by Parisa Reza
Talla displayed the beauty, pride, and restraint of girls whose virginity has been taken legitimately. A distinctive grace that appears only once on a woman’s face. Every man who laid eyes on her at that moment was gripped with searing desire, and the women with equally fierce jealousy. Sardar stood with his head lowered and a smile on his lips. He too had just had an initiation, into the carnal world of manhood.
The following day Talla was taken to the hammam. A celebration for women alone. They sang frivolous songs and laughed out loud. They danced naked and talked of their experiences as wives. The youngest among them dreamed of the future, the oldest wept for the past, saying they were shedding “tears of joy offered to the young bride.”
Sardar went to the hammam, too. Men are more discreet with each other: They congratulated him and honored him, but did not dwell on the subject. On the other hand, they all desperately wanted to hear of his adventures in Tehran. Sardar was not a naturally talkative man, but was particularly quiet that day. He now felt different from them, he believed he was a townsman. He told them the city was big and there were lots of people but that the sky was the same color wherever you were. What more could he tell them, and what would be the point? What could they understand? He told them he had livestock and tended them himself. Without resorting to exaggeration—he was afraid of lying, it would not please God—he led them to understand that he had done well, that he was richer there than he had been in Ghamsar. He raised his voice slightly so that his uncle could hear him clearly, and his uncle heard. It was the most glorious moment of Sardar’s life.
The rest, the thousand other things he longed to describe, he kept for Talla. The journey to Tehran was long, and he intended to while it away with his stories.
In very few words he said enough that morning for the gathering of naked men in the steam of the hammam to envy him and curse him. For legends sprang from the insolence of men who achieved too much and could not disguise their pride. These men who returned to the village, gripped by a contained suffering that went by the name of exile, fascinated but also repelled the villagers, like the pride and fear of a man who has a tiger at his feet or the love of a woman too beautiful for him. Because these men forced every one of their listeners to make a bitter appraisal of himself, of his cautiousness and cowardice in living a life devoid of daring or regret.
Sardar was now recognized as the new village brave and five days later he stood before his clan with his head held high as he loaded the donkey with enough dried fruit, cheese, dried meat, and water to last ten days. Then he helped Talla onto her mount. The mullah held the Koran aloft for them to walk beneath it, and gave Talla a stone from Ghamsar, telling her to leave it by the side of the road when she saw the dome of Saint Fatima’s mausoleum. Another stone added to all those accumulated over time by pilgrims who had gone before her and had laid eyes on the dome of that sacred mausoleum for the first time. The mullah told her that when she left this stone she was to make a wish, and he asked her to pray for the village. As he said these words, the mullah had tears in his eyes, for he, too, believed that outsiders who came to Ghamsar left behind their evil eye. He did everything he could to ward off these curses, but ill fate reigned supreme, and so he wept. The mullah was a simple man with a strong sense of duty. He might well have accepted the haunch he was offered when a sheep was sacrificed, but he never failed to make the promised prayer in return. He was a man who believed in God, the Prophet, and every word he himself spoke about religion. And so he wept. In Iran men weep as readily as women.
The whole village was there. They prayed, they clasped the young couple to their hearts, then the donkey set off. Talla turned around one last time to see the villagers gathered behind her, and thought this more beautiful than a marriage ceremony. Few women had left like this before her. An aunt of hers, they said, a woman with blue eyes, but Talla had not known her, she had left before she was born. Talla would be remembered far more readily than if she had stayed in the village. People would say: “My sister, my aunt, my neighbor, Talla, the one who went to Tehran . . . ”
Perched on the donkey, Talla follows the path that runs along Mount Ashke, to the north of Ghamsar, and thinks she hears Havva’s scream of pain one last time. Her tears fall. She weeps for the whole village, for her family and friends, for Mohamed’s flower, for Imamzadeh, and for Havva. But also because she is afraid. Afraid to go beyond the mountain. What if there really are monsters on the other side? What if, once she has left her paradise, she finds hell as it has been described to her: People burning in fires while boiling oil is poured down their throats and their sides are pierced with lances, and this for all eternity?
What lies beyond the mountains? She knows the word desert, but what does it really mean? In Tehran, the royal entourage is passionate about photographs, but of course Talla has never seen one, still less one of the desert. Talla has lived for twelve years in a star-shaped green valley between mountains that change color with the passing seasons: purplish gray in summer, brown in the fall, and white in winter and spring. She sometimes thought she could see djinns, and one time she even met a jackal on the path. She knows the secrets of rosewater. She knows about death and snakebites, and now even love. But she knows nothing beyond these mountains.
Talla and Sardar will come down from the mountains and cross the desert to reach Kashan, then they will head north, covering 150 miles to reach Tehran, the country’s capital. It is the year 1299 in the Iranian calendar: the end of a century and the imminent end of a dynasty. For now Talla is still in the mountains of western Iran and does not know the king’s name. She has never heard the words history, geography, Asia, Europe, Russia, or England. She has never heard about Iran’s constitutional revolution in 1285, nor the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, and does not know that the First World War has only just come to an end. She does not know that Sardar was born the year William Knox D’Arcy secured the concession for Iranian oil before even finding a single drop of it; that she herself was born the year oil was struck at Masjed Soleyman, and that her birth coincided with that of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. She has never heard of Sattar Khan, Baqer Khan, Yeprem Khan, Mirza Kouchek Khan, Khiabani . . . Iran’s heroes and martyrs of the last few years. Just as she does not even realize a town called Tabriz exists, and knows even less about the social democrats or Bandar-e Anzali and his communists.
Neither has she ever heard of the “Farangs” who live in faraway western territories; she does not know that in the capital she will meet the men, women, customs, and languages of the Turks, Kurds, Turkmen, Qashqai, Arabs, Bakhtiari, Fars, Lurs, Gilaki, Mazanderani, and Baloch who live in Iran’s own feudal territories.
What lies beyond the mountains?
II
GOHAR,
THE CHILD MOTHER’S ANGEL
After ten days of traveling, Talla arrives in Sharh-e Rey, completely veiled. In Ghamsar, women wore the chador only for prayers and religious ceremonies, and they wore white ones or colorful ones. Granted, in day to day life they wore long scarves knotted behind their heads, but their hair was not entirely covered and they made no particular effort to hide the braids that hung down their backs.
Sardar had brought a black chador and a white roubandeh from Tehran. As soon as they were beyond the mountain he asked Talla to wear them. He asked gently. Sardar is not authoritarian, he enjoys securing another person’s consent to what he believes is just or necessary. He explained that in towns and cities women wore the chador to hide themselves from men’s eyes, it was required by religion there. Talla accepted without protest, slightly amused, even enthusiastic. She thought that by wearing the new garment she would become a part of this other world. So she accepted the costume of what she saw as a game: she put on the black chador and attached the white roubandeh across her forehead, letting it cover her whole face and neck.
So Talla is dressed in black as she arrives in Shahr-e Rey, a small town a few miles south of Tehran. Sar
dar has made his home here with no idea of its history. No one remembers its glory days or the stages of its decline, apart from the Mongol invasion which has never been erased from Iranian collective memory. To this day they say that an untidy house has been invaded by the Mongols.
The town Talla comes to was built not far from the ruins of the fallen city. As the religious center of Zoroastrianism and standing as it did on the silk road, it survived from one era to the next. Sacked by Alexander then destroyed by an earthquake, it was rebuilt by the Persian kings, who relit the town’s sacred fire. After the arrival of Islam, it briefly became the country’s capital and was the apogee of art and culture, competing with Baghdad itself. Then it was irretrievably ravaged by the Mongols and reduced to ashes by Timur.
Not far from Shahr-e Rey, which has become a suburb of its own former suburb Tehran, Sardar has found lodgings in the fortified village of Hadji Agha Ahmad, and has settled his sheep here.
The first thing Talla is astonished to discover is a new social order: master and peasants. Here, the village belongs to the master and the peasants bow to their master. In this country of feudal lords, Ghamsar never belonged to anyone, was not part of any estate or tribe and was not ruled by any khan. In Ghamsar each individual owned his own house and land, some were richer, others not so rich, and there were a few who were unclassifiable and were called idiots or described as disturbed. And of course there was the village chief, who was chosen by the heads of families. He was owed respect and consideration but no one bowed before him. He was addressed courteously but men like Talla’s father spoke to him as equals. Naturally he gave orders to the young—fetch this for me, do that for me—and when something needed straightening out, a conflict to resolve or separating people who were beating each other with sticks over some water or a disputed plot of land, he could raise his voice and establish his authority. It goes without saying, it was better to have him on one’s side, but no one bowed before him. There was also the mullah, who was highly regarded, but that was to do with God and the Prophet. Here in Rey, the peasants are afraid of the master. Here, even if you work hard, the master can drive you out overnight without any explanation if it suits him. The master is absolute lord of his land. Luckily Sardar rents only one room from him, and has his own sheep.
In this master, Talla finds someone more powerful and terrifying than her father. When she left Ghamsar, she believed that no one but God and her husband would have authority over her. This pleasure is swiftly spoiled, and the solid ground of her ancestors has given way to shifting sands. “Damn the desert,” she thinks.
Talla now turns to Sardar to discuss this. With her husband away for three years, she had all the time she needed to imagine him as she pleased. In fact, once Havva was dead she lived only for him and with him. She devoted herself—her untouched self—to him; she dedicated her every move and word to him. At every moment he was there with her, exactly as she would wish him to be. Then Sardar arrived and they spent five days together in Ghamsar, five days and five nights to get to know each other, to discover and savor their naked bodies, a man’s and a woman’s, and the love that arose from them. Next came the journey and its surprises. And Sardar has not faltered. He has remained steadfast, a man who confronts every situation, by her side and respectful of her. So it is only natural for her to turn to him. He is her man, he will be able to answer her questions. Sardar keeps patiently telling her, as often as need be, that the aim is to work hard for a few years so they can buy their own house; then they will be masters in their own home. In the end she agrees that Sardar’s plan is acceptable, particularly as hard work is nothing new to her. For Talla, work is the most natural and most sacred thing in life. Like a fetish, work protects her; like a sponge, it absorbs her doubts, anesthetizes her. And so she throws herself into it. It is the only solution, the only way to escape the latent fear that holds Rey in its sly grip. She can feel the fear in everyone. Fear of the master, but not only that, fear of something more important than him, of the king and his court. In Ghamsar, the king was viewed as a distant power, one that was itself subjected to the omnipotence of God. God and then the king, necessities to establish a stable, orderly world. Both invisible, both real. In Rey the master is like the king, and the actual king is close by in Tehran. In Rey there is talk of the king, his name is spoken, things are known about him. He could even come here in person. Here, a peasant must bow his head and not look powerful men in the eye, he must know how to be invisible. Because each of them, from the master right up to the king—via their representatives—has rights over him, while he has rights over no one.
Now twelve, after three years of waiting and impatience, Talla has left behind her paradise to come to the land of men. She has worn the chador and roubandeh since leaving the mountain, and for the last few days of their journey she found them more bothersome than anything, but they are now a protection from the perils of the world. She is inside, they are outside. Under her chador, she can feel fear, anger, or sadness, but no one will ever know. No man can lift her roubandeh and see her frightened eyes. She can even glare at him furiously, and he would be none the wiser. Now there, God is more powerful than the king, she thinks. So she decides never to lift her roubandeh. Even though peasant women are not strictly bound by custom and, when working, usually remove their roubandeh and wear their chadors tied at the waist, Talla does not raise hers in public.
And Sardar gradually comes to like this exclusivity. The fact that Talla’s gleaming green eyes, whose passionate directness fills him with scalding desire, are kept for him alone, the fact that her long thick hair, delicate neck, and fine mouth are revealed to him alone proves so irresistibly voluptuous that he finds he wants her to be veiled from head to toe so that he can constantly succumb to the delicious pleasure of completely unveiling her all for himself alone.
So Talla puts her trust in God and her husband, and settles into her new home: one of the rooms that forms a circle around the master’s courtyard. Sardar has everything ready, the bedding, the tableware, and a lamp. It all seems adequately comfortable to Talla. She lights the lamp, puts the mirror she has brought from Ghamsar onto the shelves on a wall, stows her bundle of clothes in an alcove, and sets to work, doing what she does best, making butter, cream, yogurt, and cheese. This is what she wanted—her own home with her husband by her side—and with a happy heart, she prepares for a peaceful life. But in the depths of winter news reaches them: There has been a coup. The Cossack brigade that guards the royal family has occupied Tehran under their leader Reza Khan. This Cossack brigade is one of the ideas that Naser al-Din Shah brought back from his travels abroad. On this occasion he was impressed by the military parade organized in his honor in Russia, and asked the tsar to lend him some Russian officers to set up a new military force in Iran. It is these same officers who, under Reza Khan’s command, occupied Tehran on Esfand 3rd, 1299.
Abdollah, the master’s handyman, spreads the news. The peasants panic and wonder, “And what does the master say?”
“I heard him say that Ahmad Shah is not even twenty-five! That since he came to the throne at the age of twelve he’s just been a puppet king, with no army and no wealth. He says it’s the English who really have the power in court, that they’re sitting on the oil fields in the south and lending the country’s money to the king while they ask for one concession after another. Meanwhile on the other side, the Russians with their Bolshevism are helping the revolutionaries in the north who are working toward an Iranian socialist republic! And he says it’s actually the local feudal lords who rule throughout Iran. It’s hardly surprising he was toppled by his own royal guard!”
“Allahu Akbar!”
All that day the peasants and shepherds peer anxiously into the distance, standing in the cold waiting for soldiers to arrive. Sardar asks Talla to gather together her things and prepare some food in case they have to leave in a hurry. “To go where?” Talla asks. “There are no mountains here! The mou
ntains are over there!”—and she points toward the north—“They’re easy enough to see, but they’re so far away. Even if we ran, it would take us two days to reach them.” In Ghamsar they always knew that if there was an invasion or an attack they would have to run away across the mountain, first the women and children, then, if need be, the men. The mountains were the Ghamsari’s advantage over the enemy; they knew them like the back of their hands. Talla herself once set off into the mountain with Havva on her back. Someone had screamed, “Looters! Run, run!” Talla was picking fruit in the orchard and understood the instruction; she dropped everything, took Havva on her back, and ran toward the mountains. They spent the night there with other villagers, sleeping on the bare earth, and someone came to fetch them the next day.
“We’ll go wherever the others go,” Sardar tells her.
Luckily, no troops came; no shots, no thunder of cannon, no war. So it was nothing to do with them. Talla unpacked her bundle and Sardar went back to his jobs. And Ahmad Shah immediately appointed Reza Khan as commander in chief of the army.
A period of long peregrinations began now for Talla as she followed the transhumance every year. In winter the shepherds kept their flocks at Shahr-e Rey, and in summer they took them north to Shemiran, at the foot of the Alborz mountains. They never went into Tehran, though, always skirting around it.