casually hang over their pants. (The same fashion that years later would become all the rage in the West.) These colleagues no longer shaved because beards had become the symbol of a revolutionary Muslim. Some of them had grown full beards while others only had stubble. (The same fashion that years later would become all the rage in the West.) The darker the pants and the more grease-stained the shirt, the more revolutionary. Consequently, bright and gay colors were rapidly fading from the streets of Iran.
Sinbad’s colleagues, the truly devout who had actively participated in the dangerous days of the revolution, as well as those who only after the revolution’s success had turned into revolutionaries, often participated in the daily street demonstrations against the revolution’s present and future enemies. But Sinbad, although he no longer wore neckties and had after some time conceded to letting his wrinkled shirt hang loose over his pants, didn’t like to participate in these events. He thought he should instead focus on performing his daily duties. But, day by day the harder he worked, the more he fell behind in his work. The first problem was that the responsibilities of his colleagues, who together with the new directors and vice presidents participated in the daily street demonstrations, had fallen on his shoulders. The second problem was that the number of newborns was strangely and mysteriously on the rise, and consequently, so was the number of applications for birth certificates. It was during this time that on radio and television programs certain revolutionary individuals would announce that, after extensive research, they had concluded that advertisements sponsored by the previous regime claiming that families with only two or three children live better lives were an imperialist conspiracy. These revolutionary individuals would pound their fists on the table and say, “By advertising conjectures such as Malthus’s theory, imperialists were conspiring to reduce the Muslim population of the world.”
In any case, the situation got so bad that Sinbad was at the office working until eight o’clock at night, and when he would finally feel faint with hunger, he would take the remainder of his colleagues’ work home and attempt to finish it all by two or three in the morning. Still, he did not complain. That is until the day when one of the vice presidents summoned him to his office and warned that if he continued to fall behind in his duties, it would become obvious that he was opposed to the revolution, and he would be purged. Sinbad wanted to shout in protest, but he realized that speaking his mind would only make matters worse. That day, for the very first time in many years, Sinbad took a few hours off during the workday and went out. Alone, he went to a neighborhood where the old gardens of Shiraz still stood. Oblivious to the drizzling rain, he walked along the winding alleys between the walled gardens. He was so drowned in his thoughts that he did not see the ghost of the poet who had died seven hundred years ago. The poet was holding his face up to the sky with his mouth wide open to drink the rain. When he saw Sinbad he waved to him, but Sinbad did not notice. The poet offered him the ghost of a goblet of wine. Sinbad did not notice this either and walked past him. The dreary rain was still falling on the ghosts of rains that had fallen seven hundred years ago, and the poet watched with compassion as Sinbad walked away. And that is why the poet did not see the other ghosts approaching him. In one startling moment they attacked him, the goblet fell from his hand, and with no resistance he surrendered to the shahnehs. The shahnehs were constables under the command of a heartless and bigoted ruler who in the early thirteenth century had occupied Shiraz, the city of poetry, roses, wine, and heavenly consumption. He had beheaded the previous ruler and had transformed Shiraz into a spiritless and somber city. The task of these shahnehs was seemingly that of lawmen, but after a while their occupation changed to patrolling the city streets, arresting people who did not adhere to Islamic dress, locating secret taverns, breaking wine casks, and taking the wine drinkers to be flogged. One of the shahnehs smelled the poet’s breath and triumphantly yelled:
“He’s been drinking … He’s been drinking wine.”
A second one shouted:
“So we finally have him.”
The third one, who obviously had it in for the poet, grabbed him by the collar, dragged him to himself, and roared:
“I’ve been after you for two years, but you kept evading my trap. Tomorrow I will treat you to eighty whiplashes in the town square.”
The poet, a sly smile on his lips, said:
“Of course I’ve been drinking. But only sacred wine.”
And at this very moment, inspiration for one of his most beautiful and most famous ghazals—the one that captivated Goethe—came to him.
They have closed the tavern door O God do not approve,
for they open the door to deceit and hypocrisy …
The poet glanced at his goblet that lay on the ground. One of the shahnehs noticed the direction of his gaze and picked up the goblet as evidence. He smelled it. His expression changed. Surprised, he smelled the goblet again. He groaned:
“It smells of rose water.”
One by one they smelled the goblet. There was no mistake. It smelled of the Shiraz rose.
The most resentful among them said:
“That’s not a problem. We’ll pour some wine in it ourselves and we’ll throw in a full decanter, too. Let’s take him.”
And they dragged the poet’s ghost away.
Sinbad did not see this either.
The next day his colleagues saw him fresh from a good night’s sleep, with a neatly shaven face and wearing a suit, walking beside them in the street demonstration. He was raising his fist in the air more enthusiastically and shouting more passionately than them. Death to America, Death to Britain, Death to France, Death to Russia, Death to Israel, Death to Communists, Death to Hypocrites, Death to Liberals …
However, as the demonstrators blocked traffic and advanced street by street, Sinbad grew more and more convinced that certain people were giving him angry looks. He reasoned that it was because they were a really angry crowd, but he could not understand why some of them kept knocking into him as if to force him onto the sidewalk and into the crowd of onlookers … Finally, he was driven out from among the demonstrators with a big and disturbing “why” on his mind.
The next day he joined a demonstration against improper Islamic dress, but he was forced out in the same manner as the day before.
Two days later, in the afternoon, a disciple of the poet who died seven hundred years ago, with a handwritten copy of the poet’s latest ghazal hidden in his Sufi’s robe, saw Sinbad again strolling along the same winding alleys between the old walled gardens. He was deep in thought and kept asking himself a question. The disciple, who, intoxicated by the beauty of that ghazal, was rushing to deliver it to another disciple, looked around cautiously and then held the piece of leather on which the ghazal was written in front of Sinbad’s eyes. Sinbad did not see him and went on his way. When the sun was setting behind the smog and the screams and laug
hter of the yet-unborn children of the city Sinbad, tired and depressed, had still not found an answer to his big “why.” On the way back to his house in a poor neighborhood of the city, in a long and narrow alley, he saw a peddler selling talismans, spells, and magic powders. It had been years since Sinbad had seen such street peddlers. The man was wearing clothes that were a mix of Arab, Afghani, and Indian, and as though he had been expecting Sinbad, with his large luminous eyes he watched him approach. When Sinbad was close enough, the peddler bellowed:
“Talismans for good fortune … Potions for compassion … Incantations for wishes …”
Sinbad knelt down in front of the peddler’s wooden box. But just as he came to speak and to ask what he should do, from the man’s unmoving lips he heard:
“I know who you are … With a whip made of your own skin you flog yourself.”
“Help me … A talisman, a spell … Something … No matter what the cost. I will beg and borrow to pay for it… Help me.”
The magic seller raised the glass lid of his box and began rummaging through the talismans, the small vials of colorful powders, and the scraps of paper with spells written on them. All the while, he was mumbling:
“I have a talisman that will stir your love in the heart of the one you love, I have padlock powder for women who have horny husbands, mix it in their tea and make them drink it, the man will be locked and he will no longer think of taking a second wife … I have an incantation that, if you repeat it one thousand times, any incurable patient will be cured. But…”
He took his hand out of the box.
“But what?”
“Now I am sure, I have nothing for you.”
“Search! Search some more. You must have something.”
“I don’t need to search, because the spell that would grant you your wish is just what I told you.”
“How could that be? My problem is not more complicated than the ones you mentioned.”
“It is and it isn’t.”
“You are lying. You are obviously one of those phony swindling prayer peddlers.”
A sly smile appeared on the magic seller’s lips.
“I am and I am not.”
“For the love of God help me. I don’t know what to do. Give me a talisman with problem-solving powers.”
“You already have your problem-solving talisman … It’s on your face. I have nothing else to give you.”
Sinbad got up angrily.
“Mad miserable wretch! Gather your stuff and get out of this neighborhood.”
The magic seller sighed:
“Go where? I have always been here.”
“If I see you around here one more time, you’ll be sorry.”
Sinbad kicked the old man’s box and walked away. This was the first time in his cautious and conservative life that he had had the courage to express his anger toward someone.
All that night he had nightmares of events that were taking place centuries ago … He dreams that he is a Sufi eight hundred years back, shouting in Baghdad’s bazaar, “An al-hagh, I am God.” Fanatic Muslims seize him and accuse him of being an apostate for claiming to be God and throw him in prison. And he, in his cryptlike cell, continues to shout “Anal-hagh.” From a dark corner of the prison a prisoner asks him, “What is love?” and he replies, “Today you behold and tomorrow you behold and the day after you behold,” and he knows that today they will stone him and tomorrow they will hang him and the day after they will burn his corpse and spread his ashes on the Tigris River. He dreams that in the massacre of the city of Kerman, his head, with eyes wide open, is sitting at the peak of a pyramid of heads and he is looking on as the invading soldiers rape the women. He dreams that in the city of Neyshabur, a short Mongol officiously commands, “You are going to stand right there, and you are not going to think of running away, until I bring my sword to kill you.” He does think of running away, but he doesn’t have the nerve to go through with it. And he sees the Mongol walking toward him … He dreams that his face is among the faces of the sentries on the stone reliefs at Persepolis, all of whom have stood in formation holding their spears for two thousand five hundred years. From the corner of his eye he sees the Indian soldiers who serve the British Empire aim their rifles at his eye, and at the eyes of the other sentries, for target practice. He sees the smoke from the nozzles, he hears the sound of the bullets being fired, and he is jolted awake.
It was morning. Later, when he was shaving, he remembered what the talisman peddler had said. He stared at his face. It wasn’t a bad face. It was a handsome face. But there was no sign of a spell on it. Sinbad looked in his mouth; perhaps something there would give him an inspiration. With his finger he pushed up the tip of his nose to look inside his nostrils … No, he saw nothing strange there either. He cursed the magic seller and headed for the office. As on all previous days, his colleagues either were busy debating politics or were getting ready to go to some demonstration against something or other. Among the debaters, two groups were often more impassioned than the rest—they were also louder— the Communists, consisting of ten people belonging to seven different political factions, and the die-hard supporters of the Islamic regime who were far greater in number. Sinbad started to work.
Countless mothers and fathers, most of whom brought their newborn with them, would come to request birth certificates with all sorts of different and at times strange names for their child. Sinbad would record their information in a book, along with the chosen name, and he would ask them to return in two months to pick up their child’s birth certificate. The parents would complain:
“Sir, how long could it possibly take to write a couple of names on a birth certificate for us to have to wait two months?”
Sinbad would meekly glance over at his colleagues who were busy arguing, and he would explain all the various steps that he would have to take to issue a birth certificate.
Sometimes the parents, clutching their newborn, would join the debaters and start arguing about the crimes and treasons committed by the Shah’s regime, by American imperialism, by Russia, Britain, France, Germany, and China. Sometimes one of the die-hard Communists would reach his boiling point and shout, “According to Marx …,” and from the opposite side others would in unison shout back, “Death to communism which says there is no God.” It was in the midst of all this commotion that Sinbad would at times make strange mistakes. For instance, on a boy’s birth certificate he would write a girl’s name, or vice versa. That morning, he was double-checking a birth certificate when with the spark of an inspiration he suddenly realized that, ever since the revolution, the number of birth certificate applications for newborns with names of Iranian kings and emperors was decreasing and, conversely, the number of applications for newborns with religious names and Arabic names that have no relation to religious figures was increasing. In a gesture of surprise, as is common around the world, he raised his hand up to his face. He realized he had not shaved that morning. He found it strange that he would forget an age-old habit. Even stranger was that he seemed to have some vague memory of soaping his face and shaving that morning and then looking at himself in the mirror searching for a spell…
The next applicants did not give Sinbad more time to think. It was two in the afternoon when he noticed his colleague, Ms. Roxanna, staring at him in surprise. Ms. Roxanna was the only woman in their office, and further to the decree forbidding female government employees from wearing makeup, she obstinately came to work every morning wearing makeup, even more makeup than she used to wear before the revolution. The lady was among the very few employees who treated Sinbad with respect, and Sinbad had started thinking that perhaps he was in love with her. The only reason he had not proposed to Roxanna was that he was sure that any day now she would be purged as an antirevolutionary and a corrupt element. Sinbad knew that, given his meager salary and the soaring inflation, he had to marry a woman who had a job.
At three in the afternoon, Roxanna again stared at him. But there wa
s no longer any respect or surprise in her eyes. Instead, there was fear. Sinbad rushed to the bathroom and looked at his face in the mirror. He was shocked. Not only had he not shaved that morning, but it seemed he had not shaved for the past three days. Yet Sinbad’s surprise was nowhere as great as his surprise, and even horror, the next morning when he stood in front of the mirror. At the sight of a stranger’s face looking at him, he screamed and leaped back. A bearded man was looking at him from inside the mirror. Sinbad ran his hand over his face, and for the first time in his life he felt the softness of his beard. A full, beautiful, adult beard. The soft hair flowed down neatly, as if it had been blow-dried. The beard had given his face a spiritual and innocent quality. Sinbad examined it more closely. He was experiencing an unfamiliar pleasure. He enjoyed the touch of this alien feature and found his new face interesting to look at, yet he reached for the razor and shaved off the beard and headed for the office.
He was in no mood for work that day, but there were so many applicants and so much to do that he didn’t even have time to scratch his beard. Ms. Roxanna’s looks of surprise and fear persisted, and it seemed as if looks of reproach had been added to them. Sinbad thought, The hussy! She acts like I owe her something. The hell with her. Good thing I didn’t propose marriage. Obviously she’s one of those foul-tempered demanding women who treat their husbands like slaves and constantly look for excuses to henpeck and drive them mad. Therefore, the last time their eyes met, he did not quickly look away. In fact, with impudence and even anger he stared back at her with a look of What’s your problem, hussy? And he held his glare until Roxanna grew embarrassed and looked away.
Censoring an Iranian Love Story Page 15